It's The Most Wonderful Time

I love the holidays. I love the cold and getting my warm clothes out and fires in the fireplace. I love tradition of cutting down Christmas trees and playing in the snow. I love shopping on Black Friday and getting my Christmas decorations out and putting the lights up. It's such a fun time of year. We try to always get a permit to cut down our Christmas tree and this year we went all the way to Show Low to get our perfect little tree with Jason's family. We had a great time playing in the snow. Brody is very infactuated with Christmas lights and has to plug them in first thing in the morning. He is such a great helper. I just love it.

Brody didn't want to hang the ornaments on because the tree was just too "pokey."

We had our ward Christmas party this last weekend and of course Santa showed up. For the last few months, Brody has insisted on getting a tractor for Christmas. It was kind of my fault because each time we would go to Wal-Mart we would go through the toy aisle and I started using the excuse when he would ask for a toy "maybe at Christmas Time" Well, Christmas time arrived and my son with the steel trap mind put two and two together and asked for a tractor for Christmas. Not just a small tractor, those huge ones that you drive around. Luckily or unluckily, Rick somehow coerced him to ask for an airplane instead. I'm not really sure if Santa can fit an airplane in his sled, but somehow I think we'll have one disappointed little boy if he can't figure it out.

One of my other favorite parts of Christmas is making cookies. I don't usually bake cookies because I love to eat the dough and so I try to avoid it. This year I tried a couple of new recipes -- Candy Cane Cookies and Snicker Surprises, and then of course sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies and mint brownies. Brody loves to put his apron on and help. He also is just like me in that he has to sneak some dough every once in a while. We had a great time for Family Home Evening delivering all of our many (30) plates to people that we love!!

Testing them out!!
Santa was at the library today and Brody just had to make sure that an airplane was coming from the North Pole with his name on it.

Because you want to know.....

I know this has taken forever to post, but I guess it's better late than never. My month of October was a little hectic, as I'm sure it was for all of you. Halloween is one of my top favorite times of year. I love to get my Halloween decorations out and I love when the weather changes and football season. It's great. Brody has been learning how to do projects. He loves projects and if I'm busy doing something, he wants to join in. So, to preserve my projects from a two-year-old's hands, I decided to get him his own projects to do while I was doing my own. He made candy necklaces and foam haunted houses. He even made a gingerbread haunted house with his dad. That was to keep him busy so that I could make our Halloween costumes. I had such a good time this year being busy as a "bee" making our party clothes. It was much fun. I am not the greatest seamstress, but I did okay. Rick's sister got married in October and so we headed to Mesa a day early and went to Schnepf farms for the pumpkin festival with Andrea's family and then the next day was Tasha's big day. Lots of fun pictures!!

We had our annual Halloween party and this year we had 80 people in attendance -- WOW! That's our biggest group yet. It was a great time with donuts on a string, a pinata, bobbing for apples, the bounce house and most of all our family and friends. My dad was even here. He was the "bee keeper" of our little entourage. Later in the week we took Brody trick or treating to a few houses. We had been practicing all week to say trick or treat and he got it down. My dad stayed and visited for two weeks before we headed to Utah to take him home (I'll post later about that trip and give you all excuses for why you didn't see me) It was great to have him here. Brody sure loves his pompa!!

In Memorium

This is one of my most favorite pictures of my mom. It's amazing to me that 17 years have gone by since my mom passed away. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her.

July 7, 1948 to November 19, 1991

Been a little AWOL

Okay. I know I have been lost in obscurity lately, but I really do have pictures to post about why I have not been blogging, so stay tuned for that. But, I was tagged to do this so I thought I would respond and let you all know I am alive, just super crazy busy :)

8 TV shows that I watch...
Lost (counting down to the season premiere)
Biggest Loser
Heroes -- haven't caught much of it this season, will have to buy the DVDs
Usually whatever my husband wants to watch

8 things that I did yesterday...
Went to Tai-Pan -- that place is dangerous
Went to Roberts Crafts -- almost as dangerous as Tai-Pan
Went to lunch with a few sisters and my dad
Drove
Drove
Drove
Drove
Spent the night in Kanab Utah


8 things on my wishlist... (just 8??)

I have too many wishes so I'll just say world peace and a puppy (not really Rick, I don't want any more puppies -- we have a deal.)

8 people I tag...
Anjalee, Kam and
whoever is out there and hasn't done it, knock yourself out :)

Double Trouble

A couple of weeks ago, Brody's cousin Taft was able to come and stay over night. Brody could barely contain himself all day. We had to go to WalMart and everything that we purchased, Brody wanted to get one for Taft. We were buying paper towels and Brody wanted two, one for him and one for Taft. A can of Pringles for each of them, hairspray for each of them. He could barely even handle himself. It was very cute. He stood on the porch and waited and waited and waited. Finally, he arrived. They had so much fun. I hosted Bunko that night, so "Uncle Rick" had to take over and they had lots of fun. Playing basketball and cars and watching Cars. In fact it was non-stop fun until 10:30. That would be 10:30 PM. I finally had to go in and tell them to go to sleep. Taft was such a good sport because I think he honestly wanted to go to bed and Brody just wanted to be his best bud. They started out in separate beds, but Brody just couldn't stay away.

The next morning they were still conked out, so I did a quick exercise routine and started on my last (it really is this time) batch of salsa for the season. I had some tomatoes coming from Utah and the first batch wasn't going to last us long enough, so I was downstairs canning. A friend came over and we started visiting and I could hear they were awake upstairs, but was a little too busy. After Janine left, I was just about to head upstairs and Brody comes down and says, "Sorry, mom. Messy." Well, it kind of serves me right I guess to leave two little two-year-old boys to their own devices and it really was messy. Everything off the shelves, out of the closet, out of the dresser was in a big pile in Brody's room. (sigh)

We got it cleaned up and got them cleaned up and boy are they handsome. Brody insisted on the Halloween shirts so they could be twins.

Ahh, little worn out boys. I love it!!!

After a nap it was Playdo and puzzles and then "Uncle Brett" came to get little Taft. He stuck around for a while and then treated us to an ice cream at Sonic. When it was time for us to go, them in their car and us in ours, it was almost a tragedy. Brody was so sad and cried the whole way home for his Cousin Taft. I sure hope that these two boys stay long time friends. I was never really close to any of my cousins and I know that good friends are important. These two boys, I'm sure, will grow to be good friends and good examples to one another. I sure had a fun and exhausting time and I think they did too.

UPDATE ON THE TOILET TRAINING

This is about how well we're doing!!

Cars, Cars, Cars

Brody's new obsession is Disney Cars. He watches it every day now and would probably watch it all day if I let him. So, when our Ward had an activity where we were to make a race car out of a cardboard box, we just had to participate. We had to have a sponsor that was from the scriptures and because Brody did such a great job painting it, using all the colors we had, we went with Joseph's Coats of Color. Our license plate said MNYKLRS for many colors and we had a great time. Just check out Brody's "paint" pants, as he calls them -- I got them as a shower gift for him when he was born and have been waiting for him to wear them. Straight out of "Can't touch this" Great!!





It was such a great activity and they even had the moms and dads race. It was great and Brody couldn't stop talking about it for days.