December

Christmas Dinner, again we have the coolest friends here! They love to party, any occasion is worth doing something formal or costume but every time is full of good things to eat! (Jordan was the photographer, this was the only picture he took, I am sad you can't see all my dress it is very pretty! 29 dollars!)

Taylor and I celebrated our ten year anniversary in December and I surprised him by pulling him out of primary (he was subbing as pianist, and yes they new I was going to do that) I had clothes in the car for him to change into and.... I took him to the bus stop where he finally guessed where we were going.

Invesco Field, to watch the Broncos play.

We sat really high up but it didn't bother us at all we had a great view, it was beautiful and warm (68 degrees!) and we were sitting next to season ticket holders so we only had a few crazy drunk people to deal with, but that is part of the fun right?

It was a blast, I can't wait to do that again! Next time we will take our boys, being that we live in Colorado we can get four half price tickets a year (I didn't know that until after I bought our tickets this time, but if course they were still worth it).

The next night I surprised Taylor again with tickets to see a Christmas Carol in Denver. It was amazing! Isn't theater wonderful?!

Thanksgiving Day! We were lucky enough to get two Thanksgivings in 2009 the first with my mom and then with my dad a couple days latter. My mom has loads of dress up clothes for the grand kids at her house.

And my dad has rubber band guns and a motorized car for the kids.

After a lovely dinner we just enjoyed a lot of conversation.

My sister Christie

My Dad's wife Deborah My sister in-law Marcy. She is due to have her third baby any time now. ( I am having blogger trouble, I had this written about who this is in the picture below but my text color defaulted to black on this one entry so it didn't show up on the finished product, even though it technically was there and it appeared in the preview you just couldn't see it on the finished product, GRRR!)

California trip part 2

I really am blogger ignorant, I can't figure out why it is underlining these first two descriptions if you know the answer, please help!

Getting ready to leave for Apple Hill which was a childhood favorite tradition of mine, so I was really excited to share this with my kids!

This is the Maple tree in my moms front yard, I love, love, love the beautiful colors that you get from Maple trees in the fall.

It is a common thing to have to wait for someone when traveling with such a large group this time if I remember right is was my teenage brothers, all the women were ready! So I played with the camera, I have many more of the kids in the car, but those are never very entertaining.

My sister Christie and her kids, Claire and Ethan. Ethan was frustrated that he was taken a way from the other boys to have his picture taken.

Christie and kids outside the barn where they sell the best Carmel Apples in the world!!

Had to include this one!

Our family outside of the "Carmel Apple barn" at High Hill Ranch.

This is Cinderella's pumpkin it is the last thing to see as you leave High Hill.

Pretty family, pretty sunset!

Trip to California part 1

This trip was in November for Thanksgiving but the pictures were so great, I just had to get them up! One of the first things I did when getting to Cali was go out with my sister Christie, (we invited all the girls but everyone else opted out). What did we do you ask?

If you can't tell by these picture, it has been way to long since you have seen a movie!

And what did we see...

Now you know why some of the group opted out of this activity. My sister and I are definitely not big fans, but we both had read the book and that was excuse enough to go and hang out with my sister, love you Christie!

I could be a mom to all boys!

Last week we had all the neighborhood kids over for pizza and games. Excluding my kids there were 10 boys and 1 girl. They stayed from noon until four, I had to light dynamite under there bums to get them to leave I would have gladey let them stay longer except I had places I needed to go (like the gym after the pizza and cookies). They were wild and full of energy but I just kept sending them outside if it started getting to crazy. After all that with 12 boys and 3 girls in the house I have realized I do very well with boy noise. Don't get me wrong, I love my girls, but for any of you that think all you can have is boys, its just not that bad. I was just looking at all my photos on the computer and have realized I am seriously behind. So my goal for the rest of this week is to play some catch up. If it bores anyone to much just don't look for a few days, I am not a very consistent blogger anyway so you wont feel like you are missing anything. Celebrating Taylors 33 birthday (I made that dice tower for Taylor's board games). Papa came to visit. This is our last watermelon from my garden last fall. It is funny when a piece of fruit can be so beautiful!

Why can't I get moving?

I hate those days where I want to curl up and do nothing, except there is so much to do that doing nothing just stresses me out! I don't know where to start I guess there is only one thing to do... no I won't crack open the Ben and Jerry's in my freezer, but I will make a list. I say that knowing that I will only get a quarter done and Taylor will laugh when he sees it posted on the fridge (I make a lot of lists!)but, it does de-clutter my brain. I hope you all are getting more done then me today!

Thanksgiving

It has been ten years since my last Thanksgiving in California. (As a child I remember hearing that phrase "its been 10 years" and thinking jeez you must be old, I guess I am) I am so excited that this year the whole family are flying out on Saturday to spend a week with grandparents, aunts, uncles and lots of cousins. I've missed my Mother's cooking, my Father's tending and enjoying the company of my brothers and sister, I can't wait! Did you know that Thanksgiving (as a kid) used to be one of my favorite holidays? Taylor was surprised to find out that it wasn't anymore. I will give you one guess as to why it is not now that I have my own family..... It is a ton of work!! For the one doing the cooking you don't sit down until you eat and if you are hosting a lot of people you are often up and down throughout your whole meal and unless you have big kids or other families with you, you spend a whole bunch more time cleaning up after all that cooking. I don't have much to complain about being that Taylor does half the cooking and half the cleaning but still Thanksgiving has fallen to second or third in my book of favorites. I think a change in my list may occur after being able to share it again with my family. And no it is not all about the food that makes this holiday in my top three, although I don love the food, I really do love the idea of being thankful and having a holiday where you are all together, there are very few places open, so you just stay at home talking and playing games, and there isn't any let down if you or someone else got this gift or didn't get that one, it just the same for everyone. There is a great sense of love and peace that comes with gratitude. I am so thankful to be going home for Thanksgiving.