Tucano's

We love this place!  It is always amazing!  This time we were lucky enough to go with the ENTIRE Winn family!  Dad bought us all gift cards here for Christmas so naturally we used them together!  Thanks for a fun night guys!

The Whole Family

Can you tell Madi was excited for that giant chocolate cake??

Silly faces from Cody & Lexi

I don't think anyone enjoyed dessert as much as Halli!!

I have lost my mind...

Seriously, I have lost my mind. Don't believe me? Want me to prove it? Fine, I will.

It was a cold January morning, 5:42 am, I was DRIVING down the freeway on my way to work when all of a sudden I got really anxious.  I had forgotten my CAR KEYS!! I frantically began searching the pockets of my coat, the pockets of my hoodie, the pockets of my scrubs, my purse, my cup holders, yes even the ignition.  I finally found my keys on the passenger seat when I realized, I am still DRIVING.  So obviously my keys were somewhere with me!

I am grateful for modern marvels, such as my key-less entry and the fact that my car keys don't have to be in the ignition to drive, they must simply be in the car.  It's really nice and convenient. I have even become very lazy when driving other vehicles that require a key to start the car.  But on mornings when I have left my brain in bed, it would be nice to know my keys are nice and safe in the ignition!!

Told you I had lost it.  Someday I may stumble across it.

Stacie & Tyson...Are Moving!

So Stacie & Tyson are moving...to Kansas!  Crazy huh!  Stacie thankfully doesn't leave for a few months but Tyson however leaves next week.  Of course we wanted to get together before he leaves us so we headed to Famous Dave's!  We love going here with these guys!  We always get the All American Feast which we were able to polish off once upon a time but now we must be weak because we had TONS left! We ended up being there for several hours just chatting!  It was so fun to go out with both of you for one last time!  Good luck, Tyson! You will do great at Cerner! And don't worry, we will be coming to visit sometime soon!

Life...

Life has been going good, very busy, but good.  We are just holding on tight, trying to enjoy the ride!  There has been lots of work, visiting with Amanda & Stacie, visiting Marci & her new cute baby, babysitting Briele (I just LOVE her!!), dinners with family & friends, sending out Christmas cards (yup, I just mailed them, and don't feel bad if you don't get one, pretty much I only had time to send them to grandparents!), dinner & movie nights with Thurston's, Raymond has started school so lots of homework, lots of scouts activities, lots of cleaning...I had glitter everywhere from our Christmas Decor, like I said...busy. Being busy helps keep us warm, and since our house is FREEZING, thats great!  Hope everyone is having a wonderful January!

Happy New Year!

Our new year celebration was quite mellow this year which was great by me.  We started building our storage room since we have been trying to get to it for months and we both had a few days off.  We spent new years eve building, had a delicious steak & potato dinner, then we headed to Brigham and hung out with the Whipple's for a couple hours.  We played a new game that was really fun!  I think it's called Things, I want to get it!  Then we headed over to Thurston's to hang out, eat some good snacks, watch a movie and ring in the new year!  I got a nice big smooch at midnight, which I quite enjoyed!

On new years day we went to church, worked on the storage room, had a good nap and then we went to Cody's house to have dinner with him, Lexi, Jess & Kip.  Once again, delicious steaks...I promise we do eat other things too!  Lexi and Briele wore me out!  Those two gals are SO active! On Monday, I ended up getting to hang out with Lexi which was great, we played games, watched movies, ate pizza and snuggled!! Raymond and our friend Danny worked on our storage room and then we worked our day away til we went to bed!  Not the most relaxing couple days off but we are so happy our storage room is well on its way to being finished!! Yay!!

New Years Eve & Day

So I had been gradually getting ill since before Texas.  As we were flying, I realized the near-death of me due to explosion of my sinuses is not normal and it only got worse as time went on.  So at the cabin I was getting sicker & sicker to the point of severely disturbing my sleep, and Raymond's.  So then when we got home it hit hard!  I was miserable and completely useless.  So it kinda put a crinkle in our New Year plans.  We had planned on partying it up with the Thurston's but instead we headed over to Jess & Kip's (since they don't care if I am a sniffling sneezing germ infested mutant).  We were able to hang out with them Briele and my dad.  We had a delicious steak & Cajun shrimp dinner with wrapped jalapeños & stuffed mushrooms...seriously my favorite meal!  We played Smart A** like 10 times and watched some of the New Year's Eve show at Times Square. It was way fun! On New Year's Day we chilled throughout most of the day and then we went to El Parrel for dinner with Jess & Kip and Cody & Lisa.  We then played the Wii and relaxed at Cody & Lisa's.  It was a great day!!

The Cabin @ Causey

We were so lucky to be able to go up to Michelle & Dani's family cabin just after Christmas.  It was such a nice retreat! We had to snowmobile all of our gear into the cabin and then we got to spend 4 days undisturbed up in the mountains!  We had lots of snow, it snowed the ENTIRE day on Tuesday which we loved until we got to the truck on Thursday and realized we had to dig it out!! We played lots of games.  We got Smart A** for Christmas and it was a really fun one. We also played lots of Settlers Of Catan.  We watched lots of The OC and lots of movies.  We fit some time in for reading, sledding, Just Dance on the Wii (which Michelle is ridiculously good at, Danny wont play due to embarassment, Blake has a rough time with the coordination, and well Raymond and I rock at it!!) and of course eating!  Thanks so much for taking us with you, it was a BLAST!

*M's big ol Popsicle!!

Michelle would usually be competing for 1st place even while holding *M!

Michelle's specialty...5 meat 5 cheese artery clogging delicious pizza! Only one of our many delicious dishes over the week! 

The view out front of the cabin, we were so secluded! It was great, notice how covered our snowmobiles are!

Mr & Mrs

Michelle & *M

Danny & Blake 

Danny & *M

This is right after Raymond had taken out Blake sledding down the hill, and Raymond is throwing up.  Nice, huh!

It was gorgeous and perfect!

Merry Christmas!!

We had a great Christmas this year, lots of fun surprises, lots of family, lots of food, games, presents, and fun!

Brenda/Santa's Helper was kind enough to come hide the pickle for us, I found it so I got a special present Santa had brought!  It ended up being Just Dance 2!  Yay, Santa knows just what I like!

I had wanted this door re-finished forever and Raymond surprised me with it!  I love it!

Christmas Morning

Proof that you really can surprise your husband Christmas morning...like really surprise! Follow the pictures...here is picture 1...

Picture 2...

Picture 3...

Picture 4...he loved it!

Raymond surprised me as well, I got a Wii!  Yay! I had no idea, like truly he kept the best secret...to the point that he let me buy us a Wii while in Texas to be our gift from Santa!  Yup, 2 Wii's! Greatest thing is Raymond got his on KSL so it had lots of games and extra controllers and the wireless motion sensor, which was great!  And my mom was more than happy to take the 2nd Wii off of our hands!  Way to keep the surprise, babe!

This year, Christmas was at Steve & Jodi's.  This is the stack of presents for everyone!  Dinner and everything was great! Thanks guys!

The girls loved opening presents!

Mom & Raymond, Ray's new cool noise activated shirt!

Kip's new hat he promised to wear if he got one, therefore dad got him one!

Lisa made all the girlies cute tutu's!

Grandma gave them all princess dresses!

Jess, Kip, Briele 

Everyone got into Just Dance on the Wii, Jodi was a pro her first time playing.  My Dad exclaimed during Hot n Cold by Katy Perry..."I don't have boobs so how am I supposed to graze them?!" Some of the dance moves are a little suggestive?

Mr & Mrs

The girls loved the personalized books I gave them...yay!

They gave grandpa a great new hairstyle!

Lexi & Grandma

Madi LOVES the camera!

Halli is starting to like it as well!

Briele couldn't care less about all the presents & festivities, she did however love everyone snuggling on her!  Look how cute she looks!!

Lexi's version of how Spiderman would sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"...no idea where she got this from!

Madi's cute dancing!

It was a great Christmas!  We were so happy to be able to spend time with our families & each other! We are grateful for all that we have been given, for our life together, and our families!  We are truly blessed beyond our wildest dreams!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with this fun crowd.  We had our traditional baked potato bar, cookies, nativity scene, the kids got their matching jammies from  grandma & grandpa, the adults did a gift exchange and we got a new book, I know my Savior Loves Me,  from Mom & Dad.  I had been eying the book at Deseret Book for weeks so I was really excited when we opened it. It was such a fun night, we had a great time with all of the family!

All of the grandkids, we even had *B on skype, notice the laptop to the left!

I thought this was too cute not to post.  *R just steals my heart!

The Day Before The Night Before Christmas Party

Every year the whole Stapel family has a "Day before the night before Christmas Party" or "Egg-Nogger" for short.  It is way fun to be able to see the whole family and eat lots of food and play an insanely fun game of white elephant exchange.  My aunts & uncles are very quirky so they make it very fun!

Cody & Briele

Lisa & Lexi

Halli, Madi, Jess

Me, Halli, & Lexi...we just can't get enough of these girls

Steve & Jodi...special!

Lexi, Madi, Halli, Grandma

We are kinda cute sometimes.

Some of the family during our white elephant exchange

Cody Lisa Lexi

Jess & Briele

Steve Jodi Madi Halli

Mom & Dayne

Raymond's true identity!