Our Christmas

We had such a great Christmas this year!! We were lucky enough to be at the cabin for a whole week and spent all of it surrounded by family and fun!! And we even got some snow on Christmas eve. We feel so blessed!

This horse was Caroline's big gift for her first Christmas, she loves to ride around on it, I think she would have been happy with just the wrapping from everyones presents though.


She was so happy to be with uncle Jared on Christmas morning.

Christmas eve snow

So cold

Doing the nativity on Christmas eve


The Christmas tree and all the presents on Christmas eve

My brother Gordon cutting down our Christmas tree, side note, we planted these trees a couple of years ago with my dad to have around the cabin, so it was really fun and special to all of us to have one big enough to cut down to use for our Christmas tree this year, miss you dad!!

me and my baby girl watching the tree cutting

Tis the Season...

To be Jolly....we are so excited for Christmas this year and cannot believe the holiday season is coming and going by so quickly already. Here is a picture of our little family taken a few Sundays ago for the bulletin board at our new ward, not the best picture, but I do love Caroline and her cute Christmas outfit, especially the hat.

Here is a picture of Caroline and her cuteness after church, she was so tired she stayed asleep on my shoulder, I didn't want to put her down, she is rarely this cuddly anymore, so I had Brett take a picture for me.


Caroline's aunt sent us this cute Christmas outfit, she loved the santa hat, she actually kept it on her head all day long. She is just starting to stand on her own without holding onto anything, but only for a few minutes at a time and sometimes she will take a step or two, nothing on a regular basis though which we are okay with, we don't want our little girl growing up any faster than she already is.

Me and my love

Caroline and her cousin Ellie have cute matching Christmas PJs, I tried getting a few pictures of them together, but never got them both looking at the camera.

Fall Festivities

Caroline's first Halloween!! We had tons of fun this year, Caroline was a pink unicorn, she looked so adorable and it kept her warm all night, it was perfect.

A family portrait

me and my girl

dad and Caroline

Fall has brought Texas tons of rain this year, so on one of the rare occasions it was sunny we headed outside to the Dallas Arboretum with my sister Emily and some of her kids. It was beautiful and tons of fun. This picture was an attempt at a group shot....

Caroline and her cousin Rebekah, best friends in the making :-)

Here are a few shots of the latest storm we had here, Brett and my sister in law Jennifer had to run into the rain to dig some trenches in the yard to prevent the rain from flooding the house last week.... in a matter of 20 minutes the whole storm had come and gone, guess we really are back in Texas now!

Fun with Dad

In spite of being sick lately and the craziness that comes with moving and starting a new job, we have still been able to find time for some fun with our dad! Caroline loves to play with her dad and his hats!!

Here is Caroline trying on Brett's boots...

Graduation and the Move

We are so proud of our dad and husband for graduating!! Brett worked so hard, not only did he go to school 7-4:15 Monday-Friday, plus a few Saturdays, but he worked an afterschool job to support our family, we couldn't have asked for a better dad and husband, we feel so lucky!! Also, all Brett's studying and hard work paid off, he was one of the few students awarded Wyotech's highest honor, the outstanding student award. We love you so much Brett!! Congrats again to our graduate!!

Now for the moving story, we took off the very next day after graduation, which we were only able to successfully due thanks to Brett's parents for all the help in packing and cleaning, we decided to leave so soon because we wanted to make our drive into a few day journey seeing as how neither Caroline nor Elliot are good travelers and we had such a huge load to haul. Our first bump in the road actually happened before we even hit the road, Brett drove the moving truck with the trailer which was suppose to have Brett's truck attached to it, while I was going to drive our car with baby and cat with me, well, the trailer (that was suppose to be able to fit a full size 4WD drive long bed truck) we got wasn't long enough for our truck to fit on, so we had to make a little change of plans, I was now driving Brett's truck, alone, because it has no air conditioning, therefore I would have the windows down the whole way, which would not be fun for Caroline or Elliot, and Brett now had 2 new passengers in the moving van with him....and that is how day one began. Day 2 was suppose to be a 6 hour drive from Denver to Kansas, but turned out that it took us 10 hours. After a long haul of gas, meal, and rest stops, with plenty of driving, we finally made it to our hotel, long after we had planned!! The rest of our journey was not much different, lets just say we were glad to finally arrive in Texas!!

So proud!!

Brett with his awards and diploma

So long, farewell....

Dear Laramie-
Despite your really high winds and the fact that it rained almost every day for the whole summer- literally!! I think you will actually be missed :-) We enjoyed being able to spend time outdoors in the summer, hiking and taking Caroline on her first camping experience, and being able to wear a long sleeve t-shirt during the summer, seeing stars at night and seeing antelope everywhere was fun too- it was a little weird that no one has air conditioning, but we did our best to cope, and even weirder, one Sunday we saw our bishop and his family out on a walk with their pet sheep (that otta tell you how country Laramie is). Our nine months was short, but we had a good adventure all the same, best of all our sweet daughter Caroline was brought into our family there, so thanks Laramie for the experience, we won't forget you.

Here we are in front of our apartment in Laramie

Employment

Yes, we are moving back to Texas. I have found an automotive technician job in Garland, TX (east side of Dallas) to work for:We are excited to get back to Texas, be done with school and finally have a real job. We should be back in Texas in just a couple of weeks.

PS: Even though Caroline loves being with her mama, she still knows what is important as she supports her dad in a game of Madden football.