A few Christmas snapshots...

Kimbel & Kenna were stars in their Copper Canyon Christmas Choir Performance!

I was the star of Braden's kindergarten party..

(only because I brought the cookies and the frosting!)

Ethen was a very cooperative baby Jesus in our annual Nativity extravaganza..

(joined here by Joseph and Mary)

Christmas Eve jammies!!

We had even more "night before" excitement with Shir, Dave, Maya and Ethen!

THE Barbie Bus!!

(Don't worry Mom, I got the stickers on straight!)

It was a DSi kind of Christmas for Kenna and Braden!

...doesn't get better than this!!

Work the Christmas morning fun, girl!!

We had a great Christmas season. Lots of concerts, parties, friends and family.. Just the way we like it! :) We also got to celebrate Mom's Happy Birthday on Christmas Day!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Here's to 2010. Bring it!

Christmas Past..

I just came across some pics from December of '02.. I couldn't resist sharing them.

Mad, Kimbel & Kenna - I was trying to get a shot for our card that year.

Lil' Miss Rudolph after a day at preschool. (0h, how I miss Baymonte!)

...and sweet baby Kimbel kissing Grandma Braithwaite's moose. She loved that thing!

Hope you enjoy.. I just couldn't resist!

Happy Busy Days Before Christmas!!

Casa de Duffin!

Okay, Emily... these are for you! A FEW pics of the new digs! We are in a neighborhood that only has six houses, so far.. on the EDGE of town. You will know what I mean when you see the last picture!

This is the view from the front door... our upstairs family room. The living room is off to the right and a hallway to the left goes to 3 bedrooms and our "santa cruz" bathroom. We had to do one room"beachy"!
The kitchen.. which I love! Lots of space. The cabinets were all done when we bought it, we just had to do appliances, hardware and the finishes. We spend LOTS of time hanging out here!
See!! Here is the view of the cows from our balcony! LOVE IT! The first morning we thought it was so hilarious to be sharing breakfast with the cows... but they just ignore us, except when we moo at them!

Sorry not a ton of pics... I will get some more up. There is a full basement that we are LOVING and we just feel so blessed to have found a house that we could finish and love so much! We are settling in more every day, it really does feel like home. We have thrown a couple swingin' parties so far and plan on many more!! So.. stop on by!!

Where, oh where?

I know, I know.. I REALLY need to get the Halloween pictures moved down and something a little more current up here. Let's just say I am having a little trouble finding everything!

Our move went good - good that it's over! It was crazy... I think it was even harder to move a mile away than it was to move from CA!! (Probably because I was at Girl's Camp when the movers packed up our Casa Way house and I just had to get it the car and drive here!)

Anyway, we are moving in, getting decorated for Christmas and trying to find the bits and pieces of our lives. So, when I find that elusive camera cord... I will let you know! (oh.. and I might be able to get some Christmas cards out..)

Love you all. Hope your holidays are the happiest!!

Our Happy Halloween...

...was really a work day trying to get our house ready for Thursday's inspection...

Until about 5 o'clock when the kids just couldn't stand waiting any longer to get their costumes on!

I still think Kelly should have been Luigi to be this little Mario's partner in crime!

Mario, the light-up pumpkin and the cowgirl, turned fifties girl, turned princess... seriously.

Maddy and Mads

Madison was channeling her inner tree-hugger.

Witcheepoo and baby elf fairy stopped in for some treats!

Go Stallions!! (cool, huh.. don't worry we didn't do it!)

We had a fun night, trick-or-treating with Jared, Nicc and Taya in their neighborhood... then off the dark of Erda where we actually delivered a little candy then back home for "the sorting of the candy"... the most important part (that I failed to get pics of... bummer!)

On to November....

Eight is definitely great!

What an awesome day! Kimbel got baptized on Saturday afternoon with so many important people there, supporting her! She was beaming with happiness and excitement ~ it's a wonder she even slept the night before.

Grandpa & Grandma B. with Kimbel (thanks Mom, for coming with your new accessory!)

I was not too great at picture-taking ~ but we did manage a quick one with Kimbel before lunch. It was a great day with our amazing families, fun conversation and more than enough food.

Thanks to all of you who came and thanks for all of you who were thinking of sweet K. on her special day.

Loved it.

Top of the world.

Kelly got up this morning and hiked to the TOP of Deseret Peak today!

He trekked the 12 miles up with 5 friends. They left the trailhead this morning at 7am and reached the summit around 11:30am.

He said it was windy and cold but so worth it! brrrr.

Glad to have him back... do I see a Mt. Everest in the future? :)

where did it go?

October birthday girl #2... the early years...

Happy Birthday, Beautiful.

Wow, time flies.

Love you.

8 is great!!

Here is a little tribute to our birthday girl!

Love you li'l Love Muffin!

red dirt.

Okay, so we live in Utah now, we decided it was high time to do a little exploring!

Off to Moab for the long weekend...

Our first hike choice in Arches National Park had to be Delicate Arch... after all, we see it all the time on Utah license plates!

The hike had a few tricky spots and Kimbel was sure that we would NEVER get there, but alas, we did!! And it was well worth the sweat!

Saturday evening we decided to do the Canyonlands by night boat tour.

Along with about 100 senior citizens (they were really sweet, Madison was just bummed there weren't any cute boys within about 50 years of her age, except of course, Braden!)

To impress all the grandpa's of cute boys - Madison was just as silly as ever... did I mention we love having a teenager!

The tour didn't make such an impression on Braden...

In fact, he only ate a roll at the dutch-oven dinner and fell asleep as soon as we got on the boat. That was one expensive dinner roll!

Day two we headed back to the Arches after sitting behind our Canyonlands tour guide at church. (Moab is a small town!)

We did a couple more fun hikes and saw some more arches.

It really is an amazing National Park. very cool.

Group hug... this was after Madison was speaking in her best Brit accent acting like our foreign exchange student.. did I mention there was never a dull moment?

Kimbel's name sake...

This was on one of our favorite hikes.. to the Sand Dune Arch. Very fun hike back in through a canyon into lots of soft, red sand.

We couldn't keep our toes out of it!

We had such a great time.. we will definitely head back again.

Great weekend..

Just one more "stop" before home... tee hee

(Kelly's first speeding ticket... yes! first in his life!)

I had to get a pic... it really was pretty funny!

(love you, K)