Merry Christmas!

Well, the holiday season is almost over! I have to say I am somewhat relieved. We did have a very good Christmas, although quite strange from what it has been in the past. We did not have any family come for Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. It was the 2nd Christmas in our 7 years married where we woke up and had Christmas as just our small family. In some ways it was nice having that close family time, but Christmas Eve was difficult, as it made me realize how much Alex is missing by not having any siblings to share this magical time with. I thought back to the wonderful Christmas Eve's I had as a child and the excitement that was created by having siblings around. I hope by next Christmas, that will change and we'll have another addition to our family.
Anyway, Ryan had to work on Christmas day, so we got up extra early to make sure Ryan was able to get as much time as possible before heading off to work. After Ryan got off work at 4:00, we drove to his parents house and had Christmas with his family. Ryans siblings were all there with their kids, so Alex got to play with his cousins.
Alex was happy with all the presents he got. His favorite presents all had to do with the Wii. I got a sewing machine (which I have to figure out how to use now :), clothes, etc., and Ryan got a game for the Wii (Guitar Hero 3), some clothes and a few other things.
We hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. We are looking forward to an exciting new year. I will try to post a little more often. But Merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year!!!

Alex looking through his stocking. He was very excited about the bath
foam Santa brought.

Alex with his new Sponge Bob umbrella. He carried it around
all Christmas day.

Ryan, after opening his new tool sets.

I'd have to say this was probably Alex's favorite present. He got
Mario and Sonic Olympic games for the Wii. I got the BIGGEST hug
from him after he opened it.

Ahhh, the Christmas tornado hit our house. Sadly, this picture
was taken after I had cleaned up a little. Obviously there was still
plenty more to do.

Alex got a hold of the camera and had to take some pictures, so I thought
I'd add this embarrassing up close picture of me.

Catch Up

Ok, so I think it's probably been a little too long since my last update. Sorry about that. Not a lot has happened, but today I finally loaded some pictures from my camera to my computer, so I'll have a lot of pictures to post. Anyway, Happy Halloween and Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween was quite fun. Hayley and her kids came up and went trick-or-treating with us. As usual, the cousins always have a great time together. My grandparents were also able to come up for the holiday. It's always fun to have them around. And they love playing with their great grandkids.

The day after Halloween, Nov 1st, we decorated our house for Christmas. I feel that time goes by so quickly, you might as well get decorations up early so you can at least enjoy them for more than a couple days. I know I'll have some pictures of right after we decorated.

I am the Young Womens sports director for our ward, and at the beginning of November my girls were undefeated for our stake and went to region volleyball. We had a great run and came in 2nd place for regions. I hope I can find pictures to post, because it was a fun couple of days.

On November 8th, we went up to Island Park, ID with some wonderful friends. It's about 40 miles away from Yellowstone. Sadly, we never made it to Yellowstone. We did get to go to some waterfalls about 30 mins away from the cabin where we were staying. We went with my friend Holly, her husband Andy and their twin boys Ben and Will. A day later my other friend Steve and his wife Amy came up. It was a very relaxing trip, full of games, karaoke, food and interesting conversation. What happens in Idaho, stays in Idaho. :)

Then, of course we had Thanksgiving recently. Hayley, Bethany and their families were able to come and spend the holiday here. We played a lot of games, did some shopping, and went downtown to the Gateway and to see the beautiful lights at Temple Square. The cousins had a wonderful time together and we older kids also got to have some time together.

Well, I think that catches things up. I have a few older pictures from back in September when we went to Zion's National Park in St. George, Utah that I will also post.

Our cute family just a few days ago

At Zions (from left Tyson, Mike, Julianna, Hayley, Alex's head
and Chad)

Alex at Zion's National Park

Julianna, Hayley, Bethany, Alex and Chad

All the kids getting shoulder rides

My Grandpa, the pirate on Halloween

All the kids dressed up for trick or treating

Up in Island Park, Idaho singing karaoke

On a little hike to look at the water falls. You can see the backs
of Andy, Holly, myself, Alex, Will and Ben

A really bad picture of Alex and I. At least Holly looks cute in the
background.

Alex at the larger waterfall

The smaller falls

A very happy boy after setting up for Christmas

All the boys (yes, even our cat is a boy)

Beast (our cat)

The beautiful lights at Temple Square

Me, looking very red with the lights behind me

The Temple

The Winslow family

Part of Our Family

Helpful Thought

I had the hiccups today, and a patient in my office suggested to put a packet of sugar or a sugar cube on my tongue and let it melt, and my hiccups would go away. The cube wasn't even completley melted, and my hiccups were gone. Some of you may already know this, but it made me very excited and I wanted to share my knowledge with others!!!

Fun In St. George

I went down to St. George this past weekend with my sister Mallory and my son Alex. We went to visit my other sisters Hayley and Bethany, who both live there. It was nice getting out of the cold Salt Lake weather, to the beautiful St. George weather. Although the weekend wasn't too exciting, my son was able to play with his cousins, which for him makes for the best week ever! I was able to take some pictures of the kids playing with my cell phone. For those who don't know my family well, Hayley's kids are Tyson and Julianna. My son is Alex. Alex is the one in the blue shirt in the pictures.

Alex, as he is about to fall backwards onto the couch

Buddies

Group hug!

Silly, silly kids

The kids will all be up to Salt Lake for Halloween, so I'm sure we'll be getting more pictures then!

The Car Incident

So I'm just minding my own business at work today, filling candy bowls and such. All of a sudden I hear this crash and the room shakes. My boss comes out of his office thinking I had fallen over or ran into a wall or something. We both ran into the back room of our office to find a car outside the window. Now you have to understand, our office is located a level below the parking lot as you'll see in the photos. A very sweet, but stupid old lady somehow jumped the curb in the parking lot, came down a little hill (somehow missing the trees) and ran smack into the building. My boss and I ran right outside when we saw her in the car. Luckily she was just fine. Can't quite say the same for our office. Here are some pictures....

This is from the outside, looking down at our window. Just right

of the window is where she hit.

This is from the parking lot. As you can see, she went right through

missing the tree and lightpost.

This is from inside after the car was removed. As you can see, the

wall is cracked and there are paint chips everywhere.

Sorry, this one is sideways. But you can see the car through the blinds.

So maybe my life is a little more exciting than I thought. Maybe there is hope for our blog!

A Few First Words...

We've decided to start a blog... obviously. Not sure that our life is interesting enough to have a blog, but at least this way we can pretend it is. It will also give us an excuse to post pictures of our cute kid so everyone can see. So here we go...