New Year, New Goals, Exciting Future

Why hello!  It has been quite some time since I have written on our blog...last time I wrote was August ha.  I'll catch you up about what has been going on in our lives. My goal is to write once a month this year, so I'm really going to try to be better!
September:  I turned big 22 and John turned even bigger 26!  For my birthday we celebrated by having a party at our friend Lisa Smith's house, went to Benihana's for free because we signed up to be in their birthday club=awesome, and we also got together again at our friend's Cami and Kevin Jensen's house to celebrate John's birthday.  It was a great time!  

I made cookie dough cupcakes for his bday and they were pretty dang good if I do say so myself :)

This little girl, Audrey, is obsessed with John.  She is adorable.

October: We got together with our friends again and had a pumpkin carving party for Halloween.  It was super fun! We always have a blast with the Jensen's, Meitus's, Conover's, Erin Cash, Jordan Malouf, and Lisa Smith.  

The Gang

John's awesome masterpiece, I didn't even take a picture of mine because it was so hideous.

For the ward Halloween party we hurried and threw together a costume..we were lumber jacks if you can't tell.  Like our cool axes?

In October, I made a corsage and boutineer for one of my cute young women for Homecoming.  I think I would like to start up a business in the future. It was really fun!

We went to the Texas State Fair in October as well.  It was huge and like everyone says how everything is bigger in Texas...well it's true.  It was a good time, still pretty hot but other than that it was fun.  My favorite part was the World of Birds Show we went to.  It was awesome!

Cool Car Show

I told you, even the beds are bigger in Texas.  Yes, that is a Texas shaped bed.

Museum about the history of Texas. This was my favorite dress.

Crazy man with no body.

Jordan eating a tastey corny dog.

Dog Show

Big Tex!

Awesome Bird Show

 At the end of October my parents, my brother Jordan, and niece MaCall came to visit for the BYU football game.  It was so fun!  During the day my parents and I went to the Dallas Arboretum for the Pumpkin festival.  There were like 1000 little kids there that day.  It was pretty cool!  The theme was princesses. That night we went to the horrible BYU vs TCU football game at the Cowboy's Stadium.  It was fun to be at the Cowboy's Stadium but it was a bad game.  My good friend, Rachel Lark, also came!  It was a great long weekend to spend with family and friends.  Rachel's husband, James, got a sweet hook up.  We sat in a suite at the Cowboy's Stadium!  It was awesome and such a good time!

The Cowboy's Stadium

November:  For Thanksgiving we went home to Utah!  It was such a good time to be with my family and visit friends.  

My family put together the most homemade family picture you could ever imagine.  It was pretty funny.  We did actually get one that somewhat turned out ha. 

Some of my amazing family that I love so much!

John saying, "Arggg" with my parents new bird, Rainbow!

Stinker pooped on my shoulder...

December: Ward Christmas Party, we had to wear our lovely Christmas sweaters!

We went to this incredible display of Nativities from all around the world.  It was amazing! It was the best display of Nativities I have ever seen.

They even had a live Nativity, we missed it though because we came right when it was ending.

We went and looked at Christmas light one night and in the Deerfield neighborhood they do an awesome job!

This picture doesn't do it justice.

We got together with our friends and made gingerbread houses!

The Clement's "temple" gingerbread house

Lisa and Jordan

John surprised me with a date one weekend to the Ice Show at the Gaylord Texan. This year was "Shrek the Halls."  It was so fun to be able to go again this year!  And of course, it was breathtaking, literally. :)

We got an awesome hook up and we had no idea that they were the fast pass ones!! It was AWESOME! We got to skip the entire line which probably was a 2 hour line. We love fast passes!

Inside the Gaylord, they had it all decorated and they had a life-size gingerbread house!  All made out of real gingerbread and candy. It took 5,000 lbs of gingerbread to make it!

We then went to Illinois to visit the Crespo family for Christmas!  We had such a great time with them.

Acting out the story of the Nativity.

Taunti barking as Mom plays the piano.

Christmas Eve, matching pajamas!

The boys being boys.

The boys getting out the Hot Wheels again...

John got a nice laptop for Grad school!

I got an itouch!

Shootin' em down

Bowling together at Cabela's

We did a family temple trip to Nauvoo, which was really nice and fun.

Happy Birthday Christina!!

Happy New Year of 2012!

 As for January, my dad unfortunately had to have open heart surgery and had 4 by passes done.  He is home now and doing very well.  I think that is about it for now and you are officially caught up on our lives!  We had a great year of 2011 and look forward to this new year of 2012!