Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here are a few pictures from this last week's Christmas acitvites. We had a good time, but we missed our families a lot, too. Maybe next year we can all get together again to celebrate the holidays. Thank you Grandma Nielson for this year's Christmas jamies. The kids loved them!

Even though we weren't with our family, we had to have our christmas eve shrimp dinner! It was great, thanks to a great shrimp fryer, Jordan.

We found a great sledding hill and of course Graham found the jumps.

Livi even enjoyed a fast ride down with Daddy.

The weekend before Christmas we met up with Kurt and Shawna Wakefield, and Aaron and Camile Parson and their kids. We went to Temple Square and saw the lights and had fun catching up afterwards. We had such a great time with some great friends!

Here are the men with all their offspring (a little chaotic!)

Livi is obviously having the time of her life!

We hadn't been to temple square to see the lights in years, so we were grateful for the opportunity. We sure hope you all had a wonder Christmas today, We love you!

Puppies

The puppies are about 6 weeks old. Just about ready to venture out and find owners of thier own.

Kendall demonstrates how to pet the puppies when you can't reach them with your hands!

Jaden LOVES the puppies!

LOTS of lovin' from Jaden!

Cute little blue eyed puppies!

friends

Jaden and Kendall have become good friends. They have a good time together. Playing, eating and even taking a bath (playing in the water) together!

Kendall is not quite sure what is about to happen.

Ready.....set.....wrestle!

Take down!

2 points for Jaden!

merry christmas everyone!!!

we were too late to send out christmas cards, so here it is

maybe we'll send new year ones instead.

this time of year is always full of warm cozy moments, perfect

for making new memories. I love the smell of holiday candles, making sugar cookies,

and being able to spend extra time with family.

I especially enjoy the closeness that we are able to feel with the Savior and his Son.

I hope we all remember the reason for the seasons, we love you all and wish

you love, peace, and joy in the coming year and years to come! 

Love Cody, Kendra, Kendall

Hey Giff and Amanda we're having fun watching Jayden! He's just hanging out eating a rice cookie! He just woke up from an hour nap and is playing with toys and having lots of fun!

The View

I have missed the big mountains being so close. I love that Springville is right up next to the Wasatch Mountains. You walk out the front door and your eyes go straight up. I love it. Here is the view out my back door:

Here is the view out my front door:

And here is the view in between.

Hope everyone is having fun in the snow!

We're here!

I've been a slacker lately, but other things has been on my mind. Just wanted to let everyone know that we got to Utah alright and are getting settled in. Graham likes his class at school, and Emery just started preschool there as well. She loves it of course. I really don't like starting over in new places, but things are going alright. I'm so lucky to have Saundra here to hang out with and answer my many questions. I'll post some pictures soon.

Ode to Toast

One of Jaden's favorite pasttimes is to sit and eat his toast. I don't know what it is, but this boy loves his toast.

Good News

I know that it's been a long time since I've posted any pictures, so here are a few fun random ones. I wish I had some cute Halloween pics of my kids, but of course, my camera was dead so my friend took some for me, and I keep forgetting to ask her to email them to me, so Marisa, if you are reading this, would you please email me my kids Halloween pictures. There, I remembered. So I'm sure most of you have heard our exciting news by now and no we are not having another baby like Jordan likes to fake people out. We are moving to Spingville, Utah! Yeah us! Sometimes it still feels like I'm dreaming. We are very excited and very happy. I think it will be a great place to live for the next who knows how long whether Saundra likes us driving them crazy or not :) We will be moving the week of Thanksgiving and Jordan starts his job on the 1st of December. We will dearly miss Moscow. We absolutely love it here and I would recommend it to anyone going to Graduate school. It will be great living alot closer to our family, though. Our kids definately miss their Grandmas and Grandpas.


All work and no play makes a man very tired. Yes, he is actually asleep and snoring. I'm not sure what made him decide to put his glass on his forehead and take a nap.

Our little Snow White after her first dance performance.

This picture pretty much sums Livi up in a nut shell. We love our silly Lou.

Happy halloween everyone! We had a fun time this year with Kendall around. It was kind of a crazy day we flew into salt lake around noon from hawaii, stopped at guitar center, got home around six and then Cody had a concert at the westwood. It was awesome, they did such a great job! Cody dressed up like Flava Flav it was hilarious! After we went to the concert we wanted to go visit jaden, but he was sleeping, so we went and visited grandma and grandpa adams. It was a fun halloween.

little chub chub

haha so cute!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! Jaden had his first real experience with trick-or-treating this year and it was pretty fun. He also went to his first Halloween party as well. Melaleuca had all of their trick-or-treaters yesterday and had the entire call center decorated up pretty good. Jaden wasn't sure what to do at first, but it didn't take him very long to get his candy and put it in his bucket. By the end he was trying to take whole containers of candy instead of individual pieces. Our little penguin also went to the World Gym Halloween party for the kids. He made a pumpkin paperplate, danced, played games, ran around like a wild man, and chowed down the candy. Our little penguin was so over-stimulated at the party this morning that he cried when we got home and fell asleep about a minute later. He's had a good Halloween! Look, I'm a penguin!!



Life is good!


What is this?

I'm done with Halloween! This spider on the side of my face is so annoying!

This is the halloween pumpkin he made and the bucket he trick-or-treated with. Thank you Grandma Shel.

NYC Weekend

I just got back from NYC on Monday morning at 3:00am. We had a blast. Even though it was only four days, we were able to fit a lot in the trip. We took a harbor cruise in the Hudson and we were able to see the Manhattan Skyline from the water and we could also see New Jersey as well. We went to the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, a Broadway show called Wicked, lots and lots of shopping, the Serendipity Restaurant, tours through Brooklyn, Ground Zero, Original Macy's, took a horse and buggy through Central Park, Chinatown, Soho, time square, went to the Today show, saw the New York Stock Exchange, Little Italy, Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Garden, Brooklyn Bridge, Greenwich Village, and more stuff I can't think of. Anyway it was a blast! It was really cool to go to church on Sunday in a high rise building as well. It was kind of funny not to see a normal church building and just another high rise. It was truly an overwhelming city with high rises for miles and miles. I absolutely loved it and want to go back. Here are a few pictures from the trip. We took so many, I just didn't know what to post so here are a couple.

In front of Times Square
Manhattan Skyline from the Statue of Liberty.

of course the Statue of Liberty

Shopping at Tiffany's! Yay.

In the cab on our way to Wicked.

Girls Weekend

Congrats Daisy, Cody, and Kendra on the new puppies!

Of course I forgot to take my camera to my annual girl's weekend last weekend, so I can't post any fun pictures, but we had a great time any way. Here's a recap:
Round trip ticket from Spokane to SLC: $250
Salad from Wendy's at 9 am in the airport: $5
Movie ticket to a good tear jerker with girlfriends: $6
A weekend every year with three friends that you could call your sisters that inspire you to be a better wife, a better mother, and a more Christlike person: Priceless.

Thank you Saun, Ellen, and Hilary (and you too Laura and Margie) for a wonderful weekend. I love you guys so much. This is one of my most cherished traditions.

New Puppies!!!!!

Hey everyone!

Exciting things are happening here at our house!



Daisy is staying with us while Cody and Kendra are in Hawaii. As you all know, Daisy has been expecting since her last romp with the neighboring chuaua!



Daisy and Buster have been sleeping in the garage at nights. Early this morning, about 5:30 am, Buster was making all sorts of racket so I got up and went into the garage to see what was up. As soon as I opened the door to the garage I had both Daisy and Buster trying to come in and let me know that something was going on. I could hear a small cry coming from somewhere in the garage. Immediately I knew that Daisy had started into labor and the cry was from a new puppy! Buster and Daisy were running all over the garage like they didn't know what to do. It took me a minute but I finally found the puppy BEHIND a board that was leaning up against the freezer. It was cold and wet and VERY new. Buster was very curious about it. He came over to see what it was while Daisy stayed at the door. I think the poor girl was so confused she didn't know what to do. I brought her and the new pup in the house and she ran straight to the office where Buster has a blanket that he lays on under the counter. Daisy has been on it alot since she has been staying with us. I think she knew that she was close to giving birth and had picked that spot to have her babies on but was in the garage when they decided to come. I had a pillow in the garage for her to sleep on and brought it in with the puppy and put them under the counter in the office. Poor girl.....Daisy was all confused. I had to keep putting her on the pillow with the pup. She finally stayed with the puppy and had two more puppies. We thought that she was done....as you will be able to tell by the pictures. She even went outside to go potty. Not long after that I checked on her and she had another puppy! She seems to have settled down and mom and babies are all doing fine.

Congratulations Daisy and grandma Kendra and grandpa Cody. Oh....and don't forget to congratulate Great Grandpa Rick!

Anyone want a baby choodle?

Birthday Week!!

We just wanted to wish both Jordan and Jenny a Happy Birthday. Y'all are great people and we're glad your our family. We wish we could celebrate your birthdays with you in person. Maybe another time. Anyway, wish ya the best!!

Love ya,
Giff, Amanda, and Jaden

In light of the latest addition to the Twilight book seriesand to the upcoming premier of the Twilight movie.We as a group are excited to announce starting Oct 13th...
TWILIGHers Give Blood
We are going to be producing and auctioning off layouts and other paper piecing creations designed and centered around the Twilight book series and movie! There will be creations from Vampires and Werewolves to anything and everything Halloween. Some of the proceeds from our each of our auctions will be donated to the Red Cross, hence "Twilighers Give Blood"...LOL!
Keep looking back, we will be giving somesneek peeks of our upcoming auctions!

http://albtm.blogspot.com/

Soccer Mom

Well, I'm officially a soccer/dance mom. Graham started his first season of soccer a couple of weeks ago and Emery started dance a couple of weeks ago and they both LOVE it! I was so excited for them to get going in something, but after realizing my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings were gone (and so is my husband), I'm already starting to look for the light at the end of the tunnel.


Here's Graham looking awesome in his Thrashers uniform.

Emery looking stellar in her purple dance outfit pulling a sweet pose.

Happy Birthday Livi! We got to celebrate twice last weekend on our whirlwind to trip to Salt Lake and Rexburg. It was so good to see everyone.

Our version of The Naked Chef. The snotty nose is especially appetizing.

They clean up pretty well, don't they.