Alex's Birthday

Alex is turning 13 tomorrow, Monday February 28th. We are so greatful to have her as our daughter. We love her stong will and determination. She loves gymnastics with a passion. She always makes us laugh and does not care what others think. I love that she is not girly and has no desire to be into hair and make up. What a blessing she has been to our family. Alex we love you.

Chad the Super Hero

We left Vegas around 4 pm and were planning on traveling all the way home that night, so we could make it to church the next day, Sunday. Well, it was dark and we were driving north on I-15 toward Fillmore. All of a sudden Chad yells "oh, my gosh" I look up in enough time to see a car rolling down the median between the north and south bound lanes. I am not sure how many times it rolled, but it was quite a few. When the car stopped rolling it was actually partially in the south bound lane. Chad pulled our van over and ran over to the car, while I called 911. It was pretty scary for a while not knowing how many were in the car or if anyone had been thrown out or what. There happened to be one man in the car and luckily he was wearing a seat belt, the seat belt saved his life. Chad pulled the man out of the car and got him a safe distance from the smashed up car. We believe he had dozed of while driving then over corrected and lost control of the car. Others stopped to help and within about 15 min emergency vehicles arrived. The man was taken to a hospital in Fillmore then life flighted to Provo. We are not sure of all the injures, but we do know man had several broken bones and a fractured back. This made me think that you never know when life is going to throw you a curve ball, life can change in just a blink of an eye.

Vegas gymnastics meet

Alex had a meet in Las Vegas. It was a great meet, she did very well. Alex took 1st on bars, beam, floor and all around, she also placed 4th on vault. She has a hard time landing the 10 start value vault, so her vault has been a 9 start value. Way to go Alex!!Bars




Vault



Beam


Floor

If this is Hoover Dam, then where is Amsterdam?

Before we checked into our hotel in Las Vegas, we stooped at Hoover Dam. As we are driving up towards the dam, Alex says "so, if this is Hoover Dam, then where is Amsterdam?" We all started laughing, so funny. Alex makes the most off the wall statements, she cracks us up.

St. George--- The Promised Land

February the 11th we while on our way to Las Vegas, Nevada we stopped in St. George Utah. We absolutely love St. George and would love to move back there someday. When we retire that is where we are headed. This is just one of the reasons we love the place, the beautiful red rock. What you do not see is a cliff that Chad let the kids look over, luckily I was in the restroom at the time. I seem to freak out a little when the kids get remotely close to something I deem dangerous. St. George ROCKS! he, he, get it? look at the pictures.

Alex with a lady bug, notice her lovely calaused hands, those are gymnast hands.

Alex being grumpy pantsThe boysThe girls

The Kids

The parents

Trip to Seattle

Alex's Gymnastics season started and her second meet of the year was in Seattle. While in Seattle we were able to go up in the space needle and also visit the Sci Fi/Music Hall of fame. Although it rained almost the entire weekend and the sun did not poke out once, we still had a fun time. It is nice to see places you have never been. I will have to say that I prefer Utah over Washington anyday.

This is a picture of Alex and I up in the Space needle looking over Seattle.

Alex and a team mate Randi

Alex with a few of her team mates after the meet.

Alex and team mates at the Seattle Convention Center where the meet was held

Alex over looking Seattle.

Chads Christmas gift

When my husband was young he used to do a lot of art work and drawing. He has started to take up the hobby again. Two years ago for Mothers Day he sketched me a picture of my Mother and Father which is displayed on a easel in my stairway. He drew the picture of my parents as a dedication to my Mother who passed away from breast cancer five years ago. Her death was very hard on me. This year for Christmas he did these sketches for me. I have not placed it on a wall yet, I am looking for just the right place to put it. It is head shots of our kids when they were 1 year old. He took their 1 year pictures and sketched them and framed them. Chad spent hours and hours on each drawing. What a wonderful guy I married!!! the photo I took does not do the drawing justice. Thank you Chad for such a thoughtful and wonderful Christmas present.

Nieces and cupcake fun

Sunday after Christmas my neices made some very cute cupcakes while they were visiting. I got out some of my cake decorating supplies and let them have at it. We did some of the cupcakes in cones and the rest in cupcake liners. Good job girls! I also posted this on my other baking blog littlemissmuffetandhertuffet.blogspot.com

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Hannah, Sara, Aleena, Isabell

Christmas 2010

I love Christmas!! I love the extra focus we give to the savior, I love listening to Christmas songs, baking yummy treats, buying gifts, finding ways to help others and sharing Christmas joy with those around. As a family we have a few fun traditions we have done for years, hopefully when our children are grown, they will continue these same traditions. It is such a blessed time of year. This Christmas Chads brother Shaun and his family came out from Arkansas to visit. For Christmas eve we had quite the houseful with 13 extra bodies, but what a great time we all had!!! We also were able to spend time with my Brother, Ben and his family and also Chads Sister Carrie, her husband and cute little boy Eric. We had a very enjoyable time. It is so fun to be surrounded by family.

Our kids have not been getting along as peacefully as we would like. We thought they needed a extra push to be more kind to each other especially at Christmas, so this year when we drew family names for gifts the rule was that you had to spend time and personally make the gift for whomever you had. Alex made me a apron, Jordan made Ethan a TCU blanket, Ethan made Jordan coupons, Chad also did coupons for Alex and I made Chad a tv remote control holder that hangs over the couch.

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The Sunday following Christmas We visited Temple square up in Salt Lake city. Ha, ha funny Troy, rabbit ears.

Chad, Jordan, Ethan, Me, Alex and my brother Troy.

Christmas morning opening presents with the cousins.

Alex, Jordan and Dan.
This is a pillow that Sara made for Alex, she did a great job on it. The pillow matches Alex's room perfectly!!
Ethan and his new bike.
Squishy, Squishy, cousins playing around.

Cousins watching the Nativity story.
This is what unfinished basements are used for-- pinata time.

Alex

Aleena

Heidi

Ethan

Isabell

Katie

David

Christmas Eve we started by singing Christmas carols and reading the Christmas story.