December

What we've been up to this month so far....

*Lights at Temple Square! Cold but fun!
*Christmas Village! Again cold but fun!
*Made gingerbread houses. Food fight! It was fun, of course the clean up wasn't.
*In my annual routine of 'I'm not making any neighborhood gifts this year' I ended up making 2 different gifts this year(thanks Callie I needed a little encouragment!). Not fabulous gifts but for the amount of time I spent coming up/making the gifts not bad.
* This is new but definitely my favorite so far. I made a Christmas card! I actually mailed 5 and also added one to a few gifts. This is something I want to keep up.
* Tonight Willard Bay lights with Kati and the gang! Can't wait!!!!
*My sister is giving us countless hours of entertainment.

Merry Christmas 2010

Santa

Visiting Santa is always fun because he gives a friendly reminder that bedrooms need to be kept clean and to be nice and kind to your parents. Mads has been a stink lately! That 2nd reminder needed more emphasis in my opinion. Thank goodness I love that girl!!! No worries I'll take her to visit Santa again if required:).

Cheap Entertainment

We paid a visit to our local DI and found some cool stuff. We bought a bag full of Jenga pieces for a dollar and turned our Jenga set at home into what we like to call the Ultimate Jenga set.

We also purchased a puzzle for 50 cents. This is the cheapest entertainment I have ever bought when you consider the hours of time spent on it to the actual cost of the puzzle. At least 15 hours of solid entertainment! The last night the kids ended up falling asleep waiting for the grown ups to finish it up.  The puzzle is called a Impossibles puzzle with 750 pieces plus 5 extra. The cover box is deceiving and only gives you hints of the end result. We got lucky and it was all there.

Next a Star Wars 3D puzzle...The Millennium Falcon.

The Grinch

When Mads was probably 2 or 3 I asked her what her favorite movie was. I never expected for her to get really close to my face and say 'the the GRINCH!!!'. She did a great imitation of Jim Carrey. It wasn't even around Christmas time. This is a memory I would give a lot for to have recorded on a DVD somewhere.

It's a movie that gets watched more than once a year.

Lists for Santa

A copy of Korbin's letter to Santa...

 A copy of Madison's letter to Santa...

Both not signed yet because there is more that needs to be added to each. I better pressure the kiddos into signing them before it grows to long. Our favorite so far is #5 on Maddie's list. She really loves Cheetos.

Sister

My sister is here for 6 weeks. It's nice having her around most of the time. She does drive me crazy when she doesn't look at prices when shopping for stuff. The kids ADORE her and saved 6 ornaments for her to put on the x-mas tree. She's studying for her NCLEX exam(state board test for nursing) when she's not being trampled by the kids. We'll have a blast!

Turkey,Deals & Hold

      Our Thanksgiving weekend was very quiet. We didn't play with friends the entire school break which must be a new record in this household, 5 whole days! 

We ate lots of turkey on Thursday. Played with cousins and visited with family. All the good stuff! It was peaceful and quiet. 

Thursday night/Friday morning came on the sales. All of the black Friday sales that I wanted where available online. It was sweet! I only had two dilemmas one was I didn't get the Belgium waffle maker that was $10 bucks( I've wanted one other these forever and really the only reason I stayed up), it was in my cart but I was slow in the check out process so I lost it. The second dilemma was our bank thought there was suspicious activity with so many purchases they put a hold on our account just to be safe. Hello! Black Friday!!!!

Friday morning bright and early I called the bank and let a nice lady banker know all the purchases were made by me and valid. 

If you know me I had to take the next step and call each company just to double check that I could still get all my stuff even though the banker over the phone assured me like 3 times everything would be ok. 

Every day since then I've received an e-mail that something is being shipped. It just makes my day to know I got awesome deals plus a bonus of free shipping on most of my x-mas gifts!

I'm really exited that I only have a few more gifts to put together and then I'm officially  done earlier than ever before. I'll have so much free time this December than any other December in the past to spend with family and dedicate to the list of things that need to get done for my Primary calling. 

I owe this new way of x-mas shopping to my friend Callie who taught me last year it's the only way to go. Thanks Callie!

Thankful

A few things we're grateful for this year:

Things & Turkey

Homes & Healthy bodies

Animals

Naps & Nuts

Kites

Family & Friends

Umbrellas

Late nights at work during the Holiday season(it means we have a job). 

Tooth Fairy

Maddie is cashing in loads of $ from the Tooth Fairy this year. She's a late bloomer when it comes to losing teeth.

She has two more that are wiggly on top. Korbin was teasing her about losing those soon too but she will really like it if they would stick around for a while. Eating certain foods hasn't been a treat for her the past few days. 

Night Games

      I love that the kids are getting older and we can explore new things to do together. A few weeks ago while it was still warm outside we had a fun FHE activity of night games in the backyard. The kids played their parts without asking for parental help. It was nice.
We had a great time playing. I scared the crap out of Jason in one round. I loved it and couldn't stop laughing afterwards!!!
I've never been able to scare him and I owed him one from years ago. I'm not the most coordinated person and in this family it's not uncommon I get picked last but wahoo I finally found something I might get picked for first. It's also fun to see Korbin get a little more competitive in the last couple of weeks.

Bolt aka Gimpy

We have a pet! It's nothing spectacular but whatever keeps the kiddos happy and stop asking for a puppy at least for now.

His name is Bolt! He's a little different than most goldfish. He has an extra fin and he's oddly shape. 30 seconds after leaving the pet store Korbin said..."What happened to him?'. Maddie picked him because he loves to swim somewhat fast all the time(explanation for the blurry pic). Jason found a nickname for him that is not allowed to be said in front of Mads. She's a little overprotective of him. So far we've only forgot to feed him once.

Carlsbad,CA (Family Pictures)

Week

The last few weeks I've been able to spend a little time with amazing women. Some are old enough to be my mom, some like an older sister and some as young sisters(my favorites are the ones I get to tease). I truly am lucky to know so many amazing ladies to look up and learn a lot from.

Halloween

   Our Halloween was spent at home this year. It was something new. We usually go to Kati's and have a fun night together but with her house just recently selling she had to move instead. The kids had a great time trick or treating in our neighborhood and loved getting loads of candy.

 Maddie was a black fairy this year and Korbin was Ron Weasley. 

I'm looking forward for things to go back to normal and Kati being in charge of our Halloween. I'm not as cool as she is with this holiday. 

Dynomite

Thursday:
After spending a few hours Thursday morning at the zoo it was time for us to say goodbye to San Diego and go north for the rest of the trip. The kids were sad to leave their cousins but exited to see Auntie Sio.

The first thing we did when we arrived was load up in the car and go get dinner at In-N-Out. The rest of the night was just spent hanging out and of course teasing Aunt Sio for the outfit she was wearing. I could swear it was bait she knew I couldn't resist. I told her for every outfit I saw similar to hers I would give her 10 cents. I never had to pay up even though she claimed everyone was wearing it. I love my sister and her jumper!

Friday:
My goal for Friday was to hit Santee Alley in downtown Los Angeles and find a few things I wanted. I didn't find everything on my list but of course the hot dog stands where around every corner. I promise the blob picture below is very yummy.

After leaving downtown the last stop for the day was a place that I've told Jason for years about. This is the place to get fresh sea food. The San Pedro harbor.

All kinds of crabs,lobsters, ect are brought in daily from fishermen into this restaurant. The kids got a kick out of picking their very own crab and then sitting outside by the harbor with their seafood 30 minutes later.

Saturday:

This is the last blurry picture we took in California at 5:30 in the morning right before leaving.
Saturday we spent in the car all day with a few stops. We stopped to shop the Las Vegas outlets and at the Bellagio for a quick tour around the lobby.

After a busy long fabulous trip we arrived safely back home around 11:30 at night on Saturday October 16th. We came home with fond memories including the song Dynomite that is always turned up in our car.

San Diego Zoo

A picture says a thousand words. With that in mind this post will contain a lot of pictures and not so many words. We had such a blast we took hundred of pictures on this trip. 

Thursday was San Diego Zoo day. This zoo is just plain huge! Between two trips we maybe saw 80% of it.

The only rest we had from walking was sitting in the aerial tram and on the tour bus. Towards the end of the day we all decided it might be better to go back the next morning with fresh bodies because we were beat.
After a little rest the grownups went out to dinner at a nearby fish house. I wish Cooper and Kenzie lived closer to us. They did such a good job taking care of their little cousins while the grownups spent a little time together.

Walk

     On Tues or Wed night (all of our activities are starting to get blurry in my head) we took a walk along the beach. The weather was perfect and the kids did so well for the distance we walked. It felt like it was out of a fairy tale. Jason found quite a few sand dollars which he shared with all the cousins. I got to know Dena a little bit better. She's an amazing sister in law(the terminology we prefer =). The cousins all just laughed and hung out together.

Ryan,Mads and possibly Cooper 

BEACH DAY!

I LOVE the beach...even better I love my family on the beach! I always get the best pictures of them on the beach.

Jason,Ryan and the kids hit the waves not too much longer after arriving back from the zoo. 

(This one I believe was taken on Sunday)

(Sunday Picture)

They all had a blast with the boards! I waited too long so by the time I choose to go out it was just freezing so I just sat in the hot tub. Bummer!