DECEMBER thus far....

Lindsey's Birthday!!!!!!!!!! Our cute little LIN-LIN turned 14 on December 8th! How can that be!? I cannot believe it! She is just the sweetest, kindest, most helpful daughter anyone could ask for! We love her so much! I think she had a fun day, even though she had to go to school, she got some cool gifts, a made to order birthday dinner, a cake and then got to go to YW! Now that she's 14 she gets to go to church dances and youth conference and EFY this summer! WOOT! WOOT! We love our Lindsey Ann!! :)

TRIMMING THE TREE

Lindsey and Katie had their Christmas Orchestra concert together this year! It was great! They sounded awesome. I couldn't get a good close up of Lindsey so this is her from far away..

Katie is looking quite pensive in this one with her CELLOOOO!! :)

Here is the newest string quartet in the ward!! Yipee! After lots of practice and coaching by Dave this string quartet came together quite nicely, I must say! Dakota, Jacob, Lindsey, Katie and Cassidy did a wonderful job! We just loved their Christmas medley!

Ellie and her BFF Cheyenne with Santa! SO CUTE!!

A nice lunch out with Grandpa!

Stuff we have been doing: Christmas parties, parent teacher conferences, orchestra concerts, finished up tennis lessons til March, piano recital party, Lindsey played a piano piece in sacrament,we went to a Christmas fireside, Lindsey and Katie played in a string quartet for the ward party, Ellie got to see Santa, we trimmed our tree, a few trips to the dentist and doctor, decked the halls, shopped, wrapped, delivered,Ellie sang with the primary, went to the live Nativity, went out to lunch with Grandpa and Dave worked, worked, worked! We are looking forward to Christmas this weekend~ especially our PHONE CALL FROM MATT! We get to SKYPE!! WEEEEEHAWWW! We are so happy! Can't wait!!!!!!!

PICTURES FROM OUR MISSIONARY!

I love my little boy.

I miss him.

He is LOVING his mission!

We are so happy for him!

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

Okay, Okay, I know it's not Christmas yet... but I LOVE the whole Holiday Season... All of fall basically clear through to New Years. This year I especially feel all warm and fuzzy about the Holidays. . . We had such an incredible Thanksgiving weekend. We stayed home, no company, just US. It was grand! Honestly, it was so great! We relaxed so much and got to know each other again! No hustle and bustle of day to day life. Just spending time together, baking, cooking, eating, watching DVDs, playing board games, going to the movies, going shopping, going shooting, playing instruments, working on projects... IT WAS GREAT! :)

Some new family pics- Thank you Emily!!

Here's a sneak peak of a few of the pictures Emily took for us....We had these pictures taken the day before Matt's farewell and just got them back~ we are SO excited to have them!! It had been 3 years since our last pictures!! :) THANK YOU EM!

and p.s. Yeah, they made us miss Matt!!!

COLORADO

Last weekend was braces weekend... We love these weekends. Not only do our kids get FREE BRACES (incredible, I know!) but we get to hang out with lots of our favorite peeps! We got some great news too- Lindsey and Katie will probably get their braces off this summer and Ellie got started this time with an expander! yea!

We got to talk, eat, talk, do P90X (I'm still feelin it), go shopping, talk, eat, and just RELAX in each other's company!! :) Amber and that DARLING little Sydney, Deb, Cheri, Cosi, Mark, Brynne, Tom,Max, Josh, Maddie, Ellie, Allie, Cosi Jr, Lindsey, Katie, Zach, Dave and I!! What fun!!

Who wouldn't love to spend a relaxing long weekend here? Right!?!?

It was great! THANKS AGAIN CRANES!

5 day weekend!!

We had a FIVE day weekend this past week due to Nevada Day and Staff Development days! It has been wonderful! I had work off too (yea!) so... we had ourselves some fun! We played tennis on Friday (even Dave was able to get in on the fun). We went bowling on Sat, had the ward Trunk or Treat - got to bring Spencer, Sam and Natalie with us (sooo cute!). Sunday Dave even got in the Halloween spirit and wore Katie's clown costume home teaching! (ha ha ha!) Sunday night we had a dessert night with Rich & Heidi and Nikki &Jordan. Monday -tennis with our friends.










Tuesday (after homework, piano and chores)rented a movie and made some crafts! It's been great! Saturday was one of the first days our family has had all together in AGES!! It was so nice. November is a great month for days off of school!! We love it! Hard to see the weekend coming to an end....