Catching up

Levi has been such a joy this last year. He has made Rick and I so happy and we can't wait to expand our family and bring a brother or sister to Levi. Here are a couple pictures I have taken recently that really show his personality and I want to make it is documented.

This was taken at Mary Hurst's home. Levi was crawling everywhere and was being so crazy so we put him in a bin and gave him a cup. He was totally entertained for at least 15 minutes. This is Levi's 1st birthday party invitation. I can't believe he is going to be 1 next month!

Levi loves toast in the morning. Just plain buttered toast.

This is my friend, Jen Petersen. She lives in my apartment buildings. She is such a good friend to me. I just found out her husband got accepted to BYU-I so she will be moving in the next few months up to Rexburg. I am going to miss her dearly. This is her and her two kids, Emma and Jake, getting loaded into my car with Levi. We were going out!

SueAnn Abeyta, that I used to work with, and I had lunch together downtown a couple months ago. It was good to see her again. We both quit to stay at home with our children. That is Kaci, her little girl.

Rick used his certificate from Christmas and went surfing with his friend, Mitch. They had a blast!

Thanks Mitch for hanging with Rick. You two are crazy!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

We have a tradition with my family on Christmas Eve. The evening starts with dinner, then a quick program with songs by the grand kids and such. We then give our gift to Jesus. We have a stocking that we put our little notes to Jesus in. We make a goal or promise to Jesus to work on something during the year... maybe service, patience, making the bed daily, etc. Each year we pull out last years promise and see how we did then make a new one. I love that part! Last year my promise to Jesus would be that I stop nagging Rick so much. I know I know... I'm a nag! I have done much better. I laughed when I showed Rick my last years promise. He just gave me an approving nod, as if saying, "Thank heavens that has gotten better!"

Moving on. We then do the nativity with the grand kids in costumes acting out the account of the Saviors birth in Luke as Grandpa reads. Afterwards we go out side and break a pinata. I don't know where this tradition came from, but our Grandpa Gray (my father's dad) would always have a pinata for us grand kids to break when we would go to his house Christmas Eve. My father continued the tradition and we all LOVE IT!!! This year we had Sponge Bob.

You can't tell in this picture but my brother was making the pinata dance on the ground. It was pretty funny. Andrew is always the puller. He does such a good job keeping it interesting with the bigger kids when they are swinging. Of course they are always blindfolded, except the little little ones.
I was so excited for Levi's first year with the pinata. I hope he loves it as much as I did when he gets a little older!

At the end of the night the grand kids open one present from their parents before we set off for home. My Grandmother Gray used to do this for us when we were little. She would hand make our pajamas and we would open them Christmas Eve and wear them home! I was proud to be able to make Levi a pair of pajama bottoms (with the help of my sister, Deborah).

I thought they turned out really good. They had monkeys on them throwing snowballs. Levi is our precious little monkey.

Onto the presents.... My sister made me an afghan for our living room. Teal!! It matches our living room colors. She also got Levi blocks and Rick a bunch of Reese's treats. Yum!

Christmas morning was so fun! I loved that we got to use the stockings that I made! It was so cool. Levi loved his stocking stuff. He got monkey containers for treats, a caterpillar stuffed animal, a couple cool balls, and a few other things.

He was so cute with all of his presents. You can see he got some toys! A train set, a car to sit on, some decorations for his room (okay, those are more for me), and he got some clothes from his grandparents. Rick got some tools, a new belt, a new shirt, a certificate to go surfing at the indoor place in Ogden, and of course lots of candy!

I got some cute earrings, Emma the movie, some nice boots Rick picked out, and more! We also got new phones for each other for Christmas. The HTC Evo with Sprint! We love our new smart phones. It is about time too! lol

Our Christmas traditions are just beginning. The couple that we have so far are of course summer sausage and cheese (Rick picks the cheese... he is a cheese fanatic), and singing a couple hymns about the Savior before we open presents. I hope to start developing more of our own traditions!

We of course spent Christmas day with the Brunsons. We had breakfast and opened presents. They got Levi a nice snowsuit which you can see in the other pictures previously. They also got me a canning set!! I nice pot, bottles, a lid grabber thing, the whole package!! I am stoked to use it. What a wonderful Christmas. Levi's first Christmas and Rick and My 3rd Christmas together!

It's a new year

Now that it is a new year I need to make sure I mention the things I haven't said yet about last year. Just a couple fun things (I will talk about Christmas later).

Back in September I got the flu pretty bad and could hardly do anything. Amazingly that was the same day as our much anticipated family pictures with my side of the family. It is so hard to get all of us together so when I got sick I knew I had to go anyway. Everyone was very helpful and it was a fun experience. I think the pictures turned out great too!! See!! Another fun thing was a salad that Rick and I made. If you are thinking that is no big deal... you don't understand. It is the Jerk Chicken Salad from Z'tejas. We had it a few weeks ago and LOVED it. I found the recipe online and we set out to make it. First off, we didn't have all the ingredients. We didn't even have 2/3 of the ingredients. It took so many spices and odds and ends, some of which I had never heard of. But after a couple trips to the store and an afternoon and mixing, cutting, and stirring... we had this! DELICIOUS!My companion from my mission came into town. She is from mainland China. She heard of the Gospel in Singapore one summer when she went there to work then decided to serve a mission. It was a challenge but she made it to Australia and I was her companion for 6 months! 1/3 of our entire missions. We grew to love and respect each other and love each other as sisters do. I always joked with her that she needed to learn how to drive. She is 28 and has never driven so I took her to a parking lot and gave her driving 101. She did pretty well. I got nervous a couple times, but she loved it! I was glad to share that moment with her.Rick and I got her a Christmas present. We took her shopping and got her a cute outfit! She looked so cute. And don't forget... I did her hair. She never does much with her hair. She never used a curling iron, straightener, nothing... so I love getting to dress her up when I see her. She is so cute. This is her sitting on my parents couch. They were so happy to meet her finally. She told them her conversion story and we all loved listening to her sweet testimony.Levi loved her too. She fed him vegetables, sang Chinese songs to him, and played with him as much as she could while she was with us. Another small little thing was a frame I found at D.I. I wanted to do a project I saw on a blog so I sent off to my sisters house to use some paint. Before I did anything though my nieces and I got some silly pictures!This is the finished product. It hold all our pictures and hangs above our desk. Do you like it?
Well that is all for now. I need to talk about Christmas and New Years, but that will be another time.

Christmas Time

We loved this holiday season. Our first Christmas with Levi. I wanted to make sure we did lots of holiday things. We went caroling twice. Once with some people in our neighborhood and another with my two sisters and some of their friends. Music is the perfect way to feel the Christmas Spirit. Especially hymns about the Savior and His birth.

This is us out and about with only a little candlelight to help us see our music. Levi loved staring at it as you can see in this picture.
You can see my sister and some of her family and friends walking through the streets of her neighborhood. I also got courageous and wanted to make some cute homemade stockings for Rick, Levi, and I. My amazing sister, Deborah, agreed to help me. Usually I would be so intimidated that she would end up pretty much making the whole thing, but I was insistent and she believed in me so I pushed through and made all three by myself, with her guidance of course. It was especially neat because she was using my Grandmother's old sewing machine and I got to sew on it too.
Here they are! Hand stitching around each piece of each picture. The Angel is mine, the snowman is Rick's, and the Santa is Levi's. I wish I would have taken a picture of them hanging on my wall at home, but I forgot. We made sure Levi saw Santa too. He was okay for about 2 seconds and then started crying. It was so funny. He liked "Santa's Helpers" much much better. He's a ladies man already. We made sure to make it up to the Ross's house in Pleasant View. Rick went to school with the girl in the green, Tara. Her family always do an annual caroling. We sit around their living room and sing every Christmas song you can think of. It was nice to see all of his old friends. We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I will make sure to fill you in on our Christmas and New Years as well.