New Years Traditions

Happy New Year!

(apparently Dustyn thought it would be fun to slobber on my cheek. :P)

Welcome 2010! Hoping for the best year yet!

Merry Christmas!

We hope your Christmas was full of fun and family!

(We were on our way to Vegas. More about that later)
We had a great one for sure!

Have a great New Year!

New Years Baby!

Yes, I am finally getting around to posting about New Years. Better late than never, right?

This year our friends Greg and Arianne come down to bring the New Year in. I turned out to be a lot of fun! (at least I thought so!) And of course I didn't take many photos. I have really slacked off in that department lately. :P

Greg and Arianne arrived around 3:30 on Wednesday. We hung out, chatted and just caught up on life. It was good to hang out with them again. I decided to make an early dinner so that we would be able to snack on yummy snacks all night. Arianne come in to help/chat with my while the boys played the Wii. We made Hawaiian Haystacks. They were alright, but don't you hate how when you are cooking for someone else, nothing seems to turnout how you wanted it? :P Oh well, luckily they survived. :) After dinner we ran up to my parents house to watch the kids open their presents. It was good to see the kids and hang out with them.

We headed back to our house and I made a few snacks. Spinach Dip with bread, Cranberry Salsa on Cream Cheese with crackers, and veggies. Of course the Cranberry salsa was my favorite. I love that stuff!

Once the food was ready, we decided to let the games begin! We played Boxers and Briefs. That game is so funny. I love it.

Then it was off to become Guitar Heros! We ended up playing Guitar Hero all night. We turned it off long enough (like 2 minutes to midnight) to watch the ball drop.

Miss A is even a Guitar Hero!

Dustyn is very serious about his guitar skills! I love how he gets into it.

Arianne even gave it a try!

Miss A even got to drive on the race track! Dustyn must think she is pretty cool!

There were so many cute pics of her, but they didn't work to well. :P

Dustyn playing Miss A's favorite game of the night. Spoons!

The last minute of 2008! YAY!

It's now officially 2009!

Miss A stayed up and brought in the new year with us. Once it was all over she went to bed. We played Guitar Hero for a few more hours. Finally it was bed time... but not for Dustyn and I. We played Dr. Mario for awhile and then chatted all night. lol. We finally went to bed sometime after 3:00. Fun night for sure.

Thursday morning!! I made German Pancakes and bacon. Remember how every time I use my oven the smoke alarm goes off, even if nothing is burning at all? Yah, they got to listen to my smoke alarm all morning. I finally turned it off. I really need to move it a little. It is totally in the wrong spot. :P

Greg and Arianne decided to stay one more night. We were excited.  That means more games! We are totally games sort of people. Love them! My mom got a new game over the holidays called Quelf. If you have not played this game before, you should. It is CRAZY!  Crazy I tell you. We decided to play Quelf. It was fuuuny. My abs definitely had a work out. Wow. Crazy game. You really should give it a try.

Miss A helping Greg out with one of his stunts! :)

Greg and Arianne would rather color than play Quelf?!?!

For dinner we had soup and salad. Miss A helped me make the breadsticks. Yum! It turned out pretty well. Then we played more games. I don't really remember what, besides Racko, but it was a good time anyways.

Friday morning we had breakfast and then Greg and Arianne left around 10-ish.

It really was a fun weekend! Thanks for coming down guys! Come again! Soon.

Things I am going to work on for 2009!

I decided that I don't want to make resolutions, so this year I am going to "work" on a few areas in my life. Any progress is progress. Most of these things are things that I need to work on over my entire life, so this is just a yearly reminder for me. (in no particular order)

~ Work on getting out of debt. Have a real savings account. Become more thrifty.
~ Come to know my Savior more. Pray more intently, Study more, improve temple attendance.
~ Eat more healthy. Move more.
~ Be more productive in my spare time, and don't worry, I have plenty.
~ Love Dustyn more completely. Serve him everyday.

I am SO excited for 2009 and the unknown and wonderful/scary/hard times that are ahead.

Happy 2009! May it be one of the best.

A post of randomness.

I finally got all the Christmas decor taken down and cleaned up! I am so excited, because it seems like most years I put it off until after the new year. This year I can focus more on partying in the New Year and not having to worry about getting the cleaning done before Monday. Nice. Very nice!

These cool people are coming to our house for New Years! I am so excited. I hope they don't get too bored with our po-dunk town. lol Either way, we can party hard, play lots of games and eat lots of food!

The one part that I do not like about winter - dry skin. Ouch. I have so many cracks on my hands and I am horrible about applying lotion consistently. It is a habit that I need to develop. Is there such thing as waterproof lotion? I wash my hands far too much during the day.

Speaking of ouch, and hands... yesterday when I was packaging up some lights in a cardboard box, I got a BAD cardboard cut on my palm. Ouch! Gotta love those, aye Michelle? Takes you right back to the good 'ole days at Smead. Ugh.

My legs ache today. You know, like "growing" pains ache, but times ten. Ouch. I hope it passes soon. Guess I was on my feet a little too long yesterday.

So one time I read in a blog post that you are only suppose to put one space after a period now-a-days. (And she's smart. And a better reporter than I would ever be.) I really, really, really try hard to do it, but I seriously cannot change the habit that I developed all those many years ago. How do you fix a habit like that? Seriously.

I am tending today and MyMy is still sleeping. Silly girl! It's almost 9:00, that is unusual. Mal, on the other hand, has some serious bed head. lol (She woke up right after I typed that.)

By the way, this is going to end up being an all day entry.

I think I left my phone home. Dang. I hate that. What ever did we do before cell phones and internet?

I keep neglecting to mention our Christmas Eve. I was great! We went to Dustyn's sister's house and had dinner and games. Fun times, fun times. Of course we had Steak and Crab because that is the tradition. (thanks guys, it rocked)  Then we played a few games. They were even good sports and played Quelf with us. If you have never played it, it is a super crazy game. Crazy, I tell you. But there was definitely good food and good times.  (Thanks again guys!)

Oh yeah, I took ZERO pictures during the Christmas Holiday. What is up with that. I have one small video of Dustyn opening his present and that is all. At least I have that! Oh yeah, and pictures of the race track. :)

Dustyn is so funny with his race track. I walk in the room and there he sits staring at his tracks. (during the 15 minute rest time) He comes up with a new configuration tries it out, makes adjustments, tries something new, and over and over again.  It makes me laugh. He's cute. Here is one of the tracks he came up with last night.

I have a lot to clean up. So many new toys! But for sure a disaster. Guess I should get busy. I guess that is all for now. Have a great Tuesday people!

Why Adoption?

Wow, it's officially 2008! I can't believe a new year is ready to start. I have so many goals and hopes for this year! I am so excited to get it started!

In the January 2008 Ensign there is an article entitled "Why Adoption?"

If you haven't had the opportunity to read it, you should! It's a really good article. I love finding articles about adoption! (Thanks Libby) It makes this whole experience a little easier. I love finding encouraging words from the leaders of our Church. It makes me excited to adopt!

I hope you have a good year and that you had a great New Year's Eve! We did! We went to Dustyn's brother's house and enjoyed a Hawaiian Luau! It was a lot of fun full of games and food! Good food! It was a great way to bring in the new year! We also had some awesome fireworks (even in the 3 or so degree weather). We played lots of games and watched "Night at the Museum". I didn't take too many pictures, but I did get the girls making Dustyn a princess!

And we can't forget Guitar Hero's. Tyler spends way to much time practing.... or we just suck! Ha ha! Must be that we are really crappy guitar players.

This is when Dustyn just gave up! (and Tyler plays without looking at the screen)

Now I better get started on my "L" Composition Photo! Remember to check out our Photo-A-Day blogs! And feel free to join us! It will be lots of fun! ;)
Kamie's World in 365 Photos
Dustyn's Creating 365 Photos

I just found this little video! Ha ha! I was going to take pics of the food that I made for the party, just for the heck of it... but I had my camera on Video Mode and then the battery died... so this is all you get. But we made Sarah's Coconut Cake (really, really good, by the way), Tropical Salsa (YUM!!!), Pickled Asparagus and Ham Rolls (as seen in the video), and some fun Island Way Sorbet Treats. (we found them at Costco) They are really good sorbets that are in real coconut shells, orange shells, lemon shells and pineapple shells. They were fun!

Happy New Year - 2008

We hope you all have a fabulous and safe New Year!  It has been an adventurous and great year for us and we look forward to seeing what 2008 will bring us.  Thank you for following us along on our journey and for all the love and support every step of the way!  Ya'll are amazing!  It's been fun following you an your journeys as well.  I appreciate all the new friends that I have made as well as reconnecting with the old.  And of course, I love family!  

We hope all your wishes and dreams come true in 2008 (this goes for us too, hehe!)

See you Next Year!

this has been Dustyn and Kamie. . . . signing out.