Happy New Year, welcome to 2010!!

It's that time of year again to reflect on the past year and look forward to what the new year will bring. It's also time to make those new years resolutions that most of us never keep. I thought this year if I think of realistic goals, ones I know I can do, then maybe I will be able to keep them.

This year my goals are SERVICE. Serving my husband, my children, my family, in church, and those around me. I think this is a realistic goal. Its hard to be unhappy when you are serving others and when we are serving others we learn to love them more. FAMILY, spending more time with my family and strengthening the bonds that are already there. Last, but not least BEING PREPARED. I have been working on this one for years, but I don't feel any closer to being done yet. This will be the year that I will finally get our 72 hour kits complete. I don't want to only be prepared with the necessities, I also want to be spiritually prepared as well.

These are my New Years Resolutions, I'll let you know how it goes.

Merry Chirstmas

We hope ya'll had a Merry Christmas. I love this time of year and the spirit that is here. I love to see the excitement on my childrens faces and to smell all of the wonderfuls smells of christmas, but I especially love being with family and friends.

On Christmas Eve it started to snow and Carson came running over to me to tell me. He said, "Mom, it's snowing outside, it must be a Christmas miracle!" I had to laugh because it was so sweet. It doesn't snow much in Texas if at all and he thought this was a miracle to get snow for christmas. It helped him feel like the Christmas' he had experienced in the past. It was like a little bit of home here in Texas so I guess in a way, to him it was a Christmas miracle. I wish everything else could be so simple.

























We told our kids they couldn't come down until 8 am (mean I know) since Payton wouldn't be awake yet, but by 7am the boys were downstairs oohing and awing over all the presents and what they thought might be inside each of them. By 7:30 we were opening presents. We were too tired to fight back.





















We had to wake Payton up on christmas morning, so she was still sleepy when we brought her in the family room. We were so excited to see how she would react to opening presents and to seeing her pink coupe car, but she was still sleepy so we just set her in it and she just sat there for a while, then we tried to give her other presents to open, but she just wanted to sit there in her car, and to even think about trying to take her out of it was a mistake. She just screamed at us so we left her in it most of the day.We were able to spend Christmas with my Brother and his wife before they move back to Utah in a few weeks. We are sad to see them leave, but are grateful we got to live by them for the year and a half. It was a blessing to us.

Thanksgiving and Birthdays

Payton gets pretty crazy when she plays, here's some entertainment for you.


The boys recently celebrated their birthdays and Grandma had sent them presents, unfortunately Payton found them first and ripped them open. This is me trying to salvage them.

We made a quick trip to Utah for Thanksgiving (Sorry to those of you we didn't get a chance to see)here are a few highlights from our trip. Temple Square, the moon was so pretty that night so I had to take a picture.

This was carsons expression the whole day because he was sad the trip was almost over, but the lights behind him were awesome.

Happy Holidays

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Family pictures

We had a friend of ours take our family pictures and she did an awesome job. Check them out....

Halloween

Here are some fun pictures of our family this year for Halloween. This is the first time in years that Milan and I have actually dressed up. The boys of coarse had to be something scary. Payton didn't want anything to do with them when the costumes were on. She was a cute little lady bug. We have been using Carson's scary mask as our baby gate. Payton wont go near it so when our baby gate was a few inches too short to fit on our stairs we turned to the mask to keep her off of them and it worked. She wont go near the stairs.

This was the disgusting hand that Carson got from a Halloween party. It was gummy, but had a hard candy inside to make it feel like it had bones on the inside. It felt real. It was creepy. My boys loved it!!

I love this time of year, especially when the leaves change colors, but here in Texas, not many leaves change. I miss that about Utah. Looking up at the mountains and seeing all of those beautiful autumn colors. However, one of the perks about being in Texas is the warmer weather. While grandpa and grandma were visiting, we went to the Dallas World Aquarium, the kids loved it.

While we had our built in babysitters for the week, Milan surprised me with a date night, which consisted of getting all dressed up and going to dinner and seeing Mary Poppins the broadway musical. I haven't been to a musical or play for a long time and it was wonderful. It was a pleasant surprise. Milan had left a card on my bathroom counter inviting me to spend an evening with him and to go buy myself something nice to wear for the occasion. What a wonderful husband I have.

Fun Halloween Treats

I found some fun Halloween recipes and thought while grandma and grandpa were here this week visiting, we would try a few. Let's just say grandpa wasn't impressed with the worms. If anyone would like the recipes or you want to know how to make any of these, let me know.

I made eyeballs the first night, which were really easy to make.

The next night I made worms on top of dirt (crushed oreos). The worms look real and my kids actually thought I was feeding them real worms at first and protested eating them. I have to say they look really disgusting and feel really creepy too.

A few nights later (we had to give grandpa a break)we made Candy Corn Bark. Grandpa liked this one best.

We are getting ready for Halloween at our house and to get you into the Halloween spirit, we wanted to share a little movie clip of our family. Enjoy!

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Dad update

My Dad is continuing to do better and is ahead of schedule for recovery. It looks like he will be able to go home this weekend if he continues to improve. They have been able to keep his pain somewhat undercontrol, but he is very tired from the nurses waking him up every hour to walk around. I appreciate all the prayers that have gone out on his behalf. There is definately power in prayer.

FAMILY- there's no greater blessing

Family truly is the greatest blessing in my life. I could not have gotten through the hard time without them. In return, there are times they need us when they themselves go through trials. The past few days have been such an emotional rollercoaster ride. My dad had a mild heart attack on Sunday night which should have just been a minor thing right. Well after doing the heart test where they put the balloon in the artery to clear the block, there were some complications. The balloon broke off. Now he needs open heart surgery. This morning he underwent open heart, bi-pass sugery to fix the block and retrieve the broken 15" balloon and wires. He is recovering from surgery, but he is in extreme pain. The hardest part of all of this is not being able to be at his bedside and supporting him as he has always done for me. I know my dad is tough and he will get through this, he has always been so strong. Please keep him in your prayers as the next few hours and days are critical.

I LOVE YOU DAD!!!!

The Sound of Rain

I love the sound of the rain. It reminds me of being a kid and playing in the rain till I was soaking wet. The rain in Texas is more dramatic than the rain in Utah, I love it.

1 Year Anniversary

We've made it a year in Dallas. At times it has been a little overwhelming and a little scary, but we have come to love our new home and the people we have met. It was a year ago that we made the 20 hour drive to our new home in Texas. We have had so many great experiences and met so many wonderful people here. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. I feel like this has been a good opportunity for us to grow as a family, it has forced us to rely on each other more.

Galveston Getaway

I'm a little late in posting this, but a few weeks ago we took a trip down to Galveston with some friends from our ward. It was a good opportunity for us to see more of Texas and to just have fun with friends. The only thing I would have changed about the weekend is more time there. We were able to stay in a nice beach house with a private beach, which was nice to be able to keep an eye on the kids. Most of our time was spent in the water which was really nice.