Cookies...YUM!

Tonight we spent some time making festive sugar cookies before we watched the Christmas Devotional. Let me just say I LOVE having Dish. Nothing compares to watching the devotional in your own house, in your jammies, cozy on the couch, eating cookies! It especially comes in handy when the kids are all running around like crazy so we just blast the volume to hear over all the noise. (By the time it was over, they were all asleep!) This past week was a busy one! We had the Kids giving to Kids event. The boys loved seeing the fire trucks and it was fun to make a craft and give to a good cause at the same time! The boys were also able to see Santa there. Landon DID NOT like Santa very much. I will post the picture as soon as I get it back.
We had our ward Christmas party Saturday night (no pictures...sorry!) and on Saturday the boys had a birthday party. It was a cowboy party and Dallin and Parker were thrilled to ride real horses! They also received cowboy hats. Lets just say, one little boy is loving his hat so much that he has only taken it off to go to bed:
Its such a fun time of year. I am sure this week will be just as crazy or even more so!

Our Halls are Decked!

We've been busy the past few days getting the house all ready for Christmas. The boys were a great help with the tree. They were literally THROWING the ball shaped ornaments on the tree trying to see if any of them would catch in the higher branches. Luckily we only had one gold ball casualty.
Nate did a great job with the lights this year. We actually hung lights on the second level of the house...this is a big step for us!

Our 7 year old $30 Christmas tree from our first Christmas is still going strong. Every year as Nate puts it together he says, "Thats it......this is the LAST year we are using this dumb tree!" It isn't prelit...and he has to manually put each branch in. He has been saying that for the past 3 years though. I'm sure I will be hearing the exact same line next Christmas. Hey...I still like it! We jazzed it up this year with a new star and we got a bunch of new bright red ornaments.

Hooray for Christmas!

Before and After

We just got some of Nathan's new work pictures back. Wanna see the difference 1 year and 40 pounds can make?????

Before:

After:

Hooray for lifestyle changes! He is definitely my inspiration (especially during the holiday season!) I love you hon!

Festival of Trees

You KNOW the holidays are upon us when the Festival of Trees is here! We enjoyed going down town last night to see all of the beautiful trees and the performances.

Notice Landon....no shoes. The kid absolutely HATES shoes! (Must have some of his Daddy's California blood!)

Here is my favorite tree...the UPSIDE DOWN tree!

The best part were the actors intermixed with the trees. They were pretending to be wind up toys. There was Robin Hood, Snow White, the Wicked Queen, the Wizard of Oz...just to name a few. Fun fun!

Thankful

Last night we made our traditional "thankful turkey." We've been so blessed this year. We each took turns writing down something we were thankful for and then we taped it to our turkey.

Dallin was thankful for: everyone, love, Grandma and Grandpa, and our house.

Parker was thankful for: corn (???-he doesn't even really like corn), our park by our house, and family

I was thankful for: Daddy, the gospel, family, temples, and good friends

Nate was thankful for: Mom, Dal, Parker and Landon, good health, and QUIET.

Landon just ran around screaming a laughing.

Hope everyone has a HAPPY and SAFE Thanksgiving!!!!

Trip to Utah

Even though Celine stood us up...we decided it would still be fun to head on down to UT anyway. The boys and I took off on Wed. and we came home last night. We had a great time! Here are some of the highlights:

1. First off....babies, babies, babies!! My newest nephew Brody was born while I was down there....too cute! Such a sweet little face! Congrats to Clay and Brit! My sister still came down and she brought baby Carter with her. (Parker says he loves baby Carter...but ONLY because he is a boy!) AND I was able to meet my best friend Ashley's sweet little girl, Emmalee. FUN for me!

2. My sister and I were able to go to Body Worlds. It was absolutely INCREDIBLE. It is a traveling exhibit of preserved human bodies and body parts. I know it sounds a little creepy but it was such a neat thing to see in person. Seeing the actual development of the fetus was fascinating. I also liked the differences between a smokers lung vs. and non smoker. If you live in UT...GO SEE IT! Its only around until January! It makes you really want to do a better job of taking care of your body and especially your heart!

3. Going to Leatherby's. Its probably a good thing that I live in Boise, otherwise I would frequent this place WAY too often! The boys love to go there with Grandpa Tom!

4. Spending time with people we love! We love being able to see our friends, cousins, grandmas and grandpas! Its always fun to catch up, stay up late playing games, or watch all the kids put on a "program." So hilarious.

We had a fun time but we MISSED our daddy way too much! We were happy to see him when we got back home! (And I was thrilled to arrive home to a clean house AND some beautiful flowers!) It is nice to know he missed us too!

Spirit of Giving

I've probably said it a thousand times before but I really have the most amazing friends. This year a few of them were talking about how their kids have really started in with the "I want this and I want that" already. They came up with this amazing idea so I just thought I would pass the idea along in case any of you out there were trying to help your kids get into the spirit of giving this Christmas season.

They have reserved the fire station, sponsors have chipped in so the kids can have fun making a craft, there will be a book drive, they get to sit on Santa's knee (for a $5.00 donation to charity) and all we have to do is donate a toy to toys for tots. O yeah...and the children are running the whole program. The kids will take the pictures, teach the craft...etc. Of course, the adults will be watching over their shoulders to make sure they are doing everything right. :)

Here is the blog link: http://www.kidsgivingtokids.blogspot.com/

Great idea! Can't wait to go!

Letter to Celine

Dear Celine,

I understand that you have strained vocal chords and have an infection but I am still VERY irritated with you postponing your show until February.

I've been looking forward to attending your show in Salt Lake for 4 months now.

I have spent many hours packing (for myself and my kids) and getting my car prepared for the drive.

I've had made arrangements for my job, my calling, and childcare while I was going to be at the show.

My sister was planning on flying from Moscow, Idaho to Salt Lake with her brand newborn for the concert.

My Grandma has been looking forward to attending the concert with her granddaughters for over a year now.

AND you have rescheduled your concert to be on a SUNDAY so now we can't even go at all.

You suck.

Sincerely,

Staci

Bunch of nuts!

It's a Saturday afternoon (yesterday). The high temperature for the day is 55 degrees. The water temperature at Lucky Peak is 43 degrees. My crazy husband, brothers and father are out doing this:

And I stayed home and turned my fire on. BRRR!!!

(Although..I will say, I USED to be this crazy! I even went waterskiing on New Years one year....now I have come to my senses and realized that the brain freeze isn't all that worth it!)

I'm so angry....I'm seeing RED.

Sigh. What an afternoon.

Today, while I am busy upstairs doing laundry, cleaning bathrooms, basically trying to keep up with everything, I hear, "Mom....Parker got BLOOD all over the TV."

I don't think I have ever made it down the stairs so fast. I am thinking, "Crap, I am not hearing any crying, what in the world is going on?"

I look over at the TV and see this:

And THIS all over my carpet: Parker decided to THROW a bottle of RED PAINT into the family room today. The bottle broke open and paint splattered ALL over the entire room....walls, speakers, couches, and ESPECIALLY the carpet. I was surprisingly calm when I realized no one was in fact bleeding. Then I started scrubbing......and scrubbing. The carpet is looking worse and worse. The paint wasn't coming out at all. My carpet was just turning a lovely shade of pink.

Then I start getting VERY upset. Even my good old trusted Spot Shot isn't doing a darn thing. (I heard later on...Spot Shot is the WORST thing to use on carpet.....news to me) Then I pull out the Bissell...I'm sure that will do the trick. NOTHING.

I call Nate in tears....he tells me I need to chill out and just call someone. I call a couple carpet cleaners and I hire the one who tells me he can come over RIGHT NOW.

30 minutes later my knight in a shining armor arrives. (Or the scary man in the carpet cleaning truck) 15 minutes and $65 later.......the paint is GONE and my blood pressure returns back to normal.

Luckily the man told Parker that he can't do things like this or Santa won't come. Good thing Santa is so nice....Parker has been on the naughty list for a long time now.

Best Buddies

I wanted to write down my favorite conversation this week between the boys. It was so sweet and I know I won't remember it for very long unless I record it. We were in the car driving home and this is what Nate and I heard:

Dallin: "I love you Parker."

Parker: "Yeah...I know, I love you too."

Dallin: "Ya know, most guys don't say things like that....but I do."

Parker: "Thanks Dallin."

Isn't if amazing that some of lifes greatest truths are voiced by children? I'm hopeful that "most guys" in this house never stop saying they love each other....no matter how big they get.

A NEW day!

I went to bed last night at 8:30. That has to be a record for me (without being sick anyway). I was just so exhausted from hearing about the election ALL DAY LONG. I voted, talked about it with Nate, and watched it on tv for hours on end and then as soon as the boys were all in bed...I decided to join them.

My husband is thrilled with the results...as you can all imagine. I think Mayor Giuliani put it best last night when he said, "Tomorrow morning we can all become AMERICANS again. We all need to stand behind our new President whoever it may be because if HE fails then that means that we ALL fail."

So welcome new day and here's to hoping for the best!

A Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday we decided to take up some of the afternoon driving up to Table Rock. If you have ever lived in Boise or have ever driven through Boise (especially at night) then you right where it is. Nate and his riding buddies rode up there on Saturday and he wanted to take the boys up to see all of the fall colors below.

Table Rock is a flat topped outcropping of sandstone with the white “B”, a large cross that is lit up at night and dozens of communication antennae that overlooks the city and the entire valley. From Table Rock you can easily see in excess of 100 miles into Oregon and Owyhee County.

The sunset was spectacular, the forested mountains at Bogus Basin seem close enough to touch. You can look DOWN on airplanes landing at Gowen Field and it is fun trying to find all of the Boise landmarks from being up so high. I haven't been up there since the night I graduated from high school. It was a fun way to kill a few hours on a Sunday afternoon....especially with everyone trying to adjust to the time change! One funny story: We had to quickly ESCORT Dallin away from the big bench up there because its covered in graffiti and Dallin was reading it out loud to Parker. YIKES!

Happy Halloween!!

I absolutely LOVE Halloween! We had so much fun this year. It has been YEARS since Nathan and I have dressed up. Ever since the law school catastrophe (where we dressed up as white trash and NO ONE else dressed up) we have been hesitant to do it. We started out the night going to Melissa's for a Halloween Party and then headed over to the ward trunk or treat.

Guess who won for funniest costume??? Ahhh yeah....the squished ears and paint were worth it!Thanks for the great idea Janet.

Here are the munchkins! Landon wasn't digging the spider costume this year. He was so tired. He only had nap for an hour so he was pretty much just wanting to go home and go to bed the whole evening. Dallin was a knight. He wanted everyone to know that he was a "nice" knight though. Parker was Iron Man. Of course he was Iron Man....according to him he IS Iron Man all the time! We went to visit Daddy at work during the day and all of the secretaries couldn't get enough of these guys!

It was a fun night! Nothing like candy, family, friends and a good time. O...and the temperature outside was INCREDIBLE this year! We didn't even need a jacket!

YW Halloween Party

I've heard of husbands who "take over" their wives blogs to leave them sweet messages or to wish them a Happy Birthday/Valentines day. Then there is MY husband...who steals my blog to vent about politics!

O well...I love him just the same. He thinks for himself and I admire that quality in him....even if he IS a democrat. (In fact....I might be leaning a little towards Obama myself.) It has actually been a very good thing for me...he has taught be quite a bit about really knowing about what I am voting for and how important it is to do your research before going to the polls.

ANYWAY......last night was tons of fun. For Young Women's we had our Halloween party! We played a "fear factor" type of game that incorporated scriptures. It was a great time! Can you tell what me and Nancy and Cindy were?? 3 blind mice!

The girls had to do all sorts of silly activities like: finding the gummy worms in the flour with their teeth only, bobbing for apples, opening a starburst in their mouths, catching ping pong balls in a cup with the thrower being blindfolded....just to name a few. The girls are so much fun!