Johnny and Kisa's Wedding

This past weekend was WONDERFUL! My brother, Johnny, married an amazing girl, Kisa! They are perfect for each other - I am so happy for Johnny! He's such an amazing guy and a great example - I'm so happy he found a great girl :)

Carolyn and Angela were really excited about the airplane ride that we got to take to the wedding :) Here Angela is waiting for the plane to come in; she's sharing her breakfast with daddy here...she's always so generous with her food :)

Angela loved looking at the airplanes while waiting. Once we took off in the airplane, she looked out the window and kept saying, "Wow!"



Carolyn just loved the entire experience. When we first arrived at the airport, she kept saying, "This place is cool!!" She loved the actual flight as well. When the airplane landed, she announced to everyone around us in the airplane that she liked the plane ride, but June (her doll) was scared. It got a good laugh :) But, Carolyn took good care of June when she would get scared while flying :)
Wedding day!!! Such a beautiful and happy couple!! I just couldn't be more happy for Johnny!



My family!! We haven't all been together since my wedding so it was fun having all the siblings there!


A day doesn't go by that I don't thank my Father in Heaven for this man. He is perfect in every way for me.
Daddy and Angela playing...

Aunt Andrea and Carolyn walking together. This girl makes traveling possible for me :) She's always so sweet and helpful with the girlies :)
Daddy and Carolyn singing "I love to See the Temple."
Angela snuggling her aunty.

My incredible bros...




He puts up with me...



We are so excited to have a new sister! Kisa is so sweet!
Where would I be without these sisters of mine? I love them! I'm so blessed to be so close with my sisters :)
We think we're cool....
Our best attempt at family photos :)



Classic. Angela loves pulling Carolyn's hair. Just look at that face. Looking right at mommy waiting for her to say, "no!" What a little stinker :)
Angela and Carolyn just couldn't get enough of Cooper...they always had to be where he was. But, who can blame them? He's such a cutie.
Michelley and Cooper...
The reception! Carolyn enjoying the cake :)
My best attempts to take pictures of me with my little angels. Obviously, my girls are not big fans of smiling or looking at the camera for pictures :)

OUR NEW HOME!!!!!!

Today we bought a house!!! We are soooo overwhelmed with gratitude. We've been waiting about 4 months for this house and it is a miracle that everything went through (it was a short-sale house...AKA almost impossible to get). We recognize the Lord's hands and tender mercies as He pathed the way for us to get this- we feel so blessed!

We are going to miss our current ward we're in now, but we do love the area the house is in! It's a "young" area - so there are lots of parks everywhere and kids for the girls to play with! The primary in our ward is huge! We also feel really good about the neighborhood. It has wonderful resources and we feel like it's a great place to raise our girls. In addition, we love the actual house! Andrew and I hope to have a lot of cuties and the house will give us room to grow. We also love the fact that the house was built in 2004. We don't need to do any work in the house (yahoo!) and everything is so nice and new and has some great new features!!

It's been requested of me to post some pictures, so here we go (These pictures were taken before we bought the house so the stuff inside isn't ours):
Front Entry (please excuse the mess):
Kitchen. I'm a big fan of the island and I just love the appliances that came with the house. I've always wanted black and stainless steel appliances...and the stove is completely flat! Dream come true :)

To the right of the kitchen is a lovely pantry and the laundry room which leads out to the garage.

Here is our main floor bathroom:

It was hard getting a good angle of the Family Room...this is the best I got:

To the right of the family room is a sliding door leading to the backyard. The yard is not big, but it's definitely decent. We're just so excited to have a yard!!

I love the gas fireplace...it has a protection on the outside of it so little fingers don't get hurt if accidentally touched :)

The house has some cool light fixtures and fans throughout (All the rooms except for one has a light/fan on the ceiling):

Stairs leading to the basement (I'm so glad that they have carpet so I don't have to worry about Angela crawling down hard stairs!):

The girls will have fun running around the unfinished basement. If we do live at the house long-term, we plan on finishing it in a few years...
Here are pictures of the top floor...the main bathroom:
There are four bedroom upstairs. This bedroom will be used for the playroom: All of the rooms have GREAT walk-in closets!! Love it!
The master bedroom (the master bathroom is to the left...I didn't get a picture of it - but it has two sinks and a bathtub/shower and a toilet).
The Guest room (come visit us!!):
Carolyn and Angela's room:
I'm totally excited about having a park SOOO CLOSE! I can't even tell you! This is the park that is only THREE BLOCKS away!! I'm totally thrilled!!
This is a trail that is right by our house!!! I love taking the girls for a runs along trails so I can't even tell you how stoked I am about this! This trail entry is on our street - a few houses away. Sweet.
Again, we feel so overwhelmed with gratitude towards our Heavenly Father! There were so many miracles along the way to getting our home.

Halloween Cookies!

Today we made our traditional Halloween cookies! They are delicious sugar cookies shaped like ghosts, cats, or pumpkins! We had so much fun making them! It was the first time that Angela has joined Carolyn and me in our baking and cooking adventures…and she just loved it! She was laughing so hard throughout the experience!

My mom has complained that I don’t post enough pictures of myself. It’s hard getting pictures of me when I am the photographer :) The pictures I take of myself with my girls are way up-close-and personal and people's heads get cut off! Oh well! I had fun making cookies, too – so I guess I should be in the pictures as well. Anyways, the next three pics are for my mom :)

Yum!

Congrats, Phil and Misty!!

On Thursday, Andrew's brother, Phil, and his wifte, Misty, welcomed their second boy in the family :) Misty is such a trooper...not only does she retain a lot of water when she is pregnant, her little cutie was 10 pounds 8 ounces! (And, no, she isn't a tall person!)

Congrats!! We can't wait to meet Dallin!!

Mornings with Angela

I love blogging! I love writing down things about my kids that will eventually turn into a book. It's such a wonderful way to keep a family scrapbook/journal! I also love reading other peoples' blogs! It's a great way to keep in touch with friends...and a great way to be inspired by friends!! For instance, this week my friend, Shauna, made a post that totally inspired me!! She has two kids; her youngest wakes up at 5:00 AM. Amazing Miss Shauna found the good in the situation. She likes having her little girl wake up before her oldest for some good one-on-one time! Inspiring :) Angela likes waking up around 5:30 AM and Carolyn has been sleeping in until 7:00 AM. In the past when Angela has woken up, I would get her out her crib (snuggle for her awhile, of course) and then lay down on the floor or couch while she'd play around me to get a little more rest in....after a little bit of that, I would get up and get some stuff done before Carolyn woke up. Well, after reading Shauna's blog, I decided that I should cease those precious moments in the morning for some good one-on-one time. It's been wonderful! Angela gets up...just the two of us get some good time together for about 45 minutes...and then I still get somethings done in the morning before Carolyn gets up! It's been wonderful! It's easy finding the one-on-one time with Carolyn (during Angela's nap and after Angela goes to bed for the night)...but it was always a little more tricky to find that time with Angela! Anyways, thank you, Shauna!! I love my mornings with Angela :)

Here are some pictures of our mornings together:

We spend most of the morning reading books about animals:


Of course, some time also goes into trying on shoes :) Still a favorite passing time of Angela's:
I wish I loved that adorable with morning hair :)
(Please don't look too closely as these pictures...I'm in sweats (it's been sooo cold in the mornings here)...have morning hair...and no makeup :) But, I wanted to post these pictures to record my precious time with my little angel in the mornings :) Just look at that little grin on her face. Too cute.

FHE Last Night

Okay, I promise this will be my last talk of Christmas for awhile...I realize if I keep writing about it, I'll make it old for all of you :)

Last night for FHE, we made our traditional count-down chain to Christmas!! In the past, we have always made our chain on the 100 day countdown day. I know there's really just no excuse, but we had a lot of stuff going on that week so we didn't get to it until last night :( Oh well! We had a lot of fun making it...and we'll have even more fun counting down!!! YAHOO!

Also, Angela did her first somersault today! A fluke? Probably. But, I'm still celebrating it! She's always putting her head on the ground and sticking her bum way up in the air. Sometimes when she's doing this, I'll help her flip over and do a somersault. Well, today she was sticking that bum in the air and did a perfect somersault all by herself. She had the biggest grin on her face when she was done...as well as she should have :) She did it!