Beautiful January Day

This winter has been so mild.  We've had hardly any snow and it has been quite warm.  This was on a beautiful January day.  We had a nice walk down to the park!  

It was Sierra's first time in the jogging stroller and she loved it!

She wasn't quite as much of a fan of the swing.  But then I realized I was pushing her too high for a baby girl who doesn't have much experience on swings.  Then she enjoyed it more!

I do wish we'd get more snow.  I love it to snow in the winter.  But I can't wait for spring!!!  :o)

Happy New Year 2013!!!

The three of us made it to the turn of the new year!  

Hope you have a FABULOUS year!!!

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Chris' new passion is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  He is learning how to fight and defend himself.  We'll be in good hands.  He joined a club for a year and the first week he practiced at their studio for nine hours in two days.  He injured his shoulder, but was finally able to go back a couple of days ago.  It's a rough sport, but he's really enjoying it!

Run for Ruby 2013

I got to do the 2nd Annual Run for Ruby 10K in Missouri!  It was a tad bit cold, and it's the first time I've run that much since last year at this time, but it was still a great run!  And for a great cause!  Parts of the trail had snow and ice, but I made it without slipping.

I sure wish I could've been there in sunny, warm California with with Chris' family!  Here's Ani and Matt and Ani's parents Craig and Sherri.  The Run for Ruby celebrated their daughter, Ruby's 2nd Birthday.  Ruby passed away waiting for a liver donation.  They started a foundation to promote organ donation education.

Uncle Craig has MS and is such an inspiration to all of us.  Both last year and this year, he did the 5K.  Amazing.

What a beautiful, sweet, and amazing baby!  Although no longer with us, her legacy lives on as she has saved more lives already than most of us will in our lifetime (even those of us in the medical field).

Kansas Trip

To start the New Year off with a bang the girls and I decided to road trip to Kansas City, MS.  I decided to lessen the long drive for the girls, I'd drive through the night.  We were going to leave on New Year's Eve but it snowed and the roads would have been ice almost the entire way.  And ten plus hours of bad roads would not be fun.  So we left on New Year's Day.  We ended up leave a couple of hours later than we had planned (Me?  Leave late?) so it didn't work out quite as well as I had planned.  We left around midnight and got there at 11am with the time change.  The girls slept until about 0730 so that was great.  I did have to go to rest areas twice to take a little snooze.  I would've probably tried to take a nap sometime during the day before the long drive.  But it worked out well all-in-all.  It was so great to see Mariana, Todd, and her cute boys!  

Gabriel, three months older than Keira, loved Sierra.

Keira was in heaven with their little game pad thing.

Sierra pulled herself up to standing.

Mariana, Gabriel, Keira, and Nicolas

We did all kinds of fun activities with the kids.  In Kansas, or Missouri, they have community centers that have fun areas for the kids.  This gym had TONS of kids toys and activities.

Keira loved dressing up as a knight because it's sparkles and it was almost like a dress.  Or she would pretend it was hair.

Cute picture.  Mariana probably wouldn't be happy about me posting it.  She was showing off her new boots.

Best buds.  They were sooo cute together!  And it was so much fun to see them playing together and talking so well.

Mariana and Todd even got out for a much needed date night!

Awww, holding hands!  Good things you two are still young!

Biel loving Sierra some more.  :o)

And a sad hug goodbye.  We sure miss our friends!  But we were so grateful we were able to visit them during Mariana's break from med school.

Christmas 2013

Christmas was so awesome this year!  Uncle John and Aunt Laurie came over at 8 AM so they could be there to watch the girls open their presents.  It was sooo wonderful and it meant so much to me!

Keira, of course, was in heaven!  She had sooo much fun!

Uncle John and his girlfriend Alli

Sierra had fun too!

Best Buds.  They adore each other!

The annual Wilber Kids (Adults) pic.  :o)

Uncle John loves his niece! And she warmed up to him!  

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Keira LOVES Rapunzel and was super excited to get another one!

And also super excited about all of these princesses!

Chris enjoyed his gifts, especially the GoPro video camera for action video.

She looks like she's surprised, but really she's excited to eat it.

Chris was excited about the humongous package.  He forgot he had a guitar case on his wish list.

For dinner Chris invited our friends (and home teacher) Thomas and Debbie to join us.  They don't have any family in town.  My brother and sister each brought two to three delicious dishes so it was soooo nice not having to cook the entire day.  Chris made beef roast in the pressure cooker and it came out absolutely perfect.  Yum!  John and Alli had to get going for dessert, but our we had our neighbors Mike and Anna over.

What an absolutely PERFECT Christmas!!!

Keira's wonderful and many, many gifts.

Sierra's wonderful gifts.  (Not pictures- a bookshelf)

Preparing for Christmas 2012

Christmas is so magical again with kids!

Keira got the Nativity cutouts from our preschool group and we worked together to glue them on.  She did the faces by herself.  I was especially impressed with Mary's face.

She wanted to draw some more faces so I drew the outlines of their heads, and she did the rest.

I've been trying to take the girls to the Temple every month since I haven't been able to go since before Sierra was born.  Isn't this a BEAUTIFUL Nativity!!!

This cutie was more excited to eat the package than see what was inside.

Her preschool friends practiced the Nativity many times and performed it at an in-home nursing home.  It was really neat to see.  Keira loved it!  Here she was practicing to be an angel.

Christmas Eve!