Sunday, December 30, 2007

Christmas in Kentucky

We flew home on Dec. 26th. Madelyn was a bit of a turkey on the airplane. Poor kiddo didn't feel well and didn't sleep well the night before.(neither did MOM) But we were so glad to be home. However Santa had come to our house and even though it was after 10:00pm, who can wait to open SANTA presents!! We stayed up until 1:00am having Christmas!! Very fun after a long day of traveling. I think we were all just glad to have some space and not be on the airplane anymore! We are still trying to adjust to Kentucky time. Good thing we gave the girls a week before school started it might take us that long to get back on track!

A white Christmas In IDAHO

I had to post this picture for some of you Kentuckians who have never seen this much snow in all of your lives!! For me Christmas isn't the same without some snow. In fact I have a hard time convincing myself that it is winter here in Kentucky, after going home and seeing this!



We had such a fun trip home. We were able to stop and see the Temple square lights in Salt lake city. I am always in awe at how beautiful Temple square always is. I wish our pictures would have turned out better. It was a truly beautiful.

We played in the snow. The girls had so much fun in the snow! Both of their faces were chapped from being out in it so long. They rode for hours on the sled behind the snowmobile. Madelyn wasn't to thrilled with the snow.


We spent some time with Joe's family trying to get all the girls to sit pretty in their new dresses! I hope Grandma got a good one because ours didn't turn out so great!
Thanks Dan and Julie for letting us stay with you!! We had a fun Christmas Party and spent time catching up.

On Christmas Eve the pajama Fairy found us at Grandma's house! And look what she brought the DA D's!! ( Joe is going to kill me!!)

These were so funny complete with the flap in the back!!

Christmas Day was bitter sweet knowing our time was up and we were headed back to Kentucky. None the less Santa found us and informed the girls that he had brought them a little something but there gifts that they really wanted were in Kentucky waiting for them!

We were able to spend Christmas night with Joe's sister and family in Payson Utah. This is one of the few trips we have been able to see everyone!! Including my grandparents, Oh how I love them! Thanks everyone for making Christmas so special this year! We loved spending time with you and miss you all already!!


Friday, December 28, 2007

Thanksgiving memories

We finally got around to getting all of our pictures downloaded again.
So I am back posting for my Journal.

Over Thanksgiving break we had so many leaves in our yard. I always think it is funny because we don't even have a tree in our yard anymore. We had one when we first moved here and it was ant infested. One day a huge limb fell and they had to cut the whole thing down. Anyway, I miss my tree but not so much in the fall. Kaitlyn has become quite good friends with our neighbor Angie. She has a little girl about 6 months older than Madelyn named Anna. Kaitlyn PROMISED Angie she would help her rake her leaves. Kaitlyn helped her one afternoon, and then continued to ask for weeks when she could go rake more leaves. Anyway when we decided to rake our leaves we borrowed Angie's rake so we could get the job done faster. In return we decided to help Angie and rake her whole front yard!! Kaitlyn and Joe did all of it.



The pile was huge and who can resist jumping in a pile that big of leaves! Joe threw Kaitlyn in a few times, until her shoe fell off somewhere in this pile. It was impossible to find. We looked for awhile and then gave up. Once all the leaves were bagged Angie brought the shoe over. She found it before bagging the last bag of leaves! Kaitlyn was so proud of herself and her hard work. I was really proud of her too.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Our Top 2007 List

This is a fun idea. The Yates top 10, in no particular order....

#10- Joe Graduated from Dental School!!! YEAH
#9- We were able to enjoy one more beautiful fall in Kentucky. (We are looking forward to another spring too!!)
#8- Kaitlyn is in 1st grade and has really done well in school. She is reading on a 3rd grade level! Kaitlyn always has a story to tell and can usually be found performing something.
#7- Jenna loves preschool this year, and has started reading! Jenna loves doing little craft projects and doing "homework" in her workbooks.
#6- Madelyn has grown so much this year. She started to walk , talk, dance, play, and she gives great HUGS! I am always so amazed at how much they understand at such a young age.
#5- We have been able to explore Kentucky this year something we had not taken advantage of in previous years. We have been to several state parks, and have enjoyed some overnight adventures camping!
#4- Joe and I have been married for 7 years! ( and he is still putting up with me!)
#3 -We are so blessed to have so many great Friends and Family!
#2- We have been so blessed this year with good health.
#1 -At the last minute, things have fallen into place to go home for Christmas!!

I think I will tag Pam!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

My walmart love hate relationship!

I love walmart prices! However I find myself so MAD at walmart on so many occasions. Last week BOTH our cars needed some attention. The van needed the tires rotated and balanced and the car needed an oil change. Since walmart is cheap we of course bought our tires there, so this service would/should be free. Apparently, you need to purchase a cart load of patience along with the tire warranty. I waited for 2 hours on monday morning with a hungry little toddler who hates shopping. We did our grocery shopping and the lady that brought her car in AFTER mine found me in the dairy section. She had just checked on her car and it was in the shop and nearly finished. Not to draw an obvious conclusion but since I had come in before her, I figured that mine was probably finished. So I bought my things and headed for the tire center. Only to find my car had not moved. Yep still right where I left it, not a thing done to it. I mentioned that I thought they took the cars in the order they arrived and sure enough the lady confirmed this. So why is my car still sitting there you ask, good question. Madelyn was completely loosing it after 2 hours of wondering, so we decided to leave.
The next night we decided to just make an evening of it. We went to Walmart with the 2 vehicles. Joe's car went in first and then the van. So here we ALL are at Walmart at 6:00 at night. First came the "I need to use the bathroom from Kaitlyn and Jenna." So we head into the bathroom only to find not a single piece of toilet paper! Only moments later Jenna starts screaming. Apparently when she sat down somehow the toilet pinched her leg under the lid. ( still not sure HOW this happened) I got Jenna settled down and under control and we go to wash our hands. Here we find only one out of 3 of the motion sensors for the water works!! Great there is now a long line because we held things up with the leg incident, and only one place to wash hands lovely! We find Joe and get in line to pay for our things. We wait FOREVER in line to pay for our items. (this no longer surprises me at walmart, it is a guarantee!) Okay so back to the tire center we go. Joe's car is done! yeah Apparently they can't find the locking hub cap wrench for the van. So I go out to the garage with the guy to get it for him. We get out there and he goes to lower the van. There is this terrible loud crunching noise! The guy swears and then disappears and leaves me standing there. I waited and waited and waited 15 minutes goes by and I am not sure what is going on! I walk back to the service desk . Apparently the lift was not working properly and he had to go get someone to help him. They finally get the Van down and I decided to grab the car seat so I could take my tired kids home and leave Joe to wait for the van. I load all the kids in the car get all the car seats situated and start down the road. We get about 3 blocks and the car starts smoking and smells awful! I turned around and headed back to WALMART! We find that they have over filled the oil and spilled it all over the manifold. By this time the van is done and we see the mechanic pull it out of the garage and go speeding through the parking lot squealing the tires around the corner!! NICE THATS MY CAR!! At this point we were still waiting for Joe's car to cool down enough to check the oil . Joe went in to get the keys for the van. I load all the kids up in the Van this time. Joe comes out to check the oil and Walmart locked the door! Yep we are parked not 3 feet from the door with the hood up. They were aware that there was a problem, and they locked the door anyway! So nothing we can do but head home now. I get in the van and they tossed the oily locking wrench on the console. Oil everywhere. Not to mention all the stuff that once was on the console is spread throughout my car from the crazy mechanic speeding through the parking lot! To top the entire evening off we get home to find out that they actually ended up charging us for the tire rotation which should have been free, and they left a big oil stain on the seat of Joe's car, which is now on both of our PANTS!! Don't you just LOVE WALMART! The funny thing is that we are looking into a practice that is 2 hours from the nearest walmart and I have been sad about it!! My ongoing love hate relationship continues I guess!