Have a Merry Merry Christmas

I absolutely love this time of the year. It is always anticipated for so long and then goes by too fast. My favorite thing about Christmas time is getting together with the family. This year was a little different because we didn't have any kids on Christmas day. I am used to having my nieces around, or having Kyra and Makenna. But this year it was just me, Brett, Jimmy, Pat, and Gloria (Brett's parents). It was a nice relaxing morning. I was so excited for it because I couldn't wait for Brett to open his presents. However, I was very sad that I wasn't going to be with my family on Christmas day. Even though this is the third Christmas I have spent with Brett, I still can not get over not spending it with my family. This year we decided Brett's parents would come up to Spokane instead of us going to Leavenworth. We had a lot of fun with them. I took Gloria shopping, while Brett kept his dad busy working in the basement.

Here are just SOME of the pictures I took during Christmas. The ones below are not in the collage because they were saved on another program, but i still wanted to add them in. The onese of me and my family were taken last Sunday. We went over to their house for dinner.




Wow! Jimmy is one lucky guy. He wanted to pretend all the presents were for him.

I just thought this was a good picture of Brett and his dad. They look so much alike.

Me and Gloria on Christmas Eve

I just want to say that I have so much to be grateful for in my life. I have been blessed with a great job, a wonderful husband, and amazing friends. I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father that he has given me so much.

Hard Working Man

So about a week before Christmas our washer broke down. Thank goodness we had bought a set the day after Thanksgiving. However, it was back ordered until February. So it was looking like I was going to be hauling our loads of clothes to the sketchty laundry mat for two months! I was not happy about this. Thank goodness, Jimmy offered to sell us his for the same price as the ones we bought. This made me so happy. I felt so bad for the boys unloading them in the snow that I had to take some pictures.

Brett had a couple days off during Christmas and it was great for the both of us to be home together for a while. However, I didn't get to see him that much because he was always working on something! If he wasn't outside shoveling, he was working in the basement. He did not get much of a vacation at all. I think he worked harder on his days off than when he was going to work. He was definitely ready to go back today. I am so grateful that he is such a hard worker. Since his brother Jimmy has been living in the basement he has been much more motivated to get the basement done. He put in a heater and a door. It seems like pretty simple tasks, but somehow both projects took about two days.

I know, not too interesting. But it makes a world of difference downstairs. I actually don't mind going down there now. Hopefully, soon we can make it a nice family room.

SNOW DAY!!!!!

Well it looks like I get my Christmas vacation a little early! The snow that came down the past couple of days has been amazing. It looks absolutely beautiful out! However, it is keeping me stuck in my house, that is why I have the time to blog right now. But I thought that I would post a couple of pictures of what it looks like at my house. I think that I am going to have to go out and shovel so Brett can get in our garage.....Thank goodness for our garage! I love that I do not have to go outside and scrape off my car.

Christmas Party

This week we had the chance to hang out with all of our friends at a white elephant Christmas party that Kimberly put on. It was so much fun. Kimberly is such a great host. It was like she was made for this stuff. Anyway, after we ate a lot we opened some really interesting presents.

Jen picked the present from Brett which was a lava lamp. I am sure she will find a really good use for that.

Wes picked the present from Joel, which was a fanny pack. It was pretty sweet. Wes, maybe you can use it to put all of your pocket knives in it.

Ben ended up with handcuffs and a pregnancy test from Beth. This is perfect for Kim because every time I see her she thinks that she is pregnant.

Here is all us girls. I love my friends and am so grateful for them.


This has nothing to do with the Christmas party, but I just wanted to put up a picture of our Christmas tree. It is our first Christmas tree as a married couple. I think we did a great job of decorating it.

Gingerbread Man

I just wanted to put on one picture of my cute class. We have been studying Gingerbread Men this month, so this is one of the classrooms and all their decorated Gingerbread Men. I am so grateful to have this job. It has absolutely been an amazing blessing in my life.

Family Pictures

So every Thanksgiving is is tradition that we take our yearly family pictures. I like this tradition in our family because it is always so funny to hear all of us bickering and laughing at stupid stuff. Everyone wants to put their word in of what they think we should do or they are griping that we have been taking pictures too long. It kind of sounds bad, but it is always my favorite part about Thanksgiving. I tried to put these on with my last post, but our internet was not working. Also, I forgot to write about our second Thanksgiving. We got to go to Leavenworth the Wedensday night before Thanksgiving. I always love going to Leavenworth. It is very relaxing there, and it is always nice to see Gloria and Pat. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because I forgot my camera. But on Thanksgiving day we went to Brett's sister's (Coleen) house for dinner. It was much different from my family Thanksgivings, but still very nice. It was just her family and ours so it was nice and quiet. After dinner, Gloria, Makenna, Colleen, Teerza, and I went for a walk. It was a really great night. Of course, Friday morning Brett, Gloria, and I went shopping early in the morning. We didn't find many deals at first, but after about and hour or so we started spending some money. We found most of our Christmas presents for the girls, so it was a successful trip!

So every

Happy Thanksgiving

Brett and I had two Thanksgivings this year. My parents came over to our house the weekend before Thanksgiving. We had a lot of family over and it was a lot of fun. It was the first turkey that Brett and I made together and I thought it turned out pretty good.

In this picture there is my Uncle Kenny, Makenna, me, Kylah (my niece), Melanie, Uncle Keith, Britney (my cousin), Madyson, and Kyra. Everyone else had to eat in the living room. We don't quite have a big enough table to hold us all.

Brett carving the turkey

Makenna Turns 9

I am a little late on this post because her birthday was October 22. But I just received the pictures tonight, so I thought I would put them on. For her birthday party she took a couple friends to Wonderland. There are a couple of pictures of her at the Go Cart Raing. The others were her just being goofy while she was opening birthday presents.

There were the presents from Grandma Gloria. She loves her little Kitties. She named these Mini

Kitchen Renovation...

..Well kind of. We moved into this house last March and one of the reasons I loved it so much was because of the huge kitchen and bathroom. However, the kitchen was the ugliest color green you could possibly imagine. The cupboards and tile was all a dark green. And then for the walls and ceiling, it looked like they took some white paint and then mixed it with the green paint to make a very very light green color. So the kitchen was my first thing on my to do list to fix up the house. It has taken a little bit longer than expected, but I am finally making progress. It is amazing what a couple gallons of paint can do to a room. I figured it now looks good enough to show my friends on the blog. I still have a lot of little detail stuff to do, but I am just happy it is not dark green any more. And I am happy to say that I did this all on my own. Brett helped hammer in a couple of nails, but that was it. So we have practically all of the downstairs done. Now all that is left is our bedroom.

I am showing you the before pictures first:

There is Gloria (Brett's mom)

This is Pat (Brett's dad). These were taken in December, before Brett moved into the house.

Yes, I know we still do not have cupboard doors, but I have gotten used to it and actually like it now.

Well that is it. I still want to get new countertops but that is not going to happen for quite a while.

Fall Pictures

Even though the girls threw a big fit, I got some fall pictures of everyone. These are really the only pictures my mom was able to take becuase nobody was cooperating, but they turned out great. Thank you mom for making a special trip up here. I love you.