O Christmas Tree!

I actually got the tree up before December!!!!! Granted it was the day before, but I am proud of myself. As many of you know, we live with my mother, so it was actually her tree that I put up. We have a tree of our own, but only put it up the first Christmas after we were married. Because the next year the condo was overrun with baby stuff, Xander was 2 months at that point, so I put up a small tree on one of our side tables.... Anyway, Xander helped me put it up while Mara was taking her nap, but I ran out of lights that worked :( So I had to rig the top of it with two strands that only half of the lights worked. But it worked out ok :) Now the next step is to put all the decorations on it. We are going to save that for another day :) I need to let my hands recover!

Putting up a Christmas tree hurts! :(

Festival of Trees!

On Wednesday night we went up to the

FESTIVAL OF TREES

at the South Towne Expo Center. It was the first time I had ever been there. We went with my brother Brent and his family and my mom. Our ward made a tree this year in honor of two babies in our ward that were born Down Syndrome with heart problems. So we went to see everything. I took pictures of some of the fun trees!

Here are Max, Conli and Xander looking at a fun Candy Land Tree :)

Conli wanted to hold Xander's hand the whole time! They were so cute :) They can be the best of friends sometimes.

Here is an AWESOME

Star Wars Tree!!

This is the tree that our ward made. It was called "Angels from Heaven"

I was able to help with it :)

This is Xander's favorite: Hot Wheels!!

A very different one: A Barbie House shaped like a tree! This was one of my favorites.

I LOVE BARBIE!!

This one Xander ran to saying "Jack!"

The super cool Nightmare Before Christmas tree!

I loved this one. It is full of Oragami :)

And the Nativity that was beside it. I totally want to learn how to make this!

The Best Tastes of the Season!!!

I am excited that the Christmas Season is upon us, besides the thought of there being snow storms. (I hate to drive in the snow and to be cold!) Recently while at WalMart I found a little treasure called

Christmas Crunch Cereal!!

I was so excited!! I told my sister that I found some and she is wanting some too. It has been a few years since I have seen this on the shelf. So I buy at least 1-2 boxes everytime I see it!! It takes me back to when I was a kid. Every Christmas my parents would give us our own boxes of cereal. We would write our names across the front of the box to make sure that our siblings would not eat it. My mom stopped giving cereal a few years ago :-( But seeing this makes me want to start the tradition again :-)

Another taste that I love is EGG NOG!!!

I got my first taste of egg nog when we were up in Boise at the end of September. We had gone to WalMart and they had samples. Pat wouldn't let me buy a quart :( said that there would be some when we got home. Well, there wasn't!! I had to wait another week before I could find some. So we have been drinking egg nog since early October! It is one of the fun things that is available during the fall season. It ends up that Xander drinks it more than I do! He usually drinks pink milk, but since there has been egg nog that is all he wants! (I do mix it with milk to make it last longer!) And Pat is a great husband that will make me Nog Nog Shakes, just like they were from Zuka Juice!! Good thing he still remembers how to make them!!

How do I look????

Mara loves to eat all by herself and usually gets fairly messy. But this one takes the cake!! I gave her a little pudding snack, and went about eating my own food and talking with my mom. Mara said to me "Hee go" which means "Here you go". So I turned around and found this face looking back at me!! It was the funniest thing! I love that kids can get so super messy and not realize that they have food all over their faces!!



On Saturday Xander helped my mom and I put christmas lights in the garden. Pat was such a great son in-law and put up the christmas lights on the house 2 weeks ago, but ran out of lights to do the garden. While cleaning the garage, my mom found a bag of lights so we did the rest! Xander was helping us hammer in some posts in the grass so we could string lights along the curbing. He had to go around hammering everything that he could find. Luckly it wasn't summer, or else all the bugs would have been in for it!!




Here is Mara and cousin Sawyer. Isn't Sawyer the sweetest thing! I am so jealous that she has red hair! Seeing my brother have a red headed child gives me hope that maybe I too could have one, someday!

What color are you????

You Are a Purple Crayon

Your world is colored in dreamy, divine, and classy colors. You hold yourself to a sky high standard, and you are always graceful. People envy, idolize, and copy you without realizing it. You are an icon for those who know you. And while it is hard to be a perfectionist, rest assured it's paying off! Your color wheel opposite is yellow. While yellow people may be wise, they lack the manners and class needed to impress you.

What Color Crayon Are You?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving!! We had a really full day. Thanksgiving this year was at my mom's house (our house) so I have been cleaning for a few days. The night before we set up all the tables and got them ready to go. And I made my Mud Pies! They turned out really good for my first time making them :) In the morning we watched some of the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was fun (Pat doesn't like parades, so he was somewhere else during that time LOL) I realized that I really want to go to New York and see Mary Poppins and Xanadu on Broadway!! Two shows that I grew up with!!! Around noon we started to get food going. (Our lunch was at 2) Karri was over and we were on potato duty. (we have been lucky for the past 4 years to get a BOX of potatoes from RC Willey every Thanksgiving, one of the small perks of Pat working there!) Xander wanted to help with the potatoes but didn't want his hands dirty. So we found some gloves and he was in charge of taking the potatoes that I had peeled and giving them to Karri to chop! He did a great job!




Here is Karri and I after eating! We were lucky to have dinner when we did. I was able to get Mara lunch at noon, and put her down for a nap. She missed Thanksgiving, but it was so nice not to have to worry about her :)



We had about 30 adults and 8 kids this year (which is small for my family) It was so fun to have a "kiddie table" Here is Luke, Max, Mariah and Xander! Luke and Mariah belong to my cousin Liz.



After dinner we went to visit with Pat's family and have desert. I am very lucky to have such a great mother in-law. She got a Banana Cream Pie just for me!!! YUMMMY :)
Pat's Aunt Kimbur and Uncle Kevin and family were in town from California. They have 3 kids that live here currently, and brought their other two with them. Their son Skyler "Red Shirts" for the BYU Football team! Anyway, we were all able to be together with them and his cousin Tera, her husband Ike and their little boy Dane. It is so great to have family close by and to be able to get together as often as we do :) We hung out for awhile, then came home and played Wii with Karri, Brent, Lisa, Mom and the kids. Max and Xander played baseball together! It was so funny! My mom grabbed Lisa's camera instead of hers (they have the same camera) and took pictures and video of them :) I will post them when I get them.

Then the kids decided to play "Hide & Seek". Their favorite place to hide is in the bathtub!! I don't know how Mara got in, they must have helped her LOL.



Overall it was a great Thanksgiving! I am so grateful for my family, especially my wonderful Husband. He loves me for who I am :) I love my kids and the smiles and trials they give me. I am thankful for the gospel in my life. I know that I could do better at some things, and am grateful for the knowledge that my Father in Heaven loves me and is watching out for me.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Wii

My mom decided to buy a Wii for her house, so that the whole family could play whenever we get together! She was able to get one last weekend, so during dinner we all made our own characters!

(Here is Xander's! He had to do it all by himself)

The first game of the night was bowling. JD, Chris, Mom and Xander all played! It was great to see Xander, and how excited he was to be playing again. (Pat's brother Ben has one and we were able to play when we went to Boise in September)

We even made a character for Grandma Joan (my grandmother) This is us playing doubles tennis! We played for a few rounds until she said that she wasn't feeling well. (she has a pacemaker) After she left that night, we looked in the instructions, and it said:

WARNING - Radio Frequency Interference

The Wii console and Wii Remote can emit radio waves that can affect the operation of nearby electronics, including cardiac pacemakers.

• Do not operate the Wii console or remote within 9 inches of a pacemaker
• If you have a pacemaker or other implanted medical device, do not use the Wii console or remote without first consulting your doctor or the manufacturer of your medical device.

We thought that was funny! We never would have thought that she shouldn't play! At least she got one game in! LOL

At least we had enough people that Pat could fill in for her :)

We have already purchased Star Wars Lego The Complete Saga, and Pat and I are almost 50% done! :)

Primary Program :)

Today was Xander's first Primary Program!! Throughout the year during primary he really wouldn't sing much. But over the past month he has starting singing at home, so it makes me happy that he is learning the songs. Pat and I are his Sunbeam teachers, so we had to sit on the stand with the class for the program. And since I was the song leader last year, I had to help our current leader with two songs that have parts. (I was lucky to be in the front, so all I had to do was turn around in my chair and lead!!!) Xander did awesome!! He was the only one in our class that said his part without any help. There were other kids that knew their parts, but just got nervous so they forgot what they were going to say. But Xander did a great job saying, "I can be like Jesus by saying prayers for others" He was so excited for the program, that when it was over he wanted to do it again :)

(in the picture, he is biting his bottom lip. It looks weird)

Pretty as a Princess!

Last Sunday when we had our family dinner, the girls (Mara and Conli) wanted to play dress-ups, like usual!! My mom remembered that she had purchased some other dresses, so we got them out and put them on the girls!!

They were so excited to wear the pretty dresses :)


Mara has started a new thing. She will lay down on the floor with her blanket over her head and say "mom, mom, mom" until I say "what?" she will then say "I seeping" When I say "you're sleeping?" she will say "no" then get up! Sometimes she would say "yah" and stay there!! She did this a lot the other day!

She has really started to get funny!

On Friday she was having a snack, I went to her and asked if I could have a kiss. She told me "No, eaing petzels"

Now that her vocabulary is growing, she is making sentences and is saying the cutest things :)

I love my little girl!

I Love Target!

In the past I have taken the kids to different photo studios. Last year I took them to WalMart because of the low prices of their packages. For the most recent pictures I decided to go back to Target. I took Xander there when he was 2, so it has been awhile. After the photo shoot I decided that I will always to to Target for pictures!!! They are great!! And this is why:

At WalMart the kids have to be sitting in all pictures, because they are up on a table. The camera is attached to a big contraption that is stuck to the ceiling, so the kids have to be in the right place at all times!! Now that is really not possible with kids, LOL Another thing is that they do take a bunch of each pose, but you have to decide right then and there if you like their smile, or look, and that is the ONE picture of that pose that they keep. They delete the others. So you end up having one pic of each pose to choose from, which is really lame. And the first picture that they take HAS TO BE the pic for their promo package (which is really cheap) but the first picture is not always the favorite!











Now at Target: The kids are on the ground, and that way they can be standing, sitting, lying down, or even sitting in a chair! The camera is free from cables, so that the photographer has it in their hands and can walk with it and get the good shots, whether they are close up or far away, or up high or down low! They take so many pictures!! Which is awesome, but sometimes harder to choose, LOL And you can pick whatever you want for your package, which I love. There is just so much freedom at Target and I love it! And if you want them to email you the pictures it is just 5 bucks! So of course I did it :)

So here are some of the highlights. I get the actual prints next week!! Yippee!!

Reasons why I like Disney!

For a few months I have known that there is going to be

a Disney Store in University Mall.

I am very excited about this!! It started out as a sign in the window of an old store saying "Disney Store coming soon!", then it was the big "box" around the front of the store that had a banner with Mickey Mouse, still saying "coming soon". It had been like that for a month or so (I really don't go to the mall very often) It was still like that last Tuesday.

When I went to the mall on Saturday this is what it looked like!!!!

I am so very excited!!!! There is finally a store front!!! I am just hoping that it will be open before Christmas. I have searched and can't find a opening date for the store :(

But when I do, I will post it!!







I just have to share these pictures. I absolutely LOVE THEM!!! They are by an artist named Annie Leibovitz. They are of famous people portraying Disney characters. She did these pictures for the

"Year of a Million Dreams"

promotion. It started out as just the first three pics.

(Cinderella, Alice and Prince Phillip)

I love the Cinderella, that is why I put it first, LOL.

Then yesterday my brother showed me the next group:

(The Blue Fairy, Arthur and Snow White)

If ever I get enough money I want to have these pics framed and displayed in my house. I love them all!!! They are so beautiful :)

If you click on them, you can see them big.

They all have sayings :)