The Polar Express

For how many years have we read the book at Christmas time and how many now have we watched the movie? Last night, thanks to our "little bit far away Grandma and Grandpa" we got to experience it!

We caught the train headed to the North Pole in Heber City. It was only 45 minutes away and we were shocked! The elves on our car fed us homemade chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate. (we actually had to limit Brooklyn to just a cookie because there are no bathrooms on board The Polar Express) But Tallan had two cookies and two full cups of hot chocolate! Lisa won for coming from the furthest away since she came all the way from Germany. She taught everyone on board to say, "Merry Christmas!" in German, but I don't really remember how to say it anymore.

We read the book...


We sang Christmas Carols to bring Holiday Cheer and we even got a visit from Santa! Mrs Claus came through to chat with us and to share her cookie recipe...

Brooklyn wasn't as excited to see Santa as the other kids were...

Here is Brooklyn with Figgy, one of Santa's elves that were on our car. They told jokes and talked to the kids about what they want for Christmas. Figgy especially liked Brooklyn.

The conductor came through to punch our tickets just like in the movie!

Brooklyn's favorite part of the train ride was getting the jingle bell that Santa gave her. She took a picture of it herself sitting on her seat.

What a magical night it was for all!

Snow much fun!

We got a HUGE snowstorm this weekend and even though Tim couldn't convince us girls to go play in it with him, he had fun! (Tallan is too young to object)

The finished product! Yes, that is a water noodle for arms and a planting bucket for a hat.

Elfed!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1156140152

Family night fun!

Not Again...

I kept getting after my sister for only updating her blog once a month, and now I'm just as bad as she is!

Here's a not so quick or little update on the past month in our crazy lives...

November 17: Began working on Tallan's room and getting the house ready for Thanksgiving. (as of today, Tallan's room is still under construction, but Tim is working really hard and doing a great job!)

Doesn't it look great?! I'm so excited about it!

November 18: Celebrated Grandma Lynn's bday
November 21: Went to Kangaroo Zoo with Tim's sister's kids. Tim went up to put Tallan on one of the slides and came out saying he broke his leg. He ankle was totally not in the right place. I ran to get Tallan off the top of the slide and went to get Dr. Grandpa. By the time we got back to Tim, he said his ankle had popped back into place. It was painful and pretty gross looking too!

November 21-24: Thanksgiving at our house this year! 20 people for dinner, 13 people at most sleeping at our house...2 turkeys, 1 ham, 6 pounds of potatoes, 3 pies, homemade rolls and stuffing, and 8 bottles of apple cider later, we had a great time! Our guests included: mom and Brian, GG, Val and her family, Aunt Patty and her family, and cousin Megan. Of course, the battery was dead on the camera and we couldn't find our charger anywhere so we don't have any pictures! : (

November 25: As we begin our primary lesson, Tallan throws up all over himself and Tim. They went home to get cleaned up, but not before it caused a chain reaction. One of the boys took one look and leaned behind his neighbor's chair to throw up! 3 other kids in the class said they were going to be sick once the smell got to them. I took everyone out to get drinks and some fresh air while some of the men in the ward cleaned it up. Am I really cut out for nursing???

This is the rocket Brooklyn decided to push Tallan down the stairs on when we got home from church...

He survived and the wall only got a small hole in it!

Luckily the Whitford's were in town and came over to brighten our day. The babies slept, Parker and Brooklyn terrorized, and we played some spades of course! We miss them!

November 27: Utah Flash game with the Whitfords. Tim's company sponsors the team so they have box seats to every game with free dinner from Bajio! Yum! We got some free t-shirts and Tim even won a night's stay at the Marriott! Woo hoo!

November 29: Walking Brooklyn home from preschool she fell off the curb with her hands in her pockets and banged up her face and knees pretty bad. Poor girl!

Had to go to the health department to finish my immunizations for my class. While we were there, Tallan spiked a fever all of a sudden of 103.6 with no other symptoms. We took him to Grandpa Flinders' office for a quick exam and found nothing wrong and his fever subsided. Found out later when that happens, usually a seizure follows...scary!

Since we were already at the doctor's office, we decided to do a quick ultrasound...IT'S A GIRL!

November 30: Tim and I went on an actual date...we cleaned up my booth at The Quilted Bear (yeah! I'm done!) had dinner at Costa Vida, and then went to BYU to see the folk dancers in "Christmas Around the World". SO cool!

December 1: The Christmas season is here! Not only did we wake up to snow, but we got our first Christmas tree after 6 years of marriage! We even decorated it and I am very proud of it!
December 2: Did some holiday baking and decorated the gingerbread house!

You can still see the wounds from her curb fall!

That brings us to today...we are all still alive and even with all of our crazy things happening I wouldn't change a thing! Life is great!

Warning: keep scissors away from small children

REMEMBER YESTERDAY WHEN BROOKLYN'S HAIR LOOKED LIKE THIS?

WELL TODAY IT LOOKS LIKE THIS...

BECAUSE YESTERDAY AFTERNOON SHE DID THIS...

It only took 4 years for her to grow any hair in the first place, so if we're lucky, she'll have long hair again by the time she starts 3rd grade. : ( I am a sad mom today!

Halloween Photos 2007

So my neighbor is working on getting a website together for photography and when she came over to ask if she could borrow my kids, I was thrilled! She wanted them just in their Halloween costumes and we went to a cool outdoor amphitheater next to the Timpanogos Temple. I had never been there before and it was so beautiful! As uncooperative as my kids were, she did a very good job and I think my kids are cute no matter what, so it was really fun!

(just pretend he's not totally drooling here!)

warning: These are ALL of the pictures she took and I think there are about 80 so it takes around 4 minutes to watch!

I needed to update...

Although like usual, I should be doing more important things like preparing my Primary lesson or Brooklyn's talk for tomorrow, probably doing laundry or cleaning the bathrooms, I finally have a quiet minute and I'm going to update on my crazy life.

Hold on...I have a quick interruption...okay, Tim just called from a pharmacy in Salt Lake because that's the closest one that is open 24 hours. It is 9:30pm on Sat night, and Tallan has been diagnosed by Doctor Grandpa with tonsillitis. The poor kid is miserable so in turn, the rest of us are too. Tim and I took turns staying up with him pretty much all of last night, and of course on my shift is when he decided to throw up all over me, the couch, and the blanket. At least he missed himself. Of course, he made up for it when on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's house tonight, he had diarrhea all through his car seat. I thought for sure I was smelling all of the cows in the fields by our house until we got home and saw the nice surprise was actually in our very own car and he was sitting in it, touching it, and rubbing it all over his arms, legs, and yes, his face and hair too. Isn't parenting great?!

I know we have had some good moments over the past few weeks, so I'll just post some pictures of those real quick before doing the really important things tonight.

The Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point
What a fun family night! The Scarecrow Festival was so much fun with free games, crafts, activities, bounce houses and slides, pony rides, hayrides, etc. Well, free after the expensive admission anyway. We even ran into The Palfreyman's, some old family friends from Oakland, and got to catch up with them a little bit.

(Brooklyn, McKay, and Riley waiting in line for the pony rides)

(Posing with a pirate)

Date Night in Vegas
Okay, go ahead and make fun of me because I've been getting it a lot! So, for our anniversary this year, I got Tim tickets to go see Cirque Du Soleil in Vegas. We dropped the kids off with my mom and sister in Hurricane, and headed down early for dinner. Earlier in the week I had emailed Tim with a list of restaurants I thought sounded good but that he could pick where we went. So, we parked in the TI parking lot where the show was, and he said he wanted to eat at the buffet at Bellagio. There weren't any buffets on the list because I think they are just gross! I hate thinking about all these strangers digging into the same piles of food that I am and all the food makes me sick. Anyway, not only was that NOT part of the list I sent him, it was all the way at the other end of the strip! I griped and grumbled walking all the way down in my heals while gross people were handing out business cards to Tim that gave him a phone number of how he could have a girl to his room in 20 minutes, etc etc. I just think Vegas is SO dirty! Then I whined a little more when we got there and saw that for the Saturday dinner buffet, it was $37/person! What?! But, he was excited and I couldn't even imagine walking any more at the time, so we splurged and did it. I am telling you, I am not regretting it at all! This wasn't just any buffet...they had rack of lamb, beef wellington, oysters, king crab legs, salmon, swordfish, and other crazy seafood concoctions I didn't dare try. They didn't have piles of gross food that everyone was scooping out of...they were all single portions and it was all so beautiful! Of course, my very favorite were the desserts and yes, I took pictures of all 9 that we tried. I promise I only took one bite of each except for the creme brule. That is always my favorite and I ate the whole thing! I didn't even share with Tim!

(chocolate raspberry mouse, cheese cake, and creme brule)

(carrot cake, peanut butter brownie, and chocolate cream filled éclair)

(lemon custard in a baked meringue shell dipped in chocolate, chocolate sandwich cookie, and obviously double dipped white/milk chocolate covered strawberries)

Oh yeah, the show was really good too! We had such a fun night! Thanks again mom and Val!


Poker, yes poker, night with the posse.
After all this time, we gave in and played a few games of poker. It was a monthly ritual until a couple of years ago, but this past week we decided we couldn't hold back any longer.

(The Anderson's came to hang out, but didn't play this time. Isn't Carson the cutest?!)

(The players: Moffits, Borens, Pucketts, and Flinders...and the winners are...Borens and Pucketts as usual. We'll get them next time Dar and Tay! Thanks to the Moffits for hosting!)

Weekend in Hurricane

As promised, I'm going to finally get some pictures up of our weekend in Hurricane with my family. It sure wasn't the same without Joel, but we still had a good time!

I have to explain this next one...some of you may know that my brother is probably one of the funniest guys ever. The weekend we were at my mom's, we happened to get a package from him and in it were a picture for each of us girls and these pants we arewearing that say HOT.com. The pictures were of him wearing each of our pants and doing funny poses. We decided to thank him for the wonderful gift from the Philippines and send him a picture back of us wearing the pants, mimicking the same poses he did when he was wearing them. He is just hilarious and SO random!

A beautiful day in Zions. My mom has lived in Hurricane now for 7 years, and this was just the 2nd time I had been to Zion's. I'm just not that outdoorsy. But, we packed everyone up and did a little hike along the river. It was amazing and the kids had almost as much fun as grandma did.

A quick catch up...

Since my blog is the closest thing to journaling or scrapbooking that I do these days, I need to take a break from everything important I'm supposed to be doing (cleaning, laundry, studying, and vinyl orders) to hurry and catch up on our very busy but fun few weeks...

A last minute visit from the Whitfords...
Warren and Melissa called us on a Thursday night to let us know they were in the car and had decided to drive down for a visit. It was a very quick weekend and we didn't get to see too much of them, but we'll take what we can get!




Tim and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary! I can't believe it's been 6 years! We dropped the kids off at Tim's parent's house early Saturday morning to go play 9 holes. We used to play just about every Friday afternoon with Warren and Melissa, but have hardly been out at all this year together. It was so much fun and I really miss playing so often.



We spent the rest of the day with the kids before leaving them again to go to dinner. Funny story though...we have been wanting to try this restaurant in Provo pretty much forever. It's called Four Seasons and it's Chinese food, so the kids wouldn't ever eat there and we knew we would have to go alone. We were so excited that this was the day. After we dropped the kids off, we went over there and were totally disappointed because there was a sign on the door that said they were on vacation for 2 weeks and the restaurant was closed. Honestly, who does that? Who closes their restaurant for 2 weeks so they can go on vacation. We were totally bummed and ended up at another Chinese place that was totally gross. I didn't even eat anything. But, we did go to Maestro's for some gelato afterward and that made up for it!

The day after our anniversary, Brooklyn turned 4! I can't believe I have a 4 year old!




The Arbons came over for dinner and then Tim's parents and some cousins came for cake and ice cream. Brooklyn got her first bike...of course she picked out a Disney Princess bike...so much for handing it down to Tallan when she grows out of it. I started making her that blanket about 2 years ago now for Christmas. Finally Tim's aunt took it to finish it for me and that's the only reason it got done, but she ended up getting that for her bday too.

We also did a Dora party with lots of friends over for pizza, cake, and ice cream, but my battery was dead on the camera. Of course I would do something like that. It was really cute and fun though and she was so spoiled with gifts! Probably one of the best things she got though, was a scrapbook Melissa made of Brooklyn and Parker growing up together. (from about 18 months old till now) Words can not even say how cool it is. She spent so much time on it and it's so fun to look at and watch them grow together.

Brooklyn is such a special girl and we are so lucky to have her in our lives and as part of our family.


We spent last weekend down in Hurricane for my niece, Alison's, baptism. Jenn and Eric came from AZ too so we have a jam packed fun filled weekend...of course I couldn't find my camera half of the time, so I'm going to have to do a whole post on the weekend when I get pictures from my sisters. (hurry guys!) We did have a really yummy ice cream cake for Brooklyn's bday when we arrived though, and it was early enough in the trip that I knew right where my camera was.



This is funny...during the baptism, I had to play the piano and Tim was out in the hall with Tallan who threw up all over both of them (because he still hasn't outgrown that) so Brooklyn and Ethan took quite a few pictures unsupervised...these are the best ones.



We have such wonderful family and friends and are lucky to be able to do so many fun things together! Stay tuned for a post on the baptism weekend and a really funny post about my brother, Joel, in the Philippines.