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.