"A small town is a place where there is little to see or do, but what you hears makes up for it." --Ivern Ball--

So we've been in Missouri almost two weeks now and as you can tell from my lack of blogging we've kept pretty busy, with all the family, holidays, eating, watching movies, being lazy....I just haven't found too much time to sit and do a blog post. But we did arrive safe in Missouri with no problems...carwise anyway...now Evelyn was a different story. She was NOT a happy traveler! But I won't go into that, I've blocked all the bad parts from my memory. Anyway, we left at noon on the 16th and got to my house on Friday at 5....the longest I've taken to get between Utah and MO! It was sooo nice to be back home though! It's been way too long!

(Mark had one final left to do but it was online so he just studied one night at the hotel and did it then)

(Evelyn during the only time she's good in the car...when she's sleeping! I didn't get any of her screaming, still trying to block that out :)

The fam was very happy to see us and especially lil' Evelyn. She's done pretty well so far with all the craziness that goes on around here and enjoying all the attention from so many other people. We've been enjoying being around everyone too, Mark and I have even gotten to go out a couple times with Evelyn which has been nice. We went and saw Sherlock Holmes, which was amazing, and then Avatar in 3D which was pretty cool too.

(Evelyn and her "favorite" auntie! :)

(I think Evelyn is a wee bit scared here don't you? And she has a right to be! These kids are craaaazzzy wild!)

(But they do love babies!)

I'm trying to spend as much time as I can with Mark cuz he's leaving soooo soon! Today is the last day of 2009 and I only have til Saturday morning with him. I can't believe it's already time for him to go to OCS traning and that it's the end of the year! This year has just flown by. Luckily it's been an amazing, wonderful year with so many good things! Hopefully 2010 proves to be just as great. Well I'm off to bed for now...I'll try to finish posting Christmas stuff soon but probably won't get to it til after Mark leaves.

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

"Don't cry because it's over...Smile because it happened." --Dr. Seuss--

....not that I'm crying cuz I'm leaving Utah cuz I definitely am NOT! I am happy with my time here though...I've met some of the greatest friends ever and have had some way awesome, fun times with them. I've gotten to attend BYU for almost the whole time I've been here although I still need about 2 1/2 semesters before I can graduate, but don't worry!! I will just not right now. I loved going to school though, the classes and professors are so amazing here and I learned soooo much! I don't miss the tests and papers and homework assignments though and don't really look forward to going back to them when I finish...but oh well! I'll make it through it all :)

Of course the best thing about coming here was that I met and fell in love with my wonderful, amazing husband! I feel so blessed to have him in my life, even more so now that we have our beautiful little Evelyn. They make my life so complete and happy! So coming out here to Utah was a very productive decision and I wouldn't trade all my memories here for anything. That doesn't mean that I'm not extremely happy to leave though! I'm sooo ready to move onto the next faze of life...and that means awaaaaay from Provo! Yay! I am so excited to spend a few months with my family, even though they all keep saying that I'll be utterly sick of them by the end, but if I can't stick with them for a few months then how am I going to do it for eternity? I guess this is my test :) :) :) I think I'll be able to deal with it. :) I miss them so much when I'm away so I'm really looking forward to it, I'm gonna need them all around when Mark is gone for 3 whole months!!! That's gonna be hard.

Anyway, right now Evelyn is sleeping and Mark and some guys from church are bringing some stuff over to our storage unit and I'm taking a break from packing and all that stuff. Boy am I tired of packing! I just want to be done and gone!!!! Almost there though....so close! We'll be leaving tomorrow morning after Mark takes his very, very last final. He's been a bit sick the past couple days so hasn't been able to cram in all the studying he wanted to to be able to take all his tests today and yesterday. I can't believe he's 1 final away from being done with his bachelor's degree! I'm so proud of him! He's worked so hard for it.

I have to get back to cleaning and such now so good bye for now! Next time I post I'll be home in Missouri!!!!!!!!

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you as you are to them." --Desmund Tutu--

So last Saturday we went and got our family photos taken for the first time by a professional photographer instead of me just taking it with one hand :) worked out much better this way. We got them yesterday though and they turned out so good! I am very happy with them. I found this lady here in Provo that is just starting out and does them at her house in a little studio type area she set up so it was pretty cheap and she did a wonderful job! We picked out the pics we liked the best and she edited them and did fun stuff on Photoshop (oh how I want that program and actually learn how to use it!!!!) So here's a few of my favs of the favs! If youw ant to see all of them go on facebook, they're all there!

"Save Santa a trip: be naughty."

Well I currently don't have internet at my house so I'm doing this real quick on campus. Today Evelyn is two months old!!! So crazy...she's still as adorable as ever though and so much fun! I took her to see Santa today and here is the pic I took. She had just woken up and was yawning, pretty darn cute.



Anyway, Mark is finishing up school and I've been packing away. We leave in a week from tomorrow and are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!

"I've spent most of my money scrapbooking and eating out. The rest I've pretty much wasted."

I've been hopin' and prayin' all year that American Crafts would have their scrapbook warehouse sale again before I leave and it came true! I got an email the other day saying it would open today and I was SOOO excited! I went today of course (I don't want to go next week when it's snowing :) and it was just marvelous. They seriously have the best deals! I got double what I got last year and it was sooo worth it. And it's all different stuff too! Well except for some alphabet stickers, I got some that I've run out of. I got soooo many alphabets though! Probably 50 or 50 or so. I love them!

Alphabets are so cute and I run out of them so fast so I stocked up this time. I also got lots of new cute paper. That's pretty much all I need to scrapbook really...cute paper and cute alphabets! I am branching out though and trying new things and my scrapbooks are just getting better and better and cuter and cuter!

I can't wait to start doing pages for Evelyn's scrapbook. I haven't done anything at all yet and probably won't until I get to Missouri...which is coming up SOOOOO quick!!!! We're hopefully leaving on the 16th, the morning of the 17th at the very latest, so just 12 days-ish! I've packed up half the house already, most of the stuff now is just stuff we are using, plus I need to go out and get more boxes and such. So far the weather has been pretty good...extremely cold but no snow yet! I'm hoping it holds off some more or at least only snows a little before we leave. I do not want to drive in the snow! I hate it.

I really can't wait til that drive is over!!!!! Darling little Evie absolutely HATES the car, she seriously just screams and cries and nothing we do can calm her down, just have to let her cry it out til she falls asleep most of the time. So that should be loads of fun! She has been doing so well though lately (at home anyway). She's been sleeping great and during the day is just so adorable. I love talking to her and watching her face light up with a big smile, it's heart melting! She's also starting to laugh but isn't quite there yet...she kinda does this thing that sounds like a cough/hiccup/almost a laugh...it's pretty darn cute.

Let's see...I guess the only other thing to talk about is Mark! His last day of class is next Thursday and then finals and then he's done! SO close! It's so exciting. I'm so proud of him though! He's been taking classes pretty much straight since last fall, maybe Summer term, I can't remember...but anywho, it's a lot of classes going straight through! He's done so well- his grades are great, his GPA is pretty darn good and he's graduating! Yay! He's not actually going to walk or anything though cuz BYU doesn't have a graduation walk in December, you have to walk in April and he'll be graduating from the NAVY OCS program then. He doesn't care about walking for college though, not a big deal!

He has gotten his official "orders" from the Navy though saying that he has to be in Rhode Island by January 3rd to start OCS on the 4th. Originally he was going to leave at the end of January but they told us last week that they moved him up to fill up this class. So we are pretty bummed out that he is leaving earlier but it just means he comes back earlier! It's going to be a long 12/13 weeks though! I'm just so glad I'll be in MO with my fam.

Speaking of my fam...today is my niece Santana's second birthday!!! I can't believe she's already two! I remember going home for Christmas/Monie's wedding and little Tani was only a couple weeks old and so tiny and adorable! She's still adorable and very funny, I get funny stories about her and her brothers almost every time I call home! Anywho, Happy Birthday Tani!

(Sorry no pics this time, I do have some but my delightful landlord moved and decided to turn off our internet without telling us and won't answer her phone to talk to us!!! So frustrating! So right now we are relying on wireless internet with very little signal so it's very slow. Needless to say I am not happy with our landlord right now! Boy I am so ready to get out of Utah!!!)