New Year's!!

After Washington, we headed to Idaho and then down to Utah to be with Justin's family for New Year's. We haven't seen Justin's siblings since LAST Christmas!! That is WAY too long! Little Connor was only two months old when we saw him last. Now he is bigger than Jack!

All of the kiddos eating together. All of Stephanie's kids make very good babysitters!! They entertained Jack and Connor ALL DAY. Thanks guys!

Little Connor. Him and Jack both joined the throw up club together and they both broke through some molars!! It was a rough vacation for these two. He was still so cute with his cheesy little grin!

We were able to spend some time with Justin's good friend Rich. He was so good with Jack. This is one person Justin wishes he lived closer to!

Matching boys. :)

The girls...

The silly boys...

Stephanie, Ryan, Stephanie, Adam, Justin, Stacey

We had so much fun being able to spend time with both of our families!! We wish that we could be closer, even though we love it out here in Ohio. Like I said with my family, now it is your turn to come and see us!! It better not be a year again before we see everyone again!!

It was a nice long break, but we are glad to be back in our own home, with a normal schedule and not be living out of suitcases. We stayed as long as possible though. Our flight didn't come in until midnight, the night before Justin had to be back to classes. We had a little rough start when we first got back to Ohio, which is the reason I am posting this so late. But despite all that went wrong, we finally think we are back in the swing of things and over all of our sickness!! Now we are looking forward to Denise coming in a week and a half!!

Thank you Stephanie and Adam for letting us crash your house!

Christmas in Enumclaw

We were able to spend our Christmas with my family in Washington. Jack and I went a week early while Justin finished studying and took his National Board Exam, part one, which he did really well on! Congrats Justin!! Another extremely stressful part of dental school behind him...woo hoo!
Jack adjusted quickly to being at my parent's house. He loved all the new toys, and would not go to sleep without this gigantic Winnie the Pooh. He learned everyone's names really quickly and still asks for EVERYONE individually, including all of Justin's family. He definitely misses everyone! It just isn't as fun to be at home with just his mom...cousins are way better!

During our break, we played a lot of Wii, which is always fun! It's even more fun to make fun of whoever is playing it at the time! The Hula Hoop game was my favorite.

We got to hang out with the Berglind's!! Their little Hayden is to die for! It was fun to see him and Jack play together. It is still weird that we are married and have kids. It seems like we should still be rooming together at BYU-I!

All of the cutie pie boys...

Scottie being a weirdy.

My mom started a new tradition on Christmas Eve with a themed stocking. This year, the theme was my dad. He recently had his quadruple bypass surgery and so the stockings were filled with things to keep our bodies healthy.

And if you know my dad, he is the Cabella's King and in honor of him, we all received disgusting camouflage pajama's! We could not stop laughing after we put these on! I really don't think Camo is a good look for me. :) Good thing we love you dad! I must admit though, they were pretty comfortable!

Jack, snugging up to Uncle Willie. It was a little more difficult to get Jack to warm up to anyone at Christmas. He was sick for about 4 or 5 days, threw up multiple times, wouldn't eat for three days, and broke through two new molars! Needless to say, he was NOT a happy camper on Christmas morning. Hopefully next year will be different.

Tanner, Riley, me and Whitney

My long, lost cousin Kasey! I haven't seen her in years!! It was fun to see you Kasey!

I am so happy that we were able to go! I miss my family a lot!! Now, it is your turn to come and see me you guys! And the sooner the better!!

P.S. We had a white Christmas! It snowed almost the entire time I was there. The last white Christmas that I remember was in 1990! I loved it.

Bowling

We had a sibling's night out when I was in Washington, before Justin got there. It was a lot of fun. We were being really silly, taking tons of pictures and laughing extremely hard the entire time! :)

The "Head Hunter"!!
I thought this was going to be the winning ball for sure! Kelli proved me wrong :(

Me, Kelli, and Scott (or Pokey, as Jack would call him).

Mckay got to come with us on a school night! He was practically bowling with his eyes closed by the end of the second game. I think he was a little tired.

Beautiful form Scott :)

Christmas Flu Bug

Last night we went into check on Jack before getting ready for bed, and I smelled something gross. I went over to peek in at him and he had thrown up and just gone right back to sleep. He was covered from head to toe....disgusting. So we woke him up, changed his clothes and bedding and he fell right back asleep. He had been acting normal all day and even put on a little show for us right before going to bed, so we had no reason to think he wasn't feeling well. He woke up today feeling fine, but doesn't have much of an appetite, which is unusual for him. He took a four hour nap (which I was super happy about) and woke up acting totally normal, again. We have all been pitching in, trying to get Christmas Eve dinner ready and my dad says, "Umm...Stacey, Jack is throwing up all over the carpet!" They have brand new carpet (of course) so Justin and I quickly cleaned him up and the carpet. This is my first experience as a mom cleaning up grown up throw up. I used to think that baby spit up was bad...I would go back to that in a heart beat. So now I am praying that the throwing up is done and that no one else gets it. We are flying to Idaho on Saturday and if we aren't done with the bug, I have a feeling it will be great fun. :)

Merry Christmas!

The sky is falling!!!!!

When my sisters picked me up from the airport, we were having a friendly conversation when my sister, Angie, starts yelling "Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!" As we look, a huge tree falls on top of the truck right in front of us, then rolls back and we crash into it. The tree stretched across the whole road. After we hit it, there was tree EVERYWHERE! A bunch of people got out of their cars and cleared the road before we even realized what had really happened. Luckily, Angie's car isn't too bad, even though it will still be expensive to fix. But the truck in front of us, was totaled! The tail gate got ripped off and landed about 100 feet behind us. The girls inside though didn't even have a scratch. We were all so lucky! It was the weirdest thing that has ever happened.

We sat on the side of the road for almost two hours with crying boys in the back, waiting for the intern policeman to figure out how to give us a police report.

Notice the tail gate that the fireman had found a ways back...it's a little smashed.

This is our scared faces....Aaaggghhh!!!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

I LOVE this time of year!! I feel like I start anticipating Christmas
in July! We've been able to do a few things to get ready for the Christmas holiday, despite Justin being M.I.A. right now due to boards.

I made this wreath at our enrichment, and totally love it on my red door!

Sarah dropped by this super cute Christmas calendar!! It was a small price I had to pay for so much in return... I am in love with it! She is the most creative and talented friend I have. If you want to visit her blog and find the link to her Etsy shop, click HERE. This is only a sample of all of the cute things she has made.

Last night we went to the Lake Metroparks Farm Park, in Kirtland. We took a wagon ride through a display of lights, and we also got to see Santa!

Waiting for the horse-drawn wagon.

The excitement!

We tried about 50 times to get a cute picture of us and Jack (actually looking) and we failed. This was the best option.

Jack and I had been talking about seeing Santa ALL day and when the moment finally arrived...

...meltdown! Jack had a death grip on Justin's sweater as he was trying to put him on Santa's lap. He was so sad!! I was laughing to myself while we were waiting in line because it seems like all the parents want to get their child's picture taken with Santa and 9 times out of 10, this is the reaction you get out of the kids. Why do we torture them so??

The second Justin picked him back up, Jack turns to Santa and happily says "Bye, bye Santa!"

Figures. :)

Thanksgiving in D.C.

This Thanksgiving, we were able to spend the weekend in Washington D.C. with Scott and Denisse. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (Denisse and I did the whole thing!) with Denisse's family. When we weren't eating, we spent our time seeing as many sites as we could possibly squeeze in. We were able to see so much, but we are already making an intinerary for our next trip there. In some of the museums, you could spend days there and not see everything. Here is a sample of what we did get to see...

World War II memorial

The Washington Monument

This is the ONLY picture I have of all three kids! I can't believe I didn't take any more. They were pretty good for being strapped in their strollers for 3 days! This is at the Lincoln Memorial.

On the steps of the Lincon Memorial

Scott, Briell, Jack, and Justin at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Standing in line for food at the FDR Memorial

The Library of Congress. My FAVORITE building. The inside is so beautiful!!

Jack on the steps inside the Library of Congress.

View from the Library of Congress.... BEAUTIFUL!!

One of Dorothy's original size 5 ruby slippers from the film Wizard of Oz, inside the Museum of American History.

The Hope Diamond. 45 karats!! Inside the Museum of Natural History.

Checking out the butterflies at the Museum of Natural History.

As we were walking by the White House, President Bush landed in a helicopter on the White House lawn...random!

This was one of my most favorite vacations of all time. We had so much fun. It was non-stop and packed full of fun and interesting things, and engaging conversations. Seeing all the monuments and memorials, and reading quotes from the Founding Fathers, made me realize that they were truly inspired men. They were led here by our Heavenly Father to establish this wonderful country that we live in. Hopefully we will always remember the values that this country was founded on and that we never stray too far from the country these men established.

A big thanks to Scott and Denisse for letting us stay at your house!! We miss you guys already and we can't wait to come back!