Happy Anniversary to us!

Tomorrow Brandon and I will be celebrating our 8th anniversary! It makes me smile to think about where life has taken us in these past 8 years. We have had heartache, lots of JOY, a baby, we have moved, graduated, bought/sold a house, bought a car, got rid of a car, laughed, cried, traveled, stuggled, overcome, laughed until we cried, worked, transitioned to a new phase of life, lifted each other and just grown closer together as best friends. He is the one I tell everything to, the one I want to talk to first and we truly are bestest friends, and for that I am so grateful! I sit here thinking about 8 years ago, so pardon me as I go down memory lane a bit. We were all in Texas, and today (the 26th) all of Brandon's family had flown in town. We met them at the hotel and gave them Texas goodie bags with treats, maps, schedules, etc. Then Brandon and I had to go meet with my parent's attorney, so that we could get our marriage license. We had quite the challenge getting our marriage license, so we had to have their attorney petition to the courts through a judge that we could waive the 72 hour waiting period. It was frustrating. That evening we had "Taco Fest" at my parent's house and we invited all of my family and Brandon's family over for yuumy tacos and to meet each other. We had a great night, and after Brandon's family left my nerves set in. I cried to my mom and just got nervous about all the "what ifs". She calmed me down, and after that breakdown I was totally calm and could relax. My sisters and I all painted our toes red while the boys went to a late movie. I slept so great that night. The next morning we had to have the Bishop marry us(to satisfy the laws of the land in Mexico), and we did it in my parent's living room with both of our parents there. Almost immediately after that, we headed over to the temple in Mexico. You see, my parents live in El Paso, TX and "our" temple is in Ciudad Juarez Mexico. My grandma Nana was my temple worker, and we had a wonderful day having all of our family and friends there to support us. They opened the temple just for us, and that was so special. We were nervous and giddy all at the same time. We had a beautiful ceremony, then after we took pictures and I just tried to enjoy being the bride. I felt really pretty in my dress and I even had a cape to wear since it was December. Later, we headed to our luncheon. We ate at a restaurant in Mexico called A'Jua, it was really yummy food. We even had our own mariachi singer to serenade us and we all got up to dance. It was fun, mostly because it was so different than any other wedding luncheon any of us had ever been to! We had our reception the next evening. When we walked in to the church, I could NOT believe how beautiful it was. I had told my mom I wanted a white winter wonderland, and all of our family delivered. There were Christmas trees(that a nursery donated for us) lining the entire room, and each of them had white lights on them and at the base of them. Plus there were white twinkle lights strung across the whole room, from one side of the room to the other. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. We had such a fun night, we danced and ate really yummy food and I enjoyed seeing so many people I know there to support us. The next day we left for our honeymoon to Disneyland! So here we are 8 years later. I wish I was leaving to go back to Disneyland tomorrow, that would be awesome! But I will take what I can get, and be grateful we can go out on a date and just be together. Here's to many many more Happy Anniversaries!

Merry christmas!

We had a VERY Merry christmas! Santa for sure found us and we are very spoiled. Zach was so much fun this year, he was just so excited about everything! I woke up about 6am and waited until 7 to ask Brandon if I could get Zach up yet. I went in his room, he was starting to stir so I asked him if he wanted to see what Santa brought him, and he sat up and said YES! He just giggled and was so excited and happy. We spent the rest of the day surrounded by family, and that made the day even better and more special. We were able to talk to my parents on Skype and that was wonderful! I am so grateful for modern technology! We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! playing with his Rowdy garbage truck

daddy helping Zach with his new toys

santa brought him a train to go around the Christmas tree

Santa also brought him the Grinch and Max. He LOVES them!

What a fun morning!

Before Christmas, we spent a day as a family in Salt Lake enjoying the Christmas festivities. We went to the zoo, then to dinner and then we drove around looking for Christmas lights. We found this street in Taylorsville that was fantastic! It reminded me of "home", seeing the lights in Eastridge.

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the year!

Monday night we headed downtown to look at the lights on Temple Square. We actually started off walking down to the Grand America hotel to see the Gingerbread forest and to look at all of the (not so impressive) Candy Windows. We had fun looking around that BEAUTIFUL hotel though. Later, we met up with our Sorenson cousins at Temple Square and saw all of our daddy's hard work. It is always such a great night to look at the lights. Zach and his Sorenson cousins
Us in front of one of my favorite trees
This is the color without the flash Zach and mommy at the reflecting pool Last week our church had 2 Christmas parties. One was a nice dinner for the adults, and the other was a Breakfast with Santa. Zach was quite excited to see Santa. We invited Papa to come with us, and we all had a fun morning eating a yummy breakfast. Look at the smile on his face, he was
so happy to be telling Santa about the garbage truck he wants! I love the boots with his jammies. that is so my Zach right now!

All the kids were singing songs waiting for Santa to come.

At the Santa Parade with our Arthur cousins. It was a CCCCCCold morning.

We have had some impressive snow storms lately. Zach loves to play out in the snow, eat snowballs, throw snowballs, go sledding down our front yard and basically anything that has to do with getting his snow clothes on and playing outside in it. The only thing we have yet to do is build a snowman, and that won't be too far away with all the snow we got yesterday. One day we were having a bit of cabin fever, so we went outside to play. After awhile he said he needed to take a rest, so I made him a little couch to sit on and he sat there and ate his snowball.

So happy to be outside eating a snowball! Macey playing in the snowLook how deep it was, this wore him out. We made trails all around the backyard, then made snow angels.

Sitting on a big pile of snow, looking so dang cute
all bundled up