Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone that we love!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season remembering the true meaning of the season and being thankful for our dear Savior's birth. Life would not have any meaning without Jesus and his purpose of becoming flesh and taking on our sins and dying on the cross. Simple as that, our sins were taken care of and all we have to do it receive that gift. There are no other ways to get to heaven accept to acknowledge his life and what He and His Father sacrificed for us. I am a sinner and so grateful that I don't have to carry the burden of that alone. I don't have to feel a life of guilt and have men judge me and tell me what I can and can't do. My Savior took all of that burden away and I am thankful to be able to turn it over to Him and he gladly bares it for me. When something is a gift it means you don't have to do anything for it, it was given with no strings attached. I need to be a good example for people and live the way Christ would want me to live, but I don't have to do works and be busy, busy all the time to earn my way there. There is no possible way we could ever earn our way to heaven and that is why there was such a thing as what happened at the cross. Enjoy the gifts that you have been given this year and pass along the real meaning of the season.

DeNvEr!!

We had such a good time in Denver seeing everyone and getting to spend some time with Jakie and Sarah. We got to see Brett for a little while and found lots of fun things to do while we were there. It was free zoo day while we were there and gladly shared it with the rest of Denver (Chad and Lane were very patient and even had fun I think)! We had a pool at our motel and the kids spent every spare second in it and it brought back fun memories of my childhood when my aunt came to visit and Dani and I did that at the Sheraton in Billings!! I love being able to take the kids to fun places and letting them experience the places around us. We took a little jaunt over to the Bass Pro shop and they had their Winter Wonderland set up in the back of the store. The kids 'ice-skated' on a special plastic floor that had a slippery spray on it. They even got to wear real iceskates and helmets!! I will upload Gabe's picture of his fat head in his helmet. So funny!!!!! They had a race car track set up and Nerf guns and laser shooting. Needless to say, we easily spent several hours in there. Then back to the motel to change and off to the game. The Steelers played the Broncos for Monday Night Football and won. It was a cold game but the kids really enjoyed it. It was Abby's first game ever and made a cute sign to tell the world that she loved Brett! WE were hoping to get on tv with all of our signs but they put us all the way at the top of the stadium again. The stadium didn't look like Bronco territory but a mix of Orange with Yellow!!! There were so many Steeler fans and the Terrible towels were flying! Everywhere we went we saw Steeler fans.

I ran into some people at the IHOP that loved all of our new purses! My friend Jen Olsen is making some awesome purses and I got her some Steeler material and she hooked us up. I asked her to make Connick and I each a purse and she surprised us and made Abby one too! So cute. Check out her website: http://www.etsy.com/shop/jenoshop You can contact her if there is anything in particular that you are wanting. If you live here locally, she sells her stuff at Beach Bumz in Ephraim!!

Well, on to the pics!! Love you all.

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Ferris Mt trip

Ferris Mt. Ranch

This was the cabin we stayed in. It was one of the original buildings the original homesteaders built. This used to be a tack shed and when the owner (now) decided he was ready to move out of his parents house, he rechinked all of the logs and added a loft. My brother in law Chris helped add on the new addition and they made it out of straw bails. It is a cute, old little cabin.

We had a great trip up. We went and saw our friend Brandon Fitch and his cute little family. I really hit it off with his wife and we got to watch his son Tucker kick some butt at middle school football. Good start to the weekend. Thank God for laptops with DVD players. The new Monsters vs. Aliens movie came out and as you can tell the kids were enjoying that.

Next post I will put up the pictures of the inside of the cabin we stayed in. Chris and Gary (the owner) designed a beautiful fireplace using all the different rock formations on the ranch. It was awesome to get to help with the last part of the project. They collected all the rocks, labeled them, put them in order from oldest to youngest (or vice versa, I'm not sure) and then the installation began!! I can't wait to show you but Chad's camera is in his truck so I will do it on the next post.

Something funny happened today at school. I was reading together with a couple of boys in second grade and reading about the "Grumpy Bears". They could not split a piece of cheese evenly so they had a fox help them. Anyway, in one of the parts, it talks about how the fox divided the cheese and divided the cheese....and then one of the boys piped up, "After all that cheese I bet she will have to CUT THE CHEESE!" Hahahahahaha, I'm so mature that I did not laugh. Ya right!!! I laughed so hard because he got like crazy little grin and was smiling from ear to ear and was very pleased with his joke. I guess you had to have been there and heard the story several times to appreciate the joke. Love you all and hope you enjoyed the post!!

Jentry's Big Bday!!

This is Jentry at her party opening her gifts. She got two of the same things and Abby asked if she could take one of them home and use it for her!!! Funny huh?
Here's the sunglasses I bought for Miss Jentry Lou Hoo. When she smiled they totally lifted off her face



Here is Abby and Jentry...oh sooooo cute!!

So apparently my new talent that I need to try and perfect is making flipflop cakes. This is the second set that I made, I made the other ones for my friend Harmonie's daughter, and these ones for my friend Jen's daughter. Instead of using skittles this time for the polka dots I used Laffy Taffy. I rolled it out and then cut them out. Long process but they turned out pretty cute.

And again....God bless Chocolate cake with Buttercream Frosting!

Football is Upon Us!!!! warning lots of pics

Gabe's team getting ready to play during the halftime of the Snow College football game. They played awesome!!!!

Abby just got her face painted up at the pregame tailgating party. She was pretty excited....time to go watch the cheerleaders!

ol' spunky running for a touchdow!! which he made by the way

Zack before his big game. Showing off his new green mouthguard!!

I thought Zack looked sooooo grown up here. He was helping his friend out.

Walking back from scoring his touchdown!!!!

Gabe being quarterback. I was impressed with how well he did, as were his coaches.

The boys got to go up and play during halftime of the Snow College football game. Gabe threw two touchdown passes to his friend Marshall. Here is the first one...ps....i sound hilarious yelling so you might want to mute your computer!!!!! Funny I always teased Connie about being able to hear her yelling across the field...now it is me!!!

Summer Reading Reward

Zack at the Manti Pool with his buddies Kobe and Cade!! They were jumping in and doing flips in the deep end.

Abby was having a blast swimming today too!! She was so excited to get to ride the bus over to Manti and swim with a couple of her friends. It is too bad that she looks so sad in this picture....poor girl.

Obviously this is before we went swimming!! This is Kobe, Zack and I on the bus ride over to the pool. I was soooooooo excited just like Abby. I got the brunt of everyone's splashing. They all yelled, "Mrs. Keisel, come play with us!!!" I guess I should be excited that they think that I am cool. I love working at the school.

Here is the Pretty One on the bus with two of her little buds. When she saw me at school during the day she kept asking if I got her stuff to go swimming. I told her I got to go with her and I would bring her stuff. She just said, "Ok Mom, but DON'T FORGET!!!" It really was fun and I hope this will motivate the kids to keep reading!! Gabe should have been able to be there too but the 5th grade went up to Provo for a Storytelling Festival and an animal museum. He said he had a good time too!!

Back to School

Well it is "Back to School" time at our house and just thought you might enjoy a little clip that popped into my head!!! Then I will give you some pics of the kids this morning. You would have thought it was Christmas morning around here because kids were running up and down the halls but trying to be quiet because Chad and I weren't awake yet. It wasn't even 7 am and all the kids were ready to leave. The boys wanted to ride their bikes and Abby wanted Chad to take her and walk her to her class. So cute!!! I was sad that she didn't want me but at the end she said, "MOM!! You can come with us if you want!!" I told her I would just take her picture and try not to be sad that she was sooooooooo big and going to first grade! I'm glad that my kids are independent but at the same time I am sad that they are so big and most likely there will not be anymore babies......so it does make me sad and happy at the same time!! Anyway....on with the show!

Holy cow.....

I finally ordered an adapter for my memory stick for my camera!!! It will be here in a couple of days and then be ready for a flood of pics from over the summer. I have 800 pics on my camera...sad I know!! I am so far behind and now school is starting. P.S. I have a new job at the elementary school. I am going to be an aide in Mrs. Henrie's and Mr. Mabey's class!! Three hours every morning and then I will need to help with PE in the afternoons a couple of days a week. I hope that I can handle it with school, homework, kids, hubs and work...wow I know that I can do it but I am glad that I have help!! Chad has worked so hard to be able to get me through school and I hope that I can help relieve some of the pressure here in the next year. God has taken me this far and I know that He will help me through this!!

Apricots!!

Finished product! Happy Birthday Chadliwinks!!!!

IN the bottles

Washed and ready to go!!

Begging to be picked....come pick me, come pick me

The tree really isn't sideways in our backyard but is in this retarded post. This is one of two trees in our backyard and even with the late freeze we were lucky enough to still get lots of apricots. I can't imagine how many we would have had if we hadn't lost soooooo many of them. I am thankful some of them froze!!! Sorry the pics went into this post in a backward order but I have a headache and am ready to eat dinner and have a glass of wine so you will just have to deal with it!!! haha love you all

Karlie's Kakes

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My friend Harmonie asked me to make her daughter's birthday cake after she saw the cake that I made for Abby's birthday. It was a struggle but I did it!!! I am definitely not a professional cake maker. I have always done it for my kids because they love it and I want their birthdays to be special. I can never promise any results but I do enjoy it in a weird sort of way!!! It takes me forever and I make a huge mess but I think that I enjoy the challenge of it and not knowing what the actual outcome will be. Well thanks for stopping by and that is all for now. I will be trying to figure out how to upload pics from my camera a different way so that I can get Abby's bday pics up finally. Stand by for that!!! Haha...love everyone out there that actually gives a crap to check this and see if I have posted. See ya around. I will also try to post pics from State Baseball that starts tomorrow for Gabe.