German Shepherd + Poodle = Shepadoddles!!

Yes there is a tiny pup in the car with Logan in the back!

NO I did not make this name up folks! It is a real breed. How our little shepadoodles came about is pretty funny to us. We are the owners of a german shepherd named "TALA" my inlaws own a stadard poodle named "Rex". Our german shepherd was in heat and on like day 11 or 12 we decided to go to the cabin. Us not knowing too much about dogs didn't think she was very fertile anymore. In fact we tried to get an appointment to get her spayed and found out there is like a 4 month wait!! Back to story . . . my inlaws where also up at the cabin and they had their black and white standard poodle there with them. I am yelling at Ryan the entire time to make sure nothing happens and to lock up "Tala". My in laws tell me she is rejecting "Max" therefore she's not intrested and "it" won't happen. I am still NERVOUS because who is going to be taking care of puppies?!?! ME!

So come lunch time we are all at the dining table by a very large window overlooking the wrap around porch and what is going on right in front of our eyes?? Dog porn to the max! AHHHH! My mother in law runs out there and starts pulling on his tail to "unhook" them. NO such luck. Lets just say the rest of the trip was a little tense between Ryan and I.

Low and behold 8 weeks later we have 7 pups! Its kind of funny now because the whole time I am thinking we will have to pay people to take our 7 mutts into their homes until I started to doing some research and found out that these babies are designer breeds! And sell for over a $1000 on the internet and are hard to find!

"Tala" did an absolute wonderful job giving birth (and I mean wonderful . . . not even a yelp out of her!) to all these puppies and did an amazing job taking care of them. It has been an unforgettable experience for our whole family.

We started finding them new homes last week and we only have 2 males left at this point! They are the cutest pups I have seen! We sure will miss all of them!

Christmas 2008 in a nut shell

Polar Express trip- This was our second year taking the family on The Polar express train ride. They absolutely just love it. Even Jaylee got into it! This year there wasn't snow so it just wasn't quite the same but I don't even think my kids noticed.

Riding by the North pole to pick up a special visitor . . .

Too funny! Doesn't everyone have one of these photos of you crying sitting on Santa's lap, or in this case Ms. Clause? She did this as you will see in all the following pics that she would scream at the top of her lungs every time we made her sit on Santa's lap. We are so cruel!!





We tried to take our kids snow sledding, which is hard to do when there is no snow, however this cute little town had a small ski resort with year around sledding (its white carpet). I think I actually like it better! And of course the day after we left it snowed for 5 straight days!!!!!




Cookies with Santa- My in laws old neighborhood neighbor hosts this special cookies with Santa date. Their backyard is every kids dream as well as every mom's dream for there kids to have. I wish I took more pics of it, but lets just say they had a zip line, a 2-story kids play house with a slide from the 2nd story window, 2 different playgrounds that were nicer than any playground I have ever seen, huge swimming pool, sand areas, fire pit, and places to ride bikes and plenty of room to run around.


Breakfast with Santa at Joshua and Logan's school- (notice Jaylee not crying in this picture, but look closely at whats in her hand with a big smile on her face!)

Jaylee wore this cute santa dress to a couple of family parties . . . I think she liked it!

Sunday before Christmas-

Don't these little boogers look like future missionaries in this picture!

Christmas Eve- Every year on Christmas eve we spend at my parents house where a special visitor brings new pajamas, however we broke tradition this year because we gave them their jammies on the night we did polar express so they could wair them on the train . . . and yes this would be Jaylee crying again! She really is an easy going baby!!


Christmas morning- We mostly video taped Christmas morning so I don't have a lot of still shots. I thought I took more than this, darn it!



Joshua and Logan got a air hockey/foosball table, remote control buggys, video games, legos, oh and a live turtle from a gift exchange game!
Jaylee got a ball whirly spin thingy and few other small baby toys
I got a baby seat for my bike, clothes, Wheel of Fortune video game (love that show) and Dove chocolate
Ryan got James Bond 007 series DVD set, clothes, outdoor cd/ipod radio, and a remote control buggy that matches Joshua and Logans but double the size ( I didn't want Ryan to feel left out when he takes the boys to use theirs!)

We had a wonderful Christmas that seemed to last the whole month. I look forward to this time of year every year. I love being with family, giving to others ( love finding that perfect gift!), yummy food, christmas movies, the decorations and lights, the music, giving and receiving neighbor and friends goodies and christmas cards (I think I checked the mail everyday hoping to find another one!) I especially enjoyed this year watching Joshua and Logan learning the true meaning of Christmas. They were finally old enough to understand it's more than just about santa and presents under the tree.

Only 335 or so more days till christmas 2009!

Temple Christmas lights

Sadly this is the first year we have taken our kids to see the Temple Christmas lights. They really did enjoy it and had lots of good questions. The weather was also simply wonderful. Pizza before and hot chocolate and Krispy Kremes afterwards! (Kind of a tradition of my family ) Don't worry we did plenty of walking around to help burn the extra calories!!

Thankful at Thanksgiving

These are the only pictures I have from Thanksgiving. Joshua and Logan at school dressed as Indians doing a parade. They were so darn cute! The previous day they made pizza boats and dressed as Pilgrims at a feast. Oh to be in kindergarten again! NOT! Although I am really enjoying being a part of my little kids lives and taken a break from all the stress of what grown ups deal with. Kids are so innocent and pure . . . got to love it!

Our family is extra thankful at this time of year for all of the many blessings we have been blessed with. I think some days we take it for granted. Not so much the big stuff, but the small stuff that has made the biggest differences in our lives. We have been blessed to live in such a great country where we enjoy so many freedoms a lot of people don't have. We are thankful to be members of our church and to be surrounded by so many people who have the same high standards that we do. We have been blessed with good health. We have a great extended family that we live close enough to that we can go visit just about whenever we want, that has been a huge blessing for many different reasons. All of these things do not cost money, but they are all PRICELESS in every sense!