LIZZY TURNS 6!!

First of all, I can't believe that I have a 6 year old! Second, I think that she may be the sweetest, cutest, funniest, smartest thing ever. She had an all-out "Hello Kitty" party this year complete with friends from school. It was SOOO fun to decorate and prepare for. We both looked online for ideas for a Hello Kitty cake. This was the one she found (with just a minor change of the border). I was really glad because I was ready to make a 3-D Hello Kitty figure but Lizzy just wanted this simple round cake.(Thank You Lizzy!) We had pink EVERYTHING! Daddy even brought home pink flowers for her. Lizzy made out with the presents this year. There were 8 little 6 year olds in my house!! We watched "Barbie and the Diamond Castle" and then danced around to the music video. We opened presents, Gave presents to our guests, sang Happy Birthday and of course "Bit the Cake". It was so fun to finally do a party with little friends from school. Happy 6th Birthday baby girl!

(P.S. This video is so funny! First of all, I was holding the camera the wrong way at first and second of all, one of the girls is going all out with her singing ability! Just listen, this girl thinks she's a rock star. I don't even know who it is but it is so funny)

Dear Lizzy,

You always, always make me smile. You amaze me with your creativity and intelligence. You are always saying the funniest things. You LOVE school and especially love chatting with your girlfriends. You are so social. You are so silly and I just adore that about you! You love Pizza, Spaghetti, Hawaiian Haystacks, any kind of fruit but especially apples, and of course, cake. You are so sweet. You think of others and their feelings even at this young age. You are always looking for ways to help and please your daddy and me. I am so amazed by the things that you create with your crafts. You really think like an engineer when building the things that you do. You are inventive in your solutions. You love, love, LOVE bunnies!! You have about a million of them that you sleep with! You want to be a Vet when you grow up. You also want to be a "Cake Maker like Mommy" (You don't even know how cute I think that is!) You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I love to do your hair. I love to dress you up. I love to listen to you read (You are getting so good! I can't even believe it!). I love reading to you. I love listening to what you have to say. Your little brain fascinates me. You love to negotiate (and you are way too good at it!) I LOVE your smile. I love your silly, goofy laugh. I pray every day that I can give you what you need emotionally to grow up to be a beautiful, giving, loving, intelligent, well-educated, dedicated, strong young woman. My advice to you will probably be the same every year. Read and study the scriptures. There is such wisdom and such a sweet, noble spirit to them. Pray EVERY DAY. Your Heavenly Father wants to hear from you just as much as I do (well, actually probably way more). By staying close to him, you will stay close to what really matters and to what will give you the most joy in this life. Always be understanding and kind just like you are today. I love, love, LOVE you so much my sweet, beautiful baby girl.

CHRISTMAS 2008!

Christmas was so much fun this year. My mom and brothers Steven and Quinn came up this year and spent the weekend with us. I LOVE having my family at my house! On Christmas Eve we had a yummy dinner of Black Bean Soup (SOOOO good!) and then Jacob ran out and delivered our Secret Santa gift in our neighborhood. After that we had our traditions of putting the Christmas Key on the doorknob for Santa (since we don't have a fireplace), spreading reindeer oats and glitter (so they smell and see our house from the sky) on the snow, leaving Santa treats, reading Christmas stories, and finally, having Santa come and visit!! On Christmas morning the kids woke up to lots of toys including 3 new scooters. Daddy got that table saw that he so "needed" and I got an awesome Ateca fondant mat and some other great things. We gave my brothers some "dating" shirts and my mom a really cool book. We ate all day and watched the new movies that we got. It was such a fun day of hanging around the house in our P.J.s all day.

The Nutcracker Ballet

Every year, Jacob gets his little girl a special present. This year he out-did himself and got her two tickets to the Nutcracker Ballet! Lizzy wanted to go with her best friend, so of course we absolutely had to take Clare along. We got all dressed up, had a great time playing around in the bathroom doing our hair and set off for the Ballet. My good friend, Dena and I had a blast watching the little girls faces light up at all the pretty ballerinas. It was a children's length ballet so it was absolutely perfect. She was so excited and enthusiastically applauded everytime there was a chance. We even got to meet the entire cast afterwards! I think she will remember this for a very long time.

Mom & Dad T come to visit for Christmas!

Jacob's parents are always so wonderful about coming up here to visit every year when the snow comes and give the grandkids a wonderful Pre-Christmas. We had tons of fun taking Tracks to visit Temple square in a blizzard, opening presents, making candy trains and singing "Happy Birthday" to Jacob's dad in front of his beloved Trailer...in the form of a cake.

Glenn Beck!!

Jacob and I are Glenn Beck fans. If you don't know who he is: he is a Mormon convert and he has a political conservative talk show on the radio (syndicated out of New York) and he also has a political conservative talk show that will soon be airing on Fox. He has just written another book called "The Christmas Sweater" and it is FABULOUS!!!! I balled through half of it and laughed through the other half. I couldn't put it down until I had read all 287 pages that same day. It is an amazing inspirational story based on his true-life events and experiences (no politics). If you don't have it...get it! We got ours at Deseret Book. The book-signing tour came right to our local mall! The only place in Utah on the tour! I was so excited and so I took Jacob there as a surprise. We got there and I said "Guess What?! You are gonna meet Glenn Beck today!" He had not been listening to the radio lately so he had no idea about it. He loved it. He was very nice and sincere as we shook his hand and said hello. We had to take pictures from the sidelines so here you go.

Give Away Today!

Go to http://www.giveawaytoday.blogspot.com/ and enter to win a free giveaway. I got this from a trusted friend's sister who is the author of it. Good luck and make sure you put a post with my name as your referal!!

Thanksgiving and "California Sledding"

Thanksgiving!! Yeah!! I LOVE Thanksgiving. I don't know what I was more excited for: the food, going to visit my Mamma, spending it with my brother, Steven that I haven't seen in 2 years or the fact that Melissa and her kids came to visit. It was such a fun day. That same weekend, since there was no snow we went "California Sledding" or "Iceblocking". It was hillarious.

STEVEN'S HOME!!

My brother, Steven came home from his mission in Montatna. It was so fun. We actually got ot meet him right at the gate thanks to my neighbor who is a Sargent at the SLC airport. It was awesome. He was so suprised. The poor Elders that were coming off the plane with him were a little confused and started looking around for their parents as well. It was kinda sad. My sister, Melissa and her kids came up to see him come home and stay for Thanksgiving. It was such an awsome weekend. The second collage is when we all came back to my house for a yummy breakfast of gingerbread waffles and bacon...and cake. The little sign that is on his cake is an exact replica of the sign that my neices and nephew made to take to the airport. (I have edible markers and cut out a piece of fondant ahead of time to look like a posterboard then duplicated all of their artwork). It was a great day. I was so excited to have him back.

Anyone have any sisters that I can set him up with? He's the most awsome guy I know.

My 28th B-Day & Twilight

Yes, I am a Twilight fan. I have to admit it. They are such fun books. I never read a book twice but I have actually read the entire Twilight series twice and am actually thinking of reading it again...if I ever get a chance to even pee again!

Anyway, the Twilight movie came out on my birthday!! Happy Birthday to ME!!! My girlfriends and I were the ULTIMATE dorks and got the cheesiest t-shirts that we could think of printed out because we thought it would be hillarious. We totally looked like the teenagers that were there. It was SO funny. We went to dinner at the Pizza Factory (SO yummy!) then headed over to see the flick. So fun!

That weekend Jacob made me a cake (I frosted it real quick) and he bought me the entire Twilight series in hardbound, the Twilight soundtrack (it's really good, everyone!) and of course, Sees Chocolates (He hand picked them! He's been trained to know which are my favorites.) He's such a great hubby! He always indulges me, no matter how dorky I am. What a great "Twilight" birthday! I know, I know...I'm such a dork.

Fall Family Photos

Like I've said before, I LOVE fall so I really wanted to have our family pictures taken in the fall this year. My good friend, Amanda was so sweet to take them.

Latest Trevor news...

You know in the movies when a person is so shocked that they drop whatever they are holding and their hands fly to their mouth??? Yeah, that was me yesterday. 1/2 a dozen eggs smashed in the refrigerator and on the floor. I caught him using a wisk to mix it all together....what is the return policy on children again??

Hope...

This quote gives me hope...

"When the people shall have torn to shreds the Constitution of the United States, the Elders of Isreal will be found holding it up to the nations of the earth, and proclaiming liberty and equal rights to all men, and extending the hand of fellowship to the oppressed of all nations."
~John Taylor (lds.org)

The Terrible Twos'!!!

So Trevor will hit the Terrible Twos' on the 7th but we celebrated early. Here are some pics of his little party. We just had our next door neighbors over to help eat the cake and sing happy birthday. Trevor was completely thrilled that we were all singing to him. He LOVES to be the center of attention.
I had a hard time deciding what kind of cake to make for Trevor. I asked myself: "What does Trevor like??" Of course the first thought in my head was "Making messes." ..and then it hit me..."THE TERRIBLE TWOS!! It was so obvious that I'm surprised that I didn't think of it earlier. I call Trevor my Beautiful Monster. Everyday he thinks up some way to make the biggest mess possible in the shortest window of time possible. And he's too smart for his own britches so he's pretty clever at it. He's not a naughty kid...well, maybe a little, but most of it comes from me being busy, hence him being bored or wanting to get my attention. Just a few of some of his latest antics consist of lipstick all over my bathroom (he's learned how to open doors, btw), smearing syrup all over the kitchen table 3 min. before we are to leave for church, 1/2 a bottle of lotion all over my carpet within less than 1 min. , flour on the floor is always fun and so is dumping the dog's food and water all over the place. Good thing he's so dang cute and has dimples (I'm a sucker for dimples) otherwise, I would have sold him to the zoo a long time ago. But we love Trevor. Life just would not be as fun without him. He is so smart and is talking up a storm. He is quite the copycat so if he sees you do something, he can figure out how to open anything or how to work anything just by watching. He LOVES to laugh and giggle. He loves to run, wrestle and play with his family. His new love is books, just like his sister, Lizzy. He's also discovered that he really likes airplanes and stops dead in his tracks to watch when one flies overhead. He's also confiscated the neighbors scooter a couple times because he loves to ride it and he's pretty good at it! He is also such a lovey little thing. He loves to say "Sorry" and give hugs (he has to do that a lot). Like I said, we love, love, love our little Trevor-Face. Happy birthday baby!

Halloween 2008!!

Halloween was great fun. We had a ward Trunk-or-treat and went to our friend's, The Nielson's for their annual Halloween Party complete with trailer rides and lots of yummy Chili. Lizzy was a "Ballerina Bunny", Ryan was Batman (we used the Batman Mexican Wrestler mask and cape that we brought back from Mexico in September) and Trevor was a Pirate. We went trick-or-treating with my good friend Angela and her little boy, Jason. Jason is Ryan best friend ever. He's such a cute kid.

Clare's cake...

This was a cake for Lizzy's best friend, Clare. These two are inseperable. They had a purse party. Lizzy loved it. 1 hour before I had to deliver this cake (a couple houses down the street) Trevor decided that he now knew how to open the fridge and yanked the handle off the purse. Here is Lizzy with her friends. Clare is the Drama Queen down in front in the picture where they are showing off their nails. We love Clare.

Pupkin Patch Pics

We LOVE Halloween and Fall in Utah! It is my absolute FAVORITE season. I just LOVE the colors, festivities, food and all the baking that goes on. We especially love going to the Pumpkin patch! We got to go twice this year. Once was our family outing (without daddy, he was in New Mexico, I think, on business. He really missed it. He loves going too. We sent him lots of pics, though.) and the other time was with Ryan's pre-school group. They had a blast going in the hay-bale maze and picking out pumpkins.



In this collage: Ryan's pre-schoool group: Logan, Ryan, Chiya, Hallie & Rachel.
After all the Pumkin Patch fun...We got to carve! I think Trevor had the most fun with the seeds...

THE CRUISE!!

I'm finally blogging about the cruise that Jacob and I took at the end of September.

Jacob and I took a 5 day cruise on the Royal Caribbean. We went to San Diego, Catalina and Ensenada, Mexico. I still can't get over how fun it was. When I say "Jacob and I" I really mean Jacob, and I AND 14 of our closest friends! 8 couples from our neighborhood (16 people in all!) all decided to go together and it could not have been more fun. If you are going to go on a cruise, go with friends...it makes for some awesome times!

Day 1:

Day one consisted of flying to L.A., Hitting In-N-Out (of course), getting on the boat, playing basket ball and ping-pong and then settling in for the fantastic food at dinner time while we set sail. Here's a pic of all of our "Happy Cruise Faces" when we got on the ship.


Day 2:

On day 2 we ported in beautiful San Diego. Of course I've been there many times but one thing that I always wanted to do was go Kayaking in La Jolla Cove. This was SO much fun!! I highly suggest doing it for all of you that still live there! We took our snorkel gear and underwater camera with us. And the best part...WE SWAM WITH SHARKS!! Okay, so they were just harmless leopard sharks that swam away when you got too close but they were still 3 to 5 feet long! SO FUN! We even saw a ton of seals and sea lions just relaxing and playing on a rock. Two other couples joined us while the rest of the group went to do sealings at the San Diego temple.

These are the sharks we saw... (kinda merky water and a bad underwater camera) Can you see him?
This is what a leapord shark really looks like...

We got back on the boat where we got ready for the Formal dinner (again, so fun), then headed off to go rock climbing on the top deck.

The funniest part of this day was when Jacob and I got picked to be part of the Newlywed Game on the ship. They picked the couple that had been married the longest, the couple that had been married the shortest amount of time and then they picked us. To get on the show, they told us that the girl had to say: "Tarzan, Tarzan you're my man! Take me to the stage" and the man had to do the Tarzan yell. A ton of couples stood to compete. A couple of people did it but they were nervous. When they got to us, I stood on my chair and in a super dramatic fashion, said my line. Then (without consulting me) Jacob threw me over his shoulder to do his yell. The audience erupted and all the other competitors sat down. It was a fun game and we totally won! We were even given a DVD of it. Day 3:

CATALINA!! We all rented bikes and cruised the island. Then we found this awesome beach that no one else was at and hung out. We then got back on our bikes and headed off to find some lunch (pineapple hot dogs...yum!) then went to Lover's Cove for the best snorkeling ever. TONS and tons of fish! In fact...too many fish. For some reason, when I got in the water (it must have been my bright yellow bathing suit) the fish literally SWARMED me! I'm talking about hundreds of fish! I would swim away and when I turned around, they all turned at the same time to look at me with their fish eyes! Talk about creepy!! Seriously eerie people....that's when I got out.

Then we got back to the boat for yet another night of Karaoke and yummy food. The tall guy that Kris and I are taking a picture with is Daryl. The funnest cruise entertainers ever. We totally wanted to take him home and go shopping, get our nails done and just have such a fun girls night! We LOVED Daryl.

Then of course, our usual late night pizza and games. Oh, and if you are wondering why Jacob is wearing that hidious mullet wig, it's because we all gave eachother "Dares" before we went. Jacob's dare was to wear this wig at dinner. He took it to a whole new level when he borrowed my friend's tank top, donned the mullet and did a rendition of "I feel like making Love" at Karaoke that night. Leave it to Jacob to never do anything low key...

Day 4:

Ensenada!! Fantastic tacos, two of the funniest tour guides (we called one of them Knoxville because he TOTALLY looked like Johnny Knoxville) and some fun shopping. Plus, the beach was waist deep like 1/2 a mile out. We loved our tour guides. Then back on the ship for dinner again and a scavenger hunt in which we all took 3rd. (Some other people cheated.) This game had us all rolling! The same night, we also all competed in the game"Finish the Lyric" where we totally took gold. I swear, people thought we were drunk on that cruise because we were all having so much fun.

Day 5:

Going home... You would think this would be a sad thing but really, we all had such a good time and left feeling fulfilled. We were all so excited to see our kids again and couldn't wait to get home so we could share stories about the trip that we just took. Since we checked out of the ship in the morning, and a lot of us had the same flight home, we went to the mall, went to the movies to see "Eagle Eye" (very good, btw) and went to dinner.

Oh! Guess who was on our flight home?! KATHERINE HEIGEL!! Yup, Katherine Heigel was on our flight! (Why she was flying Jet Blue was a mystery to me but whatever...) Just a bit before we noticed her, my friend held up a magazine and said, "Hey, isn't she Mormon?" (She was baptized as a teenager but obviously isn't active anymore.) I looked over my shoulder and there she was...just sitting, reading a book in the back trying to be inconspicuous. My friend took a quick Paparazzi shot before she really got noticed and people started swarming her.

What a fun trip. So many amazing memories were made and close friendships were made even closer. Fun, fun!

A Tribute to my M.I.L...

Happy (belated) Birthday Mom! There is a reason why I call my Mother-in-law "Mom". She treats me like her own. She is always so loving and thoughtful. She always thinks of cute things to do for others that just cheer a person up. She gives the most thoughtful birthday presents. She is an amazing "Namma" to my babies and they can't get enough of her. She comes up to visit us at least 2 times a year; once in the springtime to help me plant my garden (she's an amazing gardener) and then in December so that we can have our own little mini-Christmas. Sometimes we even get to go to Women's Conference together. She is so creative, so talented and such a genuine person. She gives Jacob and I the space we need to be a couple and raise our kids on our own but still is always there to offer any advice or help that we need without being intrusive or pushy. I couldn't have asked for a better Mother-in-law. Thank you, Mom. Thanks for laughing so much. Thanks for not being easily offended. Thanks for raising an incredible son. Thanks for having self-confidence and passing it onto my daughter. Thanks for being a fantastic Namma. Thanks for always being honest. Thanks for always taking us out to dinner. Thanks for all the good times. Thanks for being easy to love. Thanks for loving me. I love you tons! Happy Birthday!