Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas with our family! So great! And this year we even made it through without any credit card debt! First time since we have been married! Here are some pics from our time with the fam.

The girls in the robes we got them

My silly Daddy



















Laci & Atlee


















Levi & Connie



















The boys with their Momma & Dad













Granny & Papa with their grandkids and great-grandkids













Chris and I with Granny & Papa

Joe, Misti and the kids

Oh the Lights

Connie and I have sort of made it a tradition for us to go look at Christmas lights with the girls every year. We all enjoy it, but apparently men do not. Fine by us, because we usually have a very fun and giggly evening. This year was good like the rest. We went to our normal spot, but unfortunately there was a 2 hour wait to sit in line and view the lights, so we decided to take some back roads and look at the less popular streets. Well, we were rebels and actually got in line later to see some of the "hot spots" and thus presenting our wonderful crazy silly videoes. Now you can be a witness to our silliness. Enjoy!

Mia the Diva

THE house of Lights...

Late Post

Ben's Christmas Concert & Taylor's Birthday. I am behind on posting about both of these things. Here are a couple of videoes and a super cute picture of the birthday girl!



Ben during his Christmas Program

The Birthday girl showing us a Twirl...

Who needs formal dance training when the skills come natural?? Super cute!

And last but not least a super cute picture of the 4-year-old

Winter Wonder Slam!

On Sunday night, Chris and I went to the Winter Wonder Slam concert, which included Family Force 5, Relient K and Toby Mac.

When Chris and I were dating we went to Christian Rock concerts all the time, but since we have been married we have been to none. And can you believe we forgot how much we enjoyed going to Christian Rock concerts?? I can't believe it either!

We had an awesome time! Even if the concert didn't end until 11:30 and Chris had to be to work at 5:45AM the next day and I had to be there at the normal 7:00 AM.

We did feel like some of the oldest, non-youth sponsor, but rather concert-attending fans there. It was quite funny! We had great seats and were on the second row behind the "pit" FULL of teenagers and youth sponsors.

One thing I forgot though was my ear plugs...oh yeah, laugh all you want but even when I was a teenager I always made sure that I wore my ear plugs to concerts. Well, as you all may know, I have a purse fully stocked of many items, so I thought to myself, SURELY I can find something in here that will work and will save my ears from this deafening rock noise! So I found vicks-scented Kleenexes...didn't know they made such a thing? Well they do and they are lovely to blow your nose into, but I ended up tearing off small pieces and shoved them into my little ears and AHHH the concert was SO much more enjoyable. Chris just laughed, but I understand how hearing loss affects your entire life, HELLO, my dad!! So I do not want to even increase my chances of losing my hearing.

The concert was great as I said before, but the most awesome thing was: TOBY MAC STOOD ON THE CHAIR RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!! Oh, yes that is right, as he was doing his crazy energetic show he came through the crowd and stood on the chair right next to me! I did not touch him however...I am not one of those creepy fans who feels the need to reach out and touch an extremely sweaty rock star no matter how good-looking they might be. Well I got pictures to prove the awesomeness of the show so I will leave you with them. Good day!

I have about a 100 pictures from the concert, so if you want to view them all, send me your email address and I will get them out to ya!

This makes me laugh...

We took Spencer to a new groomers today...and his new "do" is cracking me UP! Here are before and after pictures. I like the shorter hair though...just going to have to get used to him looking this way! I think I will like it better when it grows out just a little bit...

My View

My view at work a couple of days this week.

That's all...good day! I am going to bed now, it has been a long week :)

Christmas Pictures

Well we took our Christmas pictures on Saturday. Actually I should say Ellie took our Christmas Pictures!! She did an excellent job!

We decided to have a western theme this year. Which some of you might find as odd, since I am not really the western type. Chris is. He was excited I chose this. No Spencer this year in our pictures. I was excited I chose this. HA!!

We took them at Eagle Mountain Park. If you have not been there, you should go. It is a beautiful place...and if you go, this might happen:

That is right, this little baby deer (fawn) came right up to us and let us pet it! It was amazing! And totally cute!

Here are a few of the pictures I liked best, but I will not be posting my favorites, you will have to make sure I have your address so you can get a Christmas card with the actual picture in it! Ha! Merry Christmas!

See the lake?

Surrounded by Charlie Brown Christmas Trees (as I like to call them)

I wish we would have noticed the grass and branch in the way!

Ellie caught us in a midair skip!

Craft Time with the Girls

A Baby Changes Everything...

A new song I love...here are the lyrics. Go to my myspace and take a listen or google it.

Faith Hill – A Baby Changes Everythng

Teenage girl, much too young
Unprepared for what’s to come
A baby changes everything

Not a ring
On her hand
All her dreams
and all her plans

A baby changes everything (x2)

The man she loves
she’s never touched
How will she
Keep his trust?

A baby changes everything (x2)

And she cries, oh she cries
Ooh, oh

She has to leave, go far away
Heaven knows she can’t stay
A baby changes everything

She can feel it’s coming soon
There’s no place,
there’s no room
A baby changes everything (x2)

And she cries, and she cries
Oh, she cries

Shepherds all gather 'round
Up above,
Star shines down…

Choir of Angels sing
Glory to the newborn king
A baby changes everything (x2)
everything, everything, everything

Hallelujah x4

My whole life has turned around
I was lost, but now I’m found

A baby changes everything, yeah
A baby changes everything

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was just informed that we are allowed to leave work at one today if we skip lunch! WOO HOO! Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope that all of you enjoy the time you are given with all of your extended families!

A few things I am thankful for:

• a loving Savior, Jesus Christ
• my loving husband, Christopher
• family
• good friends (Jamye, Ellie, Jennifer, Connie, Anjolee, Stevie, just to name a few...)
• a home
• a stable job (something to be thankful for in this economy)
• enough money to pay the bills
• sweet, sweet nieces and nephew (I know they are part of my family, but they deserve special recognition...hehehe)

Oh what a wonderful feeling...

That is right, a wonderful feeling...you know why?


Well because Chris and I FINALLY got the guts to fill shoe boxes this year for Operation Christmas Child. Our church does this every year and every year we say we want to do it but the time comes and goes before we realize and we miss out. Well, not this year!! We got our boxes from church last Sunday and we will be bringing them back this Sunday! We are so excited to give gifts to small children across the world. To read more about this awesome ministry click on this link http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/


Here are our boxes:






















We decided to do two boxes...one boy and one girl. We chose the age range of 5-9. Want to know what we stuffed these with? Well here it is:


Boy Box:
3 mini Christmas puzzles, 3 bars of soap, 6 washcloths, 1 ball, 3 cars, 1 truck, 3 traffic cones (that go with the vehicles), 8 tic-tac containers, 2 veggie tales tooth brushes, 1 tube of Aquafresh, 1 crayola doodle pad, 8 Dallas maverick themed colored pencils, 1 NBA themed pencil bag, eraser, sharpener and ruler, 4 packs of gum, 1 Mavericks themed spiral notepad with pen, 4 shrek themed automatic pencils and 6 push pops.


Girl Box:
1 baby doll, 2 bars of soap (the 3rd one just wouldn't fit no matter how hard I tried), 6 wash cloths, 6 push pops, 8 tic-tac containers, 1 crayola doodle pad, 1 tinkerbell themed box of crayons, 1 care bear themed pencil bag, sharpener, eraser and ruler, 8 princess themed colored pencils, 4 packs of gum, 3 mini Christmas themed puzzles, 18 care bear themed hair ties, 2 veggie tales tooth brushes, 1 tube of aqua fresh, 12 sets of care bear themed stick on earrings, and 3 care bear rings to match.





All sealed and ready to go! Merry Christmas kids!

Saturday

Saturday Connie, the girls and I went to the Botanic Gardens and then to Casa Manana to see The Stinky Cheese Man and other fair(l)y (stoopid) tales - and yes that is exactly as it is printed on the program. It was HILARIOUS! Even more so funny because there is a cast member that I went to school with so it adds to the hilarity of the program. I highly recommend this one to all people - children or not...if it is still playing. Here are some pictures from our adventure to the Botanic gardens.















The girls and I on our picnic blanket...we had a "sonic" picnic at the Botanic Gardens















Connie & the girls




















Mia and Jules trapped in a vine...AHHH - that is what they were doing in this photo...screaming!!





















Jules trapped in the vine...she doesn't look so scared!
















Mia stopping to smell the roses





















Checking out the turtles in the pond

And here is a video of Mia dancing at Casa during the intermission. She LOVED this play!

Halloween & Heart stopping moment...

Halloween - a time to give out candy and see all sorts of kiddos in crazy costumes.

This year Chris worked nights, so my parents came over and we (mostly me) handed out candy and entertained Atlee while Laci went to a costume party :) Laci dressed up as Jennifer Love Hewitt...and looked pretty darn good!! The first thing Mia said to her when she walked in the door was "Laci you grew your hair long" HAHAHA! Laci had on a hair piece to make her hair longer...kids just don't understand that sorta thing...I could see how that would be confusing, but it was funny nonetheless. Mia said she loved giving our "customers" treats. Hehehe! Our trick-or-treaters were customers! Here are some pictures from our evening.

The little Chicken and I

Jennifer Love Hewitt


















Jules, Mia & I












LOOK a new one of Connie & Levi!!! And Connie's new pixie hair do!












Spencer in his costume! HA!














A pretty ballerina, a rock star and a silly chicken!














A pretty ballerina, a rock star and a GANGSTA chicken! Haha! Atlee cracks me up! She is so hard to get to smile when we take pics!!








Now for the heart stopping moment: Chris is converting our deck (that used to be on the edge of the pool that we removed) into a play ground/club house of sorts for the kids. Well he added a new climbing wall feature of sorts to it this past week and the girls just had to go test it out. They think it is so cool that this will be their area to play. Well you see Chris is not finished and so the side that used to be open to the water is now just open to the ground. He has started on a railing, but is not finished. The girls really wanted to play so we moved the excess wood pieces to the side and gave them flash lights and let them play. I gave the warning not to get close to the edge and to pay attention where they were walking. They played up there really well for about 30 minutes I would say. THEN Atlee all of the sudden does some sort of sit/lean thing backwards towards the edge and off she goes flat on her back on the ground below. Instant crying and me running towards her, my heart stopped at this moment wondering what she hurt, because she HAD to hurt something and WHY did I let them play up there?! I rush to her pick her up and take her to the back porch where I give her to mom. We are all trying to get her to tell us what hurts while she is just crying and crying. Well then she finally gathers a breath and tells us "my whole body" we had to laugh even though she was obviously hurt, but we checked all bones and every inch of her body and found nothing but a red mark on her elbow and a couple little ones on her back. If I would have fell from that, I most definitely would have jammed or broke something. Kids are so resilient...not that I want to test their resiliency. Since she fell in a pile of sand I think that must have helped cushion her fall, but she was COVERED. So off we go to put her in the bath. I found nothing else wrong with her and she was back to her normal crazy self in no time. She did leave my tub with a sand ring around the bottom though. When Chris came in at the end of the night she said "Chris, I fell and it cracked me up!" She is so nutty! We said, you weren't cracking up, you crazy girl!! Sheesh! I think she is fine.

The Fall

So today I did something embarassing. I totally busted in front of about 7 coworkers. Yep, busted. If this would have happened to me about 5 years ago, I would have been completely mortified, but I actually found this kind of amusing. The story goes like this:

I had been "rock climbing" on the side of the dam for about an hour and received a phone call from my boss. Well I was attempting to have a meaningful conversation with him while standing on the rocks, behind the guardrail next to the road on top of the dam while big rock trucks were passing by and hindering my ability to hear him. So I decide that I am going to step over the guardrail and walk across the road to our vehicle so I can finish the conversation in peace. Well I get my left foot over and then somehow my right shoe or pant leg (not sure exactly) gets hung up on the guard rail and I try to tug it off and DOWN I GO!! I ended up taking the brunt of the fall on my left hand and right knee but somehow landed on my back...again, not sure. So here I am in shock laying on the asphalt road not completely in the shoulder, talking to my boss on the phone, because I still managed to have the phone and my right hand glued to my ear this whole time. I was brought back to reality when one of my coworkers said "Lexi, get up, you are going to get run over!" He helped me up and then we laughed about how "graceful" my fall was...uh, yeah, sure it was. One of my bosses who was there told everyone that I could fall that way because I was a gymnast. I had to explain to my boss on the phone that I had just fell and then I somehow ended that conversation.

I ended up with bruises on my knee and bruises on my hand where little rocks poked so hard into it leaving their little impressions. My back is ok, because I had on several layers and my carhart-like jacket for cushion. I was teased for the rest of the day though with comments like: "are you sure we should let her drive when she can't even walk", "we are only laughing because you didn't cry, if you would have cried we would have only laughed on the inside" and "you looked like a turtle that was stuck upside down, trying to flip back over" --- What was that phrase again??? OH yeah, THEY WOULDN'T TEASE ME IF THEY DIDN'T LIKE ME. I will have to engrave that one in my brain after today.

Oh the joys of my job...

Costume Party & Thoughts

Well we had our annual costume party again. Except this year with no one from our family :( That really did leave a big hole in our party, but we will blame my mom and her stubborn self for that. Beyond that, it was the first year we had kiddos attend and included them in the fun. I think they enjoyed it...I really am not an expert, because you see I have no children. This resulted in a lot of fun, but only 1 adult game played and I felt lame because it was uno attack...during this we all learned that apparently competitiveness runs in the family of Anjolee, because Kari has it too!! Haha! She yelled "UNO!!" at Jeremy which resulted in me having to look up the rules for the 30th time while playing...and by the way Kari WAS correct and Jeremy did have to push the button to take the chance of getting numerous cards spit out at him. He was lucky though and still kept his lonely only card. I was SO glad that Kari and Justin & Jeremy and Natalie came...it was their first Costume Party to attend...I hope they weren't disappointed.


One thing I learned was that when you invite kids...the parents leave early and your party ends at about 9:30 instead of midnight or later. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier! DUH! Anyways...Chris and I had good conversations with Kari and Justin after all the peeps left...actually I should say Kari and I had wonderful conversations...which ended in Justin dragging Kari out because apparently Kari and I were talking to much. GO figure!! Haha! He was tired though because he woke up early to help with a garage sale, so I do not fault him for this, I still enjoyed his company :)


Here are some pics from the party:

Jamye & Stephen

Chris & I (in his regular costume)

Chris in my alternative costume

One of our favorite families :)


















ALL the kiddos














Kari & Justin - bridesmaid & blind umpire




















Ellie & I














Jamye & I













Look at those best buddies...they even think alike when it comes to dressing up! Crazy men!

After everyone left and I cleaned up the house a bit, Chris and I went to a party hosted by one of his co-workers. This person actually has a dance room with a bar in their house!! Let's just say this party had a much different environment then ours. You could smell the alcohol from the street. Needless to say we didn't stay long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time for random thoughts:

I feel like a lion when I wear my hair curly. Simply stated, my hair is so huge, I feel like I have this big poofy mane surrounding my face.

Why is it that immediately after you get married people ask you "So when are you having kids?" Seriously...did you WANT us to be trying before now? That is the only possible way I could answer there question they way they want "Well NOW of course!!" HA! You know, what if we struggled with infertility? What then? I think this is a rude question to ask a person who just recently got married. Granted I have been married for three years now and I am sure people are wondering, but honestly do you REALLY want to know how often Chris and I have sex? I believe this to be none of your business, so there! Sheesh people! This is a decision between Chris and I and NO ONE else!

I ate WAY too many brownies within the last 3 days. Well to be honest too many brownies, peanut butter treat thingys and pumpkin bread. I feel like I have swallowed a pound of flour and it is making my tummy as hard as a rock! I need to puke so I will feel smaller.

I would like to lose about 15 pounds. I know, some of you think this is ridiculous, but I would just feel more comfortable in my body if I did. Obviously this won't be happening anytime soon since I gorged myself on yummy, yet bad-for-me food this weekend.