Have a Seat and Some Glasses...

Ruthie's new thing is pulling out the bottom drawers of our dressers and taking out the clothes, throwing them on the floor (or putting them in the laundry basket, so cute!) and sitting in them. It's the cutest thing! Another cute thing Ruthie loves to do is put on glasses. She loves her Grandma Jeanie...it's pretty cute! I can't believe how my baby is growing!

Free Digi-Scrappin' Mother Load

So, I'm getting back into my Digital Scrapbooking. I'm a total newb when it comes to this stuff! I did find THIS really cool website. If you want some fun stuff to download, check it out! I also have to put a shout out to my cousins new blog, My Pookie Designs. She is so talented and I love her Got Chikin Blog! She is amazing!

Rachel's Birthday and Christmas Dresses

December is such a crazy month and on top of that, my computer caught a cold (lol). So, I am late in updating my Rachel's 8th Birthday. This was a friend party year...so she invited a few friends and we took them to the Play N' Bounce down the street. She had a ball!

My MIL buys church outfits for he kids each year for Christmas...so I took a pic of the kiddo's in those. They looks so nice! Thanks Mom!

Rachel's Baptism

Rachel made the decision to be baptized January 8, 2011. She was so excited to made her commitment to her Heavenly Father. She is such a sweet girl. The baptism was beyond words. The spirit was so strong. Rachel has such an amazing spirit about her! Her Grandma Jeanie gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. One of the brethren from our Bishopric also shared some words...about his baptism and some important things he remembered. Hailey, Abby, Rachel and Joe sang "I Know That My Savior Loves Me". The kids love to sing that song and so we thought it would be fun to sing it for the baptism. Hailey worked hard on memorizing the alto part and it was beautiful. I'm so proud of my sweet Rachel :) Thanks to all who came in support of us!

Happy Birthday Ruthie!

How cool is it to be turning 1 on 1/11/11. I can't believe my baby is already 1?!!! This is just craziness! She is such a cutie! I can't even imagine life before Ruth?! She is so full of it! She walks and has been for the last two months. She loves to be chased. She says a few words... "Joe", "Don't", "ouch", "Dadda", "Momma". When she see's something interesting or something she wants she says "ooooh". She waves and claps, gives hugs and kisses. She loves to dance. She loves anything stuffed animal related. She loves play babies. She waves at herself in the mirror. She loves baths. She likes to play peek-a-boo. She is such a sweet heart! We love our Ruthie...Happy Birthday, baby :)

Tillamook & Good Friends

One of the days we were in Portland, we took a trip down to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It's about an hour away from Portland and it was such a beautiful drive!!! I have been on this drive many times, but never when it had snowed the night before. It was like a white winter wonderland! I couldn't stop taking pictures. I mean, we have snow in Salt Lake, right?! Why was I so excited about snow in Oregon? I'll tell you...it's so green (not brown)...it's just so much more beautiful! This day was one of the first day's that the sun decided to shine as well, making it that much more pretty. I can't tell you how happy I was to see the sun. I had forgotten how much I despised the winter rain in Oregon, but I can't tell you how much I love the rain, lol! I love the green and milder temps. Anyway...Tillamook Cheese Factory has the BEST ice cream! It's the real stuff! I had to get the biggest ice cream cone possible. It was so yummy! I had to get squeaky cheese and beef jerky for the road :) Healthy huh?!

We then took a short drive down to Cape Mears. This part of the beach is so beautiful! The rocks are so majestic and beautiful against the blank expanse of the sea. The kids were so excited to see the ocean and the tide was out, so that it revealed a ton of smaller rocks and attached to the rocks were all kinds of oysters and star fish and tons of shells. The kids were ecstatic to see all of it. Hailey was so excited that she sprinted toward us over the rocks with shells to show us and...fell right in the water, face first :( Her Nintendo DSi that she bought with her own money she saved for months and just bought in November...fell into the water. She was so devastated and just typing this I want to cry for her and run out and buy her a new one. It was quite sad, considering how excited she was about all of it. Cute Hailey, got up and brushed herself off, sad for a little bit, but then enjoyed the beach. A lady had seen Hailey fall and brought us a bag of rice to put her DS in it. So nice! After 2 days of letting her DS dry out, it still doesn't work. It was such a fun trip to the beach!

Earlier in our trip we got together with some good friends...Paul and Kristi. Kristi taught me a lot about sewing and also served in the Primary Presidency with me when we lived in Portland. We would also run together most mornings. I miss her :( She is an amazing cook and fixed us an amazing meat lovers lasagna...so yummy! We enjoyed visiting and the kids playing! Good friends are so hard to come by. We are truly blessed count them among our friends! One cute thing was when Paul picked up Ruthie and...She didn't cry! She only lets Dan, Me and my Mom hold her. She screams and cries at everyone else. Pretty cool.

Merry Christmas...from Portland!

Our Christmas present this year was an almost 2 week trip to Portland, Oregon. We have enjoyed every minute of our first week! Here are just a few pics...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!