Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Merry Christ-mas a little late and Happy New Year a little early...May your year be filled with love, joy, laughter, and good health! Hopefully this year won't go as fast as last, but it's kind of like a roll of toilet paper...the closer you get to the end...the faster it goes. We'd love to get to visit more family and friends...it's not looking too prosperous, but not totally out of the question! We have tons of snow, so if anyone is up for a good ski run, we're minutes from one!

Our Snow...

For all you St.George wimps that had a snow day because you had 3 inches of snow...here are our pics of the kids playing on our 15 inches of snow. Nothing has been closed down, we went Christmas shopping in it and Matt has had to plow our driveway too many times. It did take my sister awhile to dig her car out because she tried to plow through a snow bank in front of her car rather than listen to Matt! It took 4 men to dig her out! We are looking forward to a winter white Christmas!

first pics with Santa!

We had our first visit with Santa on Friday night. A friend of ours nicely asked Santa if he wouldn't mind coming to her house for a visit and to have some cookies! P did great and loved him...especially the candy cane after. Our girl gave Santa her very tiny wish that only included an American Girl baby. They both had a good time and loved every minute!

Matt had a business trip to North Dakota for 3 days and he was able to take our girl with him. He does a great job at taking pictures. He's actually the photographer in our family...I think he gets it from his mom! They had so much fun that everytime I talked to her she wasn't ready to come home. As you can see in the pictures of the hotel room, Matt lets her get away with a lot more than I do...aka the messy room with clothes all over and she's eating on the floor and not a table. They were able to go to a children's museum and do some sight seeing. I love the picture of the two of them in front of the river. I always heard that it would be daddy's girls...it sure is! I'm sure it doesn't hurt that he spoils her and buys here whatever she wants!

Happy Thanksgiving...

My parents and grandma came up from St. George to spend the holiday with us. We had a great time and even managed to fight the crowds and get some good deals early Friday morning!! My girl had a great time helping me make the pies (she actually just played with the dough) and P just hung out eating cheerios! Her nana is always such a great sport to play dress up with her and have a tea party. We want to say that we are so grateful for each and every one of you. Each family or person we know play a special role in our our lives, whether we talk to you once a year or everyday, and we are so blessed to have you in our lives!! Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy this holiday season.

an early x-mas present for our girl...

So Matt thought our girl needed an early x-mas present. I told him not to get his hopes up for her to be very excited. She wasn't...she said but I wanted an American Girl doll. Here is also an updated photo of the garage. They proved me wrong...Matt will be painting this week and move in next week! He is very excited to get this done and so am I to have my garage back for the winter.

Another Update...

Their giving me some hope...we have walls and and now a roof (after the picture was taken). Matt is in the process of getting the electrical done and went to get the siding. I think they might just be able to beat the snow! P has been having fun being daddy's little helper also.

Happy Halloween!!

We wish everyone a Happy Halloween and hope yours was as fun as ours. P was a doctor, our girl was Raggedy Ann, Ole was a witch, and Sarah was a nerd. We went to a halloween party for one of our girl's classmates, then to the mall to trick or treat, then home for some more trick or treating. I think a good time was had by all. I actually think our girl had more fun waiting for trick or treaters to come to our door. With all the candy she had collected, she had decided we only needed the chocolate candy bar kind, so she decided to recycle it and put it in our give out candy. I was ok with that to cut down on the amount we had in the house. Surprisingly, P went totally candy free the whole day! Our girl and P want to thank both their wonderful grandmama's for sending them such wonderful Halloween packages. They were both filled with many goodies and we know lots of love! They both know how lucky they are to have such fantastic sets of grandparents!

Update on the garage...

As you can see in the picture we now have some sides going up with walls. However, we had a guy knock over our fence dropping off the trusses, our cement guy splashed cement on our neighbors suburban, our fence that we just had restained a couple months ago is getting broken and scratched, and one day I came home and had to take a picture because 2 of the 3 construction workers were walking around talking on their cells phones for a bit (and we're paying for this!) I'm still betting on next spring, but their giving me some hope!

Happy Harvest!

Sarah and I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch here in Idaho Falls called "The Red Barn" to pick pumpkins and go through the corn maze! I'm not sure who had more fun...Sarah or Scotlyn. We carved pumpkins and had a great time watching Parker trying to eat the top of all the pumpkins!

picture posing...

My girl and I were playing with the camera and P. We decided to take some candid shots of him in his new winter hat and in a pre Halloween get up. He's deciding to maybe be a pumpkin this year. We're not sure...

Doing some construction...how long will it take?

We have been ask to post pics of the construction of Matt's "new home!" We had a beautiful big backyard with 2 fruit trees and now those are gone, along with the shed and a quarter of the yard. Matt felt I needed my own garage (i.e. he has too much s*** too fit in the one that came with the house) so when everyone else is preparing for a recession...he decides to build another garage! We'll post pics along the way so you can see the process. It has taken about 3-4 weeks just to get the concrete poured. Now he knows what it's like when the shoes on the other foot (he used to be one of those construction guys). He is now waiting for them to pour the walls...we'll see how long that takes. Hopefully, we'll get it done soon before there's too much snow. Our girl has had fun playing in the dirt hills and driving the excavator with Matt. Hopefully, this won't take too much longer...he's saying 2-3 weeks...I'm saying next spring!

another april birthday...

I went to the doctor yesterday...and we have a date, well roughly! Our new little one should be here the middle to the end of April. I had Parker near my birthday...so maybe I'll have this one near Matt's, which is the 12th. I'm about 9 weeks right now...so the count down in on. For those of you that do not know, we have decided not find out what this one is. We want to be surprised. Please just pray for a healthy baby. We'll keep you updated as the months pass!

David & Cortney's Wedding

We went down to Midway this weekend for the wedding of David and Cortney (for those of you that don't know them...it's Matt's cousin). We had such a great time catching up with old friends (London 2011?), making new ones, and visiting family. We stayed at the beautiful Homestead Resort, which was where the wedding took place. David and Cortney looked beautiful together and we had a wonderful weekend. We were able to take some really good pictures. I didn't get all the people I wanted, but hopefully at the next one (Ryan? Sarah?) Just Kidding!

a small vaca!!

Matt and I were able to go away for the weekend with the help of a very dear friend of ours who adores the kids. Matt had a trip to Seattle and wanted me to tag along. It was hard leaving my boy for the first time (and yes my girl too), but we (I) managed through it (after I cried a little when we left) and we had a great time. We went to the famous Pike's Place Market, ate fresh seafood, toured the Seattle Needle, rode a monorail, and shopped. It was fun playing tourists and getting a full nights sleep (ahh). Hopefully, we'll be able to do it again some time!