Cousins

Matthew is the only grandson on my side of the family.
(That is until baby #3 gets here).

Luckily for Lindsay, she and Eliza are only 5 months apart.

Today they got to have a little play date together, 

and they were SO fun to watch, 

I couldn’t help but take a few pictures.

We had to take a little break for a short time out.

A Christmas Miracle

A few months ago, I mentioned that I had an anti-virus that wasn’t good for the baby.  I was getting monthly blood tests to monitor my levels of the anti-virus.  In December the baby was only two levels away from needing a blood transfusion (while still in utero).  If the levels got too high, the baby would go into anemic shock which would result in birth defects/brain damage.   I was a little nervous about it, especially because if I get too cold, it makes the levels increase, and well, it has been REALLY cold around here.

Darin gave me a priesthood blessing and said that the baby would be healthy without any damage.

A couple of days before Christmas I went in for my regular appointment to get the results of the last test and to get my blood tested again.  When I asked the doctor if my levels had changed, he said they had changed a lot, and took me out of the room over to his computer.  He pulled up the results of my last test and it said, “No anti-virtus detected.”  It is completely gone!   Yay!!  It really was the best Christmas present!

They also checked for Hydrocephalus (what Lindsay has), and they said this baby looks perfectly healthy!  So thankful for so many prayers on our behalf!  

Snow!

We’ve received so much snow the last two days!

More than two feet, and once it gets shoveled, the piles get pretty high!

Darin has been doing a lot of this lately:

And our neighbors have been doing a lot of this for us lately:

But today, we took a break from the work the snow brings, and played!
Darin made this fun snow cave!

Then we did some sledding down the driveway!

And then we got too cold.

So we came in for some hot chocolate!

Blurb

A few years ago I was reading my friend Rachel’s blog.  

She wrote a post about a company that she made her family books through.

I looked into it, and decided to give it a try.

I LOVED it!  The program is easy to use, the quality is great, and the price is very reasonable.

Since Rachel introduced me to blurb.com I have made a book every year.

This week I just ordered my FOURTH book, and I can’t WAIT for it to come in the mail.

Now, just so you know, I’m not getting any discounts or anything from talking up this company, I just really like it!

I’ve done the math every time I’ve made a book, and it would cost me MORE just to print the pictures from Costco, than for me to make the whole book!  And I LOVE the way they turn out!

These books are the main reason why I blog—because I can easily turn my posts into a book.  They even have a feature to “slurp” all of the info (including pics) from your blog into your book!  (Although there is a LOT I put into the book that I don’t put on the blog, and things I put on the blog that don’t go into the book).

Here are a few pictures of my books:

I LOVE that they can do an “image wrap” as the cover. 

Taking pictures of my pictures doesn't make for great quality unfortunately. 

(My last three books have had 160 pages, but you can make them bigger or smaller).

 So, if you're interested in making a family album, I would highly recommend blurb.com!
And thanks Rachel for introducing me!!  I've LOVED it!

Alaska!

Our kids have been a little under the weather this week.
And with the FREEZING weather we've had this week, 

we were getting MAJOR cabin fever.
I thought the perfect remedy would be a little “vacation.”  

So, Friday we headed to ALASKA!!

We did a little whale watching.

Followed by a little “ice-fishing.”

Matt caught us some DELICIOUS salmon for dinner!

And of course we had to have “Baked Alaska” for dessert!

Then we set up our camp.

(Darin’s parents gave Matt this little tent for Christmas.  

He has slept inside it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!!  

It came with this awesome little tunnel thing, which connected perfectly to the “doggie door” on our big tent.)

Matt LOVED going back and forth in the tunnel from the big tent to the little tent.

 Matt was also the only one who actually slept in the tent the whole night.

In the morning we went exploring to see if we could find a moose…and we found two of our favorites…”Moostache,” and “If You Give A Moose A Muffin.”

And of course, we had to make some muffins for our breakfast!

For lunch, we ate hot dogs inside our tent.

Then we went outside for a little “Alaskan site seeing”—all in our back yard.

I LOVE this picture Darin took of the drip coming off the icicle.

It was a wonderful trip to Alaska! 

We just wish we could have seen our family that actually LIVES in Alaska!

A 2013 Breakfast

On New Year's morning I made THESE pancakes, cut out some numbers with paper, put the number cut outs on the pancakes, dusted the pancakes with powdered sugar, then removed the number cut outs.  I thought they turned out pretty cute, and the family liked them too!

Welcoming in 2013