Happy New Year!

Highlights of 2008:

• Cami was finally tall enough to get on the big rides at Disneyland
• Snow in Las Vegas
• Adopted 2 cats and a baby tortoise
• Chris retired
• Cami plays soccer
• Cade's pinewood derby car places 3rd
• The Bears (Cade & Carter's flag football team) wins the division championship
• Went to Disneyland with Brent, Cindy, and kids
• Cami started pre-school
• Vacationed in Brianhead (summer and winter)
• Cade catches 20 inch rainbow trout
• Cami catches 18 inch rainbow trout
• Carter catches 13 inch rainbow trout (and keeps it)
• Paintball is the new addiction
• Cade & Carter attend BYU football camp
• Family attends BYU/Washington football game in Seattle
• Cami takes ballet and tap dancing
• Erin taught swim lessons
• Trips to Lake Mead to wakeboard, ski and tube
• Cami gets her ears pierced

Christmas Sunday

1 New Christmas Dress + 1 Pair of Shiny New Red Shoes + 2 New Red Ties = 3 Cute Kids

Happy Anniversary

11 Years Today!

China

Cade's class in their China costumes

Cade and his friend. They both did their presentations on China's geography.

Snow snow and more snow

lots of snow today!
Cami was so amazed by all the snow

Cami making snow angels

completed angel!

more angels!

Getting a taste!

Our house this afternoon

It snowed at our house all day today! We got so much snow I can't believe it. Cade went home from school with a friend to have a snowball war. Carter lasted a whole 5 minutes playing in the snow before he was freezing. Cami played outside for about an hour, making snowballs, snowmen and angels. The best part of the snow is that tomorrow has been declared a SNOW DAY by the school district!! There is officially no school tomorrow because of all the snow. Lucky me! So much for finishing up all the last minute things I wanted to do without the kids. I can't remember there ever being a snow day before since I've been in Vegas. The kids are going to be so thrilled when they wake up in the morning!

Walk like an Egyptian

This is Carter in his Egyptian costume for his Egypt presentation. His class all did a dance to the song Walk Like an Egyptian. It was very cute. The classes who came to watch and visiting parents went around to different centers to learn about Egypt. Carter taught a math center where you learned to play a counting game with dice that Egyptian children play.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

It has been snowing all day today! I think this is the most snow Vegas has seen in quite awhile. Most of the snow at our house was wet snow that didn't stick for too long. But Cami had ballet today and by the ballet studio there was tons of snow! It was snowing so hard the entire time she was in class. She was so excited she had to call grandma and tell her about it. This is suppose to be the big storm of the winter for us. It was kind of funny last night to watch the news and see all the reporters talking about this big storm and how to prepare! They were even telling people where they could buy a snow shovel! I'm so sure! It is suppose to snow off and on until Wed. so hopefully we get enough at our house that sticks to go play in it. It feels much more like Christmas when it's cold and snowy outside!

Holiday Concert

December is always such a busy month and this year is no exception! Last Friday the boys had their school Holiday concert. Each grade sang 2-3 Holiday songs. Here are a couple pictures from the concert.

Cade and the 4th grade students

Carter and the 1st grade students

Each year the boys school does a program called Celebrations Around the World. Each class chooses a country to study and spends the entire month learning about that county. Then the last week of school before Christmas the students get a "passport" and travel to different classrooms to learn about those countries. Carter is studying Egypt this year and Cade has China. Carter had to do a report and project on an Egyptian animal. He chose the scorpion. He made a really cool scorpion out of clay for his project. Cade is in the middle of making a poster about the geography of China and different tourist spots such as the Great Wall. Then he has to present his poster and report to the other students on Friday. During the time the other classes travel around to view the countries the kids dress up in native costumes from their country and learn songs, dances, and other cultural activities to teach the visiting parents and students. Carter's class presents tomorrow and Cade's on Friday so watch for pictures soon! Cade also has a choir performance Wednesday night. (Choir is a mandatory class for one semester for 4th graders, otherwise I think Cade would skip it!) So between projects, presentations, performances and Christmas parties we are managing to stay pretty busy!

Weekend Events

Friday night we went to a Christmas Party for one of the companies Chris does home health for. It was held at the Cafe Moda which is a quaint little bar/club/restaurant with very low ceilings and a disco ball. It was a very interesting and entertaining night and quite different from any other office parties I've been to. We were definitely in the minority as most of his "co-workers" are Filipino. There was lots of techo-music to dance to and the company even hired 3 professional dancers (all of which were Filipino) to come and give dance instruction! I was quite entertained watching all these people boogie down! They had lots of food, most of which I wasn't quite sure what it was. I could make out the pork though! They had a raffle for gifts and we came home with a 25 piece kitchen gadget set! What a steal!

Saturday we had a yard sale in the never ending attempt at reclaiming our garage from all the clutter. My favorite part of the yard sale was the lady who bought our treadmill. She was driving a Camaro at the time so she was going to come back later with a truck. A little later she came walking down the street pushing a dolly. We helped her load the treadmill (no easy task) onto the dolly and away she went, pushing it down Warm Springs to her house!

The day after

We spent Black Friday (after shopping of course) in the mountains of Arizona cutting down our Christmas tree. The last few years we have cut down our own tree and it's been really fun. This was the first year there was snow on the ground. We were a little unprepared since the kids were all wearing tennis shoes, not snow boots. But that didn't stop them from having snow ball fights and running around and playing in all the snow. Our poor car is only 2 wheel drive and didn't think much of all the snowy hills. But we only got stuck once and luckily we were able to get out without being towed! It was a fun cold day and we picked out a beautiful tree!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house on Thursday. After dinner we made gingerbread houses.

The end

Carter on the Buccanears

Cade on the Dolphins

Cami (pushing her way to the goal!)

Last night marked the end of the fall sports season for us. I am happy to be reclaiming my Saturdays! Cami played soccer for the first time and loved every minute of it. Carter's flag football team made it to the second round of playoffs. He had a great season and loved playing on a team with alot of his friends. Cade's team lost in the first round of playoffs but had a lot of wins during the regular season. Cade played quarterback and did a great job. Chris coached both boys teams this year and I think he is as glad as I am to not have to go to practices and games for awhile. I think Carter will be playing basketball starting in January so I guess we don't get too much of a break! (Although basketball games are played on Friday evenings so I will still have Saturdays free to finish up all the projects we've got around here. Yea!)

I went, I saw, I liked!!

I went with my sisters, sister in law, and some friends to see Twilight tonight. I was worried I wouldn't like the movie. It wasn't as good as the book but still pretty good. It went by too fast though. I could have sat through another hour easily. I hope they make the rest of the books into movies, it will be interesting to see how some of the events in the books play out on the big screen!

Birthday Dress

When I was little my sisters and I always got a new Christmas dress and a birthday dress. This is Cami's birthday dress my mom got her. She was so excited to wear it to church yesterday. She thought it looked like Giselle's wedding dress on Enchanted.

Happy Birthday to Chris!

36 Thing we LOVE about our Dad:

1. That he loves ME the best (Cami)

2. His favorite color is blue

3. He cares about us

4. He coaches our football teams

5. I like to play football with him

6. He takes us fishing

7. He makes better pancakes than mom

8. He helps me with fantasy football

9. He draws the best pictures

10. He loves us

11. He helps me with homework

12. His favorite sport is football

13. His favorite team is BYU

14. He went to BYU

15. He is nice

16. He fixes things that are broken

17. He spends time with me

18. I like to play catch with him

19. I like to ride 4 wheelers with him

20. He takes us to Disney

21. He can build a fire

22. He knows everything about football

23. He buys us cool things we want

24. He helps me play computer

25. I get to go to the store with him and help him

26. He helps me make a football player on playstation

27. He knows lots of jokes

28. He is funny

29. He teases me and tickles me

30. He used to have long hair

31. He is a good artist

32. He loves our cats (not)

33. He works hard

34. He teaches me to ride my bike

35. He helps me get my shoes on

36. He is our dad!!!

PBR

Chris and I went to the Professional Bull Riding Finals on Friday night. It was my first rodeo event. Chris had to explain pretty much all of it to me. I felt quite under-dressed without my boots, hat and chaps on. If physical therapy doesn't work out Chris has decided his true mission in life is to become a bull rider. I thought he should be the rodeo clown. Cowboy country here we come!

Retarded

So I was inspired by everyones cute winter backgrounds on their blogs and decided to change mine. Well, I'm retarded. I thought I saved by old template but when I went to upload my sidebars I hadn't saved it correctly and had to start over! So if you don't see a link to your blog here please leave me a comment with your blog address so I can add you. I think I got most of the people I had before but I know I am missing several. So much for my great idea.

My Vote Counts

By: Cade Cox

This election the candidate that will receive my vote is John McCain. There are many reasons that support this choice for president.

John McCain will make a good president because he is for education and thinks schools should be responsible for teaching all students.

Another reason McCain will make a great president is to support the war he will send more troops to Iraq. He was in congress for 25 years.

I believe McCain will lower gas prices and taxes. Also McCain was a prisoner in Vietnam.

As you can see, there are many great reasons to vote for McCain. This candidate is a generous candidate. I hope that you will think about the information you just read when it's time to vote!

Happy Halloween!

On Friday we carved our pumpkins. Cami choose a cat sitting on a tree branch (she thought it looked like our cats). Cade choose a mummy and Carter choose an alien.

Cade went trick or treating with some friends this year and I forgot to take his picture before he left. Whoops! He was a zombie this year. Carter was a ghost and Cami was Alice in Wonderland. The kids all got lots of candy and had fun.

As we were trick or treating through our neighborhood Carter and his friend decided to touch a cactus "to see if it was real or not!" It was real! Chris had to spend about a half hour pulling cactus needles out of Carter's hand!

Build A Bear

Today we went to Build - A - Bear for Cami's birthday. She choose a black lab puppy which she has named "Puppy!" She loved the whole Build - A - Bear process and is already asking when we can go back.

How to build a bear (or dog) :

Step 1: Carefully choose the animal you would like to make from the many, many choices. Change your mind several different times before you actually make your final decision.

Step 2: Fill your chosen pet up with "fluffy snow." Make sure it feels just right, not too stiff but not too floppy. Just right for hugging. Pick out a special heart to put inside your animal.

Step 3: Take you pet to the grooming area for a bath. Use the blowers to fluff up the fur. Brush out any leftover fluffy snow particles. Then choose an outfit for your pet to wear. Don't worry if your pet's clothes cost more than your own, it's important to be stylish! Don't forget the accessories and shoes, no outfit is complete without them.

Step 4: Print your pets birth certificate and you are on your way! Be sure and make your mom carry your new pet to the car, it's a big box.