It's been a good Year, 2014.

August 2014: Seersucker, whaaat?!?

Greetings Beautiful Souls,

Last year I hinted we'd try to get a little greener and put this year's Holiday Update online. So congratulations if you're reading this! You just singlehandedly increased my google metrics by 100%. 

We kicked off 2014 with a whole lot of awesomeness: a 7-night Disney Cruise to the Caribbean with the entire Steve & Annette Suite progeny. People think I'm a secret DisneyCruise travel agent because I seem to be able to convince anyone to pay the additional 125% mark-up for their accoutrements. Our biggest complaint was Holden loved the kids area so much, sometimes we'd have to beg him to hang out with our family. 

We had a great trip to California at the end of summer for Danny's sister Brooke's destination wedding (featured left). Holden thought it was a Legoland trip with a wedding we just happened to attend while away from home.

In other travel news, Danny and I just got back from another Caribbean cruise in November. Besides a plethora of sun and sightseeing, one of the trip's greatest highlights included Danny karaoke-ing "Tell Me What You Want" by the Spice Girls with a business colleague: did I mention it was technically a "work" trip for him? #bestplacestowork

Speaking of my better half and work: he's in his fifth year of working for Mountain West Small Business Finance, but the real kicker is that as of December 6th, he's graduated with a Masters of Organization Behavior (ie Human Resource Management) from The Utah State University. #GoAggies! (And Utes, of course, always Go Utes.)

People have made comments on more that one occasion about how excited I must be to "have my husband back." And I don't really know how to respond without making things seem awkward. I mean, it's not that I don't adore having him around -- running a "Man-to-Man" with the kids is ALWAYS preferable to a "Zone Defense." It's just that Danny's done an exceptional job balancing work, school, church and being home with us. The fact that it's an Executive Program helped, and his work has been amazingly supportive, but he's really done a fabulous job keeping his priorities in order. His time watching college football and the number of softball teams he's been able to participate in have suffered, but the rest of us just haven't really been inconvenienced that much.
#timemanagement #sorryimnotsorry #toomanyhashtagsyet?

So onto my babies. The biggest problem is that they're not really babies anymore. Zoë-bug turned three on December 7th, and has graduated from toddler to preschooler this year with ease. She's attending Elizabeth Academy Montessori School (like Holden) at her request. I wasn't quite ready to send my two year old off for morning pre-pre-school, but she's thriving and apparently is a lot less spicy with her teachers and classmates than she is with her Mama. She's talking a lot more -- much like her brother and Einstein, she figured the closer to three the better. Why waste words when you can just point?

Z is fearless in a swimming pool, which is terrifying. So she started private lessons this past year (like her brother).

Zoë loves being read to, baking, making (and drinking) beet juice, school, and anything to do with the Pink-Industrial-Complex. #girltoysareaconspiracy #blamingdisney #letitgoindeed

Our little Zoe-bug also had a few non-well-checkup visits to the doctor's office this year. One for slicing her finger down to (though fortunately not) the tendon. Making guacamole can be hard. And then we were back when her "Mon-mon-eeh" (Zoe-speak for "money") or in this particular case a quarter made its way into her stomach.  I guess she was really worried about saving her dollars (and cents) but we got her a piggy bank straightaway.
#seewhatididthere

Holdencito requires his own volume entirely. For my facebook "friends" you know I try to keep track of these "from the mouths of babes" nuggets under the heading "Holdenisms" -- you can read the highlights here.

Our old-soul of a five year old is enjoying Kindergarten (also at Elizabeth Academy). His current passions include art, volcanoes, saber tooth tigers, mammoths, dinosaurs, tornados, space (specifically black holes), the Seattle Seahawks, Skylanders (eventhough he has plenty of the pieces we have no game console at our home to play them on), earth, nature and Uvengenols: a superhero video game he made up that is primarily played out in our art room via crayons and streams of non-recycled white paper.

And while he's learning to read, add, subtract (even multiply) and a bunch of other wonderful stuff, one of the highlights of this past year was when he wrote to Congressmen Matheson about saving our whales, and then made comic books to sell to neighbors, relatives and random strangers so he could adopt a whale. He raised $30 and currently helps protect an Orca named "Finn" through Washington State's Whale Museum. #proudmama

Holden is creative and inquisitive. He has a somewhat insatiable thirst to understand the world and the cosmos: "Mom, did Adam and Even come before or after the dinosaurs?" And since we have tried our hardest to be honest and "real" about things, it obviously leads to more questions. #praiseforwikipedia

This past year Holden also played soccer, started piano lessons and participated in his first piano recital, and completed his first triathlon (50 yard swim, 1 mile bike, 1/2 mile swim). He said the piano recital was much more scary. He's my buddy for attending all things artistic: plays and the ballet plus he's interested in architecture, composers and painters. He asked me about Seurat and pointillism this morning.

So if you're still reading, I suggest maybe taking a potty break, or getting a glass of water.... but for the last update I guess I'll mention that for me, life is pretty much motherhood with a bit of yoga and public relations mixed in. I'm still teaching at the studio (We Are Yoga SLC) and private lessons. And my primarily-from-home-public-relations/consulting-side-business is coming along: I've got a few clients and have been working as the Director of Public Affairs for Neumont University this past year. I have yet to finish my "great american novel" (i.e. Chick-lit for Mormon moms?), but I did manage to take on planning my 20-year High School Reunion, so any SHS 95-ers, I hope you're planning to attend August 2015.

It seems like as a family we spent a big portion of this year in limbo. My house was the cleanest it's ever been because we had it on the market for 6 months and I had to keep it organized for showings. But this also meant I didn't spend as much time cooking or gardening. But we purchased the home of Danny's youth from his parents and officially moved in this November. It's a beautiful house that is gradually beginning to feel like our own.

Plus the neighborhood is a dream. Holden has a friend he can walk to just two houses away, and Zoë refers to our new place of worship as "Yo-Yay's Chuch" (which obviously is Z-speak for Zoë's-church.)

All around, the Mangums are doing great. 2014 was a big year and now that we're (almost) settled I can finally get back to the things we've missed out on this year -- like composting, naturally.

Seasons Greetings and Namaste.
Sabrena for The Mangums