Sneaky sneaky

I was bathing the kids this morning. Like usual Creed stood on the sidelines cheering them on (he gets his baths all throughout the day whenever he makes huge messes with his food or has blow-outs) I got Cole out, lotioned him up, then put Savvy next to him on the counter to lotion her up. Lickity split Creed slithered himself into the tub in his jammies! I had only turned around for a second. He was SO pleased with himself too! Normally I would have been mad, because as anyone who has kids and needs to get out of the house by 8 sharp knows, we are on a schedule people! But he was so happy with his smart little self I let him splash around for a bit. Not 10 minutes later the little busy body is crawling around and stands up holding onto a lamp. Seconds later it comes crashing down on top of him. He flinches but is fine. Our lamp is not. Cole says don't worry mom, dad will fix it. I told him "dad can't fix this!!". He said well a man can fix it and dad is a man. I thought it was so funny. I guess I have to stop saying dad will fix it when he gets home, and start doing stuff myself!

The wedding

Now introducing Mr. and Mrs. Madsen! They are both completely twitterpated.........
The kids could not get enough of Jenna!! They were in complete awe! If you recognize the dress ( I am sure you don't) it was mine 8 years ago almost to the day from this wedding! How time flies....
Everyone kept asking if we were sisters and telling me we looked alike. I was super flattered!!
Sisters! How cute are these girls!!
Ty and Geoff. Seriously they look like twins don't they!
Drew, Savvy, Clarke, and Cole
My guys in their suits
I LOVED my bride's maid dress. My cousin Laura let me borrow it and I thought is was so cute.
Aunt Jenna and Uncle Kellan with his new niece and nephews.
Yet another strong photo op, we have been having plenty of these lately
Can't you tell he loved it?
Cole's first suit
My baby sister is married! She got married Jan 2 in the Draper Temple. As in bride tradition, she looked absolutely beautiful and seemed sublimely happy.

Utah fun.....

Nana and Creed. Look at his face, he is like I already have to deal with my mom doing this all day! Today Cole said "When do I get to see my Nana? I miss her." We miss all our Utah fam! Hopefully they will come visit us soon! Enjoying the yummiest part of Utah, Cafe Rio!! Even Savvy loves it and will eat it over her quesadilla. Yum I am completely obsessed. I don't know how everyone who lives there is like, oh cafe rio? It's ok. I personally think it is my favorite food ever. Give me a Cafe Rio pork salad and a red velvet nothing bundt cake and I am in heaven. And they have both in Sandy! So lucky. We are actually getting one here though. Well in Manhattan Beach. Its 30 minutes but still, better than driving to Utah when a craving hits.
Our little guy.
Happy 8 years babe! Mike took me to see Sherlock Holmes and then to the Roof for dinner, it was our first time there and I loved it. In two years we will be celebrating our 10 year in Greece! That is the plan at least!
My kids!
We went to the children's Gateway Discovery museum. The kids totally loved it! They had so much fun. We spent like 3 hours there. I love all the stuff they had upstairs. Tayler was going to town on these drums
Natalie, Sydney, and Brandt, trying the helmet on for size
Cousin presents. Cole got this police man helmet from Logan. He loves it.

We got to spend a week in Utah. We went up the day after Christmas- and stayed until Jan. 2. We love being able to go visit family and experience a true white christmas. Then being able to come home and enjoy the 73 degree weather here. Yesterday we went to the beach and rollerbladed to the pier with Cole and Creed in the stroller and Savvy on her new Razor- courtesy of Santa. Mike said- you know, I always thought I really missed Utah winters, but after coming home this time I realized a week is good. Funny, he is finally conforming into a true Californian. Anything above 85 is to hot for me. Anything below 67 is too cold. I really do belong here! Anyway, we had so much fun in Utah and got to spend lots of time with our family and even celebrated our 8th anniversary. Also went to my sister's wedding, which I will post about separately. Now our vacations are over for awhile. You might be reading our blog thinking what is going on with the Strongs, everyday they are going out of town. Well with Mike's work, he takes his vacation consecutively, and this year we saved up $ and decided to vacation the whole time. We had to take Savannah out of school for 3 weeks (the school gave us a packet and we home-schooled) and it was a crazy whirl-wind of fun. Now it is over so we will be back to our daily lives. boring I know :)

Strong Family New Years Resolutions

Last night for FHE we had a lesson on goals for the new year. We told the kids we wanted each of them to pick a spirtual goal and a temporal goal for the new year. We went down the line, Mike said his, I said mine, then Savvy said her's (notice she wants to buy a nintendo DS-she didn't even know what those were until she saw her cousins had them and now that's all she can talk about). When we got to Cole he said "my goal is to not drink orange juice". We again explained that goals should be something positive and since orange juice is good for us that he should try a different goal. "My goal is to go to church when I was a little baby, I went everytime and never cried." Uh ok you will be assigned a goal :) Creed was also assigned a goal by us as well. As the latest walker of the trio, we decided he should be walking sometime soon! And since his only words are da da and dog and thought we expand his vocabulary, maybe to at least mama!! I wanted to post our goals on the blog so we can look at them once in awhile and remember what they are. Hopefully we will stick to it this year!