Last Weekend

Sorry about the lateness of this post I haven't been feeling well. Last weekend was a fun one, It was the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday, it was a 3 day weekend because of that birthday and it was our niece Abby's birthday. So what did we do? A WHOLE lot. Friday night I got to spend at my in laws house while James went to teach his class, we had asked Abby if for her birthday she would want a present from us or we could take her to see The Princess and The Frog. She opted for the movie, so with her mothers permission we started the fun Friday night. We picked up James then went home and played some wii games till...well not to late. The next morning was chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and some more wii fun till we needed to get ready for the movie. All 3 of us really enjoyed the movie, The music, the colors, and of course the classic Disney humor. :) I kept glancing at Abby during the movie to check and see if she was liking it...I don't think she sat on her butt once during the movie, she was either sitting on her legs, knees or propped up with her hands. We think she really liked it. :) After the movie we took her over to fat cats for some games then back to her house with some pizza for all. We got to play some games and watch the kids for Nikki while she ran some errands. Overall it was a really fun night. After we left Nikki's I surprised James by taking him to Dollar Tree for some much needed date night supplies...he had no clue what we were doing. The we went home for a date night/spa night/girls night out. :p By this I mean it was our date night but a spa night cause I gave him a pedicure and massage and girls night cause we had lots of junk food and a good chick flick...well sorta. We watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but still a great movie. :D Sunday was church and then over to Mom and Dad's for Sunday dinner and to celebrate Abby's birthday. She got a lot of fun stuff...including a new guitar from Nona and Grumpy with a teach yourself guitar book,CD and DVD. She was VERY excited. :) She had that thing on her the rest of the night...even through the game. :p Monday was her official birthday and she had plans with Nona and Grumpy. Well we had some plans of our own too. :) My friend Dawn came out and it was a scrapbook fest. SO much fun. I got quite a few pages done and my Mom and Dad's 2010 scrapbook calendar...that was suppose to be their Christmas present...oops. Oh well I get to see them tonight so we are planning on giving it to them then...so Mom if your reading this...act surprised. :) They fly out for Ecuador tomorrow at 3:00 AM and we wont see them till Spring of 2011. We love you Mom and Dad and we'll miss you.

Happy Birthday

Well it's another Year and another round of birthdays. To start us off is my niece. Abby will be turning 10 this year and I think she's pretty excited. Abby is such a sweet little girl, she loves her family and spending time with them. She likes coming over to our house for sleepovers or movie nights which we enjoy taking her to. She loves being a big sister and playing with her 3 younger brothers. She's an avid reader and has excelled at it, if her mom cant find her she's usually on her bed reading a good book. Abby also loves to play the piano and wants to explore new instruments as well. I am so glad to be Abby's aunt and excited to see what this next year will bring for her. :) So here's to you Abby on your special day. Hope you have a lot of fun. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Doctor's Appointment Update

Everything went well last Thurs. We sat down and talked with the doctor about what we need to do to start. I really love my doctor, she seems as anxious as I am for us to get pregnant. As soon as she saw me she remembered who I was and the conversation we had last year. This was James first time meeting her and compared to our last doctors we've had he was very impressed too. :) She told us a bunch of different things that could be the cause and she wanted to start with the basics and go from their. So while I was there they took a blood sample to check my thyroid and make sure it's ok and we have to schedule an appointment with the lab up at the University of Utah to get James tested and then we'll go from there. I feel really good about these results and look forward to more answers to come. Thank You for everyone's prayers, concerns and comments James and I really appreciate all of you and the support that your giving to us during this time.

Ecuador

Today my parents entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) to start their LDS mission. They will only be in the MTC for 2 weeks before they fly off to Guayaquil, Ecuador to serve in the temple for 18 months. This past weekend we had a chance to go out to dinner with the family and have a small going away party for them. We all meet at this Chinese restaurant called the New Dragon and had some dinner and finished off the evening going over to my sisters house to chat it up. :p It was good to see them one last time before they left. We are going to miss them but we wish them the best in all they do and look forward to hearing all about it. :) We Love you Mom and Dad.

Moving Forward

Tomorrow is a big day for James and I and I cant even begin to explain the mixed emotions I have. I'm scared, nervous, excited, happy, and even a little anxious. Why you may ask...tomorrow James and I have an appointment with a fertility doctor. James and I have been trying to have kids for..well in all honesty I lost count, but over a year, that I definitely know. With some of my family's history with problems conceiving, we decided to start now to see if there are any problems that we can start to take care of. It may be nothing that a good old pill will help solve...or (going extreme) we could have some other problem that means we are unable to conceive and then we start to talk over our options. Basically good or bad I just want answers, I want to know anything there is to know. So wish us luck and I'll let you know once we find out anything.

New Years

We had a great new years. James didn't have to work so he got to enjoy staying home and I only worked till 12 hooray. When I got home we did some much needed running around and then went over to James' sisters house. Nikki. :) We made homemade pizza and then played the wii till 5 min before midnight, then we watched the ball drop and popped poppers, yelled happy new year, gave a toast, drank sparkling cider, then we grossed out the kids by having our first kiss of the new year. :p It was so much fun. We stayed a little while longer playing the wii till we just needed to get home and get some sleep. On New years day we woke up late and played the wii for awhile then we decided to go spend my gift card that James got me and go out to Mom and Dad Armstrong's house. it was fun I got quite a few scrapbook items and a movie. When we got to Mom and Dad's we saw Nikki and the kids were there, so we had fun visiting with them and having dinner. After they left we watched Quigley with dad. Sat I was excited to use my scrapbook stuff. So I scrap booked and James played the wii till our friend Dawn came over to scrapbook with me. We had such a great time. Then she insisted on taking us out to dinner, so we headed over to Chili's (James' all time favorite) and enjoyed dinner together. Dawn stayed for a while longer scrap booking till she decided it was time to go home. Sunday was a nice relaxing day. We went to church and enjoyed all 3 meetings and got to meet our new Sunday School class. After church James had a meeting with the Bishop and then we were informed that Sunday dinner with the family was canceled due to sickness. :p So I made us some dinner and we watched a cute movie called no reservations. All in all it was a great vacation weekend. :)

Happy New Year

First off I cant believe it's 2010. 2009 for us was really a great year that we enjoyed very much and as it came to a close I have to admit I have been a little scared for what 2010 will bring. But This is the first year that I feel ready to move forward. So that must mean it's not going to be too bad then I guess. :) Usually I really don't like taking down the Christmas decorations cause then it means it's all over...but this year. As soon New Years was over I was ready to have my house back to normal. So we hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and best wishes to everyone for an ever better rest of the year. :) 2010...bring it on we're ready. :)

Christmas

I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do...So here is a very small picture show of how our Christmas went. :) We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

I think my brother Preston would be happy his duct tape tradition lives on. :p
This picture is turned funny and I cant get it to go back but Rosko has been thoroughly enjoying his giant shepherds staff rawhide. :p he's already chewed through quite a bit of it.

Christmas Eve fun

Well now that Christmas has come and gone...I thought it would be good to share with you our many holiday adventures. :) I've been pretty good and keeping up...till I didn't have to come to work so I didn't have access to the Internet. :p So I think I left off with Christmas Eve. Both James and I had Christmas Eve off...So it was nice to be able to wake up whenever we wanted to the next morning. :) Something we look forward to every weekend. :p The only thing we had planned really was going up to Mom and Dad Armstrong's house to celebrate Bob's birthday and to pre-make Christmas Breakfast. So James and i headed up there to find....no one home...hmmm. So we called and Mom, Bob and Abby were in Logan doing some birthday shopping. Nikki and Lisa were still at home and dad was at Smith's picking up Bob's cake. So James and I decided to go to the store for some last minute gift ideas...we didn't succeed very well since we had all our shopping done. But we were able to kill some time before we went back to the house. The rest of the night was fun the kids started to get a little to excited about Christmas and it was hard for Nikki and mom to make dinner. So I suggested that James and I take the kids to Fantasy at the bay to see the lights. Just to get them out of their hair for an hour or so. Abby, and Gavin were really excited to go...Nate was playing games on the computer so he didn't want to go. So James and I borrowed Nikki's van, loaded up the kids and off we went.See how excited everyone is. :) Gavin gave me his excited face for about 2 seconds...literally. I said k excited faces for the lights 1...2... and he turned his face. :p

Gavin loved the dinosaurs.

There was a sign by this that said proud to be an American and the a picture of different soldiers wearing the different military uniforms saluting. It was kinda cool. it was hard to take pictures though.And what light display would be complete without Santa. :) They had a horse ride that took you around to see all the lights that was free, we wanted to take the kids on that but by the time we were done with the lights Ethan was asleep and all the kids had was their coats. So we decided against it. Gavin was getting a little upset too and kept saying he wanted to go back to Nona's house (Mom) By the time we got their both Gavin and Ethan were fast asleep. they seemed to have a great time. :) By the time we got back dinner was done. For Bob's birthday dinner he chose BBQ steak and Salmon..and it was GOOD! the salmon was AMAZING! :) Nate loved the steak and I tried to get him to try a piece of salmon and he refused...then I told him that if he would try that little piece that James and I would bring our wii over to his house tomorrow so that he could play it. :) I really didn't think he was going to buy it...but he did. He tried the small piece..he gaged a little but then he swallowed and said it wasn't bad. :) we were all proud of him for trying it. He usually doesn't like to try new things...food wise. After dinner Bob opened his present and then the kids got their traditional Christmas Eve pajamas from Nona and Grumpy :) (Mom and Dad Armstrong) After that it was time to quickly make the Christmas breakfasts so that Nikki could get home and get the kids in bed so they didn't miss Santa. :) NORAD tracker has a Santa Tracker every Christmas and Nate kept coming over to where I was on the Internet to check and see where he was. :) When he started getting close (Georgia) they were in a hurry to get home. James and I stayed a little while longer. James,Bob and Dad watched Return of the Jedi and I watched a Ghost Hunters marathon while I played on face book. :p Overall a nice relaxing Christmas Eve. :)

Christmas Day

Because we stayed so long at mom and dad's we got up a little later than what we usually do on Christmas morning. We usually get up around 7:30 or 8:00 but this year I think it was more like 9:30-10:00. lazy butts I know. :p Well before we opened our stockings and presents and stuff, we actually made stocking for the pets... because we don't have kids yet we do this every year...well it's more me than anything. We don't go real big we usually get them treats, some wet food for a Christmas dinner, and a toy. Dodger got his whisker treats that he loves so much and a can of fancy feast which he wanted to eat right away. :) Rosko got some treats, his mighty dog meal and James found this huge candy cane rawhide that Rosko freaked out about. So he bought it for him. :) After the pets stockings we found ours. We got a lot of fun stuff from each other, including an i tunes gift card. :) oh yeah! Then on to presents, this year was a little more difficult because of our California trip in Oct. but we decided to keep it simple for each other...I did go a little over board with James though. But some of his gift were more us gifts anyway. :p he got a charging station for the wii remote, HP6, Mario Party for the wii, a Jack Skellington beanie and a Jack blanket...he also got some buttons to put on his beanie in his stocking. He was pretty excited. We got some bed sheets from my sister which we sorely need, and my parents got us each a camel back for when we got hiking. YAY! then James got me the Hells Kitchen game for my DS that I've been wanting for awhile. SO FUN! It was a nice Christmas. After all the presents part I made a big breakfast. Mom Armstrong's Christmas breakfast, pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, toast and 2 types of juice. It was so much fun. After breakfast we got all the stuff together and headed over to Nikki's house for the remainder of Christmas day. Everyone was already there, so as soon as things settled down a bit we went ahead and opened the rest of the presents. James got the band hero game for the wii and I got Zelda and then we both got the sports kit for the wii...a baseball bat, tennis racket and golf club...and it came with another charger. The kids got quite a bit of stuff for the wii too. They got a game from all the aunts and uncles and then through their mom and dad they got a charging station, a racing game with the wheels and some light sabers and a star wars game. :p They were pretty excited. After the gift opening the kids raced downstairs to play the wii some more, Nikki needed batteries and I asked James if he could go with her to get some tampons. :p So while they were gone everyone did their own things, I called my parents to wish them a Merry Christmas and talked with them till Nikki, James and Lisa got back from the store. Then James talked to my mom and dad for a little while before we said goodbye. I played my new Hells Kitchen game on the DS off and on while Lisa read (as always) Nikki helped Mom cook and everyone else was downstairs playing the wii. :p Then we had a yummy Christmas dinner. Turkey, stuffing, everything, it was so yummy. the rest of the night was spent either visiting or playing the wii with the kids. It was a lot of fun... Just an all out relaxing enjoyable Christmas. :)