Christmas Break

Brian is done with finals (woo-hoo)!!! So I'm going to take a little Christmas break from blogging. See you in 2009.

Reader's Digest

I'm an avid Reader's Digest reader (I know you are so shocked). I love everything about it, but my favorite is the funny little stories and jokes they have spread throughout the magazine.
Over the years there have been many they have made me laugh myself silly, but there are two that are my absolute favorites. The first is a joke, and it's only funny if you actually imagine it (ok, a bit morbid too), and the second is a real story that made me laugh til I cried and my sides hurt.

Joke:
Q: What goes "Ho, ho, ho, thud."???
A: Santa laughing his head off.

Story:
For the holidays one year, rather than send gifts, my friend decided to enclose checks in her greeting cards. Inside each card she wrote "buy your own presents" and then sent them off.
A few months later, she discovered the checks she'd "mailed" under a pile of books.

Road Trip

So all of these babies were being born in Texas and I had to go and move to Utah. So, I decided that there was no other option than to load the kids up in the car and head to Texas. My dear sweet sister Emmeline agreed to go with me so that I would have some help and not go completely insane on a road trip of this magnitude with a 2 year old and a 4 year old. Here was the agenda:
Day 1 Drive to Colorado Springs
Day 2-3 PLay at Brother's house in Colorado Springs
Day 4 Drive to Dallas
Day 5-7 Hang out with family in Plano/McKinney, meet new niece
Day 8-10 Drive to Austin and hang out with sister and new baby twins
Day 10 Drive back to Plano/McKinney
Day 11 Drive to Colorado Springs
Day 12 Michael's (Nephew) birthday party
Day 13 Drive HOME to Utah

Total miles: 3150

Rest Stop cuteness

Nora taking it easy

Trying to get a picture with all the grandkids

Megan and Emmy (my sisters) holding the twins, James and Lincoln

Me holding the twins.

Nora and Graydon

Girls in curlers, so cute! Brian asked me what the point of putting curlers in Nora's hair is...

My niece Russia. See I told you there were a lot of babies.

Ethan took some photos.

A really cool sunset.

Well, we spent a lot of time in the car, but it was so worth it. The trip was so much fun. It was great to see everyone. I wish I could have went to my ward on Sunday, but Nora was very sick for a couple of days (puking and fever). I loved getting to meet my new niece and nephews.

Goodbye For Now

Don't worry I'll be back! The kids and I are going to Colorado and Texas for the next 2 weeks. I'll come back with stories and pictures, I promise! There are babies to visit, a Nana to hug, cousins to play with, a sister and brother to hang out with (not to mention all the in-laws), and so many more fun things.

Miss me while I'm gone!

28

Happy Birthday to me! Here are some strange facts about how I was brought into the world. My dad was at work and my mom was up early doing the dishes cause her back hurt. Her water broke, so she called my dad and told him to get his tookus home. So he finished up what he was doing and went home. And when he got home he found my mom lying on the kitchen floor with a newborn baby laying on her. That's right, my mom had me all by herself, on the kitchen floor. Oh, and it was the day that Ronald Reagan was elected President.

That right there folks is a chocolate flan from Cafe Rio... My favorite dessert on the planet.

I'm not a huge fan of cake so for my birthday we usually have something different. This year we had blackberry cobbler and Brian brought me home the chocolate flan (he loves me).


I'm still learning how to share. I let the kids help me blow out the candles, but I drew the line when they wanted to share the flan with me. I'm not THAT nice.



Twenty eight doesn't look too bad on me. And I did have an extra day being 27 with leap year and all. So, happy birthday to me!

PS You better ALL go vote tomorrow!!!

Grand Finale

And since I started off this trip down memory lane with a picture of Brian as a child Halloween star. I'll end it with the only two pictures I could find of me on Halloween when I was a kid.

Raggedy Ann

Witchy-poo

Some finale, eh?

Halloween 08

Sorry to disappoint! Two posts earlier are pictures from this year! I didn't mean to give a spoiler. We had a trunk-or-treat, and I couldn't wait to put up pictures. We are Mama Witch, Daddy Zombie, Spidey, and Geisha...

Remember Last Year?

Just the coolest Star Wars family EVER!

Did I mention...

....that we love Halloween?!

First Halloween

Here are pictures from Nora and Ethan's first Halloween...

Lady Bug

Charlie Brown

And just for kicks... Here is "White and Nerdy" and Dolly.

Picture Tag

I got tagged, sorta. It's a tag from my friend chella's blog. It's fun, so I did it!

First, the rules: Go into your picture folders and find the 4th folder, then click on the 4th picture and post it, then tell the story about the picture!This is Nora when she was just barely 1 yr old. She has always had the best hair. But for about the first year of her life it grew straight up. My brother-in-law Jeff took this picture. It is February in TX, cold and rainy. That's our back yard. I love Nora's chubby cheeks and her beautiful big brown eyes, but the hair is what takes the cake every time.

Secret Identity

Betcha didn't know that Superman is actually just.....


Spiderman's secret identity....

Bear Lake

Brian had a few days off from school this week so I said, "Let's get away!". Brian's uncle has an unfinished (almost finished) cabin up at Bear Lake, and so we called him up and asked if we could please spend two nights there. This is Brian's very very generous Uncle Denis, and he of course said yes. The only thing is that the forecast for Bear Lake this weekend included snow, snow and more snow. And the cabin isn't yet hooked up for plumbing and electric... Who cares! And off we went. So there were 3 major power cords jimmy rigged from a source outside the house so we could plug in space heaters, TV, and the microwave. We filled the bathtub up with a hose from outside and used the water to flush the toilet (TMI?). We brought snacks, frozen dinners, milk, cereal, hot chocolate and drinking water. And you know what, we had a great time.

My kitty cat lying in the sun to get warm.

Couch potato

Static Electricity
So cute!


It took 20 minutes to get them dressed to play outside in the snow. They stayed outside in the snow for 7 minutes.



COLD.
This is a picture of the road on the drive home. This is when it started to get better. I was too scared to take a picture while the conditions were worse. But we made it home safe and sound.

Long time, no blog

Sorry.

Besides the fact I was deathly ill (ok, I'm exaggerating, but I wanted to die), I've been in a bit of a blogging slump. Not because I didn't have things to blog about, but because I'd rather take a nap or clean the house when I had a spare minute. So here are the posts I meant to get around to...I was gonna write about how I made stuff out of peaches too (only not with all my sisters)

We went to Cornbelly's. It was fun.

There are princesses at Cornbelly's.

I potty trained Nora.

Ethan went to a BYU football game with Brian where according to Ethan, "BYU totally scored!"

I fed my children nutritiously.

My other parents came from TX to visit us.


We had a lovely picnic in American fork Canyon.

The End

Super Powers

So recently Ethan received some clothes from my Aunt which included some super hero pajamas: Buzz Lightyear, Superman, and Batman. Ethan's been wearing them around jumping off of things, fighting evil and lifting "heavy" stuff.

Early this morning I'm lying, asleep, in bed. Batman taps me...

Batman: Where are all the shirts and shorts your aunt gave me?
Me: In the dryer, I washed them.
Batman: Could you go get them for me?
Me: All you have to do is open the dryer and get them for yourself, I'm sleeping.
Batman: But I'm scared.
Me: Just turn on all the lights as you go, there is even one inside the dryer. You shouldn't be scared, You're BATMAN!
Ethan: Mom, I'm not really Batman, I'm just a little boy....
I hugged my sweet little boy and helped him get the clothes.

Awww, so sweet, right. Right? You see, super heroes have super powers. Superman can fly and pick up heavy stuff, Batman doesn't mind the dark and has good aim, and Ethan, well Ethan he has manipulation.

Nora goes straight

The other day my neighbors were asking me what Nora's hair looks like straight. I said, "uh, I dunno. I only did it once and it kept curling while I straightened it." So the next day I got out the blow dryer and the curling iron and went to work. Nora loved it and sat very still.

She is adorable (of course!), but I still love her curls more.

She messed with everything on the counter top while I straightened her hair. At least it kept her busy.

I said, "Give me your prettiest smile...."

Preschool

I have FINALLY joined the ranks of mothers who get to send their kids to school. Ok, so I was a bit apprehensive. But excited at the same time.

Ethan woke up this morning and I heard some movement coming from his room. Then I heard, "MOM, moooooommm! mom, mom, come in my room, mom!" So I got my tookus out of bed and went into his room. He was sitting in the middle of his room with his legs crossed and a big grin on his face. He was fully dressed and his bed was "made". Then he said, "first day of school, first day of school!" (a la Finding Nemo)
He didn't even walk, he ran to the building. He was very excited.

Here he is at preschool. I said I'd see him in two hours and he said, "yeah, ok, bye." Well alrighty then.As we walked out the door, Nora made this pitiful face and said, "I miss Ethie"....And then 5 minutes later...

She was running laps of joy around the statues outside the building.

When I picked Ethan up from school he was very happy. He loved it and the teachers loved him. The teacher stopped me to tell me how good he was. (huh?) Guess I need to implement their discipline tactics (they use the green, yellow, red light warning system with the kids names on popsicle sticks). After a run down of what they did, I asked Ethan if he made any friends and he said, "We aren't allowed to make friends or we'll get a red stick!" Hats off to you Legacy Center for scaring Ethan straight, I think I need to take some classes there to learn a few things.