I just can't seem to do it.

Ben and I had our 14th year anniversary in December and I have never done a Christmas letter so I thought it was about time. I love getting letters from everyone and hearing how they are doing. It took me 2 days to get it done but I finally did it. So now comes the hard part printing it off and sending it. I just can't seem to do it! I don't know why. In my defence my printed did start acting up so I am waiting for Kodak to send me new printer heads but I know I could take it to Office Max or something. I have just never been good at stuff like that I still have family pictures that I need to send. We did those in August or September I think. So I am probably just going to put it here on my blog and let people come and read it here and try again next year.

Dear Friends and Family,

This is my first Christmas letter. I figured since Ben and I have been married for 14 years now, it was about time. We have had a pretty interesting life so far so I guess I will try to fit all 14 years in one letter, just kidding. We have 5 kids now, Khaymen 11, Sam 9, Ashlynn 7, Connor 3, and Brenden 6 months. We have decided that our family is complete and have taken measures to keep it that way if you know what I mean. We live here in sunny Las Vegas and have been for the past 4 years. We just bought our first house so I guess we will be here awhile. I am blessed to be able to stay at home with the kids and really enjoy that. Ben is a Teamster with the Local 631. They put in all the big shows at the convention centers. He has also recently received is life insurance license and will be getting is securities license as well.

Khaymen just had his 11th birthday on the 26th of November. Ben’s sister and two step- sons were here for Thanksgiving from San Jose. So we all went bowling for his birthday. His birthday is always around Thanksgiving or on Thanksgiving so it is hard to have parties for him because people are either gone or are doing family things of their own. Bowling is one of his favorite things to do and everyone had a great time. He is in the 5th grade. He just got done playing soccer. He is my athlete he loves all sports and wants to play them all. He has been trying to talk me into football next but it is pretty expensive here so we will see.


Sam is my Mr. Sensitive. He is very loving and kind and is always asking me what he can do for me to help. He too likes sports and just got done playing soccer but I think he likes to watch sports more than play them. Don’t get me wrong he did real well at soccer but I think he might do better at baseball or chess. He does very well in school and is in the 4th grade he will be 10 on March 16th.




Ashlynn is well comical to say the least. She is always smiling and laughing. Now when I say laughing I mean laughing this girl laughs at anything and everything. Again she too played soccer and did real well. It was her first time playing a sport and to make things more interesting for her I had her play up an age group. Her playing up an age group was more of a selfish act on my part I didn’t feel like driving all over the place to try and get the kids to games and practices on time. This way all three of the kids practiced at the same time at the same place and their games for only an hour apart. Anyway she is 7 and will be the big 8 in September. September 4th to be exact. She is in the 2nd grade and also does very well.



Connor just turned three on the 9th of December. He is an X box junkie. We have a Star Wars game that if he could he would play it 24/7. Because we are at home together I have become quite the X box player with him. He is a typical boy if you call wearing pink princess gowns while playing football with his older brothers typical. I guess he has been hanging out with his sister too much or Ashlynn just really wants a sister.



Brenden is the newest addition to the family I had him on May 20th.
Sorry for not getting pictures out to everyone but with buying the house and moving I was just to busy. We had a little scare with him after about two months, he wasn’t gaining any weight. The doctor said that kids are suppose to double their weight by four months witch would have been almost 15lbs., but even now at 6 months he is only 14lbs. Everything else with him is fine he started crawling and pulling himself up to the furniture. He has shown more weight gain in the past few weeks so the doctor isn’t to worried about him anymore I guess he is truly the runt of the family.


We decided that this year for Christmas instead of a lot of presents we would go to Disney Land. The past few years Ben and I have really struggled on what to get the kids for Christmas and there isn’t any thing I hate more than to be buying gifts just to be buying gifts. So off to California we went. The last time we were there Connor was just 18 months old so he especially had a good time. We stayed a week and had a great time. The weather was perfect and the lines were short.





Well in a nut shell that was our year, had a baby, bought a house, and went to Disney Land. I hope this letter finds everyone healthy and happy and we love you all very much. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

ARE YOU KIDDING!!!!

So Ben and I are tired of looking at our bare front and back yards and decided to call someone to give us an estimate. We have spent so much time at Home Depot these last few months that we thought, what the heck lets give them a try. Now keep in mind that everything we are doing is a first for us. I know we have a big back yard and our front yard is not what I would call big but needs work none the less. I knew it would be expensive so we thought we would do it a little at a time. Our back yard is split into 3 sections because of a walkway so we picked the biggest section to do first. The guy comes out takes some measurements and says he will call us. He comes back to the house and has what I think is a pretty nice layout. Trees, bushes, some rocks, and a 400sq.ft. piece of grass. Ben didn't like it at all because of the rocks. He said that we already had rocks and why do I want to pay for more which is true. Anyway so we got to the money part 9000.00!!! We about hit the roof we had no idea and 4500 of that was rock! So we said ok lets just do grass the whole area which is about 2500sq.ft. well its a little more than that but we didn't want it right up next to the fence. So anyway he calls me back and said that just for grass it would be 6000.00. I still was in shock so I called around to some stores to see how much sod would be and it seemed that the going rate was about .40 cents a sq.ft. So if my math isn't wrong which it very well could be because I suck at it, for the 2500sq.ft. it would be 1025.00. So a few lessons learned one, that things in Las Vegas are expensive two, we will be doing our yard ourselves and three, it wont be done for a while.

Little by little

Well we are slowly and I mean slowly getting settled. There is so much we want to do to this house and there just never seems to be enough time in the day. Ben is working so much that the last thing he wants to do when he gets home is more work. The weather is great now and with the kids in soccer and the holidays coming up I will be lucky to get the Christmas tree up. Don't get me wrong we have done a lot but I guess I just want it all done right now. Well its getting late so I'm just going to put up some more pics and call it night.

So Ben and I finally bought our first house. Yes after 14 years of marriage we took the plunge. We never thought we were going to be able to afford a house here in Las Vegas. We also didn't know if we wanted to stay here. We really wanted to move back to Utah where Ben went to school and lived for 6 years. We love it there we even got a realtor and when on a house hunting trip last year. But when Ben started making good money and moving up we decided that maybe we needed to stay for awhile. When we moved here in September of 2004 houses were outrageous this house would have sold for 350,000 easy and maybe more because it has such a big back yard by Vegas standards. Anyway it is a good first house for us not to big (because utilities here are outrageous) and not to small. We have done a lot of work to it so I will be adding new pictures of everything we have done but for now here are the before pictures. We still have tons of unpacking to do you can hardly get in the front door. I'm just glad that I don't ever have to move again unless I want to.

Everyone else is doing it

OK here it goes, my first blog. I'm not sure what I am doing yet but I guess I will learn as I go. My 2 sister in-laws are the ones who got me to try this even if they don't know it. I'm not good at sending e-mails or calling or writing letters so maybe this will be a good thing for me. I just want to see if I can get this to post so I will talk and do more later.