2009 Highlights

We had a wonderful, crazy, busy, blessed Christmas. I hope the rest of you did too. Sadly, our camera battery died on Christmas Eve, so I have no pictures to show for it. :( I'm a little depressed about that.

Since 2009 is coming to a close, I thought I'd write out several highlights from the year.

-Welcoming my sister Courtney, and her husband Jeremy home from their honeymoon.

-Maternity leave and learning how to be a family of 3 with our newborn Elliana.



-Getting to have the same months off with my sister Jenn, who also was on maternity leave.

-Our short but fun trip to Phoenix, Arizona to watch my Uncle Andy and Aunt Christina get married.




-The birth of our nephew, Nehemiah Duncan. He is SO cute!!



-Watching Elliana's unique relationship with each of her cousins. She loves all of them.





-Watching my mom come full circle, and eventually recover completely from her Guillain-Barre syndrome that hit her last year around the holidays.

-All of the healthy births of our friends and family. There was definitely a baby boom this year.

-After working long and hard, Caleb comleting his Masters degree. I'm so proud of you, babe!

-4th of July




-Enjoying Caleb's family cabin. His parents have dreamed of a mountain cabin for so long, and their dream finally came true this summer.




-Our trip to Washington for a family reunion on Caleb's Mom's side of the family.




-Various visits from out of state friends.



-Seeing Wizard of Oz onstage at the Candlelight Dinner Theater.




-Beginning this blog. :)

-Going to the Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley concert with my sister-in-law, Shamree.

-God providing a way for me to be a stay at home Mom!! Thank you Lord!

-Watching Caleb's volleyball team and their very successful season that eventually lead to State where they took 2nd in State!




-Beginning the What's For Dinner blog with my sisters.


-Our first Halloween with Elliana (she was a bunny).



-Celebrating the first homes bought by Caleb's brother Josh, and his wife Shamree, and also my sister Courtney and her husband Jeremy.

-Thanksgiving.

-All of Elliana's milestones, and celebrating her first birthday. God is so good.




-The honor of getting to sing a solo for our church's Christmas Eve Service.

-Christmas day, spending time with my family and singing and worshipping with my very talented sisters and cousins.

-Spending the days after Christmas with Caleb's family at the family cabin.

Whew! I think that covers all of our highlights (or most of them). We're headed to Jackson Hole to spend some time with some long time friends. We'll be there over New Years.

Happy New Year everyone!!

What A Day!

My sisters Jenn, Courtney, Alli, our mom, our friend Annie, and I spent all day yesterday cooking and baking for our Holiday recipe exchange.

Who knew a day of cooking and baking could be so exhausting?!

As tiring as it was, we also had so much fun and ended up with many delicious holiday recipes. We can't wait to share them with you.

Here is a sneak peek at what we made:



Don't forget to check out the Holiday recipe exchange tomorrow!

Thanksgiving and Peek-A-Boo

I decided to take a little break from the video countdown to talk about how excited I am for this week and the upcoming month.

I am very excited for this week. Caleb only has to work on Monday and Tuesday so we get to be together for 5 straight days! Woo Hoo!

We're going to Colorado Springs for Thanksgiving to be with Caleb's side of the family. We leave tomorrow night. Caleb's brother Josh, and his wife Shamree just bought their first home. We're really looking forward to seeing it and spending time with all of Caleb's family. Plus, Elliana doesn't see her cousins on that side of the family as much so it will be fun to watch her play with them.

Josh and Shamree closed on their first home the same day that my sister Courtney and her husband Jeremy did. What are the chances? Needless to say, Caleb and I are trying really hard not to have home-envy right now. ;-)

I love, love, love Thanksgiving and I can't wait to watch Elliana as she tries all of the yummy Thanksgiving food. I'm loving the fact that she can eat just about everything we do now.

We're going to spend Friday decorating our house for Christmas! I can't believe that time of year is here already and I am SOOOO excited! I can't wait to play Christmas music in my house 24/7 for the next month.

It's also going to be so much fun to see Christmas through Ellie's eyes this year. I also think it's going to be a huge challenge to keep her away from the Christmas tree. Ha! That should be interesting.

Also, my sister Jenn is finishing up my Christmas blog design and I can't wait to see that.

Then, on Saturday, my sisters, Mom, and I are going to get together to bake and cook a bunch of Christmas candies, cookies, and other food for our Holiday recipe exchange. Make sure to check it out when you get a chance. It will be fun to see what everyone enjoys making most during the Holidays.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. I am thankful for God's word and how he is true and faithful to us over and over again, for his mercy, grace, and forgiveness, for my wonderful husband, for Elliana and the miracle gift she is to us, for my sisters, my parents, my parents-in-law, my brothers and sister-in-law, my nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, cousins, healthy grandparents, for our health, for our home, the fact that I can be home full-time, for Caleb's job, for this beautiful state, etc. I could go on and on. God has given us so much and I am so very thankful for all of it.

On a side note, here is another video we took of Elliana last night (I know, I've become obsessed with taking videos of her). The funny thing is, we did not show her how to do this. We were eating dinner and she just started playing peek-a-boo with Caleb clear out of the blue.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.


Happy Thanksgiving and have a wonderful week.

They Did It Again!

Oh my, we had one crazy, busy, fun weekend.

I wanted to start with the very exciting news that Caleb's team is officially going to STATE this coming weekend!

Saturday they hosted Regionals at their school and they won against all 3 teams again.

The last match was the most exciting! Each game in the last match was very close and all the fans were on the edge of their seats the entire time. I could barely stand it. My heart was beating so fast!

After a long, nail biting match the fans stormed the court. The high school boys hoisted Caleb up high and celebrated (very loudly) for a long time. It was great!

I don't have any pictures from this weekend. I wish I did, but I'm so bad at bringing my camera along with me.

So, this Wednesday, Courtney and I are going to make some shirts for her, Elliana and me. Then Thursday night we're off to Denver for the State tournament. I'm very nervous and excited for this weekend.

I know this is a huge subject change, but I can't believe the Holiday season is almost here! Where did the last year go?

I always love the Holidays. I love seeing old friends, getting together with family, all the yummy food, the decorations, etc. Doesn't everything look more beautiful at Christmas?

My sister Jenn, is working on a Christmas blog design for me and I can't wait to see it!

I'm one of those people that will not listen to Christmas music or decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I know some people think that's crazy, but I think Thanksgiving gets overlooked otherwise, and I love Thanksgiving almost as much as Christmas. :)

The sisters and I are going to be doing a Holiday recipe exchange on our recipe blog. Check it out, it should be a lot of fun!

I better get going. Have a wonderful week!

Where To Start

For the first time in a long time, I find myself with so many topics to blog about that I don't even know where to start! Life has been good, and quite busy lately.

First of all, we just took our little Elliana in for a follow up appointment with the Dr. The Dr. said she looks great! She is still fighting a cold and is a little congested, but it's not in her lungs and she's breathing really well. Praise God!

On a side note, the Dr. did tell us that Ellie is getting a lot of teeth. I wasn't at all surprised considering she was showing lots of signs of teething lately.

In very exciting news, I'm happy to announce the "birth" of a new blog! When you get a chance, take a look at our new blog, What's For Dinner.



I think Courtney did the best job of describing how the idea came about in her blog. Once the idea was born, all four of us sisters got excited and worked on it together.

Jenn, my oldest sister and blog designer, did most of the designing. Alli, Courtney and I helped though. :) By helped, I mean we gave our opinions as to what we did and did not like. Ha ha, we're opinionated like that.

Although we may not all be great cooks, we come from a family of amazing cooks! We have lots of delicious family recipes from over many years on this blog. Even if we four sisters don't come up with anything new and delicious, I promise you, our old family recipes are oh so yummy! Check them out!



Caleb is on Fall break this week so we were able to get away as a family. We spent Monday and Tuesday at our new mountain get away. His parents had been dreaming of a family cabin for many years. They bought some land a few summers ago and this summer they finally got to see their dream come true! This is the beautiful new cabin that was built over the summer.



We had a wonderful time and we hope to have many family memories at the cabin!





Doesn't the sight of that fire make you feel all warm inside? :)



Ha ha, from the look of these pictures, I don't think Elliana enjoyed our little hike.



Finally, last but definitely NOT least, I am SOOOOOO excited for the upcoming weeks watching Caleb and his volleyball team! They're regular season is officially over and they won their league!

This has been one of his best teams for sure and they are so fun to watch this year! Friday they play in Districts, then the week after that is Regionals, and the week after that is STATE. They are definitely expected to not only be at state this year, but to do really well.

I'm going to be spending the next few weeks nervously watching and routing them on. GO COUGARS!





Sorry, these pictures aren't that great because I scanned them from the newspaper.

Whew! That was a long one.