Most Memorable Moments of 2010

Having a blog is great. I can easily look back at all the things we have done as a family through the year. So here are the 10 most memorable blog post of 2010:

1) Announcing our move to Albuquerque
2) Sean graduating from BYU-I
3) Avery's birth (the very most memorable moment of the year)
4) Our "eventful" move
5) Buying our van
6) Lexi's second birthday
7) Andrea and Brandon wedding
8) Avery's Blessing
9) Thanksgiving trip to Arizona
10) Our first Christmas all by ourselves

Going Private and "Preview Blog"

Tomorrow our blog goes private, which means you will need an invitation to continue reading it. I will be sending out invitations via email, so make sure I have your address. If you are like me you read private blogs less frequently because they won't show recent post updates on the sidebar of your blog. I'm solving that problem for all of our readings. I have created a "Preview Blog." I will update our preview blog every time I update our regular blog. So if you just save the link to our preview blog on your sidebar, you'll always know when our blog is updated. There is a link on the upper right hand corner of our preview to our regular blog. If this is all too confusing for you then just skip the preview blog all together and go start to our regular blog whenever you feel like reading. Here is the link to our Preview Blog.

4 Years Ago Today...

...Sean popped the question!

I remember being engaged and excited to start our lives together.

It was a really exciting time in our lives.

Here are a few pictures from that time...

4 years later we are still living happily ever after.

8 Months of Avery

This week Avery turned 8 months old. I can't believe how big Avery is getting. She is growing up so fast! But she is also just getting more and more fun and more and more adorable!

Here are a few recent pictures of our little doll...

Sean and I both agree that we are more content with Avery as a baby than Lexi. We loved Lexi as a baby but we were always excited for her to learn new things and get older. Now we know how fast babies grow up and our just enjoying Avery as she is.

And now right she's pretty amazing.

We love you Avery Joy!

8 Month Comparison in Pictures

Here are some picture of the girls on the days they turned 8 months old.

March 6, 2009 for Lexi and today, December 28, 2010 for Avery.

Can you tell who is who?

Hint: Avery is the first one and Lexi is the second one in all the pictures.

Christmas Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas celebrations...

Lexi excited for it to finally be Christmas Eve.

Avery on Christmas Eve waiting for Dinner.

Lexi was so excited to eat the pie that she and I made together.

Singing Christmas songs together.

As we read the Christmas story from the New Testament, Lexi layed out the characters.

Lexi and Avery rolling around on the ground together. Well, actually Lexi is trying to roll on top of Avery and Avery is rolling away.

Here are all the stockings laid out in front of the tree Christmas morning.

Avery decided to wake up at 6:30! Way too early. So she was the first one to go find her stocking.

Lexi decided to wake up at 7 (an hour earlier than normal) and as soon as I told her it was Christmas she popped out of bed and ran into the living room straight to her stocking. She was so excited to find that Santa had left her Smarties and not candy canes.

Lexi LOVED opening all the presents for us and Avery enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and boxes.

Lexi was so excited to get some slippers just like I did.

Lexi was so excited to wear her Princess shoes and PJ's. Princesses are officially her new thing.

We got Lexi this kitchen/tea set. We knew she would love it.

Avery was content just playing with her new toys.

(Look at those four upper teeth!)

Here the girls are modeling their Christmas PJ's from Sean's parents.

Lexi was SOOO excited to have a tea set like on Beauty and the Beast. Now she can have tea parties.
Avery had a great first Christmas. She just spent the whole day playing happily on the floor. She even got a little power nap on Sean's lap. A special Christmas gift for Sean, for sure.

It was a bitter sweet Christmas for sure. We loved being together just as our little family and being able to start our own traditions. But we missed being with our families in Washington. In fact, this was my first Christmas away from my mom. It was hard for me to not be home with my parents. But being a parent of an excited 2 1/2 year old gave me something to be really excited about. And now Christmas is only going to get more exciting every year!

(For fun here are the posts I did for Christmas 2009 and 2008 and 2007.)

Merry Christmas from Our Family

At this time of year when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, we hope that you remember the real reason for the season. The birth of a tiny, precious and perfect baby who gave us the perfect example of how to live and how to love each other and who paved the way for us to return to our Father in Heaven.

(In case you didn't catch on we are reenacting the first Christmas as Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and the sheep. This was really fun for Lexi to do and I think will become a new tradition for our family.)

Sean's Dreams Have Come True!

So Christmas came early at our house. Sean and I decided to buy ourselves this beautiful buffet. We found it on Craig's List and got an AMAZING deal. It's actually for the dinning room but we're using for a TV stand and it looks brand new because it is! The guy we bought it from used to stage model homes but since the slow down in the market he hasn't had as much business, so he's trying to clear out his warehouse. And then we decided to get a new TV to go on it since our old beast of a TV didn't fit well. But we got some Christmas money so we didn't have to spend too much out of pocket (thanks to Sean's parents and Grammy). The TV was also a great deal and we're thrilled with it. I don't know all the specs but I know it's a pretty nice TV. And in case you're curious, it's a 32" which is perfect for our living room. Pretty much all our furniture is hand-me-downs, so we feel really special to have this new entertainment center.

Pay no attention to our printer on a stool. A new, bigger computer desk is on our wish list.

Lexi wanted her picture taken too.

Our First Visitors and Bowl Game

Last weekend, we had our first visitors since we moved to Albuquerque, my aunt Lisa (my mom's sister) and her family. They live in Southern California and we definitely would not have guessed that they would have been our first visitors but they came for the New Mexico Bowl. My cousin Devin Mahina is a tight end for BYU (#84). It was so fun to be with family. We had such a crazy busy but incredibly fun weekend. I didn't take too many pictures but here are a few...

Here are my cousins Eden (almost 19) and Cassy (almost 20) with Avery. You may be wondering why they don't look very much like me, well that is because they are half Tongan.

Here is my aunt Lisa. She wanted to get lots of pictures with my girls to make my mom jealous. Something about paybacks from when they were kids...

I think Lexi's favorite part about the weekend was when we went swimming at the hotel pool.

Friday afternoon, there was a pep rally put on by the by bowl. It wasn't very well publicized and is was so cold that weekend (unlike any weather we have ever experienced in ABQ) so there wasn't a great turn out. But we mostly went for the fireworks byt my Cassy and Eden were able to sell lots of necklaces.

Like I said, it was FREEZING! Seriously, it even snowed one night. So we were dancing trying to keep ourselves warm while we waited for the pep rally to start.

Lexi was having a great time dancing and watching the cheerleaders until this guy showed up, Cosmo, the BYU mascot. He TERRIFIED her!

Seriously, she wouldn't stop screaming!

Here is a group shot after the bowl game.

I didn't actually go to the bowl game, I couldn't go that long without nursing Avery and I didn't want to take her with me. So, I watched the game at home from the comfort of my couch. Sean went with my family though and had a great time. He got to sit in the reserved family seating, for the family of the players. And after the game he got to go on the field with all the player. Sadly, he didn't take the camera though, so we don't have any pictures from the game.

The night before the game we went to a special fireside. Every Friday night before a game the BYU football team puts on a fireside (basically a devotional aka a few people speak and there are a few songs). It was a really neat experience. Again, we were able to sit in the reserved family seating, so we were right up front. My favorite talk was coach Bronco Mendenhall's. He really is a great man and you can tell that his first priority isn't football, it's the players and their opportunity to change lives and spread the gospel. My favorite part of the night was went all of the players sang together, there was so much power and conviction in their voices. After the fireside, my aunt Lisa, was pointing out all the players and talked with them because she knows most of them. They all look so different in person and not in their football gear.

It was just so fun to hang out and spend time together. I was really sad when they all left. It was so nice to have family come visit us and I can't wait to get more visitors in the spring!