It's our Christmas miracle

Life is wonderful. 6 months ago, I never would have guessed we would be here living in Omaha, in our own home, yet here we are. What an interesting time these last 4 months have been. There we were in Cedar City just thinking we would be going to SUU one last year when BAMB "you've been accepted to Creighton, can you be here the day after tomorrow? OK. Once we got here, we KNEW we had to find a way to get into Village Green. Not only because it would be so much cheaper than paying rent out here, but for my SANITY we needed to be here. It didn't seem possible but wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles here we are thanks to so much work from my Dad. I don't think I will ever be able to thank you enough mom and dad for all the time and paperwork that went into this being possible. Living here has made the biggest difference and to know that I will not have to move again for another 4 years is HEAVEN. I feel like I can let myself feel home now. I can unpack those boxes that have been packed since I left Cedar. When Ammon and I were unpacking, he asked me if I wanted to save the boxes "NO!!! I WANT THEM OUT!" I'm so glad I could say that and not try to save up boxes to pack our stuff in later. ahhhh that is a nice feeling.

The day we got the keys to our new home.

I can't wait to plant these flower beds come spring. And yes I can finally paint. In fact I have been painting today. I will post pictures of our new home room by room as I re-do them. My first re-do pictures will be up this week. I am in Heaven

Our first meal in our new home. We slept there the day we got the keys. We didn't have beds or anything, we just camped out together by our Christmas tree in the living room. Yes the Christmas tree was the first thing we moved over. Moving might be crazy but I wanted our kids to be able to enjoy Christmas still and make Christmas memories. We started moving the Monday before Christmas and amazingly enough, by the time Christmas came, we were pretty settled in. Our first meal in our new home. We slept there the day we got the keys. We didn't have beds or anything, we just camped out together by our Christmas tree in the living room. Yes the Christmas tree was the first thing we moved over. Moving might be crazy but I wanted our kids to be able to enjoy Christmas still and make Christmas memories. We started moving the Monday before Christmas and amazingly enough, by the time Christmas came, we were pretty settled in.

Did I mention that I LOVE being in a place I can call home? cause I sure do

Christmas Eve part II

"I'm dreaming tonight of a place I love, even more than I usually do" Well even though we couldn't be "Home for Christmas" we were in our own home for Christmas and it made such a difference. I can't tell you how nice it is to finally feel like we are home. Our new home is so nice and cozy. I feel more at home after 1 week then I ever did in our last 2 places we were living. Since we could not be with our family, I'm so glad we got our Christmas wish to be in a home.

(side note about the fireplace in the picture. Today I called to switch our homeowners insurance to our new place and they were asking questions about our home and they asked if we had a free standing fire place. Do you think they would could our cardboard/fall leaves fireplace? :)

Christmas Eve was wonderful. After our own family dinner, we went over to our friends house for a Christmas party for a bunch of us who stayed here for Christmas. It was so cute. Yummy food, great company and fun memories. They read "Twas the night before Christmas" to all the kids and then there we saw some Reindeer antlers going past the window. We missed seeing Santa Clause but we could tell he had been there because there was "reindeer poop" (Hershey kisses) out in the snow and Santa had dropped his cap as he flew by. EXCITED KIDS GALORE

Did you know that sometimes Santa goes Yard Selling? Yep, he does, and he probably finds GREAT DEALs on Christmas gifts.

Christmas was wonderful and the kids had a lot of fun opening the presents....sometimes they didn't really notice that there was actually stuff inside the presents though....I think they just like the sound of the ripping paper. One of my favorite lines Christmas morning. After Addie unwrapped a gift, there was an unmarked box, she said "Oh, it's just a box. Oh well, no matter. I like boxes too" She is easy to please. All she wanted from Santa was a bathrobe. When I would ask Kimball what he wanted from Santa, he would just say a present and Avonlea was super happy with her new toothbrush, and everything else that she got that she also uses as a toothbrush. Who can blame her though. She has a lot of teeth now to take care of.

Christmas Eve part I

Well the hills here in Omaha may not be fun to drive on, especially in the winter time but they make for great sledding. We were able to go sledding right out our front door and it was so fun. Christmas Eve was a little bit more moving and then we decided to have some fun.

poor Avonlea had to wear Kimballs old snowsuit. I thought having a girl before, I would be covered clothes wise but I didn't really account for the different Seasonal ages. Oh well, at least she had a cute pink hat. She was really interested in the snow and enjoyed sledding down the hill with mommy.

I love this picture.

Before church pictures

Last Sunday I decided to snap some pictures of the kids since I was running ahead....well I was running ahead until I snapped the pictures, then I was running behind. Dang

2 Thanksgivings...what could be better?

Someone call Jenny Craig because we are going to need it. After Thanksgiving #1 + the pie fest, we headed to Mesquite to do a second Thanksgiving with Ammons family. All of Ammons brothers and sisters were having Thanksgiving in Mesquite on Friday and so we were able to all be together as a family. That has only happened a few times since we have been married so it is such a treat.

It was so good to see and visit with everyone. There were a lot of laughs and good times and more good food. Addie and Kimball got to go stay with grandma a night by themselves and have so much fun. They love it when someone doesn't say no to them :-)

What a WONDERFUL trip it was to see so much family and make so many memories. We are truly blessed with good family and friends

Happy Thanksgiving

Although its a shame, there's no way to beat it. 3 days to prepare and 30 minutes to eat it.
So true so true. But boy the food was SO good! The food alone was worth the drive but the company was even better.

For the last few years, we have had the dinner in our garage but we thought it would be way to cold this year so we settled in downstairs nice and tight.

After dinner, the kids put on a show, all by themselves. They came up with the idea, the wardrobe, the script, everything.

I was only able to capture a small part of the play but I think we should start a theater :-)

Ending with the pie fest yummmmmy
16 pies this year

Turkey Bowl

Thanksgiving morning was -8 with a windchill of -22 (COOOOOLD!!!) but come rain, come shine, come snow, come sleat, the turkey bowl cannot be stopped.

The guys played a great game and although I don't know anything that went on....Are you kidding, I'm not crazy enough to go out in that weather....okay maybe for just a minute to take a couple pictures and cheer on my man.

Ammons #1 fan wanted to go cheer on his daddy...he didn't care that it was freezing cold and he was still in his jammies. Go team go

What a great surprise

I love surprises and I love seeing family. This Thanksgiving we decided to do both. We had planned on just staying here because we thought we would spend 4 days driving and 2 days there but things worked out that we could be there for a whole week so we decided to give ourselves an early Christmas present and go surprise family. We woke up at 2 in the morning and drove it in one straight shot. Boy were our bums tired of sitting in our seats. We first went to my sister Paiges. I was on the phone with her when we knocked on the door. She asked me to hold on while she answered the door and then opened the door and there we were. We got to join them in decorating their Christmas tree and having eggnog. The kids were so happy to be back with their cousins. Next we went to Valeries. I know she is going to hate me for putting this picture on here but I LOVE this picture and the look of total SHOCK on her face. I was on the phone with her too...asking for a recipie and then we walked into the room. I was so excited to surprise Valerie and meet my new little neice Eliza that was born 3 days after we left. Valerie has been living in Chicago for the last 8 or so years and then last year she moved out to Utah and we were so excited to live closer to each other and then we ended up leaving the state. It was really hard to leave especially knowing I was going to miss Eliza being born withing hours or days.

We were able to go visit my brother Denny and his family and some of our good friends in the Salt Lake area. Then we went to my brother Kyles house. It was late at night and dark (obviously) we put our hoods on and draped blankets over the kids. When they answere the door, we said "we are but poor lost circus performers, is there a village nearby?" Luckily they let us stay with them.

The next day we drove down to Parowan and Michelle and my mom were in the kitchen cooking dinner. We casually walked in and asked what was for dinner. It took them a second to realize that we weren't supposed to be there. I wish I could have snapped a picture of each surprise because that was so fun to see the looks on their faces. ahhhh family.

So my family has a tradition of doing a pig dinner the night before Thanksgiving where you eat spagetti our of troughs and you can't use your hands. I love this tradition and I'm so glad we were there for it this year.

Since this is my blog I usually just post piggy pictures of everyone else. Let's face it, pictures with your face covered and food hanging out of your mouth are not the most flatering. However, this year I thought I would be fair and get an piggy picture of me floating out there on the web...there goes my political career, and I had such high hopes too.

Really lovely huh, especially with the salad on my forhead. Anyone hungry?
Kimball didn't care to much about our pig dinner. He just wanted to eat his food.

Addie got into it this year with her cousins and it was fun to watch her.

Gobble Gobble...Meet Mr. Tom T. Turkey

Growing up, every night before family prayer, we would have "favorite experiences" where each person had to tell what their favorite part of that day was. This helped us to think about the good things in our life and often "family prayer" would last over an hour because we would start talking about the things and laughing and it really helped us all know what was going on in each others lives. Ammon and I have continued on with this tradition and I love it. Last year, Ammon and I started a little change for the month of November. Instead of doing favorite experiences, we do thankful feathers.
Meet Thomas T. (for Thankful) Turkey. You will have to pardon his nakedness...how embarrassing to be found with out your feathers. I guess we will have to fix that.

Ahhh...that is much better. This picture was taken a few days ago. He has an even bigger tail now and by the time Thanksgiving comes, he will be one beautiful bird.


Addie and Kimball helped me trace and cut out all the feathers and make our little gobbler. Each night before prayer, we say something we are grateful for and we can't have any repeats. There are many many things to be thankful for and this is just one way to be reminded of them.

I love this tradition
Happy Thanksgiving everyone

Facebook profile pictures..you choose

Ammon and I were having a little fun and now need your help. Which is YOUR favorite? Vote now!
Mega Mind

Jabba the Hut Jack Sprat

Bubba Beauford

Nosy Nancy

Roxanne

Oh Henry

Double Drats

Bagmortah

Stummped

Nanny McPhee

UFC fighter