Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year!





If you didn't get a Christmas card from us this year it's because I didn't have your address. So I'm sorry but here is what it looked like and now you don't have to feel bad throwing our picture away. :)

Trick or Treat Smell My Feet...

We got something good to eat!

We Totally did and now I'm so over Halloween and waited too long to post about this so all you really get is pictures and not much of a story behind them. We've been slowly but surely making friends here in Texas. We go to a lot of Library story time and playgroups but that's about it. I guess we're still kinda new. We got invited to the Dallas Arboretum which is really cool if you ever get a chance to go. They apparently decorate for every season and every holiday. Here are a few from October...full of pumpkins.


Luckily some of the girls had cameras (my camera was on a down hill spiral in Aug) and took pictures of my kids and sent them to me so here are a few. One girl was like a professional photog but I've yet to recieve those pictures. I hate harassing people for pictures off their camera.


Seriously, don't ask me what's up with all of Ella's poses. You've got me. At times I hesitate to post because she really looks retarded in some. Sad but true. Cracks me up.




And here is our lovely Halloween. As you can see, Joseph is getting a little more open to dressing up as the years go by. This year Joseph and I went as Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone. The blonde wig was the best I could find. It's pretty bad though. The suit was from a thrift store and makes me look a little, "hippy" but you get the gist. :) It was fun dressing up.


Ella was of course dressed as Ariel aka: The Little Mermaid. There isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't talk about mermaids. It's pretty cute actually. Carly is dressed as Shirley Temple, I thought the curls fit. :) I wish there were better pictures but that is one reason I haven't really been blogging, my camera broke and I've been holding out for a camera till Black Friday. So some of my friends took some pictures and only 1 person sent them to me. So this is what we've got. I guess it's better than nothing. :) Anyway, enjoy. :)

The Rest of Our Summer

Yes, again...long over due. I hate playing catch up, and it shows. Sadly, for my records, I won't have a very detailed post. But I guess that's lucky for y'all.


....before we went to Yellowstone Joseph and I got the call that would change our lives....we were called and asked if we would like to come back to Carmedic (Joseph's prior job) and move out to Texas. (This was middle of June.) We had to go out to St. Louis and speak to the board of directors, plead our case as to why we want and should come back to Carmedic. We made travel plans to drive to Las Vegas (from AZ) and leave our girls with my parents while we flew out to St. Louis. The only way we could've afforded the tickets were if we took the deal where we had to be out there for about a week. Since our 5 year wedding anniversary was coming up in August we decided to just celebrate that same week. We rented a car and spent time in St. Louis.....






















We had our meeting and it was a little scary. We had no idea what to expect and could only hope for the best. While we waited to hear the verdict on the new job we called Joseph's sister, who lives in Carthage, IL. We drove out there for a visit




We also went to Nauvoo, where we were married.


After that we met up with my best friend Abbie and had an awesome time catching up with her and her cute little family.






We ended up going to the temple together. We couldn't go together so we had to tag team it. They went in and we took their cute little boys out for ice cream. Then we went to the temple and it was so great to be back. We hadn't been back since we got married in Aug. of 2004! It was beautiful and now that we live closer I hope we can make more trips up there.













And what would a "Morgan/Abbie reunion be if we didn't have our trusty Super Model Documentary Hour?





After the Temple we went to the Joseph Smith pageant which is now called something else that I can't remember. But it was great.

The games before the pageant....








We got back to Las Vegas and the fun didn't stop there. We had to see our good friends The Dustins and cute little Madie and Ella were reunited. I only got one picture before my camera died....And died for good. We still don't have a camera.


A few hours later we went out with long lost friends from St. George. Sadly we don't have any pictures with y'all b/c...well, my camera died. But we sure miss you all and love you a ton!

We had a bitter sweet summber because after all the fun and games Joseph had to leave immediately for a whole month. It was hard. Especially for the girls. He missed my birthday and our 5 year anniversary (good thing we celebrated early). But we're all together again and love our new life in Texas. We're still getting acclamated to everyone and everything but we love it and can't wait to be settled.

I promis I have pumpkin patch pictures and Halloween pictures, but I'm exhauseted from typing all of this. So I will try and put more up tomorrow. :)

Carly

Today I drank hand sanitizer. It was yucky and I promptly let it all drip out of my mouth with a look of disgust on my face and wiped my tounge off 100 times with a towel. I hope I remember to never do that again.

Yes, I started writting this on the 7th of Aug...

I've been so busy. You all know the feeling, so busy that you don't have time to blog and when you actually do have some time you definately don't feel like running your fingers across the keyboard at 60 wpm. You'd rather be laying on the couch either sleeping or watching mindless television. So yeah, that's me. Only we don't have a tv. So I fill my time crafting, hanging out with my hubby, playing with my children, finally finishing project that need to be finished (minus this blog that I started a month and a 1/2 ago.), cleaning, organizing playing board games, surfing the internet and watching movies on our lap top. So here's the past and present of what's been happening. I'll try to keep it short but just so you know, it won't be. :)


In the middle of July we went on a delightful trip to St. Louis for some sightseeing, Carmedic meeting and then made our way down up to Nauvoo, IL to celebrate our 5 year anniversary early(Love you baby!), to meet up with my best friend from high school and her family, and Joseph's sister and her family. I'll get to those pictures later. I don't want to bombard anyone. We flew back into Las Vegas to pick our girls up from Nonie and Pop's house (Yes...that's what that means....we were alone for a WHOLE week...just me and my sweetheart!) and met up with our old friends in Las Vegas and the Cox family from St. George. We came home to AZ, Joseph stayed to work and the girls and I went back out 2 days later on a 16 hour drive up to Island Park, Idaho for a family reunion near Yellowstone National Park. On our way there we stoped and stayed the night with the McQuistons, the family I nannied for. On our way back home, we got to stop in Provo to see my sister 'n law and their kids. Ella was in heaven b/c Lindsey has a 5 yr old girl and 3 yr. old tripplets, she had a TON of friends. When we go on vacation we don't mess around. :)

So here's a rundown (part one)of our summer in picture form:


My brother Lincoln graciously made the 16 hour drive from Mesa, AZ up to Island Park, ID with me. (He's sitting like a mile away from us due to a really nasty burn on his leg, not b/c we stink)


We stopped in SLC to spend the night and some quality time with the McQuiston Family who I nannied for when I was 19. I love them like my own family.


Ella absolutely adored McKinley and wouldn't leave her side. McKinley was about 6 months older than Ella when I started nannying for them. Crazy!


Ella and I at the begining of the trip. Carly stayed at the cabin with my parents. Probably the best idea. This float trip was super long!



My brother Noah in the back, my brother Adam and his cute wife Ashley.


Our float trip was so long Noah peed himself. He seemed pretty proud of himself.


...And Ella was fully disgusted.



I was bored so I started a river grass fight. So gross to have slimey river grass and algea flung at you but it was fun and we were laughing so hard our mouths AND stomachs hurt.

Ella even got in on it. (about 5 min after the fight died down we soon found gross worms all over us from the rivergrass and even a leach! EEEEEeeeewwwww! Good call Morgan, great idea.


My two crazy brothers. Noah and Adam. We kept hitting low spots in the river and Noah found a stick to pull us out.


Longest float trip ever. It seriously was like 4 hours long! Just slowly floating down the river. Ella was totally knocked out the last hour of the trip.


My sibs minus Lincoln and of course Joseph isn't in it. From left to right...Brother Noah, Sister Ashley, Ashley's BF Sam, Ella in Sam's lap, Me and Carly, Sis 'n law Ashley, Brother Adam and Trudy.


Back at the cabin, my big sis Ashley and little bro. No-No and their perfect Chandler Bing smiles.


Clinging on to the girls at an awesome waterfall in Yellowstone. Right off this ledge was a freaky drop off.



Me and Carly. (if you couldn't tell)


Ella and Ashley. (Ella is posing. ha ha. She's going through this posing stage so be sure to watch for it in all the pictures of her.)


Carly chill'n at Old Faithful.

Ella and Trudy (Adam and Ashley's dog). They were fast friends.


Carly and Ella hiking. They were so good the whole trip. Probably from so much to see. (Another pose for Ella)





hiking some more.



Another one of Ella's poses.