Timmy is Back!

After the Christmas tree is decorated, we get out our Elf on the Shelf and read the book to "call" it back to life.

I love this picture of Kevin and the kids. Kevin has a very funny way of reading stories to the kids - he makes it up as he goes and even sings it sometimes. which was the case this time. Between laughing and "dad, read it properly!" and "that's not what it says!", Kevin had to read the story a second time.

Timmy Doodle's first hiding place

11/28

allie in november

Allie tagged along with me on a photo shoot and had a few taken of her.  She did her own hair and put together her outfit.

Maddie's 3rd birthday

It's not a good thing when your birthday comes after Thanksgiving, tree decorating, day after Thanksgiving shopping, because then your Mom, especially when she is big and pregnant, has no energy to do anything cutesy.  I really seriously had grand plans for her birthday.  I was going to do a Fancy Nancy tea party at Dillard's but the saleslady didn't call to confirm until the Monday before her birthday.  A little too late to round up a bunch of 3 year old girls for a tea party, and for me to come up with all the rest of the stuff to do it, so I told them never mind, we would just do a family party this time and do a cutesy girly party next year when she will remember it more.  Maddie picked out a polka dotted cake, and glitter star candles to blow out (she calls them "handles"), even a birthday hat to wear.  She was so excited about having purple balloons too.  We got those as well.
We invited her cousins and grandparents to come celebrate with us.  Simple cake and ice cream for this party.  She was all excited and couldn't wait to wear her hat, etc but when her guests arrived, she suddenly started feeling self-conscious because she was the center of attention.

After we sang her happy birthday, she acted all shy, and said she couldn't blow out her candles.  It was too funny...she didn't even want the birthday hat on at all (the ribbons kept flopping over and looked like they were going to catch fire anyway.

 She wouldn't do anything so Grandma Lorraine helped her blow out her candles.  Then it was time to open presents.  She only wanted to open the ones wrapped in pink and purple.  Of the other presents she said, "it's not mine".  She got some cute dress-ups and new clothes, of course.

I can't believe she turned three already.  Maddie is such a joy to have at home.  Three things I love about her:  she likes to pray for everyone and insists on praying always, she loves to have stories read to her, she loves brownies - she is my baker girl who will stick with me from start to finish -- she just loves to bake!

11/26 Tree Decorating

I was determined to get the tree out and up the day after Thanksgiving as usual.  Just three years ago, I was trying to induce labor by decorating the tree and doing most of it myself. It didn't work.   Fast forward three years later.  I am once again big and pregnant around Thanksgiving.  Although not as far along as before (36 weeks vs 37 1/2 weeks with Maddie Moo).  I certainly wasn't hoping to induce labor this time, although it felt like I was ready to go anytime.  I didn't have nearly the energy as I had hoped for -- my back just hurt and my arms and hands had major carpal tunnel, so I decided I would just get some of the decor out so our house felt like Christmas!
The morning after Thanksgiving, my sis-in-law Megan, sister Andrea, Allie and I decided to go to Designer Blvd at 8 a.m. to see if we could get some good deals on Christmas stuff.  I needed some new ribbon for the tree, so we set the date.  Megan picked us up a 7:40ish and off we went.  Boy oh boy, there was a really long line already in front of the store.  Good thing I had company to chat with.  We ran into our good friends the Evans while we were standing in line.  At 8 a.m. the store opened and it was a madhouse.  I thankfully grabbed all the ribbon I could and quickly made my way to the check out line where I also spotted a big wonderful Christmas wreath (which I wouldn't at any time pay $400 for, but that was the price).  Because it was so deeply discounted I decided on a whim to purchase the wreath, and checked out.  I was out of the store at 8:15!
Well, I decided to go back and find a few more things, and by this time it really was a crazy madhouse, and it took us 1.5 hours to check out.  We didn't get out til past 10 a.m.  I guess we were one of the lucky ones though -- we heard later that others took 4 hours just to check out.  What a waste!  But since the discounts were so deep for such quality decor, it was probably worth the wait. Maybe.

 Collin's collection of ornaments

 Maddie in her all-time favorite dress.  It used to be way down past her knees.

 Kevin hanging ornaments on the tree.  I used to move them after he hangs them (that's how random he does it),  but I leave them the way they are -- it wouldn't be our tree without Kevin's random decorating skills.

I needed the shopping trip to start feeling holiday-ish!  I spent the rest of the day decorating the tree.  The kids waited patiently until I got all the bows on the tree.  After that, it was free game.  Surprisingly we got the tree done fast!  I was glad.  It finally felt like Christmas at home!

Thanksgiving 2010

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year, which I love - because for years my siblings came home to our house for Thanksgiving.  So even though everyone has since moved, got married, or away, Kevin and the kids still expect the house to be bustling with activity the night before and the day of Thanksgiving just like in years past.
This year we took our turkey to the Boy Scouts' roasting pit and it was the best turkey ever.  Note to Self: do it again next year.  Jack also deep-fried a turkey, and it was also really, really good! So we had two great turkeys - it will be hard to outdo next year! We had a smaller crowd this year - since Abby/Jake and Aireen/Danny didn't come down, but we had our usual group of the Harris and Merrill families plus Archie and Andrea.   We had such a great time with family and good food as usual.

The centerpieces I put together for our dinner; next year I should remember to take photos of the food!

from left: Archie, Dallin, Collin, Cade, Jace, Todd, Wyatt, Allie, Andrea

Kristie and Adam

Lorraine and Jack

Kevin and a very pregnant me (no kidding, I couldn't find anything to wear this day because I suddenly ballooned out and couldn't get anything to look right on me)

Megan and Chad

Polar Express 2010

11/20

 The kids wouldn't let us forget about the Polar Express train ride this year.  We decided to go early this year so I wouldn't be that far along in my pregnancy yet (I was almost 35 weeks!).  My sister Anna and her family came with us this year (it was their first time) so the kids had so much fun with each other.  There was no snow up in Williams, but cold still - but not awful because the wind wasn't blowing as hard this year.  I think last year was much colder.   Jasmine slept in our room, and she and Collin sang Christmas carols until they fell asleep.   It was a fun short trip!

Anna, Tony and their kids

Waiting to get on the train

With their cousin Jasmine

 

I think this should win Picture Of the Year.  I love the look of just pure delight and Christmas magic on her face!

We have gone the last three years so we now have 9 sleigh bells on our tree.  The kids are already talking about getting 4 more next year!

 On our way home, we saw all kinds of highway patrol cars and smoke and found that half this double-wide home had fallen off the trailer onto the interstate just before Flagstaff.  It hadn't pulled over to the side of the road yet when we came upon it, so we took our slow time so I could grab my camera out of my purse to take a photo. The damage was bad - look at the roof! I mean how often do you see an oversize load fall off the trailer and cause sparks flying as it is dragged over to the side of the road?

Groundbreaking

Saturday was a BIG day!  For days we had planned on just going to the meeting house to watch the temple groundbreaking via satellite because we knew there was going to be a big crowd -- there were 5000 seats available to the public from all over the Valley.  So we weren't expecting that Saturday morning turned out the way it did.
The kids woke up pretty early on Saturday morning, and surprisingly I was feeling good, too -- so I thought to take the kids to Krispy Kreme to redeem their free doughnuts for getting A's at school while Kevin was at the temple.  But I told the kids they may want to get some Church clothes on before we left so that if we got back late, we could just go straight to the Stake Center.  They obeyed (can't miss Krispy Kreme, you know!), but in the meantime it was 9 a.m. and Kevin had gotten home.  He said there may not be enough time to go to KK and be back in time to go, so we told the kids that maybe we should just quickly eat breakfast and then leave to go so we could get good seats.  Again, they immediately got themselves breakfast, and somehow Krispy Kreme didn't seem too important.  I promised that if we did not make it to KK that day, Kevin and I would take them to lunch after the groundbreaking.
We were all ready to leave at 9:30 a.m. and hung around the house until it was getting close to 10.  It was still a good hour and a half before the groundbreaking.  Instead of driving to the Stake Center, we drove over to the temple site, not thinking we could get a seat at that point.  There were quite a few people there already and traffic was getting bad! Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised to find there were lots of seats left.  I called Kevin's mom to let her know we were at the temple site, and luckily she was almost ready and so she came and met us there.

 

Standing on Holy ground

We were so glad that we got to go.  It was such a great sight to see thousands of members gathered together there - by the time it started, there were many who just stood since there were no more seats left.  Elder Costa of the Presidency of the Seventy dedicated the site for construction.

 Maddie started really feeling very tired, so she slept the whole time

After the groundbreaking ceremony, we made our way to the front and got to hold the gold shovels!  What an amazing experience it was! We explained to the kids that now the ground they stood on was holy ground and we will get to see the holy temple be built, finally.  The temple had just been announced when we decided to move from Provo to Gilbert 2-1/2 years ago, and we have been waiting for this to happen for awhile.

 What the Gilbert Temple will look like

The kids' school is right across the street from the temple site, so Allie is hoping there will be windows facing the temple site to see the many phases of construction. The temple will be so close to us - only 1/2 mile away. We went to lunch at Someburros after and then I was off to do a photo shoot while Kevin watched the kids.  When I got back, Kevin and I went to our Stake conference adult meeting - Allie babysat.  When we got home, we found them all asleep on our bed.  It was one of those amazing, crazy-busy, but wonderful days!

Homemade Lunchables

My friend Ali inspired me to make homemade lunchables and they are a hit! The kids have been enjoying them for a few weeks now, and I just had to take a picture for the books. :)

 Allie's lunch: cheese squares, marshmallows and cranberries, ham, and crackers

Collin's lunch: saltines, cheese squares, ham, and pepperoni

Farm Field Trip

 My preschool went to Vertuccio Farms again this year for our annual Fall/Farm field trip.  The kids happened to have half-day at school and their six-month dentist appointments all on the same day, so I decided to pull them out of school for the day so they could come with me.  They were so excited!  It was still a little hot to feel fall-ish, but it was a lot of fun for the kids!

 The kids doubled-up in the barrel trains so they could all go in the same trip

 

 Maddie in the pumpkin corn patch

 This area is new this year - they had fun throwing bean bags at crow targets

 

This one is new too - the bell rings if you strike the big mallet hard enough

 Maddie's signature crinkled-nose smile

 Macey, Allie and Abby tried their hand at the giant version of the mallet game. These three went through the corn maze themselves and had so much fun! Allie was glad to have two girls to hang with at the farm.

 Pedal cars!

 Can't leave without doing this

 Me at 32.5 weeks and the kids (don't you love how I'm counting down the weeks, I am really hoping this baby comes at 38 weeks or so!)