Playing with the ducks

Towards the beginning of the month, Steven and I went on a walk to see Jacob at school. On the way back we decided to stop and play with the ducks.

Waving good-bye to the ducks

Playing peek-a-boo with mom

Christmas Morning

We stayed the night at Grandma and Grandpa Morrise's house on Christmas Eve and had a blast visiting, eating, opening presents and playing Mario Cart until the wee hours of the morning. Steven let us all sleep in until 8, which was greatly appreciated by those who went to bed so late. He didn't seem to care about much except for the food in the stockings.


Here he is modeling the fun homemade P.J.'s from Grandma Balls, they fit perfectly!
And now modeling the handsome church outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Morrise
All in all it was a great holiday and we feel blessed to have such wonderful families to spend it with, plus all the great things we received!
The other day I went in to get Steven from his nap and found this. Apparently he got a little bored while falling asleep and squished his new bear in between the wall and his crib. Silly kid.

Christmas Festivities

Here's some fun stuff we did leading up to Christmas.

We had a fun ward Christmas Party. I thought Steven would be ok with Santa, because he got a candy cane....but I guess not.

We did a live nativity with the Morrise side. Here Steven is showing us the baby Jesus's eyes.

Mary, a sheep, a cat-herder (he wanted to be a kitty), and Steven playing with a stroller because he he refused to put his sheep headband on.

Once again telling his dad he would not be a sheep even for a picture.

A couple of days before Christmas, we headed to Idaho for a Balls Christmas celebration. We had our annual Christmas program, here are all the boys singing Silent Night accompanied by Jacob on the guitar. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took, but it was fun to be with everyone for at least a little while.

Happy Holidays

Yes, I'm a little behind and cheap on our Christmas cards this year....but here you go.

As the year comes to a close, we have an opportunity to look back at the wonderful blessings we’ve been given during this past year. Here is a quick look into what we’ve been up to during 2010.

Jacob returned to college to receive two masters in Mechanical Engineering and Business. He has finished his first official semester at BYU, however, his research was started in May. We are excited as Jacob was asked to be on a research project that will help those in need in developing countries. His own thesis is developing a method to produce products that are collaborative, or in other words taking many common products and putting them together to create a new product. Jacob has also taken advantage of his dad’s shop with his wood working projects; such as building a shoe rack for the bottom of our bookcase. It looks like it came that way, AND it helps the clutter in our living room.

Cassanda is adjusting to living in the “big” city of Provo, learning to drive comfortably in 3 or 4 lane traffic. She enjoys staying home and taking care of the adorable Steven while creating a home for our new son, coming January 30th. Cassanda loves learning to become more domestic by trying some new recipes and attempting to be a better seamstress. It’s a work in progress for sure. She's very excited to welcome a new little boy into their house and can't wait for he and Steven to become best friends.

Steven is now our big boy. He had his first birthday in August and learned to walk shortly after. Currently his favorite past times are eating, reading, finding new places to explore and new items to play with. He also is all boy, loving to yell and figures that everything should be pounded into something else. He loves to talk, although the majority of it still sounds like German to us. Our favorite words he says includes: hi, more, eye, and of course mama and dada. We love having Steven in our home and this new stage of his life.

We love you all and hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Pure Contentment

You know those moments when everything feels right in the world. The ones where you wish you could just stop time and go on like that forever? I had one of those on Friday. We went to Idaho for Thanksgiving, and had a marvelous time. Since my parents left Friday morning to attending my brother blessing his baby in Arizona, we decided we’d leave then as well and go through Logan and see if we could find some good buys at the D.I.s along the way. I don’t know how many of you have been to South-East Idaho, but I think it’s gorgeous. There is something about the miles of farmland and the mountains in the distant and up close, that really gets to me. I think it always will.

Anyway it's about 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning and we are on the road between Soda Springs and Preston. There are a couple of really small towns and some houses scattered here and there, but other than that it's just the wonderful scenery. It had just snowed and there isn't a lot of cars on the road, so I just take my sweet time driving, not really caring how fast I'm going. In the car I can hear Steven talking softly to himself, a sound I love. I'm talking to Jacob and we're listening to Christmas music.

I honestly felt so blessed at that moment. I was in a place that to me is close to heaven, with my wonderful husband who is honestly my best friend and LOVE of my life. We had our adorable son in the back seat, being completely adorable, and we have another blessing waiting to join our family. There is no one around, nothing existed, except everyone packed into that little car.

It was a moment I wish I could freeze and live in forever.

Muscle Man

I'm sorry I've been bad at posting, but well we don't have the internet right now. Our promotion at Comcast ended and we didn't want to double our bill, so we figure it will be better for us without it. I have to say I like not having it, I get a lot more done! Although I will miss all of the tutorials for projects, but we have ways around that by using the internet on campus, public library, etc.

Anyway, awhile back Steven was hungry, so I put him in his booster seat and then looked around for what to have for dinner with Jacob. Meanwhile Steven had used his extended arms and grabbed a small plate that was sitting on the counter and was trying to tell us that he needed something on this plate. He was HUNGRY! We were still deciding when he started pounding the plate on the table, because that's just what little boys do, pound things. 2 minutes later the plate cracks in half. Jacob about died laughing, he said it made his night. Steven was a little shocked but not hurt in anyway. That's our little muscle man when he gets hungry, don't mess with him!

The difference in 4 days

Saturday was a beautiful day, Jacob had to work most of the day but was able to take a break and have lunch with Steven and I. We decided to have a picnic on campus at a little duck pond near the visitor parking. We love this one much more than the one on 8th North, we like the landscape better, and it just seems overall cleaner. Anyway here are some pictures of that beautiful picnic, we had the place to ourselves and the weather was wonderful.


4 days later, today, Steven and I went for a walk in the morning. The leaves were still gorgeous, but it was SO much colder. Last week we bought Steven a warm hat and mittens from Target and I'm thrilled he kept them on the whole walk...it was cold! But he did look so cute, and well let's face I REALLY need the exercise.

Halloween Weekend

We had a great weekend of friends, family, and food. It started on Friday night when we went to a party with some friends from Salt Lake, we hadn't seen them since we moved so it was a lot of fun. Saturday Jacob had to work all day, but we were able to spend the night with his family. We had the traditional chili, root beer, and pumpkin pie, then went trick-or-treating around Jacob's old neighborhood. Steven didn't really understand it, but he had a great time looking at all the pumpkins and fun decorations. Unfortunately after a fun night of trick-or-treating, Steven had a hard face plant and got his first bloody nose and lip. Luckily suckers have a great way of making everything better.

My little Leprechaun

Trick-or-treating with Daddy

Taking pictures with cousins, Sophie and Luke

Sunday we had a nice Halloween at home with more chili and candy while watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Steven actually sat and watched it for a good 5 minutes! We also did our traditional pumpkin drop; where we place a plastic pumpkin in the living room then go up to the loft to see how many pieces of candy we can drop successfully into the pumpkin below, of course my dear husband won. Steven had a great time picking up the candy and placing them in the pumpkin for us, I think next year he'll be able to join in the fun!

Watching the movie with Daddy

What I've relearned

We have a Father in Heaven who loves us and will answer our prayers and take care of us. I was reminded of this wonderful fact this week. Tuesday afternoon I hurried to pick up Jacob's prescription at the health center; when I came back out, the car wouldn't start. I prayed, tried it again..still nothing. I don't know what it is about me that our cars don't like, but things always seem to break when it's just me driving. Luckily every time something happens a kind stranger and amazing family members offer a helping hand, and this time there was no exception.

A man came and took a look at it, he thought it was the starter; just then another girl parked next to me offered to jump me. It's always worth a try, unfortunately it didn't work this time. I called Jacob, and he said his mom would come and pick us up and he'd take a look at the car. So Steven and I began to wait for Susan to come when I randomly tried one more time to start the car. It started, so I picked up Jacob since he thought he knew what was wrong and we came home to fix it. We couldn't. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal to be out of a car for a while, but I had a crock pot full of chili for a ward party that night. Luckily we were able to borrow Jacob brother's (Alex, who has this great blog where he posts songs he's written. Check it out, seriously.) car who lives just a couple of blocks away. We were able to go to the party and on our way back we decided to see if we could get the car started once again while we had another car to drop it off at a car place. Well before getting out of the car I prayed that we would be able to start the car so we wouldn't have to inconvenience any more people. I got it started on the first try! We dropped it off at the repair shop and then we returned Alex's car. After a day and a half in the shop, Jacob's parents picked it up for us and everything is taken car of, which is such a blessing.

I know it sounds silly, but I know that Heavenly Father knows us and how much we dislike inconveniencing people. So He allowed us to start our car so while we already have a car, we can handle getting our car fixed by ourselves. I also know that He is aware of our concerns at the moment and will put people in situations to help us bear our burdens. I'm just so thankful to those who listen, respond, and help. I just hope I can help others like we've been helped.

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch in Farmington with these people...

(I know the picture's color is messed up but seriously it's taken me a long time to upload these pictures, so I'm just running with it)

and with these people, you know we all had a great time!

And this boy loved it! He loved walking around among the pumpkins

He found this pumpkin, sat right down and started patting the pumpkin like they were good friends.

He also enjoyed the children's corn maze. Jacob went with him and let him explore, Steven actually made it through with just a little help from Jacob.

Here are all the cute kids

Steven's adorable red haired cousin Malachi, look at that curly hair!

4 Pillow Wife

I just went to the doctor's office today and everything looks good. I'm now 24 weeks along and I'm loving this part of pregnancy. I feel good, I don't have the aches and pains yet, and I still feel good about my growing belly. There are only two problems,

1. I have a wonderful appetite, which means I want to eat....a lot. Most of the time it's baked goods: cinnamon rolls, cookies, cobbler, donuts. You get the picture. I'm having a hard time remembering I don't really NEED those things. Luckily my wonderful in-laws have the BEST apple tree that has supplied us with some great snacks.

2. I am now a 4 pillow sleeper. Yes this is 3 times the pillows my husband has. There are two for my head, one in between my legs and one for my back in case I roll over at night and sleep on my back.

On the bright side I found the camera....on Jacob's desk on campus. So now I can show off my adorable pumpkins I made from here. I'm so happy how this turned out. I love having fall decorations more than just Halloween ones so I can keep them up until Thanksgiving! Anyway I wanted to add a little more to our decorations that we are slowly adding, but there isn't a lot of room to hold many so I came up with this.

I got the fabric from D.I. for $1 each, they are fabric napkins, so I didn't have to cut anything! Then I got this cute red vase/candle stick as an accent for $1 and the shelf was also $1 from D.I. that we painted black. So for $5 I got some cute classy decorations, I love it!

* Note: I made the pumpkins different sizes by using differently used toilet paper rolls. I used one new one, one that had 3/4 of the paper left and one that was almost gone. With the smallest one I actually cut 1/4 of the roll off height wise so it was actually smaller. Though I did need to wrap this one twice in newspaper so it looked more full (There just wasn't enough toilet paper to make it round enough for me.)

Rainy Days...

I usually really like a good stormy day, but not today. The whole day I've felt so blah, BUT I'm trying to break out of the mode of thinking and doing something kind of productive and update the blog. I've been waiting to update until I take some pictures, but I can't find the camera...so I'll have to do this without the pictures I wanted and I'll add those later. But first look at our little pumpkin a year ago. Oh my how he's grown!
Anyway I've been really into baking and trying new cooking recipes lately and I've found a few gems. First I tried these granola bars, Jacob admitted that he thought they wouldn't be that good. I'm not sure if that lack of faith was directed toward my cooking skills or the recipe....we'll say it was the recipe. BUT he loves them and they are SO easy! Although since there's peanut butter in it his acid reflex flairs it up. Does anyone know a good substitute that I could put in instead of peanut butter? Anyway here's the recipe.

No Bake Peanut Butter Granola bars

1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
2 T. Real Maple syrup
1 T. canola oil
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups rolled oats
2 cups puffed brown rice cereal { I use rice krispies}
1/2 cup chopped nuts {peanuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds….your choice}
1/2 cup dried fruit {raisins, craisins, apricots, figs…..your choice}
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/2 tsp salt

Prepare a 9x13 baking dish with some non stick spray.
Heat the first seven ingredients in a saucepan over medium-low heat until bubbly and hot {approx. 4-5 minutes}. Keep stirring so as not to scorch it. In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Once the peanut butter mixture is melted and bubbly remove from heat and pour on top of the dry ingredients. Fold in carefully until completely incorporated. Pour into the baking dish and press evenly into the bottom of the pan. I put a sandwich baggie on my hand and use it to push the mixture into the pan so as not to get all sticky. Put in the refrigerator to cool, cut into bars or squares and enjoy!

Sisters Weekend

Once or twice a year all my sisters get together for a little sisters weekend where we eat lots of yummy food, watch chick flicks, shop, and just enjoy each other. We had dinner on Friday night and watched a chick flick of course with lots of yummy snacks. It's always so fun to just talk, giggle, and be girls together. This year my mom came as well, which was a lot of fun. Saturday morning we got up early and did a 5k! Dorene was the brain of the whole thing, but unfortunately her husband's grandfather passed away so she wasn't able to do it with us. (Though she did pose for a picture with us before she left in the morning) We'll be doing more in the future though for sure! We of course walked, I'm in no condition to run! It was really fun to just stroll along and talk. Then Saturday night we traveled down to the General Relief Society meeting at the conference center. It was my first time being there for the Relief Society meeting, and I loved it! Especially being able to be there with my sisters and mom; it was a very neat experience. I love my family and am so glad that we are all so close and enjoy spending time with each other; I love you guys!

Steven enjoying the ride

During the race
At the finish line