Grandpa

Dan's Grandpa Doney came into to town to visit for a few days. Lindsay is the only one of our kids who have met him and she was only 9 months old then. It was good to have our kids finally meet their Great-Grandpa. I think this picture will be priceless since who knows if we'll ever get to see him again since he never comes to Utah and we never go to Idaho. It was so nice to visit with him.

Family time

Dan's sister, Melissa, came into town from Chicago for a couple weeks with her family. We got to spend some time with them while they were here. It is fun to have our kids play with their cousins who they don't get to see very much.

Lindsay, Zane, Austin, Carter and Gavin

Josh

Melissa and Evvi

Brie and Mike

Char and Chris

Travis and Cassie

Brooklyn, Trevor and Liz

Ma and Evvi

I'm so bummed I didn't get a picture of Dan's dad! :(

Sledding at Grandma Della's and Grandpa Ted's

Dan's grandparent's own a lot of property down in Salem. And when it snows it becomes the BEST place to go sledding and snowmobiling! We went down several times this year and had a BLAST!!! The kids, especially Lindsay, stayed outside for quite a long time too. Their house sits at the top of a hill and the road going up to it is perfect to sled down. Then we have a few people pull everyone back up behind the snowmobiles and 4 wheelers. It's seriously so much fun!!!

Lindsay goes flying down the hill with no fear!

Dan's mom, cruising by! She and I raced down and I won!

Going back up to the top!

Mike and Lindsay

Trevor and Gavin

Grandma Tracey

Zane and Dan

Zane and Me

Dan and I invited my family to come down one Saturday. The snow had melted a little on the road so there wasn't enough snow to sled on it, but Grandma and Grandpa have some great hills, so we we sled down those instead! It was still a blast!

Sam and Teron

Christian and Harry

Kaelynne and Kelly

Melissa and Memphis Smith

Mike and Damien Smith

Chad and Andrew

Missy, Spencer and Marcus

Karen and Nathan

Jarom, Bentley and Jonah

Gavin, Dan and Zane

Lindsay and Me

The HILL!

Andrew....how cute is that???

Laurel and Mary

Brooklyn

Grandpa Ted and Grandma Della...thank you for sharing your home with us. We love you!

Topsy Turvy 2010

Since January is such a yucky month, my family has adopted our own holiday....Topsy Turvy Day! We all come dressed up crazy, eat food and play games. This year our family came dressed up as each other, with the exception of Gavin who refused to dress-up as Brooklyn. So he came as Batman Jones (Batman with an Indiana Jones hat). Dan came as me, I was Zane, Lindsay was Gavin, Zane was Lindsay and Brooklyn was Dan. It was fun!

I'm making a grumpy face that Zane has mastered when he gets mad. Dan is wearing my sweater and hair extensions. Brooklyn is bald like Dan and wearing a onesy that Dan's work gave her when she was born. Lindsay's wearing some of Gavin's clothes and acting silly like Gavin. Zane is wearing Lindsay's clothes.

We did some puzzle races

All the kids made masks.

Zane won for best costume!

Brooklyn and Tubes

Our sweet baby got tubes put in her ears on January 7th. She's had 4 ear infections in 6 months! Zane and Gavin both had tubes too. It's just something we deal with along with Croup! :) But I'm not complaining. I can deal with ear infections and Croup. She was so sweet before they took her away from us and I wanted to cry as they walked away with her. But it only took about 10 minutes and then they called us back to come hold her while she woke up from her anesthesia. She was a screamin'! I hate when they are waking up out of that! All of our kids have been put under before they were the age of 3 (Lindsay had to have 8 cavities filled when she was almost 3 and she was under for 2 hours!) and it is heartbreaking! But we're crossing our fingers that this will help Brooklyn's little ears.

Before the surgery. They gave her this cute little shirt to wear. Gavin has one in blue from his surgery.

Ten years ago.....

10 years ago, Dan and I got engaged, FOR REALS! If you missed my previous post of the FAKE PROPOSAL click here.
So New Year's Eve 1999, I was so excited! I had been waiting and waiting for Dan to ask me to marry him and after forgiving(ish) him for the fake proposal, I thought "he's going to do it New Year's! It would be perfect! It's Y2K, we'll be with my whole family, my mom can video the whole thing and take pictures!" Needless to say, I was so excited! The countdown to the year 2000 was killing me. We were all outside my parent's house, my mom had the video camera out, my siblings were doing fireworks, Dan and I were standing on the porch.....it was going to happen....FINALLY!!! Then midnight came and nothing else did. Dan just kissed me and said "Happy New Year Honey!" WHERE'S MY RING?????? I thought. He didn't give it to me at Christmas and now not at New Year's? What the heck was he waiting for???? Well, as the night went on I got madder and madder. Around 2:00 am, he went home and I was still mad. So I went to bed.

The next morning around 8:00, I was awakened by a sweet kiss. It was Dan and he was kneeling by my bed. I had just recently moved back home to save money to get married and I was sharing a room with my littlest sister, Amy, but she didn't sleep in our room that night. But the room was NOT clean and very cluttered. So Dan had to push stuff around on the floor to kneel down...how embarrassing. He pulled out a beautiful ring and said, "do you want to put up with me forever?" I said, "of course I do!!!" FINALLY!!!!!!! I LOVE the ring he picked out! We went upstairs and my parents were in the living room with the camera's waiting for us. They gave us hugs and kisses, then we went to Dan's parent's to show them the ring. Dan's dad was at the stake center getting ready for a stake baptism, so we drove over there to show him too. Then we made a few stops around the neighborhood (that we both grew up in) to show some friends that it finally happened. So it didn't happen how I had imagined it would and Dan has had a lot of making up for the fake proposal and then the non-Christmas and New Year's proposal, but he was totally worth the wait!!!!! And I would not change a thing about how he did it because it makes a really good story!! Love you honey!

Happy New Year!!!

For New Year's this year, our friends, Travis and Patsy, invited us over to party and sleep over. We had a lot of fun and stayed up very late eating and playing games. The kids had a blast too!

Our New Year's kiss!

Travis and Patsy

Some of the MANY kids that were there!