New traditions for Christmas Eve

This year, we actually thought of a couple great new traditions for Christmas Eve. Hallie made a gingerbread house for her party at school this year, so the kids thought it would be fun to start the tradition of making a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. Haden and I went to Target one day to get candies to put on the top of our graham cracker house and he noticed a gingerbread house kit. He said, "Mom, look. It's a kit and it's only 10 bucks. Let's get that instead." Wise words from a 7-year-old boy. It had everything included to make our house. Had I not bought the kit, our house may not have looked so good.

Jim helped them with the initial structure of the house and then turned them loose to decorate the house. As you can see below, Kenedy and Haden did their share of eating the icing.

A beautiful finished product that they were all proud of and the start of a fun family tradition.

The other family tradition we started this year was picking names among the kids and buying present for each other. They had a lot of fun picking out presents they thought their siblings would like. My family growing up has always opened one present on Christmas Eve. Jim's family did not, so he has had trouble adopting this tradition. So, we decided, Jim was totally outvoted, to have the kids open their presents to each other on Christmas Eve. It was really fun and I think even Jim will let this tradition stand.

Here they are exchanging gifts with one another.

The last thing we did, which we have always done as a family, is to read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and then sing some Christmas carols. My dad had a tape of the Christmas story that he played every year, that we all got a little tired of, but I must admit, I missed it this year. Listening to it along with the music included brings a special spirit that I will always remember throughout my life. I hope that my kids will be able to feel that spirit as they celebrate Christmas every year.

It was really fun to be able to have Kenedy and Hallie able to play the piano to help us with our carols. I played as well and sadly, I am the only one Jim took a picture of. Next time, I'll make sure we get one of Kenedy an Hallie. All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas Eve and I'm thrilled we were able to start some new traditions.

Not much singing going on here. I have a feeling, they were just listening as I tried to play the music and sing along at the same time.

Here's a participant, I think.

I think I'll change my profile picture to this! :)

I thought I would include, as well, a couple of pictures we took of the kids by the Christmas tree. The one with them all on the ladder was supposed to be our Christmas card this year, but we didn't take the picture until last night, so now you can look at it on the blog instead. Merry Christmas everyone!

Kenedy and the ghost volleyball

Kenedy was able to try out to play volleyball this year for 7th grade. I was very excited that she was interested since that was my sport in high school and I still play and love it. Anyway, her season was over at the end of October and I haven't posted any pictures of her playing. I'm just posting 1 right now because I'm on Jim's lap top and the others are on our main computer which is not working right now.

In this picture, Kenedy is receiving a serve and it actually hits her in the head and bounces straight up. This was her first match of the season and it was rather humorous. I didn't think Jim got a picture of it because it happened so fast, but he happened to be trying to take a picture of her right when it happened with his phone. Anyway, if you look really hard, you can see the outline of the ball--sort of like a ghost image--quite a few times as it is coming off of her head. It's a classic picture that I thought I would share.

Kenedy is the one a little right of middle in the picture with her arms straight out ready to receive the ball. I hope you can see the image of the ball coming off her head. :)

Favorite 8's

My sister tagged me last week, so I had better get going on this post. The topic is Favorite 8's.

8 Favorite TV Shows(In no particular order)
1. The Amazing Race
2. Survivor
3. Top Chef
4. Heroes
5. Dancing with the Stars
6. Project Runway
7. The Biggest Loser
8. The Office

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Anthony's
2. Outback
3. Red Robin
4. Chilis
5. Olive Garden
6. PF Changs
7. Ivars
8. Ipanema Brazillian Grill

8 Favorite songs on my ipod right now
1. Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis
2. Apologize by Timbaland featuring One Republic
3. 4 in the morning by Gwen Stefani
4. I Don't Want to be in Love by Good Charolette
5. Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts
6. Party for Two by Shania Twain
7. Raining on Sunday by Keith Urban
8. First Time by Lifehouse

8 Favorite things I did today(Well, it is only 11 a.m., so I am going to use Sunday)
1. Got my singing time turkey ready for primary
2. Read a book with Lexie
3. Read a conference talk from the Ensign
4. Went to choir practice and practiced 2 beautiful songs
5. Performed with the Enrichment choir in Sacrament Meeting(Jesus the Very Thought of Thee)
6. Had a lot of fun during primary with my "We are thankful for our Primary teachers" singing time.
7. Made beans and rice for dinner--always yummy!
8. Watched The Amazing Race with my husband after the kids were all in bed

8 Things I look forward to
1. Lunch
2. Relaxing while Cooper takes a nap
3. Getting Lexie off to Kindergarten
4. Jim coming home early today
5. Reading a good book
6. Getting all the laundry done(it's a little ambitious, but it could happen)
7. Dinner
8. A good night's sleep

Okay, I got it done. I tag Donna, Jen and Rebecca.

Halloween 2008

The month of October was just beautiful here in the Tri-Cities. It was warm and we had very few days when the wind was blowing. On October 15, I went with Lexie's class on their field trip to the pumpkin patch. I took Cooper along with me which could have been a nightmare, but he was really well-behaved. It was a minor miracle. It was also just a beautiful day. Last year we were met with a very windy and chilly day for our trip to the pumpkin patch, so this was a nice change. All the kindergartners painted t-shirts to wear for field trip, so it was really fun to see them all in the shirts they made themselves.

The weekend before Halloween, we went to the pumpkin patch as a family to find some great pumpkins to carve. Jim does not like Halloween, but he does like carving pumpkins--the more creative design, the better. As we were getting ready to leave, the kids saw a bucket of the small pumpkin gourds that they wanted to get. Cooper was especially interested because all he cared about getting was a "baby" pumpkin. They had fun taking pictures of themselves and their "baby" pumpkins.

The night before Halloween, we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat which Jim took the kids to while I went to Kenedy's first choir concert of the year. The kids had fun and the concert was miles better than the one that I went to last year. The teacher actually picked fun songs for the kids to sing this time and that made it much more enjoyable to watch. Then, on Halloween night, Hallie and her friend Ashley went out trick-or-treating by themselves while I took Haden and Lexie around the block. Kenedy stayed home and passed out candy and then took Cooper to just a few houses down the street. I actually enjoyed taking the kids trick-or-treating this year because we didn't have to put on our winter coats to be able to survive the walk around the block. Everyone was able to see their cute costumes and they had fun as well. Haden took off his costume before I got a picture of him in it, and he wouldn't put it back on, so I took a picture of Cooper as Darth Vader instead.

Lexie was a "good witch" this year. I thought this costume was really cute and I haven't ever seen a cuter witch!
Cooper the Clone Trooper!

Hallie and her good friend Ashley.

He may be much shorter than Darth Vader, but he's just as fierce!

Last, but not least, I have to show pictures of the pumpkins we carved. Jim carved the majority of them, but Kenedy carved the haunted house and it is quite impressive. Hallie also carved her pumpkin and I carved Lexie's. Lots of fun!

Jim carved both of these. The top one, has one of the "baby" pumpkins carved with a sad look on his face as he is being eaten by the big one. He called this pumpkin his "Edward" pumpkin.

This is the Haunted House Kenedy carved and an elephant Jim carved. He found a pumpkin that had a really long and curbed stem and decided to carve it as an elephant.

Scared Cooper

Early this morning at 3:30 am, Cooper woke up crying. He always sleeps through the night, so I was sort of shocked. I went in and got him out of bed and sat with him for awhile, then put him back in bed. About half and hour later, he woke up crying again. Jim went in this time and just held him for a minute and put him back down. Another 5 minutes later, he woke up screaming and Jim said he went in and he was standing in one corner of his crib staring at the opposite corner mumbling something about being scared. Jim said it was sort of weird because he kept looking at the corner and trying to stay as far away from it as he could. Cooper then said something about the night light in the room and wanted Jim to throw it in the garbage. So, Jim did and then brought him into our bed to sleep with us.

Well, I woke up at 6:30 to get Kenedy out of bed and ready for school and Cooper came out of my room a few minutes later. Haden was already up and Cooper started telling him one whopper of a story. He said, "Haden, there were cows and they were climbing in my bed. They climbed in my bed and they tried to scare me. They just kept climbing and climbing and climbing and trying to scare me." Haden just sort of listened and I was so tired, I was laying on the couch listening as well. I really wish I had grabbed the video camera and taped the conversation. Anyway, Cooper all the sudden said, "I hate cows! I hate them!" I almost burst out laughing because it sounded so funny. And then he said, "But Daddy threw them in the garbage." He must have had a bad dream about cows or something because we don't have a stuffed cow anywhere in our house. So, all day we heard about how he is scared of cows, they climb in his bed and try to scare him and he DOES NOT like them.

Train trip to Portland

October 10, the kids had the day off of school and Jim didn't work, so we decided to take the train to Portland. Jim's parents drove over and rode with us. It was scheduled to leave on Friday morning at 5:35 a.m. Well, with our travel luck these days, when we got to the train station, the train was running 2 hours late. So, we went to a little bakery in Pasco and got some pastries, then went to Jim's office to wait out the time until the train left at about 8:15. It was actually really nice to have his office to go to so we didn't have to go all the way back home. The kids just watched TV downstairs and Jim's parents and I took a little nap in the chairs upstairs.


So, we got to Portland at about 1 p.m., got our 2 rental cars, got some lunch and then went to OMSI. We love OMSI. The kids always have a good time there. Haden, Lexie and Cooper especially had a good time. Cooper loved the space shuttle replica and wouldn't get out of it. From there, we headed to the hotel to check in and freshen up. We ate dinner at Izzy's--a pizza buffet restaurant--which was one of our favorite places to eat when we lived in Portland. The kids always love it and we got right in and didn't have to wait like at all the other places on a Friday night.


Saturday morning, we got up and ate breakfast. The kids were thrilled because the Embassy Suites Hotel has a buffet breakfast and they could get as much bacon, eggs and pancakes as they wanted. After breakfast, Jim took the kids swimming for about an hour and then we cleaned up and got ready to check out. After we checked out, Jim and his dad took Haden, Lexie and Cooper to the zoo while Jim's mom, Kenedy, Hallie and I went to the mall to shop. It was a really beautiful day--sun shining and about 60 degrees.


















We ended our weekend in Portland by meeting at Enterprise to take the cars back and headed to the train station for the ride home. The train was on time and we were allowed to board first and find 9 seats together. It was great because we were able to sit in the passenger car right by the lounge car. The kids loved going into the lounge car and looking out the windows or playing games at the tables. All in all, we had a great time on our trip to Portland. Cooper is a little bit loud for a long train ride, but we made it and we had a good time.

Cooper's birthday, my sweet husband and funny Haden

Cooper had a good birthday complete with dinner at the Mongolian Grill, presents to open and birthday cake and ice cream. We made the mistake of letting him open his Star Wars presents first, so then he didn't want to have anything to do with the clothes that both sets of grandparents got him or the books he received. You could not get him to pay attention to other presents once he saw R2D2. I'm glad he liked them so much!


Cooper getting ready to put R2D2 on the cake because there just weren't enough characters on it! They don't make Star Wars cakes anymore, so I just had them do the background for the Yoda cake they used to make and I put some characters we already had on it. He loved it!


As you all may know, Jim thinks that buying flowers in a waste of money. He bought them for me all the time when we were dating and most of the time there was no special occasion that corresponded. It was really nice. Then, we got married and he decided it was a waste of money to buy flowers because they just die. I think the first time he bought me flowers after we got married was for Mother's Day 2 months before I had Kenedy. That was not quite 18 months into our marriage. I have learned to accept this because he buys flowers when I have a baby and he buys me other things like clothes, shoes or purses quite often. I did, however tell him about a month ago that I really do like it when he gets me flowers and it would be nice every once in awhile. I thought that might get him to buy me flowers for my birthday, but it did not. So, I teased him quite a bit about my hints not quite getting through.

So, yesterday, he came home from work a little late which isn't too unusual, but when he walked in he had some beautiful red roses in his hand--just for the heck of it. My teasing about missing flowers for my birthday must have done the trick! :)


Aren't they gorgeous! I was very excited!

A little later, I was getting ready to go to book group and he asked me if I had read the card. I said yes. He said there was another part to my present. He said, "You know me. I can't just get flowers because they will just die. I had to get you something else as well." Hallie went out to his car and brought in a bag from Gart Sports. I opened the bad and it contained a volleyball. I was very excited. He knows I have been wanting a "real" volleyball for awhile now. It is the same as the ones that I played with in High School and just better quality than a lot of volleyballs--not so hard on your arms when you hit it. We realized, however that he bought the training volleyball for kids 12 & under, so he is searching today for the one for adults. Nice going, honey. You can get me fun presents anytime!

So, I got home from Book Group last night and went into the boy's room to say goodnight to Haden. I kissed him on the cheek and he was still awake. Then I noticed he wasn't wearing his pajamas. I said "Haden, why are you sleeping without your pajamas on?" He said, "That's what men do." I swear I don't ever know what that boy is going to say. So, I went in there later to take a picture of him after he went to sleep.

I asked him about it again this morning and he said that Anakin doesn't sleep with pajamas on, so he thought he'd try it out. I love Star Wars, but maybe he's been watching it a little too much! What a funny boy!

My baby turned 3 today!

For some reason, I couldn't find any of his newborn pictures on my computer, so here is one of Cooper when he was about 8 or 9 months old.

Three years ago today, October 3, 2005, my sweet baby boy, Cooper, was born. It hardly seems like it has been that long. He has been a pure joy since the day he was born. He has always slept well, been very loving and is just as cute as can be. It's amazing to look back at pictures, because he has changed so much. A few things of note about Cooper:

1. For a couple of weeks straight just recently, he wouldn't let us call him Cooper, he was Yoda. And then, if he was feeling the dark side of the force, he would have us call him Darth Vader. Star Wars is a new fascination for both he and Haden.

2. His favorite phrase of late is "What are you talking 'bout?"

3. I'm starting to potty train him, so soon there will be NO MORE DIAPERS in our house!

We really love you Cooper! Happy Birthday!

I had to put one on here of him sucking those 2 favorite fingers of his.

Last year, the girls decided to dress him up like Ariel. What's a 2 year old boy to do? Jim's going to love that I posted this picture! I just won't tell him! :)

Finally, a vacation!

After our missed cruise to the Mediterranean, I decided we needed a vacation. So, a couple months ago, I noticed that Jim had a 4 day weekend in September. My oldest brother, Mike, has lived in Chicago for 8 years and we haven't been there to visit him yet. It seemed like the logical place to go for a long weekend.

On Thursday, September 11, we headed for Chicago from the Pasco airport. Neither leg of the trip was delayed, which was a small miracle considering our last trip, and we made it to Chicago with no problems at all. We spent Thursday night mapping out what we might do in downtown Chicago the next day.

The next morning, my sister-in-law, Debi, dropped us off at the metra station to ride the train to downtown Chicago. It dropped us off in the middle of downtown to start out our day. I'm so glad we took the train and didn't have to find a place to park. We then took a taxi to the Charles Ifergan salon where I had an appointment to have my hair colored and cut along with an eyebrow wax. I was so nervous about going to a fancy salon, that I didn't take any pictures of the salon itself. But, this is the final result--the best cut and color I have had in a long time.

While I was at the salon, Jim walked along Michigan Ave, The Magnificent Mile, looking for a cool birthday present for me. The Magnificent Mile has lots of fancy stores that we just don't have here in the Tri-Cities--Louis Vitton, Gucci, Cole Haan and many more. It also has a huge Macy's, Nordstrom and Bloomingdales along with the American Girl Store and a cool Disney Store. It is just a really cool place to shop. So, when I was done with my appointment, Jim had a gallery of pictures of shoes and purses for me to look at. He's such a sweet husband. His feet were already tired and then we spent the next 3-4 hours going from store to store to decide which bag to buy. It was fun and I found a cool bag and a pair of shoes.

We went into one of the malls downtown and they had a really great food court that had a large variety of foods. Jim was able to get a Chicago dog, which was one of his main goals. Our original plan was to go up to the top of the Hancock Observatory, but it was really cloudy that day and you couldn't see very much. We decided not to waste the money if we weren't going to get the view. I did, however, get a cool picture of it.

We went to Navy Pier to walk around and see Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, you really couldn't see out into the lake because it was pretty foggy. We decided to ride the ferris wheel since Jim had never been on a ferris wheel before. I couldn't believe it! Here is the view from the top of the Navy Pier ferris wheel. It's too bad it was so cloudy.



He looks a little nervous, doesn't he? :-) Very handsome, however!

The view from the ferris wheel.

After Navy Pier, we were ready to eat again. Jim found out a great place to go get authentic Chicago Style pizza. We went to Lou Malnato's. It was fantastic pizza! The sauce was homemade and the crust was fantastic. We really enjoyed our meal.

From there, we headed in the direction of the Ford Oriental Theatre for our show--Wicked. It wasn't very far, so we walked and were able to walk over one of the many bridges that cross the Chicago river which runs through the middle of downtown. It was so pretty. A nice couple agreed to take a picture of us on the bridge. In fact, we went to The Dark Knight for my birthday the other night, and realized it was filmed in Chicago when we saw an aerial view of the bridges that cross the Chicago River.






Our day in Chicago ended with Wicked. What a fantastic show! Jim really liked it as well. The cast was amazing and it was a very clever story with great music. I'm so glad we took the opportunity to go. Now, I'd like to take Kenedy and Hallie. I think they would really enjoy it. There was a cute little girl probably 8 or 9 years old sitting right behind us with her mother. She was so adorable. Even before the show started she kept saying, "This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen!" And, after the first act, she said, "This is the best show ever. I am just having the best time of my life." She had a very grown up way of talking!



The next day, we woke up to lots and lots and lots of rain. My sister-in-law, Debi had to work until noon, Valerie had gymnastics until noon and Jarrett had football practice that morning. So, when everyone got home, we headed out to find some lunch. We went to Maggiano's for lunch. It was a very fancy place and the meal was fantastic. I have never had better Italian food. We then headed for a cool mall in one of the suburbs of Chicago and walked around for quite awhile. We then went back to my brother's house and us girls watched The Lake House, while the boys watched some football. It was a fun day.

Sunday, we went to church in the morning and Debi planned a nice meal to celebrate my brother and my birthdays. His birthday was on the 17th and mine was the 19th. Mike grilled steaks in the rain and we had baked potatoes and salad to go with it. Debi had gotten us a birthday cake and we were able to blow out candles together, which I'm sure hasn't happened for a very long time. Very fun.



The next day, we headed to the airport to start out journey home. Our flight was delayed a little over an hour, which was the time of our layover in Salt Lake, so we were a little nervous that we wouldn't make our connection. However, we got to the Salt Lake airport with about 30 minutes until our flight was supposed to leave and the flight attendant was nice enough the ask the other passengers to let those of us who were rushing to connect get off the plane first. We got off the plane and ran to our gate and luckily, they hadn't started boarding the plane yet. We were so grateful that we made it on time and we could get home. No airport disasters on this trip. Amazing! We had a really great weekend. It was great to finally visit my brother after 8 years and to get away from every day life for just a little while. I would love to go back sometime. Chicago is a beautiful, clean city and I would love to spend more time there.