#1

We celebrated Lincoln's big day on Saturday night at my parents. He was SO tired and a little grumpy (my fault that he did not have an afternoon nap). We made him a little basketball cake that he wanted NOTHING to do with. He just screamed, wouldn't touch it, and got pretty ticked when I put some frosting in his mouth. I'm sorry to say that I didn't get any pictures of that on my camera. Here are some I did get.

who says you can't get spoiled on your birthday even if it is 3 days after Christmas?!

maggie pretty much opened all of his presents for him.

one tired boy.

he did say "ba" meaning "ball" when he saw it. at least he knew what it was!

I can't believe it has been a year since he was born. It has been such a crazy year for us. I'm so glad we have had him around. We sure LOVE our little Linky!

so yum

My friend shaunie introduced me to these cookies a couple of years ago. Now every time Christmas time rolls around I start to CRAVE them. Yep....we just made our second batch this season. Hopefully this time we will be giving some to our neighbors instead of eating them all. They really are YUMMY.

lincoln sure thinks so.

my little partner in crime.

Now it is off to Fallon to enjoy the festivities there.....hopefully the weather cooperates!! Have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

away in a manger

Maggie is loving Christmas time. Talks about it day and night. One of her favorite things is Christmas music. Loves songs about santa, reindeer, and baby Jesus.

At night if she gets ready for bed without a fight...we will sing her a couple of songs. Last night she requested "Manger"

So I started singing to her:

Away in a manger no crib for His bed
the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head
the stars in the heaven looked down where He lay
the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.

The cattle are lowing the poor baby wakes
but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes

at this point she started rubbing her eyes and sniffling....I finished the verse and then asked her what was wrong. "nuffing" she says "can you sing manger again?"

So I sang it again. By the time I was finished she was sobbing.
"are you okay honey?"
yeah.
"do you love baby Jesus?"
yeah. I love Jesus.

This morning while I was getting ready for the day, I could hear her singing "away in a manger." When I went down to check on her she was holding the manger from our nativity and singing to baby Jesus. Very tender.
I love Christmas. I love my Savior. I love that a 3 year old can remind me of that. I love that she loves Him too.

All Aboard

tickets please.

story time.

christmas carols.

Hot Hot Hot...Hot Chocolate.

elves.


santa.

Lots of fun on the Polar Express.

little people

Remember these??

For the last couple of weeks these little people have been showing up in our shoes. Dan was putting on his boots at work and found one. I found one in my slippers. Maggie has found them multiple times in her boots.

I even found one in Lincoln's little shoe.

Today I found the culprit. Caught him red-handed.

surprise daddy

today i donated to locks of love!
~maggs

peter and tink

Hope everyone had a Happy Nevada Day (and Halloween)! We sure did. I still think everyone should get school and work off for Halloween like I did growing up in Nevada. Maggie was sulking yesterday and when asked why...she said, "Halloween is over!" Trick or treating was hilarious...it was hard to keep up with her while she RAN from house to house. Lincoln just looked cute as ever in his peter pan costume.

we just

made a purchase.

we are excited to have a place to call our own after such a crazy year. only a couple more weeks and we can move in. for those of you wondering, we are back in oregon now and doing great. we really love this house...mainly because it's ours! it sure is a good time to buy.

mobile

Lincoln has been mobile for a few weeks now. He does this funny little crawl/shuffle/scoot. It's hard to explain....his right leg just kind of scoots underneath him. It's hilarious to watch when he gets some speed. He loves being able to get around and especially loves trying to keep up with Maggie. He is also my little personal vacuum and looks pretty suspicious in that second photo. He's definitely got something in that fist and is just waiting for me to look away so he can stick it in his mouth.

halloween crowns

scary.

cute.
silly.

why so sad??

it's time to say goodbye to texas. YEP. Blasted ike! i actually think we are taking this really well, considering I unpacked my last box a few days ago. where to...back to Oregon. we are really gonna miss the people here and the Hobby Lobby.

Galveston

We made a trip out to the Island yesterday. It was very humbling to see the situation these people are in. I am so grateful we didn't end up living there. These people have literally lost everything. Galveston is part of our LDS Stake and there are a bunch of families living at our Stake center because they have no where else to go. The young women in our ward were in Galveston Saturday mucking out an orphanage. Those kids lost all they had...which really wasn't much. On a positive note...there are so many people working hard to clean it all up and they are bouncing back pretty fast.


The garbage is EVERYWHERE...lined all along the streets waiting for big dump trucks to load it all up and take it away.


This is a shot of the seawall. There used to be a beach there....but all the sand was literally washed away.


Can you believe all the garbage?!


This is what is left of one of Galveston's biggest piers.

A church not too far from Dan's job site. Yes....it used to be BRICK.


Dan and his brother Nate after a Stake service day last Sunday. The men met early for a short Sacrament meeting and then went and worked the rest of the day helping people in our Stake and community clean up.

we're home

the office

No one is allowed on Galveston Island yet but Evergreen was able to fly into the airport and take some pictures of the site:

Dan's office was in the white trailer on the right. It was pushed about 150 feet! Everything looks pretty messed up. He's a little sad that he left his favorite clogs, new work boots, and some pictures. He's also wondering where Ike took the port-a-potty.

Update

Just a quick update on our situation. Dan and Nate went back into Houston area today. Dan just called and said our place is fine. We lost a tree in the front yard and a panel on the fence...that's about it. We feel so grateful...a house just down from us lost the whole side of their house. Nate lost his whole fence and some shingles. He has some water leakage but that's all. We all feel so blessed. Dan's job site is probably not so lucky. The Galveston Courthouse which is not too far away had 3 feet of water in it. They aren't letting anyone on the island and probably won't for a while so we don't know what is going to happen there?? For now we are just waiting for the power to be turned on at home. The kids and I are still in Austin. I won't take them back without power, it is so hot and humid and would be completely miserable. We are so grateful for the Anderson family letting us stay here. They are taking good care of us and we really appreciate it.

We're outta there!

Just a quick update for those of you wondering. Looks like Hurricane Ike is heading straight towards our place. Dan actually closed down his job site on Galveston island yesterday at about noon. At about 4:00 pm they said our town was under voluntary evacuation. We decided to pack up and go to Dan's brother's house a little farther out of harms way. Then at 10:00 pm they said both of our counties would be under mandatory evacuation in the morning. So in hopes of beating all the chaos....we left last night at midnight to drive to Austin. Thanks to my sister-in-law Carolyn's sister we have a place to stay. Everything is great here in Austin. Looks like the Hurricane is category 2 right now but is supposed to pick up speed today and tommorrow and hit Houston Friday night at a 3 or 4?? I don't think they really know. WE ARE SO GLAD we left last night because most of Houston is under mandatory evacuation now. It's probably pretty crazy over there...and we are sittin' pretty!
So you got a play-by-play weather you wanted it or not! We'll keep you updated on how it all goes.

little creatures

We found some fun little creatures in our house last week. First we found a cute little green tree frog on the wall. He had some MAD jumping skills. He could seriously jump from the wall to the other side of a room.

Then Dan found a little surprise in his basketball shorts on Sunday. He put them on and a little gecko ran down his leg. It was fun to watching him change colors. Maggie LOVED it.

I am VERY happy to say I have not found one of these little creatures in over a week. Lets hope it stays that way. Just looking at this picture is making my skin crawl.

HEY YA'LL

So we made it to TEXAS! After 3 weeks we are FINALLY connected to the internet. YEAH! We felt so lost without it. We are adjusting quite well to Texas life. humidity, heat, hurricane warnings, and hUGE bugs...we have experienced them all. Dan's brother Nate told us before we moved here... "everything is bigger in Texas, even the roaches!" He wasn't kidding. It is definitely going to take some getting used to.
The trip wasn't too bad. We got to stop in Fallon for a short visit and then it took us 3 days after that to get here. Here are a few pictures of the last couple weeks.

A picture by the UHAUL before the long journey.

A visit to Grandma and Grandpas means a ride on SASSY!

The kiddies in our hotel room. Enjoyin some time out of the carseats.

Giving a 7 month old a lollipop. Probably not highly recommended (unless you are desperate enough on a 40 hour car trip).

My favorite part of the trip.

With our shortage of furniture, we have been having some great picnics. Maggie is a huge fan of them. I am a huge fan of our new table we just bought. Our first dining table in 5 years of marriage!!