Our Belated Christmas Card!

I first want to start by thanking all of our friends and family who gave us Christmas cards. I love to get them and they are all on the fridge. Gabrie loves to go and look at all the pictures! One day maybe we'll send some, Luke has a "brilliant" idea for one ( : so someday. But for now I figured I could post ours on the blog! So..
I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This past year has been filled with a lot of good accomplishments and blessings. Here is a highlight:
1. Gabriella learned to walk, crawl (in that order), sign, talk, do head stands, and a bunch of other things that keep her life busy, active, and fun!
2. Luke became the bread winner in our family for the first time by graduating from BYU and getting his first teaching job, which he likes (a plus!).
3. I completed my thesis and finished my masters degree from USU, which was the most difficult thing I have done besides being a brand new mom, and actually like speech language more than I ever thought I would ( I know it sounds so boring).
4. We bought a house and did our part to stimulate the economy.
5. We had a ton of additions to our families: a new brother in law- Wade, a niece- Samantha, and lots of nephews Benjamin, Parker, Max and the newest Ethan!
This year has been very busy but it's been wonderful and we have been so blessed and watched over. We are looking forward to the New Year and the changes it will bring.
Here are some pictures from the holidays!
Gabrie wanted to wear the stockings!Gabrie loves to play in the snow or "no" as she calls it! She especially loves to eat it, thanks to Grandpa for teaching her. Luckily we have gotten a lot of snow for her to play in.Grandpa and the Utah kids on Christmas Eve!

We had a visitor Christmas morning besides Santa! We opened the front door and there were these cute bird foot prints on our porch, I just thought I'd share the picture.
Gabrie enjoying one of her gifts. She got way too many. She was tired of opening presents so she went and ate breakfast while Luke and I opened ours.



David helping Gabrie become a shepherd.
"The Nativity"
Love you all!

Hi. This is Luke. I usually don't blog, but I thought to myself, it was just my wife's birthday and I should probably let the world know just how great she is. Can you think of anyone in the world that you like better? I know that I can't - she is number one (that's even counting celebrities). Anyway, for Kellie's big day we decided to do two of the things that Kellie does best... shopping, of course, and returning merchandise (which included a battle with four of Ikea's employees). After a fun day of that we ate dinner at Olive Garden with Dianne and Kiley. Overall, a great day.

Me and Gabrie want Kellie to know how much we love and appreciate her and wanted to say HAPPY 27th BIRTHDAY!

What it means to be a Mom!

After almost 20 months I'm starting to realize what it really means to be a mom. Gabrie has been sick for the past month. I'll try not to get too graphic ( : First it was croup then a sinus infection (and stomach flu) for which she had a terrible antibiotic which only made her tummy problems 10 times worse. Then I had to watch as she was pinned down by Luke, a doctor and nurse (it took all three) for a procedure to she if her urinary tract is functioning properly, which it's not. And now this week she has been throwing up and having diarrhea again. I feel like I have been covered in one bodily fluid or another almost constantly! Laundry has been none stop! There have days when she was in and out of the bath 7-8 times and we have been through at least 3 different bottles of diaper cream. And Gabrie, the poor thing, is still pretty happy and very active! I thought I knew what it was like to be a mom but this month has been a new experience. I'm not trying to complain just explain the realization I've come to. Most of this past month I have just had to accept I would get nothing done beside taking care of her, like making sure her diaper was always dry and let her run around with no diaper, despite the possible consequence. It has made me very thankful for my own mother who raised 7 kids and increased my respect for anyone that has more than one child! Motherhood, it's tough work but definately worth it.

The wonders you find at the DI!

I went to the DI to find a white elephant gift and I found they had a bunch of wigs! So I got one thinking it would be a good gift. Well Gabrie thought it was just a fun hat and it helped that Luke and I laughed hysterically when she put it on. So here is what Gabrie would look like if she had more hair!

Maybe I'm glad she wasn't blessed with tons of hair!

On another note Gabrie got to meet Santa in person this past weekend and here is how it turned out...
She liked him much better from a distance! When I tried to put her on his lap she screamed and wouldn't let go of me but as I pulled her away she said through her tears, " Bye, bye" and blew him a kiss. It also helped he gave her candy which made her more happy. See below!

Temple Square

We didn't get to go to Temple Square last year, so we decided to go early to make sure we got to go! The picture above is my favorite one we took, I think it turned out really cool! It was very busy but that is part of the fun. Gabrie loved the lights and the sheep at the Nativity. All in all we lost one glove, one shoe and one sock, but she didn't complain! Luckily she was bundled up and it wasn't too cold.

ASHA Convention in Chicago

This past week has been a little crazy, but quite the experience. I got to go to the American Speech Language and Hearing Association's Annual Conference in Chicago! Now that doesn't really mean much to someone who isn't an SLP or Audiologist but it was pretty cool! My professor who helped me with my thesis this past spring submitted it to ASHA and it got accepted as a poster session, so my friend Jen and I (who did the project together) got to go present our program we developed. At first was I much more excited to just go to Chicago, I love big cities and traveling! But the highlight was presenting our poster, it was so cool to see people interested in something we spent six months of life doing! So it was totally worth it just for that experience!Me, Dr. Sandi Gillam, and Jen in front of our poster! Sandi was so great and helped set everything up for us.

Some other highlights were that there were no regular rooms left for early check-in at the hotel we were staying at so I got to stay in a suite on the 21 floor with a panoramic view of the city for only $99, and to make it better USU is paying me back for it! We were only there two days but we got to drive around the city and see a few things, have deep dish pizza (not that exciting I don't think we went to the right resturant for that), and meet a lot of interesting people. It was my first time leaving Gabrie over night so that was a little hard, especially after Luke told me she had been asking for me all day! When I got home I think she was mad at me because she wasn't excited, she just looked at me and then looked down! Luckily she got over that!Here is a picture from Navy Pier but I was too cold to get a better shot of the city! It is definitely called the "Windy City" for a reason!

Some other happening this week Luke's brother and his family came to bless their new baby Max and my good friend Becca got married. And some bad news BYU lost ):

Halloween

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! We sure did! We had a ward trunk-or-treat on Wednesday, it was a lot of fun - here are some pictures. Gabrie is Little Red Riding Hood, I was a cowgirl and Luke...was a flower!


Then on Halloween Gabrie came with me to my work to see all the kids do their costume parade, she liked it, I think (: Then that night she did a little trick or treating at Grandma and Grandpa William's neighborhood and then again at home with Dianne, Kiley, and Parker. Luke has this scary mask he wore and we thought Gabrie would be terrified of it but as soon as she realized it was just Daddy underneath she had no problem! She even gave him kisses!

Poor Parker!


I guess should have fixed the red eyes in the pictures but it makes it more spooky for Halloween!

Gabrie liked trick or treating she would walk from house to house and knock on the door and even say "Thank-you." She also liked to give out the candy too! It was a fun night!


"Hunkin" Patch


Last week we took Gabrie to a pumpkin patch. Like I mentioned she loves "hunkins" so we were excited to she how she would react to seeing so many. Well she loved it! Here are some pictures we took.