Christmas!

For Christmas, Milan and Julie got us a digital camera. It's pretty snazzy! I've been playing around with it alot the past 2 days.

I had been saving up since the begining of October for Dustin's Christmas present. I was able to buy him with my own hard earned money an ipod touch. He had absolutly no idea he was getting it. His face was in complete shock when he first saw it! I tried to video tape it, but then I realized later that I never pressed the record button. DUH! Dustin also got some clothes, socks, ties, and beef jerky.

Lillie got way too much stuff for a 1 year old. Santa brought her some blocks and sports balls and a few cute outfits. She got a couple 'Little People' sets from her grandparents, cute clothes (from everyone), and her Aunt Dana made her this really cool "Seek and Find" bag for her to play with at church. I'm pretty sure Dustin likes that one the most. Dana also made for us some candy lights (see below pic) that I've wanted for years. Aunt Elisha got Lillie some monkey plates.

Dustin gave me some running clothes (bad hint?? lol). He also surprized me with a new purse! I love both gifts alot. My dad is making me and my sisters beautiful jewelry boxes. He's been in the garage making them for weeks, and unfortunatly wasn't able to finish them before Christmas. I can't wait for the finished product! My dad is very talented in woodworking, and it will be nice to have a gift from him of his own craft. I also got a cute grey sweater from Kristi.

On Friday night Dustin and I went over to Tyson and Alli's house. We played some games. They're fun to hang out with. We are SO excited for them to get married (Jan 10th, Erika B's Birthday). I think I offended Tyson when I emptied out his bathroom garbage. Sorry! Just a bad habit of mine, I guess.

Oh, and did I mention all the snow??? It's CRAZY go nuts! It's pretty darn pretty though. We were gonna go back to Magna today, but I don't feel like driving for 6 hours through icy roads when it normally only takes us 3. I don't work Monday, so we'll just stay a little longer. No rush! We love it here.

Lillie and Alyse

My little goober!

Dustin and Dad taking a Christmas snooze.

Just playing uno!

Lots and lots of snow.

Candy lights Dana made. She's so creative. Aren't they awsome?

Tyson and Lillie playing the piano.

SNOW DAY!

It snowed about 15-18 inches today in Magna, it was beautiful! We bundled Lillie up all tight and took her outside. I think she really liked it. After a couple of minutes her teeth were chattering, and even though she was still giddy and laughing, we thought it best to take her back inside before she got sick or something.

Vancouver!

Dustin and I drove to Vancouver on Thursday in the middle of the night and got here on Friday morning at about 11:00. We came for Adam Stevens' wedding reception. He and Britney looked so happy. Their reception was really cute, they had a hot chocolate bar with tons of doughnuts! We forgot our camera, so we don't even have any pictures, darn it!
It was nice seeing my family though. My mom and dad had no idea that we were coming. They loved spending time with Lillie.
We're headed back to Utah tonight. We're driving in the middle of the night so that Lillie will sleep the whole time. We would have stayed longer, but I need to get back to work tomorrow night.
Oh, and still no job. Dustin's been looking fervently- just nothing he wants is available! I think he's planning on just trying to find anything at this point, even if it's not exactly what he wants. Hopefully there's something.

Aw, Man!

Well, Dustin got laid off of his job today with M13 Construction. I guess they usually have 10-12 big jobs at a time, and now they only have 2. Dustin's boss typed up a really good recommendation letter stating that Dustin was a fabulous employee with many great skills, and that M13 was sad that they had to let him go due to the financial integrity of the company. They said, however, that if things pick up, they would love to have him back. So yeah, we're hoping things will pick back up!
In the mean time, we're actually not too worried. We've been through this before (but who's counting??) and we know that we'll get through it, yet again! Heavenly Father has always blessed us so much. We've never had a time when we didn't have food, a nice place to live, a car, and other things of that nature. Plus, we have too much to be grateful for to complain about anything, like our health, our constant safety, our family and friends, our testimonies, a happy baby girl that always makes us smile, etc.. So we'll just do what we did before: get unemployment, sell plasma twice a week, and I'll pick up a few more hours at the Temple. Please don't worry, because we honestly aren't.
We're excited to go up to Idaho for Thanksgiving. It's nice to be around our families, and we haven't been up there for over 2 months now. It'll be nice to have a break and laugh a lot!
We hope all of you have a wonderful holiday!

Go Cougs!

Dustin and I have never attended BYU, but we did attend BYU-I and there are no real sports there, so we really enjoy going to BYU football games. We got to go to the sold-out one today, thanks to KSL.com/classifieds. We got a great deal on some really good seats that a kid was selling. They were in a student section, so we were standing the whole time and we were the only ones not dressed head to toe in official BYU Football clothing (we were still wearing navy and white though). It was a blast! Cougers won somthing like 41 to 7. Lillie was tired the whole time. To tell you the truth, we will probably never bring her to a game again. Who knows, maybe by next season she will be old enough to behave? just kidding. She mostly just ate popcorn and sucked on those 2 fingers.

After the game we went over to a friends house and I got some pictures of Lillie playing in the leaves. That little stinker wouldn't look at the darn camera! I still like the pics though. We're having a great weekend!

Halloween!

For Halloween Lillie was a pink poodle. She was pretty cute! I can't even believe it's already her second Halloween.

When we got home Lillie ate a bunch of smarties and a few suckers. She was definatly on a sugar high! She had a good time though, I think.

I love Autumn!

I drove up to Ogden yesterday to have a Lunch date with Dustin. The whole drive up I just couldn't get over how gorgeous all the fall leaves are! There was still some green left, mixed with red, purples, yellow, oranges, and a little bit of brown.

Last night we got to go to the Jazz game! We got the tickets from a guy I work with. It was Jazz vs. Nuggets and the Jazz one by like, 2 points or something. There were 3 totally drunk people in front of us and some hilarious guys behind us screeming at them the whole time. We were just laughing. In the end we got free chalupas!

Dustin and I have had a great past few weeks. We went and got pumpkins! The pumpkin patch place was pretty cool, we even did the David Archuleta corn maze. It was really hard-- so we ended up giving up after 45 minutes, we just went through the Emergency Exit.

We also got to hang out with Dustin's brother, Tyson, and his fiance Alli. They are so cute together! They are getting married January 10th and we are so excited for them. We all went mini golfing, attempted the batting cages, and then played games and waited almost 2 hours for our Dominos Pizza to arrive.

Dustin and I also had a friend I work with, Edwin Toledo, over for Dinner on Sunday. He is from Mexico City, is 22, and has just learned English in the past 1 1/2 years. He is so hilarious! Anyway, he doesn't have any family here in the states, so we've adopted him. He is teaching me a lot of spanish words too- like "mostasa" (mustard), and "Bano" (bathroom), and "Terminado" (done).

Lillie is still not walking, that little stinker! She is an expert crawler, and is getting very fast at walking on her knees. It's funny to watch her. She can totally walk, she just won't. Whatever! I'm sure that one day she will just take one step on her own and then realize that walking is much easier.

Lillie is also eating a lot. She eats more than my neices and nephews, ages 2-6. She will eat a whole corndog and a cup of diced peaches just for lunch, and for breakfast she eats a bowl of cereal and a whole cup of yogurt! She also eats very slowly, so sometimes I feel like all I do is feed her.

She is also really getting the hang of reading books. We read to her about 3 or 4 books every night and she loves to turn the pages. There are only about 6 books that are short enough that will keep her attention, so Dustin and I have those memorized! She is smart, we think. She knows about 20 words now, and can do 3 animal sounds (oink, moo, and meow). She also does the signlanguage for "more."

Dustin has been busy with work, and I've been busy with Lillie and primary stuff. Our program is this month and I have been making tons of copies of the program, cutting up the parts, etc. And later on, Dustin and I are maing 200 cookies. On top of that, I have sharing time this Sunday! It's been a busy week for me. Thankfully though I only have had to work 2 nights.

Anyway, we're looking forward to Halloween tomorrow night! Lillie is going to be a pink poodle.

Family Pictures!!

Dustin and Lillie and I had our family pictures taken yesterday! We had our friend, Michael Holt, take them for us and they turned out great. Lillie was a little tired the whole time, but it still went okay.

Today Dustin and I had the unique opportunity to attend a devotional in the SLC temple. It was in the Solomn Assembly room and the speakers were President and Sister Walker (temple president) and Elder Walker, and President Monson. It was so special and a meeting we will cherish and never forget. It was just so neat to be in a room full of temple workers all dressed in white, including the Prophet of the Lord. The spirit was incredibly strong, and I constantly had a feeling that we were in the presence of others beyond the veil.

Nothing else too exciting has happened lately, just typical life! Dustin works every day and is very happy to be working in Ogden instead of Price! It is so nice to have him home everyday around 4 o'clock. I am working still about 3 nights a week at the SLC temple. Lillie is still just crawling, but now she walks on her knees. She had a doctor appointment and was in the 97th percentile for height and head size, and 70th percentile for weight. She's a big girl!

Dustin and I are applying to be service missionaries. We apply the exact same way as though we were putting in our papers to go on a full time mission. We are very excited! We will be starting the Pornography Addiction Recovery Group through LDS social services here in Magna. We love the program so much and have such a testimony that it is truly inspired of God. It will be a little busy doing that along with our other callings, but we know it will be very rewarding.

Where to go on a trip??

Dustin and I really want to go on a vacation. We're not sure where to go though. We're deciding on either New York City, or Apen, Colorado. I would rather go to NYC, but Dustin would rather go snowboarding for 4 days. We are going to leave Lillie with someone, but we're not sure who yet. I am excited for it to be just us for a few days though! We really miss that.