Victoria Isabelle Reese 4th Birthday!

Tori turned 4 on February 4th. We had a Rock Star Par-tay! The kids all got their faces painted, hair colored and got to pick out crazy outfits. Then they took turns singing and dancing. It was strictly for only the hardcore ROCKSTARS!! She seems to have gone from my little baby into a little girl overnight!

Some things about Tori

Name: Victoria Isabelle Reese -- Josh and I both loved the name Victoria (I loved it since the movie Beaches!) As for the middle names Isabelle Josh chose for no reason but he thought it was cute and Reese is after my Grandpa Richards mother's maiden name. (Both our kids have two middle names for the simple fact we couldn't decide so we both picked one!!)

Music: She loves pop music (Katy Perry, Britney Spears etc)

T.V./Movies: Power Rangers, Barney, and Alice in Wonderland

Activities: Playing with her dollhouse, dolls, makeup and taking care of Lincoln (her kitty)

Personality: She has two moods. She either is the sweetest loving kid you'll ever meet or she is quite the stubborn, independent kid and and won't listen to anyone! (she is known to stick her tongue out at strangers if they look at her wrong!!) I like to think of her as passionate (Josh would probably say she's a mini version of ME); she knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it! (remind me of this when she's older and I'm pulling out my hair)

She hugs everyone (EVERYONE!) and remembers everyone she meets! She gives the best hugs ever and makes you feel like you're the most important person! She loves her kitty Lincoln and her sister Jessica. She has recently been a daddy's girl! Her laugh is so contagious you can't help but join in.

Let me explain.......

I realized that I've never explained what me and Josh are trying to do and why there has been so many changes in our life the last couple of years. So please, let me explain......uh hum......

In 2009 we bought some property in Fruitland Utah. It's about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours away from Salt Lake. It's just past Heber City in between Strawberry Reservoir and Starvation Lake. 10 acres and it's gorgeous. Our Plan was/is to build our own house on the property and do it all ourselves (or as much as we can). And to top it off we want to do all of it as GREEN as we can. After realizing how hard this is to do especially with Josh working out of town 5 days of the week and having two kids that need stability (and a SANE mom!!) we have redesigned our plan to build a cabin first so that we can at least enjoy our property and slowly build a house. We've bought two conexes that we're going to build our cabin/house out of.

I know this sounds crazy but we put a TON of thought into this, it wasn't something that we impulsively did. It may have seemed like it was spur of the moment but I didn't talk to anyone about it. I didn't want to be swayed in either direction. Josh has for the last 5 years thought about all these different ideas and how and what would be the best way to go about it.

So that is the reason that we moved from Tooele into a 5th wheel trailer parked next to his mom's house and lived in that for a year. I haven't really told many people about what our intentions were just because I didn't want to answer all the questions that come with it. The main question being "ARE YOU CRAZY?" secondly reminding me about how hard that's going to be with two little kids! Trust me when I tell you I thought about how crazy this all seems and how hard this is going to be. In the end it was the best decision for our family and it will happen just not as soon as we originally planned!

The biggest thing that both me and Josh want is to be able to enjoy the little things in life and not be so consumed with "things". Does that sound a little granola?? I swear I'm not going to start making my clothes out of hemp or trading my t.v.'s for chickens! It's just that we want to enjoy more of the important things and not be so consumed in keeping up with the Jones'! Anyway that is just a general update about our plans and what our ultimate goal is. Oh, and don't worry....I will be blogging about all of this so look out for that (I know you'll all be so excited!!!)

Here are some pictures of when we first went and decided on the land. Since then they have cleared a huge flat area for where we're going to build the house and a road was cleared so that we could access the entire property. And there's two conexe's there too! (I'll include more pictures and details later)

Doesn't Tori looks so cute?! She was such a happy girl!

Christmas 2011

This Christmas was very relaxing for us, which is just what we wanted! On Christmas morning Jessica actually woke up at 12:30 am. So I had to yell at her to go back to sleep!! Who knows if she actually fell back asleep or was too excited and just laid in bed!! (By her attitude later in the day I'm guessing she was too excited to sleep:))

Just in case your wondering why I have so many pictures of Tori and not Jessica......Jessica won't let me take pictures of her so I get what I can! My Mom, Dad and Amber came over later to see what Santa brought. Then we went to my mom's for dinner and Josh set up TalkTime or skype (I don't know what ended up working) so we could talk to Andrew when he called at 6. All in all it was a great Christmas!!

Pictures I totally forgot to post!!

My friend Tiffany took these pictures for me. It was the first time that me and the girls went back to Tooele since we moved. I really fell in love with Tooele and it was bittersweet to visit. The sunflower pictures were taken at the base of Butterfield Canyon (or Middle canyon) where we would always go on drives and take picnics when we lived there. It's one of my favorite canyons. I love how the pictures turned out!! She seems to always be able to capture my girls personalities (especially Tori!)