What we've been up to....

It has been awhile since I have posted anything on my blog, but to put it mildly, I am BUSY!! I started the nursing program towards the end of January and it is extremely time consuming, but I am loving every minute of it! Ok, well, not every minute. I really hate carrying this load of books around every day...

And, when I get home, this is what my bed looks like while I am trying to do my homework and study...
But besides feeling like I have a broken back all of the time, I am enjoying school so much! I am finally taking classes that I am interested in. None of those silly prerequisites :) Our cohort is so much fun, and I have made so many fun, new friends.

I was worried that when I went back to school that I would be stressed over the daily things that I used to do at home. Like, thinking "Oh, I have so much laundry to do when I get home", or "I've got to get the rooms cleaned and the bathroom clean". But, I was worrying for NO reason. Can I tell you how wonderful Chad is?? Every day that I get home the laundry has not only been washed and dried, but folded and put nicely away!! The dishes are always done, floors are vacuumed, toys are picked up.....I could go on and on. He has been so WONDERFUL!! The girls have LOVED having their dad home. He has taken them to Cabela's to look at the animals (yes, I know they are dead, but they still love it), to the park, and the zoo a couple of times...

and he lets them wear whatever they want.... Could life be any better??
Things couldn't be working out more perfectly :) Yes, it is stressful with the amount of time that school requires, but I have loved the times that Chad and I have set aside to spend time with each other. One of my favorites, is just sitting down together after we have put the girls to bed and chatting about our days, maybe watching one of our favorite shows and sometimes gorging ourselves on Hostess cupcakes :) (Have you tried the new strawberry ones??? They are to die for!) I love that man!

I start my clinicals in the hospitals this next week, and I am really going to miss our time in the lab. We always had a blast! Here are a couple of pictures from lab...

"Wound Day"

NG Tubes
LOVE my lab group!!!!
Hopefully I will be able to keep my blog updated a little more often :) But, the Hoyt's are doing great!!

Feeling Pretty Special

Over the past year Chad and I have had to decide on some big decisions that would be affecting our little family. One of these decisions was for me to go back to school to work on getting my RN degree. Up until now it has just been one class after the other to get to the point that I am at today....starting the nursing program! It is hard to believe that the day is finally here, and that there is the tiniest of lights at the end of my tunnel. :)

When we made the choice that I would go back to school we both felt like it was the right thing to do, and that it would be the best move for our family. As I said in an earlier post, I have been SO blessed during my schooling. Not only have I been able to get "A's" in all of my classes, but my family has been well taken care of while I have been in school. Then, I applied for the nursing program, and I was accepted!!! I was EXTREMELY excited! Everything was going just how I had planned...........until now. Some things you can't foresee happening. And some of those things happened to us. I would rather not go into specifics, since this is a public blog, but our situation made me really start to second guess the decision to start the program. I couldn't see how I could still go to school and all of the pieces of our life would be able to fit back together. After more prayer, and fasting, and a GREAT temple experience, we still felt like me going to school is what we are supposed to be doing right now. I decided that I would just have to take that leap of faith, and know that everything is going to work out (this is a REALLY hard thing for me to do! I like to have control :) ). Aside from my own personal experience, I have had an outpouring of love and support from people in my family. I can't tell you how much it mean't to me to have the encouraging texts, emails, conversations on the phone, etc. And my parents, WOW, how much help they have been to us! I know that having us live with them can probably be hard, but they have always been loving and supportive. I don't know what our kids will do when we move out :) Thank you, Mom and Dad!! It is so much easier to get through a trial in your life when you have a support system! With that being said, on Friday I had my orientation for the nursing program, and to say that I was overwhelmed is an understatement. Driving away I was thinking, "How on Earth am I going to be able to go to school Monday-Thursday 8:00am-2:30pm, complete 12 hour clinicals, study, and STILL have time to be with my family and not go insane??" And then I saw a little note in my cup holder that was from Chad, telling me how proud he was of me, and how he loved me, and KNEW that I could do it! I felt so special! (Can I tell you how much I love that guy!!!). And then I came home to this........

A beautiful bouquet of balloons from David and Paige with an amazing letter of encouragement, love and support attached to it. Their support through this last year has been phenomenal! Thank you guys so much!! And, thank you again for the balloons! They made me feel SO special!

So, here we go on our next journey, and I know it isn't going to be an easy one, but I have NO doubt that it is going to be a good one!!!

Just for fun: McKinzley consistently wakes up between 4:30-5:00am. So, since she has a lot of time before she has to get ready for school, she spends her time making cute little signs that she hangs up around the house. I love getting little notes from her! Here are a couple of her recent signs that made me smile....

These signs are on the girl's bedroom door.....

(No boys alawd (allowed) p.s. Just Dad and Grandpa)

Love it!!!

Dear Tooth Fairy.....

McKinzley lost a tooth the other day and left this note for the ToothFairy. It says:

Dear Toothfary,

What do you do with my teeth.

Please write back under the line.

Merry Chritmas.

______________________

The ToothFairy left her with some money, took the note, but hasn't written back to her yet (She is starting to get impatient :) ). So, my question for you is, What DOES the ToothFairy do with our teeth? Any ideas?

Happy New Year!!!!

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." ~T.S. Eliot

Wishing you all a safe New Years Eve, and a New Year filled with adventure!

FA LA LA LA LA!!!!

Christmas this year was so much fun! I love the traditions that come from both sides of our families. My families traditions begin on Christmas Eve. When we were little my parents would get us up really early, and we would spend the entire day doing a whole bunch of activities so by the time bedtime rolled around we were exhausted and went straight to sleep. This tradition has been continued on to include the grandkids and friends that want to join :). A fun tradition that has come from Chad's side of the family is on Christmas Eve every year the "Elves" bring you new PJ's for Christmas, but the Elves don't only bring them, but they hide them and the girls have to find their PJ's. The girls LOVE looking for their jammies and being able to wear them. Christmas day has always consisted of opening up gifts and then heading out to visit family. I love being able to visit and give gifts! It really is a special time of year. Here are a few (okay, a LOT) of pictures of our Christmas adventure this year!

Christmas Eve: We start the day with breakfast. We ended up having a little bit of a breakfast fiasco this year and we weren't able to start breakfast till around 9:30am instead of 8:30am. Here is our crowd of 19:

Pemberlynn was REALLY hungry!
Gotta love the kids menu that comes with crayons :)
After breakfast it was off to the bounce house..........

This is Chad doing jumping jacks.....HA HA HA!
A train? Drew, McKinzley, and Kirstin
Can't you just tell that they are about to cause mayhem?


After the bounce house everyone came back to our house and watched the movie Despicable Me, followed by some snacks and games. One of the games that we played was UNO. We played the "Normal" way for a little while and then Kirstin and I decided that we needed to show my family how to play with the "Hoyt" rules! It was a blast!..........And, of course Christmas Eve wouldn't be complete without a surprise visit from the big guy!!
After Santa left with the reindeer we had a scrumptious dinner of soup in bread bowls, salad, tater skins, and brownie sundaes.

I just couldn't pass this picture up! TWINNERS!!! So cute!
After dinner we had a program and the kids put together the manger scene throughout the story.
CHIMES!!!! Christmas Eve just wouldn't be the same if we didn't play the chimes. It is always interesting :)
Jammies from the "Elves"!!! (We were starting to get into meltdown mode at this point)
Christmas Day: Started out bright and early at 6:00am with stockings.....

Up the stairs we come to see what Santa left
Yippee!!! He came!!

For some odd reason Oaklee is in LOVE with Luigi



This picture is out in the garage when the girls saw that they got a trampoline.
After we cleaned up, ate breakfast and got ready we headed out to visit Chad's family. David and Paige invited everyone over to their house for lunch, games, gifts, and LOTS of laughs!! We had a HUGE group there! Even two of Chad's uncles and their families joined the party. We played a huge game of PictureMan, and I REALLY wish I would have taken a picture because the girls KILLED the boys in that game!! I think the final score was 15 to 6??? It was a great time! We had a

fantastic lunch of ham, cheesy potatoes, jello salad, broccoli, and lots of treats. After dinner we opened presents and played games the rest of the night!

Kids table

Drew and Brexlyn hung out the ENTIRE weekend! If Drew was there, Brexlyn was with him :)
Opening gifts......

Cousins playing
This was right before we were leaving. I just thought that this picture was really funny :)

Like I said earlier, Christmas was SO much fun this year!! Thank you to everyone that joined us on our Christmas Eve excursion, and thank you David and Paige for inviting us to your home and throwing a GREAT party!! I also want to thank everyone that gave gifts to my girls and Chad and I, you were all very generous! Thanks to both sides of the family that were involved with making our Christmas special this year! We love you guys!

I can't wait for this next year to come! SO many changes on the way, but I can't wait!! Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year!!!

$5?? Sure, why not....

At Chad's company party the other night I learned some interesting things about my husband, one of which is that Chad will do almost anything to make people laugh, vomit, or fork over a couple of dollars. I heard a story about Chad drinking a cup of water that had been sitting in the foundation of the building they were building for at LEAST a week all for $5!! Ummmmm....GROSS!!! Of course all of his work buddies thought this was hilarious, including Chad. Fast forward to the work party. Every year they do a white elephant exchange, and this year Chad received some word-search books, pencils, and this REALLY disgusting, homemade (in October) gummy brain thing that was swimming in a pink liquid. Just looking at it made me gag a little. Why did MY husband, out of everyone there, have to pick this present??? I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Someone threw out a number "Chad, I will give you $5 if you eat that whole thing", "Chad, I will pay you $20 if you eat that whole thing", "WAIT! Don't start yet, I have to grab the camera!". I started cringing, and hoping that for just this once he would say no. But, he just couldn't pass it up. I think he thought it was going to be a lot easier than it was. When he took his first bite his teeth got STUCK! I couldn't help it, I started to laugh! I was completely grossed out. It was one of those horrible things that you want to look away from but you just can't help but stare. The funny part was how it kind of backfired on him. It was so tough that he actually ended up having to cut it into pieces with a steak knife! It took him 5 minutes to eat each piece! All in the name of a few dollars and ALOT of laughs! I think he was the highlight of the party :) I love that guy! I might never kiss him again, but I sure love him! :)

Getting ready to take the first bite

Playing to the crowd

Teeth stuck, and laughing really hard
Licking the goop off of his fingers
Starting to second guess his decision
Maybe feeling a bit queasy
He did finish the whole thing, and earned every penny of that $25 :)