MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our friends and family! I feel so bad I didn't send out any Christmas cards this year! But I want all of you to know how much we love and appreciate you and your friendships. We hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season full of all the things that are the most important to you!
This Christmas we have been at Dave's parents in Albuquerque New Mexico. We are still there right now and really loving it. I had some down time this afternoon and decided to put of some of the family pictures they took while we were here.

The Mr. and Mrs.

Our Fam!!!

We tried our best on these pictures. They were last minute and we were short on time. Casen was so unhappy with it (later we found out he was hungry) and Collin was wild (as usual).

These are random pictures taken on their camera from Christmas Eve. Isn't Casen adorable?

This is all the Mink Women, my five sister-in-laws and Dave's mom!

Here is the whole Mink Family! And yes, Collin is in there somewhere. This year everyone was able to make it for Christmas. We were really excited to have everyone together!

Hope everyone is having good holiday season! Love you all!

Be a Hero. Save a blog. Use Bloggled’s Blog Backup and Win an iPod.

Have you ever had this experience?

You are posting to your blog, click the publish button, and the very next thing you know the screen is blank. So, you click back to your drafts and nothing is there, then you click your published posts and nothing is there. At this point you are starting to think to yourself…oh no, what just happened? As you continue searching your blog admin for information you see that all your uploaded images, videos, files, and everything is gone.
Living through this situation would be enough to devastate any blogger. Knowing that years of data about your person, family, or business is gone can be difficult to overcome emotionally, but even more difficult of a problem to solve. If you haven’t backed up your blog recently, or ever, chances are your posts and everything else are gone for good.
This is the kind of situation that led Brent Ramey to the idea of creating Bloggled.com, “and to honestly save anyone in that situation the act of going insane.” Bloggled.com is a blog backup company that is allowing bloggers to backup their blog for free as an introductory product to celebrate their official launch out of beta and as a holiday gift this season. Bloggled is also offering multiple prizes to those who participate in their “Be a Hero, Save a Blog Contest” that is running through the day on Monday, December 15, 2008. Winners can choose from either a 16GB iPod Touch, or a Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter Machine and it’s quite simple to enter. All you have to do is one of the items below, but if you do more you get entered more times into the drawing…but you have to enter on Monday 12/15 to qualify so act fast, or should I say slow so I have a better chance of winning.
Join Bloggled. Register and sign up for a Bloggled account (http://www.bloggled.com/).
Friend or follow Bloggled on one of the following social network profiles:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/bloggled
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Brent-Ramey/1002883214
Subscribe to Bloggled’s RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/bloggled.
Blog about the Blogger Contest on another blog then notify Bloggled about the new blog post by commenting on their blog.
Anyway, as you can tell from my post here, I have met the criteria and will be hoping I’m drawn as a winner today. You can find the full contest details by visiting www.bloggled.com.

Dave's Dad Skills

I was recently scrolling through my recent pictures to see if any of them were pictures I might want to put on my blog, and these are what I found. Therefore, I thought I would dedicate this post to.... drum roll please..... DAVE, damizzle, the big mutt, big hun, the mink meister! haha, ( I am probably the only one who thinks that is funny) Anways, Dave is a really good Dad to Collin and Casen and husband to me, and I thought he deserved some props!

Here we have Dave and Shane (Jena's b_______d) helping me take off the broken Christmas lights on my tree. I thought it was really nice they helped me with this (on a Firday night). As you can see from the picture Dave is a little less motivated about it than Shane, even though its Dave's tree. Hmmm... But none the less, the tree was accomplished and I was very grateful!

Now that I have started working on Tuesday nights Dave has to man handle the C's all by himself for a whole night!!!! I always ask him lots of questions about how it went, how he got them to bed... on and on and on.... and I went up stairs to see this!!! So PRECIOUS! Dave said his technique works better than mine (each to their own room) his method calls for all going to one bed, the most comfy bed!
With the next picture we have Dave walking home with Collin's best friend in our ward and his dad! I had to stay a few minutes after church, and while driving home I caught this! Of course, I pulled over and took a picture. Pictures like this are priceless. I hope Collin remembers these kinds of things.

And finally, just because I am thinking of it, I want to post Daves new site and business he just launched. I am thankful for all the hard work he does for our family. :0)

http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/

Check it out and refer it on! :)

Anways, Happiness to all and to all a good night!

Fight FOCA

Dear All,

I'm writing to let you know about a terrible piece of legislation called "The Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA).

FOCA would establish the right to abortion as a fundamental right (like the right to free speech) and wipe away every restriction on abortion nationwide.

It will eradicate state and federal abortion laws that the majority of Americans support and prevent states from enacting similar protective measures in the future.

Please read the expert analysis by Americans United for Life (AUL) and sign the Fight FOCA petition at:
http://www.FightFOCA.com

Thank you!

Halloween

This Halloween Collin was a scary monster and Casen was a cute little chicken. Once Collin figured out what trick or treating was all about he didn't want to stop. He loved it, and we were even trick or treating in the rain. The night before Halloween we had our ward Halloween party (which I was in charge of) so things were super busy up until then. I was a 70s girl whos feet freaking KILLED at the end of the night. Collin didn't want me to be a 70's girl. He told me that he wanted me to be a princess (because of a dress he saw). So the next night when we went trick or treating I dressed up as a princess in one of my high school dance dresses and tiaras. He was really happy I was princess :) (The things we do for kids!) The next morning on Halloween we went outside in our jammies and played in the new leaves. I don't know what it is about me and leaves... maybe I am kinda weird. But I just have so many fun memories of playing outside int he leaves when I was a little girl, that I guess I want my boys to have fun to also. Who knows?

During the day we made a run by Costco after visiting grandma Worley and the were hugging each other int he cart. It was soo cute! I had them wear their costumes (because we just showed them to grandma) It was so cute! Collin decided he had enough of it a few minutes into Costco.

Outside Fall Flings

So after the cold breeze that came through a week or two ago, we have been making sure we play outside as much as possible before the real winter air hits. Here are some fun things we have done:
Liberty Land- miniature golf, race cars and roller coaster rides. (Collin was a little traumatized afin this picture right after the ride!)

Playing at the parks... I will usually run to the parks with the C's loaded up in the stroller.

The Pumpkin Patch. WE went with some friends and had a great time.

We were also lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Mink come visit us. Dave was "sworn in" to the law last week and became a member of the Utah State BAR.. Congrats hunny!! We are so proud of you (pictures will come later- when Kathy gets them emailed to me :)) While Grandma and Grandpa were here the guys went golfing and the girls went to CORNBELLY'S with the kids. That place is awesome! It seriously exceeded my expectations! We loved it. I took so many pictures... only half are even on here. We LOVED having grandma and grandpa staying with us. They are amazing grandparents!

So Precious... picture perfect :)

This is the Pumpkin Princess... who Collin so dearly loved. She was very sweet to Collin. I think he had a crush on her. Below is her carriage. Collin is sitting in the carriage listening to her talk with the other kids. It was precious.

Our backyard is COVERED with leaves! Its been fun for the boys to play in the leaves. Collin is really fascinated by all the different leaves ' shapes and colors.Casen didn't enjoy laying on his back so much...

And finally we had a great Halloween party outside with my family! The weather was great and perfect for playing outside.

Happy Fall everyone!