It's been a while...

Okay, I know it's been a while and I was doing really good about blogging everything until recently when I broke our laptop. Embarrassingly enough I was sitting on our recliner while facebooking when all the sudden I felt something crawling up my leg. I hit it with my hand and then looked down and saw this huge centipede laying there. I freaked out and jumped out of the chair throwing the computer to the floor face down. The screen is no more. This kind of stunk because our desk top computer has been easily overheating lately so we haven't been using that. Basically this was our only source to cyber world. I dug out my old laptop and it surprisingly worked better than I thought it would, but was still super slow and I had no intentions of uploading pictures just to slow it down even more. Was my hubby mad at me? Of course... but he forgave a little when I figured out how to ghetto rig our laptop to our desk top screen. Is it lame? Yes, very, but it's been working until we decide to break down and buy a new one. Anyways, on to the rest of my post. We have been keeping very busy so this post will be mostly pictures and I'll try to refrain from going off too much about anything and everything.

The kids have so much fun when we get them all together for play dates. We've been pretty frequent with them too and it makes for some good memories.

These girls are super cute together!

Peyton and her BFF Mya

Jax and Mia

Kinsley(the fry addict), Jax and Mia

No joke, I gave this girl a pretty long french fry, looked away for a second and by the time I looked back it was gone. She loves them!

My son will find anything to make you laugh and then keep doing it...

over and over again.

Then Peyton will eventually join in on the fun.

We started off Thanksgiving at my parents house. It was fun to get everyone together, except Sarah who had to work, her boyfriend Jeff, and Kenny who is on his mission. He's coming home on Kinsley's first birthday by the way! December 20th! Just in time for Christmas! We're pretty excited! The kids like playing with Uncle Brad.

Every year the "men" in the family go on a shoot out Thanksgiving morning. When I say the men I mean all of them(uncles, cousins, dads, and sons). It's a pretty big event and something they look forward to. I think Jax may still be too small to go, but it was cute enough to take a picture of when my dad came home. Sorry if this worries anyone, but the gun is obviously not loaded and it was all in fun.

Two of the biggest things I'm thankful for!

My cutie pie!

Kinsley and Grandma

The cousins... so far! Janeane is due February 1st so we're just waiting impatiently for the next one to make her entrance! :)

After my parent's we went to Derek's aunt and uncle's for round two. Then we stayed the night at his parent's and the next day we went to cut our tree! The kids looked soo cute all bundled up!

They loved the snow and making snow balls. Peyton was having a lot of fun throwing them at Grandpa's truck.

Amanda and Grammy "helping" Peyton build a little snow man.

While the guys and Amanda were off scouting for trees Grammy built this snow man. It was a great photo opportunity! We got a pretty tree, but I didn't get a picture of it. I will work on another post in a few days with our decorations and tree.

It was so pretty driving back down the mountain with all the fog rolling over the valley. Derek got out and took this picture and I thought it was awesome! Anyways, that's pretty much what we've been up to, excluding the fact that we all came down with a pretty bad stomach flu that spread like the plague, but we're all better now and looking forward to some really fun holiday traditions!!!

Family Pictures!

I finally decided it was time to get our family pictures taken! They turned out so good! Here are a lot of my favorites!

We had the same photographer that took the kid's pictures when Jax was born do them. Jax was the hardest to get to smile, but I guess that's what you would expect from a one year old. There are soo many pictures that I love! My kids are getting so big! Below is one of the pictures from a year ago:

Compare that to now:

It's crazy how much children can grow in a year! I'm so happy with my little family. We are far from perfect and have many bad moments, but I would be completely lost without my husband and my children. They give my life meaning and I love them!

Janeane's baby shower!

The past few days have been pretty crazy! Luckily Audge had done all the planning, shopping, organizing and hard work getting everything together for Janeane's shower. I can barely take any credit for the next few pictures because they were all Audge's ideas, but they turned out so cute I just wanted to share. Janeane isn't due to have her baby girl until February 1st, but we decided to do her shower a little early because of the holidays and everyone having things to do. Her shower turned out super cute and we were proud of all the decorating we helped do.

I loved these balloons! They looked so good above the food table. I took this picture before all the food had made it to the table...

We did a dessert table instead of having a cake. Audge made cake pops that are always a huge hit. They are so yummy!

We made a few poms to hang above the dessert table. It was my first time making them and I was shocked at how fast I picked up on how to do it, but then I looked at the final product and realized it didn't look at all like it was supposed to so I had to start all over... I think the more you make them the better they turn out. Practice makes perfect right? I wish we would have made a few more. Maybe we will for the next shower!

Quiche is soo good, especially when Audge makes it. I'm usually not one to rave about a salad either, but the one she put together was soo good... Marie Callender's Poppy seed dressing in the cold food section is the secret! Try it and you'll love it. The feta cheese gave it a really good taste too.

I'm sad this picture didn't turn out better, but this idea was too cute! Originally we were gonna hang baby pictures of mommy and daddy, but when Janeane couldn't find a lot of hers we decided to hang her ultrasound pics of her baby girl instead. I think it was really cool to have pictures of the baby up. It made it feel more like she was real, if that makes any sense.

We hung David and Janeane's baby pictures above the fireplace.

We were glad we didn't plan any games because it was so fun just to socialize, eat and open gifts. It seemed like the perfect shower.

I'm so excited for my sister to have her baby. She's been such a great aunt to my kids. She's taught Peyton so many things that I never thought she would be able to pick up on at such an early age. She opens my eyes up to Peyton's potential all the time and has such good advice on dealing with problems that I sometimes have with her. Teaching has taught her a lot when it comes to kids and I'm stoked that she can use what she's learned on mine and now hers. I'm relieved her shower went so well because she definitely deserved it!

My sister Sarah and niece Kinsley. Sarah helps out so much with our kids I don't know what we're going to do whenever she has her own. By then things might be more crazy than they are now. Our family seems to be growing so fast and it's such a special one to be in! I'm so grateful for it.

My cousin Leia and her baby Eli. He's such a cute little boy. None of my sisters are excited about the idea of having boys. To tell you the truth I wanted a boy more for Derek than I did for myself, but Jax is my little man and I like to think that he was sent here partially because God knew I needed him. It's fun to see Jax interact with another boy because he is always around girls.

Grandma and Jax. It's fun to see my parent's light up because of my kids and Kinsley. I remember the days that my mom would joke about when she would ever get a grand kid  like it was yesterday and now she has three almost four! Days like these are what life is all about... family!