Deck the Halls

We finally got the tree in the house this weekend. This tree, that looked so small out on the moutain, was still to big to fit in the house and we had to cut more off of the bottom!

If there is ever a ladder in the house, you can guarantee that Crew will be up on it. It took me four days to get my house decorated and I bet I could have cut it down to three if I didn't have such a great helper!

We figured out that we have about 1400 lights on this tree. A fire hazard for sure. It looks beautiful and everyone that drives by the back of our house comments on our tree. I love our big picture window and now we just need some snow.

This is where you will find GG and Crew every night when the tree comes on. They both love to sit on the edge of the big chair and talk about how pretty the tree is. We put all our Christmas story books under the tree and we get blankets and pillows and read the stories at night. Thank goodness for Tai Pan and their plastic ornaments! Crew still loves to take them off and bounce them on the floor.

This is my new Pottery Barn chandelier that Jared bought for me. I love it! It is such fun to decorate.

Girls Weekend Getaway!

We had our annual St. George girls getaway this weekend. The last two years we've planned it on the same weekend that Twilight and New Moon came out. We have two full days of non stop shopping, eating, and movie watching. We hit almost every store in St. George. When we came home on Sunday, we had a car, a Tahoe and a little U-haul trailor full of packages. We always have such a fun time. It's the one thing I look forward to each year. Thanks friends!

Oh, Christmas Tree..

It is time, once again, for the annual Christmas tree cutting adventure. It begins the first Friday of November at 5:30 A.M. with mom, venturing out on her own, to Soldier Hollow. There she stands in line in the freezing cold until 8:00 when she will then have the opportunity to purchase a tree tag. They only give out 1,000 on Friday and 1,000 on Saturday. They sell out EVERY year. This year they did something different and started handing out wristbands at 6:00. With this wristband, you could return at any time between 8 and 12 and purchase your tree tag. What an amazing concept! I could actually go back home and crawl into bed for a couple of hours. Which is exactly what I did!

After much debate, measuring and driving back and forth between the two winners, we decided on this one. Once again, by the time we got it on the truck, we realized it was a LITTLE to big and would have to be cut down a bit before coming into the house.

I am so grateful that I have Tag around to do all the dirty work. I can just stand around and take pictures of everyone. Oh, that and chase the dog around who kept taking Crew's hat and gloves.

There's something special about that "first snow" that children can't resist. They threw snowballs and broke branches, made snow angels and ate dirty snow. What more do you need to be happy? I can't wait to decorate! Tai Pan here I come!!

We Are the CHAMPIONS!!

Well, the Wasatch Heavy Weights finished the season undefeated! They played tonight at Timpview High School. Tag threw in three touchdown passes and they ended up winning the game 20-6. I was a nervous wreck. Tag threw some long passes and we were all so focused on whether or not the receiver would catch the ball, that we didn't see Tag take a few hard hits. Somehow, I ended up out of the bleachers and on the sidelines. Everyone, was teasing me that I will never make it through high school football. The boys were so excited. What a great bunch of boys.

Brendan, Jaxson, Zach, Casey and Tag. Football and baseball buddies.


The coaches......Jared, Carl and Ken. They have known each other long enough that they do a pretty dang good job of offsetting each others..let's just say intensity.















The moms made a poster for each of their boys on the team. The poster's all had black and yellow balloons attatched to them. When the boy's scored their first touchdown, we let all the balloons go.

But, the best part of the night took place after we all arrived home to our little town of Heber. It was about ten o'clock and the boys arrived at the old high school to see two firetrucks. They piled the boys on and took them all the way down mainstreet and back. They had a police escort and lights and sirens going the whole way. The parents all followed in their cars and were honking their horns and being just as crazy as their sons. What a PERFECT ending to a perfect season.

Things that go bump in the night

Halloween use to be my least favorite holiday. I HaTeD trying to find costumes for my kids. Everything I liked, they would hate. I would spend hours on their make-up, only to find them in the bathroom minutes later,washing it all off. Not to mention walking up and down the street in the freezing cold with a little one stuttering tttrick-or-tttttreat. As you try to bribe them with anything to get them to go back home and they are begging for one more house. But the last few years I have either mellowed out or changed my thought process. I have let my kids pick out their own costumes and if they want to be Batman for three years in a row, I smile and say GrEaT! I have learned that pirates and monsters and ghosts don't necessarily need their faces done up to be cute. Pumpkins don't have to be Martha Stewart and every dinner doesn't have to have a Halloween theme. Someday, I will miss the endless candy wrappers that I find everywhere for at least two weeks after Halloween. There won't be anyone around to tell me that everything is "SpOoKy" and there will be nobody left to say "bye-bye SpIdErS as we leave our house. Yes, this year I remembered....to just breathe.

Crew had so much fun running to every house. He really liked the "spooky" houses and at some houses, he actually would walk right into their homes. The only problem was that he wanted to open and eat the candy from every house as soon as he got it.

Garrett and his best bud Skylar. Garrett got really sick at our friends house as we were eating dinner. I didn't think he would even make it out this year and was going to have Jared take him home. But, then he snapped out of it and there was no stopping him. We all ended up at Jen's house after and we could hear all the kids downstairs trading their candy with each other.

This is what happens when you tell a thirteen year old that he can NOT go trick or treating without a costume. Yes, they all went into Walgreens and came up with this. Baseball bandits or something to that effect.

Pumpkin Carving

This year we were smart, and started carving our pumpkins a few days before Halloween. I think this is one of my boys favorite activities because it involves sharp objects, and slimy guts. For the first time, we didn't have to buy our pumpkins because we actually had some grow in our garden. We had one big pumpkin, that after much debating, was given to Crew. The other's were still a fairly decent size and the boys all got to do their own.