Thanks for your votes

So if you hadn't heard yet, we didn't win. We appreciate all your support though, getting us all the way to the top 5! Well we've been very busy and have lots of photos to post so hopefully we can get that done before the baby comes. Speaking of the baby we are still trying to decide on a name but Kendall looks like the front runner right now. Also Amber according to the doctors could deliver any day now and will not make it to her original due date around March 10. So keep us in your prayers that we can get everything ready and that Mom and the baby will do well. Thanks! I'll try to post again tonight with some recent photos.

We're in the finals please vote one last time!!!

We made it to the final round for the huggable hubby contest! Please go again to Magic107.com and vote for me. Our picture is the family fairy picture from Halloween with the name Christopher under it. You can vote until Friday at noon then they'll announce the winner that afternoon. Please let your friends and families know as well so they can vote. We'll need them all to win! I feel good about it though. It'll be a nice 30th birthday present. Thanks for your help.

Please vote

OK we made it to the semi final round today. Please go to magic107.com again and vote for us so we can make it to the final round top 5. Thanks guys!

We could use your help/vote!!!

Amber signed me up for Magic 107.7's huggable hubby contest and we could win a trip to Mexico (the land of my mission!!!). Please go to Magic107.com and find the link for the huggable hubby contest then look through all the photos and you'll see the one of us from Halloween (the fairy family) then after you scroll through all the photos you can cast your vote (hopefully for me even though there's an adorable old man in there). There are several Chris entries so note that Amber put me in as Christopher and the link to vote is usually right UNDER the photo after you have seen them all. I know this is a long shot but hey if everyone we knows votes and my fairy costume gets me some pitty votes from those who don't know me maybe we'll have a shot. Feel free to encourage your friends/family to vote for me as well. Thanks!!! We love you all.

Pictures!

So on my behalf, our internet isn't working and we're snagging our neighbors until we get our new modem. I'm glad my husband found time to atleast update you and I get to do the fun part! We really enjoyed spending time with family we don't see too much. Thanks for putting us up Dad and Aunt Dee. And thanks for a girls night out Aunt Sharon. We love you all so much!

More Pictures!

Our little entertainers

I forgot one funny little side note about the girls. They've always been into music and singing but lately Reagan has really gotten into it! She is constantly singing and is pretty good. She picks up the words amazingly quick for a 2 year old and sings them loud and proud! One of her favorite past times of late is standing in front of any mirror she can find and singing and dancing. She can keep herself entertained forever, it's so cute! Then the other day I'm sitting at the dinner table with Miss Kylie, while Reagans napping and Mom was at Stake meetings, having a nice daddy daughter talk about obedience. She has been really good but like any kid has her days where she doesn't want to listen and insists on doing things her way. So anyways I ask her if she has trouble at school being obedient and she says no. So I ask how come you can do it all the time for Miss Tommie (her preK teacher) but not all the time for us at home. She looks at me and in all seriousness says....."Everybody makes mistakes.... " So I'm just waiting for the Everybody has bad days and sure enough after a brief pause she gives it to me! Now for those of you who have no idea why that's funny those are lyrics to a Hannah Montana song! Now I don't know if that was her plan from the beginning or just after she said Everybody makes mistakes the song clicked in her head and she had to do it but either way it was funny cause she seemed so serious. So I held in my laughter and said I know sweety we all do make mistakes but it just seems yours have been a little more frequent so lets try to have fewer bad days. Well it worked cause she seems to be doing much better! Thanks Miley!!! Man I never would have believed me if you would have told me 5 years ago I'd be quoting Hanah Montana lyrics or that I would even know the songs. What has my world come to?????????? I used to be cool!!!!!!!!!

Our crazy life!!!

Well another month has gone by without a post, sorry! Things are just crazy! Working full-time, refing at least 5 nights a week, serving as ward mission leader (going on splits weekly) and finding time to home teach be a decent father and husband isn't easy. Add to the mix school now for me and I'm toast! I have to go back and get some online courses in order to keep my teaching certification and of course I waited until the last minute (honestly I had to wait for the refing money to be able to pay for the courses) so now I'm cramming in 6 classes this last term!!!! I started last night and feel like it's going to be a big challenge and very time consuming but at least it's only for a couple of months! Well Amber has all the recent pictures and I asked her to post them but she to has been very busy. I know she put them on our home computer and I'm sure she'll get them up soon. Maybe tonight since I'm taking the girls out and off her hands for the night. They are so cute and we got some great photos especially over the holiday break with family. Amber is keeping busy with being a full-time Mommy (which is really full-time since I'm so busy and rarely home!) as well as cleaning houses on the side for some extra dinero. She cleans about 4 a week and babysits a couple days a week as well so yeah she's just as busy! Oops I forgot her Stake YW calling which is taking here away this weekend on a Priest/Laurel retreat. I don't know how we do it all sometimes! Even with all the crazyness we're still as in love as ever and manage to find family time on a pretty regular basis. Sunday night we had friends from the ward over and Monday we went to a friends house for Family Home Evening. The girls love getting together with their little girlfriends and we're so blessed to have such great friends like the Melicks & Hansens. We've been enjoying the last few weeks of our Disney passes and going tons! As a matter of fact we were at Magic Kingdom Saturday night and I'm taking the girls to the Studios this afternoon and we'll be at the parks again both Friday and Saturday while Amber's away! The girls love it and it's easier for Dad to keep the entertained there versus at the house which they just tear up anyways!!! We're gonna be bummed when the passes expire in less than 2 weeks. I can't possibly include everything we've done over the last month especially the details of our trip so I'll leave that to Amber when she posts the pictures. Hopefully we can post more frequently and keep the posts shorter and with photos. I promise we'll try! Lastly we're looking forward to a nice long weekend as Friday is a teacher work day I'll be done early and Monday we're off for MLK day! Our wonderful friends the Hoffs are coming out Sunday night and we are camping and caoeing at the new camp area in Harmony down by the lake. It will be a blast as the weather is supposed to be perfect and our girls love playing with their kids. We're so blessed to live in such a wonderful little community with awesome amenities. Please feel free to join us anytime for camping, golf, boating, whatever! We'd love to have you guys over.

Never enough time...

Well it's been about 3 weeks since I last posted anything and for good reason! Basketball season is here and I have been refing games almost every day which keeps me on the run and also takes time I would normally use to grade papers, do lesson plans, etc. So needless to say things are a little hectic and I'm feeling swamped! But I just had to get on here today to let everyone know we're still here and have had some nice "moments" in between all the crazyness. We went down to Hollywood to visit our wonderful friends the Sophies for about 5 days leading up to Thanksgiving and had a really nice time. We don't get to see them but maybe 2 or 3 times a year so it was nice to have that much time off school to just relax down there and enjoy not only the great company but the gorgeous weather! Our camera crapped out on us about 2 months ago and we finally got a new one in the post Thanksgiving day sales so I'll post some new pictures soon. Our internet at home has been out as we are switching providers which will finally happen I believe on Thursday. So once that is up and running I'll get the new pictures up. Let's see we went and got our Christmas tree Saturday night after one of my games and Kylie REALLY got into the holiday spirit! She was so focused on decorating and it was just soo cute (and honestly a little annoying as she kept pestering us about decorating EVERYTHING until it was all done). We wanted to do it in spurts and she just wanted to go, go, go until it was up to her standard! Also on Saturday we participated in the St. Cloud Christmas parade which is really a big deal here. Kylie rode on the Harony Pop Warner float with the other cheer leaders and football players as I walked along side handing out candy. She did get down and walk some of the way helping hand out candy as well but she didn't last the whole 2+ miles. It was kinda hard to get in the spirit though since it was so hot! I couldn't believe I was sweating in a Christmas parade!!! Nate & Desi that little tidbit was for you, hope you're enjoying that lovely Michigan winter! Finally last night we had a nice night at home as it was my one night off this week! We had a nice little Family Home Evening lesson on how the candy cane is a reminder of the Christ. For those of you who haven't seen that before it's great for kids! The cane is in the shape of a shepards staff and you share a scripture referencing Christ as our shepard. It is hard like a rock so you read a reference about Christ being the rock. Finally the colors white and red represent his purity and blood so you share scriptures that dicuss his pureness and his blood which was shed for us. Then we had ice cream and layed down together as a family to watch Alvin & the Chipmunks. Well I gotta run, tons of work to do but I'll post photos later this week! We love you all and hope you're having a joyous Holiday Season!
PS: Thanks to Brenda and Dale for getting Amber some much needed time out without the girls this weekend. It's tough this time of year with all the games I'm working for me to take her out or even just watch the girls so she can get out. She really enjoyed it!

More photos

These are from Key West and our 2nd stop (last day) at Disney's island.

The view from the famous Key West Conch Train as we returned to our ship.

We just had to get the I pee in pools shot and she loved it!!! (Disregard the other shirts!)

Kylie in the water at Disney's Castaway Kay.

Reagan playing in the sand at Castaway Cay.

Kylie posing on her mat in the lagoon at Castaway.

More photos

So nothing exciting to talk about this week other than the start of Basketball season. I had my first games last week and not only look forward to the check but the excercise as well. I decided to start taking advantage of the fact that I work at a place with a full gym and weight room and so today I'm starting to lift for the first time in years! I need to get into shape and hopefully with reffing several games a week and lifting 3 times a week it will happen. All my jeans are getting tight so I know I need it. Amber is the only one in our house whose clothes should be getting tight. Well here are some more photos from our trip. These are of the beach on Disney's private island.


Getting off the ship, Max was there to help hand out towels.

Mommie & Kylie turned Reagan into a sand mermaid while Daddy was snorkeling in the lagoon.

Here's the final result!

Our.......

Oh well!

Well the big game didn't work out the way we would have liked but it's hard to win when everyone at the game knows what you're going to run on offense! It was a very frustrating loss as the kids played hard but in my opinion were hampered by lousy play calling. We ran the ball on at least 90% of our downs even when we were down by 3 with less than 3 minutes to go and needing to drive down the entire field and score for the win. We continued running the ball up the middle of the field (clock management?????). Anyways we needless to say did not drive down the field and score but lost by 3 points. OH WELL! Boy do we miss our friends the Andersons in so many ways!!!
What happens on Halloween when you're on a Disney Cruise with 3 women??? You get sucked into being part of a fairy family! Here are some pictures from Halloween for your viewing pleasure and guys I don't need to hear it, I already know. What's a Dad to do??? I've got a strangle hold on my last shread of masculinity and promise not to let all the estrogen surrounding me kill it. It's time to get Kylie into sports!!!!


At least I got black wings & a tutu...right????

Tonights the night!!!

Tonight is the infamous Harmony versus St. Cloud High School Football game. For those of you not familiar with this game it is a huge in town and district rivalry. These 2 schools, players, fans, etc really do not like each other at all! Just to let you know how big it is this is the only game they presell tickets to the students for, as they anticipate a sell out. Also last night as we were getting home from the Magic game at almost midnight I saw that the big bright stadium lights were still on! There was a girls soccer game earlier that evening which would have been over by 9pm so I thought unless somebody was doing last minute prep work on the field they forgot to shut off the lights. So I went by and saw not a soul or car anywhere near the stadium and called our principal on her cell phone (again almost midnight!). In a tired voice she tells me they are leaving them on all night in an effort to ward off any would be pranksters or vandals from the rival school!!!! Yeah this will be some affair! Oh and I forgot to mention they are undefeated in district play and we have one loss so this game is for the district championship as well!!!! We are really looking forward to a big night and some fun tomorrow with our wonderful friends the Hoffs. We're going to go to the Festival of the masters art show at Downtown Disney then have a sleep over Saturday! We hope you all have a great weekend and here are some more cruise photos for your enjoyment. These are from the Mayan ruins we visited in Cozumel.

The girls loved climbing on the ruins, that they were allowed to, but this surprised us as Kylie is usually afraid of heights. She just all of a sudden went over started climbing and kept going until she got to the top. Now as she was carefully working her way down I will admit she kept saying "Oh I shouldn't have done this".

We saw several iguanas but this was the first one and Kylie actually saw it and pointed out to us!
This was the main structure at this site. GO MAGIC!!!!

Bad news comes in pairs or is it triples??? And of course more photos

Well besides the reality sinking in that we will have an extremely Pro-choice Democrat/ultra-liberal/socialist...president I got hit with another bit of upsetting news when I first got to school today. For those of you who are familliar with HHS you'll undestand the loss... Our beloved principal Mrs. Pace is leaving to be the Counties deputy Superintendent over all middle and high schools. This is not only a huge loss for the school as she is amazing but for me as she is one of the main reasons (besides being so close to home) I wanted to come here. She's sticking around until they find a replacement and there's no word on who that will be. She assured me that all would be ok and she'd find somebody who shared her amazing vision...We'll see. Well of course here's 5 more photos for your' viewing pleasure. After playing all day on there island we got bikes and rode across the island to a lookout tower where you could climb up to see the entire island and the ship off in the distance. Well you can see the before and after photos, they were tuckered out! I zoomed in on the ship from the tower and that's what the middle photo is.

Cruise photos

Splashing in the puddles outside the ship. After our first night we stopped at Disney's Private Bahemian island and had a great day but as we were getting ready to head back from the beach to the ship it started to pour and did so for about 10-15 minutes. Once we got back to the boat it was no longer raining and there were big puddles on the dock which we naturally couldn't resist splashing and playing in!
Kylie posing by the big artwork hanging at the top of the atrium.

The girls at the tea party with Alice and the mad hatter. Don't worry, Disney gave everyone Apple juice in their tea pots!

Reagan with Stitch at the dance party.

Reagan & I doing the Strawberry slide or some crazy cha cha slide type dance during the character dance party.

More cruise dance photos

Kylie having fun at the character dance party
The girls dancing with Donald! They had a big character dance party one day which the girls just loved!

Reagan made a friend on the dance floor.

Kylie and another twirl move. Check out Reagans moves off to the side.

And surprise...another spinning dance move. Love the tongue!!!