Jake and Lauren's Sealing

On December 28th, 2009 Jake and Lauren were sealed for time and all eternity, along with sweet little Olivia, in the Salt Lake Temple. It was one of the sweetest experiences I've witnessed. All of their family got together, took pictures outside the temple and then all ate at Bombay House- which was great Indian food. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but I was able to get some pictures later that night when a few of us went out to dinner at Pirate Island!

Dad and Joseph playing basketball. I was impressed by both!

 

Uncle Joe helping Kiki find the perfect toy

Grandpa Garth helped both Kiki and Logan keep their balls in their own bowling lane!

 

Like father, like son

Dido

 

 

 

Logan the Pirate!

Little Joel wasn't able to go to Pirate Island, but before he had to leave I snapped a picture of him on my phone. This was our first official meeting, and I am pretty sure he loves me as much as I love him. 

Christmas Joy

This was our first Christmas together as a married couple and it was wonderful. We all got together at my dad's house in Reno, and boy was that a full house. 10 siblings all in the same roof and that's not counting the 3 husbands and 1 nephew, oh, and of course Grandma Helen! But the more the merrier and I believe it! One of the days we were there we went sliding. So fun, so cold, and Joseph thought we was invincible hiking as high up as he could and catching major air on his way down. Luckily no one got hurt, at least seriously. (Grandma  Helen has those pictures so I'll have to post those when I get them). On Christmas morning there was an announcement from my Dad and Stacey who told us they were expecting another little one in October! That will make 11 children for them (in a "yours, mine, and ours" kind of a way), and 12 total siblings for me (including the two others my mom has)! Crazy but awesome. Family is the only thing you have forever so why not make it large? After visiting my dad for a few days, we drove to Tracy and visited my mom. That was also a blast. We played tons of games and went and saw Avitar and had the spiciest chili known to man! It was a wonderful Christmas and it was great to see everyone!

Because we weren't going to be home for Christmas, we didn't get a tree this year. And even if we did I have no idea where we would put it. But it just didn't feel like Christmas without one, so I made one myself. Joseph and I opened our gifts for each other before we flew out to Reno.

Christmas morning at Dad's! Look at those stockings!

One of Joseph's favorite dollar store gifts! Because there are so many of us, our family tradition is to get all of our siblings gifts for the dollar store. It is actually my favorite thing we do. We all go together at the same time and pick out a gift for each one of us and try to hid them while shopping so no one see's what they are getting. It makes for a lot of fun gifts to open Christmas morning.

This was actually Christmas Eve. We each get to open one gift the night before. Here's Kassi looking sexy as always!

Kids just love Joseph

Dad with his 5 girls, will the next one be a girl???

Here we all are. All ten and one on the way!

Christmas at Mom's

Joseph got his football that he was wishing for

I don't know if you can read it, but I got Cameron a "I love Auntie" bib.

 

 

 

The Family!

The Siblings

Being silly for mom and all her picture taking!

Me and Cameron

 

 

He is already taking steps all by himself. We counted and his max is five steps! Any day now and he will be very hard to keep track of!

Cameron LOVES his uncle Hayden. I don't know who is holding who!

 

 

What a cute family

 

Uncle Joe and Cameron feel asleep after church. How adorable.

The siblings

The sisters

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was one of the best vacations I have ever taken. Just the right amount of fun, when you feel you are doing something, but not too much so you fully get rested. That's how it was for Joseph and I hopefully for everyone else too. We went to Chad and Denise's house in Arizona. The weather was perfect, the home beautiful, and the company amazing. We played games, watched the 3 siblings (Denise, Jake and Joseph) run a 10k in the turkey trot, we to Rawhide, and had tons of great food all week long! Joseph and I are so blessed to have such sweet and loving family that we see often. We are truly grateful for the difference all of them have made in both of our lives and for the continual love and help we receive from them. We pray and hope that we can be a blessing in their lives like they have in ours.

I forgot to mention that right before we went down to Arizona Joseph surprised me and took me to see New Moon the day it came out! He is always doing sweet things like that. I think I'll keep him!

Logan loved Olivia and never left her side. He even wanted to "buy that baby" from Lauren. I think he even got up to 102 dollars!

I got to see Evan and Amber! Amber is one of my very best friends who moved to AZ about a year ago? So it was great to see her again!

 Turkey Trot! Here comes Joseph!

Here comes Jake!

And if you can find her, there is Denise kickin' butt!

The Three Champions!

Olivia's bath time at Denise's house

Kiki was a big help too!

Unlce Joe reading to Kiki

Dad attacking Kiki

Kiki fighting back!

Olivia getting into trouble

But how can you get mad at that face?

 We were able to do sealings in the Mesa Temple

Like mother like daughter

Kiki modeling off our new car

The boys trying to do the same, but not quite succeeding 

Here are the Rawhide pictures. Denise said this country town is as fun as Disney Land, I won't go that far...but it was a blast!