Basement!!!

Our basement is nearly complete! YEAH! We moved the boys in last Monday after the carpet was laid. I LOVE it. We only have a few things left to do with the rooms. We will tackle the bathroom when JD's shoulder heals! JD has done a great job and so much thanks to all those who have helped!

Catch Up....

It's only been a couple of weeks and so much has happened! Here are some highlights!

I don't know if I call this a highlight but what a clever baby! She knocked down the trash can and then pushed it all the way to the gate. I watched the whole thing and just loved her face when she could see over the top! Funny girl!

Tanner's preschool program at a retirement home. At first he just did not want to do it but finally decided he could and we are so glad he did because it was awesome!


Definitely not a highlight but definitely a big happening! JD dislocated his shoulder. In the xray you can see that he shoulder is like 2 inches away from the socket - disgusting and extremely painful. He's been in a sling for a couple of weeks now. Let's hope no surgery is required! Church basketball - need I say more!

Snow fun! We have had TONS of snow! The boys were out there for hours- burrrr!

The Sunday before Christmas! They all look so cute!

Christmas Eve dinner with the Farrells. Best Christmas present ever - Dad got the news that he has no active cancer in his body - way to live strong Daddy - we are proud of you! We are so glad they came down for our activities even though my brothers wouldn't sing with us - we loved having them here! Dinner by candlelight and a program on the nativity!

Christmas morning! Marissa got her own Dora phone! Hola!

Christmas morning! Dawson the rock star - his first guitar - thank you Santa!

Christmas morning - no pictures of Josh and his new IPOD shuffle but he sure loves it!
Christmas morning - no pictures of Tanner and his new Pokemon stuff but he loves it too!
We didn't do too good on Christmas day with the pictures - bummer! But we did have a great Christmas and hope you all did too!
P.S. I forgot to add that Josh sang a solo in our Primary program at church and did so great! And that evening at a stake music of Christmas, he and Tanner sang in a children's choir and did so well too. For one of the verses of the song, Josh sang a solo. He really is so talented. That day was definitely a huge highlight but no camera in church!

Santa and Staples

On Thanksgiving Morning our family was lucky enough to have a Thanksgiving breakfast with Santa Claus. Well Santa's helper - Grandpa Hanks! Grandpa is Santa for Christmas this year and really is living up the part. So we got lots of pictures with the kids and Santa and had a great big breakfast that Daddy made of bacon, sausage, hash browns, waffles and eggs! Yum! Since we weren't going to be with the Hanks' clan for dinner that day we thought we would have a breakfast instead! It was fun!

Marissa wasn't too sure about this big, hairy guy!


On Monday night after Thanksgiving, we had FHE and a great lesson on service given by me. Things were going smooth for a Monday and as I was sweeping the floor that night - I thought "things have been pretty calm lately." Then that feeling of dread wondering what was going to happen to break the good happenings! Well as I was calling everyone to come sit down for scriptures and everyone was ignoring me because they were wrapped up in a game of football, Daddy proclaims "You guys know how this always ends - somebody gets hurt." Then about 4 times more of saying stop to the football playing. "One last play" was what we hear and then Dawson takes Josh down backwards and hits his head on the bookshelf. It was one of those where you know it's going to be bad before you even see it. So yep a trip to the ER and 2 staples in the head. You should have seen the look of dread on Dawson's face when the doctor said "Staples are best for this part of the head." WHAT! Priceless! But we all survived even Daddy who was about to blow a gasket when there was an injury after so many times of being asked to stop! And even Tanner who cried because he was so worried about Dawson. Hopefully we have all learned our lesson and will not be playing football in the house any more! YEAH RIGHT!

Happy Girl!

Marissa turned one yesterday! We are so happy to have this beautiful little girl in our family.

Some things I love about Marissa are: her awesome smile, her little sweet curls, her big blue eyes,

the way she yells out for "Da" when anyone opens and closes the front door, the way she hides things in weird places (like when I couldn't find her 3 binkies and then as I was putting shoes in the closet and found them in Tanner's boot),

the way she yells when someone takes something from her, the way her cheeks get so pink and rosy (Dawson said one day when she fell asleep in the car "Marissa cheeks are getting red like she's in love.),

I love her giggle, I love the way she throws balls all over, I love the way she isn't scared at all of dogs and lets them lick her face, I love watching her smile when Daddy dances with her,

I love when she lights up whenever she sees her brothers, I love her big wet kisses, and the way she snuggles with me, I love watching her balance and walk her few steps,

I love how overly friendly she is to little people, I love how she plays peekaboo with total strangers when I am holding her in the store,

I just love everything about this sweet little angel who has blessed our lives for the past year!

Farrell Kids

My sister Becky is in town from Hawaii for a couple of weeks and we did something we have never done before - we went out. We went out just the 5 of us. First stop an italian restruant called Mark Anthony's in Riverton. My cousin and her husband own it and Mark hooked us up. Much thanks to him!

The food was great and the company lovely! I think my siblings probably wonder what planet I came from with all my randomness. Maybe they could just tell that I don't get out much. We had a great time eating and talking and finding out what everyone enjoys doing!

Next stop bowling alley - but alas it was league night and no open lanes. So we head to Classic Skating. Yes we went rollerskating. Tyler was a little bit embarrassed that we were doing it but I think he had fun anyway. I think Tyler was the only one who fell when a crazy kid on a scooter just about ran him down.

After rollerskating we played LaserTag - I've never done that and it was fun. The place was a little ghetto but it was fun to run around shooting at each other. I think the girls won. Over all it was a great night and I am so glad we did it. I can't think of the last time we have all been together without any kids - a long time. Thanks Tah, Becky, Bobby, and Ty - I love you guys!

Football

I thought I would give an explanation for my football background. It is very simple. Football is ruling our lives. NFL football, BYU/college football, fantasy football, my kids constantly playing football outside and INSIDE, Tanner always practicing his "juking" skills, and hearing everything there is to know about football and the players.
I am so blessed to be a mother to 3 boys who follow in their Daddy's love of football footsteps and a little girl that seems to think she needs to have a football too! It's awesome!

"I'm gonna kick your hiney"

Yes - this from my sweet 4 year old. I hear this everyday when he comes to me and says "let's play UNO, I'm gonna kick your hiney." Tanner and I play UNO like 10 -20 times a day. He is actually really good. He has learned a new strategy - if you save your wild draw 4 till the other player has UNO then you won't lose (at that moment at least). We have a great time playing and we are usually pretty evenly matched. Like this morning the first one to win 6 wins. So it was 5 games to 5 games and Tanner came out the winner. Too bad he can't play UNO as nicely with his brothers as he does with me. I love Tanner.

The Wall is Up!

Wow look at the hot guy with the jack hammer.

JD had a great time Saturday busting out the fireplace downstairs and drilling a hole in the cement floor for a new drain with that manly machine. The boys were equally thrilled to watch Daddy. Come to find out we woke up some of the neighbors that morning. Who knew a jack hammer could be so loud? Dawson said his primary teacher told him he fell out of bed when he heard it (funny guy)! It was almost 9am - what is anyone doing in bed at that hour anyway!

The boys helped haul bricks to the truck. But got bored or distracted or tired after awhile and then went back and finished later. It was a lot of bricks.

This is what the fireplace looks like now! Yippee!
JD's awesome cousin Geoff, who happens to be a plumber, came over all day Saturday and fixed the plumbing in the bathroom. We really appreciated him doing that and he even gave us the family discount. He was great. I was upstairs and I could hear Dawson asking him a bunch of questions and I could hear Geoff explaining to him what he was doing and what things were called. The boys are learning a lot from this construction business.

And finally here is the new WALL. Doesn't it look great? From this angle you can see the boys' new room on the right and the family room will be on the left.

Our neighbor Ceasar is helping JD with this part of the construction. He is great too. We really appreciate him. I love the wall. JD hopes to be sheetrocking this Saturday - it is all happening really fast.

BYU and Halloween

Halloween came at us quick. Even though we had been talking about it for weeks - Josh still wasn't sure what to be even the day before. But we found a King Peter costume from Narnia and he really liked that. Here he is at the school parade.

Dawson wanted to be Darth Vadar but settled on being a scary skeleton. His mask was pretty freaky.

And here goes the picture I didn't get of Tanner as the Red Power Ranger. The boys had an awesome time trick or treating. We have soooo much candy! And poor Marissa got a really high fever the day before Halloween and was pretty much miserable so we didn't even dress her up this year. She is finally feeling better - thank goodness.
Here is what Marissa would do whenever she saw Dawson in his scary suit! It was so funny!


It was fate as JD puts it. He was offered 2 tickets from 2 different people for the BYU/UNLV game a week ago. 4 free tickets - he couldn't resist. I didn't want to be left behind so we bought one ticket for me and we all got to watch BYU win. Turns out it was probably the best game to go to in terms of weather. It was a beautiful day, not too cold and not too hot. Perfect! And BYU did win even though we were worried for a bit! Here are a couple of pictures of the day. Marissa even fell asleep for 35 minutes in the middle of the game - amazing.

What is going on here?

It all started on conference weekend. As the family was sitting downstairs watching conference, JD was inspired to totally gut the basement! And things have taken off just as fast. My basement is trashed right now but JD is so excited about what he is doing he promises it won't take too long!


JD is loving this demolition stuff! He is having a great time tearing off all that stupid paneling and ripping off sheetrock!



We are changing things up a bit down there. The whole point of all this is to move Josh and Dawson down to their own room. So we are putting a wall in the middle. One side will be a bedroom the other will be the family room.

We are also changing the bathroom. The door and shower are changing places. It will be so nice when it gets done. But I'm not quite seeing the end in sight any time soon but JD does!