Buddies

These two are pretty good buddies. This is Ty. Sometimes they have a love/hate relationship, but usually a love. It's fun to watch them play together.

December part 1

Since I'm so far behind in blogging, I have to do it a month at a time. So for December.... we started off the Christmas season with our ward party. It was a fun night. We were asked to do a family musical number so we did the bells. It went pretty well. Then at the end of the night, of course, there was a visit from Santa. No tears this time, always a good moment. Caroline said she almost grabbed on his beard. That could have been a disaster.

We also took about 10 pictures before church one Sunday to try and get a family picture for the Christmas card. I think it worked out pretty good. Wouldn't know that I was yelling at all my kids to cooperate. They've learned how to fake the smile for a good picture. :) That way they know they're done sooner.

All the kids started fighting about which one was going to put the star on the tree so I devised a great plan. We had them all in our room watching a show and called one out at a time and told them it was a secret, but "they were the one to put the star on the tree". Then as soon as they got down, we took the star out and repeated. I thought we were so clever, but apparently Caroline said:  " did you put the star on the tree?" Liz: " yeah. " Caroline: "me too". So I guess we weren't so sneaky after all. But aside from a little, " well I did it first", it solved the drama.

I bought the tree off someone selling it and it was cheaper than a real tree. We went and looked at the real trees but there weren't that many out yet and I hate throwing down $50 + each year on a tree. I loved having the tree up and seeing the kids enjoying it so much too.

 

We also decorated gingerbread men for FHE one night. The kids enjoyed that and I had to solicit some help from Brian to get them all to look at the camera and smile. If you look in the window behind them, you'll see Brian's face. Funny.
 

That's the start to our December.

Almost forgot...

2 other things that happened in November......

 Caroline's school had the 2nd grade put on the most darling play about bugs. The costumes were so fun and the songs were adorable. She did a great job and was such a cute firefly.

Also, the last day in November we had Brian's work party. It was a nice party. They had good food, a comedian and a few fun in office games from minute to win it. They had all the doctors wives blind folded and they had to feel all doctors legs to try and figure out which one was their husband's. I knew which one was Brian, mostly because I heard him laugh when I rubbed up his leg, but they had me stop in front of Chuck because when I said I was done, I meant, I knew which one was his and wanted to stop feelings these guys legs. It was a little uncomfortable. But the night was fun and it was fun to get a little dressed up. Not many reasons to do that these days.

November

Well from my pictures, it appears as though not a whole lot happened in November. There were really a couple of things I felt worth documenting, or so it seems. For starters, Papa John and WeeMama came out for a weekend visit. It was nice to have some family come and visit us. We mostly just hung around and visited. We did go to the pool one day and that was fun.

Half way into the month Brian and I celebrated our 12th anniversary. Kind of crazy. 12 great and adventurous years. Definitely wouldn't have put myself in Colorado at this point I'm sure. Glad we're here though. It's been a great move. We got a babysitter and went out for dinner and to a movie. We had a little time to kill so we went to Nordstrom Rack and did a little hat trying on. Good times!

Then we went and ate at the Mediterranean at downtown Boulder. We walked a little down Pearl Street too before our movie. We went and saw the final Twilight Movie, Breaking Dawn part II. It was good and great to have the night to spend together. I sooooooo look forward to date nights. I married a great man!

We decided to head out to Utah for Thanksgiving and visit with the Porter fam. The kids had the whole week off of school and so staying home didn't seem like it'd be that much fun. I drove out with the kids because Brian had work, of course, but he later joined up with us and drove back with us. We did have a great time. We basically just hung out and played with the cousins, which was great fun for all of us. We went to this cute park:

Went to Gardner Village and did the elf search and ended with a yummy cookie. Kids had fun, so did we moms. ;)

Also got to go with Mom, Dad, the sisters, Jayde and Marc, to the Timpanogos temple to do Papa's (Cooper) family names. It was a neat experience and nice to be able to make it to the temple. This was our sunset on the way down.

For Thanksgiving we did something a little different. First, the night before Thanksgiving, we had a little get together at the church. We brought soup and treats and let the kids play around a bit, then we adults played around. We had a dodge ball tournament which was super fun. Oh childhood games are always fun!

For a few years now I've been wanting to do some sort of service on Christmas, but it hasn't worked out, so I thought maybe I'd give it a go on Thanksgiving. All the fam was in for it too, so we started out driving around to try and find someone who needed some leaves raked. Surprisingly there were hardly any leaves on the ground anywhere for the first little bit, but then there was one house on the street behind my parent's house, that had a bunch of leaves, so we all hopped out of our cars and got going. We moved pretty fast and got I think 17 big bags full of leaves. All the kids helped a little too, even one of the twins, who with the rake, cut open Jill's face. :( Just a little on her nose. Come to find out that the Dad at this house had been sick and also totally sprained his ankle earlier that day, so it was a great house to serve at.

Next we went to the Firehouse and delivered some doughnuts. It was supposed to just be a quick drop off, but they invited us in for a "quick" (45) tour. Not many people calling in for emergencies I guess. The kids loved it though. They got to see the truck and the best part at the end was they got to shoot the fire hose and try and knock down a cone. It was nice to be able to thank the firemen for the service. Smelled like they had a pretty good meal cookin' in there so I don't think they were too bad off.

We were running pretty short on time after that, so our last stop was to drop off some cookies at the hospital to the doctor and nurses that were there working. While we did that, some of the others (but not all. There were a few stinkers) quickly washed windows on the cars that were there and left a note that had a little treat on it. It said, "we wanted to give you a "fast break" by washing your windows. Hope you have a good Thanksgiving." We figured they were either there working or there for an emergency, so probably not wanting to be there either way. We did have a doctor come out and tell us how nice he thought it was that we were doing that. I think that maybe he was just checking on us making sure we weren't messing up his beamer. :) Either way, it all turned out pretty good and I think I'd like to make it a regular tradition. I think it's a great way to show you're truly thankful for your blessings.

 

After all the service we came home and finished preparations for dinner. I caught this picture and just found it so comical to have all these adults in the kitchen at the same time. The dinner was delicious, the company was great, and the games after were hilarious. Nothing like a good game of spoons.

The next day was the "biggest shopping day of the season" and we never really go out for that, but we did need socks and a few other items, so we hit one store towards the end of it's special hours. When we finished there, we got to meet up with our good friends the Travis and Bree Allred and their little cuties Brielle and Tayson. Love this family! We had lots of good times with them in Logan so ti was fun to see them and catch up.

Also during this trip, I was able to get together with some of my best and dearest friends from high school. Dave Sullivan and his wife heather and their 4 kids and Josh and Alisa Linton and their 3 boys. We sat and talked and then went to a park and had some pizza and played a little football. It was fun and crazy. Crazy that the four of us from high school, now 15 years later, have 13 kids. Seems too grown up. It was so fun to see them and hope we do it again before too long.

It was great to see Alisa. She was one of my best girl friends in HS and she's been through quite an ordeal over the last 4 years with cancer. She's a fighter and I've been amazed by her strength and her outlook on life. It's made me re-evaluate many things and see life a little differently.

We also wanted to have an adult night, where we weren't constantly interrupted by kids and their many needs, so we we out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and followed that with a few rounds of bowling. I love my family. So many good times together. November ended up being a pretty good month!