Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday to my Ry! He's the best dad and husband anyone has ever had! He is the one who decorated Christmas tree grove (somehow we didn't get around to buying a real tree so he decorated some we already had) and put up the lights outside. Nice work! Just a couple more reasons why we keep him around.

Santa Baby

Notice Tate is dissing Ruthie for the cell phone, feel the love.

Ruthie takes a dance class at our 13 year old neighbors house once a week. She loves class, but apparently the performing thing didn't go so well. At her recital she just went and sat with Ryan. Ry actually missed skiing to be there. But I was working that night so he represented! What a guy!
Also, Ruthie has quite a scrape by her eye from tripping in a parking lot with her hands in her coat pockets. She skidded to a stop on her face! Ouch!

The rest of the girls bowing while Ruthie clings onto her teacher.


This was this morning at breakfast. Are we glad Tate's getting new pj's for Christmas or what?

Thanksgiving trip highlights

We had such a great time in Arizona! Here are just a few of everyone's favorite highlights.



These are the only pictures I have of me on our trip! My favs were:
-Going to see 'Twilight' with my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law. Loved it!!
-Learning how to make and can applesauce. Yum!
-Visiting with friends and seeing the Mesa Temple lights

Ryan's adventures included:

-Taking the Jeeps 4-wheeling in the desert and shooting shotguns.

-Mountain biking

-And of course played in a Turkey Bowl!

Tate:

-Chilled with his cousin Emmett. This is the best shot I got. They are not cooperative subjects.
-Loved playing with Dodge the dog! We are lucky he is so patient with the kids.

Ruthie:

-Had a blast playing with Orren (no picture:( )

-Watched football on Thanksgiving (see 3 pictures up)

-Dressed up in her aunts old dance costumes and dancing with them/wrestling Tate!

Tate turns 1!

We celebrated Tate's first birthday on Thanksgiving Day in Arizona. We were lucky enough to have both families there for presents and pie. He obviously enjoyed his pumpkin cheesecake! We love this little man and can't believe it has been a whole year since he joined our family. He such a sweetheart and still loves to snuggle. I will take that as long as I can! His favorite things right now are: climbing everything, throwing everything, balls, cars, animals and anything noisy.

Ladies and gentleman, we have a walker!

I can't believe my baby is walking! I love those wobbly little steps the first few weeks. Tate is also demonstrating his "cheeser" smile that he does on cue.

Ryan snapped this shot while he and his boy were watching some football together. Tate just loved it! Another proud moment for Dad.

Ruthie fell asleep while she was in time out. I think I left her a few extra minutes!

I have to share a Ruthie story that she will just love me for someday. I was at Target doing some b-day shopping for my baby. While on a toy isle, I look over at Ruthie and she is casually looking at toys while standing in a huge puddle of pee! Right then a girl from my ward walked onto the same isle! Bless her, because she stayed with Ruthie while I ran to my car to get wipes and a pair of pants I had bought at Old Navy not 30 minutes before. We made a barricade with our carts and I stripped her down and changed her right there! This was my first public accident experience and it could have been much worse. I got so lucky with the extra pants and running into Amber. Ruthie is usually very good about going on the potty. She has had only a few accidents in the past 5 or 6 months. If nothing else it is a great piece of blackmail to save for a few years!

Why I am not allowed to BBQ

A couple of nights ago I wanted to try to BBQ ribs on the grill. I even called and got my brother-in-law's special rib rub recipe. I am only ever in charge of pre-heating the grill for Ryan, but he said to turn on medium-low and put them on since it takes a long time for them to cook. He got home 30 minutes later and this is what he found.

I apparently didn't know there were nine heat settings so what I thought was medium was the 2nd hottest. The grill was up to 700 degrees! There were a few tears from me, then Ryan saved the night and just went and picked up ribs from Famous Dave's. Live and learn!

Horror at Homecoming

Dolly Dancer and Bobby Backer

Sally Spirit and Peter Pres

Gabby Backer and Larry Lineman

Cindy Sensational and Kevin Kicker

Clerical Katie and Coach Walters

Dr. Talk and Pricipal Simpson

Everyone arriving and reading their secret objectives for the evening.

Ryan and Daniel dancing??

Homecoming King and Queen! Well, at least for a minute or two.

Dancing the night away

Our cute pregnant dancer

We were dethroned by these two, whatever!


We had the best time last weekend doing a murder mystery date night with some friends in our neighborhood. The theme was Horror at Homecoming. The girls spent the morning decorating for the big dance with the classic streamers, lights, balloons and a photo backdrop from a real high school dance the weekend before. The costumes were awesome and everyone getting into their roles made for a hilariously good time! Ryan was perfectly comfortable playing the cocky quarterback, while mine was more of a stretch as I played the pom captain. I borrowed a dress from my sis-in-law and pom poms from Ruthie. We had a blast dancing and scheming the night away.

Halloween '08

The best picture of us all, a little dirty by the end of the day!

Some of the friends that stopped by.

Our super nice garage decked out!

Ry with his pride and joy(s).

The cheerleader and the football player.

Cute friends

What's in here?

We had a Happy Halloween with many of the traditional activities. The kids enjoyed a church party, a parade at our neighbors house and trick-or-treating with 50 other little kids at Ryan's office. They got grief from many Utah fans for their costumes, but we are teaching them the right team from the start! The night before Halloween I got the crazy idea to have a little party in our garage for all of the trick-or-treaters that came by. We had a neighbor that used to do it that just moved. We had fun doing it and went through 120 cups of hot chocolate and rootbeer, about 50 brownies about 50 cookies and 2/3 of my crockpot of chili cheese dip with chips! Luckily, my friend Melinda helped with the cookies and decorations. We will definately have to do it again.