Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was wonderful. Because Brian's schedule is wacky he doesn't get to spend many holidays with Family unless the family is willing to come out here. Well, this year they did. We had My Dad, my three sisters Sariah, Lizzie and Becca and Sariah's fiancee Brian all here for Thanksgiving. Sam and Jenn couldn't make it. Their new baby was a little too young to be making the 4 hour drive, plus they were just getting him on a schedule. We missed you Sam and Jenn!

The weekend started for me on Tuesday when I got to go into Phoenix to pick up Dad from the airport, we then did all of our shopping, and drove the hour and a half back to Salome. On Wednesday we hung out...Dad did some work, I did some cleaning and the girls played. Wednesday night I drove back into Glendale to go see Coldplay in concert with the three girls! It was amazing! We were all crazy excited! After the concert we went to get road munchies and didn't end up on the road until midnight. I took the two younger girls with me while Sariah traveled back to Tucson for a Thanksgiving with her soon to be in-laws. It had been raining earlier in the day and a lot of the roads into Salome were flooded, we ended up taking a detour that added almost an hour to our drive time. We made it home around 2:20am.

Thanksgiving Day was fun, we made a Ham, rolls from scratch, mashed potatoes from scratch, yams, green bean casserole, and of course pie. Sariah and Brian came up on Friday and we had 2nd Thanksgiving with a Turkey, leftovers from the day before with the addition of cranberry sauce and gravy. Two wonderful days! Saturday we went out shooting (a must if you know Brian at all) and then all our company left. It was wonderful to have them here.

I am Thankful for:

My wonderful Husband who supports us,
My beautiful daughters who brighten my life,
The home we live in,
The Gospel that leads us,
And the many many blessings we have received in our lives!

Finally

Well, lot's has happened since my last posting. It's been over two months! Wow, I am horrible! Well, Let's fill in that gap. In October Brian, Devyn, Kori and I went on a cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico. It was amazing and beautiful! We got tons of pictures and so many things to do! While we were on the ship we celebrated Kori's second birthday. She is so big and cute! We took the girls on a glass bottom boat tour and they got to feed the fish. We took them sight seeing in Ensenada, and they got to go trick or treating on the boat! We didn't bring their costumes so we had to improvise. It was really fun. I would highly suggest a cruise to anyone! Here are some pictures.

Lizzie's Visit

On Lizzie's way down to Tucson she stopped by our house and stayed for a few days. Here are some pictures from her visit.

While Liz was here we went to a football game for the local high school. I think Liz got more than she bargained for in watching the girls ;)

Harquahala Peak Observatory

About an hours drive from Salome is a 10 mile four-wheel drive trail that leads to an observatory built in 1920. It was used to measure the sun's intensity and affect on the weather. The observatory was abandoned in 1925 in favor of a better spot located in California. The observatory has since been restored and now there is a scenic byway created by the State that keeps it alive. Brian and I heard about it shortly after moving here and have been anxious to check it out so, Monday we made a trek up there.

Devyn's Birthday

Devyn's birthday was an interesting one this year. For starters it fell on Tuesday and Brian had to work that night, so I made her pan'cake's for breakfast and let her blow out the candles on those. I had planned on filling her special day with things she loved to do, going to the library, getting the mail and playing at the park, but instead I had to drive an hour to our Dr's office to get a perscription for a UTI. I felt so bad. But to make it all better on Wednesday we went to Chuck E. Cheeses. She was so amazingly excited! It was fun to see her actually comprehend what was going on. She loved seeing Chuck E. come out and she was so happy to get all her presents. All in all I think it was a very memorable party for her.

One of the presents Devyn got at her party was a Tinkerbell dress. She was so excited she started undressing on the spot! She put it on and left it on the rest of the night, but I think the best part of the story is this. In the toddler section are the rides you can find outside of grocery stores that you put a quarter in and you get a 30 second ride, these were Devyn's favorites, so she would run up to her grandma get a token, choose wich ride she wanted and buckle herself in. Well, at one point she got her dress tangled in the buckle and couldn't get out. She called for help and Brian's sister Cassey went over to see what was wrong and Devyn exclaimed "I have to go potty, and I don't want to go on my new dress!" So after going to the bathroom Devyn turned to Cassey and said "Thank you aunt Cassey I didn't want to get my new dress all wet."

My my my, It has been a while

Well, in recent news we have moved into our new house! We originally had the girls in the bigger of our two bedrooms but have recently discovered that it is harder to keep cool so, we recently moved them into the smaller room and they seem to be doing just fine. Now we have more room for our guests to sleep ;)

Devyn's Face

Does anyone remember the first time they got a cold sore? Devyn has recently gotten a rash of facial blemishes that I can only describe as cold sores. She has 4 that have broken out and a few more smaller ones that haven't formed sores yet, those just look like pimples. I was doing some research online and one site said that the first outbreak is the worst and from there on out if it happens again it's smaller. Can anyone back that up?

Just dreaming

So, Brian found this really cool computer program that has all kinds of templates on it...some of the templates were for floor plans so, I got a little creative and created our dream house! Here is a picture of it. It's three stories. The main floor is first, then the 2nd story and then the daylight basement...let me know what you think!

Swimming

Here are some more pictures from Tucson. These were taken at the pool near the Zoo. It's really neat because it has a canopy that covers the pool but makes it a little cooler.

Zoo trip

While in Tucson Dad, Tom, Becky, Paul, Devyn, Kori, and I got to go to the zoo. We had loads of fun and I got a bunch of cute pictures. Here are some of them.

Tucson Trip

So, I finally got a chance to go home and visit beautiful Tucson. I wanted to visit before Tom and Becky moved and I had a wonderful time seeing everyone.

Tom and Becky were kind enough to open their home to me and the girls (thank you guys!) which I understand was a feat simply because they are trying to show the house so it has to look unlived in at all times.

We had to stay a night longer than intended too because we had a little accident. While having our final family get together, the typical fried chicken at the park, all the grandkids were playing on and around the jungle gym. Kori found a bubble wand and proceded to place it in her mouth, so horrible Mommy took it away. Kori didn't like that and proceded to throw her self on the ground while Mommy threw the wand away. While on my way to the trash can I heard the sound of her cries change. I looked back to see her standing and swatting at her legs. I ran over and sure enough poor little Kori was covered in small fire ants. After Becky saved the day with some Benadryl Kori's leg looked less like a swollen red mass and you could actually see all the bite marks. I counted them a few days later and came to 180 before Kori wiggled away. But after all that she was still playing and having a good time with the other kids.

Here is a shot of Kori's leg on Saturday (left) after the incident.

The bites look a little better on Sunday (right) but they have little white heads on them.

Our new car!

So after four wonderful years of marriage Brian and I are on our fourth vehicle. Our first one was free, thanks to some connections on Becky's part. It was a white '83 Jeep Cherokee. Brian and I loved that Jeep but near the end it started really falling apart. Then we purchased our Toyota 4-runner (pictured here). Brian calls her Baby, because that's what she is. He has big dreams for Baby still, right now she has a lot of engine work to be done and he wants a lift and new exhaust...lot's of stuff to make her rock-crawler worthy. Well, Baby was only a 2-door and it was really hard getting Devyn in and out. After I got pregnant again we decided it was time to get an upgrade. We found a beautiful blue '98 Jeep Cherokee. You'd think we like Jeep's or something. So we had Jeep # 2 for almost two years when we decided to try for another baby. If we did get pregnant we would have no more room for Shar our boxer-beagle mix. We had been talking about upgrading to a bigger vehicle for awhile because ours fit us perfectly with no room for growth. So, we got rid of our mortgage payment and traded in Jeep #2 for our Pathfinder which Devyn lovingly calls Tiny. We intend to have it payed off in three years. As of now we are one third towards our goal having just paid off two of our 4 credit cards. YAY! The wonderful feeling of paying off Debt.