It's Christmas Time!

The reason for the season. I love my nativity. It is so fun to have our home decorated for the Holidays. I'm sure you all feel the same way. We are of course really looking forward to spending our Christmas with family and friends in Utah. We will see you all when we are there on Dec. 21st. Merry Christmas!

The stockings in the back ground were knitted by my awsome mom while she was on her mission. They are just like the stockings we had as children. It is fun to have them personalized.

Here is the tree. (And Syd of course!)

Emily plays the flute in her middle school band. The band here is HUGE! She is really good at it and it is fun to see and hear them play together.

We had to wrap Hailee's cast in bubble wrap so that she could play in her soccer tournament. Her team came in second place. They played a really hard team and lost 1-0. Despite the cast, Hailee was really aggressive and played well.

I took the girls to the Dallas Galaria mall over Thanksgiving break. We found these awsome massage chairs at Brookestone. I couldn't get the girls to get out!

The big green monster is gone! It is nice to have the cast off but she still can't straighten her arm out all the way.

Fun fall stuff!

I was able to go on a field trip with Sydni's preschool class to a pumpkin patch. They had a great time feeding the goats and cows, going on a hay ride and choosing a pumpkin. I think Sydni's favorite part was riding on the school bus. She was so amazed that the bus has "nails in the roof." Next time you are on a school bus you will know what she means.

Here is the Pumpkin that

Sydni picked on her

field trip to the pumpkin

patch. We always have

fun carving the pumpkins

before Halloween.

As you can see,

the girls are crazy!

Here are our trick-or -treaters! Emily actually went to

a party with her friends and the went trick-or-treating together. The girls had a great time and, we have far too much candy.

Do you remember that awsome backhandspring that Hailee can do? Well, she broke her arm at tumbling last tuesday night doing it!
It only took us a week to figure it out! I took her to the doctor last wednesday after school and they thought that it was only a sprain. It was still bothering her a week later and the Orthepedic doctor told us that she has a buckle break. The cast can be her new weapon in her soccer tournament this weekend.

Poor Hailee!

Our busy week

We did our usual Sunday at the park. The weather is finally beautiful and not too hot so we try to ride our bikes to the park each week. Emily and I bribed Hailee with $10.00 if she would do her roundoff back handspring on the grass. (she is used to doing it at the gym with mats.) We were so excited to see her do it. Hopefully this experience gave her more self confidence. If so, it was worth $10.00. We also fed the ducks and just messed around. I love times like this when there is no pressure or meetings to go to.

Hailee is a budding photographer. She took this picture of Me and Blake and did pretty good.

I thought the goose would chase the girls away but to my surprise, it didn't . The girls were acting like they have never done this before. I'll admit, it has been a while since we have been to Barnes park to feed the ducks, but, it wasn't the first time.

Blake brought home the new Indiana Jones movie for the family to watch together. As you can imagine, it was too scary for Sydni. We put a movie on for her in our room to watch. After we were finished watching Indiana Jones, this is where we found Sydni. It was so cute but kind of sad too.

Blake and I made the trek down to Fort Worth for the BYU game. It was most definately a sad night for Blake. He was not happy about the game as I'm sure many of you felt the same way.

I had to show you that Provo is not the only place to find CRAZY BYU fans. The guy with the painted helmet head was priceless

Notice Blake's happy smiling face! He told me to remind him to NEVER do that again! There were a lot of BYU fans there.

Conference Weekend

I love conference weeked for many reasons. I think this is the first year that all of my girls listened and tried to pay attention. Who ever invented the "conference packet" is a genius! My kids had fun answering questions from the packet and playing the games. This picture of them is really what they were doing, I didn't have them pose for this.

It was really nice to be able to sit and listen as a family to our prophet and apostles. We had a great time and we look forward to April when we can do it again.

Showing Off!!

Blake likes to go out back on the trampoline about once a week to see if he still has it. When this happens, all of the girls have to go out and show us their "tricks." Obviously, Blake can still do his back flip. He thinks it is funny that " a fat and out of shape man can still do it!"

Hailee has been in tumbling since our days in Utah with Jill. She finally got her round off back-handspring. We are so excited that she got over her mental block and can now move on. She is also playing soccer and is on an awesome team. She is a good defender. Hailee also started piano two weeks ago. Emily is still taking piano lessons and is in the school band. She plays the flute. Emily is in middle school and LOVES the social life. She has some great friends. She is also in young women now and can't be more excited. It is fun to have a daughter in there with me. Sydni takes dance and wants to be a prima ballerina right now. I told her that she has to start at the beginning like everybody else and then work up. She wasn't too happy about that. She does love ballet. We'll see if she sticks with it. And, as I said before, she is in pre school. I can't believe that she will be in all day kindergarten next year. Time has really flown by.

I am staying really busy with my church calling, the PTA and being a mom. Some of the things that I love to do have gone to the back burner like running, swimming etc. I try to fit it in when I can but right now it is few and far between. I will do better this week. (I always say that) Good thing for Sundays and being able to start over every seven days!

Sunday at the park

We have a neighborhod park by our house so we rode our bikes over there. After yesterday's storm (Hurricane Ike) we needed to get out of the house. It really did not hit us hard like it did in Houston. We only saw some wind about 20 mph and some rain. I am grateful for the rain. It has really helped to cool it down here. We are now in the 80's. It sure doesn't feel like football weather here. But, let me assure you that I know it is football season every saturday. Thank heavens BYU keeps winning. ( I think you all know what I mean).

Life in Texas

Megan asked me to post some pictures of our home in Texas so, these are for you....

Now you can visualize where we live when you think of us.

This is obviously the front of our house.

Try not to be jealous of our GIANT back yard. It only takes 10 minutes to mow!

The only rooms that I have painted and tried to decorate are Emily's room and Hailee and Syd's room.

Trying to stay connected

Hi Ya'll! This is my attempt at staying connected to my great family and friends. This has taken me a long time to figure out. Luckily I have a great husband who helped me. I hope you will enjoy taking a small peek into our lives. Thanks for indulging me.

Summer Fun

We had a great summer. We were able to go to California with Blake's family and do Disneyland, an Angels baseball game, San Diego, the beach and a lot of playing with cousins. We then went to Utah for two weeks and had more fun with my family. We hated leaving all of our family to come home to Texas but at least we can always go back.

Sydni LOVES preschool!

Sydni started preschool. She loves it! That is saying a lot for her. We tried last year and it did not go over too well. I think being a year older has really helped.