New Year's Eve

We went to St. George for New Year's Eve. We LOVE to go to St. George as much as possible. We took a couple of families with us this time and had so much fun! St. George is such a beautiful city. Andy and I met there when we went to college back in 1998, right before he left on his mission. May parents have a beautiful home down there and are generous enough to share it with us when they are not using it. This beautiful picture below is the view from their window!

I love the contrast of the snow capped sandstone. Some if the most beautiful scenery in the world, in my opinion.

We did a lot of shopping and game playing. My friend Lisa planned a fun game for everyone to play New Year's Eve. Kayman fell asleep before we even started. He completely missed all the fun!

Every family had to bring 20 items per person for this game. We labeled each item, and then everyone took turns drawing a number, searching for their item, and that was their prize! There were a lot of fun prizes, some snacks, some random old toys. It was fun to see what you got, and everyone seemed to have a ton of fun. Here is what the table full of prizes looked like.
Syd's prized possession was a hair straightener! She is loving it. Syd is big into fixing her hair, and her friends' hair, so this was the perfect prize for her. Now I just need to teach her how to use it so she doesn't burn her hair!
Once the kids went to bed we played Just Dance on the Wii. It was the funnest game ever! Everyone stayed up until about 1:30 a.m. except Velvet and me, we stayed up until 4:30 talking. She is the greatest friend in the world and I can talk to her about anything for hours on end. She's the one on the left.
Here are us girls taking a calm break long enough to get this picture taken. We were all a bit wild and having fun!
Andy and I on New Year's! What a great night we had! Happy New Year babe! I love you!
So, here's to a new year. Hopefully this year will be at least as good at 2010 was. We had a great year together, and hope for an even better one in the 0-1-1!

Christmas Day!

Santa came! After a fairly long nights' sleep, we got up at 7 a.m. to see what Santa brought to us! Jess was very excited to receive a Leapster 2!

Syd was excited to see that she got a new bike! Her old one was falling apart. Dad had to put the chain on time and time again, and it was way too small for her. This new bike is the perfect size for her and she loves the hand brakes!
Mom and dad got a new computer! Yay! A MacBook Pro, my new favorite thing. It is very well used. We love it!
Kayman is a mad man on his new bike. He rode in circles around Grammy and Grandpa's kitchen all morning. He couldn't be happier!
My brother Brad and his son Gabriel. He got a stuffed English Bulldog that looks just like their real one! Gabe loved it. He kept giving it kisses, ok he was trying to eat it. Whatever. He loved it.

We headed to Andy's parents house around noon to spend the rest of the day with the Selcho family. I don't know how I managed to forget to take pictures, but I did. We had a truly meaningful and loving Christmas. We are so grateful for the love of Christ and for the opportunities of service we had this Christmas season. We had a lot of service done for us also. It is a magical time of year!

Christmas Eve

We spent most of the day home on Christmas Eve, but went to Selcho's house for dinner with the family. We had some family in town from Texas that we usually only get to see once a year. Andy's brother had a business meeting in Salt Lake and it just worked out that they were able to stay a little longer and spend Christmas here too! We had a delicious dinner and some good times together before we headed to my parents house.

My dad was ready to party it up! When we got there he was cooking fondu and had tons of treats ready for us. It was so good! My family and my sister and her husband stayed the night at my parents house Christmas Eve. After eating WAY too much food we headed out to the family room to listen to some beautiful music played by my sister, Jaycie.

She is a wonderful musician and loves to play and sing for us. She has written some beautiful music and has an incredible voice. We all love to listen to her play. My dad then read the Christmas story from Luke. The kids were very good and got a good understanding of the true meaning of Christmas. They got to put on their new Christmas pajamas (not Christmassy this year, I know) and just as they were going to head upstairs for bed...
a special visitor came! Santa showed up unexpectedly (not even my parents were expecting this) and the kids were somewhat less than amused. I thought they may get nervous that he would not come back since he came while they were still awake. Or that they would be ecstatic to see Santa one last time. I think they had just seen him too many times just didn't care anymore. Maybe it's that we had just read the Christmas story from the Bible and they knew that Christmas isn't really about Santa. Whatever the reason, they were not too thrilled to see him, though we did get them to pose for a picture.
The girls left some carrots for Rudolph!
Then it was off to bed. I wonder what Santa will bring??!?!!!?!?

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving. What a great Holiday! I have spent a lot of time thinking today of all the blessings I have to be thankful for. Usually Thanksgiving just sort of passes me by without much thought, but this year was different.

I have been so blessed. I know I have much more (temporally) than a lot of people in the world have, and I am SO grateful for all the Lord has given me. I know the things I have been given are to enable me to serve others. I understand God's love for all of His children is the same. He wants all of us to return to live with Him again some day. I have been blessed to have Him in my life as my guiding light. I have the scriptures, my family, my friends, and most importantly, the Holy Spirit with me guiding me all the way home. I feel it, and I am grateful for that blessing.

My husband and children are the light of my life. They are so wonderful, and they love me despite my many faults. They accept me for who I am, even at my worst. I hope to be as good to them as they are to me. I try to be what they deserve, which is the best.

I am very grateful to all you family and friends out there who have supported me through so much. You know who you are. Thank you for standing by me and helping me when I need it.

Please know that if you are reading this, if I have given you the address to this blog, you have been an influence for good in my life. Thank you. I love you.

Bees Game

On July 5th we went with Andy's parents to the Bees game! It was so fun! The kids had a wonderful time. You can tell in the picture that the girls are just a little hyper, and Kayman just about drove the guy in front of us nuts. Kayman doesn't hold still too long, but he had a fun time watching the game. The fireworks at the end scared him for the first few minutes, but he got used to them and we all really enjoyed the show.

Thanks Nana and Papa for such a fun 4th of July celebration! We love you!

Christmas Eve

I am so grateful for the Christmas season and all the love felt during this time of year. We had some wonderful opportunities to serve and show love for those around us.

We spent Christmas Eve and morning with Andy's parents, grandpa and grandma, aunt and cousin. We had a delicious dinner at Andy's parents house and spent some time visiting before we let the kids open their Christmas Eve pajamas. I didn't make them this year, and they aren't even Chrismasy, but they all got some nonetheless. They were very excited to open a gift early!

The kids each get to choose where they leave their stocking for Santa to find, and place there it before bed. Kayman chose the fireplace and finally left it there after wearing his stocking for a while. He kept putting his foot into it and thought he was pretty funny! :)

Syd chose the green couch for all her loot.

And Jess chose the big green chair for hers.

Once we got that all settled we got the kids all bundled up and headed downtown to see the lights at Temple Square.

It is tradition with Andy's family to go to Temple Square on Christmas Eve, no matter how cold it is. Luckily it wasn't too bad this year. It was cold and everyone had frozen bums by the time we were done, but I have endured MUCH colder outings to Temple Square! It was so beautiful.

After the Temple we headed back to Andy's parents house to put the kids to bed. It was just about time for Santa to come and the kids were hoping we didn't miss him. They thought maybe we were out too long and he passed our area already. Luckily we got home and they feel asleep just in time.

Syd was very excited about the digital camera santa brought her. She loves taking pictures!
Kayman's got another football! Jess picked this out for him.
Jess getting loves from Nana.

Everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We spent the morning at Andy's parents and then headed to my parents for a while. After a gift exchange at my parents house we headed to my Uncle's house to spend some time with my extended family. It was such a wonderful day! I love spending so much time with family. We are so lucky to have so much family so close. We did miss Andy's siblings and their families though.

Christmas evening was spent putting away all our new treasures and packing for our upcoming vacation. We were headed to Maui in 2 days!

A home visit!

On Sunday afternoon Syd asked me if she could borrow my gold pen (an old fashioned one that you dip into ink) to write Santa a letter. She was just getting it out when there was a knock at the door. I answered it and we were all surprised with a very unexpected visitor! Santa came to our house! Big red bag full of toys and all! He came in and and asked the kids what they want for Christmas.

Syd was in shock! She couldn't take her eyes off him! She told him she wants an American Doll, Baby Alive and make-up.

Jessica was thrilled and told him she wants make-up too. That's all she could remember when faced with the man himself!

Kayman sat on his lap but leaned as far away from him as possible. He wasn't scared of him, just a little unsure of why this strange man was holding him and talking to him.

Santa made sure to tell the kids to remember Jesus on Christmas because that is what Christmas is all about. He then gave them all a toy. The girls got new dolls and Kayman got a little stuffed animal. They were all SO happy! What a special day!

Thanks Santa for the personal visit!

Syd was very interested in his car. He drove a red car that Syd remembered seeing at church on Sundays. I quickly told her that his "helper" that came with him goes to our church (Syd recognized her too) and Santa was borrowing her car. She is a little too observant sometimes!

Thanksgiving weekend

We headed to St. George to spend Thanksgiving with my family. My parents have a place down there that they purchased with the intent to flip, but now they have fallen in love with the house and all the amenities that go along with it. Our whole family is able to stay there without feeling crowded.

We had 19 people sleeping there, and ended up with about 25 there for Thanksgiving dinner, and everybody had something to do without getting in anybody's way. They house is very accommodating to large groups, and is equipped with a pool, hot tub, pool table, theatre, game table, trampoline, and basketball court. Everyone had a great time just being together at the house. We were all there most of the weekend spending time together, and everyone was busy so there was no reason to leave the house! It was a wonderful weekend!

Here is Jess showing off her turkey she made in Preschool. She really wanted to take it with us, but was okay with just taking a picture with it instead.

The traditional Thanksgiving morning football game. I was the official camera (wo)man. Good thing, cause I'm not much of an athlete. They played at the Encampment Mall at Dixie College.

Kayman kept running out on the field thinking he'd like to play a little football too!

My two guys wiped out from the game!

This is my dad with his 2 most recent interests. The house behind him is the one spoken of earlier in the post. My dad has spent the last few months completely remodeling the house...I mean completely! He moved the staircase, tore out and re-built walls, basically stripped the place to the studs and floorboards and changed the entire look of it. He was the contractor and did much of the work. He has such vision and it turned out so beautiful! I love my dad and am so grateful for his generosity!

And the motorcycle. He just purchased it and is off to ride around St. George with one of his buddies.

This was definitely the best Thanksgiving ever! We spent lots of time together as a family and with lots of extended family we rarely get to see. Thanks mom and dad for sharing your home with us and for helping us so much with the kids! We love you and are SO grateful for you!

I am very grateful for my family and for how close we all are. I am so blessed to live close to them and to get to see them all so often. I love my children and my sweet husband. I am so blessed.

Halloween

This is being written a little later than I wanted. Once Halloween is over, I am so done with it, but I was too busy ripping out the dead flowers in my yard to get this done. That is something I have been procrastinating for weeks, and today's weather was irresistible!

We had a great Halloween! Syd was a fairy, Jess was a princess (again), Kayman was a rooster, I was a devil, and Andy was a hippie/rocker/long-haired-dude. My parents came out to see the kids in the afternoon so they could be home for their trick-or-treaters. They live at the top of a huge hill and lots of the kids make the trek up there for the BIG candy bars, so my parents like to be there for them. We had fun with them for a while at our house!

We had a trunk or treat at our church and got WAY too much candy! The kids loved it and I loved seeing all my primary kids in costume. They looked so cute! We then went home for our traditional "Frito Pie" Halloween dinner with Andy's family. Frito pie is frito's, chili, cheese, corn, tomatoes, and sour cream. So yummy! After dinner we headed out for more candy! It was fun to see the kids so happy and having fun. Kayman finally got the hang of it, but for a while he kept giving the people at the door his candy. What a sweetheart! Enjoy the pictures!

I have SO many pictures from Halloween, so I just made a slideshow for y'all.

I also wanted to post a few of my favorites cause I just LOVE them!

Independence Day

We had a wonderful 4th of July. We went camping at Bear Lake for a few days before the 4th and avoided all the Holiday crowds, and them headed up to the cabin on the 4th. The kids had a great time playing outside, riding bikes on the dirt roads, and Dallas gave himself a bath in the river. (I guess he was tired of waiting around for us to give him one.)

Here are the kids at the house before we headed to the cabin. They love the flag and were excited to have one in our yard. Kayman kept shaking the pole and making the flag wave, he loved it! They are all decked out in their red, white, and blue!