Tuesdays are my crazy day, but today was especially fun, and crazy. I started out the day with great hair, I didn't take a picture of this specifically but trust me, it looked great today. I love great hair day, you feel good all day long, and I did! Lauri and I did some errand running in Layton and stopped by Jason's Deli for some lunch and to see my handsome brother Brandon. This time I brought my camera with fresh batteries.
We ate some seriously yummy baked potatoes and Ethan LOVES macaroni and cheese.
He also LOVES Brandon, in fact, it's one of the few words that he tries to say, kind of sounds like bah-dah, but close enough. When you're two and STILL not talking, this totally counts.
The fact that he loves Brandon is a total turn-around from when he was a baby and would burst into tears at the sight of him! Seriously, I felt so bad for Brandon, Ethan hated him! Having fun at lunch made running errands bearable, it also didn't hurt that during our Barnes and Noble run, there was a kid section with a cute chair Ethan wanted to sit in (that's right SIT in) and a Buzz and Woody book he wanted to read, so cute.
This does negate the fact that on the way out of the store, he swatted at a stack of books on a table and ALL the books on the table fell to the floor, loudly, so that everyone looked at me. UGH! Toddlerhood, sheesh! Next I was on to the post office to send a good mail package, a long over-due thank you note and some tail-ender Christmas cards, the line was only two minutes long, not bad!
Later was Webelos and piano, and I took the thirty minute break to run to Starbucks to try Patsy's beloved Carmel Apple Cider and OOOOOOHHHHHH, so good.
I sat in the car all by myself in the peace and quiet, sipping away the goodness while I waited for Spencer to come out to the car. Later when I got home I found this....Allie knew I was having a rough go of things today, so she cleaned the kitchen AND organized my giant drawer of rubbermaid containers.
Man I love this girl. I'm so tired, I'm going to fall into bed like a rock. Good night!
So, here we are AGAIN, with NO HEAT. I loved this seven day forecast from Patsy's blog, it was so appropriate to my blog here today I decided to copy it. Now let's say you could choose the worst possible week for your boiler to go out, you would say this week for sure. Right? I mean could we have worse luck than this?Twenties and thirties during the day and teens at night? Holy crap! Last time our boiler broke, it took more than a week to get it resolved and I just kept feeling grateful that it hadn't happened in the dead of winter! I think my nightmare came true, the heating guy said today that he can't even come until tomorrow afternoon because he's so busy! Yikes! I should've taken a picture of Ethan eating breakfast this morning, with TWO blankets around his shoulders brrrrr. We got dressed and ran errands all day because Costco is a lot warmer than our house. On the way home from Taylor's choir concert tonight, I stopped at Target and bought two space heaters to add to our collection of a few so that everyone would have one in their room tonight. 
Thank goodness for space heaters man! Brrrrrrrr. "Rise and shine campers, and don't forget to wear your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today. It's cold out there every day, what is this Miami Beach?" Because my blog STILL has a bug and you can't post comments unfortunately, the first person who sends me an email with the movie title to that quote, will get a 1lb. canister of my new favorite Stephen's Hot Chocolate, Dulce de Leche Caramel! A hint is that it's probably one of my most favorite movies EVER! (rich, you do not count in this contest)
Soooo good! Good luck! :)EDIT: My blog NO LONGER has a bug, you can now leave a comment! So instead of the first correct email, it's now the first correct comment! Do you know the movie?
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We always laugh and laugh and this gathering was no different. I have always been so grateful to have been born into such a wonderful family but the last nine years or so I've realized what a blessing it is to also be married into such a wonderful one. We are excited to spend some time with everyone at Jenny's cabin in Oakley over Christmas break this year. Good times. Would you believe that I forgot my camera? Crap! Jenny provided these nice pictures for me, so thanks Jen!
This picture is of her first year, it was taken when digital images were brand-new so it's small and pixely but I love it, it makes me giggle every time I see it! Look at that cutie patootie little girl! It is always during Allie's number that I feel many emotions all at once, hopeless about how quickly she is growing up, shocked and amazed and how grown up she really is and what she's capable of, and chest swelling pride because of what a great dancer she is! Now I know that I am biased, but she just shines up there on the stage and you can just feel how much fun she is having, pure JOY on her face. Saturday was the Christmas dance recital, grinch themed, so cute and we had a huge cheering section. Both sets of grandparents came, lucky for my parents, Makenna also dances with Melanie (dance teacher) and lucky for Rich's parents, Charity and Joy dance there too! Lots of stones, one dance recital. 
We just love sitting with all of our family. We also love that Lauren and Natalie dance there too so their families are all in attendance! It's like a big class reunion. :) The recital did not disappoint, I thought all of the girls did such a great job and had a lot of fun. We always take pictures on the stage after the recital is over because the black curtain back drop is so great and the lighting is wonderful. This year they turned the lights off too quickly, so everyone has red-eye. 
Some day I'll get around to fixing that in Photoshop, but for now it's just too much work! Happy dancing queens!
Ethan doesn't mind hanging out at Laur's house at all because he loves Lauri, but he also LOVES Goldie, Goldie doesn't really share the same sentiments about Ethan, but she is such a good dog that she tolerates all the eye poking and tail grabbing just fine. While I was busy painting away today, all of a sudden I noticed it was really quiet, which when you have a toddler, generally means bad news. I turned around to find Ethan using Goldie as his body pillow and loving every second of it. 
Goldie doesn't look too thrilled, but maybe she was too tired to care.
What a good doggie, Goldie is. We're glad that we get to dog sit her from time to time since we will never have a dog of our own. Poor Ethan, and Spencer, they are the kind of boys dogs are made for. I just hate the hair! And let me tell you, Ethan was COVERED in it when he stood up from his Goldie snuggle session. Yuck. Lauri and I took a self portrait when we were done but I'm never happy about the size of my head when we do this. 
Do I really have that large of a head? And it looks like I need to start wearing mascara all the time, Lauri has great eyes. Later Rich and I opted not to go out, it was snowing and freezing and we hung out and caught up on our TV shows on the Tivo. It was nice to snuggle up in PJs and just relax after such a busy week.
Merry Christmas to all of you, our friends and family!
We celebrated his birthday on Sunday at grammy's house with the best batch of her spaghetti and meatballs that she's ever made. 
Seriously, they were so good, I had to say to myself, "four is as good as ten" because ten is how many I wanted to eat, forget the noodles even, mmmmm good. The picture looks disgusting, you'll just have to trust me. 
And here is my nutty brother Brandon, who is not gay despite what you might think by looking at this picture! He wants me to make him a Christmas card with this picture to send out to his friends. Whatever! He wants the caption to say, "during the holidays you should show your best side, Merry Christmas, Love Brandon. What a nut. On that spiritual note, let's talk church...Our Sunday church service was so good that I ended up being especially gateful for Patsy's good mail package with the cute tissues in it! They came in handy, the spirit was so strong and it was one of the best meetings I've attended in a long time, just what I needed. Isn't that funny? How it always seems to be just what you need? No coincidence there I don't think. Happy Birthday Charlie!
Dead, brown trees that are naked from loosing their leaves are suddenly decorated and gorgeous. And the mountains, oh the mountains, brown and dry all summer long finally look like real mountains, winter is the only season that they take my breath away. I also love snow because we live in a desert people and we need the water! I love looking out the window in a snow storm and thinking, "now I have an excuse to just stay home in my flannel pjs and read". It's a pain to bundle Ethan up every time we have to go some where but that's ok, the cold is refreshing after a blazing hot summer. My favorite thing about Utah is the extreme weather we have in each season, it makes you look forward to the season to come. So, we finally got dumped on, we've gotten snow a few times so far, but this was finally the big one and it was awesome. The best part was the it dumped for most of the morning and then stopped for the rest of the day which left time for sledding and snowman building. 
Taylor injured his knee sledding, I think we're probably off to the doctor's tomorrow to have it looked at, but he was more upset about having to leave his friends on the snowy hill who would continue to have fun without him. I bought Ethan the wardrobe, boots, snow bib, etc. but he was too nervous yesterday to play out in it, I'm hoping he will "warm" up to the fluffy white stuff soon. Ahhhh, snow.
I remember my brothers and I pouring over these wonderfully detailed paintings over and over trying to take it all in, always discovering something new each time. 
Some day I'm going to have a framed picture of this Santa reading mail playing with his beard.
My pictures are not doing this art work justice of course, you'll have to check it out for yourself. Of course I ordered it immediately on Amazon, I love finding a memory that you had forogtten is what there. The book has not disappointed me, my kids LOVE to look at the art for the same reasons the boys and I did when we were small. Ok, so I don't have a great story to tell for each of my favorite books, these are just a few of them...
Snowmen at Night and Snowmen at Christmas by the Buehners, because the story is just so clever and fun and because there are hidden pictures in each of the beautiful pages which make for hours of "I spy" kind of fun. 
The Christmas Oranges retold by Linda Bethers because it makes you think how thankful you are you have a family and it inspires me to be kind to all children, you just never know what their situation might be. Plus, we always get an orange from Santa in our stockings.
A Christmas Dress For Ellen by Thomas Monson, because he is one of the great story tellers of our time and Grandma Evelyn's family came from Canada and so we picture her when we read this story. 
Uncles and Antlers by Lisa Wheeler because it's just so clever with great art work and has a great message about how even though we are all different, we come together at Christmas and in that way we are all the same. 
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, we have loved this story for a long time, the movie that came out later is great too. 
I love the message of believing and the idea that bells don't jingle unless you believe. 
Santa's New Suit by Laura Rader, just for some cute fun, no deep message in this book, except maybe love yourself just the way you are, or tradition is good. 
And of course The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore, because it's such a classic and beautiful telling of the Santa's big night and the art work in this version by Bruce Whatley is just fantastic. Ok, so that's it, these are just a few of my faves, I will post more next year. The theme I'm noticing through most of these book is beautiful art work, that's a huge draw for me. If you have a minute, check one of these out, I promise they won't disappoint!
My genious husband Rich is the smartest man I know, I'm not just saying that either, he really does rock. Over the past several years he has been making really cool mini-games that you can download for your pocket PC and enjoyed it so much I think he's up to like 19 games (download them here 
Tonight Spencer and Isaac are passing off one of their last requirements for the Arrow of Light Award by sleeping in a tent that they helped pitch. It's pitched in Isaac's backyard and it's about 28 degrees outside right now. YIKES! We set them up with many layers of clothing, hand warmers at the bottom of their sleeping bags (Taylor said this worked really well during their Klondike campout last year) and an air matress to keep them off the ground. They were pretty psyched tonight when we were taking pictures, probably because neither of our families have sleep-overs and so this is a rare thing to hang out all night. I guess we'll see if they still have all their fingers and toes in the morning and whether or not they actually get any sleep. I have my doubts. I'm so grateful that Spencer has been able to make such good friends in this new neighborhood. It's something that we didn't really have before we moved and it's been such a blessing. Isaac's mom and I are both excited for them to grow up together, we hope they stay friends for a long time to come. If they survive the night that is...