LIGHTS!

So far this year, Emily's favorite part of Christmas is the lights. Whenever we drive around town she spots the Christmas lights on all of the trees and houses and tells us all about them.

After celebrating Thanksgiving, we went to the temple to see the lights, the manger scene, and listen to the Christmas story. While at the Visitor's Center, we looked at the Walter Raine paintings that were on display. These painting we are so amazing! They depicted scenes in the Book of Mormon in ways that really told the stories.

It was so cold we wrapped Emily up in a quilt so tightly she couldn't move. She didn't complain too much until we got to the Nativity scene and then she wanted to get out and look at the Baby Jesus.

Emily loved the lights and she especially loved Baby Jesus. Ever since then, she has told everyone she saw Jesus at the temple and she is constantly asking us if we can go back to the temple to see the lights and Baby Jesus.

Monday night (11/29) we went to the Christmas light ceremony in Washington City. It was really cold so we loved the hot chocolate they gave out for free. While there, we listened to Cambree sing with her school choir, saw Santa Claus, and Emily rode her bike in the little light parade.

While we were standing in line for Santa, we asked Emily if she wanted to go see Santa and she kept saying "No see Baby Jesus at temple!" Russell and I laughed but we were glad that she knows the true meaning of Christmas is about Jesus not Santa. When we finally got to Santa, Emily refused to sit on his lap and bawled and bawled. She was not even happy about the candy cane Santa gave her. I can't really blame her though because I'm not really a big fan of Santa's either. I just don't like the idea of sitting on so strange guy's lap. Despite our frost bitten toes and the scary Santa, we had a lot of fun at the lighting ceremony.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving twice. One with my family on Thursday and one with Russell's family on Friday. Being with family is our favorite thing to do so we had a great time at both places. On Thursday, we all met at my mom's house for dinner. There was a lot of yummy food and pies and we all over ate and enjoyed ourselves. Emily even ate all of her food so she could have some delicious Banana cream pie. I didn't get any pictures at this dinner darn it!

One funny thing that did happen this year involved Justin and the pumpkin pies. I guess all week long Justin had been counting down the days until Thanksgiving so he could have some of my mom's pumpkin pie. He was so excited. Then, on Thanksgiving, my mom had him and Jacee go downstairs to get all of the pies to bring upstairs so we could eat them. When Justin went downstairs, he noticed that the pumpkin pie he had been craving all week was in a Costco box! His entire desire for pumpkin pie was shattered when he realized that the pie was store bought and not homemade! Now keep in mind that my mom always makes homemade pies, including pumpkin, every year for Thanksgiving; however, she found these big pumpkin pies at Costco for $5 that were very good and decided that was a lot cheaper than making it so for the past 5 years or so she has bought the pumpkin pies instead of making them. Justin was so disgusted by this that he wouldn't even eat a piece. When my mom found out about this she felt really bad and told Justin she would make him his own personal pumpkin pie for Christmas. She also told him she had been buying these pies for a long time. She said if she would have known, she would have taken the pies out of the box before she had him go get them. He said you should have and finally had a little piece of his favorite pie. We were all laughing secretively but my mom felt really bad.

After filling up on turkey and pie, my sisters and I searched through the Black Friday ads while everyone else played games, took naps, or chatted.

This year the sales started at midnight at Wal-Mart and went all through the early morning hours so we didn't even get to sleep until we were done at 6:30 am! There wasn't really a lot of excitement this year for us which was a bummer. No fights and we got everything we wanted, except for Lacie. OK I guess there was a little fight over the thing Lacie wanted and she lost because she got the thing taken out of her hands; she was mad. We went to Wal-Mart, Josh and I went to Sears and JCPenney while Lacie and Tami went to Target, then we went to K-Mart, and Home Depot before heading home for a couple of hours of sleep. Emily was really excited about the free Mickey Mouse snow globe I got from JCPenney. She shakes it and carefully carries it around all day.

After a few hours of sleep, we headed over to Russell's parent's house for our second round of Thanksgiving. Russell's sister, Jennifer and her family came down from Laramie, WY for Thanksgiving. The last time we saw them was Christmas last year so it was really nice to see them again and spend time with them while they were here. Last time Emily was with Paul and Alex she wouldn't share or play with them but this time she loved playing with them and was really excited to find out she had more cousins her age to play with.

Before dinner, we all headed to the Spin Park to play. Aren't those three cute cousins! After playing we headed back to the house to get dinner ready. While we were making dinner, the kids had a blast jumping in the freshly raked pile of leaves and watching movies and eating bagels to hold them over until dinner time.
Finally...it was Turkey Time... again! I made mashed sweet potatoes for dinner and they were so good! It was the first time I had ever made sweet potatoes and I wanted to make them good so I added brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and vanilla as well as butter and milk and they turned out sooo good. Emily loves putting olives on her fingers and showing them off but don't ask her to eat the olives for she will tell you they are "Ucky!" and spit them out if she get one in her mouth!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for and have been blessed through out this year.

Turkey Trot

November 20 was the annual Turkey Trot to benefit the Dixie Care and Share. Russell and I wanted to participate this year and we invited Traci to come along too. All we had to do to participate was bring 3 cans of food per person.

Due to this large mass growing in my abdomen, I was not able to run so Traci and I pushed Emily in the stroller and just walked the mile long course. Russell on the other hand has been running about 4 times a week for the past month or so for exercise so he ran the 5k. This was Russell's first 5k and he did really good getting a PR!

Look how fast he is running to the finish line! Russell ran the 3.1 mile course in 26:50 minutes, which is pretty good for his first race. I asked Russell if he had anything to add about the race and all he says is it was fun. A man of many words...

After the race... The color had come back to his face by now. Usually when people run their faces are red but not Russell's his was white as a sheet. I don't know why, lack of oxygen maybe, but who cares what you look like while you run as long as you are running and finishing the race, right! Good job on your first race! Russell wants to run a 1/2 marathon by February so he is training really hard. I am happy for him but at the same time, kind of jealous. When I was running at the beginning of the year, I tried to get him to run with me and he did for a while but then he said he was too busy to run so he quit and I had to do it alone. Now that I can't run because, in his words, he got his running partner pregnant!, he wants to train for and run all of these races! How mean is that! Oh well, I guess it is good he is running and it is fun cheering for him too. The 1/2 marathon he wants to do is a week or two before the baby is due so I hope I will still be able to run around the course and cheer for him without my water breaking or going into labor!

While at the Turkey Trot, Santa (or "Ho Ho Christmas" as Emily calls him) was there handing out candy canes. Emily wasn't too excited to talk to him but she did want the candy canes. Later that day though that was all she could talk about. She told everyone she saw Ho Ho Christmas and he gave her a candy.

Also after all of the runners and walkers had crossed the finish line, about 15 turkeys and a bunch of other prizes were raffled off to the participants. We really wanted a turkey but our names never got drawn out of the raffle. We were bummed but Russell did catch a beanie that was thrown and Emily got a coupon for a free kids meal at Del Taco which we probably will never use. So we didn't leave empty handed and we had a good time besides that. The sky was really overcast and was threatening to rain but luckily it didn't rain until we got home. We had a fun day today.

Kassie's Wedding

On November 19th my friend, Kassie Kirkland, got married. Kassie and I met almost 7 years ago in the Dixie College band where we both played the drums. We have been friends ever since so there was no way I was missing her wedding. She married Bryan Pitts. I don't really know anything about him but he seems really nice. From the few times I have met him, he seems to like to joke and have a good time so he and Kassie will get along great because she is the same way. They got married in the temple so later that night, they had a ring ceremony for family members and friends that couldn't go to the temple. We went to the ring ceremony and stayed for the reception as well.

The ceremony was good and the bishop gave the couple some great advice for a lasting marriage including telling the groom that his wife is always right, even when she is wrong, she is always right! Isn't that the truth ladies! We all laughed at that and Bryan just nodded in agreement.

We wished Kassie and Bryan the best of luck and told them now they were in the married society, we needed to hang out more!

Making Pies

Wednesday the 17th, my mom came by our house after she got off work and siad she needed help making pies for Thanksgiving. Russell was at work so Emily and I headed over to grandma's to make pies.

Emily had a blast rolling out the dough with her own rolling pin and then cutting the dough with her dinosaur cookie cutter. The only bad thing was when she got tired of cooking, she dropped all of the old dough on the ground and then said "Uh-oh I spilled. Need to sweep!" She's funny.

Leaves

It seems like whenever we go look for fall leaves in the mountains we are always too late. This was the case again this year. Monday the 15th Russell and I decided to drive up to Springdale after I got off work so he could get an application for Springdale's rescue agency. He would like to work on their ambulance for about once a week or so. On the way back home, we took a detour to Kolob mountain in search of the beautiful fall leaves. Like last year, we were too late and all of the leaves had already fallen to the ground. We were in luck though, we found a few oak trees that still had their leaves so we had to get out of the truck and snap a few pictures as proof.

I love the fall leaves! Then as we were walking back to the truck, we noticed a bunch of acorns on the ground so we spent the next 30 minutes gathering the biggest and coolest looking acorns we could find. To Emily it was like a treasure hunt. She would spot the acorns under the leaves and then grab them saying "I found it!"

We gathered at least 30 acorns as well as a few branches of orange leaves to take home and decorated the house like fall. I have a big plan to make Thanksgiving napkin holders out of the acorns and leaves too but I am running out of time so I don't know if they will actually be made. We will see what next week brings. In all it was a fun family trip; well worth the drive.

Welcome Home Hermana Farnsworth!

Wednesday, November 10 at 11:00 PM, Hermana (Sister) Traci Farnsworth landed in St. George, after serving her mission in El Salvador. We are so excited to have her home and safe. We can't believe it has already been 18 months since she left!

Before heading to the airport to pick her up, we all made signs to welcome her home:

On the front of the signs we wrote messages in English and on the back we translated the messages into Spanish for her so she would understand. After speaking Spanish for almost 2 years her English was a little rusty!

When we arrived at the St. George Airport we found out Traci's flight had been delayed for about a half an hour due to weather conditions in Salt Lake City so here we sat waiting and waiting...

Finally her plane arrived and we were minutes from seeing Traci for the first time in 18 months. We were all so excited. When she finally stepped off of the plane, there was not a dry eye in sight, especially Traci's. I have never seen a missionary come home off the plane before so it was definitely an exciting time.

There were hugs and tears for all when Traci arrived. I was dubbed the official picture taker I guess because everyone else was busy greeting her and I was the one taking pictures. We were worried Emily wouldn't remember who Traci was because Emily was only 6 or 7 months old when Traci left. We had been showing Emily pictures of Traci for the past few weeks so she would recognize her when she came home. I guess it worked because when Traci stepped into the airport, Emily was not afraid to run to her and give her a hug.

Like I said before, Traci's English was a little rusty for the first few days. She kept having a hard time remembering the English words for some things or without thinking she would say something in Spanish and not realize it until she saw the confused looks on our faces. As we were leaving the airport she yelled "Adios!...I mean... what's the word...Bye!" We all laughed and say we knew what she meant. Now she is trying to teach Emily how to say some words in Spanish like good morning, goodbye, grandma, grandpa, and aunt. Emily will say "Adios" sometimes.

We spent the next few days with Traci and the rest of Russell's family in celebration of her homecoming. Friday we went four-wheeling out in Warner Valley.
Four-wheeling was a lot of fun. Emily definitely looks cool in her new helmet. She didn't even fuss when we made her wear it because she knows that she can't ride the 4-wheelers without it. Emily and I rode around on our little Grizzly 80. It only has three gears so it doesn't go very fast which is okay for pregnant me and Emily. We had a blast cruising around until Emily fell asleep and I couldn't hold her up any longer so we headed back to the truck. Russell, Traci, and Tyler kept going finding jumps and dunes to ride on. Traci had such a good time, she didn't want to get off the bike.

Saturday Traci, Russell and I when to the temple to do a session. I love going to the temple because it is so peaceful there. If there was one word to describe the temple it would be Peace. It had been a while since Russell and I had gone to the temple just because we would get busy and basically procrastinate or find an excuse not to go, which is so bad of us. It was nice to get back there and feel the Spirit and be reminded of the covenants we have made. I love it! Going to the temple really brings you closer together as a couple and with the Lord. The cool thing about this trip to the temple was that the baby was moving around like crazy inside me like he knew we were at the temple and he was so excited!

Sunday was Traci's homecoming talk in church so of course we went with all of Russell's family, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Emily had no idea she had cousins on that side of the family and she had a blast playing with the Maxwell boys after church. Traci did an awesome job on her talk giving story after amazing story from her mission. I could even make out a few words from her testimony in Spanish!

After church, we took a whole bunch of pictures with the extended family. I wasn't the photographer this time because Russell, Calen Phillips (cousin) and I were busy preparing the huge spaghetti dinner for everyone. The food was really good and it was fun to talk to cousins and family we don't get to see all the time. After the majority of the people left for their long drives home, things settled down and we got to hear some amazing and some scary mission stories; anything from having a gun pointed at her head and almost being robbed to praying with the converts and feeling the most amazing warmth come over her confirming to the convert that the church was true!

We are so glad to have Traci home and Emily loves going to Grandma's to see Traci. I think she is her new favorite aunt... at least for today... until she sees her other aunts too. I guess it is okay to have more than one favorite aunt!

Welcome Home Hermana Farnsworth!!

Veteran's Day Parades

One benefit of living in downtown St. George is all we have to do is walk two blocks and we are at the town square where everything happens and we are right on the parade route for all of the parades in St. George. For Veteran's Day, the city put on a big parade so we decided to go watch.

Despite the cold morning, the parade was really good. Emily's favorite parts were the marching bands, the fire trucks, and of course all of the candy that was thrown! The marching bands are my favorite part of parades too. During this parade, all of the marching bands were judged on their performance so they were all doing their best. They all looked really good; much better than they did during the Dixie Round Up Parade.

After the St. George parade was over, we walked home and then drove to Washington to watch their Veteran's Day parade too. Here we met up with Terral and Chad and their kids to watch the parade. Emily loved seeing her cousins.

Justin marched in the Desert Hills middle school band for this parade. He played the small bass drum. He did a good job at keeping focused; he didn't even notice us cheering for him right beside him! Seeing him definitely brought back memories of when I carried the bass drum in a few parades.

After this parade we walked down to the Nisson park and watched the band awards and the high school drum line performances which were awesome!! It kind of made me wish I was in high school band again doing all of the drum line/percussion performances we did. It was a lot of fun. Russell blew this humongous bubble with the gum he collected from the parade candy. It was the size of his head! COOL! When it popped though it wasn't so cool to Russell because the gum got all over his face but Emily and I laughed pretty hard. As Emily would say, "Daddy funny!"

November means...

November means time to get ready for Christmas! Well at least get all of my Christmas projects done ahead of time so I'm not scrambling to get it all done the week of Christmas. I have a long list of crafts and projects to work on for Christmas this year because Russell and I are doing all homemade gifts this year. One project I finished this week is a present for Emily. I made her a Russian Nesting Doll:

I ordered the plain wood doll from Amazon and then painted them to represent our family. There is me, the big mama, Russell, with his awesome Pres Monson tie, Emily, Baby Apple (I am assuming he will play baseball someday), and a future baby dressed in generic yellow. I think they turned out really good. I sprayed them with a clear coating after I finished so I am hoping that will protect them a little so they don't get ruined while being played with. Russell's mom has one of these Russian Dolls and it is one of Emily's favorite toys to play with at her house so I think she will like this gift.

I am currently working on making a Christmas Advent calender out of felt. I am trying to get it done before December 1. So I have less than a month. My mom made one when we were younger and she said it took her a year to make. That got me kind of discouraged but I am going to make it in a month if I have to stay up late some days! Wish me luck. I will keep you posted on all of my finished projects.

24 weeks

Well I am 24 weeks along now. When I tell people I am 6 months pregnant, they think I am joking but it is true.

Here is my 24-week belly! This is kind of a dumb picture because it looks like I am about ready to puke but I'm not. I am feeling really good. I am starting to feel the baby kick a lot more lately. During the ultrasound last month, we found out I have an anterior placenta meaning the placenta is in front of the baby. The doctor said nothing was wrong with that I just won't feel the baby kick as much right now because he will be kicking the placenta instead of my ribs. Feeling the baby kick is definitely my favorite part of being pregnant. I love it. This month the doctor measured me and said that he thought the baby was a little small but not enough to change my due date. I should measure 24 inches but I'm only 23 or 23.5. So the due date is still February 27 but I am thinking I can hold him in for a couple days so he will be born in March. No one in my family has a birthday in March so it would be cool to have a March baby.

We are still struggling with selecting a good name. We know his middle name will be Elwood because that middle name goes back 5 generations but it is hard to find a first name to go with it. The names we are kind of throwing around are: Colby, Ben, Trevor and AJ. Every time we start talking about names, Emily cuts right in and says, "BABY APPLE!" She is set on naming the baby Apple so AJ so far stands for Apple Jack. We will decide sooner or later; we still have 4 months so I'm not too worried about it yet.

This picture is just a random one of Emily. She loves grabbing the broom and riding it around the house saying "YEEHAW! Ride the Horse!" She is so funny, sometimes I just laugh at the things she says and does.

Happy Birthday, Chrislyn!

November 9 was our niece, Chrislyn's, 5th birthday. We all got together for cake and ice cream and presents. Emily loves playing with Chrislyn and especially wanted to help her open all of her presents.

One present Chrislyn got from the Pryor's was a Littlest Pet Shop toy. Emily was helping her open the present and when she saw what it was Emily got really excited and turned and said "Thank You, Jared!!!" It was like she thought the present was hers! We all laughed!

I made Chrislyn a little purse for a present and filled it with things every 5-year-old girl wants. Fingernail polish, Lip Gloss, and smelly lotion! I hope she likes it.