A lot to be thankful for...

What a great holiday, I love Thanksgiving! I'm still trying to figure out how stuffing your face for hours on end became a tradition, but I do love being able to have a whole holiday to focus on being grateful! I really do have an abundance of blessings and I am very grateful to live such a wonderful life. Below are some pictures from Thanksgiving this year...BUT first I just had to post a picture from this morning's shopping excursion! That's right, my mom and I decided to join the crazies and take advantage of the black friday deals. I have to say that I was very hesitant at first (I've never been a black friday shopper), but I'm SO glad we did! We started at 4:30 am and ended at 10 am with a whole car full of presents! Seriously, my moms whole back seat AND trunk were full of bags. It was a blast...we will definitely be making this a tradition!
Here's proof that our shopping was productive...and this is just one side :)

Everyone in line filling their plates

Cooper and his friend Luke (my parents neighbor's dog) just chillin in my mom's kitchen. Luke took advantage of everyone leaving and waltzed right in when the door was open....my mom didn't have the heart to kick him out so he got to stay and play with Cooper for like an hour.

My (not so) little sis and me.

My siblings and I eating away

Stephen and Chelsea's Wedding

Travis' cousin Stephen got married on Friday! I love weddings...seriously, if I could, I would get married all over again (to Travis of course), because I loved everything about my wedding...all the planning, the dress, the temple, the reception, all of it! Despite me forgetting my recommend and not being able to go to the ceremony, the day was great! They had a yummy luncheon and had their reception at the Provo Library, which was beautiful! Congrats you guys...you are one beautiful couple!

Ashley and the adorable Easton

All the Turners

Happy Birthday Dadio!

Sunday was my dad's 50th birthday!! Wow, he's getting up there. We celebrated by eating a delicious feast of steak (marinated to perfection by Travis aka Mr Cook Extraordinaire), baked potatoes, salad, and artisan bread...mmmm.mmm.mmm! My mom had the brilliant idea of having all of us kids write a little letter to my dad telling him why we love him. I loved writing this because I am not the best at expressing my feelings all the time (just ask my husband) and this gave me the perfect opportunity to let him know how much he means to me. When I was younger, I felt like I always took my dad for granted...he was a wonderful father and I didnt' know anything different. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that not everyone is blessed with an such an incredible dad! Here are just a few of the reasons why I love my dad so much:
*He has always loved me unconditionally
*He works so hard for our family and never complains about it (working many many late nights is not a rarity!)
*He is a man of integrity
*He taught us the gospel, not just by principle, but by example
*He honors his priesthood
*He would do anything for me (we always joke that I have him wrapped around my finger, which I do, but he also has me wrapped around his finger as well!!)
*He cried when he read my letter (not to rub it in to any of my other siblings or anything...but obviously I'm his favorite! Just kidding....well not really :)
Happy happy birthday Dad! I love you!

Don't ask what these boys are doing....who ever really knows!

My dad and Cooper...they have a special bond! My dad LOVES Cooper and my dad is always the first one that Cooper tries to find when we get to my parents house! Cooper will jump all over my dad no matter where he's sitting and no matter what papers (or computer) he's stepping on in the process. Its cute.

Because I've got nothing else...

I guess I'll do the "8 things" tag....its not that I'm against tags, I just have been putting off this one. But seeing as how I haven't posted for awhile, and yet I still can't come up with anything (I must be boring)...here goes the tag:



*8 things I am passionate about-

1. Travis

2. My family

3. The gospel

4. Working out

5. Eating healthy (doesn't necessarily mean I do all the time)

6. Kids

7. Reading (I LOVE to get completely engulfed in a good book)

8. My fabulous friends



*8 Words/Phrases I say often

1. "Nooo!" (used for dramatic effect)

2. "Love you baby"...started out as a joke, but now "baby" has kind of stuck

3. "Damn it" (I know, I'm not proud, I'm just being honest)

4. "Are you kidding me?"

5. "Cooper, get down!!" (my sweet puppy loves to get on the couch and my bed)

6. "Lovely" (in a very sarcastic tone)

7. "I hate Integra/IKON!" (our Phone/Copier companies for work, who make my life miserable)

8. "This is Karlee..." (when answering my phone at work)



*8 TV shows I watch

1. The Office

2. Ace of Cakes

3. Biggest Loser

4. Lost

5. House Hunters

6. Designed to Sell

7. Ok, pretty much anything on HGTV

8. Diners, Drive ins and Dives

(Is it bad that this one wasn't that hard to come up with 8??)



*8 Things I have learned from the past

1. In high school, I focused WAY too much on things that weren't important.

2. Everything happens for a reason.

3. Boys really are different than girls

4. Life is so much better when you focus on the positive (Kim-remember our "say 3 nice things for every negative one"...loved it!)

5. Heavenly Father's plan for me is much better than my own

6. When the time was right, finding, dating and marrying my husband was so easy...everything just worked out and fell perfectly into place.

7. The Power of Prayer

8. If you are always focusing on the future or the past, you will miss the joy of life right now!



*8 things I am looking forward to

1. This weekend...a wedding, Twilight movie with the girls, BYU/UTAH game...lots of time with family and I'm excited!

2. Christmas, the actual day and everything that leads up to it.

3. Having Friday off.

4. Having a baby. (Not an announcement, unfortunately)

5. Living in a bigger house one day.

6. Learning how to sew.

7. Many more years of being married to my best friend...learning and growing together.

8. Summer (I know, winter is only beginning and I'm already looking forward to its end)



Well there you have it, probably too much info, but next post will be more exciting after the events/pictures from this weekend!

Naughty Puppy!

Apparently this is what Cooper thinks about my no-puppies-on-the-bed rule! We were getting ready for bed and I couldn't see Cooper (plus he was quiet...never a good combination), so I walked into the bedroom and found Cooper standing on our bed. I started yelling at him to get down and he just looked at me, walked right over to the most comfortable spot on our bed (on top of our pillows and our comforter) and plopped himself down. I wanted to get really mad and pull him off the bed, but he looked SO cute, so I grabbed my camera first... then I pulled him off. The funny thing is is that right before that, Travis and I were sitting on our bed talking and Cooper was trying so hard to get up on our bed with us. He was running back and forth around the bed, trying to jump up on the bed, and when I kept on pushing him off and telling him no, he just sat there and barked at me. Eventually he gave up and layed down on the floor, giving me his sad little puppy dog eyes, like I just broke his heart. I did feel really bad, but not bad enough to let his dirty dog self in my bed. I'm sorry, I just can't bring myself to do it...call me cruel, but my bed is the one place I can't handle my cute, but stinky and dirty, dog inhabiting! Well, he sure showed me. Gotta love him though...he's too cute not to!

Halloween Weekend

I almost feel like I shouldn't even make a post about our weekend because I don't have any pictures to show for it :) But I'll give a recap of our weekend anyway...
We didn't do anything too crazy or exciting for Halloween. We went over to Nate and Kristin's for a delicious dinner of Navajo Tacos. The Browns and the Johnsons came over later after their kiddos were done trick or treating, and I must say that seeing those adorable children dressed up was definitely the highlight! We contemplated watching a scary movie, but that didn't work for a couple reasons, the biggest being that I HATE scary movies and I would have nightmares for weeks, so we settled for watching a little Ghost Hunters instead. I know, we go all out :)

Saturday we went to see the Body World exhibit downtown with my family and Trav's parents. It was AWESOME! I absolutely loved it...it was so interesting. My favorite part was the fetus exhibit, where they have real fetuses in the different stages of development, week by week. It was so cool. There was one that was at week 8, i think, that was so tiny, but you could see its eyes, all of its fingers, toes, etc. Crazy?! There is no way that a babies entrance into this world is not divine and nothing short of a miracle! I also loved seeing the special heart exhibits....our heart is so incredible! They had this one room where it was all red, had the sound of a heartbeat beating loudly, and then had all these big barrels just sitting in there and a sign that said that our heart pumps 1800 gallons of blood each day!!! Isn't that incredible?? It made me want to take care of my poor little heart even more!

Dal and Joss blessed their cute little baby Jaiden on Sunday. Dal did a great job and Jaiden of course looked adorable! They took tons of pics, but I didn't have my camera, so maybe I'll have to steal some of them later :)

And finally, I will mention one downside to the weekend....watching BYU barely scrape by a win over Colorado. Embarrassing. I don't know what's happening to them. This year's BYU/UTAH game could be scary....

Halloween Festivities

Our family dinner last night included some fun halloween festivities! My mother-in-law, Shirley, always makes holidays so fun for all of us, and this one was no different! Of course pumpkin carving is one of the traditions, so we did that, and as if that was not enough, she decided to take on cupcake decorating as well! She had all sorts of candy, an assortment of colors of frosting, and different kinds of cupcakes. We had a blast! Thanks Turners for the awesome night! Here's a few (ok, maybe more than a few) pictures...

Ash and Bry

Here's Dals scary face and Trav's batman

Ashlee's yoda and Bry's Buzz

All the adults (minus me...not a huge fan of the pumpkin carving mess) carving away

Even Cole got his hands in there

Here's our cupcake masterpieces! With a closeup of Joss' werewolf...do you think she's an artist?!

Trav and I

After we got done with all the cupcakes, we decided to decorate the children! Jace LOVED it!

Bry gave Cole a sweet goatee

Trav and his mummy cupcake

Dal and Joss concentrating on their works of art

Cute baby Jaiden as Chewbacca

Darth Vadar, Yoda and Chewbacca...My adorable nephews (minus Chance and Logan (niece)...tear...) Seriously, could they be any cuter??