A broken foot.

When my brother and sister in law came to visit for Christmas, PJ had a broken foot. Ava thought she would also give her horsey a broken foot, in honor of her Uncle Paul.

Corriney kisses.

We have all become tongue kissers, courtesy of Corrine. For some reason, she thinks she needs to stick out her tongue when she kisses you, so you get a full on wet kiss from her! It is so cute though, we all kiss her anyway, even my germophobic tween.

Random Thought

So I am driving down the road today, and I get the sudden insane urge to direct my car towards oncoming traffic. I wanted to ram the car coming towards me. Not in a violent way, but a laughing, having fun, child like way.

No, I am not suicidal.

After I examine where that urge came from, I start laughing. Coming towards me in the opposite lane was one of those bright red smart cars.


Sure looked an awful lot like a bumper car.

A New Chapter

We got some news last week that have definitely changed things for our family. The company that Jason works for laid off everyone in the Pocatello office except Jason. They told him that they like him and would like him to come work for them in Salt Lake City, and gave us 6 months to put things in order to get there.

This was extremely generous of the company, and we are very grateful for it. It means our girls can finish out the school year, finish dance, we have time to sell the house, etc. We have time to adjust to the idea and to get things ready.

We knew this might be coming, the office hasn't been doing well. Even though we knew it was a possibility, it was still somewhat of a blow. The older girls took it kind of hard, though they are starting to get excited. We will miss our friends, and it changes things for my career. We love our home, neighborhood and ward. We will miss being close to our families.

But.

Jason has a job. With a good company who values him. In this economy, that can't be looked over or taken for granted. We know that we are blessed to be looking at moving instead of looking for a job. We like the Salt Lake area, and Jason has family there that we will be happy to be closer to.

So it is with saddened but grateful hearts that we prepare for this new chapter in our lives. I am even starting to get a little excited about the whole thing. We hope to have our house sold and be in SLC together as a family in June. I really don't want to be living here, waiting for our house to sell, while Jason works in SLC during the week. So if anyone knows anyone looking to buy, we have a great house that we have loved living in!

And of course, my blog will stay the same, and I will love being able to keep in contact with all of you that way.

Salt Lake City, here we come!

Christmas 2009

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures this Christmas, I was too busy enjoying things! My brother and sister in law stayed with us for 5 days and it was so much fun.

We started out on Christmas Eve making cookies. We always make the same sugar cookie recipe, and make way too many of them.

Corrine really didn't make any cookies, but she had fun playing in the flour and eating cookie dough. Here she is after she just swiped the head off of Payden 's ginger bread man. That was so funny! Payden started to get upset, but I was laughing so much she realized how funny it was. After that Payden didn't put her cookies next to Corrine.

After a session of sprinkles and frosting, the girls pick their favorites. One for Santa, one for them to eat. Here are Santa's.

Then we took off for Salt Lake to pick up PJ. We were so excited to see him! He had recently broken his foot, and gimped his way toward us carrying his crutches. We headed straight for our favorite Thai food place, Simply Thai. YUM. Then we went and saw the lights on Temple square. Did I even take any pictures? Nope. But it was gorgeous!

Then we drove home, where we opened up Christmas Eve pajamas. Ava was so tired, she said she didn't like them, but I convinced her to put them on for the picture.

Then they put out the cookies and milk for Santa and it was off to bed.

Every night we stayed up late talking and playing games. It was so nice to have my brother and Jackie here with us.
Is there a tree under there?

We opened some great gifts,

Danced in new tu-tus,

and had an episode of the never ending, ever growing roll dough.

We had lots of good food, and Uncle Paul played with his two littlest nieces, on the floor, in a flower tent, with a broken foot. He is such a good uncle.

We spent all our time in the house, due to PJ's gimp foot. It was so nice, though, just to sit and talk (and ok, eat, you got me!) and be together.

The girls had so much fun.

We had a great time, can't wait until next Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

How do you make Thanksgiving dinner with this thing on your dominant hand? Can't cut, can't transfer food from bowl to bowl, can't pick up anything heavy(like a turkey!), really can't do much without a right hand.

No problem, just borrow another right hand.

Or a few right hands!

Everybody pitched in to help with the meal this year, and my mom made half of it. I (we) made the turkey, rolls, candied sweet potatoes, and a white chocolate pumpkin cheesecake. The turkey was the best ever; we brined it the day before, and it was fresh. Soooooooo moist.

Ava helped to place all the leaves!

This was what I saw when I peeked during prayer. So sweet.

Ava and cousin Cayden.


Yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our thankful turkey. We added feathers all week with things we were thankful for written on them. Then we read them on Thanksgiving.

We had a very good dinner and loved reflecting on all we are thankful for. Our lives are richly blessed.

Happy Birthday Ava!

Ava turned 5 on November 19th. I can't get over it; 5 already! She had a great birthday, lots of celebrating. On her actual birthday, she got breakfast of her choice, which was bacon, eggs, toast and hashbrowns. Our Ava is so special and we are so glad to have her. She is always smiling and bursting with energy. She loves to share with her little sister and says the cutest things.

The weekend after her birthday is when we celebrated. We took a day trip to Utah and went to the aquarium and the Mayan for dinner, as per Ava's request. This is a fun restaurant where it is all themed around the rain forest, with "natives" performing rituals and diving off cliffs into a pool.

Ava got a special dessert!

The girls watching the show.

The aquaruim was a great hit. They had lots of neat creatures, amd you could touch stingrays and other little things. Ava wouldn't touch the stingrays, and was timid at first for the others. But as soon as she saw they wouldn't bite her, she went for it.

There really are jelly fish in there!

We also had cake and ice cream at home for her.

5??!! Really?????!!!!!!!!

Even a pinata, which was lots of fun.

She got all kinds of toys, and we got her this desk and filled it with art supplies.

On the day of her birthday, Grandpa brought her a new big girl bike!

All in all, she had a great birthday, we love her so much!