Great Reactions

Lydia can really turn on the energy. While opening her stocking and some presents for Christmas, she flipped out with every present she got from her Christmas list. Her eyes light up, she starts jumping around, and usually starts to scream. We captured a few moments on video this Christmas to share. Priceless!

My Amazing Husband

When we moved into this house, we got a dining room table and chairs off of KSL.com classifieds. At the time we had a 2 year old and a 5 month old. I didn't think much about the white fabric on the chairs except that it looked nice. A few months later, I realized that the white was a problem and that it no longer looked nice. I started to recover the chairs with new darker fabric, but by the time I got to the third chair the first one was filthy again. I thought about making slip covers that I could take off and wash, but I'm not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination. So, I asked Tim to make new wooden seats for the chairs. Now he has never done anything like this project before, but that doesn't stop him. With a little asking around and the borrowing of a few tools that he now desires to own, he made me some beautiful new seats for the chairs for Christmas!! I love this man. Here are the stages of his work and the final product!

The raw maple.

Cutting out the shapes.

The seats cut out.

Routing the edges.

Staining and finishing.

The before and after.

All done! Thank you honey, they are just what I wanted, and you are amazing.

The Camera is here

We didn't mention this in our last blog but our new camera/camcorder has arrived! Hence, we can post pics again. Yeah!

Choir and Dance!

Lydia's school choir had a concert this week. There are only 3 kindergarteners, but I think she holds her own. She loved being on stage and getting all dolled up for the performance. This song is the one she sang around the house everyday.



Ali had her first dance recital today. The theme was "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and she did a tap dance to "Suzy Snowflake". Two of her best friends are in the class with her, and she loved putting on makeup and getting her hair done too. My girls are prima donas. Here's Ali's dance.





After the performance, Santa came. Here are our three little ones. Bryant tried to pull Santa's beard. I hope that doesn't mean he gets coal now.

We're getting a new camera

It should be here next week. We can't have Christmas without a camera. I'm sad about all of the pictures that are lost. I still hope the old camera shows up again one day. At least some of them are on this blog. So, more things from us to come as soon as our new camera arrives!!

I Lost My Camera

I have some great blogs to do, like going to the Gateway to see the Christmas tree lighting, Thanksgiving, the zoo...oh so many good things! But I have to wait until I find my camera. I will be very sad if it is lost forever. Stay tuned.

Beauty Is...

The reflections theme this year was Beauty Is... and Lydia won a trophy for her beautiful chalk drawing. It is a picture of mountains and with them a cupcake and an upside ice cream cone. I asked her why it was beautiful and she said, "because mountains and desserts make people smile." So beauty is finding that which makes you smile. She was so excited to win a trophy! I love you Lydia, you make me smile.:)

Snowbird

Last weekend were customer appreciation days at Snowbird ski resort. That meant that for one can of food per person we could take a tram up the mountain. This little trip is usually $12 per person, so I jumped on the chance to have this fun experience for practically FREE. It was SO BEAUTIFUL!

We bundled everyone well, it was chilly!

Bryant liked the tram ride...

but not the cold winds at the top.

We went up to 11,000 feet...

and the views were breathtaking!!

We got to see the sun set from up there. We had a wonderful time, and we even got to go out to dinner at the Market Street Grill afterward with a gift card. The day cost us $8.50 and we had a wonderful time! I'm thankful we live in such a beautiful world.

Halloween '09

I'm warning you now, I need to post a lot of pictures this time. We did a lot in the weeks before Halloween, and I'm going to put it all together in one post. Otherwise, I won't get to Halloween pictures until Thanksgiving. So here we go! These first pictures are the fam at South Ridge Farms in Santaquin. We went on a hay ride and picked out the biggest pumpkin we could find! Then we went back to the barn and had ice cream. Yummm.




Tim and I went to a 80's murder mystery party. Tim found this great mullet wig, and I'm Debbie Gribson.

This is Lydia in her school parade. My friend took the picture. Isn't she a cute little cowgirl?! She decided to be Tinker Bell on Halloween which is too bad, because her cowgirl looked so cute with Ali's horse costume.

Ali's preschool did a cute program and then they got to play. She actually sang all of the songs!


Halloween night we went to a friend's house for a spooky dinner before we headed out to trick or treat. I brought this great veggie tray.

Here we are trick or treating!





We had a great Halloween and we are excited to be heading into the holiday season! We hope all of you had a Happy Halloween!!

Little Saraha

For Fall Break our family decided to take a little trip out to the sand dunes. We went two years ago, and Lydia still talks about it, so it must have been really memorable. The weather was beautiful and we all had a wonderful time. I kept reminding myself that it was okay that the girls were literally swimming in the sand. Here are some highlights!





Even after removing clothes and shaking them out and hanging the girls upside down to get sand out of their hair, the bath still had a layer of sand at the bottom that night. So worth it though, those are some great memories we made.

Corny Field Trip

Ali's preschool went on a field trip to Hee Haw Farms. Lydia was at school, so it was just me, Ali, and Bryant. It's kind of nice to get to focus more on Ali this year with her things. Poor neglected middle child. We started out in the pumpkin patch where Ali proceeded to pick out every rotting pumpkin there. I pointed out many acceptable, ripe options, but she continued to point to a rotting pile of goo and say, "How 'bout dis one momma?" We finally found one we agreed on.

Next we went into the corn maze. I decided I was going to let her pick the paths because, hay, we couldn't get too lost right? She picked path after path that led us deeper into the maze, or in circles. When I would try to steer her in a more out-going path she would stay put until we went her way. I realized that I no longer heard other people in the maze and we must be the last ones from our group still going in circles. I started making it sound like the way out was the path she had choosen and that she was so smart! No worries, we made it out, and caught up with our group in time to get on the hay ride.



The hay ride was crowded, bouncy, and uncomfortable. Ali thought it was "gweat!" Bryant seemed to think the bouncing was fun too.

Next it was on to the petting zoo, the slides, and the hay jump. Another mom was nice enough to take Ali down the BIG slide since I had Bryant, a diaper bag, and a pumpkin I had been lugging around this whole time.



We all smelled like a farm, I was exhausted, Ali had streaks of dirt on her face, but we had a great fall fun day. Ali is such a sunshine girl, everything is fun with her.

A Few Firsts

Lydia had her first day of Kindergarten....again. She started at her new school several weeks ago, but the principal asked me to keep it quiet for a while. I figure I'm safe now, and really no one who reads this blog is going to tell anyway. Lydia is doing so much better at Lindon El. She loves the school, the teacher, the school bus, and the kids. She shed no tears upon leaving the other school and even has a new best friend that meets at the same bus stop. She is thriving and it is so nice to see after a rough start. Everything has worked out well.

Bryant can officially roll over. He has been for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been very good about blogging lately. We did catch his first roll on film, sorry about the diaper only look.

Anger always was his best motivation for flipping over.

Bryant also had his first meal. He did a lot better than my girls ever did and ate quite a bit. I don't give him cereal everyday, but he seems to like the change. He's getting too big too fast!



Then these pictures were just too cute not to add. I love these kids!!!