LIFE ON THE RANCH

 My kids are definitely in heaven being outside

 Uncle Jason got a new pony that Ellie was so excited to ride.  She even learned to ride all by herself with the reigns and everything.  Thinking that she had mastered being a cowgirl, she said she wanted to round up some cows in the big arena.  Little did we know how fast this little pony really was, and he took off with El holding on for dear life.  We all just sat there, wide eyed, obviously not being able to catch the fast pony.  Eventually Ellie was catapulted from the saddle and landed on some soft hay (so lucky), missing the water trough by inches.  Ellie was pretty scared, but shook it off and got right back on the saddle.  

That a Girl!

 Could life get any better?

I think not!

FUN IN THE SNOW

After Christmas we decided to head north to let the kids play in some snow and Joel and I wanted to get some snowboarding in.  Joel's parents were willing enough to hang out with the kids, while we got to enjoy the beautiful weather and have a fun day with Jason (Joel's brother) and family.

Unfortunately Crew was not too stoked on walking around in the snow, and apparently his jacket was getting the better of him and Ellie just wanted to board with us, so it was a little rough on the first go round, but by the end of the day we all had a great time.  

Needless to say, we all sleep great that night!

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

BIRTHDAY GIRL!

 

Ellie was so excited and a little out of it when she woke up on her birthday (Dec. 1) 

to balloons all around her.  

Yes, She sleeps all over the place and is half off her bed and don't mind the "dog bed" shes sleeping on.  Aunt Tar and the kids came to visit for Ellie's B-day and were sleeping in her room.

 Once again, we visited the M&M factory on the strip.  One of El's favorite places.

 El, with the help of dad, cheating at the "smart ball" game.  Nice!

 Hold On!

I cant believe my little girl is already 4!  Wow, shes growing up so fast!

PHOTO SHOOT

 So here is the story to our wonderful Target photo shoot...

As we began our long drive home from Idaho to Vegas, Joel and I were talking in the car about how we wanted to do Christmas cards this year.  We hadn't taken any recent family pictures (that were good) and knew we needed to do some quick if we wanted to get our cards out in time.  So Joel called up our friend Pete, that lives is Salt Lake and asked if he would take some.  He was more than happy to, but let us know he had work at noon, so we would have to be done before that.  We got into Utah the night before and stayed with some friends of ours in Park City.  I was hoping we had some "outfits" that somewhat matched that we could throw together, but nothing was really coming together as I hoped.  So of course the next morning we were scrambling around going to various stores to get our last minute things to put our "outfits" together.  (I know I'm a dork and probably make a bigger deal of this than it needs to be:).  Needless to say we were running late for our photo shoot.  I needed to pick up one last thing at Target, so we called Pete to meet us there and then we could decide on a decent location to take some pictures.  At this time we only had about an hour before Pete had to get to work. Well of course our day had to get worse and as we got ready to leave in our car to follow Pete to our "location", our car decided not to start, PERFECT!!! 

Hence, the Target photo shoot.

We were able to get some photos taken, Pete got to work in time, and we got our car jumped so we were back on the road in no time.  What a wonderful day!!! Ha!

THANKSGIVING IN IDAHO

We had so much fun spending time with the fam in Idaho.

We are so blessed and thankful to be able to spend time with them and have so many wonderful people in our lives.  We love you all!