BABY!!!!!!

Finally I have a picture of our baby blog! We went in last month and couldn't find the baby, so the doctor said I was not as far along as we thought. We still don't know for sure how far along I am but 10 or 11 weeks is a pretty close guess, we will be able to tell better when I am farther along and I go in for my big ultrasound. The end of June or first week of July is our guess for a due date. The good news is the baby looks like it is developing well, and Brielle got to come with me to the appointment and she saw the baby, and it looked liked it waved at us so she thought that was way cool.

Christmas at the Cabin!

Every year in December we go to the Blad Family Cabin for the weekend to have our Christmas party. The girls all have a tradition where we each pick a craft and make 5 of them, we keep them a surprise and then when we get to the cabin, we all exchange our crafts, so we get to come home with 5 new crafts each time, and they are always so cute! The kids get to make gingerbread houses, Christmas crafts, and decorations for the Christmas tree that we cut and put in the cabin. The guys tradition of course is going to the lake fishing and going out hunting. We have a nice Turkey dinner on saturday night, and all the rest of the time is spent watching movies, eating treats, and playing games. It is always a ton of fun and I'm so thankful to be a part of such a great family.

Dakota up on the deck first thing in the morning, isn't it a pretty view!

Brielle's gingerbread house.

Santa Clause

Brielle and Dakota getting ready to go on our hayride. This picture is kind of deceitful though because Dakota loves horses and gets way excited about anything to do with them.

Dakota with Santa- he didn't even cry!

Brielle wasn't sure what to tell Santa that she wanted, so he said he would surprise her.

Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year we went to my parents house in Flowell. All of my brothers and sisters were able to come, and we had lots of great food so I would say our Thanksgiving was a big success. We started the day off by going up in the mountains with Mikes family to get our Christmas trees, then we came down for dinner, and spent the rest of the day playing games and watching movies. I am very thankful for my family. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to raise my kids, it has been and will be my greatest accomplishment. I am so thankful for my husband, he does so much for me, especially lately, because I have been so sick. He works all day and then comes home to clean the house and make dinner while I just lay around, I don't even have to ask him to do anything. I am so grateful for him, hopefully this situation won't be to much longer though. There is not one thing that he refuses to do for me, that means so much to me.
My mom made this great cornicopia out of bread! She is always so creative.

Mike found a hornets nest while we were getting our trees, and put it in our basement, lets all pray that there is not anything alive in there still.

Koda all ready to go hiking.

Our tree.

Happy Birthday Brielle!

Brielle turned 4 yesterday! She got lots of fun gifts at her party and I think she had a really fun time, she has been looking forward to her party since July. Brielle is so fun to be around, she is constantly amazing me with the stuff she says and knows, she is so smart! She comes up to me and gives me a hug and tells me sweet things all the time, I love that! She is a very good big sister, she always wants to help with Dakota. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity of being her mom!

Poor Koda

Dakota has been really sick for the last couple days. This afternoon he was miserable and wouldn't stop crying so we took him out to see the horses to see if we could cheer him up a little. Playing with horses and his dump truck are two of his favorite things to do. He found his dump truck while we were out there, and he started pushing it around, you could tell he really wanted to play with it, but he just felt to sick, so he would push his truck for a second, then lay down, then he would push it a little bit further then lay back down. Poor Koda, I hope he gets better soon.

Dakota

Brielle

On Halloween we went to the church and did trunk or treating, then we went Kanosh. Every year Mike's parents and Unlce Paul and Aunt Carolyn make a fire between their houses and serve hot dogs and hot chocolate. It is always fun to go to and see everyone and all their cute costumes. We had a really fun Halloween , my kids got a bunch of candy so hopefully we don't have any dentist visits in the near future.

Pumpkin Carving!

For family night on monday, everybody came over to our house to carve pumpkins, and decorate halloween cookies.

Mike pulled out the power tools., leave it to a guy! It worked great though and was a lot faster.

Brielle's taking her turn decorating cookies.

Brielle and Dakota's pumpkins!

My First Deer!!!!

Every year for my whole life we have gone down to Cove Fort and camped with my dad's side of the family for the deer hunt. I have always loved doing this, and have many great memories of going on the hunts, sitting by the fire, and the big dutch oven dinner on saturday night. This year was the first year I had a tag. Mike and I woke up early saturday morning and hiked up the mountain, across the top of many mountains, and all over this one very steep canyon. We were sitting on the mountain side looking through the binoculars and we spotted a nice three point, then Mike spotted a really nice buck just to the side of it, I shot 5 times hitting it in the gut and the leg, Mike was a little disappointed in me, but in my defense I have only shot 5 bullets out of a rifle and they were all at a box that wasn't moving. The deer took of running and we followed it, when we got to where it was when I shot it we found blood, so I knew I had hit it for sure, then we heard a gun shot and Mikes Uncle Paul got on the radio, and said he just got a big one, Mike and I knew he had just shot the buck we were following. When we got to where they were, sure enough it was the one, and it had my bullet holes on it. But I was glad Paul was able to get it. A few minutes after we got over there a couple bucks ran across the hill by us and after some more shots I got this one, not bad for a first deer, but I think Mike is going to make me practice more before we go out next time.

The one that got away!

pumpkin patch

Brielle's preschool class went to Mitchells pumpkin patch today on a field trip. Doyle carved this cool pumpkin for them, and the kids got to buy pumpkins to take home. They have a lot of different kinds of pumpkins, and the kids really had a lot of fun, I am going to go back and take Mike and Dakota to pick out our pumkins to carve.

Donuts!!!!!

For family night this week we had a lesson about Jesus being our Savior, then we made donuts. While the donuts were raising we played tag in the dark. When they were done raising Mike and the kids rolled out the dough and I couldn't find a donut cutter at Duanes so we just cut out circles, they kind of turned out to be donut blobs, but they taste good and thats what matters. I ran next door to grab something and this is what I came back to. Mike said they had a war while I was gone. Good thing he's always willing to help clean up cause my kitchen was a mess!

Brielle and Dakotas jobs were to cut the donuts out, and put the sprinkles on.

YuMmY!!!

Witchapalooza!

Every October the girls in Mike's family have a tradition of shopping and going to the Witchapalooza at Gardner Village. The Witchapalooza is dinner and a play. The play this year was a comedy about a warlock taking a trip down memory lane and visiting loves from his past. It was really funny they had different witches come out representing the different decades and the fads that were in that time - flapper - 50s rock girl - flower child- disco diva- valley girl... Good company, food, shopping, entertainment- all the ingredients for a great girls day! And I have a husband who was willing to take the kids for the day so that I could get a day out, he is always so willing to help with anything, and I am very thankful for him.

This is the scene from the 70's. They were imitating Sunny and Cher.

This is the valley girl witch from the 1980'S. - madonna-

They pulled these four guys out of the audience and made them do the YMCA and dance in front of everyone. Pretty good sports I don't think I would have been as brave.

After the play we went went shopping around Gardner Village, ToNs of CuTe StuFf! At Halloween time there they decorate the village with different witches, its fun to see them all, next year I need to take my kids to see them.

******************************WiTcHy PoO!

Josh and Stacia's baby - Taylee got to come with us. Isn't she a doll!

Mike in New Mexico

Last week Mike went hunting elk in New Mexico with my dad and Unlce Bill. This is Mike feeding a deer at the lodge where they were staying.

fall leaves

I LoVe Fall! On monday we went up the canyon for family night. We made dinner,then did a lesson and the kids made nature collages. We had a great time, but of course I forgot the camera, so Mike and I took the kids up on thursday night, and took their pictures in the leaves and got ice cream.








I'm sure everyone knows how much Mike LoVeS hunting and the mountains, but that is one of the things I love about him. I love to see him get so excited about it, and you can garantee, if we are going to the mountains, he will have to stop at least 5 times on the way to look at something.

Brielle is such a good big sister, she is always trying to help Dakota, and teach him new things. Here she is trying to get him to look at us and smile.

Brielle and dakota looking at the leaves