Christmas in Utah!

We have had such a great time in Utah! I can’t believe our two weeks here will be over in just a few days - it always goes by so fast! We had a wonderful Christmas – the kids have loved being at Nana and Papa’s and being able to play with their cousins. Nathan has really taken to my Mom - he can't get enough of her! We went up to see her in the Tabernacle Choir broadcast and although Nathan couldn't go in for it, he came in after and got to see her practice - he was in awe and loved every minute!

We have had several family parties too, which have been lots of fun to be here for. For as long as I can remember my Mom’s side of the family has done a piñata party around Christmas time. It was so fun to take my kids to it and Adam even broke the piñata!
Another favorite tradition is the party with my Dad’s side of the family – we go to Timp Lodge up at Sundance and stay the night. It is a night filled with food, a program, games, and catching up with all the cousins – it is really fun, except for the next day. Without fail you stay up until 3:00 in the morning (sometimes later) and sleep very little since everyone is in the same room and you get to listen to every move made and every cough or snore. The next morning the men make a yummy breakfast that seems to make all the tiredness go away for a while. We’re still recovering a bit – I’m the only one awake with my kids, which is why I have time to blog! Anyways – it has been a wonderful Christmas season and I feel so blessed to have such an awesome family to share it with! We are having so much fun and I dread it coming to an end. We’re going to bring in the New Year tonight together and that will be lots of fun as well, except that the boys want to make sushi – should be interesting…

Brian dreads my Christmas task list. No matter how many times I say after a busy season that “Next year I’m starting in August!” it just doesn’t happen. Somehow the lists just grow to pages – I think up more and more projects (which I actually really enjoy doing) and then remember that I have to keep up with day to day life as well, not to mention EditMyEnglish. (EditMyEnglish is always incredibly busy in December because it’s the end of a semester.) Last week (this was the week before our trip) got to bed at 1:00, 3:00, 2:30, and 1:00 – ugh! However, I’m happy to say I’m almost done! I still have 2 ½ cross-stitch ornaments to do that my kids requested last year (oops), the wrapping, and a little more shopping and I’m done!

I’m going to try to catch up on the last month! I actually wrote these a while back, but couldn’t post it because I was in the car and haven’t had time since.
For Thanksgiving this year we went to Wenatchee to spend the holiday with Brian’s family. His sister from Portland came too and they have 5 kids that match up well with our kids, so that was really fun. Thanksgiving day I got to watch a little of the parade – I’m a sucker for a parade – and I got to help with the cooking, which is my favorite part! I didn’t let on to anyone that I felt so sick! The kids had had the stomach flu earlier that week, but we thought we adults just weren’t going to get it – wrong! I definitely got a mild version, but since I refuse to throw-up I just felt really gross all day. I was extremely careful to watch my hands every few minutes and not breathe on anything and it actually worked – no one else got sick. All of that to say that I didn’t enjoy the dinner nearly as much as I wish I had.

The next day (one of my favorite days of the year) Brian and I got up at 4:45 to hit the shops at 5:00 a.m.! I missed my mom and sister, but Brian’s sister and husband came too so it was lots of fun! I didn’t have much to get, but it was fun to be out enjoying the season!
Later in the day the kids, dads, and grandparents all went on a hike up Saddlerock Mountain. They had a blast! On Saturday we went bowling, which is always super fun. I barely beat Brian because Nathan’s last turn registered on my score and it was a strike – go Nathan! It was a fun break from the norm and got us all excited to start the Christmas season!

Flordia Vacation!

I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to keep up on my blog as well as I keep up on my scrapbooking. I've been meaning to post about our Flordia trip for about a month now. Perhaps things will get less busy after the holidays (I wish that every year and somehow it just doesn't happen).

We had an absolutely wonderful trip to Flordia! It was perfect timing because we hear they got record inches in rain back home! We started out in Miami - Brian's wonderful manager let us stay in his beach front condo! It was so great to have the beach right there and the boys loved the pool too! Brian went in to work with him one day and then worked from the condo the other day and a half. I tried to talk him into working on the beach, but he wouldn't go for it. He did come down for his lunch hour (or two) though. The boys loved that because he would take them far out into the waves whereas I wouldn't let them go past their knees. Even that would knock them down sometimes. One of Adam's favorite things to do was collect coral from the beach.

Wednesday afternoon I drove (and Brian worked) as we drove the 4 hours to Orlando. Thursday we went to the Magic Kingdom! According to Brian I was much more excited about it than the boys, which was probably true. The Magic Kingdom is definately one of my happy places! Brian teases me about Dumbo still being my favorite ride - sad, but true. We had a blast all day running from ride to ride and amazingly we made it to everything we really wanted to go on! Nathan's favorite was Buzz and Adam and Matthew loved Space Mountain. I think this was one of the only times I have been when I haven't been pregnant - it was so fun taking the boys on all the big kid rides!

Friday we spent the day at Epcot! It was a really fun day too and they had some great rides. We ended up doing all the rides first, so by the time we went to all the countries the boys were getting pretty tired. They liked seeing all of the places they had been to in Europe and tried to get us to buy every souvenir they saw! One highlight was that just as we were coming out of our last ride (Mission: Space) we got to see the actual space shuttle launch! It was launching from Cape Canaveral, but we could see it pretty well. A fun extra!

Not so fun was that after driving back to Fort Lauderdale (4 hours) that night our hotel was a hole and we had to find another place at midnight. All part of the experience, right? It was such a great trip overall. It was so fun to see the boys have so much fun together! Makes us want to go back!

Pure Torture

The night before going on our trip to Flordia my children were forced into doing something they were not too happy about. I told them they could watch Cinderella or they could go to bed (it was only 6:30). Since all they knew about Cinderella is that she is a 'princess' (said by Adam with disgust) it was a matter of extreme importance to me that they know who she is before taking them to Disneyworld. I didn't have time to make them watch Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty - I'll save those for next time. It was fun to peek in on the boys while packing - they really got into it despite not wanting to show any interest.

Halloween '08

This year we had a monkey, a pirate, and Anakin Skywalker for children!

We were lucky to have my mom visiting for the ward Halloween party the Saturday before the big day. The boys had a blast with all the different activities, not to mention the beginning of the accumulation of candy! My favorite part of the night was watching my husband try to function in a skirt, um, I mean kilt.

Carving pumpkins is always a messy, but fun experience. I must admit, though, that it sounded really tempting when Brian suggested using a sharpe instead.

Halloween night was really fun too as Nathan figured out what was going on. That is my favorite - the year they first grasp the fact that if they go up to someone and smile and look cute and hold out their bag that someone is going to give them CANDY!

They had a great time - the older boys really got it and we could hardly keep up with them - they wanted to get to as many houses as they could before we called it quits.

Ahhh - the sweet rewards. It was a fun holiday and now we get to look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Festive Fall Fun

We had a super fun weekend in Wenatchee visiting Brian's parents! It was a quick trip, but we all had a great time! The boys went to the museum in the afternoon and then we went to Smallwoods Farm near Leavenworth. The highlight for me was watching the kids go on the 'cow train' which seemed to be going 30 mph! I was glad Brian's Dad volunteered to go with Nathan since it doesn't exactly have shocks to cushion the bumps. The kids loved feeding the animals and the corn maze too.

As if that wasn't enough fun we went back to Wenatchee for a Halloween party! We made a pizza jack-o-lantern for dinner, and then we all got dressed up in our costumes. The games were great - we played "Don't Eat Jack!," had a Ghost throwing competition, made my boys into mummies, and had some Pumpkin ice cream and spider cupcakes for desert! A great way to get into the spirit of the season!

Top 10 reasons for starting a blog

1. My friends haven't seen pictures of my kids since last Halloween.
2. I generally remember things by referencing where we lived at the time, but now that we have actually decided to stay in one place for a while I have no other way of keeping track of things.
3. The boys will love to see themselves on the computer.
4. I think I'm the last person of my generation to have not yet started a blog.
5. My memory is slipping and all too often I can't remember the cute little moments that I want to be able to look back on someday.
6. For the grandparents.
7. As much as I love to scrapbook, it just hasn't happened lately.
8. So we can really embarrass ourselves.
9. A great excuse to spend even more time on the computer.
10. We actually do have the cutest kids in the world!