Christmas!

Christmas has now come and gone...I love Christmas morning, although I'm always a little sad when it's all over. We had a great Christmas this year. Ains made sure to remind us several times a day that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because Jesus was born, not because of presents and Santa Claus (what a smarty pants!).

We spent Christmas eve at my parents house and had an Italian feast...it was delicious! Way too much food, but delicious!

We then played the traditional "game that Syd comes up with." This year she made a Wheel of Fortune wheel out of tinker-toys and then we had to solve the puzzles of Christmas sayings/song titles. I believe my mother was the winner. However, in my defense for coming in last, my first name that tune was a song called, "Pat a Pan." What! You haven't heard of that one either?!?

We then came home and the kids got to open their Christmas Eve present. Pajamas. And we were able to get the yearly shot of kids in front of the tree on Christmas Eve in their pj's. Cute, eh?Our morning was a blast. I think John was as excited as the kids that Santa brought a train set. We woke up to the sound of one of the trains going around the track. Owen didn't bother waking us up. John and the kids have had tons of fun building and rebuilding the track. I'm sure the train will bring hours of joy to all members of my family. The kids were so funny about opening their presents. Owen tried to wait his turn (we open things one at a time here) but somehow he never could wait a full rotation to open another present. Ains was cute because she was so excited about what ever she got. It's nice to watch someone open a present when you get the pleasant/ecstatic reaction Ains gives. Here's a funny little Ains story for you. Santa also brought Ains a little magna doodle. She was beaming when she took off the packaging and on the packaging material there was the magna doodle logo, and also a little drawing of a heart. She was so thrilled because she thought the elves had drawn her that picture and she immediately went and taped it on her door. I'm just wondering how long I have to hang on to the toy wrapper.

Much of our Christmas was spent playing with our new camera. John picked it up a few days before Christmas so that we could get some good shots of the day. We have decided that photography will be our new hobby! We got a camera that can shoot automatically or manually. John has wanted a camera like this for years and I've always wanted to learn photography. He's had people in our ward convincing me that ans SLR was so much better than a point and shoot. And due to the state of our current camera, a few books sold, and some Christmas money, he convinced me to let him get it. It really does take amazing pictures. I'm excited to learn even more so that I can figure out how to get some really cool shots. (John took this one. Notice the blurry hands but the focused face...facinating.)
Hope you all had a merry Christmas too!

Week in Review

The past week has been a little crazy. I've never felt super busy during the month of December. I'm usually about done with my shopping and just working on a few odds and ends. This year however, has taken me by surprise. I had most of my shopping done, but for some reason, I have felt crazy busy and like I've been running like crazy. So, for documentation sake, here is the past week or so in review....enjoy (or feel free to skip)!

We went to a fun Christmas party with some friends a week or so ago where I took the best white elepant EVER!!! I found an old 80's padded/quilted photo album in mauve with lace and ribbons too. I put a picture of John on the front and then filled it with scrap booked pages of John that said things like, "so easy to love," "manly," "ooh la la." I'm kicking myself for not scanning the pages before I gave it away. It had people crying they were laughing so hard, seriously, I'm that hilarious. Anywho, after some fighting for the book some friends of ours ended up with it. I can't wait to see what embarrassing situation that book pops up at again.

Our week was also filled with birthday parties. We had my mom's b-day on the 16th. Ains had 2 birthday parties in one day (she rarely goes to birthday parties, how is it that she ends up going to 2 on one day).

A friend of mine also had a birthday last week and her husband threw her a surprise party. It was a lot of fun. There was a gift exchange, it was supposed to be another white elephant, but there were only 3 of us that gave white elephants. Everyone else gave cool stuff like movie tickets, candy, and platters. We took a mounted fish wearing a Santa hat...again, I'm hilarious. John was relieved to know that our friends that currently posses his scrapbook were out of town and would not be able to attend the party.

We also had our ward Christmas party. (This just happened to be on the same day as Ainsley's 2 birthday parties...what a day she had!) The party was very typical. We got these awesome shots of the kids with Santa.

Yep...that was the best we got. And we have about 20 shots like this (Owen was the photographer for the night.) It was very lazy of us to let Owen carry around the camera, but ours is taking worse and worse shots and so we're in the market for a new camera right now, but that's another story.
We have lots of crotch shots. It must stink to be 2 and be stuck at that level all day.

I've also been baking. I thought of a genius idea for neighbor gifts this year. Unfortunately I'm not a genius. I decide to make a couple of batches of cinnamon rolls and freeze them in little tin pans and then give them to our neighbors with baking instructions. This way they could enjoy them at a time when they weren't over run with treats. Unfortunately I made one batch without adding the salt and sugar to the dough. They tasted a little off. So, we gave away some and are now stuck with some pans of not so good cinnamon rolls. Yay!!!


We also decided to do the 12 days of Christmas this year. It has been a little more time consuming and costly than I originally thought. But I've had fun doing it, and I think Ains has loved dropping something off and running. Although, John has been stuck doing a lot of the delivering on his own. This is a treat we made to drop off for them last night...and then we used the extra to make up for yucky cinnamon rolls, maybe I am a genius?!?

We also had a massive snow storm, okay, massive for here. John and the kids spent a decent amount of time outside after church yesterday. But now it really feels like Christmas.

Other than that, its just been a lot of shopping, wrapping, and such. I think I'm now officially ready for Christmas. Only a few more presents to wrap, a little cleaning and laundry to do, and then Santa is welcome to come!

Another year!

Today is our 8th anniversary, although we celebrated this past Saturday. We splurged and paid for a sitter...we rarely do that. We went out for dinner, John humored me and let me shop for some clothes on our date, we picked up bread for the sacrament, and then we came home and watched a movie. It really was a nice night out. It doesn't take much to make a night pleasant and relaxing when there aren't kids involved.

We share our anniversary with my mom...it's her birthday. So since we celebrated on Saturday we'll head over to celebrate with her tonight and make ginger bread houses with the kids. Every year I think that we need to celebrate our anniversary on another day, possibly in the summer. It's too easy to brush over it when there is shopping, spending, and a million other things to do. Maybe one of these years we will.

As for now, it's just nice to know that even after 8 years we're still into cattle horn furniture...nothing says love like cattle horn furniture! Maybe we'll have our own set some day...we can only hope!

oops

We had our first snow fall that stuck today.
Unfortunately, it caused me to get this.

Luckily, I was driving in the neighborhood, alone, and no one was hurt.

Unfortunately, the other guys car wasn't as nice looking as mine after the little collision. He's going to need to go to a body shop for sure.

Luckily (for me) the kid that collided with me was probably like 15, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be driving his step-dad's car. We didn't have cell phones. He was scared out of his mind. His step dad was out of town. He just wanted to get out of there. His step dad doesn't speak English. So we swapped numbers and called it good.

Unfortunately I still feel bad. The accident was as much my fault as is was his (I was driving in tire marks around a curve that were on his side of the road and we both just slid and couldn't avoid each other.)

Luckily I was driving the '96 Toyota and it's not worth repairing the damage.

What a fun Sunday afternoon!

All I want for Christmas

The kids Christmas lists have been changing daily lately. But a few items on Owen's list have remained consistant. When asked what he wants he will say, candy corn, candy cane, m&m's and a horse (until I turned the camera on him and then I got a slightly different list). I laugh every time we ask him what he wants because he reminds me of the movie "Elf" when Buddy the elf tells us that the 4 major food groups for elves are, "Candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup.)

Hockey!

A co-worker of John's was nice enough to give us some tickets to the hockey game. So, we made a night of it and headed down town to the grove for dinner, lights, and the game.

The kids were mesmerized when we walked into the arena with all the commotion and the music thumping. I don't think they've been to an arena type event that they remember. Owen would have been happy just standing and watching the crowd. We lucked out and got a neat souvenir for the kids. Before the game we went down to the glass to watch the players warm up. One nice player noticed the kids watching them and skated over, picked up 2 pucks with his stick, and tossed them over the glass to us. Luckily I caught the action with my amazing photography skills.

The kids were were proud of their pucks!

Ains loved the game and was a great cheerleader. The people sitting in front of us were laughing as Ains would scream, "Go Steelheads!" over and over.

We even got a shot with the mascot.
It was such a fun night. John and I really liked watching the game. The whole family enjoyed the major fist-throwing fight that we got to see right off the bat. Ains was worried that it was "our guy" but I assured her that he wouldn't do something naughty like that. There was so much action that the kids were entertained and did really well. Owen entertained our section of the arena with his smooth dance moves. He was shakin' his booty like it was nobodies business during all of the songs. He had the row behind us to himself and used the entire thing to show off his moves. It was hilarious.

Despite the grumpy lady in front of us that kept getting hit in the head by Owen, I think everyone had a fun night!

How John Saved Christmas! (A true story.)

This Christmas story begins the Sunday before Thanksgiving where I, being the well planned out mother that I am, made my family get out our Christmas decorations before our trip since we wouldn't be getting home until Dec. 2nd. I am a firm believer in having Christmas decorations up for the entire month of December. I'm sure that the world would have imploded if our advent calendar had not been up and ready the moment we walked in the door on the 2nd...already a day behind. I digress.

Amidst the decorating and festivities, John and I were dreading getting out the tree. We have a hand me down 9 1/2 foot tree that is not pre-lit. I spend what seems like FOREVER getting lights on it every year. There are also broken branches that have to be placed precisely so as not to be too obvious. It didn't take much convincing when John told me we should just get rid of the old tree and buy a new one. I justified my hasty decision by telling myself that in our 8 years of marriage I have only spent $20 on Christmas trees. Plus, I had been eyeing one at Costco that had just been marked down $50. So instead of getting out the tree that night, John took the kids on Monday while I was at work to pick up the new tree.

When I got home that night the tree was set up in my living room and LIT...with out me doing anything! It was an amazing sight. Then we left for Thanksgiving with plans to decorate the tree with the kids on the night we got home. This is where our story takes a tragic turn. We got home and unpacked and ready to decorate the tree only to realize that a branch on the tree was broken! Yes broken! John then had the audacity to ask me if we could just keep the tree and turn the broken branch toward the wall. I of course said no. I mean, if I'm going to go out and get my first pre-lit tree that will last me forever, it had better start out perfect! So John, being the loving husband and father that he is rushed back to Costco, even though he had been in the car all day, to exchange the tree.
Here is where our story takes yet another tragic turn. Costco was out of my tree!!! John had to buy the broken tree back while I called another Costco. They had the tree in, but not for $50 off, or so the customer service representative said. I promptly told the customer service representative that I needed a tree. My kids were expecting to decorate a tree. My new tree from their store was broken. The other Costco was out of the tree. And that he'd better work some holiday magic and get me my tree for the sale price (that was a direct quote :). In the end, the customer service representative realized he was at fault and that the tree was still $50 off, and so John drove for another hour to get our tree, thus saving Christmas!

And, just for fun, here are some shots of when we actually got around to decorating my gorgeous, pre-lit, very realistic looking tree. (Although this almost didn't happen due to child misbehavior, but that's another story.)

Notice those life-like pine needles!

And just for fun...here is a pretty holiday shot that Yanira took of us at temple square. Don't my kids look well behaved!

What a week!

We spent the entire last week in Salt Lake for Thanksgiving. I think we crammed everything we could into one week, and had a lot of fun while doing it. We celebrated Alene's birthday with her with an Italian feast. We ate until we were sick on Thanksgiving, oh wait, we (or maybe just I) ate until I was sick all week. We did some shopping, IKEA is now our favorite store. The kids did a craft. We had a dessert contest. We got to meet Ashlyn, our newest niece, and go to her baby blessing. I got to go to a surprise breakfast for Alene with all of her sisters. We visited John's grandparents. We visited a few friends. We saw the lights on temple square (Owen was grumpy enough to make this more work than fun). And we let the kids ride on the train (tracks) while we were down town. We even completed our trip in style by having a child throw up in the car on the way home (Funny side note...Owen gagged as we drove past Jerome on the way to SL because of the strong cow smell (Ains prayed on the night before we left that the cows wouldn't be as stinky on the way home), so I guess we shouldn't have been surprised when he lost his lunch, literally, on the way home...although there were no stinky cows around this time). What a week! A fun one though!

I feel like this picture really captures the chaos that was temple square...good times!

This is what my kids do when I say smile!

All the cousins working on their snowflake craft.

Ains and Mikaela riding the train.
Owen and Nicholas waiting to ride the train...they were really excited! I'm not sure why this picture doesn't convey that.
Do we look more or less excited about the train than the kids???
This is the best picture I got of the baby...sad but true. She really is a beautiful baby. I bet you could find better pics here.
These are all of the desserts entered in the contest. There was a pudding thing (sorry Matt, I don't remember what it was called), a pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate coconut cake, chocolate mint bunt cake, and peanut butter cheesecake. After the votes were tallied Yanira's pumpkin cheesecake was the winner!

Par-tay!!!

(FYI: this is not the readers digest version, this is the for posterity version...feel free to skim!)

I have been working for months (literally) on a surprise party for my parents. Both of them turn 50 this year within months of each other, so I decided it would be fun to throw them a joint surprise party. We've never done something big like this for my parents, and they totally deserve it, and so it seemed like now was as good a time as any. I got my sisters and brother on board with me and we've been planning and scheming since September. I called their old friends, broke into their email accounts to get email addresses, and had all sorts of fun. I've been so excited about it that I even dreamt about it the night before the party. (I dreamt that Kort and I were riding our bikes over to their house to decorate at 5:30 in the morning and were nearly there before we realized that they would be home and see the decorations before the party that night.)

On the day of the party I knew they had no idea what was going on when I called my mom and asked her what she was doing that day and she told me her plans without knowing that I had actually planned her day. We had some friends of theirs invite them over for dinner and to watch a game. Unfortunately they had to come up with some crazy excuses to get my parents back over to their house where we were waiting for them with all of their friends.

I realized after they walked in and we yelled, "Surprise!" that I should have made a sign that said 'Happy 50th Cary and Lynette!' because the first words out of their mouths were "for what?"

(I later found out that my mom thought some of Syd's friends were playing a joke, and my dad thought the party was just for my mom until he had been there for about 10 minutes. He was wondering why we hadn't told him. Ya, a sign would have been helpful.) But after some explaining they came in and we all had a great time.

We had made a slide show full of great pictures from the past... I put together a time line of the past 50 years. I did pop culture and history along the top and their life in pictures along the bottom. I thought it turned out awesome! It was probably at least 10 ft. long.

I had sent out these questionnaire's with all of the invitations asking people to send back their answers to questions like, what was the funnies thing you saw Cary or Lynette do, or what was your most memorable moment with Cary or Lynette. I had originally intended to do a game and make my parents guess who had said what about them, but too many party goers were bums, and so I just printed up the responses I got and put them on cards and hung them on the wall. I had a lot of fun reading people's responses. It's always fun to hear funny things your parents did way back when. Like my dad mooning people, and my mom wearing bustier girls bra's on the outside of her clothes.

Kort made an awesome cake and since we forgot to buy candles, they each got to blow out one.

There was lots of great food...

Lots of great friends...

And hopefully a lot of fun!

A few random things I should have posted, but haven't yet...

Believe it or not Owen came up with this angelic pose on his own. He originally did it just because, no camera's or anything. Every time he does it I just can't help but laugh.

Here is a picture John got of Ains playing school. I'm impressed that all of her students look so attentive.

I started copying Shelly and trying out new hair-do's on Ains. This one has become a favorite. It stays in and she always looks adorable.

Today I was in charge of sharing time and, if I do say so myself, it turned out awesome. I was a bit discouraged when I was trying to be super prepared by planning early because I knew the end of the month was going to be hectic for me, and the sharing time I had originally planned was done by someone else. I ended up making John do a little skit with me. He was Mr. Gratitude, and I was the grumpy girl. He put gratitude glasses on me that made it possible for me to see all my blessings (balloons with blessings written on them all over the floor). I was then able to fill my garbage bag full of balloons and become thank-ful in stead of thank-empty. We will be doing a few performances this week for select audiences. (sorry the picture is awful, I had it on a weird setting when I made Ains take our picture)

Twilight

I saw it last night. I went in with no expectations. Which is why I came out a fan (although I was most definitely disappointed with some parts). I went in disappointed with the choice of the actor who would be playing Edward. I'm ashamed to admit it. But, now I totally have a crush on Edward.