Javier's

We had so much fun last night at dinner and I wanted to post our picture from Javier's. We got as many as our siblings together last night as we could for dinner and we went to Javier's. The food was super yummy and the company was even better.

Movie Night!

So, Emily and Shawnee went to "Time out for Women" on Friday night so we decided to have a "Movie Night" at Mom and Dad's house. Casey borrowed a projector and we projected some movies on the wall in the big room. Zack and Lila were thrilled with watching TMNT because Zack is totally into "'inja Turtles." Nat made popcorn and Mom made carmel popcorn and we had such a fun night hanging out together. After the kids went to bed, the adults watched "Eagle Eye" and after that Danny, Wayne, and Nick watched "Transformers 2" until 3 am. It was such a fun night and was so fun to just hang out with family. We missed our family members who weren't there.

Here are the popcorn makers.

We spread out blankets and rearranged the couches.

Brady hadn't sat down by the time I started taking pictures but I wanted to document that he was there.

Dan and Shan hanging out (This is their last night of not being engaged.)

Here's the group. Notice that Zack and Lila are completely sucked into the show but Abby's bouncing and running around everywhere...that's how it was the whole night.

I noticed that even though I tried hard to get everyone in the picture who was there, I failed to get a picture of me (Tami) in any pictures, but I was really there!!! I didn't get any of Andy either. I'm not sure what he was doing...probably playing with his new 4-wheeler.

More "like father, like son"

The latest obsession at the Haws Household.

Yesterday they seriously considered golfing in a hurricane, that's how dedicated they are!

Christmas Pictures (in no particular order)

So I have tons of pictures from this past week with Christmas and all and I thought I would just share them with you all. The first couple are from today but the rest are pretty much from Christmas Day. Enjoy!Benson drumming away. I took this one for Danny (aka Elder Haws).

This is Nick today. Brady gave Nick this suit and I thought it looked fancy on him. He was shoveling the driveway when we got home. Thanks for the suit Brade!

Our "official" 2008 Christmas photo.

Mom's gifts to open Christmas morning. She also got a dishwasher a couple days prior to Christmas. (Santa is very self-less.)

Andy and Cory's piles.

Dad's chair surrounded in gifts.

Nick and Tami's piles. Nick really spoiled me this year, like always.

This is what it looked like after Santa left. Looks nice and clean!

So those of you who live in the area know that we got tons of snow on Christmas night. It was so bad that McKenzie's parents told her not to even try to drive home, and Nat and Casey didn't want to deal with driving in the snow and stuff, so we all had a "sleepover" at Mom and Dad's. Nick and I drove down the street and got our air mattress and then we pulled out some mattresses for Nat & Casey and also for McKenzie. Andy just slept on the couch. It was actually really fun. We watched "Head Over Heels" and then fell asleep!

What would the sleepover be without balloon animals made by Casey? Nick is sporting his super cool crown or hat that Casey made him.

Shanna was talking to Danny. (She doesn't look happy does she?)

Dad sporting his new basketball shoes that Nat & I (and our spouses) got for him.

Shawnee & Brady

Ronola

Shanna and Cory

Nick and Tami

Casey, Nat, & Cory

McKenzie and Andy

Mom went crazy with making quilts for everyone. These are the ones she made for Andy & Cory. Nick says this was a "Quilted Christmas."

Dad with his hot air balloon quilt that Mom made him. (I used this one at our sleepover and it was FABULOUS!!!)

Emily, Nat, and I secretly surprised Mom with making a quilt with some fabric that she used to sew things when we were little. I'm pretty sure she liked it. She started crying when we asked her what the fabric was from. Big hit I think.

Okay this is my favorite picture and this is why I saved it for last. I am posting this mostly for Danny but I thought I would let you all see how much weight Dad has lost. He fits into Danny's leather jacket that Danny wore right before he went on his mission. Dad, that's amazing. We're all proud of you for losing that much weight!

Anyway, we really had a fun Christmas and it was fun to be able to talk to each of you (my family members) on Christmas. I am really grateful for each of you and for all that you've done for Nick and I. We love you all so much!

Happy Happy Birthday...

Happy Birthday Brady. It's still officially your birthday in your half of the country, so hopefully you'll forgive me for posting this late... I never was really good at being on time, you know!

I just wanted to wish my little brother a happy birthday. I hope you've had a good day (knowing Shawnee, I'm sure she had something fun planned!) Brade, I want you to know how much I love you. Over the last 27 years you and I have had our share of "disagreements" on things, but we've also been the best of friends. I wish I had a picture of that cute little blonde boy. Man you were adorable (and you knew it!) I see so much of that little boy in my little boy. I only hope that his sisters will love him the way that I love you.

I could go on and on with stories (embarrassing ones) and mushy stuff that would make mom and Tami cry, but I'll keep it simple tonight. I just want to tell you a couple of things. I want you to know how proud I am of you. I know you've always hated that I feel responsible for you and that I always tried (ok, try) to boss you around, but I am so proud of the man you have grown into. I remember trying to teach you to open the doors for girls and when I see the way you treat Shawnee I feel so proud that you're such a good husband (and I totally recognize that the way you treat her has nothing to do with the stuff I tried to teach you in high school!) I also watch you with my kids and know that you're going to be an amazing dad someday. I was talking to our dad today and I think he captured the essence of you... "he's just a little kid in a big kid's body." I love that about you (most of the time!!) :) You're so fun and playful and sweet with my kids and I love watching how much they love you. You're a good kid. You always have had a good heart.

Happy birthday, little brother. I wish I could be there with you to celebrate. I love you more than I can write about in this blog! Know that I've been thinking of you today!

Love, your big sis!

New Blog

I'm pretty sure most of you have seen my email, but in case not, we've joined the blogging world with a blog of our own. It's shawneeandbrady.blogspot.com. Feel free to add a link to your own blogs! :)

Happy Anniversary

I meant to do this yesterday, but it was a crazy day, so sorry it's late, but I wanted to tell Brady and Shawnee happy anniversary and I hope you're loving Mexico!

Gingerbread Houses and Snowshoeing

It's been a while since we've posted, so I thought I'd share some of our recent activities with all of you. For family night a few weeks ago, we made a gingerbread house. I was skeptical at first when Brady brought it home (he did buy it in October, so maybe that's why), but we actually had a lot of fun. Here are some pics:




Brady has decided to take on another sport...snowshoeing. This is a good thing because snow is soft to fall on and I can't think of anything he'd cut himself on, so I think we're pretty safe (as long as we stay away from avalanches!). :) Actually, we've been saying we need a "winter sport" because I don't ski and so winter is cold and long and snowshoeing seems to be pretty fun so far. It was a beautiful (still cold) day on Saturday and we had planned to go "full-moon-shoeing" (where you hike at night under the light of a full moon) but plans changed and we went during the day instead. I was glad for that because it was cold in the day and I can only imagine what it was like at night. It was awesome because we were just walking around in the snow like we were the only people on earth. There was about 2-3 feet of freshly fallen snow which made it nice, not to mention the aerobic workout. We went with our friend Spencer (and his dog, Katie) and Brady's boss, Greg. The one bad thing was seeing how bad the valley air really is when you're up above it...we all really need to take care of our environment! (That's a soapbox for another day!) Here are more pics:




Oh, and just for fun, here's our Christmas tree!
Merry Christmas everyone!

Conference Weekend

Well, it seems about time that I make a post on here. I have added some new posts to my blog but I thought I would add some to this blog. These pictures are from after priesthood session of conference. I tried to take a picture of everyone that was there.

I know this looks dangerous, but Nick is just inspecting the air soft gun. Good thing we saved him some pizza...
Boys and their girls.


I really just walked around to take a picture of everyone and I captured exactly how it was with these pictures.
I tried to get them to smile but this was the best they would give me.
We were making frankeinstein candy dishes and McKenzie was making a vampire one. Look at nickandtami.blogspot.com to see my completed one.

Nat just got done feeding Benson. He was posed very cute so we took some pictures.
Notice that Benson was all decked out for the hunt.
This is one of the first times Andy held Benson. Can you tell?
The girls

Zero Gravity

So Danny, Greg (mine and Andy's boss) and I spent Friday & Saturday down in the San Rafael Swell doing a slot canyon. We did the slot called Zero Gravity. It was a blast! We drove down on Friday afternoon after work and camped near the slot. We woke up early on Saturday and broke camp and headed out. We knew we would get wet, but this slot was pretty full of water which is a good thing. We all got wet, no avoiding that. We did some semi-extreme stuff too. We swam under a bridge from one pothole to another. We also jumped into a pool that was easily 12 feet deep or more (I didn't take many pictures, but there is a pic of the spot we jumped in at here. Third set of pictures on the left). All in all it was just plain fun. Here are a few pics. The videos and the rest of the pictures are on my Picasa page here.

Danny & Greg standing on the bridge we swam under

Danny on top of the bridge we swam under

Brady standing in the pothole

Danny & Greg at the end of a swim