Another blessing...Alex Nagata

Last Saturday, the 24th of January, Mike and I loaded up our boys into the ole station wagon and took a short trip up to Rigby, Idaho. We went there to see my cousin Rebekah Nagata's little boy blessed. His name is Alex Nagata, seen below with his father Spencer and older brother Andrew. It was a beautiful blessing given by Spencer, and Alex is so perfect! The picture above was taken at the get together, which was held at my Aunt Gwynn's house, is of my Grandfather Keith Moore and his Great Grandson Brandon. When I gave my little Brandon to my Grandpa, he just started smiling and gooing at Grandpa! What a precious moment that was!

Little K and Little B

The picture above was taken in May of 2007 of baby Kimball and the one below was taken in January of 2009 of baby Brandon. I swear, it is the same baby except for the hair of course. Kimball was going bald at this point and Brandon hasn't lost any hair, in fact it just keeps getting longer and more unruly! So these pictures is living proof that the two boys are brothers who look uncannily like one another:) They both look like their dad...Handsome!

Cold play (not the band)

Our next door neighbors, who also happen to be the apartment managers, have a little play slide in the back of the apartments. They invited us to let Kimball play on it, so we took them up on their offer, which was a lot of fun for Kimball. These days with the cold snowy weather, he doesn't get out as much as he deserves, mostly because it is such a hastle to bundle him all up to play in the cold or in the snow. These were some of the pictures that I took of him, and he could have lasted for a lot longer but Daddy had to leave so we had to go inside and watch Kimball's little brother, Brandon.

Sunday

We had a wonderful day here in good ole Poky, ID. We were able to have some friends over for a scrumptious dinner. Mike's old mission companion, Stewart North and his wife Becky live here in Pocatello. We invited them over for a roast dinner at our place today, and had a pleasant time with them. We even got to play a game of Wacky 6 with them.

It was interesting to hear Stewart and Mike talking in Italian, and Becky  even joked that the only reason we were having a dinner was so they could get together and talk in Italian. We are grateful for friends we have now and look forward to making new friends and acquaintances here, it is a great place to be!

Where we live

Our living room is well, roomy! We got the couches in Rexburg from another couple, they are pretty nice and fairly comfy. Mike hates the floral print, but hey thats a guy for ya right?
This is our humble kitchen, definately not quite big enough for how much cooking we do but it is fun to be so close to Mike when we do the dishes:) He is going to get me one of those kitchen pantry things so I have more storage and can free up some counter space. 
This is our dining area/laundry room. Whoever designed these apartments wasn't thinking properly... but oh well! Soon, we will have a nice wood table to replace our card table. Mike's parents are giving us their old table, so we are excited for that!

Kimball and Brandon's room, pictured below, is pretty much complete. I'll add some wall hangings to doctor up the stark walls.

Here are two pictures of our bedroom, we got a great deal on our bed when we moved, the mattress, box spring and the frame for $70!! We got the glider chair at DI for $25, the chest of drawers was free and the pack and play for Brandon was given to my mom from a sister in her ward who in turn gave it to me. We really have the whole frugal and pennywise business down! We plan on adding nightstands, a headboard, and curtains to this room. A few more wall hangings too, because the walls are stark white!

Moved In

Well, we are finally moved into our apartment! It has been a busy time trying to unpack all the boxes and find a washer and dryer and then a big mess trying to get our couches from Rexburg to Pocatello. Now that our apartment it set up all the way, it is time to get to know Pocatello. We have some really great neighbors and are excited to get to know them, and hopefully we can make friends with them and also with others in our ward and perhaps some people that Mike will be in classes with. The kids are doing great. Brandon is oblivious to the big change and Kimball is adjusting very well. He enjoys as much attention that he can get from mommy, and now that everything has settled down from graduation, the holidays, and the big move, he is getting a lot more of it! Kimball will be 2 in about a month and we are excited but it goes too fast! Some of his favorite things to say are:

"Choo choo train"

"Busy bee says bzzzz"

"Uh-oh" and "Oh No!!" (Said with a very expressive face, as if a tragedy has occurred)

"Truck, vroom vroom"

Three babies blessed...

We recently experienced a beautiful day as a family, three children were blessed on the same day. Brandon David Matusek, Abigail Ivelisse Moore and Madison Nadine Moore were all blessed on December 28th in their Great Grandparent's ward, Keith and Nadine Moore in Idaho Falls. It was a blessed event. They are all the grandchildren of Vaughn and Carolyn Moore, Tiff's parents, and Madison is Matts's Daughter (Tiff's brother) born on October 14th and Abigail is Corey's daughter (also Tiff's brother). Madison was blessed by her PaPa, Vaughn Moore and Brandon and Abigail were blessed by their own fathers. Here are some timeless pictures taken in Grandma Moore's living room.

Christmas Morning....

The morning was a snowy one, we had just recieved about a foot of snow overnight.  We were going to go to Idaho Falls that evening to open presents with all the cousins and aunts and uncles at my Grandma's house, but we would have got stuck!  We truly had a White Christmas! We had German Pancakes for breakfast, and right afterwards while at the table we read the Christmas account as presented in Luke and also some scriptures from the Book of Mormon about Christ's birth and one of Tiff's favorite scriptures in Alma chapter 7. We then proceeded to the tree for some pictures of the kids in front of the wrapped presents before all chaos broke loose as Kimball opened his gifts and dad opened Brandon's gifts for him. Here are some fun pictures of our morning together, our last christmas in Rexburg, at least for a while.

Christmas Pageant

Every year at Christmas time, my Grandmother holds a party at her house where all her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren gather and celebrate Christmas together.  We share a large dinner together in the basement around one LONG table. After we have all had our fill, and the mess in cleaned up, we all gather again in the basement for a Christmas Pageant. This year, the oldest great grandchild Brianna (Tiff's neice) was Mary. Brianna's brother was Joseph, Tiff's dad was the donkey, Tiff, cousin Natalie, and Kimball were angels. Cameron and Kelvin were wisemen and cousin Kyle was a shepherd. The account in Luke was read by Kelli, Cameron's wife. Here are a few pictures of the Pageant, complete with my dad as the donkey:)

Graduation

I finally made it! After all this time working hard towards a degree, I have earned my Bachelor degree in Health Science from BYU-I. I graduated on December 12th and my mother and Husband came, Brandon too.  Kimball, unfortunately did not get to join us for the ceremonies and he stayed at my brother Corey's house. I am grateful to have made it this far in my education, it has been a struggle at times, especially since we decided to expand our little family. The struggles have been worth it though, I have gained so much more than what effort was put, by myself and my husband and parents, into  my education. I am so grateful for parents who supported me the whole time and for marrying a man who values education as much as I do. I look forward to utilizing my education in my role as a mother and hopefully one day when the time is right I can pursue an advanced degree and have a career for a few years. For now, it is time to be the mommy my boys need!

Brandino

I just want to share some great pictures of our little Brandino, most of these were taken at the end of November, with one taken at the beginning of December. 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving...

For quite some time now I have been jealous, jealous that every year on the Saturday after thanksgiving I never got to make gingerbread houses with members of my extended family at my Grandmother Moore's house in Idaho Falls.  I am happy to say that I am no longer jealous, this year I got to participate in the festivities! Enjoy the pictures, but I have to say they don't do it justice! It was so fun to be there finally and make a cool gingerbread house, Kimball even got to make a gingerbread house.  

At the park...

Mike and I took Kimball to the park so that we could spend some time with him apart from the baby (no offense to Brandon:). We had lots of fun with him, although it was quite chilly. There is a really cute picture of Kimball about to go down the slide and then one of him right after he went down the slide where he has a cute smile. We even got a pic of dad playing on the jungle gym. Mom then got busy swinging Kimball in the swing... burrr!!!

We had a few visitors after we got home, first of all we had Mor-mor come and visit, that is Tiff's mother. She stayed with us from the 14th of November until shortly after thanksgiving. We had Corey and his family visit us and also Mike's parents came for a visit.