Thanksgiving 2015!

Caleb's veggie tray

This baby girl is all smiles all the time!

Thank goodness for the lil smokies or these kids would have starved!

We also celebrated Poppy's birthday which was a few days later.

Kick off the Holidays!

About six months ago I bought tickets for the whole family to see this production of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" at the Capital Theatre. It was my birthday celebration with the kids, and we all loved it! We ate at Tucanos right before hand, and Paul said 1.5 hours wasn't enough time to eat all of the meat he wanted! It's so fun to be downtown, especially with all of the buzz and crowds during the holiday season. 

Paul found these goofy glasses on the floor of the parking garage. Gross!

Blaze sat on my lap so he could see the stage better. It was fun for me to hear his commentary and when the Abominable Snow Monster made his first appearance, Blaze jumped and gasped! He also loved how Rudolph flew through the air (with the magic of stage ropes). Every time I looked over at James and Alanna, they were smiling or laughing and really enjoying the production. It was a perfect evening just as I had hoped it would be!

Paul had a chicken bone in his mouth and wanted us to take a picture of him. 

My birthday!

I enjoyed a wonderful birthday week with such great friends going out for breakfast and dessert and being showered with gifts! On the actual day, James and I went to the Riverwoods down in Provo for their Christmas lighting. We ate at Happy Sumo and had some delicious Sushi, shopped and tried all kinds of goodies at Mountain Town Olive Oil, and froze our butts off in the 30 degree weather! There was a performance by BYU's Vocal Point, and it was very clear why some might think all BYU students are the biggest nerds on the planet! And what a nice gift James gave me...he gave me a nice natural smile for a selfie!

Who else has a brother that sends them flowers for their birthday? I loved finding these on the doorstep...so thoughtful of Caleb and his family! The card said "from your second favorite brother, Caleb". My boys are waiting to hear who the favorite brother is!

There were some really beautiful and festive ice sculptures at the Riverwoods too. 

Lane and Brita have made me a birthday cake the last few years. I started making Brita a cinnamon roll cake for her birthday, but Lane hates cinnamon. So he "gets back at me" by giving me his favorite...yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I told him that's about the most boring cake, but he is a very picky eater and he loves it. This year he decided to add an extra insult by decorating it with the number "45". Then he told me he knows I'm not 45, I just look like I am! He's got some good things coming to him this year!

After we froze at in Provo, we headed up to SLC to the Mystery Room. James heard about this place on the radio and booked an adventure to surprise me! I'd never heard anything about this experience, and neither one of us knew what to expect. We were put in a room with the Han family (it was mamna Han's bday as well), and told we had to figure out how to bring the Christmas Magic back to the North Pole. It was really hard, and James and I were working on a couple clues that ended up being static. Some of the things in the room didn't end up working when they set up the room, but they just left the clues there anyway! We felt like failures since the elf had to hold our hand through the end, but a friend was saying that only 25 percent of people get through the mystery on their own. We'd like to try it again!

Last Sunday Luke called and was razzing me a bit about turning 38, and how he feels so young only being 29. I told him that it doesn't change as you age...you still feel young! I have such a blessed life with a fabulous husband and kids, very supportive extended family, incredible friends, good health, and most of all....a strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

MOMENTS...

A few weeks ago we were watching some Mormon Messages for Family Home Evening. One of them we watched had this quote flash across the screen, and James and I immediately said "wait...what was that?" In my opinion, just about everything Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said is gold, he speaks to me, and this quote was no different. 

"Moments are the molecules that make up eternity"

There are so many meanings I thought of that apply to my life from this idea. I thought of these fleeting moments I have as a mother with my children, and how I often wonder how the time flies and before I know it they will be out of the house. I have to maximize these precious moments I have with them so they are spiritually prepared and so our family feels a strong bond and connection of love and unity. Big things happen in small moments, and all of these moments are what matter. Often times when we look on trials in retrospect, we only remember what seems like the moments of pain, grief, raw emotion. From those moments, momentous growth can happen and help propel us into the eternal person we want to become. We can be assured that hard times are just a moment in our eternal journey, and that we can endure them with the help of our Savior. 

I love this quote so much that I had it cut out to put it in our entry way. I hope that our kids will take note of it as they pass it multiple times a day, and that they are able to apply it to their ever changing stages of life. 

We went up to Logan so James could use his Christmas present of a helicopter lesson. He loved it, and if it weren't so expensive, he would probably take some more lessons. It was challenging and nothing like flying a plane, he was told. 

While he was taking his lesson, we went to get Aggie ice cream, and play in the leaves. The kids probably could have stayed there in their leaf piles for several hours. They didn't tire of raking up leave piles with sticks they found and stomping through them. Climbing trees was also entertaining for them, scary for me! Alanna also had me video her cart wheels, back bends, etc. She didn't try her back handsprings on the hard ground which was a relief! Utah State seemed to be a very nice campus on that quiet Saturday afternoon. We could even see James flying up above us, and Blaze and Paul yelled at him to come down.

Later that evening, Uncle Luke babysat the kids while we went to see Andrea in a production of the Adams Family. She was an ancestor ghost to the family, and she did a great job! Jackson and Paul introduced their Star Wars Flicky Game to Luke, and he liked it so much he posted a video of them playing on youtube: https://youtu.be/bUUFOSH77zQ

Happy Birthday James!

James always requests an ice cream cake. This year I made one with an Oreo crust and layers of pumpkin ice cream and cookies and cream with a caramel swirl. It was delicious!

He also requested Chinese food. I knew he wanted me to make sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, pot stickers, etc. But...I did that for him last spring and it's lots of work! I opted to have Chinese food delivered and had Chris and Lynsey and family over to join us. 

The only decent photos we can get of the two of us are from a professional photographer. You can see why...

I'm trying to escape!

He always squeezes my guts and then asks me why I make weird noises! 

These cuties had so much fun playing Just Dance on the Wii! 

My parent's gave James a Leg Lamp....like the one from A Christmas Story (one of my favorite movies!). He was pretty happy about it,especially that the box said "fragile" like on the movie. He also thinks I'm going to "accidentally" break the lamp, just like on the movie. Haha!