Merry Christmas!!!

We went down to Bear Lake for Christmas this year. The whole family was able to get together this year. It was fun to see Liv play with her cousins. Grandma and Grandpa had all the kids make ginger bread houses on Christmas Eve. I think Liv ate more of the house peices then anything but it was still fun for everyone.
Merry Christmas morning!!!!

On Christmas morning, Olivia came out and immediately went to this car. She loved it. Too bad it wasn't hers but Ezra's. As you can see she wanted to stay in it, and also have that hat taken off her head. She sat in it whenever she could. Around 10 in the morning Ezra came up to me and asked if he could sit in her car. I felt so bad, he didn't even know it was his!!! Ha ha. He soon realized who the rightfull owner was and I won't lie, their were some brawls the rest of the day.

The 3 Payne grandchildren... pretty cute bunch huh??

Ezra, Olivia, and Amelia

If she wasn't in that car, she was pushing around her new baby and stroller. She is such a baby girl.

We all went and visted Casey's Grandma Payne on Christmas. I think it made her so happy to see our whole little family, especially the cute kiddos.

Yes, I put ponies in her hair!!! Yeah!!! She has just a tiny bit but I am still able to do her hair a bit. It makes me happy and I think she looks dang cute. We left Bear Lake Christmas afternoon and were able to stop by my mom and dad's house that evening. Of course, they spoiled Olivia. She got a table and chair set and a kitchen set from them. They are so cute and she LOVES them!! Also, Casey kinda dropped the ball on one of Liv's presents. She is in love with the Backyardigans so he wanted to get her a couple of stuffed animals of them. He ordered them the beginning of December... or so we thought. We checked around the 20th because we still hadn't received them and found that Casey actually never ordered them. He felt so bad and ordered them then. We did not expect to get them for Christmas. But when we came home from Bear Lake, we found them sitting on our doorstep so we took them to may parent's to open. And, like Casey thought, she was so excited. She loves those two stuffies and carries them around most of the day and sleeps with them at night. Overall, we had a great Christmas and had so much fun. I can't believe 2009 is almost over. I can't believe this coming year my baby girl will be 2! And we graduate! Fun things to come.

Merry late Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!!!

Family Pics

Well, we had these family pictures taken the end of September... I thought maybe I would finally put some up!!!












Livie is growing like a weed. She is talking like crazy.. she cracks us up with some of the things she says. I don't think I ever posted this story so I will now... about a month ago, she was eating a sandwich for lunch and had shoved a huge piece of bred in her mouth. I told her "Liv, you've got to chew." She replied "I know" with as much attitude you would expect from a teenager. I am kinda nervous when she actually is a teenager. Right now her favorite thing to tell me is "No way" when I ask her to do anything. This last month she has fallen in love with the Backyardigans. If you don't know what they are, they are a cartoon on NickJr. They are pretty cute. She would never sit and watch anything but now she begs to watch them. She calls them "QR" because she has an ABC book with the Backyardigans and those are her favorite letters to sing. Is it bad that every once in awhile I will turn an episode on so I can actually get something done? :( Oh well I guess.

Casey and I have about 3 weeks of school left and then it is Christmas vacation!! I am so excited. We will both be done in May. I can't believe the end is in sight. I found out where I am student teaching, it's at Lewis and Clark, 2nd grade, with Mrs. Hillyer. Anybody know her? I am meeting with her on Wednesday, hopefully we get along since we will be spending a LOT of time together next semester!!

Cute as a bug!!

Well, Halloween has came and gone and did we have fun!!! Little Livie made the cutest chubby ladybug. She did not know what was going on but thought it was pretty neat when Mommy put makeup on her and then later people gave her candy!! We went and trick or treated about two blocks in Old Town and then went to the trunk or treat at our ward. Livie got the hang of it and realized these random people were giving her candy!! It was so cute to see her put it in her little bucket, except suckers, she really likes them and would try to put them straight in her mouth. Even though we were only out about 2 hours total, she was pretty tired by the end and just sat down in the middle of the parking lot watching all the kids. Overall we had fun, and Mommy and Daddy have been enjoying some extra candy around the house!!

Bed Head

The other day, I went and got Livie up from her nap and this is what I found...



A little (but adorable) case of bed head!!!

Conference weekend in Bear Lake

We decided to go down to Casey's parents for Conference weekend (Well, actually, Casey wanted to go down for the opening of hunting season and it just happened to be Conference weekend but it sounds nicer if we say we went for Conference and not hunting). We went down Thursday after we both got off work so we didn't get to Bloomington until about 9:00 that night. Casey was up and hunting early that morning and got his elk around 7:30 AM.


The mighty hunters, Kelly (Casey's dad), Casey, and John. Casey was so excited to go hunting, he had been counting down the days to go for a couple of weeks! Personally, I don't see how it is so fun... you have to get up WAY too early, walk around in the snow looking for a huge animal, and then when you shoot the huge animal, you have to drag it, clean it, and hang it. Really?? What do all these guys see in this?? So, why the boys were out being boys, us girls headed to Logan for some shopping. My little sister-in-law KJ had to get some things for the big Homecoming dance so KJ, my mother-in-law, Liv, and I hit the streets of Logan. We had a lot fun and KJ is going to look oh so pretty for Homecoming!

On Saturday, we all got to sit, relax, and watch Conference. I love Conference. First of all, you get to stay home for the weekend in you PJs. I do admit, this is probably the conference that I paid the least attention to. A toddler running around and not being able to leave Mommy's sight and side attributes to that. Between sessions, we went out and played with the big dogs. My in-laws have 3 crazy labs, but they are so much fun. Dexter likes to pretend that he is a big dog and runs and fetches with them. It is hilarious to watch and he usually gets rolled at least once. You have to look hard but he is in the back of this picture just loving life!!

Dexter, Macy, Duke, and Sugar

Watching the puppies (Don't mind the butt in the background, I'm not even sure who it is!)


I said early that she never left my side, and she didn't most of the time, so when she snuggled up to KJ I had to get a picture. Olivia LOVED her Aunt KJ. She learned how to say KJ the first day and would holler for her all through the house and the Logan mall. It was pretty cute. Olivia had a lot of fun at her Grandparent's house, especially when Grandma Julie got out the play kitchen. I didn't know if she would really play with it but she has so much fun!! She was getting dishes out, was stirring pots, and made dinner with Daddy. I guess she watches and pays attention more than we realize!!



I love this picture. My two cute children (Yes, I am weird and consider my little puppy a child). There were cows out this window and Olivia loved to look out the window and moo at the cows. Dexter, of course, loved to growl and bark at them. We had so much fun in Bear Lake!! We don't get to go there nearly as much as we would like too but when ever we go it is great.


I had to add this picture. It is not from our trip but was actually taken tonight. Olivia woke up from her nap with the funniest bed head. Her hair was sticking straight up so I got it a little wet and put it into a Mohawk. Now, I am not a huge Mohawk fan, especially on little girls, but look!! You can actually see that my baby has hair!! YEAH!! Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to put it in a couple of cute pigtails by the time she turns 2! She has 9 1/2 months to grow it out!

...

Aren't these the cutest leggings ever???





Besides wanting to show everyone those cute leggings (courtesy of my Auntie Denise), I decided maybe I should update what is going on in our lives. So here it is, an update on the members in the Payne household...

Casey (AKA Daddy, Dada, and Case)
- Working over 40 hours a week at Cole Chevrolet
- Taking 16 credits of Business classes at ISU
- Comes home at night and tries to study... unfortunately he usually doesn't get to start that until after 9:00 when the little princess (AKA Olivia) goes to bed.
- Entertains/plays with/chases around the little princess
- Celebrated 3 wonderful years of marriage to his wife on September 8th
- Got a beautiful new dining room table for his anniversary and dinner at Chili's
- The little extra time he has, he tries to make visits to people in the ward for his calling.
- As you can see, my poor husband runs, runs, runs, all day. He works so hard but still makes time to have fun and be a great daddy and husband.

Kristi (AKA Mommy, Mama, and Kris)
- Working only about 15 hours a week at Syringa Wireless
- Only taking 9 credits of education classes at ISU (which I LOVE...not ISU, just my classes)
- Chases/cleans up/entertains/bathes/plays with/etc the all ready named princess the majority of my days.
- LOVES that I get to chase/clean up/entertain/bathe/play with/etc the all ready named princess the majority of my days!
- Celebrated 3 wonderful years of marriage to my husband on September 8th
- Got a beautiful new dining room table for my anniversary and dinner at Chili's (can you tell we did joint gifts?)
- Looking forward to student teaching in the Spring and going to find out where I get to go in about 6 weeks!


Little princess (AKA Olivia, Liv, Livie, Olive Oil, Willis, and Lou Lou)
- Is getting TOO big TOO fast
- Now has 4 teeth (3 on bottom and 1 on top) and about 4 that are going to be making their debut very soon.
- Does not walk but RUNS every where (she gets this from her dad, I guess when he was little he ran every where too)
- Is still silly and goofy and already has a great sense of humor
- Says many words including hi, hello, Dad, Mom, Lou Lou, blue, yellow, red, Angel, Dex, flower, hot, cheese, teeth, eyes, and a couple of others that are not completely clear but we know what she is trying to say
- Still loves her books and reads them all day
- Can get herself up and down Grandma's couch... thank goodness ours is still a little too tall for her
- Knows what her head, toes, eyes, and tongue are
- Still gets babysat by Grandpa Randy while Mom is in class on Mondays and by Grandma Terri when Mom is at work.
- Climbs the stairs at church and then bangs on the door to the Nursery... man, I can't wait until she is 18 months!!
- Still has her Mommy, Daddy, Grandparents, Aunt, and Uncle wrapped around her little finger!!!



Livie "helping" Grandpa with his pontoon boat

Family Trip to Park City

We decided to take a family trip before school started so we decided to take a quick trip down to Park City. I LOVE Park City so I was so excited to go. This was actually our first family trip with Livie and we had so much fun. We stayed in some condos that were right by the outlet malls. They were a little ways away from the stuff in Park City but they were pretty nice so we didn't mind too much.

Picture of our little condo. The bedroom and bath were off to the left. And it had a king bed!! We never thought we would like a king but I think that is something we could get used to!!



Our balcony... precious daddy daughter moment :) The view from the balcony was great. There wasn't anything behind us and it was a clear shot of the Olympic park ski jumps. On Saturdays they do demos on the jumps... too bad we went Wednesday through Friday so we didn't get to see any.





For some reason, Olivia really liked this little water floaty thing. She would pull it all around and then sit in it with her books and blankie.




We went on the alpine slide while we were there. Casey had done it before but it was my first time. I think I should have liked it more... I guess I am kind of a pansy. I just really hate chair lifts so I think I was still freaked out from that while I was going down the slide. Casey had a lot of fun though!! We had to take turns since Livie couldn't go. Then we took Livie on the merry-go-round. She didn't know what to think about it but towards the end I think she was having fun.







Family picture. We don't get many of these... even if they are self-portrait style.





We went swimming each night. Olivia seemed to really like the water.









Well that was our trip. It wasn't too long but still great to get away and we had a lot of fun. School starts Tuesday so there goes the bulk of our time. Casey is taking 16 credits and still working full time at Cole Chevrolet so he will be extra busy. I only have 9 credits so it won't be too bad. Livie is now running around our house like a crazy lady, I knew she would pick up the walking thing like a champ!!!