A Torman Family Christmas!

The before picture!
My cute Ridge as a cow at the church nativity!
All 3 of my darlings in Ridge's John Deere!
The After!!!
My cool Hunter and his "gangster" snowboarding hat!
At Grandma's house
All the kids with Grandma & Grandpa


I can't believe Christmas has come and gone. The kids were soo cute Christmas morning. They woke up at 4am and were sent promptly back to bed. Ridge kept asking if the witches had come yet. I think he was delirious because he was half asleep and thought he was asking about Santa.
But they got up again at 6:45 and it was so fun. Santa doesn't wrap gifts and so when they came up and saw everything it was so awesome. Hunter said "mom I don't even need to open the gifts under the tree, this is enough" then after he opened our gifts he said "you guys must have spent alot of money this year!" He makes us feel so good. We spent way more than we should have on the kids but the excitement of Christmas morning makes it so worth it. It was extra fun this year to have my brother and his family stay with us! I made my 1st prime rib roast for lunch (it was AWESOME) and then it was over to Justin's moms for dinner and more presents. Then Saturday we did the Tippetspalooza with my fam.

A Picture for the book!

So this picture will go in the memory book for 2 reasons. 1st of all it is so dang cute of Ridge in his Power Ranger costume, the kids loves to dress up! But 2nd of all it is the last picture we have of his beloved blanket. About 3 weeks ago he lost his blanket at the church while I was playing Volleyball and we have never been able to find it. He has actually done really well without it but it just makes me so sad that he is now big enough to not need one. I can't believe that he is 3 and turning into a little man!

Go Lions!

So I just got my hands on this picture but it was too cute to not post. Last November Justin and Hunter went out to North Carolina and went to a Panthers and Lions football game. Justin's brother Travis did his residency in Michigan and so they are a little sided to the horrible Lions. They had such a great man trip and Hunter loved all the play time with his cousins. They want to start making a tradition of it and maybe the Lions will actually win one of these times!

I am a big boy now!

I can't believe that our little chub turned 3 on the 10th! He had a great party with most of the family and his one little buddy Landon. He has talked about his birthday for months and all he said that he wanted was a Scooby Doo cake. I normally make the kids cakes and love the chance to be creative but he talked about the cake from the store for months so I gave in and got this little round one from Target and then made a Kahlua Chocolate one for everyone else. We gave him a scooter that he just loves and as usual he was spoiled with too much!

Our sweet Ridge truely is a delight to parent. He is our snuggly, cuddly and lovable child. He has more funny sayings than any child I have ever seen and so much personality! He was the baby of my dreams! I also wanted a chubby, round child and the Lord blessed me with my 9lb joy! I love everyday of being his mom and love even better that he says daily "mom your number 1!"

2 posts! Halloween Cuties!

These are pictures of the kids at Hunter's Halloween party. It was so fun this year to be in charge of the all of the games for the whole 1st grade. I used to love it when my mom helped for parties and I am glad that I get to do it now!


I am sorry but she is the cutest freaking Tinkerbell!
Ridge and cousin Jackson were both the same thing without any planning!
Dragon, Tinkerbell & Ninja
Justin's sister's kids and ours
Our "mean" dragon!

I keep telling you that you want to live in Eden!

I know most of you have heard it but we have to remind you that we truely live in the best place EVER! We have great neighbors, amazing friends, high caliber schools and the best ward. One thing we love the most about our ward is that we are all very service oriented. It is not uncommon to have a major service project going on monthly. We all help one another LDS or not! Weather it is cutting logs for heat for winter, remodeling a bathroom for a wheelchair bound member, cleaning house and watching kids for a family with a child in the hospital, remodeling a home for and elderly family the list goes on and on. Justin is 1st counselor in the Elder's Quorum and so he is privileged to plan and find a great deal of these service projects. Hunter has helped with dozen's of projects sometimes willingly and sometimes not.

We are blessed to have Hunter's teacher live right at the end of our street. Our prayers were truly answered when he got Mrs. Anderson for 1st grade. Mrs. Anderson's sister Mrs. Cook was Justin's 1st grade teacher and she was his most memorable teacher! Well when Mrs. Anderson needed a new roof the ward and neighborhood was right there to help. So on Halloween Justin and Hunter went down and worked almost 10 hours with alot of others and was able to rip off her old roof and put a new one one. Hunter worked the ENTIRE time. He came home dirtier than I have ever seen him and he loved every minute of it. If I do anything right raising children it will be to teach them the act of service and to do it often.

I have to brag just a bit!

So once again I played suzie homemaker this year and canned my little heart out. I started keeping track of everything I did but then there was to much to count. I do have to say that this years salsa I think was the best yet. Note to self though. ALWAYS use gloves when dealing with peppers. I have never had a problem in the past but this year 2 things. I touched the top of Ridge's bottle with my fingers after holding the peppers and then he drank from it and the poor kid cried and cried and I could not figure out what the problem was for the LIFE of me. Well by the night time my hands burned so bad that I actually had to take a benadryl because that is what poison control says to do and after hours of pain if finally felt better. So here is a run down of what I did:
10 bottle of grape jelly
12 bottles gape juice
20 bottles salsa
15 bottles canned tomato's
12 bags frozen corn
5 jars raspberry jam
and a partridge in a pear tree!

Hodge Podge!

All of my kids have loved to ride on the lawnmower with Justin and Aspen just started. With this new mower Justin is actually able to set a car seat on it and then he puts head phones over her ears for the noise. She has been the best rider by far and loves when dad fires the mower up!
Hunter has asked for YEARS to do Karate but with having to drive to Ogden for it and the expense we have just never done it so when the Gym up in the valley started offering it we had to jump on it. He absolutely LOVES it and has already earned his 1st stripe on his white belt. The only thing I hate is that it is Tuesday's and Thursday's at 4pm and he doesn't even get home from school until 3:50 so its a mad dash and on nights that I have shows I don't get to see him much! But its worth it because of how much fun he has!
I realized that I never posted about Hunt's 1st day of school. I will be honest with you the 1st 2 weeks were a nightmare. He HATED going all day but we feel so blessed to have the most amazing teacher in the world and she along with us has really worked with him. I was so worried because we didn't work on his reading as much as we should have during the summer but he has done great and is right where he needs to be. The biggest issue that we have is school lunch. He is such a picky eater that we do have to send a lunch most days and on the days he does eat school lunch I worry he isn't eating enough. I am sure it will get better!
After 9 years of marriage Justin and I finally broke down and bought a TV for our bedroom. We have lived most of our married life with 1 tv in the family room, but we were sick of falling asleep in the basement while watching the news. So now the kids favorite hang out is our bed. I walked in this day and was just tickled by what I saw. Aspen all snuggled up to Hunter and he had his arm around her and all 3 of them were on top of one another! It just was too cute to not share!

Tippets Family Reunion/Balloon Festival

Well once again this year the Ogden Valley Balloon festival came around. I decided earlier in the year that I wanted to offer this as a chance to have all the Tippets family get together for a family reunion. So many of my neighbors have all of their families over for huge campouts and I thought we should be no different. The main reason is because the festival is in the field behind my house. You can't get any closer than where I live to see the balloons. We had so much fun. We played old fashioned games with the kids, talked, laughed and ate way too much. The only bummer is that the balloons were not able to fly Saturday morning while all the family was here because of the bad weather but we had fun in spite of it. Maybe next year we will get lucky!

Our Family Trip to North Carolina!

I know that I am a bit behind with these but I had to share these fun pictures. We asked the kids in the spring if they wanted to go to Sea World for family vacation this summer or to North Carolina to see their cousins (Justin's brother and family) well without hesitiation the answer was North Carolina. So this was our 1st trip on a plane with all the kids! Justin and Hunter go every year and have a great time and I was so excited to be able to go myself. The plan ride was about how you would expect it with 4 kids (yes 4, we brought our niece Savannah back with us who had been visiting in Utah. But it is all forgotten when the fun begins. We were able to spend a whole week and my kids and myself truely had the times of our lives. Justin and Travis went wakeboarding 2 times a day (morning an night) everyday. They live in a beautiful home that's back yard is Lake Hickory. They have their own boat dock and all sorts of toys. The kids LIVED in the water. Hunter got up on the wakeboard and Ridge (yes my baby boy) got up on the ski! We were able to even get an adult night out for dinner and a movie and a trip up to the smoky mountains which were gorgeous. Hopefully we will be able to do this EVERY year!

Ridge, Hunt, Cameron, Aspen, Savannah & Austin in the Smoky Mountains



Justin and Ridge
Aspen and Travis

This was what Ridge did 900 times a day. Jump in the lake, swim to the side, come up on the dock and do it again!

This is my favorite picture of her yet!