It's all about family

Here I am holding Chocolate, helping her get to know Krissy's dog Lola.

A beautiful day at the park.

Bellagio gardens all decked out for Christmas.

Cynjyn being very modest as she takes a bath with Kresimir. (I have some pix of my sisters in suits bathing with Talon I'll have to find and post at some point.)

Taz and Cynjyn love Kres so much. They totally play with him and take care of him when he is here. I think it is a nice break for my sister and Kres LOVES them too.

I just really appreciate my family so much. When I was growing up, I was the oldest grandchild and we lived within 50 miles of my grandparents and 5 uncles and aunts and all my cousins. I grew up surrounded by extended family. My only dream in life was to marry a farmer, have 12 children and live close to family. Well, as we all know, life doesn't always happen the way we envision, but I never thought I'd live 900 miles from "home". When I started having children, I would make it a point to go "home" every summer so that my children would know they had support and love from network of extended family. Luckily, I have a very supportive husband who agrees with me that our children should spend time in Oregon with family. So, he becomes a bachlor for most of the summer (I think he secretly enjoys the quiet, clean house although I know he misses us), and we experience the country life. I have always appreciated that my family makes an effort to be a part of our lives here in Vegas too. They travel down here for many things. Grandma and Grandpa have come down for sporting events, blessings, baptisms and ordinations. My sisters have always made the effort to come down as much as possible too. They will never know how much that means to me! I get so jealous of my friends here who have their extended family right here in town. I hope they realize how lucky they are. It takes money, time and effort to be so involved in extended families lives and I love my parents and sisters for making that effort. That said, the above pictures are just some of the events we jammed into our three day weekend we spent together.

The celebration continues

Tiffany got Cynjyn cupcake factory for her birthday.

Grandma got her a dress for her birthday.

We wet down to Belagio and watched the fountains.

Here's my sister Krissy and her fiance Brian.

My mom and dad.

My sister Ky, nephew Kres, Taz and Cynjyn.

And here we all are at her baptism. Grandma played the piano and Krissy lead the music.

We didn't have anything abnormal happen like at Taz and Tanner's baptisms, but Talon had his first final from 4-6, he got to the baptism just as the font doors were closing, so he missed seeing the actual baptism, but was able to stand in the circle for the confirmation, even though he was in his jeans. Also, in this picture, Talon and Tanner were trying to one up each other on who was the tallest. Talon HATES it that Tanner is taller than him!

We are so proud of Cynjyn!

This post took forever to post as my computer has been acting up. So here it finally is after sitting as a draft for a week:(

My baby turns 8

Cynjyn is 8 today. Since this is her special birthday where she will be baptized, we didn't have a friends party this year. She got her own set of engraved scriptures, a holder and some marking pencils, oh yea, and a hundred dollar bill!

Lindsey made her cake for me. Cynjyn loves baths, so I had Lindsey make the cake of Cynjyn in the bathtub!! It turned out absolutly adorable and so here is Cynjyn with her own HEAD!!

Blowing out the candles...

The perfect, adorable, fancy cake...

a happy girl turning 8...

We love our little girl and we feel so blessed to have her as a part of our family. She brings so much joy, emotion, and fun into our lives. Happy Birthday Cynjyn!!

A Happy Thanksgiving

Everyone slept in and when we got up, Taz and Cynjyn helped season the turkey.

Here it is ready to go in the oven.

Tanner is taking out the good china and Cynjyn is setting the table. Taz is getting the candles ready so we can eat by candlelight.

The time has arrived, the food is ready, everyone is in place.

Now for the funny story. Note how Talon is holding Chocolate, Tiffany's dog, who has come to join us. Well, Chocolate is trying to get the mashed potatoes in this picture and could care less about her picture being taken. She is a funny little dog and ran around following everyone as preparations were made trying to beg food off someone. It didn't work. Tiffany doesn't want us feeding her human food. S0, we sat down for dinner and were enjoying food and conversation. We were about half way done and I started smelling something different, I thought it was Tanner's breath or body odor or something like that from Taz. We carried on with dinner and we were almost done when Tanner said: "OH, Chocolate is eating something under the table, I think it's poo!" We all looked and she was right under my feet eating poo. She had pooped and then was eating it. Talon came and grabbed her and Garry cleaned it up. Tiffany spanked her and was going to put her outside, but it was pouring rain and so she couldn't bring herself to do that. Well, Talon and Tiffany couldn't believe she'd be eating her own poo, so Talon smelled her breath and then he threw her at Tiffany and started gagging. I was gagging from the smell of Garry cleaning it up right under my feet, Tanner was holding his stomach and lying on his chair trying not to throw up. Taz was running for the air freshener with his shirt pulled up over his nose. Talon, Tiffany and Cynjyn took Chocolate into the kitchen to make her drink some milk and eat some Turkey to try to get the smell off her mouth. It was quite comical. After it settled down, Talon and Tiffany took her upstairs and the rest of us finished eating (T and T had LOST their appetite by then). Needless to say, Chocolate went home after that and hasn't been back since.

Anyway, despite all that, we did have a happy Thanksgiving!

Dum, da da dum...

O.K. I went to Twilight this weekend. Not surprising news to anyone whose read the book, as I'm sure you did the same thing. Garry and I went with the members of book club and their husbands, so there were 14 of us. I even brought my camera, had it in my purse and about 1/2 way through the movie, I remembered I'd wanted a picture, so no real life pictures, sorry. Anyway back to the big night. We decided to go to the 3:30 Saturday showing. Of course, Garry and I were the first ones there and we saved a row of 20 chairs not really knowing the exact final head count. This is who ended up coming: Lewis and Lindsey Miranda, April and Sven Peery, Jen and Dave Hill, Toni and Brian Thatcher, Amber and John Stanley, Andrea and Jay Shafer, and us. The ladies were all giddy with anticipation and I think at least three of the husbands had read the book, Lewis, Garry and maybe Jay (not sure). Well, this is my review. The first half was really comically funny, not sure it was supposed to be, but it was. I really enjoyed the second half though. This is what I didn't like: Edwards 1st reaction to the smell of Bella, Edwards "glow" in the sunlight and the special effects of him climbing and running fast were a little weird. Jasper was hilarious, I liked Alice and Emmet, Rosalie, (the actress), not so much. I did like the three vilians, James, Laurent and Victoria. I DID NOT like Jacob (how the heck is that scrawny Lava Boy going to grow into the massive werewolf he must become!!) Edward kind of grew on me. Robert Pattinson has just looked awful in interviews and stuff, but he actually did o.k. as Edward. Bella was just o.k. too, she was a little gloomy, but I did like all of her subtle clumsiness that they through in. Esme was adorable and Carlisle was I don't know, maybe a little to pale and light haired for my tast. Anyway, I did enjoy the movie, but I also thought it should have had better special effects (anyone seen Harry Potter??) Maybe a different movie company would have helped. It did make me want to read the book again since it's been a couple of years now. Anyway, enough of that, after the movie we went to the Havana Grill for cuban food (Lewis and Lindsey had to go home though). All in all, it was a very fun date night: fun movie, good conversation and good food, with fun friends!

Happy Birthday Kylene!

My baby sister turns 34 today. Hope your day is Happy! Hope you're already enjoying the candle I got you awhile ago:) Love you!!

Tagged again

HUSBAND TAG (from Ky)

5 Things he loves:

BYU Football

Reading

Sleeping in

Wii Fit

Sports Radio



5 Things on his "To Do" list:

Clean out the garage

Put the branches from the front yard tree he trimmed into the trash can for tomorrows pickup

Drive the deacons around to finish up scouting for food tomorrow

Finish his book (Inkdeath)

Put up a shelf in the living room (Talon knocked it over with the volleyball)


5 foods he enjoys:

Jerky

Hamburgers (specifically mushroom bacon swiss burgers)

Bushman srooms at Outback

Zupa Toscana

Salad


5 things you might not know about him:

He was the stake seminary scripture chase champion his sr. year of high school and he wasn't even a member of the church

He can't swim

He can literally do anything

He sews all the kids Halloween costumes without a pattern (he just has a vision and makes it happen)

When he drives he ALWAYS keeps his eyes on the road (he will not look away for anything)


5 places he's lived:

Pendleton Oregon

Corvallis Oregon

Provo Utah

Columbia Maryland

Las Vegas Nevada


5 quirky things about him:

He takes a handful of peanut M & M's and has to seperate them by color to eat them

He eats salad as a snack

He is obsessed with laundry and does 4-5 loads every weekend. He has to get it out of the dryer the minute the buzzer goes off or he freaks out (not that I'm complaining, that's one obsession I love about him)

He never farts, seriously, we've been married 23 years and I've never heard him fart

He loves comic books (lame I know, but quirky is almost the same as not knowing anything about him, so really, we have to think of 10 things...difficult)


5 people to tag:

Heather

Audra

Toni

Carol

Lindsey

A fond farewell

Last night the Elders came by to bid farewell. Our second favorite Elder (sorry, but Elder Tilton started it all), Elder Fawcett (he's the tall one) is leaving, going home Wednesday morning, back to Canada!! Elder Balenzar is getting transfered too, so we'll have two new elders in the ward. At first, we didn't know what to think of Elder Fawcett. He was so different from Elder Tilton, but we grew to love him. He is a twin and the oldest of 8 kids and they live on a ranch in snowy Canada. He will be going home to 6 inches of snow and 3 inches of permafrost!! He loves cookies, so I made a batch of no bakes for him to take with him. (I wanted to make yummy choc. chip, but I was out of eggs and it was Sunday). We wish EF luck in his new adventure and thank him for his friendship and example to our kids and Tiffany.

Happy Fall Y'all

It really annoys me how Thanksgiving is the skipped over holiday. I hate how the stores go from Halloween to Christmas. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I absolutly love the colors involed, the bright orange, reds and yellows. I love the change in the air and the crisp, cool mornings. I love sleeping in on Thanksgiving morning, staying in my pajamas all day, doing nothing but eating. (Any holiday that involves EATING all day is good with me!!). I love the smells of the different foods cooking and the desire to bake and make the house smell homey. I love that the kids are staying indoors and the darkness that comes early in the day. I love burning candles and making fires and relaxing. I just don't see why anyone would want to skip over this holiday. It won't ever happen here at my house!

Trying to be frugal

About a month ago, I went to a coupon "class" with Toni and the lady showed us techniques to save money by couponing. You had to get some extra Sunday subscriptions of the RJ (Review Journal, our local paper) in order to make it worthwhile and the coupon people had struck up a deal with the RJ for every extra subscription (a 6 month subscription) you paid $19.95 I think. So I decided to try it and so I now get 5 Sunday papers. There is a website that links all the coupons to the weekly grocery specials. I started this two weeks ago and forgot to post my savings on my first purchase, but it was 10 items for $9.00 and 4 of them were boxes of cereal. I had got that deal before my coupons had really "kicked in". So today I went to Albertsons and Smiths. This was my second attempt at being frugal. The first picture with 8 boxes of cereal and three bags of pizza rolls was at Albertsons. I got all that for $8.94 which averages out to $.81 per item (that is with the three $5.00 off my next purchase coupons I received at checkout). The second picture was at Smiths. 3 boxes cereal, 6 tubes of toothpaste and a 10 pack of razors for $6.60, that averages out to $.66 per item!! Now that I've exposed our eating habits to the world, I will justify it by saying, yes, my kids eat cold cereal for breakfast! Actually Tanner and Talon have it a lot for a snack, so I will go through it and I can already taste the homemade Chex Mix I'll be making for Christmas!! Anyway, you'll have to bear with me as I embark on this "couponing" experience as I want to document it for the next 6 months to see if I really do save money and it's worth my time. So far, I'm loving it!!

Thriller

I forgot about our annual trip to Thriller. We were pushed for time because we let the kids stay at school to participate in their Halloween Parade. So we literally ate our dinner in a huge hurry (ate at Paula's), Garry and Taz put on his makeup in the car because he and Cynjyn both wanted to be Zombies. We got the Thriller and luckily they started 15 min. late. We enjoyed watching the Zombies terrorize the crowd. One of the highlights for us is that Matt from "So You Think You Can Dance" was one of the lead dancers and since we're such fans of the show, we loved that!!

Here we are after the show waiting for the crowd to dissapate so the kids can wait and meet the cast!

Taz and Cynjyn were hits with the Zombies, they would make eyes at them and high five them and look at them weird. I took Cynjyn to the bathroom during intermission and while we were gone a zombie came and played with Taz and sat on Tanner's lap.

So, here's some pictures with the cast.

This is Matt. He had his mask off and Taz was in the bathroom and I told Garry to run Cynj over and get her picture with him. He freakin put his mask on for the picture. I was mad at Garry and told him he should have asked him for one with and one without!! I think Mom and Dad liked it and hopefully they'll want to come again for some of the plays!