All aboard!!

This Christmas Season was extremely busy and went by too quickly. We were able to sneak away to Heber City, UT and ride the North Pole Express with my family. It is much like the Polar Express movie. We boarded the train that took us to the North Pole where Santa was waiting for us. While we were making our way north, Santa's little helpers served us cookies and hot chocolate. We sang Christmas songs and enjoyed the lights and deer as we made our way up the canyon. When we finally got to the North Pole, Santa jumped onto the train and visited with each of the kids and asked them what they wanted him to bring them for Christmas. Avery asked for a baby doll and a camera, which Santa did deliver them!

Waiting to climb aboard.

Avery telling Santa her LONG wish list.

Eating our cookies.

Avery sitting with my parents. I took 5 pictures hoping to get a pic with my dad's eyes open. It never happened.

It was fun to be with my family and see the kids excited to meet Santa. Each of them love the Polar Express movie, so each of them thought they were riding on THE polar express train.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...

This is the quote that we heard WAY too many times while we were on our Disney cruise! We went with Jason's family and a blast. Avery loved every minute of it, not to mention Jason and I had a very relaxing time on the beach.

Jason and I went kayaking and snorkeling in Cozumel. I love to kayak in the ocean!


Avery got to see every princess on the boat and got to wear her own princess dress to meet them.



Avery got to enjoy the kids club and play and have story time with Belle. She got to make flubber and got to make cookies with Ratatouille.

On Disney's private island, Castaway Cay, we played on the beach all day and buried Jason and made him into a mermaid. It was an awesome beach there and i could have lived there!

We are being tendered over to Grand Cayman to swim with the dolphins and visit a turtle farm.

Avery was very nervous to hold a turtle but she did and loved it.

We had a pirate night at dinner.

Our bingo group! Karalee and I were addicted to Bingo and lost every time. All of us were only 1 number away from winning the jackpot of $7000.

Bike riding on Castaway Cay. It was one of my favorite things to do. (Whose is the whitey tidey behind Avery?)

Picture at Castaway Cay.

It was a fun trip with Avery and Jason. Loved every minute and loved the people we went with! As Pierre would ask, " How was your vacation on Disney cruise?" I would say, "It was excellent."

Parties, Parties and more parties

The last week of October was super busy at our house. We had 4 parties all in one week. Needless to say , Avery was entertained all week long. They first party was a birthday party for our little princess Avery. Avery turned 4 on October 29th and she had a princess birthday party. It was filled with everything princess! She invited a few of her princess friends to attend her royal ball. When they arrived they handed Avery her present and it was opened before they even got in the door.! Avery was SO excited to have them over to play games, eat cupcakes, and play dolls and dress up. For their games, they played Tiana Kiss the Frog, Cinderella's missing shoe, and Sleeping Beauty Slays the Dragon (it was a pinata that looked like a dragon thay they had to slay to get to the candy). They had a lot of fun and played dolls and dress up most of the party.

These are her little princess friends: Payton, Drama Queen Avery, and Taylee.
(noticed Avery has already changed from her princess dress into pajamas that Payton gave her.)

After her party was done, the very next day was Payton birthday party. Payton and Avery are only 2 days apart. Payton is the daughter of Kimmer, who is one of my best buds in the world! She had a bowling party and Avery loved bowling and partying it up with Payton.

Then it was onto to Halloween. This year we had two families parties that were really a lot of fun. It was the first year that Jason and I dressed up and we think it will be tradition for the whole family to dress up. Avery loved watching us get into our costumes. This year Jason was the best Joe Dirt and I was the evil Cruella De Vil. And what else would Avery be. Princess Aurora with her blond hair.

Cruella, Mario and Luigi, Wicked Witch of the West, clowns,

Princess Aurora, the lion, and Spider man

Avery hitting the witch pinata with Joe Dirt in the background.

Shauna from the 70s, witch, monster, Joe Dirt, Cruella, and 2 slightly overweight vacationers

Cruella De Vil with the love of her life, Joe Dirt.

It was a fun Halloween!

Adoption Awareness Month

It has been 2 years since we started the process of adoption. It has been an emotional and hard 2 years to endure. I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of our struggles and there will come a blessing of another baby if we will just be patient! November is Adoption Awareness month and we hope that everyone still remembers our desire to adopt a baby.

Once again, family pictures

It is that time of year again! We had family pictures and I can't believe how much Avery has changed in one year. I love to have pictures taken just to see the change in her. She growing up way too fast! Isn't her red hair gorgeous?!!

Well, since I turned the BIG 30 this year, I told myself that I was going to run in our local marathon BUT I didn't run A marathon. I would have been dead on the side of the road if I had done that! HOwever, my sister in law, Jackie and I decided that we would shoot for a 5K. It turned out to be really fun. We met up with a friend in our ward and off we went! At the finish line, my mom was there to hand out our medals. It turned out to be really fun and I was very pleased with my time (29:15)!

It was so much fun that Jason felt left out so we ran in a city fun run today and the course ended up being a little bit harder than the previous race. I just knew that my time wouldn't be as good but in the end, I did better than expected(28:19). Jason also did really well. He placed 3rd in his age group and ran right around 24:00 minutes. It was really fun to run with Jase even though he left me in the dust. He ended up being my cheerleader at the finish line. All in all, it was fun running in a couple of races and fun to run with Jase. Who knows, next year I might get ambitious and run the 10K.

Summer Fun

Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to this summer. It is going by so fast that before you know it the leaves will be falling.

Most of our days have been spent with neighbors, watching our kids play. Avery has been playing every day with her friends and loving every minute. She has a few friends that she loves to be with. They love to play house, have tea parties, and ride their scooters.

Avery also took dance with summer with another best friend, Payton. They were in the Chubbuck Day parade with their dance group, Danceology. Avery had a blast throwing candy and dancing! She definitely likes dance a lot more than soccer. I think she is going to be a girly girl!

We also had a family reunion in West Piney with Jason's extended family. I was really horrible about taking pictures but I did get this one of the family wearing our fancy bandanas, which were totally ugly! We had fun going white water rafting and hanging out with family.

The Freedom To...

Happy 4th of July family and friends! I hope you have had time to reflect on our privileges of living in this great country and what freedom means to you. I am so thankful to all the men and women of the past and of today who sacrifice for our freedom, especially our freedom to worship our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Our country was founded on freedom to worship as we please. I am so blessed to live in this country!

My Niece

This is my newest niece: Katelin Sydnie. My sister was nice enough to let me borrow her to practice photography. And thanks Karalee for helping me!

Happy 30th Birthday Jase!!!

Singing Happy Birthday to him. He is totally embarrassed!

He is such a weirdo!

Jason turned the big 30 on May 31st! And to his utter surprise I threw a surprise birthday party for him. It was stressful keeping it a secret for so long and having Avery keep it a secret also. From the invitations to the way we got him there, everything had to be planned perfectly. We had dinner with our whole family at a local pizza restaurant. It was a lot of fun and it surprised Jason. I had to do something big for him. He also got a new mountain bike to go with his new helmet. Hope you had a super duper birthday Jason, WE LOVE YOU BEYOND MEASURE!!!

Kick the Ball, Avery!

Avery has been pretty busy lately. She graduated from Pumpkin Patch Preschool. So, with that came a field trip to the Pocatello Zoo (not exciting whatsoever) and her graduation program. She was so cute at her graduation by saying the Pledge of Allegiance, introducing herself, and singing the songs she had learned. I would put the video online but I cannot get the videos to work. Sorry!

She played soccer this spring, which turned out to be VERY cold and almost miserable! But she endured to the end and was really starting to play. They don't have any strategy, they just get out on the field and run around. Once and awhile both teams would end up on the next field playing with the other two teams. It was quite comical. I think Avery just liked to run around with Luke and Aiden and really enjoyed the treats afterwards (Remember those days when you couldn't wait for the snack after the game? It brought back memories for me).

She thought the sunglasses made her run faster and play better!

Here are some other cute pictures of my little princess that I absolutely adore!

If anyone really knows Avery, you know that she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES pajamas. So anytime that she can wear them, it's off with her clothes and into her PJs and snuggling in with ther yellow blanket. Gotta love her and the PJs.

I have this obsession with taking pictures of Avery's hands and feet. I guess I never want to forget the size and they always remind me of the innocence of a child. I love them because they are perfect to me!