Sledding...

We went sledding with Olivers and Talbots the day after Christmas. What a blast, the kids had a great time sledding and tubing down this hill off of I-84 at a rest stop.

Downhill Chandler

That's some cold snow!

Downhill Shane

Wipe out Shane!!

Downhill Kevin

Brian and Hannah

Downhill Curtis

Sarah and Andrew

Downhill Chan

Catrina and Sarah

Catrina and Sydnee

Downhill Brian

Brian, Chantell, Hannah & Curtis

Taking a break with cocoa - Sarah, Sydnee & Emily

Merry Christmas

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Gingerbread House

Chandler and Shane had a fun time creating our gingerbread house this year. Sarah and I only added a few touches, but mostly it was Chandler's creation.

Jon Schmidt Christmas Concert

Shane called and got us tickets for the Jon Schmidt concert the first day they were available. We got the first row, first 4 tickets. Too bad you can't take pictures during the concert, it was so good and we had a fun time in the snowy weather.

Santa

Santa came to our ward party this year. Sarah told him she'd like Littlest Pet Shops (of course). Chandler only posed for the photo.

Temple Square

We requested tickets to one of the concerts at Temple Square and we got tickets to a Symphonic Concert in the Tabernacle - what a great way to get into the Christmas Spirit. We went early enough to see the lights and take a couple photos.

My Friends!

I'm so lucky have a such a great group of friends. They are more than merely seasonal friends, but lifetime friends that lift me up, make me feel good about myself and help me through those hard times. I just hope that I can prove to be as much a friend to them as they are to me.

Love you all!

Trick or Treat

Don't know the Ninja Turtle, he just stopped in our picture and since the kids were smiling, I took it. From left to right: Sarah, Andrew, Hannah, Rebekka, Ethan

Fall Concert 2008

Chandler played in his first concert today. It was pretty good. Although the "auditorium" was the common area and it does not have good acoustics. The beginning band (Chandler's class) played first, they played A Little Bit of Latin and the Theme from Transformers. Then the intermediate, jazz and advanced bands played.


Chandler and his friend Dalton.

I love my new camera!

It's a Canon PowerShot SD890 IS. It's 10 MegaPixels and 5x Optical, but it's compact and so cute. It has an image stablizer, great features for indoors, outside, snow, kids playing, red eye corrector, etc. I love it!

Bleubelle

Our beautiful kitty will be 3 years old on Sunday, wow!

Gardner Village

I love Gardner Village this time of year. They have the funniest witches posed all over and beautiful places to take pictures of the kids. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Sarah Lost A Tooth!!

Sarah finally lost a tooth today. The dentist had to pull it out, but it still counts as a lost tooth. Sarah has been getting the bottom two front teeth in right behind her baby teeth and she has been trying to get them loose for 6 weeks now, but they just wouldn't come out. So today, the dentist pulled one of them and left the other so that the new permanent teeth have guides. He's hoping it will come out on it's own in the next 4 weeks, otherwise - check back in 4 weeks to see her next lost tooth. As you can see from the photo, the permanent tooth is almost all the way up, now we just hope it will find where it's supposed to be. The dentist (and also our orthodontist) is really optimistic, so let's hope.

Witches Night

Witches Night is so fun, it's so much fun to dress up and go out with friends to dinner and dancing at Gardner Village. BTW, I made my dress last year and the cape - a ton of work, but I'm going to get my money and time out of it!

Mini Golf

We thought it would be fun to go mini-golf with the Talbots during the UEA (Fall Break) weekend. It was so warm for fall, 79 degrees, but we really had a lot of fun.

Grandma's Yummy Rolls

I just read my sister's post about our Grandma and the yummy rolls that she always made for us. I was amazed to see that Aimee, Christopher and I all made Yummy Rolls the night before conference. We all loved them (I think Ashley even created a Vegan recipe at one point, of course the real thing is MUCH better). Aimee's story of Grandma Sweetie is on her blog: http://jongejanslife.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-grandmothers-hands.html

A few things about my Grandma Sweetie (and Grandpa): (I am going to find a photo of Grandma to scan in - it may take a little while to find one, but I'll find it and scan it in)

I'm pretty sure that I was Grandma's favorite, but that is probably just because I was the oldest and we were similar in our thoughts. I talked to Grandma at least once a week until she was too sick and we had to take her to a nursing center. It was so hard for me, I knew how much Grandma wanted to stay in her house, but she was so sick with Alzheimer's. I could sense the decline in her memory and tried to tell mom about it, but I don't think mom could see it as much as I could. I'm so glad that I got to go and help mom with Grandma's house and getting her settled into the nursing home. It gave me the chance to say goodbye to a place I really loved. I got to visit Grandma when I was about 14 to take our cat up to Grandma to have her care for her (Ashley's asthma was too much for her to handle with the kitty there). I spent a week there and loved it, Grandpa knew that I really liked Jello and so he bought me 2 dozen boxes of different flavors of Jello. Then a year or so later, we drove the Winnebago up to ND as a family to visit. After Chandler was born and I worried about Grandma because Grandpa was gone, Shane and I and Chandler went up to visit for a week. We tried to convince her to come to Utah and live with us, but she wanted to stay with her house. I wish she would have come to live with us, I think we could have helped reduce the Alzheimer's, just by having people around and talk to. I love my Grandma Sweetie and I can't wait for her to be sealed to Grandpa, I know she will be so happy.

finally...

I finally picked up my photos at Wal-Mart and put them in my computer so I could post them. Sadly, I'm not very good with my SLR camera anymore, a few of the photos are a little blurry. I put the photos down below in the respective post.

Syracuse Mini-Dance

I have been lucky enough to supply the Syracuse High Mini-Dance shirts two years in a row now and I've signed Sarah up to participate. She loves it - talks about it all the time. It's two days for an hour and half each day and then they do a little dance during half time at the football game. So Friday, Sept 5th we went to the Syracuse game against Mountain View. Syracuse played very well for being a 2 year old team and won the game. I still don't have a digital camera so, I have to get the film developed and transferred to digital before I can post photos. Hope they turned out - that is the something you take for granted with a digital camera.


Just before the game

posing...

Sarah and Beka

Sarah, Beka and their Dance Line teacher

Sarah's right in the middle

Sarah is in the front row, in the middle, right next to the dark haired girl