Wyatt's Wedding

In March one of our very best friends was married. We are so happy for him!! It was a great night since not only did we get to see Wyatt and his beautiful bride, Kristy, but also one of our other best friends, Adam, and his girlfriend flew in from North Carolina to be there. We had been looking forward to getting together for a long time and were excited to meet Adam's girlfriend, Cassia. We loved her!! Hopefully we will all be able to get together again soon!! We love you guys!!

4 years old!!

On December 26, 2010 our little Jordyn turned 4. I can't believe it!! Where did the time go? How did my little baby turn into a a little girl? I've heard tell of this phenomenon, the rapid aging of your own children and those children around you that you love, but this is ridiculous!! And to make it worse, as of now she's already 4 1/2 and has a year down of preschool and dance. One more year and she'll be in kindergarten!! It makes me a little sick to think about this actually... Anyway here are some cute pictures from the many celebrations of Jordyn =)

Pet Shops!!

Waiting to open presents at home

Sock Monkey from great Grandma Pollei!!

The birthday girls!!

**Silver Bells...It's Christmas Time in the City**

Jordyn w/ Jeanette, Alicia & Santa Verl at our ward Christmas party

Jordyn's Christmas list, my favorite part is her telling Santa he's her hero *lol*

Jordy & Ella in the Christmas jammies!

Santa hats =)

Opening presents at Grandma Paula's and Papa Allen's!!

Ella, Dylan, Preston, Jordyn, Easton, Conner & Emree on Christmas Eve

Watch out world, here I come!!

Milk, cookies and diet Pepsi for Santa. Jordyn insisted on leaving diet Pepsi along with the milk because "Santa needed the energy" =) it was very cute!

PILLOW PET!!!!

Bri and his Mavs tie!!

Primary "service drive-in" Activity

In December my primary presidency and I decided to have a service drive-in for our quarterly activity. We gave the kids boxes to make cars and then we set up 3 "service stations". The kids drove from station to station doing the various service projects (frosting cookies for the bishopric, washing the chairs in the primary room and making cards for the missionaries), after each project was complete they earned a "service buck" (which I was in charge of making, so of course I roped my dad into drawing a service station monster for me to use on my bucks), they then could use their service bucks to buy treats, popcorn and drinks at the drive-in. They all bought their treats and parked their cars to watch Mr. Kruger's Christmas. It was a ton of fun!! The kids loved it! And of course Brian and Jordyn went all out making Jordyn's car super fantastic. It had a front end added, working head lights and tail lights and lots of decorations cut by my cricut. Everyone loved it!!


You can't tell in the pictures but the headlights are on, Brian used a battery operated strand of Christmas lights so Jordyn could turn them on and off with a button. It was SO cute!!



My service monster (art by Scott Minson :) I couldn't find where I kept my master copy of the finished service bucks but they were pretty cute if I do say so myself!

Christmas Dance Program...*ominous music*

Jordyn's 1st dance concert was just a small class one in their dance studio. It was for Christmas. It was a nightmare. We invited both sets of grandparents thinking it would be fun to show our daughter off. WRONG!! Jordyn wanted nothing to do with any of it. She wouldn't do her name shape, she wouldn't go put her costume on without me, she wouldn't dance much even with me sitting, like an idiot, in the middle of the floor, she refused to see Santa after and she wouldn't stand with her friends for the class photo. I think she might have done her skipping but that's it. Needless to say we were all VERY glad when it was over. But have no fear, as I catch up on more posts you'll see that my baby bear decides dancing in front of people is downright fun and has turned into quite the little ham. Here are a few pictures, they are pretty cute, you'd never know they were taken during one of the worst parenting moments of our lives...

Pumpkin the dog: A love story

Preschool, how I love thee let me count the ways...
So anyway Jordyn attends Donna Gregory's Preschool right here in our neighborhood. Ms. Donna is FANTASTIC!! She has been teaching preschool for more then 20 years, she also happens to be our Primary president (I think this is her 3rd time...) so Jordyn gets to see her a lot which is a good thing because with the summer break I fear we are going to be driven crazy for lack of school and dance. Since Donna has been in the preschool game for quite awhile she does some really fun things with and for the kids. Well one of these awesome things was in October she got each kid a pumpkin and let them decorate it with stickers. Jordyn was thrilled! She brought her pumpkin home and promptly dubbed him "Pumpkin the dog" and played with him nonstop. Man she loved that thing! Well being that he wasn't carved he luckily lasted into December (I think) and when it came time to say goodbye we had one sad little girl (getting squishy and yucky isn't a good reason to ditch a friend in a 3 year olds mind). Well needless to say we were finally able to throw him out but only after we took several pictures of the duo. So thank you again Donna for a wonderful idea and making a little girl very, very happy. =)

Thanksgiving in St. George!!

This past Thanksgiving we were able to spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents in St. George. It was lots of fun!! Not only did we have lots of yummy food but we played tons of games, bowled our hearts out on the Wii, played bacci, visited, went for drives, played at the park and otherwise had a grand time. We even got to go see the Christmas lights at the St. George Temple, I can't even tell you how happy palm trees covered in Christmas lights makes me!! Granted it could have been warmer but it sure beat the 5 degrees that it was back home!! Here are a few highlights:

Jordyn and Grandma Pollei, they are 2 peas in a pod!


Jordy and I with Uncle Greg. I'm pretty sure Greg is Jordyn's favorite person ever *lol* She is his little shadow any time we are down there!






Our field security!

I'm pretty sure this is perfect form =)

A girl and a goat!!

I don't know how many of you know where Abraxas Pet Resort is or what my families connection to it is but here it is in a nutshell. Abraxas is a kennel right by our house that my parents have known the owners FOREVER, Joan and Dennis have been figures in my life for as long as I can remember. My dad has trained dogs there and my mom worked there for a little while. Brian and I have gone in and helped out and of course we take our dogs there for both grooming and vacation stays. Well Abraxas has quite a lot of property and part of it is inhabited by an assortment of farm animals, chickens, geese, peacocks, goats etc. Jordyn loves going over and feeding said animals. Well on one of our trips over there Jordyn was feeding Tootie (the one-eared goat) and got a big surprise, Tootie popped right up on her back legs and begged for more bread, it was a riot and Jordyn laughed and laughed. Luckily I was able to get a picture of it. It's pretty rad!!

The most WoNdErFuL time of the year!! (Yes, I do mean Halloween!!)

As many of you know Halloween is my very favorite day of the year. I love everything about it!! The sights, the smells, the pumpkins, the costumes, the family, the food, the friends, the movies/tv shows, the eerie feeling in the air, the way the leaves crunch in the dark... I could go on and on... I've often thought that I should have been born into Haloweentown and had Jack Skelington as a best friend. Luckily my husband and daughter love it as well and the rest of my family and friends put up with my lunacy. Brian and I often leave about half our decorations up year round (the stuff that doesn't actually say "Happy Haloween" of course). This halloween we did the usual, carved pumpkins at home and at Michelle & Eric's house, had a ward Halloween party that Bri and I were in charge of planning with our fabulous activities committee, picked out Jordyn's costumes (yes that was costume with an "s" at the end, one for trick-or-treating and one for preschool and anything else that her giraffe costume was to warm for), went trick or treating with a group of friends (Rachel, Kevin & Zack, Brad, Laura & Carter, Dave & Ryan). We had a blast!! It was Jordyn's first year going with friends and we all had a marvelous night, then we came home to chili and bone breadsticks, handing out candy and watched the Garfield halloween special and "the Nightmare Before Christmas". Life is good!!

My little pirate princess =)

Jordy at her preschool party!!

Jordyn and her cute friends Tylee & Jennie

Carving pumpkins with Bri's family

Jordy & her D



Bri and his Mario pumpkin!!

The mini crew

Carving pumpkins at home (scary right??)


"PLEASE can we just go mom...?!"

The darling wild animals we went trick-or-treating with (getting a picture of the 4 of them was next to impossible!!)


My pumpkin, I thought it was rad. I like to pretend he lost the eye in a bar fight... hee hee

My pumpkin carving master husbands Harlequin Monster. SO AWESOME!!