What we have been up to lately...

Laun & the boys put in a garden box & planted lots of beets & some peas

Marlee & I just watched the boys work:)

We got our Christmas tree up & Marlee thought she was such a big help

This is the cutest, messy haired girl that I have ever seen!

This will be Marlee's 1st Christmas & she won't even have to ask for her 2 front teeth because she already has them. She now has 2 on top & 2 on bottom.

She is a Daddy's girl for sure!

Making & decorating sugar cookies:

My mom came to help us out this week. She did lots of laundry, organizing, cleaning, & even some sewing. She was a huge help & it was great to have her here. She even brought us lots of goodies. We were so thankful to have her help & her company!

We went to the boys Music Mingle night at their school. They got to sing Christmas songs on the stage & Porter was super excited because he got to ring the jingle bells.

2 loves

Marlee has two loves in her life: food and Daddy, and possibly in that order, too;)










On a side note, Clayton came crying to me yesterday because Marlee bit his nose. Maybe Laun & I shouldn't have laughed but, we thought it was hilarious. You know how brothers are suppose to protect their little sister? Well in this case, I think they need to protect themselves from Marlee.

On the move again

Clayton is sporting his new UofA jacket, which he loves

We just moved from Marana to Tucson, it is only 30 minutes away but it will save us money & we will see so much more of Laun. It is only 2 minutes away from Launs work & closer to UofA. So we have had a lot of changes lately: new ward, new school for the boys, & a new house (well old house but, it is new to us). Things have been so crazy lately so, Laun decided that we needed to do something fun. We all went to the grocery store & everyone got to pick out what they wanted for dinner. Laun came home & grilled up dinner & it was delicious. For dessert we had key lime pie & if you could not tell from the video Marlee loved it!

Our Thanksgiving...

Ryan & Kami were kind enough to host the Hall Family Thanksgiving at their home this year. They had a very full house & lots of good food. Thank you Ryan Hall family!

Porter watching football with Grandpa Frost- any time he sees Jeff watching football he climbs up on his lap & stays awhile


Jonathan & Hao on a 4 wheeler ride- Hao is a grad student from China that Laun knows so, we took him with us to Show Low for Thanksgiving. I think he had a good time. When he got off the 4 wheeler he said,"We don't have anything this interesting in China."

The men in the kithen cooking. This is something I love about the Hall family, the guys actually help cook food for Thanksgiving. They made turkeys, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, etc.

John made this awesome turducken, which is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a de-boned chicken, with lots of amazing stuffing between each animal- wow, that is a mouthful. Anyways, it tasted amazing & I think it looks like it belongs on the cover of a Martha Stewart magazine.

Marlee Cates 1st Thanksgiving & she especially loved the yams & pumpkin pie.

Here is Hao enjoying the Thanksgiving feast

That is one big pile of grandkids, all we are missing is Brandon & Marys bunch. They are in order of age & the 2 little ones had to be held by John & Michael.

The pies & let me tell you there was a lot of them. That pretty much somes of the food part. All I can say is that the Hall's know how to do Thanksgiving. There was 4 turkeys (all cooked differently), pheasants, & a ham, there was also all the usual side dishes & some extras, & there was somewhere between 14-17 pies- there was so many that I lost count.

The next day we went to Alpine to cut down Christmas trees, every family went home with a tree.

On the search for the perfect tree

Marlee enjoyed being carried everywhere, as usual

Our fam, Marlee was laughing at something & wasn't looking at the camera, so Laun was turning her head for her(:

The kids played "horsie" on the aspen tree & every kid got a turn

The boys got pretty high up

Marlee on the other hand did not go very high but, she sure liked it

Here we are with our tree

Roasting hot dogs

I think Marlee had some where around 900 crackers, j/k but she sure can eat

The trailer full of trees

A Marlee size tree

Marlee smiling at her cousin John-John

Laun & I are looking good in our boots. I promise that in real life Laun really does have an amazing smile.

And Marlee has an amazing smile too & an amazing cry.

Before heading home we stopped by the Lollipop Shoppe & the kids loved picking out candy. I personally went for the thrifty ice cream- chocolate malted crunch is the best flavor ever.

Laun thought that even Marlee should get some candy

We had an awesome holiday full of food, fun, & great company.