Brooklynn's here!!

Our beautiful Brooklynn is here!! She arrived today 5/5/10 at 2:37 pm after just three hours of labor. She's perfect weighing in at 8 lbs 2.5 oz. and 20 inches long. She's got lots of hair and appears to have brown eyes. Her siblings are pretty excited she's here. Here she is....

Minutes after birth...

Thanksgiving and Santa

Thanksgiving this year was in Wyoming with my family. Just in my family alone we have 16 grandchildren so the kids had many cousins to have a blast with. Casey, though, spent most of his time with Grandpa on the tractor. He was in heaven. Cally on the other hand loves doing projects with grandma and they love to sew and make jewelry. This time they made scripture bags for Annabelle and Casey for Christmas. Here are some pictures of thanksgiving dinner with cousins..... Hannah and Kim were in charge of Christmas with all of the Winters' family (not just ours). They planned some fun projects for the kids.

Cally had her very first piano recital a few weeks ago. She played "Away In A Manger". I was very proud of her. She did it just as she practiced. Piano so far has come pretty easily. She has a great memory and can memorize her pieces after playing them only a few times. She was cute with the recital though. She told LaVon her teacher that she would do the recital. When we got to the place where we were doing the recital she asked us why there were so many chairs there. We said for all the families of LaVon's students. She said, "you mean it's not just me and you guys?" I'm not so sure she would have volunteered for it if she would have known what she was really getting in to.

We had our branch party last night. We had a good time. We decorated gingerbread houses and santa came to visit. Matt was partly in charge of the party and he asked our neighbor to be santa. We knew the kids would recognize him right away so we explained to the kids that santa called Lance and wanted him to be his helper tonight. And they were to tell no one who he was. They felt pretty lucky to know santa last night and to have a secret.

Here's our gingerbread house. It was a competition between families. We had 20 minutes to construct it and it would be judged according to construction (whether it stayed standing) and creativity. We didn't place at all. Guess they weren't BYU fans.

I sometimes take Annabelle to storytime at our town's library. This last week Santa visited. She told santa she wants a dolly.

BYU Game

If anyone didn't already know we're pretty big BYU fans. We were able to go to the Wyoming vs BYU game this year in November. The night before the game we drove to Cheyenne to see the BYU players give a fireside. It was really neat especially when the team sang--pretty powerful choir. We met quite a few players that we love to watch on tv. Here's Casey with his favorite player Pitta. Casey and a few other boys were asked to be interviewed by BYU tv. He was asked what he thought of the fireside. He said "I think it's cool that the BYU players believe in God." I was so proud of his bravery. He was actually really excited to do it. Cally decided she'd rather just watch.

Matt's favorite player Unga was outside while Casey was being interviewed. He had missed the bus back to the hotel and was going to ask the broadcasters for a ride. We were able to chat with him for a while and he asked us if we could take him back if they couldn't. We would have been pretty excited to do that. Although, we weren't thinking because I was pretty sick that weekend and actually got sick on the way back to our hotel. How embarrassing that would have been if we were giving him a ride and had to pull off the freeway. I'm sure he wouldn't have appreciated us then.

Wyoming has a barrell man who wears this even when it's freezing out. Smart huh? It was a rare beautiful day in November in Wyoming. We were pretty lucky.

The kids enjoyed getting pictures with Cosmo....

We think it's pretty cool that the BYU players come and give their fans five after every game.

News and Halloween

Matt and I decided to take a hike on conference weekend to a special family place behind our house in the aspens to tell the children they were getting a new sibling. They were pretty excited and suprised. Halloween 2009...Cally as "Princess Leia"

Casey knew way ahead of time that he wanted to be a vampire. He thought for sure that everyone who saw him would be terrified and run, thinking he was a real vampire. He couldn't wait. So halloween came and he got all dressed up and I put on his face paint. He went to look in the mirror and came back in and said with a worried look on his face, "mom, I'm definately not going to be a vampire next year. I'm way too scary." So in the end the only one he really scared was himself.

Annabelle is in love with Elmo and was so excited to be Elmo.
The kids were invited to a friends house for a halloween party and had a great time playing games, decorating tombstones, and hitting a pinata.

Cally's Baptism

We are so proud of Cally and can't believe she's really old enough to be baptized. It seems like just days ago that we brought her home from the hospital. She's been such a blessing in our lives. We could not have asked for a better daughter. She brings such happiness to her whole family. Our sweet Cally's big day.... Matt baptized her on October 10, 2009.

Grandma Winters made her beautiful baptism dress. Thanks grandma!Our good friend and Cally's piano teacher, LaVon, gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Cally chose her to speak. Papa gave a talk on baptism.

This is the family that were able to come. Thanks to everyone for your support. The weather wasn't great but they came anyways. What great family we have.

Cally was really sick on her baptism day which we realized just a few hours before her baptism. Everyone had already driven hours to be there so we went ahead and had it anyways. Later we found out she had the swine flu. Thankfully most of the extended family didn't get it but some did (sorry!!). She wasn't feeling well, but she was a great sport and you wouldn't have been able to tell if you were there.

September 2009

On our way to soccer in September we saw a really cool bull moose running along the highway...Casey enjoyed soccer this year. He still has quite a few things to learn about the game. He had a tough time understanding why his teammates weren't passing him the ball and why he had to pass the ball to his teammates. He learned a ton about playing as a team and I'm excited for next year.

It was a great year for Cally's age. They understand the game and realize the importance of teamwork. She was a great teammate. This is Cally giving me a thumbs up after scoring a goal. The next picture is Cally playing goalie. She loved playing that position. I think it was because there was a lot less running involved.

Cally turned eight years old this year. She had a great birthday although it was a little much for one night, but she had a great time. She loves horses and riding them, so a friend Tammy (thanks Tammy!!) gave her some riding lessons and took her for a ride all by herself. She couldn't stop smiling. Meeting the horse....

Getting instructions...

We then headed home for presents and cake. She's a huge Hannah Montana fan so that was the theme. She had a Hannah guitar cake and received the new Hannah Montana the Movie which she watched with her friends.

A few days later our cousins came to visit and we went on one of our favorite hikes "Fish Creek Falls" in Steamboat. The cousins had a great time together and were amazing!! It's not an easy hike but they hiked all the way to the top. I was so proud of them all.

The Konchars...

Casey loves Jon!!

The top falls...