Our fun Thanksgiving traditions!

Sorry no pics for this one, but we didn't take any. Just thought I'd share a little about what we did for Thanksgiving since it was a blast! Thursday is always spent with my Dad and his side of the family. We had a great dinner and then had a few cousins over and played numerous, hilarious rounds of Catch Phrase, music edition, in which my dad used the word "homeys" and I thought a certain song title was, "making love is hard to do"! Seriously so much fun! Friday is always spent with my Mom. About 9 years ago my mom came up with this fantastic idea of having an annual "Turkey Bingo" game in which each person brings 1 gag gift and 1 good gift and then we play bingo for the gifts. Kevan and I made out pretty good this year with gifts including a camping cot, a beach mat, the new pictionary man game and 2 really special ornaments that likely won't end up on our tree. Other favorite gag gifts this year included a pink and black size 44D bra for my bro-in-law, a Snuggie (which came in handy at the movie theater where my sister and I saw New Moon twice in one day) and probably the all time best gag gift ever- The Manhood (which went to my other bro-in-law)! Beware, it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like!

I also attempted Black Friday shopping and walked away with nothing! I will NEVER do it again and I will forever more have all my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving! I can't find anything I need! If anyone knows of where I can get any Zhu Zhu Pets without paying $50 for them or waiting in line for hours, please let me know, I need 2.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

October fun

We love going to Engh Gardens each year for a little hay maze and spooky fun.

Jason played some coach pitch baseball this fall and did great! He's great at hitting, even hitting a few grand slams, and getting better at catching and paying attention. Next up for him is hockey!

We've also started going to Cornbelly's down at Thanksgiving Point every year. They have corn mazes and rides and slides and good food, it's generally a blast. This year however I spent nearly the entire time in the porta potty. I think I had food poisoning and we ended up having to leave after an hour and a half. I felt soooo bad because the kids were having so much fun, but they did get to do a few things they wanted. Hopefully next year we will be able to stay a lot longer. We are enjoying our fall so far and looking forward to the holidays! Halloween pics coming up next.

10 Things I love about Andie...

10. Her gut laugh. I can't help but laugh when she laughs like that!


9. The way she adores Jason and follows him around, doing and saying anything he does. I'm not sure Jason likes it as much as I do, but most of the time he just humors her.

8. She calls me "momma".


7. When she doesn't want to go to bed, she asks if she can watch Gilmore Girls or Friends with me and snuggle in my bed. I let her almost every time because it's so funny to hear her say Gilmore Girls.

6. She's not afraid of spiders.


5. She's constantly singing, mostly songs that she has made up, such as "Bones Brigade".

4. She has an ear fettish right now. Numerous times a day she will rub my ear (or anyone else who is around) and tell me whether it is cold or warm. Strange, but kinda cute.


3. Her little bum in panties, cutest thing ever!

2. She's never mean to her friends and plays very well with anyone.


1. My favorite thing about Andie right now is how girly she is. I couldn't ask for a more girly girl and I love it! She snuggles with her babies, tucks them in for bed, puts them in time out, does their hair, takes them to the bathroom, she is a natural mommy. She also dresses up daily and has no problem walking in her high heels and skirts. She truly is a princess and I can't get enough of her!

Happy 3rd Birthday to my beautiful little girl!



Funny story about the 3 pictures above. I accidentally dropped hot candle wax on her forehead after I had lit the candles and was throwing the match away. Which is why she is holding her head in those pics. She still has a mark on her head and if you ask her what happened she says, "My mom burned me!" I felt really bad, but she got over it quickly.

My little boy is gone all day!

My sweet Jason is in 1st grade now and gone pretty much all day. I thought it was going to be hard with him gone, especially for Andie since she is losing her best playmate, but it has actually been the opposite. Andie happily plays all morning by herself and then takes a nap. She doesn't have to fight with anyone and she gets lots of attention from me, she couldn't be happier!

So handsome!

Jason has already made lots of friends and loves going to school. We are all trying to get used to waking up early! I feel like now I'm a real mom, having to wake up and get my kid ready for school. I don't think I was quite ready for it yet, I hate waking up to an alarm clock! I'm used to waking up at 8:30-ish by my kids. The alarm just isn't as cute! Oh, well, I guess it had to happen sometime.

Road Trip 2009

Playing Uncle Kris's drums.

With Uncle Tim and Aunt Conny.

Awww. How cute! Andie nearly loved this kitty to death.

We had to have Conny give us all hair cuts while we were there because she is so good!

Andie loved having her hair cut by her Aunt. Thanks Conny!

Wamego, Kansas. Home of the Wizard of Oz museum and my new favorite small town. I could live there for sure.

So for some reason Kevan and I thought it would be fun for me and the kids to fly out to Nashville and drive home with him. We started asking ourselves "What were we thinking?" about 2 days before we left. But, it turned out to be a lot of fun. I'm pretty sure we have the best traveling children in the world! They were so great! Thanks goodness for DVD players. It took us 3 days, pretty much driving all day every day. We saw a lot of the U.S. we've never seen before, made a few fun stops and ate a lot of fast food! Good times!

St. George

The scary bridge we had to cross to get to the top of the big rock in the next picture.

On top of a big rock that overlooks the entire valley. Love, love, love the red rock!

My cute little hikers!

Jason loved hiking here! He could have stayed for hours just wandering around.

Cute little Andie always following her big brother.

This is what we did every single day. What else do you do when it's 105 outside?

Andie loved this kiddie pool that was only 18 inches deep. She really doesn't like going under water so the less amount of it, the better for her!

My cute niece Kendall making a funny face!

My little fish! He could have lived in the water.

Idaho...

Normally not much happens when we go to Rexburg to visit my sister. We always have a great time and the kids have so much fun playing with their cousins, but this time there were a few interesting moments. Read on.......

Don't they look like angels? Well let me tell you what these 2 did the first day we there. My sister and I had to go pick up my 12 year old nephew from baseball practice and did not want to take all the kids. Lori asked her 10 year old daughter, Ashlynn, to watch Jason and Avree (who don't really need much watching) and Ayla and Andie while we ran to pick up Nathan. We left at 4:50 to pick him up at 5:00, well practice ran late and he didn't get in the car until 5:15. Right as we are leaving the ball field we get a call from Ashlynn saying she can't find Ayla and Andie and the front door was open! We start freaking out obviously and call the neighbors to start looking for two wandering 2 year olds. We start speeding home and just as we pull into my sisters neighborhood we finally get a call saying they had been found. Apparantely they had put their shoes on (both on the wrong feet) opened the door and started walking down the street. They made it about 6 houses down and were heading into a field behind someone's house when a neighbor girl spotted them! When asked what they were doing, Ayla replied that they were looking for their "mudders" (mother's, for those of you who don't speak 2 year old). Ayla did tell us that they did not go in the street they stayed on the side walk so at least they were careful! I couldn't stop shaking for a good hour afterward, but since have laughed about it. Moral of the story: all babysitters are warned over and over that Andie can and will open the door and walk out of it by herself or with an accomplice! That was adventure #1. Adventure #2 was Bear World.

While we had a great time seeing the animals and riding rides, by far the best part about Bear World was this pot-belly pig. The end of this video is the best so keep watching.

I really haven't laughed that hard in a while! Among other things, we baked 4 loaves of bread, 1 batch of cinnamon rolls, saw Up (which I loved!), ate at Bajio every other day and drank about 6 Cocoa Bean drinks. We had such a good time, we are heading back up in 2 weeks.

My little rock climber!

She'll climb all the way up here, but she won't go down the dang slide!

Oh ,the faith of a child!

A couple days ago Jason was playing with his best friend, Finn. He came home from Finn's house and told me this story... He was getting ready to leave Finn's house and couldn't find the necklace he had gotten at school that day. So Jason and Finn decided they would say a prayer to find his necklace. They said the prayer and then found the necklace! He was so excited that because he said a prayer they were able to find his necklace. What a great lesson learned from my 6 year old! I hope to have that much faith someday. I'm so grateful Jason has such good friends too!

My sweet tired Andie!

This is what happens when you only get a 30 minute nap and there is an available baby swing.