Freakish Elves!

Thought we'd join in the fun!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9627748891

The Dancin' Rileys!

Boy...those Riley men sure can dance!!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9627012561

Turtle Power

Mike's mother-in-law raises tortoises in her back yard, they're huge!! They haven't even grown fully yet and they can live to over 100 years old. Pretty cool.

Arizona LDS Church burnt down

Sticker Face

Okay... here's some funny pictures of Annistyn. Can you guess who put stickers all over her face??

Three Musketeers!

Found this cute picture as I was going through some photos...thought I'd share!

What I'm thankful for.....

A lot of my friends have made lists of things they are thankful for this month. So, before the month of November is over, I wanted to get in the things I am most thankful for (besides Disneyland during the holidays...which I mentioned earlier). This is in no particular order.

1. My supportive and hard-working husband. Jason has been working full time and goes to class each night so he can finish school quicker. I am so impressed with how well he has done and I am grateful for the sacrifices he has made in order to provide for our family.

2. My spunky red-headed daughter. Kamryn amazes me each day with the things she learns. She really keeps me on my toes and she keeps me laughing! She is a character and I can't wait to see what she will do next.

3. My family and Jason's family. I have been blessed with two wonderful families in my life. I am lucky to be surrounded by family who love us unconditionally and who we can share memories with.

4. Thanksgiving Dinner. Since we just partook in this fabulous meal just a few days ago, I have to express my thanks for it. We spent our Thanksgiving in Arizona this year with Jason's brother and his wife, Teresa made a FABULOUS meal of Turkey, stuffing (with sausage..yummy), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, jello, rolls and for dessert, pumpkin and apple pie...and a cheesecake!!! Phew.... This was her first time taking on the task without her Mom to help and let me tell you, she is a pro! THANKS SOO MUCH TERESA!!!

4. Urgent Care. This may seem odd, but while in Arizona for Thanksgiving, Kamryn came down with the croup. I'm grateful for a place where we can get in without having to make an appt. and that no matter where we travel, we can get our little girl medical attention. We found out she also had a double ear infection. Poor girl. She is a trooper though. (I'm also grateful for medicine that makes her feel better).

5. Candles. I'm sitting her at the computer, listening to Christmas music and sitting in the dark with only candles lighting the room. I love how peaceful they make me feel and they smell so good.

6. Joseph Smith. I've been reading the series "The Work and the Glory" for the second time and I have grown to truly love and appreciate our first prophet. I truly do know that he was a prophet of God and I am grateful to him and for the many sacrifices both he and his family all made for the gospel. I'm grateful for all the early leaders of the church. They truly paved the way for the restoration of this gospel and I am forever in their debt.

7. Jesus Christ. Need I say more? The ultimate example, the perfect man, my big brother. I will forever be striving to live like he lived. His life is the reason why I have such a wonderful life.

8. It's a Wonderful Life. That last statement made me think of this movie, which I am grateful for. I'm grateful for all movies that move me and inspire me. This is just one of the many.

9. Upland 1st Ward. I'm grateful for a ward that is full of friendly people. I have made so many friends living in this ward...I never want to move. I love loving going to church and I look forward to each Sunday.

10. And finally....DVR. Okay, so its a silly way to end this, but I am way grateful for my DVR. To be able to pause, rewind, fast forward and record TV so easy, I never miss a show. However, there is a downside for I find myself recording too many things....I'm working on it. :-)

Thanks Karissa!!!

So, a couple weekends ago, my friend Karissa called me up to see if I wanted to go to Disneyland for the day. Who could say 'no' to a free day at the happiest place on earth. So, Kamryn and I drove down with Karissa and her two boys and had a great time. Disneyland was all decorated for the holidays so it made the trip especially fun. We all had a great time!
Kamryn didn't love Santa too much...but she got a free candy cane out of it, so she was a happy camper.
Click on the picture to get a better look of the castle. It looks awesome this year!!!
That is fake snow on our heads. In the picture below, you can see the snow falling. If there is one thing I am thankful for this month, its Disneyland during the holidays. It really is magical!

Pictures

It took Jason to come and learn us how to post pictures, here is a quick picture that Jason had to post for me. I'm not smart.

- Mike

Look Aunt Teresa... Tummy Time!!

Here's some pictures of Meredith doing tummy time. She still doesn't love it...but she spending longer amounts of time on her tummy without crying...so I guess that's good!

Kamryn's first trip to the library

So here's Kamryn at a library in Orange County somewhere. I thought this was particularly cute, she looks like a miniature DJ chick, I love it. "Yes I love technology, not as much as you, you see, but still I love technology, always and forever." Okay everyone, post some pictures!!!

Doesn't make a lick of difference!

So, I just have to put something out there. It doesn't matter what time you put your child to bed...they will wake up at the same time no matter what. I thought I understood this, but last night, Kamryn had a later night than usual and didn't go to bed until after 10pm. So I thought for sure this time she would sleep in this morning. I mean, she went to bed almost 2 1/2 hours after her normal bedtime. Well, I was sorely mistaken. She was still up at 6:45am, ready and raring to go. Of course, I didn't actually get up and get her until almost 7:30am. She just talks to herself and chills until I come get her. Anyway, I just hope she makes it up in naps cause I have no problem taking those naps with her on some days. Well, that's all I have to say. It's 8 in the morning and I am still trying to wake up.

Sorry, no pictures today....just my thoughts.

October photos from John and Jodi!!

Just wanted to share a few pictures of the fam during the month of October.

We had a lot going on that month with Saedree's birthday My birthday, Halloween and Court and Janelle leaving for Texas, which we really dont want to talk about... but wish them the best.

Sorry I hope I didnt add too many pictures. We are still new at this.

my pregnant wife smashing a drive down the fairway

here is my very first blog....this IS a blog right?

click on the video to see what a good golf swing looks like.....

Kamryn's Animal Sounds!!!

Well, this took me entirely too long. I realized that windows movie maker did not allow me to convert video to wide screen, and since my camera films in wide screen, most of the videos I've been posting don't look quite right. So I used the ridiculously "not user friendly" software that came with the camera and this is how it turned out. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice quality for wide screen, or I could have done an AVI file and it would have taken about 45 minutes to upload, no thanks. Anyway here is Kamryn doing some animal sounds. Isn't she cute?

What happens in Vegas.....

Of course, I have nothing to hide about what happened in Vegas. :-) I went to celebrate my friend, Kim Eshenroder's, wedding. She was my roommate at Ricks and we have been close friends ever since. With the help of some good friends at home and my husband I was able to leave Kamryn at home so that I could attend all the wonderful events of the weekend. I stayed with my cousin in Henderson which was nice. All of my other friends had to pay to stay in a hotel, so that was really nice to have family around. Here are some pictures outside the Vegas Temple with my friends and of the happy couple.











How cute is this family. These are my friends, Darin and Jenn Warnick and their beautiful daughter, Ivy. She is three months old.

The happy couple...John and Kim Bowman

Dad's New House

For those who haven't seen Dad's new house, I thought I'd post a few pictures. I assume he's moved in now...hopefully someone in Utah will take some pictures and post them here! Here's the pictures I have:

Front of the House...the Red truck belongs to the builder.

Front of House...That closed garage door opens to a really long section of the garage...long enough to park an RV. It's really awesome.

They have a beautiful view from the back deck.

Another back deck view...and you can see the really cool railing. It looks very nice!

The Kitchen/Great Room...this picture doesn't do it justice.

They have this incredible window in the kitchen/great room.
It really is breath-taking! Again, the picture doesn't do it justice.

Permissions

If anyone wants me to grant permissions to post to their spouse or want me to use a different email address or whatever, I can do that. When I was setting it up I used one email address per "couple", being that email address of the sibling, unless they had a joint email like John and Jodi for example, so don't feel left our or something, I will give permission to any of you out there, I was just being lazy, I set it up pretty late at night, so...

Hello? Is anybody out there?

Why are there no more posts on this blog?!? C'mon people! I want to keep in touch, so post away! What's everyone up to? How are the kids? Is anybody even reading this blog???

Howdy from Texas!!

Okay... they don't really say Howdy down here. I've heard "Dag gum" a lot and they call shopping carts "buggies" which is weird to me, but no "Howdy's." Anywhoo... things are good down here. Nice and warm, which I love. Meredith has had a cold for the last couple of days. Her nose runs like a faucet and she hates to have it wiped, so she just looks snotty...yuck! The moving truck arrived yesterday and we got half of it unloaded. Man, we have a lot of CRAP!! I really don't like moving...it's way too much work. Well, anyway, I hope everyone will post to this blog! I want to see pictures of my nieces and nephews, and Michele and Teresa's pregnant bellies and stuff like that! So, everyone make posts! Love you all! Here's a few random pictures...

Our New Blog

Okay everyone, I thought this would be a cool place for all of us to come and post pictures of the kids, funny pictures of Rob (not lacking there), sort of a whatever you want to post for the others to see. Let me know if anyone needs help figuring it out and I will walk you through posting pictures and videos. Much love to all.

A little more Halloween

For the actual Halloween night, Kamryn and I went to my sisters home in Mission Viejo to go trick-or-treating with her kids. We had a great time and we loved spending the day and evening with them. Kamryn loves her cousin David. David is so cute when he plays with her and whenever she said an actual word he would get so excited and run and tell us what she said.











Kamryn loved sucking on the wrapper of this starburst. I had no problem with it since it couldn't rot her teeth. The only candy she actually ate this Halloween was one Sweet Tart that her Daddy gave her.





















The two Jedi Masters.....Anakin Skywalker (on the left) and Obi Wan Kenobi (on the right)

Happy Halloween!

Well, this year Halloween was especially fun AND especially challenging. Kamryn was old enough to enjoy trick-or-treating and she loved holding her candy in her hands, however she was also old enough to understand that she was being put in a costume she didn't like wearing and she made it clear. These pictures were taken at our ward Trunk-or-Treat. Jason and I were Dwight and Angela ("The Office") for Halloween. I forgot my gray sweater and my wig wasn't that great, but you get the idea. I also shouldn't have smiled so much...so not Angela like. Jason looked great though! And same with our little red-headed Tinkerbell.











(Picture courtesy of Heather Livingston!)





















I love this picture of Kamryn. She almost looks elfish in it. :-) Click on the picture so you can see it up close. And you'll notice the candy in her hand that she would not let go of all night.

Making Music!

Here's a video of Kamryn actually having fun at the Children's Museum. I tried to get it on the other post, but I am computer challenged. Enjoy~