Here Comes Santa ... in a Fire Truck

Our little town is just so cute. The Monday after Thanksgiving Santa has a quick ride down Main Street in the fire truck with the lights and sirens going. As he gets out of the truck we have a count down and light the city tree. Then Santa meets with the kids and hands out candy canes. How cute is that!!

Annual Christmas Trip

So every year we go out to dinner and look at Christmas lights with Jeff's family. We've done the Temple Square lights and the drive through ones down in Spanish Fork (my personal favorite since you can stay nice and warm in the car).


This year we had a great surprise. Like our ride!?

It holds 14 so no one else get married or have babies!! Jeff likes this ride for our 12 kids down the road. I love the 5 car seats all next to each other.





We had 6 kids and 8 adults! We stopped and had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Delicious!!!!!!! And the kids behave pretty well.




Ryan in green and Kevin in red. The boys were mostly interested in the Christos this year. I love Temple Square but the lights aren't what they used to be so the boys were done pretty fast with being outside. We had a quick stop inside to look at the statue and then left for home.



Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

New Pics

So I finally braved it, and got the kids in for pictures. You probably can't tell, but Brenna was crying most of the time. She wouldn't smile in the group shot for anything. So we settled for a picture that didn't have a huge scowl. =) The boys were awesome and help up well. Near the end when the photographer was really trying hard to coax a smile out of Brenna, Ryan had a locked smile on his face, and through clenched teeth said, ever so politely, "Just take the picture."

My mother-in-law took the boys for a stroll through the mall so I could work on Brenna's singles. Wouldn't you know, as soon as I got her naked she was happy as a bug. So we'd take her picture in one outfit then I strip her down and let her chill for a minute before dressing her again. That would give me 3 minutes before she'd cloud up. I was so glad when that day was done!

This is the dress that we blessed Brenna in. It's also the dress that I was blessed in. Sweet, huh?

Thanksgiving food

This is mostly a reminder for me so I remember what foods I made and how much work it was! haha Well, it wasn't that bad. =)









Great-Grandma Helen
Aunt Marta did a great job on the napkins. =)






Here's my clean up crew.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So before I crash for the day, just wanted to wish all of you a Happy Thankgiving and let you all know how grateful I am for your friendships!

I pulled off my first Thanksgiving today for 12 people (yes, I did include Brenna). I had some great help from my mom (thanks, mom, otherwise we would have had a lot of COLD sides). I don't know how people do it without more than one stove or by themselves and keep all the food hot! But nothing burned, it all tasted yummy, and my fridge is bulging from leftovers. Which mean: let's go out to eat tomorrow!

ps good luck to any of you 5 am shoppers and remember: I got here first, saw it first, so hand the toy over! j/k

Leap Frog What?

I'm looking into getting Ryan a Leap Frog Learning System for Christmas but I'm so confused. There's seams to be a Leap Frog Pad, a Pad Plus, a Pad Writing, a Leapster, etc. Does anyone know anything about these and what would be best for a 4 year old?

Plus I just read on CNN that they are recalling AquaDots! I'm so sad since I had gotten them for Ryan for Christmas. Oh, well, back to Costco.

Say what??!

So Ryan has come up with a bunch of interesting topics today....

We're driving in the car, when Ryan asks:

"Mom, can I eat people?"

"No!"

"Even if they are a stranger?"

"Of course not!"

"What if someone takes me and Kevin away and we bite him so hard that we accidentally bite him in half. THEN, can we eat him?" (I've told Ryan to scream and bite if someone tries to grab them)

I then proceeded to try to explain how people meat isn't good for us and how we should respect our bodies that Heavenly Father has given us. That led to talking about funerals, since Ryan had to know what we would do with the body once he had bitten it in half. Which in turn led to talking a bit about death and how it wouldn't happen to him or me for a very, very, very, very-times -3000-days-long time. Which then led to this statement:

"Mom, the day before you die, you will die tomorrow."

"Umm, yes."