Christmas 2008

It seems like I have been away for some time. I didn't have my computer for a long time because Tom left it at the office over the Christmas break. So here is a run down of all of the fun stuff that happened over the holiday.

The Saturday before X-mas we went to a Christmas breakfast put on the by our ward. It was so cute and fun! Kellen refused to even step near Santa but Katie got right up and gave him her lengthy list. As soon as Kellen saw the candy cane he wanted to go up but it was too late and the line was too long!


On our way home from breakfast we made an impromptu snow man. It turned out rather nice since we had really nothing to work with. Katie was so proud of it though!


We made a gingerbread house and here is our finished product. See Katie trying to take a bite of the roof. This is typical of our little sugar fiend! That girl could live off sugar if I let her!



This was our little family room on Christmas Eve after the kids had gone to bed. The tee-pee was from Santa. We thought it would be a bigger hit then it was. Oh well, better luck next year!


And this was after....


We made our traditional Santa pancakes.






That day we had a blizzard for several hours. It was SO fun to watch. It was my first white Christmas. The kids wanted to go outside so bad but it was freezing! After we cleaned up the mess from Christmas he took out the trash. The snow was upto his knees.


Of course when snows come so does the need for speed...I mean sledding! We went to a nearby hill and had a blast with our new sled. Kellen was not a fan but Katie couldn't get enough of it.





Of course the holidays could not be complete without something breaking. Our dryer decided that it was going to stop working. Now when things break it is becoming funny. I cannot get mad but I have to just laugh it off. So we are now hanging our clothes up in our room and bathrooms to dry. Really though it smells rather fresh! Gotta love it!


All in all, we had a super fun Christmas. We hope that everyone else had a wonderful holiday! We look forward to a new year and hopefully a new job soon!

Bad news...again.

Yep, the worst has happened yet again. Tom got called in and he lost his job. He is just the last man on the totem pole. The firm doesn't see many jobs in the future and needed to cut someone and that someone just happened to be Tom. I wish I knew exactly why we felt so strongly about moving up to Utah. I am just sure as we follow the will of our Father in Heaven we will be lead in the right direction. We made it through our last crisis with flying colors and I have no doubt that it will be okay again. Please put us in your prayers tonight and maybe we will have a little Christmas miracle and the firm will change their mind. Who knows:)

Katie's latest conversation with Tom

Tonight Tom was trying to get Katie to say the family prayer before bed. I was out shopping for his Christmas present so I heard about this after the fact.

Tom: Katie would you please say the prayer tonight?
Katie: I don't know what to say.
T: Just tell Heavenly Father all the things you are grateful for.
K: I am not grateful for anything.
T: Well, what if Heavenly Father took away all the things you didn't say thank you for. What would you miss?
K: Nothing
T: Wouldn't you miss your toys?
K: No, I would be fine.
T: What about Ba (her most prized blanket)
K: I don't need it anymore. I can sleep with out it.
T: What about your house and your warm bed.
K: I would be okay still.
T: What about mom and dad? What would you do without us?
K: I would still be okay.
T: Who would take care of you?
K: I would just take care of myself.
T: Who would pay for the house for you to live in?
K: I would just live outside.
T: Who would pay for your food?
K: Well you are gonna die someday anyway. I will just take care of myself then.
Tom said the prayer.

I felt that this conversation should be saved for posterity. That way everyone will know what a funny lady she was!

Rexburg Weekend

This weekend I left the kids with Tom and went with my parents and little brother to Rexburg to watch my sister Shellie graduate from BYU-Idaho. It was a lot of fun and rather cold! The first two days we were there it wasn't too cold. The last night we were there was freezing! I thought my nose hairs were going to freeze. I just started running all over the place so as to stay warm. The next day there was snow all over my car. I had to scrape the snow off the doors just so I could open them. I am so glad I didn't go to Ricks/BYU-Idaho. I would have frozen! The coolest part of the graduation was the guest speaker. It was President Uchtdorf. He was at a banquet we attended and then the commencement ceremony. My goal the whole night was to get a good picture. I kinda got two pictures. My second goal was to meet him but of course they made it hard to get to him. Dang it!




Shellie and Mark (Shell's fiance).




President Uchtdorf!!!!

Also, Shellie is engaged! She and Mark got engaged this past week and are planning to tie the knot in April. So all of you AZ people, I will be down with the fam in April. Be ready to hang with us for a little while:)


Scott (my little brother) let me take this lovely photo of him. He then insisted that I put it on the blog. It is just so nice!


Shellie waiting for her turn to walk across the stage and receive her diploma. Crazy thing is that the guy reading off her name was my mom's friend from her high school days. Small world!


Scott scraping the ice and snow so we could take the journey home.

Soon after I got home from Rexburg I went with Katie and Kellen to play in the snow. We still haven't purchased a sled so we were sliding down the hills on our bums or bellies. So I have coined the term "body sledding" to describe our fun times! However, Kellen thinks it's best to sit in the snow and eat it. Of course Katie always reminds him not to eat yellow snow:).

Temple Square

On Friday night we went to Temple Square to see the lights, along with the rest of Salt Lake. There were so many people there! It took us about 20 minutes to find parking. We also witnessed two couples get engaged about two minutes between each other. I guess if you are going to get engaged Temple Square at Christmas is the place to do it. Who knew?!


The Temple at night was so pretty. My camera was being a stinker with the flash but I still love this picture. When we were walking to the lights we could see the temple all lit up. It was an amazing sight to see.


Katie showing off the lights.


Me and my two favorite little people Katie and Kellen.


There was a manger scene in the reflecting pook right in front of the temple. This is where the proposals took place. Can you blame them??


Manger scene up close.


Katie being silly.


Katie and Kellen were trying to so hard to "accidentally" fall into the reflecting pool. Believe it or not the water was fairly warm.


The lights were so pretty. This picture does not even do them justice. They used a whole bunch of orange lights. The trees looked like they had bright, sparkly orange lights. It was pretty cool!

A week in our life

First of all, let me say that I love fake trees. Sure they don't smell nearly as yummy as real ones but I can bust my tree out December 1st and not be nervous about burning the house down with my super dry tree come Christmas day. This year we put on some festive music and set to work decorating our tree. The kids thought it was the best thing in the world. Here is a picture of our efforts. Notice, I look exhausted...because I was!




Then on Tuesday night some girls took pity on me and invited me out to girls night! No really, they were super nice and invited me to go a spoof play called Miracle on 42nd street. It was little hockey, but nice to meet new people! I took a picture to prove that I acutally went. The girl sitting to my right is the Primary President. She heard that I didn't have a calling yet. I told her that I was shooting for Young Womens. We'll see!


Then last night we went to see Katie's first Christmas program ever. It was titled Santa Goes Green. Literally, there was no Christmas music but rather six songs of how there is a hole in the ozone layer and that we need to go green. I thought it was kinda funny but Tom hated it. Of course he loved to see Katie perfom but was annoyed that they couldn't just do a normal Christmas program. He said that he was going to send a picture and lyrics from the show to Glenn Beck. Just as the second show was about to end~they did a second show because they weren't expecting a large turn out and they made half the people stay in the hallway during the first show due to a fire hazard~I got super sick. Talk about bad timing! So today I have the flu. Luckily, Katie has been a good sister and is taking care of Kellen while I do nothing but sleep.

Thanksgiving 2008

This year we went down to St. George to celebrate Thanksgiving with Tom's parents. We had so much fun! The dinner was very delicious, thanks Ted! Katie and Kellen had so much fun playing with their cousins that they don't get to see very often. Thank you Ted and Ann for such a wonderful time! We hope everyone had a super Thanksgiving. Now that Thanksgiving is over we are now giving ourselves permission to listen to Christmas music...even though it has been on the radio since the day after Halloween.

I also went to Walmart and Kmart on Black Friday. I know, I might be a little crazy but I found most of our Christmas presents for a really good deal! My neice came with me and all she bought was gum. I hope she enjoyed the early morning time with me :)

This year Ted and Heather (Tom's brother and sister-in-law) popped popcorn with jelly beans and watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving movie. It was a huge hit with the kids! It might just become a brand new tradition.




The day after Thanksgiving we went to the red hill and had hotdogs. Katie just had the best time! Kellen managed to find every single puddle and would walk right into them.


The kids and Tom found a little cave on one of the trails.


Kellen, Parker, Katie, and Truman.


It got a little chili at the end of the night and Katie was ready! I am not sure about the look on her face, but at least she was toasty.