The day my dog turned into a gremlin...

My poor baby...

Moving from Phoenix, we let her hair grow out longer than it had ever been. She looked so cute, but the mats began--and got worse and worse. So, after the New Year I took her in to get groomed. They informed me my options were to either shave her completely or spend a small fortune having them try to brush out the mats. Well, seeing how we don't have a small fortune to spend on dog grooming, I opted for the shaving and purchase of a sweater...yes, I have subjected my dog to wearing clothes. But, only for the greater good--and hey, I bought the cutest one at Target. :)

My cute fluff...

My cute gremlin! :)

She still has her cute black eyelashes, though...and she's still my sweet Bella. :)

Sledding

We wrapped up Christmas day with some good ol' backyard sledding. We got a ton of snow on Christmas Eve, so Kelly and Alex decided to make a hill out in the backyard. Kelly ended up staying out for about an hour building up this big hill. So, then on Christmas day we all went out for a couple rides...it was really pretty fun--minus the occasional snow going down the pants or up the back. I wish I had a picture of Alex's face plant. :)

More Christmas

The Saturday before Christmas, Kelly, Crissy, and Alex arrived--and the pigging out, crafting, movie watching, and play station playing began. We also have the family tradition of cutting out ginger bread cookies one day and frosting them the next (Christmas Eve).

Here is Ba helping Karly smoooosh out the dough.

Karly's beautiful contribution...

And, then she was content to just sit and eat the dough. But, who isn't??

The next day, frosting was pretty much the same senario. I showed Karly how to put frosting on the cookie, she got angry, and then began shoveling it in her mouth. Well, there's always next year. :)

Kelly made a stellar stop sign, so fitting for the transportation engineer. While I strayed from my usual santa face master piece and just turned out this fancy candy cane. Aren't we lovely!?

Christmas Day

Karly was thrilled with her new kitchen!

And what else does every DIVA need, but a microphone and the glamour look?!?!

Karly and her booty--she made out like a bandit this year! It's hard not to spoil her though, since her toys have to last a whole year until her birthday....maybe we'll start celebrating her half birthday in June. :)

Christmas in Idaho!

Karly, Bella and I got to spend a whole week in Idaho for Christmas this year--it was so fun! A day or two after we arrived it started to snow, so Karly got her first "real" encounter with snow. She just stood there mostly. :)

But I can't say I blame her...when she tried to move, this happened:

But we finally got a smile once she was on sturdier ground. I have to say though, for not really wanting much to do with the snow, she sure had a fit whenever it was time to go inside! :)

Bella and Barclay sure loved it too!

Bella and Barclay were pretty much inseperable the whole time we were there. After the first day, and learning each others boundaries, they became good friends. They would wrestle and chase each other, and even nap near one another. And usually Karly wasn't too far away either...she loves her puppies!

Christmas Lights at Temple Square

We were so excited to be able to go see the lights at Temple Square this year...well ok, maybe it was just me. :) It was reeeaaallly cold, and Karly really only cared about the water, or watie, as she likes to call it--which explains why the only pictures I got were of us by the fountains. But, all things considered, it was still a fun family activity!

Karly spent the majority of the car ride home trying to put her dad's ear warmer over her head.

Visiting Santa

Okay, so Karly was too scared to actually talk to Santa let alone sit on his lap. But, she thought the hat and candy cane afterwards were pretty darn cool!

Happy Birthday Karly!!

Karly is 2!! I can't believe how the time has flown by...my baby isn't a baby anymore! She is such an amazing kid. She is as fiercely independent as ever--she knows what she wants and how to get it--and it doesn't usually involve mom's help (something I greatly admire about her, even on the days it has me throwing my hands in the air with frustration). She is also the friendliest toddler you'll ever meet. It is a regular occurance for her to walk out of a store or restaurant saying "bye...see-ya!" to every person she passes. She makes me laugh almost all day, everyday--whether it's trying out the new dance moves over lunch, or the way she rams her shopping cart into the wall and just laughs and says "oh, sawie" (sorry). I love that most of our daily conversations consist of:

Karly: "Mama!?!"

Me: "What Sweetie?"

Karly: "Where's Bella?"

Me: (answer is wherever Bella is at the moment)

Karly: (no response, just a very thoughtful look)

Wait 1 minute and then repeat conversation with an added sense of urgency, even if Bella is in the room at the time.

I still can't believe she's ours, and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for this sweet, little girl He blessed us with. I love you, Karly Jo!!

Karly and the cousins. :) We had a great party with my Mom and Dad, Sisters and their families, and uncle Brian. Thanks for coming everyone!

Helping Dad put together the new shopping cart!

Karly loved hearing everyone sing to her. :)

Getting Caught Up!

Where, oh where, do I begin? Well, first I guess I better post pictures of Karly's accident. That's right, Karly had her first major accident (well pretty minor really, but it was the first time seeing my baby's blood...and it was gushing). And not only was it her first accident, but it was half way through our drive from Phoenix to Utah. We had stopped at the McDonald's in Page, Arizona for lunch, and were eating outside on some concrete picnic tables. Karly was kneeling on one of the benches and reached for something. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her start to go over the edge, but I was too late to catch her, and she fell. I thought it had just scared her, but she looked up at me with blood streaming down her face. So there we are in the middle of po-dunksville, on a Sunday, with a dog, Kelly's still in Phoenix, and Karly has a split above her eye and is bleeding everywhere. Luckily, Crissy had come down to make the drive with me, so I wasn't alone, and she ran back into the restaurant to get directions to somewhere...anywhere. We ended up at the emergency room, but they were so great. They just put steri-strips on her cut and gave her a little stuffed dog. She was sooo brave!! She didn't cry much, especially after the bleeding was under control, and she sat so still while they taped her up. And to top it all off, the hospital didn't even charge us! I really felt blessed that day. It was one of the longest, hardest days ever...but we made it. Bella was a good girl, Karly was so tough, and the weather wasn't too bad. None of us wanted to get back in the car anytime soon, though! (It was late when we got to Utah, so I didn't get very good pictures...but you get the idea.)

On to Thanksgiving....quite uneventful. With the weather, and just getting to Utah and trying to get settled, we decided it was better to just stay home. Which also worked out well since we all started to get sick--we would've felt so bad to carry our sick germs to Kelly's family in Colorado. But, it worked out okay. Kelly's work gave him a turkey, so I made a nice sized dinner for the three of us, and we spent the day getting unpacked and settling in. I forgot to take pictures all day, until Karly started helping me clean up dinner. She loves to play in the bubbles and decided to put them in her hair. She is such a poser she makes me laugh!

Hello Utah!!

Well, we made it! Things are crazy, more posts to come...

Change

Kelly says the blog is too orange now, but I love fall colors so we will leave it "too orange" for awhile. :)

So, we are moving!! We decided Phoenix is not the place we want to raise our family-- and about the time we decided on that, Kelly got an email from his friend telling him he should apply for a job at their office in Utah. He fixed up his resume that night and emailed it back to his friend, and a couple other places. We figured maybe things would start happening and we'd be back to Utah by the end of the year. Well, within a week, Kelly had two interviews and a third company had given an offer. And about a week after that, he received offers from the other two, as well. It was a tough decision, but he finally settled on Horrocks Engineers, (not the job with his good friend, but maybe in the future). So here it is not even a month later, and we are frantically packing to be in Utah by next week. It's amazing how the Lord works...everything has just fallen into place. We are so excited! Lots of people think we are crazy for moving this time of year because it's finally getting nice here and cold in Utah--but we are actually excited about that part, too. Okay well--we realize we are in trouble because 70 feels cold to us now, but snow!! yay!! and maybe even a "white Christmas"!! We are "seasons" kind of people. We are looking forward to four distinct seasons. We are also anxious for "real" grass, basements, NO SILVERFISH or SCORPIONS, Magelby's Fresh, mountains, Kelly's excited to fish the Provo, I'm excited for Roberts and other real scrapbook stores, and of course we'll be by our FAMILIES!! So what's being a little cold in comparison to all that?!? Our only problem is leaving Darin and Shelly...we will sure miss you!! Move to Utah!! ;) Well, there you have it. That's the somewhat short explanation of our sudden change--so, we're hoping to see some of you soon!

Oh, and I can't post without adding a picture of Karly, so here are some of her after her first birthday party a couple weeks ago. She had a great time! They played with animal balloons and had little hats, which obviously Karly didn't want to take off. They also had a pinata full of toys, candy and play-dough. It was fun, (but a little exhausting for the moms).

Umm...oh yeah

By the way, we're moving!! It has all happened very fast, but we are excited to say we are moving back to Utah next week (hence the moving boxes). Yay!! More info later...

Happy Halloween...BLEH!

...that "bleh" would be the sound of Karly puking. (She hadn't even had one piece of candy yet!) She had been poking at her tummy all afternoon and saying "ouch". It was very sad, but then she would go play and act fine. So, we decided to go ahead and go to the ward "trunk-or-treat", but as I pulled into the church parking lot..."BLEH!" Poor thing--we feel so bad for her, she was sick on Halloween last year, too! Meanwhile, I'm left to wonder why there are so many crevices in car seats...yuck!

We carved pumpkins last night...ok, well I carved a pumpkin and Karly colored on a pumpkin. (Kelly chose to pack.)

She helped me clean out my pumpkin, and even had a little taste.

These were taken this morning, before the tummy-ache.

And these were my amazing Mummy Pizza's that I made for dinner. Karly didn't get to eat any, but Kelly sure seemed to enjoy them. I also made Franken-jello, but they weren't picture worthy (maybe next year).