The Tree of Life

So we literally stumbled upon this tree out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a horse field. Matt called it the "Tree of Life" and we have been calling it that ever since. It kind of reminds me of our own little Temple Square. It really is an amazing sight and reminds me how much I love Christmas time. Merry Christmas!

Scrapbooking Pages

A couple people have asked me about my scrapbooking weekend and I wanted to show some of my favorite pages I did. (Definately not up to Kristy, Kristin, or Danielle standards, but I think they turned out cute!)

Having fun at home

Brennon has been practicing walking using his new fire truck toy. The other day he decided to try it using a dining room chair. He was pushing it all the way down the hall. Sorry about the no shirt, but I thought it was cute. It shows how tiny he really is for his age. :)


This is the fire truck toy we got Brennon for his Birthday. He has had so much fun pushing it around. The other day I came in to find Katelynn and Brennon on it driving it around the house.

My baby is ONE already!

Brennon in his car seat for the first time. How do they grow so fast?!?

Brennon in his first big car seat. (0ne year)

Brennon a couple of days old
Brennon 6 months
Brennon 1 year

My First Birthday!

Since Brennon's birthday came on the day after Thanksgiving this year, we went to a Christmas light parade. The kids loved it, but we all had to bundle up and there were so many people there we had to do shoulders to help them see.

Brennon had his first experience opening presents. He actually did pretty well and loved the fire truck he got from Chris and Joy. Thanks guys, we'll definately remember who it came from. It is so fitting. ;)
We are so blessed to have such a sweet boy in our life and he always reminds us to smile!

My first cake

Brennon had his first cake on his Birthday and as you can tell it was his favorite part of the day. I made him a little cake and he pretty much finished it off and resorted to picking it up and eating off the whole cake. Boys definately will be boys.

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving was a great day for our family. I especially loved it since I had to miss dinner last year because I was in the hospital having Brennon. We met our friends from Utah and went to Marlana's Mom's house to have dinner. The kids loved it and Brennon ate more than Katelynn.


We had to get a few pictures of their first Thanksgiving together.
As you can tell, Katelynn's favorite part was the Pies. I made pies the day before and she asked all day long if we could "go to Thanksgiving and eat pies".

Texas finally gets the fall weather

Before the cold weather hit, we decided we had to sleep out on the trampoline. Matt, Katelynn, and I did and we were amazed at how well you could see the stars from our backyard. It did get a little wet, but overall we had a great time and Katelynn thought it was the coolest thing ever!

The cold finally hit and we had to get a picture of them being cute in the cart.

Time away is what every Mom needs!

Last weekend I headed off for a girls scrapbooking retreat. It was so much fun! It was time away that I desperately needed and I think every Mom deserves. Matt was so great to watch the kids all weekend. We stayed at a great bed and breakfast and played (I won't go into details) and scrapbooked all weekend. We felt like college girls again being crazy and staying up all hours and pulling pranks on each other. Thanks girls for all the fun!


My project was Brennon's first year scrapbook and I got done over 30 pages. They turned out really cute, I almost want to redo Katelynn's.

We tried to play volleyball while we were there, but it all went to pot when our host pumped the ball up with an air compressor. Oops! We ended up with a lopsided egg.

I love Texas in the fall!

So this was Chicago last year at the end of November.


This is Texas this week. Notice the shorts and t-shirt? I am loving it so much that Matt is scared he will never be able to take me anywhere North of here. Every day Katelynn asks me "Mommy, is it a beautiful day?" and I love telling her "YES!"

This week we have been.......

Katelynn went to a princess birthday party. Thanks so much to the Andrus' for giving me a rare opportunity to get my Katelynn to act girly and dress up like a princess. It was so fun!

The weather has been so beautiful that we have been outside a lot. Katelynn is trying to teach Brennon how to jump even though he can't stand up yet.
We also decided it was time to give Sierra a bath. However, as you can tell it was more play than actual work when we all got involved. :) Poor Sierra was the only one not having fun!

This one's for you Grandpa

We went to Target and looked at Halloween costumes for 75% off and Katelynn found this horse. She has not let go of it since. She has been wearing it ever since. I asked her what it's name was and of course, she said "Suzy" (the name of Grandpa's horse). She is definately a Whittier at heart.

Waco Texas here we come!

After our family was sick all week long, we decided to take a little road trip this past weekend. It was so fun being together as a family and the weather was beautiful!!! (Yes, in November)


We took a trip to Waco Texas where Dr. Pepper was founded. I guess I was meant to come to Texas! I had to go see the museum and we got to try the original Dr. Pepper, made with sugar cane.
We also went to the Waco Zoo and were really impressed at how great a zoo it was. We had so much fun and yes, we did have short sleeve shirts on in November!!! It was upper 70's all day! I love Texas~!


My favorite was the squirrel monkeys they had. They were so cute and friendly. One of them was playing with Katelynn through the glass and putting it's hand up to her. So cute!

Fall Festivities

We have had a full day of fun activities. We went to a pumpkin farm this morning and rode the "pumpkin express", a really fun old fashioned train and played among all the pumpkins and activities. Then this evening our neighborhood had the "monster mile" where all the kids went trick or treating to disney characters. It was really cute to see how much fun Katelynn had and poor brennon just layed down in the stroller like he was so not into it. Oh well, maybe next year. We also dressed Sierra up as a princess and took her.


These were kids from our ward we met up with. It was fun seeing all their costumes!

Halloween Traditions

So we took on the long awaited tradition of carving pumpkins. After pulling out all the gunk and cooking the seeds (a must according to Matt) we realized there wasn't much for Katelynn to do, so we had her color on the other one. In the end we had a great time and even Brennon got to watch. Katelynn is so excited for Halloween and all the fun parties start this weekend.