Christmas

What a nice picture huh? he he.. This is Christmas Eve. We always open one present that is always pajamas. I love it.

Christmas was good this year, but I don't feel like I was quite like myself. I was so nauseous from being pregnant. I swear even if i kept eating all day I was still sick. So annoying. Good thing this little one will be worth it! Here we are on my mom and dads bed ready to open our stockings. We always do this first thing in the morning. We are getting so big it is getting hard to all fit. It was so fun having Ana here for her first Christmas, she loved it all. Don't we all look beautiful, we just woke up.
Chris did the sweetest thing for me this year for my stocking. Instead of stuffing my stocking he just put little clues for where each present was hidden. Some of them were pretty tricky but I found them all. Poor Chris thought I didn't like it, but really I did. I was just so sick that morning that I was ornery. I really loved it, I couldn't ask for a sweeter husband.

Ana was so cute with all of her toys and wrapping paper. It got me so excited for next year, when I will have my own kiddo here!

Brinker thinks we are crazy and for some reason thinks he needs to lay right where all of the wrapping paper goes. He fell asleep under our huge pile.

We didn't take very many pictures this year. Mostly it is my fault cause my mom wanted to but I just kept saying that I didn't feel good and I didn't look good so not to take any! Notice the mean side of me all of the sudden? I wish I wouldn't have been so ornery. Cause now that I am trying to post we don't have hardly any pictures. Just the ones from that morning. I didn't get any from when I was all ready for the day!

Sean had a great idea this year to have a mustache Christmas. Yuck! All the men in our family grew out there facial hair and surprised us by shaving it all off that morning except their mustaches. They decided that since all of their childhood pictures there dads had them that they should have them for Ana's first Christmas too... I hope it is out of their system, I don't want a repeat of that next year :)

To cute to not post: Little Ana in her Christmas Dress!

Cookie Night

This year at cookie night we had a little surprise to share with our families :) We were so excited to have everyone know... Neither of us are good at keeping secrets! I was thinking we would wait till Christmas when we got together with everyone. But because of my cyst I felt like my stomach was so large that I may as well get to surprise them instead of them figuring it out. So we volunteered to bring the already baked sugar cookies that we frost, so I cut out BABY JOHNS and hid them under the other cookies... We had two pans full of cookies so when we got to my cousins house I got out the pan that didn't have it in it. Chris wasn't there yet and I didn't want them to find it before he got there. Well it took longer than we thought to go through that first pan. Pretty soon my grandma was getting ready to leave soon so I made Chris come in and frost a few cookies to uncover the letters. They finally saw them and it was so fun! It is so nice to not have to try to keep it a secret anymore :)

Here we are with part of our cookie mess...
Rachel, Missy, Logan, Amanda, Ana, Me

At some point the boys caught on to our tradition and started their own. While we do cookies they set up their games. The last 2 years Chris has "had" to set up the projector and they play games all night. It works out well cause then they aren't trying to hurry us along and they enjoy the night just as much as we do.

I was so happy this year cause I was able to make it to my grandpa's grave for Christmas. Every year they light a candle at each headstone in the cemetery. It really is an awesome sight. And a great time to visit him during the holidays! We miss you grandpa, so so much...

Thanksgiving

Me, Aaron, Amanda

Thanksgiving this year: We started off the day going to Chris's parents house and having a nice big breakfast. We hung out there for most of the day and then headed out to my Aunt and Uncles for dinner. Of course I ate way to much that day, and I was feeling pretty sick. At this point my dang cyst was still causing me quite a lot of pain and my stomach felt HUGE. So yes I already look pregnant in this picture. It is always fun to get together with everyone. We have so much to be thankful for this year. Especially with finding out we have this sweet little one on the way! We can't wait. And to be just about moving into our house has been a rush, and poor Chris has been on his own finishing things up since I have had to take it easy...
Here I am playing with miss Ana. She is so dang cute and I love the holidays cause it means I get to see a lot more of my favorite people!

Halloween

This year for Halloween I worked. I always work because all of the girlies that have kids want it off so us non-children girls get to be there. So we make the best out of the day by pretty much eating that whole day. We decided to dress up as "busy bees" with our manager being our queen bee. Aren't we clever? :) It was a good day.

I love all of our Halloween festivities we do every year. We always make yummy sugar cookies and decorate them. And Brinker always is very interested.

And of course carve our JACK-O-LANTERNS...

Perfect Fall Day

Fall... It was so nice the other day so I decided to go out with the pets and enjoy some sun. They were being so silly that I decided to take a few pictures.

Why can't there be more of these days...

Cakes I have made recently

CAKE ANYONE?

This cake above was made for my friend Heather's little boy Chips 2nd birthday. I was very happy with how it turned out. She picked out the colors so I tried to match it the best I could to her other decorations. Anyways I thought it turned out super cute! I was surprised how good the bow on top turned out since it was the first that I have ever made.

This sweet little cupcake was made for a little ladies first birthday. I wish I would have been there to see her darling little hands dig into it.

This cake was made for my friend Laurens Baby shower.

I have loved learning different things about making cakes these last few months. It has become quite the hobby! I honestly look forward to baking anything and am constantly looking for an excuse to make a cake. I think I am starting to get some pretty good muscles from making my fondant and rolling it out. Sometimes it takes forever to get it just the right color. But I LOVE it... I have always wanted to start making decorative cakes, but finally I am doing something about it. I have so many cakes I want to make still so look for more to come! Actually maybe I will start a new blog so I don't have to bore everyone with my new found love :)

Camping Trip- Mirror Lake

The word that best describes camping this year was COLD. We seriously froze the whole time we were up at Mirror Lake. When we first got to our camping spot there was snow on the ground. Our camping spot was beautiful cause we were right next to the lake but it was almost to cold to enjoy! We all had as many layers on that we could possibly fit. So if we look a little fat that is why.

Even though it was freezing Chris still got plenty of fly fishing done with my Dad. And we still found time to take our raft out onto the lake. We had to be Very careful to make sure that no water got into the raft. Cause I didn't want my thermals to get wet!

This was the second night. We were out making dinner. We spent the day outside for the most part but after dinner we played cards in the heated trailer. And drank hot chocolate. We had all of my favorite camping food. We cooked in the dutch oven both nights.


It was a very fun trip... But I think we were all ready to go home. Who would have thought that camping in Aug. would be so cold!

shakespearean festival

Our annual Shakespearean Festival trip was so fun this year... I look forward to this Johns Family tradition every year. It is fun to get to spend time with" just family". This year we got to see The Comedy of Errors, As you Like it, and Henry V. By far I thought that Comedy of Errors was the best this year. This picture above is our seats for the plays... It is the same row, same seats for every play, same time every year. Papa Johns does not mess around with getting our tickets. He gets our tickets over a year in advance to make sure that we have the right seats...

Here is my cute brother... He came with us this year for the plays. It was a lot of fun to have him out there with us.

This Year The Johns rented a cabin in Brianhead. It was very pretty out there. The temperature was perfect out there. Chris, Ben, and Charity's boyfriend Chris went mountain biking during the days while the rest of us just relaxed and took walks around the area. One of the days My brother Aaron, Charity, and I went shopping down in St. George. I found lots of cute stuff! The cabin that we stayed at was super cute. We had plenty of space to fit all of us.

The only problem that we had with the cabin was down in mine and Chris's room(and only in that 1 room) there was about a million crickets. The first night we slept down there I saw a few. The next day while I was down there getting ready I saw way to many. And they were HUGE. Then just to top it all off I started seeing a few spiders. Not OK... So we moved up to the bunk beds in the loft. Which was fine with me. As long as those stupid bugs weren't near me.