Decorating the Tree...

For Family Home Evening Monday, we decorated our Christmas tree and got out all of our Christmas decorations. I had forgotten how many Christmas decorations we had and with this year being the first Christmas in our house, I had to figure out where we were going to put it all. We actually downsized our decorations quite a bit last year because I didn't want to move it all over to the new house but we still had a few things we decided not to put up.

A few months ago, our neighbors had a yard sale and I bought their almost brand new pre-lit Christmas tree for $10. I thought I was a pretty good deal. I love the fact that it already has the lights on it because the lights seem to be the hardest part of decorating and also the hardest part of un-decorating.

Since Colby is the youngest in our family, he got to put the star on the tree this year (with the help of Dad.) We all worked together to put on our many ornaments. Emily would pick out an ornament from our box, look at it and decide who should put it on the tree. Mostly her and Dad hung them while I took them out of the box and put the hooks on them.
We did all take turns though. Emily had fun hanging her My Little Pony and Care Bear ornaments, Colby hung the Fisher Price airplane, and Dad hung the rest so that they wouldn't all be at the bottom of the tree. Emily and Colby liked helping decorate but Colby mostly like to eat the empty ornament boxes. He would get so mad when I would take them away from him. He has been having a little temper lately for some reason the little stink.

And, drum roll please, our finished tree:

Isn't it lovely! Definitely Jubilee of Trees worthy don't you think? Oh well it works for us and we like it.

This is Colby's new favorite place in the house:

He can only go in reverse so he always ends up stuck under something and right now it is the Christmas tree. I was laughing at him and Emily said "He's like a present Mom!" He sure is like a present under the tree. What a cutie!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. It was a great time to spend with family and have fun together. Emily loves being with her cousins and was really excited that Tyrel came down a week early to play with her. Lacie brought Tyrel down with her from Filmore the weekend before Thanksgiving so she could do some Christmas shopping. When they arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Tyrel didn't want to go home so he stayed. Emily and Tyrel got to play together all day on Monday and Tuesday while my parents were at work. They loved it. Even Colby was excited to have a new kid running around.

Here is a picture of the three knot heads! They played all day outside on the bikes and also played house inside. Emily was sad every time Tyrel had to go home but we told her he was going to be down all week so they could play again.

We spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house this year. Unfortunately Russell had to work Thanksgiving Day and the day after. We were kind of bummed until we realized that if he worked Thanksgiving he could have all of Christmas and New Year's off. We decided that was a good deal. Emily, Colby and I headed over to my parent's for Thanksgiving dinner with a very large pot of mashed potatoes, our contribution to the feast. Everyone was able to make it to dinner except Clay because it was his turn at the in-laws this year. We ate way too much of course but it was so good. After seconds and thirds of dinner it was time for pie and we of course had seconds and thirds of that too!

When the dinner was finally cleaned up and put away, the kids ran outside to play some football in the street while the others either took naps to sleep off the food or played cards. I am bummed I didn't take any pictures but I was too busy playing and talking with everyone. We played Dutch Blitz which is a combination of Speed and Solitaire, 5 Crowns, and Lacie taught all of us how to play Bunko. To tell you the truth, Bunko is a pretty fun game if you get into it. I think I won that one with 59 points.

After games, we had some more pie and at 6:00 my mom said it was okay for my sisters and me to bring out the Black Friday Ads! She had banned any newspaper or ads from her house until she said that Thanksgiving was over. Every year my sisters and I hit the Black Friday sales and get some great deals. Mostly we got for the fun and the tradition! We searched and scanned every store's ads and planned out our shopping experience for the day. This year the sales actually started at 10 pm on Thursday at Wal-Mart so that is were we started. At 8:30 Russell took the kids home to go to bed and I headed out with my sisters to experience the biggest shopping day of the year.

Usually we come home from this shopping day with some really great stories of some crazed shopper losing it, or the fights, or the sweet deals we luckily got and this year was no different. There was a fist fight at Wal-Mart in the baby section over something but we didn't see it, we just saw the cop car, firetruck and ambulance pull up to the store as we were leaving. (Darn it we missed the action....) We even made friends with some of the people waiting in line with us and with our new friends' help, we seemed to get everything we wanted to get.

Lacie got the hot ticket item this year, a Power Wheels car. She missed getting this last year because some guy ripped it out of her hands and knocked her down. This year she was the one knocking people down. Just kidding she didn't knock anyone down but she did get her car. The one problem however was that we drove Tami's little Toyota Corolla and this is how the box for the car fit in the back seat:

Yeah Jess was squished oh and where am I supposed to sit... on Lacie's lap. Isn't it great!!! We were glad we didn't get pulled over because there would have been seat belt tickets written for each of us. Jess locked the door so she wouldn't fall out of the car as we drove to her house to drop off the enormous box. After dropping it off, we headed to Sears. It was too cold to stand in the line outside the door so we just waited in the car near the line for the doors to open. Then the really funny thing happened. About 15-20 minutes before the store opened, Lacie's niece Kristine and her husband Sam pulled up next to us in their car. Lacie flies out of the car and stomps over to them and opens their door and just start yelling at them (jokingly of course). She told them that they needed to get in the back of the line behind us in our car and how dare they try to butt. They just laughed at her and they talked for a while. As we watched this from Tami's car, we could see all of the people in line just looking at them in shock. Their mouths were hanging open like "Oh my gosh I can't believe she just did that!" We couldn't stop laughing in the car. It was soooo funny. Then Sam went and got in line so when the doors open we just line hopped with him. We were still laughing about the whole thing until we just stuck in the SLOWEST check out line EVER. We were the second people in line to check out in Sears and it took us 45 minutes I am not exaggerating!!!!! We were so mad. It totally through off our shopping plans and made us late for JCPenney! Grrrrr!! Other than that it was a good shopping day. The nice people at Walgreen's even gave me the buy one get one free deal even though that sale had ended a few hours before!

Well after shopping all night, I went home at 8 am so I could get my kids. Russell worked this day too and Traci was nice enough to stay over night at our house so I could go shopping. Thanks Traci!!! Tami, Lacie, Jess, and my mom joined too, continued to shop for a few more hours.

Let the Christmas preparations begin. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Not Fair!!

This is what I leave every morning when I go to work: NOT FAIR!!!!!

A Bunch of Turkeys

In celebration of Thanksgiving, the kids and I had a blast making these fun turkeys out of toilet paper rolls:

Here is our turkey family. Emily loved gluing and especially loved playing with the googly eyes. Colby loved grabbing at everything and eating construction paper! I think his little baby turkey turned out the best. They were fun to make and I think I am teaching Emily to be crafty. She really likes making crafts and sewing with me.

***If you want to make some turkeys too click here...***

Jubilee of Trees

We went to the annual Jubilee of Trees yesterday. I had never been before and I have always wanted to go. All of the trees were so amazing. I don't think I will ever be able to decorate a tree like the ones there. Here are some of our favorite trees:

Emily's favorite tree was the Candyland themed tree. It was really cute and was decorated with many different kinds of candies and candy garland as well as the Candyland characters.

Colby didn't really have a favorite, well we didn't really ask him... As you can see in the above picture, he was more interested in the Cookie on a Stick we were eating. I gave him a few pieces and he loved it.

Russell's favorite tree was this Santa's Workshop tree. That is until he saw this way awesome Angry Birds tree! It was a cool tree equipped with Angry Bird, pigs, blocks and even a sling shot. I swear Russell is addicted to that game. It is partially my fault because I got him hooked. I used to play it all the time too until the levels started taking more than a couple tries to beat and I gave up. Russell is more patient or persistent than I am I guess.

My favorite tree was the NICU sponsored tree, The Joy Express. I like this tree because it was decorated with pictures of the babies that have been treated in the NICU. I am truly grateful for all of the NICU nurses and doctors that helped with Colby while he was in there after he was born.

And our visit to the Jubilee of Trees would not have been complete without a picture with Santa! I was really surprised that Emily was not afraid of him. Last year she screamed every time she saw Santa and wouldn't even go to bed on Christmas Eve for fear that he was coming to her house. Maybe this year will be a better experience for her.

Feeding the Ducks

The Shadow Mountain Park near our house has a duck pond and Emily loves going there and feeding the ducks. We had some old stale hot dog buns in our fridge that I knew the ducks would like so we took a trip up to the park to feed them.

The ducks love being fed and are not afraid to come near you as you are feeding them. This white duck in the above picture actually ate right out of Emily's hand! Then another duck, a big green one, got jealous I guess and just came right up to Emily and started biting her. I had to kick him away; I was so mad! Emily said she wasn't hurt just kind of scared. We finished off the rest of our bread and got away from those silly ducks.

Who can go to a park without going down the slides? Not us!

Emily and Colby love going down the slides at the park. Emily loves playing train with Colby and holding him as they go down. Colby even knows what to do when he is on top of a slide. If we don't watch him carefully, he will arch his back and send himself down the slide!

I just had to add this picture because I thought it was cute:

Emily is starting to get better at playing with Clifford. She is not so scared of him anymore. Clifford loves playing and sometimes doesn't realize his own strength. He gets so excited when Emily comes out to play that he will jump up on her and knock her down and then lick her or play with her so she can't get up. That's when we have to step in and pull him off and get him to calm down. Oh the joys of having a dog. Don't get me started and especially don't get Russell started. Lets just say Clifford is lucky to have Emily because she has saved him from the dog pound more than once. Every time Russell threatens to take him to the pound, Emily cries "No! I love my Clifford!" and Russell's heart softens just enough. Emily will even give Clifford little pep talks when he gets in trouble like "Clifford stop biting that; I don't want you to go to the pound." If we get passed this puppy chewing stage without killing him, we will be doing good! Anyone want a dog?

Crystal's Wedding

My childhood friend, Crystal Turner, got married on 11/11/11 (how cool is that!) and we were able to attend her wedding reception. Crystal was such a beautiful bride and you could tell that she and her new husband, Cody, were so happy together. Ever since Jessica's wedding, Emily has loved weddings and is always pretending to get married. She was so excited to go to Crystal's wedding so she could dance with Dad:

Before we went to the wedding she was telling me that she was going to dance with Dad at the wedding. Then she asked me who I was going to dance with. I told her I could dance with Colby. On the way to the reception, Colby fell asleep in the car. Emily was so upset! She was so concerned about who I was going to dance with at the wedding. She said "Mom! Colby's asleep who are you going to dance with at the wedding!!!"

Here is a picture of the bride and groom. I know it is a bad picture. I was trying not to be obvious with my camera and everyone was dancing around them so I had to snap a shot fast. The reception was a lot of fun.

After the reception, we went to my mom's house and Colby showed us his mad backward crawling/scooting skills. He could get quite far on my mom's hardwood floor. That is until this happened:

He was STUCK! He had scooted right under the bookcase. It was so funny! As you can see, he didn't seem to mind though.

Little Bakers

With Thanksgiving approaching quickly, my mom wanted to get a head start on the preparations by making the pies in advance. She asked me to come over and help her roll out the pie crusts so she could freeze them. Grandma also got a lot of help from her two little helpers: Emily and Colby!

We brought over Emily's baking supplies like her apron, mixing bowl, pastry mat, whisk, spatula, cookie cutters, and of course her rolling pins. She had a blast rolling her dough with her rolling pin and cutting out stars and hearts with her cookie cutters. Colby also loved playing with his own rolling pin. We didn't give him any dough to roll because I knew he would just eat it. Mostly he just loved banging the rolling pin on the counter. What great helpers! My mom made about 6 pies and probably 10 or more pie crusts this day. Bring on Thanksgiving!!

Blog Update

Time flys when you are having fun and we definitely have been having fun. It is amazing how far behind in blogging you can get after only a few days. Below are 7 new posts. Enjoy!

8 Months and the Temple

My little guy is growing up too fast! Colby is now 8 months old. His personality is getting more exciting everyday and he is always so happy. Colby weighs about 22-23 pounds now.

Colby can roll around the floor and get to pretty much whatever he wants. He has not tried to learn to crawl yet. I have put him up in the crawling position but he just sit there on his hands and knees and looks at me like "Ok now what?" Then he rocks back and forth and falls on his nose. He would much rather roll or just reach his long arms and get whatever he wants. He has started to do a little backwards scoot thing where he will push himself backward with his arms. He gets pretty far doing that.

He is a little talker too. It is mostly baby gibberish but it is fun to hear his voice. He does know "hi" which he really says "Haa." He is cute when he says it too. He will say hi and give the biggest grin or sometimes even wave his hand as he says it. He is also learning Mama and Dada. I don't know that he really knows what he is saying but he says it. When ever he is mad or wants something he says "MAMA MAMA MAMA!" and when he is happy and just playing he says "Dada dada dada." I think there is something wrong with this picture... Anyway we have fun trying to figure out what he is saying. Sometimes we will ask Emily what he is talking about but she just shrugs and says she doesn't know either.

Colby loves playing Patty Cake and waving at everyone. Sometimes he really gets into his clapping and makes the funniest, most intense faces as he claps. He also loves playing Peek-A-Boo and laughs and laughs whenever we play. Colby also thinks I look silly in my glasses. Whenever I wear them he just looks at me with the strangest expressions. It is like he is trying to figure out what the heck is on my face. When I am holding him on my hip he will completely arch his head around to look me in the face just to make sure that, "Yeah this is my mom but what are those things on her eyes?" Sometimes I wear my glasses just to see his reactions. He gets so confused.

Colby loves eating solid foods especially animal cookies. He devours his rice puff treats and gets so excited when we bring out the rice cereal or baby food jars. I still think he likes his mom the best though. In the picture above, we were at Golden Corral for Justin's birthday and we gave Colby some cotton candy for the first time. He didn't know what to think about all that sweetness. He puckered up his lips and shook his head and made the funniest faces.

I know that someday Colby will sleep through the night but that has yet to happen...

I took these 8 month old pictures on the temple grounds and while we were there, I took some really fun pictures of both Emily and Colby. The first two are my favorite:

The temple is my favorite place to take pictures because they always turn out nicely. Emily loves the temple grounds too and always asks to drive by the temple when we are in town. I love the temple and am so glad we are sealed forever as an eternal family because I don't know what I would do without Russell and these two kiddos.