Happy New Year!! One great thing about living in Texas, we get to do fireworks on New Years Eve. Kayley insisted she needed her monkey mask to help her she in the dark. Mark put on a show for us and the neighbors!

Christmas morning! It didn't take long to completely destroy this room.

Four days before Christmas, it was 80 degrees outside. We went to the park to enjoy it!

We took the kids for a walk before a BBQ and smores!

Aunt Azure and Aunt Kristin soaking up some sun!

Mark's parents, sister Kristin, Brother John and his wife Azure, came with us. It was good to spend with family.

Playing in the ocean never gets old!

We had a another great day at the beach yesterday! The weather was perfect, in the low 80s. We heard that it was snowing like crazy in Utah. I was glad to be here instead of there :)

I had the best birthday today! I got to spend it with my family. It was another great day at the beach. We came home covered in sand, but it was worth it!

This is what happens when Wyatt doesn't get a nap. I'm glad that he at least moved his plate back first :)

The kids wanted to watch a movie in a tent, so I came up with sort of a tent. They loved it, so I guess it was a success! Yes that is a tipped over play-in-pack

Trick or treating!



Kayley's dance class. She is waring the lady bug costume she had picked out to ware at the Trunk or Treat, but then didn't want to. She wouldn't ware it Trick or Treating ether. At least she wore it somewhere!

They learned a little dance to show to the parents...so cute!

After the Trunk or Treat! They didn't waste any time digging into the chocolate.

The ward Trunk or Treat! It was a lot of fun. Grandma and Grandpa Howe, and Aunt Kristin came too! That was great.

Kayley was going to be a lady bug, so we would have a lady bug, a bumble bee, and a spider. But Kayley changed her mind. At the last minuet she decided to be a bee like Wyatt. It was cute to have them match, but people kept mistaking Wyatt for a little girl, so I guess it wasn't such a good idea.

Wyatt is such a good hugger! I love that!! It has been nice to have some one on one time with him while Kayley is in school. What a fun little guy. He says the funniest things. Today, when he saw Mark stepping out into the garage, he said " be careful dad, there are ants and spidermans out there". It's a good thing he is looking out after his dad.

I was thinking about my brother today. He is entering the MTC in two days. It is so hard to believe!! It feels like it was not long ago when it was me going to the MTC, and Seph was just 7! He and I had a close relationship and it was hard for me leave him as I figured life would never be the same once I left and such was the case. I began dating Mark as soon as I returned, and was married 6 months later. I still saw Seph often, but our one on one time together lessened so much. Then we moved to Tooele which lessened the amount of time we saw each other even more. Once in while Seph and Landon would come out for a visit and spend the night we would stay up late and laugh. I remember they loved playing the playstation (they didn't have one at home) and they would talk me into playing with them I would agree if I got to pick the game. It was usually a race car game. And we would play chess. I loved having them come! I was always sad when they had to go.

As Seph got older he got more and more social with his friends as most teenagers do. And I began having kids...but every time the family got together I would see him and notice that he had grown another few inches, and have the chance to catch up on each others lives. I have always been amazed at his intelligents, his love for the gospel, and way he has always known who he is and what he wants. Seph has always loved being a Smith. (Especially a Joseph Smith :) He is proud of his heritage. I was very moved by his farewell talk. It was so good! As I listened I realized how much he had matured. I am so proud of my little (big) brother! I know he will some amazing work on his mission. I love you Seph! We will always have "chair in the air"

It was so good to be in Utah again a few weeks ago! It was such a quick visit, but I was able finally meet my new beautiful nieces, and show off my new little one to my family. Plus I got to go to my brother's mission farewell. I am glad I got to see him before he leaves.

I love this picture except that it is missing Jeannine. I have the cutest sisters and brothers!!

It was the best day to be at the beach yesterday! I could have stayed there forever. Ryan loves to be outside. He was so content the whole time.

I have been meaning to do this for a long time now. Especially since we moved to Texas. That was almost 4 years ago... So much has happened since then. For one thing our family has grow 2 more people! When we moved here it was Mark, myself and our 15 month old Kayley. I will never forget the almost 30 hour drive straight from Salt Lake City to Houston. We left on Thanksgiving in 2006. That was the beginning of our adventure and new life in Texas. We made the decision to move here for a few reasons. First of all at that time we were living with my parents with hopes to find a house that we could afford, but the market had exploded and prices sky rocketed. Marks brother and his family had moved to Houston for his wife's job transfer. They told us how much better the market was in Houston. Actually they had so much good to say about Houston that we were intrigued. We had the dream to start our own business, and Houston seamed a better place to do that being a much bigger city. Plus the climate! I hate the cold!!! In Houston I would never have to drive in the snow AGAIN! The move seamed like a great idea. It helped that we would have some family near by. Leaving the rest of Mark's family and all of my family was not easy, but with today's technology it is so easy to stay connected, and that helps. About the year after we moved to Houston Mark's parents moved down. That has been a huge blessing they have been such a support to us. About 3 months ago Mark's sister moved down too.

Mark worked for Safelite repairing and replacing windshields. He was able to transfer to Houston with the company. Our plan was to save up some money and be set up as much as we could to start our own autoglass company, equipment, signs, legal docs ect. Oh and a truck.

Things were going well until Mark hurt his arm and was unable to do replacements at safelite he was forsed to only do rock chip repairs witch affected us greatly since Mark esencialy worked on commision with the replacements. When he couldn't do them any more he was suddenly making 10 dollars an hour and not even getting a full 40 hours a week. The good news was his arm would heal. But we had to do something fast! It was a huge risk and extreamly scary, but Mark quit his job. So there we were... I remember that first day. Jonas had helped us design some flyers, we went to several parking lots and put them on windshields. Mark did his first rock chip repair for Signature Autoglass for $30. That was all we made that day. But we were so exited and couldn't help but laugh. In the begining Mark would throw his repair kit in a back pack and go door to door looking for jobs. Then he started setting up on the side of a buisy road and let the cars come to him. He eventually was able to do business at a car wash for a monthly fee. That proved to be a good move. Mark slowly started doing replacements on the side for people he would find at the car wach. Very quickly it was getting harder to man the car wash and be gone to do replacements. So the next step was to hire someone to stay at the car wash and do the selling for him. We found someone that was good at selling and had lots of experiance with rock chip repairs. We were exited to give him a good job as we were willing to pay a fair percentage of the sale to the employee because he was able do so many and keep the replacement jobs coming for Mark. It was going great. Unfortunatly he decided to be dishonest when he realized he could push the cash jobs and not report them. I guess it should have been a red flag when insurance jobs suddenly plumited. We just figured that maybe sales were drying up since many of the car wash costumers are repeat costumers. We were suffering and we felt bad for our emloyee. Sometimes it was hard to come up with payrole but we would always pay him first. Then an employee at the car wash that had become friends with Mark, tipped us off about our guy. We learned that he was staying just as bussy, but pocketing everything. So we were paying him to steel from us. We were devistated... It was a long and hard recovery financially we were so broke, but we were heart broken too. How could someone do this? This guy knew that we were struggling, and pretented to be sympothetic. Mark and I decided to forgive him. That felt good. It didn't fix our money problems, but we recived other blessings. Some amazing friends and family rallied around us and lifted us. In one instance two of my friends got some grossery store to donate grosseries. I remember them showing up at our house with a truck load of food. Undescribable...It was Christmas time, and we now had two kids. Another family in the ward that is dear to us, was inspired to annonamously give us money (we found out who it was by acident) And Marks parents gave our kids a Christmas. It was all very humbling, but I believe we grow alot through that experience.

The First few years here were quite the ride, but we had some wonderful things happen too. We had my Sister and her little family live with us for a while and Jonas was able to really help us with our marketing. And we had our sweet little boy Wyatt.

And now we have our sweet baby Ryan. I have to say life is good. Business has been good and although It can have it's ups and downs. We have been able to save when it's doing well. We really enjoy Mark's ability to be flexable. And we find our selves being spontanious alot when Mark comes home early. Like yesterday, We desided to go to the beach and it was awesome there was a warm breeze and the water was warm IN OCTOBER!. I love whatching my kids run around and laugh.