We had a great November with family and friends. On November 15th we went to the BYU-Air Force Game with our friends the Chesneys. We had a great time at the tail gate party and then watching the game. Of course BYU won.

We loved all of the Air Force traditions. All of the cadets lined up on the field, there were 5 parachuters carrying different flags and of course the fly over with 3 jets. When Air Force scored, a group of cadets would run down to the end zone and do push-ups equal to their total score. It was a high scoring game, so we saw alot of push-ups.

We had a full house for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful. Jill and the kids got here on the 20th. Warren was out of town, so Kim and her kids come for the weekend. So we invited Kirk Ginn and his family for dinner. Kirk and Jill went to high school together and he and his family live here now.Sorry the picture is a little dark, but we had alot of fun visiting and catching up with Kirk and Carrie. What you don't see is the 9 children running around. Jill's 3, Kim's 3, and Kirk's 3.

Grandma McVey, Josh and Warren joined us the week of Thanksgiving. We were all so thankful that Josh was able to join us safe and sound, even if his hand was broken. Jill will have to tell that story. The cousins all got along great and had a lot of fun playing. The movie, Tinkerball, was a big hit along with the popcorn with Grandpa.

Mollie had alot of work to do for school, so she stayed up late or early into the morning to doing it, so during the day, she was a little tired.

We all had a great time, here are some pictures from the week

We all had a wonderful time and were glad that the sisters were all together here and that TJ and John were together in Provo. We are really looking forward to Christmas when John, Piikea and Mollie will be with us for Christma. Our greatest joy is our family. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!!

Hello Family - I love the month of December. I love Christmas lights and the music. We had fun decorating our apartments. I made a Fall wreath and then 2 Christmas ones and then something for our mirror. We also decorated our tree. We put strands of popcorn on it but let me tell you; I would not recommend doing it. It took forever to strand the popcorn. I have the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert this weekend and I am so excited for it. I turned in my thesis for a rough draft and actually got it back already. My professor gave me some ideas of where to research. My other presentation on war memorials went well. So school is fun and so is the fun Christmas Season. Thanksgiving was also fun playing with all the nieces and nephews. My Christmas program is this weekend and I hope it goes well. We will be ready. Anyways. Merry Christmas! Love Mollie
PS The video is of my roommate and I at our ward talent show. I thought you might like to watch it. We are singing Blackbird

Merry Christmas from Provo

Howdy everybody, I hope your Thanksgivings went well. Ours was nice, we met up with Tiffany's family here in Provo and had Thanksgiving on Thursday. Then on Sunday night we had our own little ham, turkey is too big for the two of us. And of course with that Pi'ikea made some wicked Jell-o in a margarita glass. She had no idea I loved Jell-o so much. I bet y'all remember eating in the nice dinning room back in Houston and I would be slurping away at my jell-o. Yum yum. Other than that not much is going on. Both of us are just getting ready for the Christmas break. There is probably something exciting that happened to us but I really can't remember. Oh this past week we went to Macaroni Grill and ran into the Rumseys. Also this fall has been quite nice. We only had one day of snow that didn't stick and then today we got some more snow which will be gone in a day.

Oh Pi'ikea and I have kind of cheated with our Christmas. We have already received some of our gifts from each other. She gave me two new 3 new x-box games, which I love. One of them she also loves and we stay up late playing the game together. It is great fun. The first night I got the game we were up until 2 in the morning playing it. She wants to bring it to Denver so we can continue the fun. She got a new purse and I am planning on getting her a few other things, but I am mean and making her wait until Christmas to play with her new stuff. We also took advantage of the insane DVD sales everywhere and got a couple of new DVDs for ourselves bringing our DVD total to too many. Well I hope everybody enjoys this wonderful time of year. Much love.

The Johnson Family

HELLO FAMILY -

I love this time of year and would like to echo TJ's message. What a great time of year for us to be thankful for our blessings, trials, and triumphs. I hope that we will take this time to do random acts of service, kindness, and try to have an extra skip in our steps. Last night, we had our ward Christmas party and it was wonderful. We did a service theme (How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and for the past 6 weeks our ward has been participating in service. After the ward dinner, we watched a presentation which included the story of the Grinch (and of course Nicole had to be taken out screaming when the Grinch showed himself because she thought it was Monsters Inc - she kept saying "Monsters Inc" scary - that night Kaylee and Nicole slept in our room on the floor) and a slideshow presentation showing pictures of the ward doing service. It put things in perspective and was wonderful.

Last week, we had our first massive snowstorm of the year. Church was let out an hour early and we had to shovel the driveway twice. We came home from Mom and Dad's after Thanksgiving there was about 8 inches on our driveway. The next the day the girls had fun playing in it.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We missed TJ's Family and John and Piikea, but I am glad you guys were together. The month was pretty packed with visitors, trips, etc. Fun for us and now we get to have fun in the month of December. Here is a quick update -

KAYLEE -

Kaylee is doing great and is very excited about Christmas. She wants to know what she is getting and wants everything. The other night, we were making our Christmas list and Kaylee put down 9 things. The first 2 were pretty expensive items so I said, she might only get 1 of those things. She than said, "Santa makes the gifts. He doesn't care how much they cost. He has alot of money." Well - true, but he has alot of children to take care of, so don't be surprised Miss Kaylee. She has been busy with school things, planning puppet shows, concerts, movies (her friends have decided to make a movie called "The Search for Diamonds" of course she is the star and Kevin is in it - also the star), and doing crafts. She is becoming more and more independent and I miss her during the day. But, she is loving school and becoming our little social butterfly. She is also doing awesome on the ski slops!!

NICOLE-

Nicole is doing AWESOME. She is improving a ton with her speech and is making friends. She loves school and LOVES Miss Megan (her teacher). I went to her IEP (twice a year I have a meeting with her teachers to reevaluate her needs and strengths) and learned alot. Nicole is doing great in school, but they are trying to get her to be more confident in her language (speech and communication). Her teacher and speech therapist said they will ask her a question and she will bat her beautiful eyelashes, turn her head to the side, and do her cute little smile with darling dimple and just look at them. You can't help but love her, but we need to help her talk. So they gave me alot of things to work on with her and we will see. She has also started a new program called "Therapeutic Listening" which uses sound stimulation in combination with sensory integrative techniques. Strategies that are emphasized include vestibular, postural and movement strategies. This treatment technique involves listening to specifically modulated and filtered music on compact discs through headphones. She should have improvement in alot of areas so we will see. She listens to it 2X a day for 20-30 mins each time. Nicole loves to be with people and I am trying to set up playdates every week to meet that desire.

TAYLOR

Taylor is talking, talking, talking. She is expriencing a language explosion right now and it is hilarious. She will try and copy whatever you say, especially Kaylee. She loves to be like her sisters and is trying to go potty on the potty. Anytime her diaper is off, she looks at me and says ,"otty." She than goes to the bathroom, I put her on the potty, and she says, "ush." Taylor also carries her little port-a-potty all over the house. I am not ready to potty train, but I won't stop her if she wants to try. Taylor is Miss Indpendent. She loves to be with Mommy during the day while the girls are at school. She gets into everything, loves to color, and as she says, "I ont to pay." (She wants to play all the time).

WARREN AND KIM -

Warren and I have had a fun month. We went to NYC and loved it. We saw Spamalot with Clay Aiken, stood in line for 2 hours for an ACDC concert, went to central park, World Trade Center Sight, went to the top of the "Rock", and walked around time square. I had a blast going through all the stores, and Warren learned alot at his conference. Randi Lancaster Cochran drove up with her husband and we ate in Little Italy with them and walked around the city. It was great to see her.

We had a great Thanksgiving and loved being with family. Here are some pictures of the fun:

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and we love y'all so much.

Kim, Warren, Kaylee, Nicole and Taylor

McVey's of West Jordan

Dear friends and family -
We hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving very much. We spent it in Provo with Tiffany’s family. We had a great dinner and even better time with the family. John and Pi'ikea also came to dinner and it was nice to catch up with them and spend a little time with them. The kids are all doing well and they are excited for the arrival of the new baby in a few weeks. The girls are as busy as ever with gymnastics, dance, and piano. Robbie and Tyler are busy playing, playing, and playing. Tiffany is busy with all the preparations for the baby and Christmas and I’m busy doing what I’m told.

We hope and pray that everyone will have a safe and enjoyable holiday. This is a great time of year to reflect and we as a family would like to express our love and gratitude for all of our friends and family. Thank you for your support and prays. Please know that we have been greatly blessed this year, due in large part to your prayers and loving support.

As a family we would also like to express our gratefulness for the knowledge and understanding we have of our Savior, Jesus Christ. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 As a family we would like to add our voices with that of the heavenly host in Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.”
Love the McVey’s of West Jordan

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit

It has been some what of a tough first week of December, I will call it a reality check. A Houston Police Officer (Officer Tim Abernathy) was shot and killed Sunday morning. Josh and I cried and just held each other because it was another reminder of how dangerous this job truly is. As I think about what happened it brings tears to my eyes, the wife of the Officer Abernathy made this statement, "Our family appreciates your thoughts and prayers. Tim will be missed by all who knew him and loved him. He was the joy of my life. I have a lifetime of wonderful memories." This only shows me the strength of her and her family.

Nemo Me Impue Lacessit is Latin and the literally translation means "No one provokes me with impunity". This picture is what officers' badges look like when a fellow officer has been killed. They cover their badges until the fallen officer is laid to rest. Josh has done this once already, when another officer was run over by an out of control driver. Now if you see any police officer with a black ribbon around their badge you know what is most likely written on the ribbon and what it means.

Please keep Officer Abernathy's family in your thoughts and prayers, especial this time of year.

November was an eventful month. Josh was in an accident. That was a great call at 2:30 AM. His partner for the night was trying to catch up with a speeding car and tried to make a U-turn under the I-45 freeway and took the corner to fast and ran straight into a cement pillar. Josh hit his head pretty good and broke his hand. For a few days we thought he was going to need surgery, but everything turned out okay and he is recovering and will hopefully be off light duty by the beginning of next year. Desk work is not Josh's favorite thing since his right hand is broken, he can't write reports or use the computer, he is answering the phone and transferring it. I am glad it was just a broken hand as you can see from the picture.
Since Josh didn't need surgery we were able to go to Denver and spend over a week with Mom and Dad, Kim's Family, Mollie, and Great Grandma McVey. The kids had a great time playing with cousins and getting to see everyone again.

We had a little surprise, notice anything missing in this picture:

Yep, a tooth. JJ lost his first tooth in Denver and swallowed it. He wrote a letter to the tooth fairy saying he swallowed it and the tooth fairy was kind and left a whole dollar, or as JJ said a ticket.

Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Life's precious moments

A Day at the park

Jill Prayed for SnowThe Snow AngelsGet her JJ, Get herThe Joy of Snow

And the target is?

Those Blue Eyes

This wonderful time of year always makes me realize how greatful I am for my family, the love we have for one another and the support we are to each other. I am greatful for the knowledge I have of our Savior and the things he did for us. I am also greatful for the Christmas season to remember his birth and life. He truly is the King of Kings.