Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

I know I've been behind on my blog, but I now have a new camera so I'll have more pictures to put up and hopefully I'll stay more up to date. Hope everyone's Christmas was wonderful! We have much to be grateful for this year.

My sister moved down the street from us, and Emma had fun making a gingerbread house with her and her cute girls.

This is what I woke up to on Christmas Eve afternoon in my loft. I thought fort days were over....apparently not.


Of course Santa had to bring Guitar Hero World Tour.
David had fun singing while Jeremy and Curtis rocked on the drums and guitar.
My dad and Tyler at my sister Julie's, we had some great food! I think my favorite part of the Holidays.

Curtis and my little brother Brian.

We went to Barrows to eat pizza on Christmas Eve with Tim and his family. Briahnna is getting so big.

My sister Jenny was able to come to dinner, it was good to see her.

Me and my adorable niece, Ella.

This is what David got to do while the rest of us watched a movie Christmas night.

Emma's costume saga.

Ok, so I like to make the girl's costumes for Halloween every year (the boys have grown out of it :( ...) and so we went to JoAnn's because stupid Walmart closed their fabric section. Emma picked out a costume,but they were out of that pattern, so she picked another one that looked cute. Madison decided that we would dye her baptism dress black and she would be a witch. So we get home with all the stuff and I looked more closely at the pattern for Emma's costume and I thought ohh @#^&$! Very detailed... I should have figured it out when I was having to buy all these beaded ribbons and stuff. Anyway I finally got it done last night....

Madison's dress, of course wasn't the right fabric to dye, but we got lucky and found a beautiful princess dress at a consignment store by our house that she loves. Yea!

Let's take a drive!

We finally traded in our tiny, little white car for a Yukon XL. It's huge and gets horrible gas mileage, but we love it! We took a trip to Prescott and stayed with Tom and Dawn on their trap bed. (I'll have to do a post on that, its very funny.) Anyway, while we were there we went and talked to Melanie's car friend and he got a great deal for us. I was so glad to get rid of that car, it was cute, but it only had 55,000 miles on it and it was already starting to fall apart. The radio broke (the worst part if you ask me), the engine light wouldn't turn off, the airbag light was on and the fuel door wouldn't stay closed. The Yukon has lots and lots of room and has Bose speakers, yea! Now we have to take a road trip somewhere.....

Girl Fun!

The girls had fun after their cousin Sarah's baptism. The video's kinda blurry because I took it with my cell phone, but its still cute.

We love puppies! - Well, most of us.

Sesi had a litter of four puppies on July 22. Three boys and one girl. The kids have a lot of fun watching them grow, and now that they are a little older (three weeks) they are more fun to play with. David acts grumpy about them sometimes, but he is a softy at heart and likes them more than he lets on.






This is the biggest and laziest puppy. He sleeps the most and will sleep wherever you put him down. We were laughing at him in this picture because he was half-way off the pillow.

Even Fletch, our cat, seems interested.

I love this quote!

I found this quote on a friends blog-Thanks Jodi!- and I love it. I have read it before, but it's always nice to be reminded of great thoughts from great people.

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes,my hair expertly coiffed,and with long,perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Shenks lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."-Marjorie Hinckley

Memories...

Ok, I thought this one was cute. If you don't have any memories, give me your first impression of me.

1. Leave one memory that you and I had together, as a comment on my blog. Anything goes :)

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll check to see if you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Emma's 8th Birthday!

Emma turned 8 on June 24, but we saved the big party for the 28th, the day we baptized her. David and I felt bitter-sweet about it because she's our last one to get baptized.

Emma and her Daddy.

Happy Birthday to You!

Grandma and Grandpa Coach(Giovando) and Sarah.

Fletch

Curtis finally got his wish and we got a new kitten. We got him from a friend from my work. We named him Fletch, after David's favorite movies. We really like him, he is fun to play with and he like to take naps in your lap. He's not too sure about the dogs and vice-verse, but that will work out as soon as the dogs realize cats are in charge.

Happy Birthday Madison!

Madison turned 9 years old on June 4th. She growing up to be such a sweet girl. She is always considerate of other people. She loves to play the piano and is doing great with her karate too. We are so glad she is part of our family.

We decided to go with a cupcake cake. It's made out of cupcakes with frosting over them. No cake-cutting, just grab a cupcake. We will definately get one for Emma's birthday too.

Riding her new bike!
It was fun playing the Wii with everyone. Grandpa Giovando wanted to get one for himself.

Fun with cousins!

David's brother and his family are moving down the street from us from Utah. We are so excited to have family so close.

While waiting for their house to close, they stayed with us, then grandma and grandpa, and now us again.

We don't mind having them here with us,but I'm sure they will be happy to have their own space.

Meanwhile, all the cousins are having a blast together!

busy week

There hasn't been much going on until this week. Tyler had his 8th grade promotion, Curtis got his hair cut (believe me, this is a big deal!) and Jeremy turned 18! We also have Madison's 9th birthday on the 4th and Emma's 8th birthday on the 24th and her baptism on the 28th. This is going to be a busy month for sure!

Tyler and his friend, Ariel. She is why he commandeers our phones for hours to text.

Before....

After! Six inches gone!

Happy Birthday to You!

Jeremy and his friend. We find him sleeping on our couch or in Jeremy's room almost every day. I guess we've kind of adopted him, or vice versa.

Trebuchet

You know those cool things in the movies that fling huge rocks at castle walls? Tyler (and David)built a model one for his science project. It was pretty cool. We had fun flinging golf balls across the street.

Tyler, Madison and Emma earned their Yellow

Belts a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of work, we're very proud of them.

Way to go guys!

Laguna Beach

Having fun in Walmart on the way!
It was a little windy, but sunny and nice.

This is the puppy we took to CA.

When we decided to breed our dogs, I wasn't expecting to get to travel because of it. We sold our last puppy to a very nice lady in Long Beach, CA and we offered to take the puppy to her if she paid the gas. So we took the kids and dropped off the puppy and then went to Laguna Beach. It was a short trip, but it was fun!