Recipe for a Happy Birthday...

1 cute birthday girl

 5 Best Friends

1 Adorable little Sister

A Fun Night of Bowling

A little sister that rocks at bowling!

Mix with splashes of laughter and buckets of giggles

Don't forget the pizza and rootbeer floats!

It helps to have a little snitch of a sister that has told you every present that mom got you (NOT!)

Add 1 set of loving grandparents

(Thanks for coming Mom and Dad, we loved having you!)

Having an annoying little brother to glare at adds character

Mix together, sprinkle with love, sing Happy Birthday and blow out those candles!

And you are officially 14! Happy Birthday Megan!!! We love you tons!

(Don't you love the hand over Trace's mouth...can't have him blowing out the candles!)

What a great weekend!!!

A New Wintertime Passion

Steve used to ski growing up. I grew up in Colorado and you would think I would be a skier, but had never gone. So Steve wanted us to "try" it out. So during the break, we rented some boards, and went to the small ski resort above our house. Oh the "magic" Magic Mountain held for us that day! We had so much fun! Sorry there are no pictures, I was having WAY too much fun "boarding" to bother with the camera! Megan's BFF babysat Charlee for us (thanx Kennedy!) and the rest of us headed for the hills. Right off Trace showed me up. Man is that kid fearless! He was turning laps around me after about 20 minutes. I was so tired of being on my backside, but I was determined not to give up. It took me most of the day before I felt like I "kind of" had this thing down! Trace and I stayed on the "treacherous hill of death" code word in our house for "bunny hill" :) all day. But Chase and Megan found their way down the "big hill" a couple of times. They did great, they said they were scared to death at first. Everyone made it just fine. I think next time Trace & I will be ready for some new adventures down the big hill! Steve wished he had done the board thing so he could have been on his butt all day like the rest of us! :) Now we are one day ahead of him! All in all we had a great day and all really want to go again. Steve said "who knew I was married to a snow boarder! That's HOT!!!" We had loads of fun. I can't wait until Charlee is old enough to join us! Now with a new found hobby, winter might not seem so long and dreary now! Cheers to winter fun!!!

On another note...Can't believe Christmas Break is over. The kids are all back in school. It went way too fast! I enjoyed the kids being home and sleeping in...ok I really enjoyed the sleeping in part :) We had a great couple of weeks! Happy New Year!!!

We BELIEVE

We BELIEVE the baby Jesus was born in a manger.

We BELIEVE Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and He is the Reason for the Season.

We BELIEVE in the Magic of the Season

We BELIEVE families are eternal and we love and cherish our family ties and friendships. May the Joy of the Season extend into the New Year. Happy 2009!

Back Tracking...

I'm sorry for the following out of order posts. I got behind on my posts...blame it on this crazy time of year! But I hope to get my blog printed and bound one day and made into a book. Its kind of my journal, just in an online form, so I have gone ahead and back tracked as to not miss some fun memories.

Some Vegas Fun

In early December we met my family in Las Vegas for my brother Dillon's wedding. It was so fun!

We are happy to meet up with Grandma and Grandad!

We took some time for a few rides in Circus Circus. As you can see Chase wasn't too excited to have to ride a few "baby" rides with the little kids! Soon enough though he was off to the wild ones!

Ready for the tower of terror.

Charlee loved the carousel.

This time she talked Megan into riding with her. Charlee probably rode that thing 20 times!

A Wedding...Vegas Style!

The happy couple...Dillon and Heather

Aren't they beautiful?

Waiting for the ceremony to begin we got a few snap shots. This is typical of our girls...One is talking smack and the other is pouty. Thank heavens they always seem to switch roles and both aren't in one mode at the same time!
Steve, Charlee 3, Megan 13,

My handsome husband with 3 of our kidos (Charlee is still pouting!)

My beautiful babies...Trace 6, Charlee 3, Megan 13, Chase 11

My parents with the nervous groom :) Dillon is my 2nd oldest brother. He's # 4 I'm #1 in a family of 7! (2 of my siblings couldn't make it but the other 5 of us were there.)

The finishing touches...you look great Dillon!

Mr & Mrs. Dillon Oliver

Yea!

The beautiful Bride!

Welcome to the family Heather, we love you!

My youngest sister, Julie and her boyfriend Jeremy

Notice Steve shaved his chin stuff? He looks so good!

Morgan and his beautiful wife Kristi. Morgan is #5 in line.

And here's our baby brother...James (Jimmy as he's known in Vegas!)

My parents...don't they look great. Somedays I wonder how they managed to raise 7 children...gives me hope! I only have 4!

And here's my beautiful family...We had a great trip! Short but sweet.

Christmas Tree 2008

So Mom likes to buy a "pretty" tree; but Trace was in tears wanting to go cut one. Who needs a "pretty" tree right; after all it is the memories that are most important. So we all bundled up, grabbed our favorite Johnny Mathis Christmas CD and headed for the South Hills. It was extra fun because Grandma and Grandpa were with us!

We searched high and low for the perfect tree, no Charlie Brown trees this year. (No snow in the hills, we were bummed)

After much searching we found the tree!--this picture is hilarious to me...I didn't realize how insane it was when I took it. I mean look at Trace, Mr. Ax Man, and Grandma is holding Chase's shot gun! (He carried it along as he hoped to find a pheasant or two in our trek through the woods. (No pheasants seen and not sure how Grandma ended up holding the gun. :)

After one round of searching, Charlee was content to stay in the truck and leave the searching to someone else!

All loaded up and ready to go home! Yea!

In the house...we didn't notice it leaned really bad when it was outside! Steve worked with it a long time to get it as straight as it would go.

The finished project! Not a bad tree, kind a big for our house but hey, Trace got to go cut his tree and we love it!