The Lights at Temple Square

Many of you probably have the same tradition, but each year we try to make it down to Temple Square to see the lights. It seems like there is always some sort of occurrence that makes the trip less than enjoyable, like the year Halle threw up, or the year we got a parking ticket (I thought downtown parking was free for the holidays??), but this year it was actually nice. We found a close parking spot (WITHOUT getting a ticket), and everyone seemed to have a good time. The only thing that would have made it better is if Jason could have come. At least he has Christmas off!

TOO COLD!!

Maybe I need to crank the heat up, or maybe my son takes after his grandpa, but for whatever reason, Spencer has been feeling a little chilly lately. For the last few days, he has frequented this spot on the floor. He finds whatever toy he wants to play with, and scoots it over to the vent. Sometimes he lays directly on top of it, hogging all of the warm air from the rest of us. Silly kid!


BTW, if you haven't heard the newest addition to our Christmas music list at the bottom of the blog, be sure to give Neil Diamond a listen. It's one of Jason's personal favorites! ha ha!

This n That

I have gotten a little behind on my blogging . . . AGAIN. Most of you have probably given up reading my blog by now, so it is likely there will be NO comments on this post, but JUST IN CASE somebody stops by, who hasn't given up on me yet, here are some semi-recent pics.

Halle had two of her teeth pulled because the permanent teeth were growing in BEHIND the baby teeth, rather than pushing them out. Thank goodness for vanilla smelling gas and goggles that view movies. Yay for Kidz Dental Works!!

Just a few cute pics of Cam and Jason

Cozy movie night

And last, but not least, Spencer learned to CRAWL, in spite of our efforts to delay this milestone as long as possible. DANGIT, now I will have to vacuum!

Email Santa

This year was no exception. Halle went to see Santa Claus, but she FORGOT to tell him both of the things she wants. TRAGEDY!! I don't know if it's the magical experience of ACTUALLY talking to Santa, sitting on his LAP of all places, or just the nervousness of the whole situation, but Halle ALWAYS seems to forget to tell him SOMETHING. Soooooo, I did some searching, and found this SUPER cute website (click here). You can email Santa, check the naughty or nice list, and do lots of other fun things. He will even send a personalized letter back to you! GENIUS!! I just thought I should share!!

no really, it's too much!

Well, thank you very much, Shelby. What an honor it is to receive this prestigious award. As a recipient, i must do 3 things.

1. list 5 things I love

2. name 5 people who I would like to pass this award on to

3. give solicited love to the person who gave me the award.

so here goes:

I love salt and vinegar pringles, mountain dew, and lindor truffles. now that we have the tasty indulgences covered, on to #2

I love "pick a size" paper towels. I don't know who the GENIUS is who invented these, but for some reason it brings me an enormous amount of pleasure to know that I am not using too much or too little. I know, I am psycho.

I love watching movies. Jason and I rent them just about every night he doesn't have to work. We both will watch just about anything, so we rarely run out of rental options.

I love people who follow through. In the course of my life, I have learned that people are just more likely to flake on you. It's just a fact. I'm not trying to be negative, just realistic. So those of you who have done what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, THANK YOU!! It did not go unnoticed.

I love quiet. I realize there is a mood that can be established through different kinds of music, but I find myself enjoying the relaxing power of complete silence more than anything else. Probably because it is so RARE!!

I would like to pass this distinguished award on to the following people because I LOVE YOUR BLOGS:

Jen Hall

Dave Hall

Andrea Hanks (although I know you will probalby not post it on your blog)

Kerstin Petersen

Kara Eastham

Emily Coombs

And last, but not least, to Shelby, who is the goddess of sweetness, the muse of beauty, the queen of pork salads and peppermint sundaes. May your blogging be plentiful, and your followers be many!! Thank you for LOVING MY BLOG!!

A Sweeeeeeeeet Deal

In relation to my previous post, if you don't have pictures yet for your Christmas cards, you've got to check out the sweet deal that Andrea Hanks Photography is offering. It INCLUDES one of my custom designs on 25 cards in her package deal. Check it out by clicking here.

Order Now!!

It's time to get your Christmas cards ordered, so all of you friends and family out there, I am offering a discount for any of my designs. You can purchase any template for $10! Heck, if you order before November 22nd, I'll make it $5!! That means you can print AS MANY Christmas cards as you want, and you only have to pay the price of printing a regular 4x6 or 5x7 picture!! Stop by my design blog to check out all of the new templates. Click here to go there now.

What do a BYU cheerleader, a hot dog, and a dinosaur have in common?

They are all my kids! Happy Halloween!!

Playing Catch Up

I am very behind on my blogging, so here is an abbreviated blog about what we've been up to for the last few weeks.

We had our first snow day of the year. Spencer LOVES the snow, as you can see!

Jason built us some shelves for our cold storage

Spencer started solids

Cameron ate meat, something we thought might NEVER happen!

and we finally made it to black island farm

TA DA!

Cameron just came running into my bedroom after his bath, and with a smile on his face and a towel wrapped around him, he proudly exclaimed, "TA DA" as he flung open his towel to show me the family jewels. WHERE, I ask you, did he learn this?? Who knows. Lets hope it doesn't turn into a Pee Wee Herman complex when he gets older.

I would have included a picture, but I thought it a bit inappropriate to take one, wouldn't you agree?!

Pumpkin Schmumpkin

We usually go to Black Island Farm to get our pumpkins, but this year Halle got an invitation from J&J garden center to go on their free hayride to pick out free pumpkins! Yes, if you didn't guess by now, we like things that are free! We had a very lovely time, even though Cameron looks very peeved in that first picture.

To "cheeze" or not to "cheeze"

Sorry Spenc, maybe next year you can pick out your own pumpkin!

Cam could barely carry his.

Sup, freckle face!

Hey, look! Hay!

Just Plane Fun

One of the best parts of living in Syracuse is being so close to the FREE aerospace museum at the base. Very cool. Although, I do wish I could love planes as much as Jason. Perhaps it's a guy thing???

Jason's favorite plane: the P-52 (I think)

Cameron walked around with his finger pointed like that for about a hour straight. I don't think he ever realized airplanes are so BIG up close!

Cameron wouldn't go near this one. He was afraid the big hole under the nose was going to bite him. I swear, that kid has a COMPLEX about being bitten. Probably because one of YOUR bratty kids bit him in nursery one Sunday. Oh well, he probably deserved it :)

Amy VanWagenen

My cute cousin Amy is going all famous on me, and is debuting her fist album, Waiting, in October. She sings inspirational music, and you can listen to some of her songs on her website. She really has a very beautiful voice, and she writes all of her own songs. For those of you who are David Archuletta fans, they are close friends and study under the same vocal coach!!

If you like what you hear, put in a plug on your blog, and lets get the word out for her. Lets help her make her claim to fame!

Futbol Season

Halle played Syracuse soccer this year, and at the end of their 8 games, I think she may have found her passion. The girl ROCKS. Granted, sometimes she gets a little distracted and forgets she is even PLAYING soccer, but most of the time she does awesome. One game she scored FOUR goals!! She definately does not get it from her mamma, because I am most definately athletically challenged. I suppose I can live vicariously through her, right?! Here are the pics:


At the game she scored 4 goals, Grandpa Romney paid her $1 for each goal, and a bonus dollar because they won the game. Grandpa's are the BEST!

Duke Brothers Fishing Trip

Last weekend Jason went on a fishing trip with his dad and brothers up to Strawberry Resevoir. I think they had a good time, but most of what goes on there STAYS there, and probably for good reason. Here are the pics:

Driving Me Batty

That's right folks, we at the Duke house are doing our best to get ready for the up and coming Halloween season. Let me explain:

I was in the kitchen doing the dishes this afternoon when Halle came running in the house screaming, "Mommy, there's a BAT in the garage!" I chuckled a little, and said, "no, sweetie, there's not a bat in our garage." I knew it was probably just a dust ball or something, considering the GIGANTIC spider that was on our windshield the other day, that turned out to just be a crack in the glass. "No, mommy, come see! It has fur!" I decided I'd better go take a look, just to calm her down, so I walked out into the garage, sure that she was making something out of nothing.

"It's right there, mom." I couldn't see anything. "Look, right on that big red thing (our rake)" . "SHHHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK!" It WAS a bat! I frantically scurried all of the neighbor kids out of the garage, because by this point, I was the LAST one to see the bat. I racked my brain for any big strong men in the neighborhood who I could suscept to rabies. The only person I was pretty sure would be home was Kirk Poulsen, because his wife works in the middle of the night. I ran over to their house, and pleaded, "Could you come help me . . . there's a bat in my garage." The smirk on his face said it all; he thought it was comical that I was being such a 'girl'. So off we went, me and my big strong bat catcher.

When we got to my house, the bat had crawled up to the top of my garage, and was hiding in a corner. Kirk asked me for a ladder, some gloves, and a garbage bag. I thought he was CRAZY for trying to catch the thing. If it were me (which it wouldn't be, because I would never go NEAR the thing), I would just try to poke it with something long so that it would fly out on its own. Well, we got a combination of the two. While trying to bag it, it flew out of his grasp and started flying around in circles inside the garage. Eventually he flew out, buzzing me and all the neighbor kids, causing a wave of scraming and a scattering of children in every which way. SUCH a good time. I'm so glad nobody got rabies. At least I don't think. I made Kirk promise that if HE got rabies, he wouldn't sue me.

Here's the proof:

Spencer Man

I just love this picture of my Spencer Man (we call him that because when he was born, g-ma and g-pa Romney brought him a Superman balloon when we were in the hospital.) Anyway, had to post it.

The Great Outdoors

This past weekend we stayed in my Uncle Dave's cabin, which is just east of Oakley. We had a great time with all of the Romney's and Hawkins's. Here are some of the highlights:

Halle and Nate down by the river

Mommy and baby moose just out the back door of the cabin.

Jason's perfect game of golf. He scored a beautiful -40 with this hand!!

Cameron sliced his lip open on the edge of the kitchen table. He needed some extra love, so he and Grandpa snuggled up on the couch. Both of them stayed up a little too late last night, wouldn't you say?

And there's daddy moose, lovingly referred to as "Bullwinkle" (although nobody could remember if the cartoon moose was Rocky or Bullwinkle)???

AAAAAAND, that's when I lost my camera. Some pictures that would have been nice, but were not taken, include:

Roasting weenies and mallows by the firepit.

Cameron digging in to the community watermelon with the serving spoon (ya, nobody wanted any after that)

Searching for fossils on "fossil hill"

Picking wild blueberries for the homemade syrup

Eating WAAAAAAY too many of Grandma Judy's mint brownies

The talent show, featuring Cameron with his "Old McDonald" song

The "grandpa's portrait" coloring contest

And much, much more.


Thanks for letting us use the cabin, uncle Dave!!

First Day of School!!!

Ah, it's a bitter sweet day for me. My firstborn has officially started her education in the "Arts-a-ma-cademy." It's so exciting, but at the same time, I see each year going by faster and faster. I know that it will be no time before she is sending off her first child to school.

I love my sassy Halle monster, but can't she just stay little forever???

Don't you just love this little pose by the railing? Whoops, I should have photoshopped those weeds out of my garden!

Dang, she is cute. I was NEVER that cute, even when I was little!

CHEEEEEEEEZE! Dang, more weeds!

And there it is, the Arts-a-ma-cademy, in all its glory!

The uniform makes her look so grown up {tear, sniff}.