New Year!

December was a fun month for the Craig's. We went to Utah for Paul's family Christmas party and we had a blast. We played Minute to win it and Paul and I won. If you go to Paul's facebook page you can see us trying to shake bells out of a box that is attached to our bums. It was fun. Also while in Utah we went to the Mo Tab Christmas concert with David Archuleta. It was really good. I had to beg for tickets on the corner and only had to wrestle a few people for the tickets...but in the end I won and we had great sets.
Christmas Eve we went to Kim's. It was fun to play with the girls and talk to Kim. We read the Luke story and Paul was a great wise man along with his wise princess Taylor. I was the narrator and the funniest thing happened. As the wise men were on their way to baby Jesus, Coco decided to come lay next to me. The next thing I know is I am wet. Cute little Coco went to the bathroom on my lab. It was hilarious.
Christmas was nice. Paul and I spent it together and then went to dinner at his brothers. Our first CHristmas was really nice. We got a free washer and dryer from Steve Jackson and we love them. Paul got me tickets to Les Mis, West Side Story, and Lion King. Paul said his favorite gift was the stocking I made him. Mom and I finished it in the nick of time on the 23rd. But he also got a new phone and New Car that he loves. He sold his car on the 26th and flew to Utah to buy a new one. It is a nice car that will last us awhile.
Well that was our first Christmas being married and we loved it :) I hope everyone had a great Christmas
. Mollie with her gifts Paul with his gifts
Our stockings that I made this year...with mom's help :)

The Johnson Family

Hello Family-
This is our family's crazy time of year with Christmas, 4 birthdays within 2 months of each other, and our crazy normal life. The basement is coming along really well and Warren's office is looking amazing. I don't have a picture of it, but once I do... I will put it on the blog.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season. It was a great one for us - a little too short and quick, but wonderful.
Kaylee is doing great in 3rd grade. She really misses her teacher. Her teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer before school started and underwent surgery over the Christmas break. She will be back at the beginning of February, but it has been hard on Kaylee. She loves her teacher and I am amazed that her teacher has been able to continue her dedication to education while going through cancer treatment. Sometimes she comes looking exhausted with a shawl wrapped around her, but she loves her class and Kaylee LOVES her a ton.

Kaylee performed in her ballet recital to "Angels we Have Heard on High." It was beautiful.

Kaylee also went to a nursing home with her piano teacher and her teacher's other students to put on a little concert over the Christmas holidays. Kaylee played 3 songs and the people listening would sing along. They really liked "We Three Kings."

Nicole just loves school. She is learning a lot and everyday I see the answer to a prayer. Nicole is supposed to be at this school and was supposed to be repeat Kindergarten. Her teacher tells me that Nicole is at the top of her class in learning her phonograms and spelling words. She is also doing a lot better with reading. It takes her awhile to get through a book, but she is READING!! YAY!!

Nicole loves her Woody Doll. Probably one of her favorite gifts from Christmas.

Taylor is busy, busy, busy. This past month she had a huge language explosion. She was saying things that were cracking us up and is picking up on everything we say. My favorite is her yelling for her bed on our trip to Utah. It was really late and Taylor was asleep, but woke up tossing and turning in her carseat. She said,"I can't see my bed. I need my bed. I need to lay down. I need my Coco. I need my Jake. I need my Mia. I need my Papa. I need my Grandma. I need my Mama. I need my Colie. I need my Kaylee. I need my Dada. " For about 5 minutes, she yelled out everyone she needed...pleading for help. She needed to see her bed and get out of her carseat. On the way home from Utah, she needed to go to the bathroom so she started yelling, "I can't see the potty. I need to see the potty NOW!!"


Warren is extremely busy. Poor guy has got too many projects going on at once. He is working on the basement, helping with his new building, and on New Year's Eve one of his offices had a flood due to a pipe bursting. What a month for him!! Hopefully things slow down alittle.
I am doing well. Just busy with life and carpooling everyone to the places they need to go.

Our lovely Joseph and Mary.

Mollie and Paul came to our house on Christmas Eve and it was great to have them. Sorry again Mollie for Coco. Coco had a little accident right one Mollie's lap.

Cookies for Santa

I loved my new scarf and new waterski.

Warren with his haul - his favorite...new skiis. They are HUGE!!

Taylor's skis looked so small in comparison to Warren's

Kaylee loved her ski outfit for her Doll Chrissa.

Kaylee made this scarf for me. I loved the color.

Have a great month...Remember it is my birthday month and Kaylee's, so it should be a good one!!

Love ya-
The Johnson Family

Happy New Years from Mom and Dad

We had a very eventful December. Dad had his last day of work on Dec 23, so Paul, Mollie, and Dad and I went to his new favorite restaurant, Cafe Berlin. In case you can't tell by the name it is German. The food is really good, and it was a great place to celebrate dad's last day of work.

Mom, this is for you. on the 21st of December we had 19 people for dinner. Thanks to Mom and the whole family we had enough plates to serve everyone. This place setting is on the dining room table (the adult table) and I am using mom's silver. Everything was beautiful.

On the 17th we were able to go to LA for the annual Mortensen Swedish dinner. The day we arrived we took Auntie Janie, Auntie Castle, Charlie, Maria, and Cathleen to lunch. We had so much fun catching up with everyone, and especially seeing Auntie Castle. We had not seen her in such a long time.

On Saturday we went to Uncle Lee's and Auntie Marj's for the Swedish dinner. The company was great, the food delicious, and the white elephant gift exchange fun. We had a wonderful time in LA despite all of the rain.

Grandma Mortensen, me, and Auntie Marj

Charlie and Maria

Everyone, I will try and put a new to everyone, I just don't know how it will look on the blog.

Top, Left to right. Ernie, Mindy, me, Dad, Maria, Charlie

Middle, Auntie Marj, Uncle Lee, Mindy's Mom, Grandpa, Grandma

Bottom, Mitchell, Karlee, Cathleenn and Chas

I was able to go down to Colorado Springs on the 22 to see Kim and the girls. I left Denver in beautiful clear blue skies, and arrived in Colorado Spring in freezing cold, no visibility, foggy weather. We had fun going out to lunch and Christmas shopping.
We left for Utah on the 24th, so that morning we opened our Christmas gifts. I got just what I wanted, a CTR ring and gift i-tune and Home Depot gift card, and dad got socks, couple of books, and a gift certicfate for a message, which he already used.

Christmas Eve at TJ and Tiff's new home. We each opened a gift, John and Piikea with a wonderful warm blanket.

Christmas morning with the kids, Madison, Tyler,Robbie, Abby and Parker
Dad using either Robbie or Tyles Nerf gun to shoot everyone

Robbie, Tyler, Madison, Parker, and Abby the day after Christmas and everything is clearned up, the tree will go down the next day.

Monday night at TJ's and Tiff"s. Kim and family came down and John is there, but Piikea had to work. It was great to have the cousins together, they had a great time playing.
Robbie with his new scooter. Tyler also got one and the girls got a electric one. They all had fun riding it around, until the next day when a hugh snow storm moved in to make it impossible to play outside. Actually, it didn't stop Robbie, who put on his snow suit and went outside.

We were able to spend Tuesday and Wednesday with John and Piikea. We celebrated their 5th Anniversary with them. We watched "Lord of the Rings" part 1 and put together a puzzle and watched the snow.
On Friday Diane, Scott, Kristen and Mary came from SLC to see all of us. Grandma McVey was also there, sorry no picture. Parker made a new friend in his cousin Kristen and followed her around all night.
TJ and Diane talking goofing off for the picture. It was great to see everyone over Christmas and especially spending time with the grandkids. So in October -December we were able to spend time with all the grandkids, aunts and uncles and grandparents, couldn't ask for a better end to the year. We also had a great beginning of the year with our mission call to Wellington, New Zealand. More on that next month- Love you all

Happy New Year Everybody

First off congrats to mom and dad on their mission call to New Zealand. Anybody we have told becomes very jealous.

I hope y'all enjoyed your holiday season. Pi'ikea and I had some fun and relaxed. Ok, I relaxed while Pi'ikea worked. Given her profession she works during the holidays. The week in between Christmas and New Year's was very busy for her at The Grand America. Anyways, It was nice being able to spend some time with everybody here in Utah. We spent some time up at TJ and Tiffany's new home while mom and dad where in town.

Pi'ikea and I also celebrated our 5th anniversary. The morning and early afternoon were spent with mom and dad going out, shopping and eating. At night we were hoping to get out and maybe have some fun, but the weather did not allow us to do that. We ordered Olive Garden to go and had dinner at home. Pi'ikea had one of her massage friends come over and work on us after dinner. The snow/wind got so bad that we didn't let her friend leave that night so her friend stayed with us that night. For a belated anniversary date we went to a very nice restaurant called Chef's Table and saw Tangled.

For New Years we spent time at a friend's house playing games and had a little ping pong tournament. I was 2-2 for the night. Half isn't too bad but my two victories came against the only girls in the tournament. One of which was Pi'ikea; she normally beats me, but I was able to win that match.

Because our Christmas gift to each other was a little nicer we decided not to get anything for our anniversary. On Black Friday we bought ourselves a new toy for Christmas. It was a brand new 46" LED Samsung TV. The TV is typically listed for $1,700, but we purchased it for $1,000 and because it was a door-buster we received a free Samsung blue-ray player. Since we got the new TV we decided to go ahead and get DirecTV as while. With ordering DirecTV through Best Buy we received $300 in Best Buy gift cards. That was a very good day for us. Other than that we got each other some smaller things to open Christmas morning. Thank you to everybody for your gifts. We really like everything we got this year so thank you.

One last thing before I forget, Pi'ikea and I received our church callings a few weeks ago. We co-teach the 8 years old in Primary. There are two 8 year old classes and each class has 11 kids. That is about twice the size of our last primary class we taught last year. We are both very excited and nervous for the calling. We love you all and will talk to you next month.