More Congrats!! To Carmelite!

I'm so excited for my adopted sister, Carmelite. She got accepted to BYU-Idaho. She and Dione are first generation college attendies. It's taken a lot of hard work, and she made it!!! It means so much to be part of her journey. She called me and thanked me the other day. It makes it all worth it. All the lessons and mutuals I worked so hard on for nearly 4 years. It's payday for me now. Good job C-lite!!! Love ya.

Congrats David and Dione!!

2 of my brothers had exciting things happen this weekend. My brother, David, and his fiance, Laci, took out their endowments in the Twin Falls temple. (This is a preparatory ordinance in our church you do before getting married or going on a mission. You must follow guidelines to be worthy to do it. We make sacred covenants with God to live in a way that will allow us return to live with Him. Endowment means "gift" and basically the gift is the knowledge we recieve there to know how to live our lives.)They are going to be married on January 17th. The other exciting thing is that Dione got his call to serve a mission for our church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He will leave April 1st, 2009. The cool thing is that Ty's brother just moved there a few months ago, and his calling in the church is ward mission leader. So there is a good chance they'll end up working together. Small world sometimes, huh?

Happy birthday to me! The big two seven..

You know, 27 is getting close to 30--I kinda am feeling old this year. We had a fun triple birthday party on new years eve. My sister, Kirsten, turned 10 on dec. 26 and my brother, David, turned 21 on Dec 27th, and my birthday is Jan 4. So all the family came over to our house for one big bash. We had a big birthday dinner of oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes and country gravy, glazed carrots, fresh steamed broccoli, frogeye salad, pomegranite punch, cheesecake with raspberry topping, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and ice cream. YUM!!!! WE played wacky six, watched man vs. wild, and opened gifts. Ty got me a gorgeous picture of the Twin falls temple, my mom and dad got me a wheat grinder, and the kids each wrapped up a bunch of their own toys for me. On Sunday, my actual birthday, Ty made me a delish dinner--tender roastbeef, mashed potatoes and gravy, fruit salad, and best of all--Ty made butter topped homemade rolls using some freshly ground flour he made in my new wheat grinder. A lot of work and love in them, and they were excellent. Ty's parents came to visit sunday and brought me some luxurious chocolate colored towels, a pretty red placemat set (my fave color), and a set of glsses to use for company and special occasions. In church, the primary kids sang to me, and I also got phone calls and emails--thanks everyone!! I feel loved.

8 years of marital bliss

Ty and I just celebrated our eighth anniversary on December 20. Actually, we ended up celebrating it after Christmas, but we had fun. We went to Pocatello and ate at Texas Roadhouse Grill. Then we stayed the night at the Black Swan Inn. It's a themed suite inn. Our room was Romeo and Juliette. It was a castle with a heart shaped jacuzzi, a winding staircase up to the bed on the balcony, a huge-screened TV, a DVD collection, a huge double headed shower, and the toilet was an actual throne with a red carpet (it was tile) going up to it. They also had mints, hot chocolate, popcorn, bottled water, and a continental breakfast at Perkins restaurant. We definitely felt pampered. It was a fun getaway. Wish I would've taken pictures.

I am so grateful to Ty. He is a wonderful hubby. Here are 8 things I love about him:
1-He is very patient with me
2-He is a fun daddy--he plays with the kids a lot and adores them
3-Ty honors his priesthood and is dedicated in his church responsibilities
4-He is thoughtful and generous to me
5-Ty is humble and teachable and forgiving
6-Ty is family oriented--putting them first and teaching them good values
7-He is a hard worker--going through so much schooling and providing well for our family so I can stay home with our kids.
8-Ty treats my family good--they all love him because he's fun, considerate, helpful, and a good listener.

I know we've had challenges and hard times, but I'm glad you haven't given up on me honey. You are far more than I deserve. I'm lucky to have you.
Love ya, Ky

Christmas Day

Christmas began at 1:15 in the morning for us. Ty was concerned that the kids would see the gifts under the tree en route to our bedroom to wake us up Christmas morning, so he gave Miss a cell phone to call him--but on strict order that only when the time started with a 6 or 7 . If it started with a different number, it was still sleeping time. The phone startled us awake at 1:15. "Is it time to open presents yet, dad?" "It's still nighttime Marissa. Call back when the time is a 6 or 7." 3:15 in the morning:"Dad, is it time yet?" "no, it's still nighttime." "I can't sleep." "Do you want me to come tickle you softly so you can go to sleep?" "Yes" So Ty went and shared Missy's bed for the night. Not long after, Chandler couldn't sleep and came and got in bed with me. It was pretty funny.

Christmas morning was exciting!! You should see the look on Chandler's face while he tears open a gift--he REALLY got into it. He definitely has that rough boy side. He was elated with his bat, ball, and mitt. Marissa oodled and awed over her beautiful musical jewelry box. I am sooooooo excited for my new camera--I went from 5 to 10 megapixels, and a screen literally 4 times the size. Ty likes his recliner and the kids love the bean bag--so far, the only furniture in our basement was one recliner we bought right when we moved in. It's nice, but can only fit one adult, or both the kids, so now, there is room for the whole family. (We're still working on guest seating.)

After a huge, delicious country breakfast, we played for a while, then headed out to my family's for the afternoon and evening. WEll, Ty thought he could bust through the 4 foot snow drift right outside our garage door. no need to shovel, right? The drift ended up being hard enough for me to walk on top without doing any damage to it, and the truck ended up being high centered on it. It took 2 neighbors, 3 shovels, and 1 hour to get us on the road. I thought it was hilarious. All the while I was snapping pix with my new camera. I also took pictures of what it looked like when I opened our front door. (we had a 14 stake fast for moisture, and we've been getting pounded.)

At my parents house, my soon to be sister in law brought her new Wii and we did guitar hero and bowling, and other games. It was fun (Ty wants one now). Then we had a huge dinner, and then sang Christmas carols around the piano. I love doing that, and it's been years since I have. Then my mom and I stayed home while the rest of the fam went to the movies and saw that adam Sandler show--bedtime stories, or something like that. It was in Burley, so my fam just dropped Ty off at our house after. Well, the roads got too bad, and I ended up being snowed in, so we spent the night. The funny thing was that after we had gotten stuck in the snow leaving our house, we threw in the snow shovel in case we had other problems. Ty had to drive my car to work, cuz I was snowed in with his pickup at my parents, but he had no shovel to dig out of the other side of the drive way. So he had to go back and forth, back and forth, inch by inch and finally maneuvered out of his side where we had dug the pickup out. The snow shovel did come in handy the next day for me, when my kids and my 2 sisters and I made a snow cave by my parents house. It was way fun!! We got it big enough for 4 of the 5 of us. It was heavy snow and hard work.

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional Christmas Eve:
*Write letters to Santa.
*Leave cookies and milk for Santa.
*Open our 2 specially marked Christmas Eve gifts (coordinating pjs for everyone and a new book)
*Read our new book in our pjs.
It was fun--the kids were way too excited to sleep. They are at a very perfect age for a magical Christmas. Ty wanted Marissa to take a picture of me and him kissing in our new pjs, and then Missy wanted us to take a picture of her and Champy kissing. How cute!! I'll take it while I can. Someday maybe I'll use it as a blackmail pic--ha, ha.