Family Photo Shoot

A few months ago my sister-in-law Ashlie (who is a very talented photographer) did a little family photo shoot with us. We loved the pics she took so we thought we'd share some of them...

Happy 2nd Birthday Braelyn Rachel!

On December 1st Braelyn turned 2! I can't believe my baby is already 2. I guess that's what everyone says, but it just goes by so fast. We celebrated by getting some yummy Papa Murphy's pizza and then because we aren't really into cake we had cinnastix for her dessert. We still had her blow out a candle in her cinnastix. We all really enjoyed her birthday dinner and dessert :)

When it came time to open her present she wasn't sure what to do with it. She looked at it for a little bit and then she decided to sit on it :) Then her big brother stepped in to show her how it was done.

When she realized she was supposed to tear the paper off she had fun doing that.

She loves her new baby. Anytime we are out anywhere and see a baby (real or doll) she starts yelling "Baby, Baby!" so when she saw her baby she was soooo excited. In this pic Dal decided that he would pretend like he was the dad and she was the mom and they were taking care of their little baby :)

We are all so grateful to have our little B-Rae in the family. There are so many things we love about her...I'll list just a few....

• We love how she gets the most amazing bedhead (until we have to brush her hair :) She seriously gets some amazing volume. I don't know if she moves her head back and forth a lot while she sleeps or what but I have included a few pics of her hair after she woke up from a nap.
  

• We love how she is so sweet and thoughtful. If any of us ever hurt ourselves she'll come up and kiss our owie. She also takes good care of us and her baby.
  
• We love how she loves to help. Like today, after their baths she wanted to help put lotion on Dal's legs and so she did :) Also if she ever spills anything she goes and gets a towel to wipe it up. She also likes to carry her cereal bowl over to the counter (which can be a little scary depending how much is left in it). A couple times she has dumped some milk on herself trying to reach it up to the counter :)
  

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• We love how she loves the moon. Every time day or night that we go outside she looks for the moon and if she can't find it she walks around searching and searching for it.
• We love how every night when we have family scripture time she always requests to sing: Popcorn popping, I love to see the temple, The wise man and the foolish man, Wheels on the bus, I lived in heaven and I am a child of God.
• We love how much she loves and admires her big brother Dal. When we go pick him up from school she runs to him and gives him the biggest hug. She loves to play with him, she loves to wrestle him, and she loves to do everything he does. She is quite the little mimic.
• We love how much she loves to go to Nursery. She can hardly wait to get through Sacrament meeting so that she can get over to the Nursery :)
• We love how she is so energetic and cute
• We love how she always wants to help Daddy cook
• We love how she is full of surprises...like when we went to the park and she starting reading off all of the letters off of a big word game (and we didn't realize she knew any letters) Apparently she was paying closer attention to Super Why then we realized :)
• We love how she gives the best little hugs
  
• We love how she is full so full of life and personality
  

Happy Birthday Braelyn. We love you!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice little Thanksgiving here in Texas just with our little family. I am right in the midst of tests and gettting ready for final exams so we thought it would be best to not try and travel anywhere.

We started out the morning by drawing pictures of things we were grateful for. The first thing that Dal thought of was Jesus so he drew a really cute picture of Jesus :) Then we got distracted with other things, but at least Jesus made the list.

Then we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner thanks to our wonderful chef/daddy/husband Jake. I assisted with whatever I could and we did a lot of prep the day before, but he was the master mind behind it all and it all turned out wonderful. It was funny because I had done some of the shopping and Jake told me cranberriers were on sale so I should get some. I thought he meant real cranberries, because they were also on sale. So I bought some real cranberries. Dal and I tasted one and couldn't believe how awful they tasted. You should have seen Dal's face :) So I made some homemade cranberry sauce (I think the first time I have ever tasted it homemade) and it actually turned out to be pretty tasty and fresh-like.
After our Thanksgiving dinner we went to the park for some football, soccer, and playing at the playground. It was great fun and it was nice to be outside. We got all bundled up because it was supposed to be kind of cold, but once we got out there we ended up shedding all of our warm stuff. We can't believe it's the end of November and the weather is still so nice!

Here is the lovely turkey that Jake baked (that we got for $3.90) (and you can see my homemade cranberry sauce). He threw the pineapples near the end to keep it moist and for aesthetic appeal :)

Here is Braelyn excited and ready to eat
These are the two little sweetie pies that we are so thankful for!

They are so cute and are so much fun.

We are also grateful for moments like these where after I get Braelyn ready for church she goes in Dal's room and puts on a pair of his Lightning McQueen underwear over her tights and dress and then comes in my room to say hi to me :) So funny!

Even though we look forward to the day when we will not be living in an apartment and poor college students, we have so much to be thankful for and feel very blessed.

Help Others That Have Cancer

The other day I was studying and Dal came up to me and told me that he wanted to write a note for me to give to my teacher. I was pretty intrigued with what he would want to write to my teacher. So he got his paper and marker and said "Okay mom I want to write "Help others that have cancer", can you help me spell it?" I was so touched. I thought that was just the cutest thing. I also thought it was really cool that he recognizes that that's what I am going to school to do, not just to get a job, but to help those with cancer. I also think that seeing his Grandma with cancer has helped him understand how important and special it is to help others with cancer. And he feels strongly enough about it that he really wanted to get that message to my teacher :) I just love that sweet boy!

So I took the note to school and gave it to my teacher. He thought it was so cute as did the rest of my class. They were also impressed with his writing skills :) My teacher wrote on the bottom "We Will! Thank you!" and then gave it back to me so that I could keep it. So we have been having such a beautful Fall here. It has been in the 60-70's most of the time. We are loving it. The only exception was a week or so ago we woke up to this....

It had been 75 degrees the day before! This was a morning I had to get up early to go to Lubbock for clincals. Luckily the freeways were clear and all the snow was pretty much gone by later that afternoon. It was quite the crazy storm but we are loving our first Fall in Texas.

Halloween and Grandma Fun Time!

Okay so Dal with his face painted wasn't for Halloween, but I thought this was a good place to stick it in. At the Children's museum that we love to go to they have a little area with a stage, costumes and face paints and the kids can have fun painting their faces (or their parents faces, as both Jake and I have experienced :) Dal had a lot of fun painting his face bright blue.

On Saturday we had the wonderful treat of getting to pick up my mother-in-law from the aiport because she was coming to stay the week with us! We were all so excited! She got there just in time to join us for the ward Trunk-or-Treat.
Dal was Darth Vader and B-Rae and I were super girls

We had a fun evening and got some great candy at the Trunk or Treat.

We also really enjoyed that whole week that Grandma Harris got to be here with us. Her and Dal spent hours playing legos, her and Braelyn read lots of books and both kids enjoyed lots of fun Grandma time. We also enjoyed her wonderful company...we had fun chatting time, she made us some yummy food, she got up early with the kids and let us sleep, and she did lots of dishes. She was so sweet! We loved having her here so much and hope we get another week with Grandma soon :)

Family Fun Times

Life is busy and crazy here in Texas. I am more than half-way through my semester and I am loving school so far. I have been learning so much about cancer, the physics of radiation, the production of x-rays, etc. in my clinical rotations I have been able to meet a lot of neat patients and my life has been touched. I have learned a lot there too.

Jake is surviving with the kids. Some days are harder than others. We try to do some fun things as a family regularly so that we all have something to look forward to. Every Friday night we have a family movie party night. We pop popcorn and watch a fun kid/family movie that we checked out from the library.

We also live close to a really cool park that we go to often. It has a big lake to walk around with a lot of ducks. It also has a really fun playground.

Funny story: the other day dal and I went jogging around the lake and he was pretending that we were racing to win the Piston Cup. A couple of times he stopped on the sidewalk, knelt down, and prayed that heavenly Father would help him run super duper fast so that he could run faster than me and win the Piston Cup. It was funny and so cute to see his sweet faith, and that he would think to stop, kneel down and pray. It was one fo those sweet moments as a parent.

Right next to the park is a children’s museum that the kids love. Here are some pics of the kids having fun there…

Unfortunately we also have to find some time to clean. At least Braelyn enjoys helping me vacuum J

I can’t believe how big my kids are getting. Braelyn especially has changed so much in the past year. She looks more like a little girl now than a baby. It’s crazy how fast time goes.

They are just the sweetest siblings. They love each other so much. In the morning when they first see each other they give each other a big hug, kiss and nuzzle (rubbing noses :)

B-Rae showing some crazy hair action

I just love those kids and my sweet husband. We feel so blessed to have each other and to be going through this crazy adventure together.

Hey y'all!

Since living here in Texas we have heard the term "y'all" many many times :) One girl I talked to said it about every 3 words. It was pretty funny. Another thing they like to say here is that they are "fixin' to do something" or that they "made an A on their test". One thing that caught me off guard was that at school in addition to saying the regular pledge of allegience they say a pledge of allegience to the Texas flag as well. Who knew.

We have met a lot of really nice people here and we are happy to be in Texas. We are also enjoying the nice warm weather.

Our kids make pretty cute Texans too :)

B-Raes hair is getting longer which makes for some fun bathtime hair dos

I also started clinicals. So here I am my first day of clinicals with my navy blue scrubs. (That's what the students wear) Clinicals is going well. It's been fun to get in there and work with the patients and learn by doing. It's also a little overwhelming to see how much I will have to learn, but I will have plenty of clinical hours to do so.

We also got callings. Jake is the first counselor in the Sunday School Presidency and I am a Sunday School teacher. I teach the juniors and seniors in high school. They are a great bunch and I am really enjoying it. Our ward is super nice too!

First Day of School Photo Shoot

So Dal and I have both have our first two weeks of school under our belts. Dal likes going to school and he made a new friend that he just can't wait to see every day. It's really funny because he had a best little friend at his preschool in Utah and his name was Cash. He was very sad to leave Cash and asked me if I thought Cash would move to Texas too so that he could be in his class :) So guess what his new best friends name is here in Texas...yep, it's Cash. I couldn't believe there was a really nice little boy in his class (who kind of reminds me of his other friend Cash) named Cash. Pretty funny.

School for me is going well. I can see that I am going to be learning a TON of information over these next two years but a lot of it will be interesting, so that's nice. I start clinicals in a week so I'm excited and nervous about that. There is so much to learn about how to do the radiation treatments on the cancer patients (and prepare them for treatment), and how to run those HUGE machines and how to position the patients in the EXACT positions. But it will be great to get to start working with the patients. For clinicals we will also get to do rotations in other areas that work with cancer patients as well, such as: Radiation Oncology, Oncology Nursing, x-ray, CT, etc. I think that will be really interesting because it will give us a better idea of the team who works with our patients and what they all do.

On the first day of school we had a little first day of school photo shoot...Dal is quite the poser so he had some fun with it.....:)

This one was unexpected...but hilarious!

We also got a pic of me for my first day of school. I couldn't pose near as cool as Dal so we just stuck with this one.