Spanish Lesson

Last night while we were eating dinner the boys were asking how to say things in Spanish and then Easton asked Brian...

Easton: "Dad, how do you say adios in Spanish?
Brian: "Ummm...."

Mr. SanFrancisco

I am so happy he is home! 5 days is way to long to be apart! We had a busy week while he was gone so the days went by fast, but man did the nights drag! In that time I was able to reflect on how blessed I really am.

I have a renewed sense of gratitude for all Brian does for me and the kids. It's easy to get caught up in the craziness of life and not see all that your spouse does for you until they are not there. I am truly blessed to be married to someone so thoughtful of my needs. He is really one of the most selfless people I know. Everything he does is for the betterment of our family, including going on these work trips that I know he doesn't really enjoy...well he maybe enjoys them a little :) I feel so lucky to have found my soul mate! I know we were together before we came to earth. I am so grateful to a kind and loving Heavenly Father who knew this life would not be enough time together, so he gave us the opportunity for eternity. I love you Brian with all my heart, forever and always!

Really The Best Mom

While hugging me this morning Easton said..

"I love you. Your the best mommy. You really are I'm not kidding! No one else is better."

.....he's emphatically certain.....how can I dispute? It must be true..... :)

Best Mom

Last night while giving me the biggest hug ever, Easton said....."I love you mom. Your the best mom ever!"

AAAHHHH, I love being a mom! I have the most amazing kids!

Friday Nights

It's a typical Friday night for us tonight....

Madi with her friends, MaKena with her friends, Austin with his friends. Easton.....stuck with us??
Of course not! At our house the 5 year old has late overs until 10:00 just like the big kids! Only the last child....

Favorite Pictures of Summer

Madi got her drivers license(for the 4 wheeler) this year and was in heaven!




















What a great big sis! Piggy backing at Lagoon.




















Austin! He cracks me up. We all love being on the boat!















Being at the Stadium of Fire and watching them bring in the 'stars and stripes' was awesome! So glad to be an American!















My favorite 5 year old boy!















Crazy girl.















If you didn't know, planking is all the rage. This is me and Brian planking on the tube. Easton thought we were insane, he would have no part in it.
















Bri and one of his summer favorites. What a stud!
















The boys driving the golf cart. They thought they were awesome!
















Love, love these 2!

A snowie (or 5 or 6 snowies), YUM!!





















Love this kid!

....I Think We Survived?....

After almost 13 weeks of coughing, and coughing, and coughing, aaaannddd coughing, I think we are nearing the end of our run in with Whooping cough! Yes, I did write that correctly, 4 out of the 6 of us have had whooping cough. How MaKena, Austin and Madi got it I have no idea, they have been immunized. Brian was not, at least not sense probably his mission. If you have not been immunized in the last 10 years go get it. I promise you do NOT want to get whooping cough. Horrible! Awful! I hope we never get it again!!!

Changes

We have another "woman" in our house, AAAHHHHH! Let the roller coaster ride begin. :/

Hello Fall

This nice cool weather we are having is getting me so excited for fall! It is my favorite season. Fall only has one flaw in my opinion and that is that it is followed by winter, besides that very small imperfection, fall is pure heaven! I love everything about it. These are a few of my favorite things (this is in no particular order)...

~Canning. I love harvesting the things that we have grown in our garden and that others grow. I love building my food storage. I admit, every canning season I turn into a bit of a food hoarder, but that's not such a bad thing, is it?

~The colors. The colors of fall are so beautiful! There is nothing better than getting up into the mountains for a hike and being surrounded by the yellow, orange and red leaves. It's awesome!

~Jacket weather. I love when there is a crisp coolness in the air. I love to be outside with the kids in this weather. Playing with them or watching them play with their friends. It's the best.

~Football. There is something about football that reminds me of home. Probably because I grew up in house with all boys, who were obsessed with it. I love when Brian or Austin has it on and I can hear it in the background. It is one of those weird comforts for me. Now I have a son who plays, it is so fun to be outside on a nice fall Saturday watching him tear up the field!

~The smells of Fall. When I think of fall I think of baking yummy things to eat. Apple crisp, pumpkin pie, homemade bread and rolls, all those yummy treats that make your house smell so good. I love walking into my house after I have been baking or cooking some yummy dinner in the oven, it's warm, fall comfort!

~I love Halloween and Thanksgiving. I love the fun of dressing up, the colors, the treats and traditions that surround them. It's so fall.

First Days of School

Stupid computer! These pictures are all out of order because our computer is lame! Don't know where my picture of Madi is, I'll post that later i guess.
Madison is in 8th grade. She is still at the charter and is excited to be "a thong".
MaKena is the king of the castle, she is a 6th grader this year....crazy! Her teacher is Mrs. Michelsen. MaKena says she is not going to decide if she likes her yet because teachers are always nice on the first day of school. She says she is going to wait until the 2nd week of school and make her decision then. Smart girl.
Austin is in 4th grade and had Mr. Flink. He is very excited because Mr. Flink and his class are going to design and make a stained glass window this year to put on the school. Austin thought that was pretty cool.
My sweet baby boy Easton is in Kindergarten! His teacher is Mrs. Hansen and he could not wait to get to school. He has afternoon kindergarten and he was ready to leave by 9:00....it was a very long morning! There are 16 kids from our ward in his class, so he has LOTS of friends. He is so excited to learn to read, that day can not come soon enough for him.
Wow, I can't believe I am that mom. The mom with no kids at home. I remember after i had Austin and I had 3 little kids at home, I could not ever envision this day coming and now that it's here I am wondering where all that time went and how did it get here so fast! I am so excited for the new year that they have ahead of them. I am excited to watch them learn new things, take on new challenges, make new friends and just become smarter, bigger, better versions of themselves.

Easton with some of the kids from our ward, and Easton waiting anxiously to go in the class room doors.

Some of the Studly friends. Dalton, Kaden, Austin, Zach and Cannon.






The girlie's. Lauren, Morgan, MaKena, Ali, Camille, Hadlee, and Haylee.

Rock stars!

The Hicks Take St. George...

This July Brian's parents rented a house in St. George for a big family vacation. We had so much fun. The house was huge with a swimming pool and a slide, it was awesome! We did lots and lots of swimming! The kids were in heaven. Easton left St. George a fish, he was a maniac in the pool. We went boating, golfing, got pedicures, went 4-wheeling, played pool and air hocky, celebrated Emmie's birthday, held an ant raid, had a fun get together with Brian's cousins and their families and just had a great time being together. After this trip we will forever love 'Aquamarine', wont we Madi, MaKena, Austin, Haylee and Emmie ;)!

While we were in St.George, our good Friends the Olson's were down too, so we met up with them and had a great night. They had never been to the crack, so we took them there and then hung out, until late, at the city park. We love the Olson's and are so grateful for their friendship, they are awesome.

What an awesome week! Thanks George and Jo Anne for the great memories, we had a blast!

Where is Tall Man, Where is Tall Man.....

Friday Brian found Easton roaming around singing the song "Where is Thumb kin". He was singing all the words and doing all the actions, and then he got to "tall man"...... He was still singing all the words and doing all the actions with his two middle fingers standing as straight and tall as he could get them!! So flippin funny! Easton didn't appreciate the good laugh he gave his dad.

ThE LeMoN aIdE StAnD

2 weeks ago MaKena and her BFF, Lauren, wanted to do a lemon aide/cookie stand. I really didn't want them to do it...making lemon aide + making cookies = BIG MESS for mom! I caved and so they did their stand. They sat outside on our street for awhile with no success so they started going door to door, not much success there either. They moved their stand to a different street corner, still not much success. After all that time and effort they made a whopping $4.00! I was thinking what a waste of time, until a couple days later she came looking for the cup with the $4.00 in change. I asked her what she was doing with it and she said she was donating it to Primary Children's Hospital.....

That girl of mine has more charity in her pinkie than I have in my entire body! I am constantly blown away with her kindness and service and charity to all those around her. She is always willing to go without if she thinks someone else needs it more. I love that girl with all my heart and am so grateful I get the opportunity to learn from her example.

My Dad

My dad is one of the greatest men I know! Growing up he was always the "fun" one in our family...wrestling, playing with us, leg fights, the torture, bucking bronco, knuckle sandwiches, laughing. He is still like that, just ask my kids. He is a great dad and an even greater grandpa...my kids are so blessed.

He is one of the hardest working people you will ever meet. Growing up my dad was always in Law enforcement or Fire, which if you didn't know doesn't pay very well, so my dad always had to have at least one other side job. He taught me how to work hard and to do your best work no matter what.

He taught me how to be responsible. I had to have a job because I had to pay for a lot of things on my own, which at the time was a real bummer, but I wouldn't trade the lessons I learned for anything.

My dad is kind, loving, hardworking, handsome, selfless, can do just about anything, artistic, creative, gentle and many more thing, the list could go on forever.

I love my dad so much. I am so grateful that I am a parent and can fully understand and appreciate all the sacrifices that he made for me. Thank you dad for all you have done and continue to do for me. I love you more than you know! xoxoxo

Whatcott Family Summer Trip 2011

This year for the Whatcott family trip my parents rented a house in Zions' over Memorial Day. It was an awesome house/cabin. We had a blast!
We swam, we rode 4 wheelers, we did a couple hikes in Zions and a little in Bryce Canyon, the kids did a zip line and trampoline thing, we hung out and grooved to good music, laughed, watched movies, did a little waxing, and ate way too much yummy food. We didn't sleep much but had a great time together!
Thanks mom and dad for the very fun and memorable trip. It was so fun to spend time together as a family can't wait to see where we end up next year.

FIRST KISS!!

Yes you read right, Madison has had her first kiss! This is Parker who has been her best friend and recently has become something more....
If any of you out there have any advice for this new mom of a kissing teenager I would be very grateful!

West Palm Beach, Florida

Brian is smart, brilliant, hardworking, incredibly sexy and simply put...amazing! He won a very cool award called "The Progressive Manufacturing 100"! I am so proud of him! Oracle flew him to West Palm Beach, Florida to be presented with the award at a black tie dinner. I had to come along too! We went down Sunday May 8th and come home Thursday afternoon. We had a great time!

We stayed at The Breakers, a five star resort. I have never sayd anywhere like this. It has been around sense the early 1900's. The best way to describe it is to envision the inside of the Salt Lake Temple and think of how ornate and detailed every last thing is. That is how this place was from floor to ceiling, beautiful. When they say 5 star they weren't kidding. They only had valet parking. Every time you came or went they would take or bring you your car, open your doors. It was crazy.

We got to go on an air boat through the Florida Everglades. It was awesome! We saw lots of alligators including a mom and nine babies. We saw turtles and lots of birds and we saw a "Jesus lizard"! They are the lizards that stand on two feet and run across the water. They go so fast it looks like they are walking on top of the water. It was the coolest thing ever! We went to Miami beach, that was crazy. We saw lots of naked parts on and off the beach! It was just a big party town. I stayed at the pool all day on Tuesday, while Brian had meetings, and got waited on by all the pool people. It was awesome to have some alone time! It was quite ironic that out of the 5 pools this place had the only one I wanted to be at was the family pool. I went all that way to get away from my kids and in the end that's where I felt most comfortable. That night we played some croquet and laughed at ourselves. We spent the whole day at the beach together on Wed at the resorts private beach. We had a blast! We had perfect weather. It was 95 degrees and the water in the ocean was 80 degrees. It was so much fun to spend time with Brian, to reconnect and have fun together! I love you babe. A big thank you to Brian's mom who stayed with my kids the whole time! I don't know what we would do without you! We love you!