Dec. 25th!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Letter - To friends and family :)

2010 has been a great year for our family. We have had a lot happen and have been very busy! We moved from Lacey, WA to Parker, CO the beginning of September and have enjoyed being in the sunshine! We loved the friends we met and the places we explored in Washington over the past 3 years but are so excited to be near family.

Rob has been very busy this year. He sold homes for Quadrant Homes in Washington and we owned a vending business on the side. We sold that when we moved to Colorado. Our new adventure has Rob the proud owner of a Mission Tortilla Distribution route in Denver, CO. We have barely seen Rob since he started this one month ago, but he is doing a great job, working very hard. We are excited to see where this leads us next.

Brooke has enjoyed being with the kids this year which keeps her quite busy also. Weekly she and the kids attend exercise class, story time, visit parks and she is teaching Breanna preschool. She accomplished sewing a dress for Breanna (with her sister’s great teaching skills) as a crafty project, which is inspiring her to try that out as a hobby. She loves exercising and being outside in the sunshine. She LOVED the time she had with Rob before he started the business and cherished his time with the family.

Breanna will turn 4 in January. She is a wonderful big sister always looking out for her brother. She is excited to help out around the house and “earn” money for extra chores she completes. She loves learning and is excited about learning the numbers, letters, and trying to learn how to write. She has participated in “Lil All Stars” sports; soccer and basketball and is so happy to go and play each time. She loves being a winner, being first, being fast, but don’t call her pretty! She likes trains, cars, computer games, books, legos, anything to do with Christmas and drawing. She loves having a “job” to do, getting tickles and singing songs. We love the little girl she is turning into.

Ethan will be 18 months old in January and is a fireball of energy. He loves his sister and tries to do everything that she can do. He likes being chased, wrestling, running, climbing, exploring, dancing and has just learned to jump. He is a happy guy, keep your eyes on him or else he’s gone in a split second. He loves eating everything. He keeps Brooke going from the moment he gets up until bed time. He is such a great addition to our family; we love his hugs, high fives and excitement for life.

We are living as “basement dwellers” in Brooke’s parents’ house and have had 3 great months here. We appreciate all the amazing amount of memories that we have been able to create with family since we moved to Colorado and look forward to many more!

This year we were able to explore Mount Rainier, Ocean Shores, Seattle, Victoria BC, Port Townsend, Astoria, Canon Beach, Portland, Sacramento (Brooke and kids), Hawaii (Rob), Winter Park and Denver. We are so blessed to have the adventuring spirit and the ability to visit these wonderful places.

We have such a great family and friends and are so grateful for all they do and share with us. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

Rob, Brooke, Breanna and Ethan

Christmas Party/Santa

Christmas 2010
Ethan wants nothing to do with Santa.....don't put me on a strangers lap mom!

Nervous yet SOOOO excited!

Santa at story time.....

(Letters to Santa on top of their heads!)Rob's parents Christmas Party

Grandpa was missing the WHOLE time that Santa was talking to the kids........hmmmmmm....and then showed up right after Santa was done!!

Breanna has gotten to sit on Santa's lap 3 times this year! WOW!!! And she's been really excited each time and has loved it. Ethan on the other hand has despised it and will NOT sit on his lap :) He clings on to me for dear life and screams, so I haven't had the heart to put him on his lap.

Breanna has gotten to sit on Santa's lap:

1. At a special library "Santa Story time"

2. At our ward's Breakfast with Santa

3. At Rob's parent's ward Christmas party

She and Ethan have gotten "goody" bags at 2 of the events, which has made it amazing to Breanna and I swear she's gotten 100 candy canes so far this Christmas.

Rob's Parents party was special b/c they were in charge of the whole thing. Also,

Grandpa was Santa!!!! (SHHHH....don't tell!!!)

Christmas Pics of the kids

I'll put some more up later....I'm outta here right now!

Thanksgiving with the Douglas Family

It was so fun! Food, Fun, Family! We had EVERYONE there, I think it was 11 adults and 11 kids. We played pin the feather on the turkey, tag, hide and go seek and musical chairs for the kids. Later we played round after round of Werewolves and Villagers (or something like that) which was REALLY fun! We had a blast!






PS- look how happy Ethan was to be handed over for a picture with the grandparents, hilarious, i didn't know what to do, but they all said it's better to have a pic with him in it screaming then without him!

Hurry take a pic!

I don't remember if Ethan had fallen down or if he was being told to stop doing something, but either way, instead of worrying about it I yelled to Michelle, "Hurry, take a picture!"

We are always trying to get cute pics of the kids smiling and such, but honestly when do we document the thing that they spend A LOT of their time doing? Crying!

No, my kids don't cry all the time, but yes, sometimes it feels like it! This is a classic picture and is great for memories!

Really Greatful

We moved over here to Colorado about 3 months ago from Washington and things are going great. It hasn't been easy. There are so many things that I am grateful for:

- The fact that we moved here.....finally! Ever since we had children I have wanted to be closer to family. I also thought Washington was beautiful, I enjoyed the time we had there, the friends we made and the amazing places we got to explore, but I grew up in CO, I am used to SUNSHINE!!!!

-I am so greatful to wake up almost every morning and see the sun! I love it and it makes my whole day start off great!

-My parents are letting us live with them in their basement temporarily. This has been working very well and I couldn't ask for anything more. Living with your parents when you are married and have 2 kids is not your dream or goal, but we are so thankful that they have the space for us and are willing to take us in. It will be a rude awakening when we move out for all of us! Breanna and Ethan are very used to having their Grammy and Grampy around and so they go searching for them the moment I stop paying attention to them so that I can get something done. They get their food quicker, more books read to them, more playtime with toys and more interaction then if it were just me, b/c I can't play with them all day or else it would be a pigsty! But, they love their attention!

- Rob now owns his 2nd business and started last week! When we moved over here we didn't have a job for Rob and that is really scary. Especially in this economy and we have definitely learned over the past 3 months that getting a job, any job, is REALLY hard right now! Luckily Rob got some temporary jobs here and there, but I am so greatful that we decided to purchase this business and take matters into our own hands, rather then waiting around until we finally found a good job. What we were finding in the job market would have made it impossible for me to continue staying home, so this is going to allow that, which I am greatful for! (FYI- we purchased a Mission Tortilla Route in Denver, where Rob delivers to 7 grocery stores including Wal-mart.....so our new favorite tortilla, chips, etc. is Mission :) He is getting up at 4AM every morning to do the route and I love that this gets him home early, so far around 1ish, so that he has the day with us! He does go to bed at 8AM though, so that's a big adjustment, but he put himself on the sleep schedule 3 weeks before we bought the business!!)

- I am so greatful for family, friends, children, my husband, cars that are working, food, warmth, a place to live, etc. I am so happy!

Life has not been perfect for the past while without a job, money, etc, but I have experienced about 15% of the stress level that I had in Washington when we weren't making $$ anymore with Rob selling homes. I am so greatful for the hard work he did there and how successful he was....he sold 54 homes and started selling homes in Feb. 2008 when the Real Estate Market was crashing. Somehow for 2 1/2 years he sold home after home after home. It wasn't easy, he worked REALLY hard, but we lasted a really long time. It obviously stopped being successful and since the last week of May it's been trying to figure out where or when we could make any money.

I'm really greatful for a husband who works hard and knows how to work hard.

I'm really greatful for being able to stay relatively positive throughout the majority of this. (Not gonna lie, not positive every day, just lots of days)

I'm really greatful that we see a very positive future ahead. Can't wait to see how this business turns out for us and how we do with it. Can't wait to decide where to move and live in CO once we move out of the parents house. Can't wait to continue to be able to be a part of our families lives with holidays and gatherings!

Washington Park

Rob and I love exploring neighborhoods, especially with beautiful old homes. We would go to Tacoma and Seattle when we were in WA and explore as often as we could. Recently we've been making trips up to Denver to explore all the cool neighborhoods. We love the neighborhood right by Washington Park and had a fun adventure a couple weeks ago up there with our family and Michelle, Paxton and Grammy.

Beautiful homes. Leaves all over the ground to crunch. Little toddlers exploring. Breanna running and having fun, then falling and scraping her knee. Grammy speed pushing the kids in the stroller. Fun times.

At the end huge dark clouds moved over us and the wind started whipping around. The leaves were smacking us in the face and it got REALLY cold. We ran as fast as we could ( I told Michelle to speed walk since she's prego and we didn't want her to go into labor) as it started these huge drops of rain on us. As we threw ourselves into the car with the kids it started snowing!!! It snowed the whole way home these huge flakes! It was really fun!

(Okay, I can't find pics of the old cool houses, but you'll see some awesome houses in one pic :) The one of the tree/street is when I told Michelle to try and take a pic of the storm coming and the leaves blowing. She was speed walking while she did it, so hooray, didn't get the storm but the idea of the storm :)

Happy Thanksgiving

We are lucky enough to have 2 Thanksgivings this year! We celebrated on Sunday the 21st with my family. Michelle was in town so we got to have her and Paxton as part of the festivities! Thank goodness b/c Michelle did TONS of baking, so I guess I would have had to step up without her here :)

Today we're going to Rob's parents house and ALL his brothers and their wives and kids should be there! It will be quite the gathering but should be lots of fun.

We played pin the tail on the turkey at our Thanksgiving and are bringing it down for today, they kids should have fun!

Great food, Great fun with Family! I love the Holidays.

The kids had a blast playing on Grampy. Notice his ear muffs......that is how he survives the constant noise with the grandkids here (especially Ethan).