what the heck...

Has it really been over a month since I have posted!? YIKES!! I know how disappointing that is to click on a link and see that yet again, there is nothing new!! So sorry!! Well, life has been good. I will have to dig out all the fun pictures from christmas!! Kenzie got to dress up in her cousins gift (princess clothes) and they had a blast. Complete with shoes and clip on earrings!! They were in heaven! Kenzie also got to go on a pony ride before the break was up! Talk about fun... she got her own little pony, whos name was Elvis, sit in her own little saddle, and even hold the reigns on her own. She was soooo excited. She got to ride for about an hour and of course when we were down, is was complete devistation that we dare take her away from Elvis. So, cried big ol tears and when we talk about horses she says that she wants to go and see Elvis. So cute!!

Garrett helping kenzie open the stocking

Cute princess all decked out!
One Happy Cowgirl!!!

She had so much fun and looked so cute!

Once school got back in full swing it was nothing too exciting! Garrett and I took a little getaway to Flagstaff for my birthday and that was lots of fun. You forget how easy life was before you had little ones to worry about! No need to stress about schedules, just got and have fun! And fun we did!!


And now, our fun adventure is house hunting!! That's right, its about time we got into a house and with as great as things are in the house market, now is the time!!! So, we are online looking, driving and looking, and being patient for the perfect one!! So, soon enough we will say PEACE OUT to apartment living, and hello to being home-owners! Woo woo

The Past Month

Ooops, I have been majorly slacking!! Lots of fun times with the family and of course Thanksgiving was the most recent event. First though, I want to talk about my Kenzie girl. She is getting so big. Here are some of the things that she has said/done this past month:

1. Achieved potty training!!
2. Said her first prayer on her own: "dear heanly fader, thankful for this day, bless it will snow, and my birday is coming up, and bless we can go play in the snow, in the name of jesus christ, amen. so cute!!
3. Has decided now that everyday is dress day
4. After playing rough, strokes your face and says: "its ok, its ok, i'm not gonna hurt 'cha" Keep in mind she has already jacked you up!!
5. calls all her girl friends her "sister" and boys her "broder"
6. I love it when we pass the craft store Hobby Lobby cause all I hear is "hobby hobby" from Kenzie
7. Goes into my jewelry box and wants to wear all my rings and necklaces
8. My favorite word for her to say is gorgous cause she says "dorgous"
9. will still come crawl in bed with me and garrett in the morning and go back to bed
10. and lastly, every time she throws her arms around my neck and says "I wuv you" I just melt!!

Thanksgiving was fun!! WE enjoyed talking, eating, bowling, and being together with everyone there. It isn't too often that your entire family is all together!! I am trying to savor the moments cause I feel as though they will become less frequent as we all move and have big families. Here are a fewbut have more later...

The Family having fun bowling!!

Me and my bug!!

Fun day with mom

kenzie and I enjoyed a fun day just being together. Here are some fun pictures that we took!!

Tea Party

Kenzie has been asking to have a tea party since we rented the movie "Alice in Wonderland". So, since we were at my mom's house for a day or so, we asked my grandma (G-Gma to Kenzie), to be the hostess of a tea party for Kenzie!! She was sooo exicted!! She loved having a small tea cup and juice. She dug into the strawberries and cute peanut butter sandwiches GGma made. Here are some of the cute pictures:

On the way to GGma's house with yummy cake

Helping Kenzie choose her snacks

Cheers ;)

One satisfied girl!!

Thank you Grandma, you are the best and we love you!!

Cousins

So here are some fun pictures of Kenzie getting to spend some time with her cousin Evelynne that is visiting from Utah!! They were really cute. Eve followed Kenzie everywhere and I would hear Kenzie calling her name so she would go where kenzie wanted her to. When I told her to give her a love goodbye she came up behind Eve and wrapped her arms around her neck and pulled her back for a giant hug! Tough love :)

Such Cute Girls!!

Kenzies Photo Shoot

So we decided that we needed some new pictures of Kenzie, so she and I did a fun photo shoot! We had a good time and cruised around. I am going to go and take more at the Art Center in Mesa, so I will post those when we get those done. But here are some of my favorites of Kenzie!!

Oops!

Sorry for the lack of updates. Lately I have not been too motivated to write much of anything! Some of this is for my own journal purpose so sorry for the length! First, Kenzie is such a sweet little girl. She is a fire ball that has such an energetic personality and loves to be involved with whatever we are doing! Here is a list of some of my favorites right now:

• It is my favorite to see Garrett working on his bike or a project and then see Kenzie right at his feet using a tool he just set down. She loves to help fix things!
• I have a jewelry box that kenzie loved getting into so one day after getting off work, kenzie tells me on the phone that she wants to make a jewelry box that is purple. So ok, off the micheals where we find a fun box with a closure in front, and we paint it purple and pink, and to top it off, little painted horses are glued to the front. She insists on carrying it around and putting her mickey mouse bracelet from Disneyland in the box. She also tries to fit her horses and other random toys but has quickly found that they simply will not fit!
• She wanted a barn for all of her horses so Garrett being very bored, engineered the greatest craft stick barn you could imagine. Complete with nice truses (sp?) to support the roof! It was great. And very big for all of her horse collection to be inside!
• She now tells Garrett while he is driving to "take it easy daddy" or "slow down dad"
• I love how she curls her fingers and growling at me say " I have sharp plaws"(claws in kenzie talk)
• She dolls herself up in her crown, shoes, and wand and walking around says "pink, blue, no pink" She is repeating the fairy off of Sleeping Beauty. She will also bat her eyes and do an ever graceful princess walk.
• she often lays down on the couch and tells Garrett and I to " tiss her" and once you kiss her face she will wake up just like sleeping beauty smiles and all!
• the other day she turned to me and said she wanted to go "tamping"- i am sure that garrett was super excited to know that his 3 year old wanted to go camping!!

Despite the fact that she tests my patients everyday, I love her soooo much! It is so great to have a family!!

Some stinky news, the end of August I also found out that I had had a miscarriage. i went in for my ultrasound and things did not look like I was 9 weeks prego. Turns out, that the baby had been gone for about 2 weeks or so, as I was measuring at about 6 weeks. It was crazy because I had no signs; no cramping, bleeding, nothing. It was really hard to take but I did not cry at all in the ultrsound office. The tech felt bad enough as it was. But it was a wednesday and garrett was at class until 9:30pm so I was toughing it out until he got home.Thank goodness i was able to call some of my family for some support! I figured that he did not want that kind of news over the phone. He was so supportive and I really appreciated his love and comfort as I was pretty upset. The next morning I checked into the hospital and had the dnc done at noon. I was out of the hospital by 3? i took a few days off of work and just relaxed and chilled with Garrett and Kenzie! I healed pretty quick and things went back to normal.

So now, just working and taking care of the fam! Garrett is doing great in school and taking 19 credit hours! we are hoping that he will be done in 1-2 semesters!! So that thought is exciting!! kenzie and I decorated the house tonight for halloween and she kept saying we had "christmas lights" as we hung our pumpkin/bat lights around the china hutch! It was lots of fun!!

Disneyland

So we ventured on our first trip to Disneyland!! Kenzie was kind of scared on some of the rides and it made it hard to try any others. She did pretty good though and some of her favorites were: dumbo, carousel, peter pan, its a small world, and the tarazan tree house. She loved the firworks show at night that had tinkerbell and dumbo fly across the sky, and the Pixar parade at California Adventure. She got so excited each time a new character would come out! Gary and Nita -garrett's parents were able to xome with us!! It was tons of fun and are glad we were able to go!!

Here are some of the pictures:

Attempting to pull the Sword in the Stone

Kenzie and I riding Dumbo

On the way to the rides! she loved the castle!

kenzie got to meet all the princesses at the morning breakfast!! She loves Cinderella!!

Our first time into the park. Kenzie looks so excited doesn't she!!

Kenzie's 3rd Birthday

well, kenzie is officially 3! I am late posting the pictures but we had a fun time!! She woke up to a decorated house, and of course the donuts with her name on them, and then we had to rush off to church! After that we napped and then headed over to my parents for some fun celebration. We had a great bbq brisket dinner-thanks mom it was awesome!- and then we opened gifts and had cake and ice cream!! I made Kenzie a castle cake which she loved and she went to town on eating when she got her plate!!

opening gifts!! She loves horses!!

Her cute new Cinderella dress and accessories!! Thanks Aunt Kristin!!

She loved everyone singing to her and was so excited to blow out her candles!!

Happy Birthday Mackenzie!! We love you!

Well...

this month has seemed to fly by!! Between Garrett working, Scout trips, and Family vacation our month is over!! Garrett took his scouts on their super activity for 4 days. they hiked, canoed, swam at Clear Creek ,shot clay pigeons, and ate awesome food. I love it when he comes home because he always brings back yummy recipes! The boys on there hike at Bear canyon Lake

The boys decided to play a few tricks on one of the leaders while they were there. First, they fed him Ex-Lax the entire trip and he kept wondering why he was always running to the restroom :/Then on the way home they taped the "I Love men" on the back of his trailor. He had no idea and pulled it all the way from payson with it on. he had all kinds of people laughing at him and making hand gestures as they drove by. His reaction once they got home was priceless!

We just got back Yesterday from our trip to Colorado. It was a pretty quick trip and I would have loved to stay one more day, but just more of a reason to go back! We got there Thursday night, set up camp, ate dinner, and went to bed. Then on Friday we went hiking and fishing. Saturday was the coolest. My parents watched all the grandkids so that all my siblings and spouses could spend the day on Durango Mountain. We took the ski lift up to the top and biked our way down! it was a blast!! We should have started on a warm up trail but went straight to the intermediate trail ( which was the easiest one down the mountain!) so, I was the first fall. No shame! I could feel my tire slip off the path to the right and I slid down for a bit and then flipped off my bike. Thanks to Karl for helping me get my bike back up and pulling me up. It trashed my arm pretty good and i strained my quad muscles. And of course, I keep finding more bruises in random spots. We should have gotten it on tape. It was an awesome biff!! But we ended up going down the same trail 2 more times before the lift closed. We also got to ride to Alpine Slide down. kenzie was tall enough to ride so Garrett took her and she kept telling him to go faster! She is such a little dare devil! She also got to go on the ride where they harness you in and you are attached to rubber bands and they bounce you up in the air! Kenzie LOVED IT!! She went so high on that thing. And she was all smiles and of course didn't want it to end! she is not even 3 yet and loves to do all these adventurous things! i am in so much trouble later!! :) After the last trail we headed back to the condo where I made chili and cornbread for dinner, and we enjoyed a dip the in the Jacuzzi.

The Group out hiking!!

The gang ready for mountain biking!!

The view and my cut up arm!

Kenzie up in the Air!!

Having a BLAST!! She was so Smilie!!

The trip home wasn't too bad at all. We carvaned with my brother and his wife over, so that seemed to make is go back pretty fast! My nephew Carson and Kenzie were being parted so that we could get into our cars and get going, and they were gazing back at eachother crying and screaming their names as they reached for one another. It was as of they were never going to see eachother again and they were being torn apart. It was hilarious! they get along go great! I love that they chase eachother around, play and have fun with eachother. They also rode from Flagstaff to Phoenix in Karl's car. Kasey said that they had a blast, and made eachother laugh. check her blog for more details! We also stopped at the four corners monument. It was a fast trip but now I can say I have been in 4 states at once.

My G-ma

My grandma is a very important lady to me!!she and I have always had such a great relationship which I have valued soooo much. I feel lucky to have had her live so close (around the block) while growing up. And our relationship has just gotten stronger and now she loves my little girl as she loved me. Kenzie calls her GGma, and enjoys seeing her and terrorizing her house of all her cute breakables all over, and digging into the 3 candy dishes that grandma has in her living room alone. She has such a big heart and i am so blessed to have her in my life. In June she celebrated her 85th birthday of which she was thrown a surprise party by her kids and I was able to take the pictures for it! Happy Birthday GMA!!

So, here's to Grandmas, may we love them while we have them and cherish all the memories we made with them!!

4th of July

So like usual we decided to head up to Winslow to see the fireworks. They have such a great display, being outside doesn't involve getting mad because it is 100 degrees at 8pm, and we can play games and just chill on the ball field until the fireworks start. It is a lot of fun and we have kinda made that a ritual for the 4th!

Heres the cousins playing in the back of the truck

Morgan, Cooper,and Kenzie

The kids with their cool glow sticks during the fireworks

Kenzie and her cousin Rhyan playing in the kiddi pool at Grandmas house

just enjoying the water...what a cute girl!!

I hope that everyone had a great weekend!!

Last Weekend

So this past week has been filled with 3 birthdays and fathers day! What a wammy!!Anyone remember that game show? Anyways, we bought Carson this awesome gift, of course with Karl's interest in mind. A remote control quad with rider. And Carson loved it!! Kenzie was so cute. The whole day on saturday she kept singing "happy birthday to you" practing for the real thing I guess. She was so interested in the present opening, and enjoyed singing and eating cake. Since her birthday is in August, she is all ready for whats to come!! Her and Carson enjoyed swimming in the pool, riding Carson's new tricycle, and being chased by the remote control quad.

Kenzie so interested in all the cool new toys

My cute girl playing in the pool

Birthday Boy and the goggles he would not seperate from!! Happy #2!!

Prescott

So, yet another camping trip but this time up to Mingus Mountain just outside of prescott. It was beautiful weather, and we enjoyed just relaxing!! Garrett took me on a fun hike straight up the mountain following the powerlines. It was a beautiful view at the top and a great work out!! We also stopped at the Fair Grounds and showed Kenzie some of the beautiful racing horses. This one was very friendly and kept sticking his out for us to pet him. Others were very skiddish and just backed up. She loved petting his nose and that was the highlight of her trip.

Here is Kenzie learning to play ball with the velcro mitts! It was great, almost a guaranteed catch every time!! The hard part was for her to get the ball back off!!

Kenzie and I stayed up for two days after Garrett and my dad went back to work. We had fun with just the girls!! Here we are... 4 generations!!

Payson

So Kenzie and I headed up toward Clints Wells and met his family up there camping. I have to say that I am pretty proud because I have become a pro at loading the quad in the truck and strapping it down. You must be thinking, LAME, but for me to do it all, all by myself makes me feel proud!

It was a quick trip but we had fun riding the quad, playing, throwing the frisbee, playing the dice game, and of course, eating good food!! Kenzie now thinks that there are dinosaurs in the forest, thanks aunt rat, and so we go on walks that involve looking for dinosaurs and dinosaur bones. And any time a bird crows she yells out "TAW" ( supposed to be CAW). We were on a quad ride and all the sudden I feel kenzie start laying her head on my arm as I drove. Before I knew it she was completely asleep. And she slept until 7:30 the next morning. She did wake up and we got her warm pants on, but then asked to go night night! She was a tired bug!!

All of us girls out riding: Trisha, Misty, me and Kenzie, and Nita

Everybody say cheese!!!

Kenzie exploring a catepillar that was all balled up. If you have noticed that in every picture Kenzie has her ring pop!! She LOVED them and would not put them down!