Texas Summers

This summer was one of the hottest summers Dallas has seen in many years. The only way to keep cool was to stay in the water. When we first moved here 2 1/2 years ago a friend told us that it gets so hot that there are actual companies who come and put large blocks of ice in the pools to keep them cool. We didn't believe him....well it's TRUE! That aside, Nix LOVES the water and especially enjoyed the splash pad. These pics caught much of his excitement.

Goodbye Shumways

In May 2011 our good friends Brian, Allie and Crew Shumway moved from us and went back to Utah. Brian got a really exciting new job and they had to leave. We were so sad to see them go. Nix and their baby Crew are only 4 months apart and were meant to be the best of friends. Well I guess that will now have to happen in later times of our lives. We sure love The Shumways and miss them very much.

Wow!.... It feels good to be back

So back in January of last year, my blog stopped working. I was trying to create new posts and it just wouldn't let me post them... with that being said I stopped blogging and started just posting pics on facebook. I was way bummed about this, because I like the blog for a journal. Well I am back. Don't have a clue why it started working, but I'll take it. I am now trying to post events that have happend since last January. This will just be many pics up until more recent times. Yay! Im glad it's working.

Nixon 9 months

Our only Easterish pic

Nixon's Blessing

Nixon was blessed in Utah on January 2,2011. He was five months old and did great as he was surrounded by so many priesthood holders. We were able to have most of the men in our family be apart of it minus Matt and Ty who are on missions, Chris Ericson, and Brad who live out of state. We were sad they weren't able to be there, but were happy we were able to have so many. We blessed Nixon in the Philipp's home and it was a sweet spirit that was there. We also got to see a lot of our friends. It was fun to see everyone and finally give Nixon a name. :) Thanks to all who participated and thanks so much Becky for the pictures!

The Philipp side minus Jana, Brad and fam, and Ty

The Ostler side plus some extended family but minus Deb, Chris, Holden and Matt

Some of the sweet nieces and nephews

Friends

Nixon's changing

Christmas in Utah

This year Nixon and I got to go out to Utah about 10 days before Andy. It was a bummer to be without Andy, but we were grateful for the time we had with our family. We had a few layover's on the plane ride over so I was a bit worried about Nixon getting restless, but he was awesome. People were complimenting how good he was on the plane. Not to mention offering to take care of him if I needed to use the restroom :). He slept for the whole two hours on our long layover and then was great again on our last flight. It was perfect! I was so proud of him. Unfortunately like always, we forgot to get pictures of our whole trip, so the pictures I do have are from the Ostler side. That is why they are all mostly them. Philipp side please send me any pics you have from Christmas so I can get them up. We had a great time in Utah! I got to see the mormon tabernacle choir perform with David Archuletta, got to spend plenty of time well needed with family, went snowmobiling, shopping, went to St. George with the Philipp side,blessed Nixon (will post pics later), Nix saw Papa Ostler, Deb, Holden, Jason, extended family and all our friends for the first time and we got to have our first night without Nixon on our anniversary all nicely planned by Andy(will post pics later). It was great to see everyone! We miss and love you all.

Thanksgiving

I feel so bad because I am always so horrible at remembering to take pictures of the people we are with when we do fun things or I just forget to take pics altogether. This past Thanksgiving we got to spend with our friends Bryan and Allie Shumway and their new baby Crew. We were so excited to have someone to spend Thanksgiving with. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I spent all day cooking a luxurious meal, but Boston Market sure did. I think we are going to make it our new tradition since we aren't near family to eat Boston Market for Thanksgiving each year. We did it last Thanksgiving too. Anyway, the food was great and so was the company. That night we got back together with the Shumway's, this time at their house and ate delicious homemade pies. We also got to meet Allie's mom who flew in from Utah to meet her new grandbaby. It was a good time. These were the only pics we took of that day. Sorry to all that were actually with us that day.

Halloween

I absolutely LOVE Halloween! I would have to say it is proabably my second favorite holiday next to Christmas. I love everything about it. I love carving pumpkins, haunted houses and mazes, and most of all dressing up. Andy has never been too into it, but he is a good sport and always puts on what I give him and he always has fun with it. These are some pics from the past few years.

This year was extra fun because I not only got to dress up me and Andy, but got to dress up Nixon too. The costumes were actually a HUGE pain to coordinate, especially without having Andy with me to try them on, but after buying and returning many costumes, this is what we ended up with. Our costumes actually matched perfectly which was a miracle. Andy had black and red pants like Nixon's and my skirt was black and white to match Andy's top. It was really fun to dress up except for the fact that I had to put eyeliner on Andy. :) This was hilarious! Can I just say men were obviously not made for makeup. He made it through it though and looked like a hot pirate! We went to a ward party and got best costumes! It was a lot of fun.

Ward Costume Party

Thanks to my friend Allie, I now have pics of another fun activity that we did this year. Allie and Bryan had us and our friends Maddie and Matt over to carve pumpkins. It was a ton of fun and we learned some new creative ways to carve pumpkins. Leave it to Allie to be creative and always think out of the box. She and Bryan every year carve fake pumpkins. That way they can keep them forever. I think that is an amazing idea and may just steal it. Hope you guys don't care. Anyway here some pics of our adventures.

Matt and Maddie

Cute, prego Allie

Andy and Bryan

Our little fam. Including our adorably challenged Matt in the background.

The finished creations. The smiley one is Matt and Maddie's. The scary grinned one is Andy's (quite the talent)

Bryan and Allie's creative fake pumpkins. Not bad at all.

Our little pirate

CAMPING

Another fun event we got to do in October was go camping! Well I guess we'd have to call it wussy camping cuz we didn't stay over night. But it was a lot of fun. Our good friends Allie and Bryan Shumway planned a camping trip. Keep in mind at this point Allie was like 7 1/2 months pregnant. She's a brave one isn't she. They invited all of our good friends and it was a great turn out. We ate yummy chocolate, carmel banana's and just had fun around the fire. The camp grounds were actually a lot better than I thought they would be considering there are no mountains in Texas. I liked them so much I want to go back. Nixon did awesome. He was in a ton of layers and just enjoyed being passed around. Thanks Bryan and Allie for inviting us! We had so much fun!

The two who made it all happen. Bryan and Allie.

Grant and Kelsie Tanner and Emily Mallory

Yummy caramel, banana, thingys

Matt and Maddie

Logan and Emily

Caitlin and Hugh

Us three

The whole crew

The Philipp Fam

BYU vs. TCU:
October was quite the eventful month. On the 16th Mark, Colleen, Craig, Amanda and Jana and Joslyn came out to see the TCU vs. BYU game. Mark was kind enough to get everyone tickets to the game and we all enjoyed it. The sun was facing us most of the game as you will be able to tell from the pictures, but we had fun anyway. Unfortunately BYU lost, but at least TCU wasn't too harsh on us. Thanks Mark and Colleen for the tickets. We loved it. We also loved having everyone here and hope they come back soon.

Sorry for not taking very good pictures, but this is all I had

Colleen takin care of Nix. Nix showing off his famous spit up. What a proud mother I am.

Craig feeling the intensity of the game

Staring into the sun or not Mark did not take his eyes off the game

cute pregnant Jana holding Joslyn getting into the game

Texas State Fair:

While they were here, we got the chance to go to the state fair for our second time since we've lived here. It was a lot of fun. Of course we managed to get no pics of the family except for one. The rest are of the fair, so enjoy. :)

While we were waiting in line for tickets (which are not cheap), there were these cute old man that were walking by me and Amanda. They already had tickets, so they were able to walk right in. Before they walked in, one of them turns to me and says here you go sweetie and hands me a ticket. I thought that was just the sweetest thing! What a nice old man. I won't ever forget him.

repeat pic of Nana and Nixon on the train to the state fair

We got to ride the ferris wheel this year. It was really pretty cool. We had a neat view of the fair, the Cotton Bowl and Dallas. When we stepped in the cart, there were three ladies sitting across from us and I think they thought Andy and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, because we had both forgotten to wear our rings. The ladies were gawking over us the entire time saying "oh you are so cute!" "So in love" " Do you want us to take a picture of the two of you with our phones, we'll email it to you?" ha ha! Andy actually ended up having his phone, and this pic was the result. Gotta love sweet Texas people! Little did they know we'd been married for three years and had a baby.

Two Love Birds

View of Dallas

Cotton Bowl

View of the fair

Thanks again Philipp's for coming to see us! We sure loved having you here.