The New Puppy Poop

The week before Halloween Mike's mom and step-dad came down for a visit. I'd had a pretty rough week, the week before, and Mike was playing with idea of getting me a puppy to cheer me up. As soon as he mentioned it to his mom there was no turning back, we were all on line looking trying to find the right one. Mike found an ad for a litter of yellow labs in the paper, so we loaded up in the car and headed about an hour away to see the puppies. There were 7 of them, and they were all so sweet, making it hard to pick one. I did spot one puppy, that was pretty shy, but calm. She cautiously came up to me and sat herself down on my lap, while the other puppies were running around like crazy. That made my decision a lot easier. The kids named her Ellie, an abreviation of Ellsworth. We brought her home and were totally unprepared to have a new puppy. She slept in the baby pak-n-play until we were able to get a crate. She's been a really good puppy. Everyone keeps telling me that Labs like to chew, and to be careful. However, the only thing she's really gotten a hold of is garbage off the floor. She loves wrappers, and paper. She's never chewed anything else, other than her toys. She can be really playful and then just collapse on the floor and sleep for hours. Ellie at 3 months

Christmas time is here......

Hands down, Christmas is my favorite holiday! I love the lights, the music, the decorations, the snow (eventhough we don't get that here in the south). It usually takes me a few days to get all of my decorations up. Just putting the lights on our 12 foot tree can take up to 3 and 1/2 hours. I try to get half of my house done just before Thanksgiving and the other half right after. This year for some reason I drug my feet getting it all done. The storage boxes sat out for a couple of weeks, but finally I got my act together and got everything up. I suppose as I get older, I'll cut down on what I do, but for now, I like our house to look like Christmas exploded. It does take a while to plug everything in, and then unplug everything.....one of these years I'll invest in the clapper!

The big tree in our keeping room.This tree is covered in angel ornaments that I've collected from our different vacations. This one is from Virginia.

Our Family room tree. It's supposed to be stripped like a candy cane, it doesn't look so good. We like to put a real tree in this room and this year I really wanted a flocked tree. Since I can't have snow outside, why not inside? So thinking I was so clever I bought the cans of flock so I could do it myself and save money. Well, I coated the thing twice and it just gave it a dusting of white, making it look dead. Oh well, next year I'll just pay for the real thing.

When Mike and I first moved out to Georgia I was pregnant with Braxton. I'd had some complications with kidney stones, so the pregnancy was pretty awful. I was homesick and lonely, because Mike was in school leaving me home alone a lot to ponder on my sad life. :) When December came I was very excited, we had planned to go back to utah to spend Christmas with my family. I was 6 almost 7 months pregnant, but I really needed to go home. A couple of weeks before we were to leave I ended up in the ER with pain, which had started contractions. After tests and xrays they found a very large stone that was blocking my kidney. So that night I was admitted into the hospital and scheduled for surgery the next day, as they were worried I would miscarry or lose the kidney all together. They removed the stone and put in two stints. Now having one stint, without being pregnant, is very uncomfortable, having two and being pregnant is down right miserable. On top of that the Dr let me know, that under no uncertain terms was I to travel anywhere! My life was coming to an end!

Mike drove me home from the hospital and tried to convince me that we'd still have a great Christmas. But there was nothing he could do or say to make me feel better. When we got into our apartment there was this Christmas village that Mike had gotten for me. My mom had one just like it and I'd always wanted one. It was one of the sweetest things Mike has ever done for me.

This is the University of utah tree in our dining room. When I worked at the U, my employer gave me a U of U ornament, since Mike graduated from there I thought it would be cute to do a theme tree. Go Utes! Yeah, I'm really an Aggie.

Family Christmas Card '09

Every year it's a big production to get our Christmas cards done. I like to include a family picture and even with only two kids, it's still hard to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time. Usually I'm doing it with timer, on the camera, so I snap the shot and then run and try to get into place before the timer goes off. This year I made a deal with Nicole, if she would come and take our picture I would do her family picture. We decided to do it at Poole's Mill, which is a river with natural rock slide formations. (In the summer we take the kids there to play in the water and slide down the rocks)

We arrived before the Sampsons so I tried a couple of timed shots. I think next year I'll just have Kristine take them. One if the timed shots
Mike practicing his smile.....

A version of the picture we ended up using

Parker, Spencer, Braxton, Gabby, Max, Hailey and Zach playing on the bridge.

It was really cold! So we did the best we could as fast as we could.

One of the pictures I took of the Sampson's

Always gotta get a picture of the girls.

Christmas Showcase 2009

Every year, before the Christmas break, Hailey's dance and gymnastics classes put on a little showcase so the parents can see what they've been learning. This year Hailey's ballet/tap class is very small, by that I mean, it's pretty much her and her cousin Kira. There is another girl in the class, but she's not there very often. The girls have a great time together, and Hailey looks forward to class every week. I'm not sure if it's because of dancing or because she gets to see Kira.Stretching at the bar The girls did a little "reindeer" number to the Manheim Steamrollers "Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer."
The Elf and the reindeer

Practicing "shuffle-ball-step"

Snowflake fairy

Spreading her joy

The girls picking out their tu-tu's, wings and crowns

Ward Christmas Party

On the way to the "family" ward Christmas party, Mike mentioned to the kids that Santa would be there, so Hailey practiced over and over what she was going to ask for, a "pink 3 muskateer barbie doll". "Yay" I thought, already got it. So she gets on his lap, he asks her what she wants and she say's "a cupcake maker". What?!

He's baaack...........

The Elf is back for another round of reporting the childrens behavior to Santa. There really is something creepy about a little doll sitting there with a stupid grin on his face staring at you, motionless, but the kids love it. He came a couple of days after Thanksgiving, however Hailey and Gabby, touched him (which is a big NO NO), so he went back to the North Pole. The kids were very nervous that he wouldn't return, and they would get nothing for Christmas. They wrote an apology letter asking him to come back. After about a week he did return, however he's now become a mischievous elf. (which is exactly what I didn't want) One morning we woke up to toilet paper all over the house there he was, sitting on the tree, with that grin holding an empty toilet paper roll. Another morning he was hanging from a light fixture holding an empty cereal bag and all of the cereal had been dumped all over the counter. I can't wait until he heads back to the North Pole for good! Hanging out of a hole in the ceiling (a hole that Mike was supposed to fix oh, about two years ago after our washer flooded the laundry room) He got into the Christmas candy and is enjoying a candy cane.

Basketball '09

With the winter season, comes basketball! This has quickly become Braxton's favorite sport, and he's gotten pretty good at it. With the Sampson's living here, he has three boy's to play against. They are constantly out on the driveway playing, giving him good practice. He is actually one of the best on the team. He hasn't made a basket yet, but he is by far the best rebounder. He's not afraid to get in there and get the ball. He's great at passing and dribbling. He get's a lot of praise from his coach, which he loves. Jump ball at the beginning of the game. The boy that Braxton went up against was about a foot taller than him and Braxton still got the ball.
Shooting a basket, it hit the backboard and the side of the rim, barely missing the basket.

Brax the Man!

Graham Cracker Extraviganza 2009

This was the first year we were able to have family here to join in on the tradition of Graham Cracker house making. Now that my sister and family live here we can get together every year! Yay! I'm sure she's excited too. :) The Sampsons were here too, so we had quite a crew, and quite a mess to clean up!

I have taken over the roll of my mom and have become the frosting maker/frosting dispenser filler and Kristine, Uncle Mike and Mike helped the kids build their homes. We had some great houses this year. Now that the kids are getting older they need less help, and it's fun to see what they can come up with.Uncle Mike and Aunt Kristine helping the little ones come up with their structures.Hailey distraught that Uncle Mike made her house too big......this can't be my daughter, the bigger the better! After a tantrum, and a short nap, she was pleased that I made a smaller house for her to decorate.

Braxton's house, before it collapsed. He ended up decorating the one that Uncle Mike had made for Hailey.

With the Sampson's here we have quite a village.

Hailey's house.

Braxton's finished product.

Another one bites the dust.....

Well, we had to make the difficult decision to put our other dog, Skyler to sleep a couple of weeks ago. He'd been really depressed ever since we put Saga to sleep and his health had really gone down hill. We got Ellie, our new puppy, hoping that would help him a little bit, but nothing changed. He was healthy in every way, other than not being able to control his bowels. The Vet had determined he had some type of tumor in his colon. We tried medication to see if that would help, which it did for a while, but eventually he was bad again.

We've all been really sad about it, but we know he is much happier wherever he is. He was a really hard dog, sweet and gentle, but really high mantenance in every other way. I realize that the title of this entry seems pretty insensitive, but it seems fitting considering the fact that we've had to put down two dogs in 3 months time. We know how to have a good time

Utah vs BYU

As Elders Quorum President, Mike has decided to up the # of EQ social events. So he hosted a Y vs U football party. He set up a big screen in the family room for everyone to watch the game. Hailey and Gabby really got into the occasion, not so much the game, but more into looking cute at the party. Mike was a little perplexed that Hailey was in BYU attire, as he's a U grad. But it's all in good fun.

Thanksgiving program

Another November, another preschool Thanksgiving program. The kids did a great job at all of the songs. It took me a while to find Hailey amongst the sea of children.

Hailey was a pilgrim, she is right behind the indian in the middle. It was hard to get pictures of her, everytime I snapped one, the indian in front of her would move and cover her face with his feathers.

Hailey at the "feast".....macaroni, canned beans and chicken nuggets, not much of a feast.
Hailey and Gabby