My Favorite Present...(Here you go Lataun)!

So every year, I get a lot of money to go to Barnes and Noble. I believe most people in my family think that it is an easy way out for a gift for me...however, little do they know that I love, love, love to go there and just peruse and get a stack of books. I joked with Andy that someday I may get to purchase all of the books that I have a hankering to get...however, I was really tempted when I went in there this year to get a Nook...but alas they have invented a color one which is so much cooler and so I will wait a year or two for the price to fall...any thoughts on Nooks and Kindles? I've read some disturbing things about how there is a new application for Iphones and Ipod Touch and Ipads that let you scan in the bar code of books you have and they will upload to your phone. Does that mean I could go into Barnes and Noble and do the same thing? I also read an internet article that talked about how children born in 2011 will not know what traditional newspapers, magazines, and books are...that was also a little disturbing...but I'm really seriously thinking about getting a Nook...I'm just afraid my friends (my books) might be a little mad! :-)

Here is the list for this year...There are some darker colored jackets on the books, so for anyone that is interested...here is the title list: Divine Signatures (Gerald Lund), Before Green Gables, Pathfinder, What the Dog Saw, Third World America, A Homemade Life, Bento Box in the Heartland, Committed, Freakonomics, The Pillars of Greek Wisdom, Inside of a Dog, The Cheesecake Cookbook, Fast Breads, Cake Pops, Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques.

Hmmm...Kind of an interesting list...I pulled up my list from last year, so that I could compare how my interests of changed. I'm really addicted to nonfiction now and I don't read as much fiction (the only problem with that is that is takes me so much longer to read nonfiction) . I'm also so into cooking and my new love is to purchase any cool, interesting, exciting cookbook that I can find! It appears last year, I was very interested in fiction...funny how our interests change!

I still love a good fiction book but need some new ones after reading "The Hunger Games" series...anyone have any recommendations?

December In a Nut Shell

December came and went in a flash of busy, hectic, fun-filled days. It was a magical time because of how excited our kids were about everything (especially Peyton). They are at an age where everything about Christmas reminds you as a parent of your own special times growing up. To start out December Peyton had a dance recital at the high school. He does a great job and is so fun to watch. This is his little dancing group...that has really grown from last year. We love that there are five boys and five girls. They will be doing a really cute dance with their partners coming up in the spring. Peyton wasn't quite sure he wanted to dance with a "girl" but he has done a great job. We had lots of mail to send out in December...in fact, we spent the first part of December getting gifts and things ready. On one of the packages we sent, Peyton had decorated this package of Andy and I under the mistletoe. It made me smile and I had to get a picture. Definitely one of my favorite things about Christmas.

The tree marathon began the first week of December...with our kids so excited about getting their trees up. It is a good thing they were, because Andy and I have lost a little excitement about putting up "all" those trees. We are up to 14, however only 9 made it up this year (which was okay with us!) The new tree for the year was Sonnet's tree. It was fun to see how excited she was with her tree.

The kids trees are the only ones we add to each year, so it will be fun to see how each year her tree changes. One of my other favorite things is my dad's lights. I'm glad he got them all up. As you can see this was a very pretty night... The next event was the Christmas play. This is Sonnet with a little girl her age. They played for a little bit before it all began. The theme for the Christmas play this year was a cowboy theme which was great for Peyton...he loved it!

Some of the vaqueros waiting to perform. This picture below was so funny. A line was forming to see Santa and my kids ran up and cut in front of everyone. I'm training them so well aren't I! One of my proudest moments..(hmmm). These pictures were at Peyton's school party. Peyton has an amazing teacher this year who he just adores. She got them all such a wonderful gift. What a giving, caring, kind, and inspiring lady she is.

They also made Gingerbread houses. She told me she was going to teach them how to make them...which I thought was weird because we just plathered candy on when I was a kid. Much to my surprise and delight...these little houses just turned out great. They actually look like a gingerbread house with a little bit of thought. She just knows how to make things fun and educational at the same time. Peyton is lucky to have her!

We had some great snow before Christmas. As you can see I didn't get a very good picture of the sledders. But it was a wonderful Christmas weather. I do wish now that it would go away, but we liked it for Christmas. Peyton is sledding with a cousin and Uncle Jake took them out to do this. We loved having family up for Christmas. All of my siblings were home. That just made Christmas grand! (a little crowded and noisy at mom's but wonderful!)

Andy's birthday is Christmas Eve and we had a nice dinner and celebration at our home with Andy's dad. I loved this drawing that Peyton made in Andy's birthday card. As you can see he does love his dad, but he is frowning because he can't open presents yet! This made us smile! Andy turned 36 this year. We both wondered where the time has gone. This is him posing with his present opener helpers. I don't think he opened too many of his presents. This is Andy at my parent's house opening his gifts in a rush before we go to the "White Elephant" party at my grandpa's house.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Christmas. As you can see all of the kids are crowded around Holly who is pulling up the "Santa tracker" on the internet. This is why Christmas is so magical. These little ones were just enthralled with Santa getting closer to Idaho! I had to pull it up at my house when we got home! Just to check again where he was!

This was Grandpa Sanders' gift, but he gave it to "Rascaleono" as he calls my little boy. I would have loved to see Grandpa in this, but he got a kick out of Peyton wearing it! I guess we do what everyone else does on Christmas Eve by opening the Christmas P.J.s...Peyton and Sonnet finally got to give into that madness of not being able to open a present. I thought they looked so cute in their P.J.s

Off to bed for the longest night of a child's life. Peyton was so wired we had a hard time getting him to sleep. We left quite a haul out for Santa as you can see. Peyton also hid a special box of candy that only Santa and Peyton and his Dad would know where it was hidden. That was how Peyton would know if Santa was really real (yes he is already questioning...it never came up in my mind!) As you can see, Santa ate all that was left to him...and he took the box of candy that was hidden...one of the first things Peyton had to find out when he woke up.

Peyton loved everything and had to dump out, rip open, try, etc...every single thing that Santa left him. It was very cute! The old bird left quite a haul at our house. Some of the highlights included the race track for Peyton and the doll house for Sonnet.

He also left Sonnet a fropper (we are still not sure what it does)...the cute hat was courteousy of Grandpa Scott. She loved both.

One of my favorite pictures to take is my parent's tree....every year no matter how much we cut back it is still jam packed with presents! My family especially my parents are so generous. One of my favorite pictures of Christmas...notice the bow on Pam's bum! ha! We got a good laugh from that!

Peyton got a costume from Jake and Nancy's family. Of course he had to try it on. We rushed to open gifts so that Mom and Dad could get a dinner prepared for 30+ people. It was then a shift over to my grandpa's house for presents and dinner. Sometimes I wish we would just order in pizza and be able to enjoy the day.

The next picture at about 10:00 p.m that night is me opening birthday gifts...sometimes you just can't fit it all in...I think the look on my dad's face shows how busy that this day really was. I turned 37 this year and for once in my life I felt really old on my birthday...(I think it was because I was a catching a bug that I fought the rest of Christmas vacation!)

Cute, cute, cute...kids...This is their Christmas clothes outfits...that they wore the day after Christmas to church! There is another December birthday...right after Christmas...this cute little thing is my brother's daughter. She is a funny little particular thing. She is deathly afraid of Andy which is hilarious and makes us all laugh. She calls him guy and hides whenever he comes near. We joke and say she is a good judge of character. Playing hot potato at the party...
Then to end December we went over to Brove's house and did the traditional games, food, and frapee. This is Peyton drinking/eating frapee at 12:00 a.m.
As you can see Sonnet has had it. We are irresponsible parents and let our kids stay up to ring in the New Year...what a wonderful December we had..

Yes, He is the Real One!

We went to the festival of trees! We have a great time! We love to see Santa and I swear he is the real one. Sonnet is posing by the fairy tree. She loves fairies and so she was trying to pose like one! Somebody got hungry and so he wasn't have the best of times. After he saw Santa he was ready to go. He was also a little disappointed because Santa only let him tell one thing he wanted and he got shushed. I think maybe because it was Friday and he had probably already seen 1000's of kids.

You can see they were very excited to see Santa and had a lot to say. Sonnet rushed right up and gave him a huge hug! She loved Santa. She doesn't even really know what he does yet.

Peyton ran right up to him and was ready to tell him what he wanted.

I couldn't get a really good picture of all three, so we have a really cute one of her and a good one of him! Thus the problem of having two kids to take pictures of.

Looking forward to the old boy making a stop! And yes, he is the real one by the way!

School Shopping and Aquarium-Take 2...where did my post go?

I already did this post once...I'm not sure where it disappeared to? But we just recently went school shopping in Utah...Yes that means that summer is over, but we are ready physically for school to start! We did some great shopping and for the first time we went up to the Park City Outlets. I loved them and they had so many great, fun kid stores...that we pretty much found everything we needed.
Andy always likes to joke with me about outlets, because while I find good deals, I for some reason buy more thus spending what I could have saved..I've always told him I've never been a quality girl, but quantity! But I recommend the outlets..They have everything you could want!

My next favorite things we did were to go to two of our favorite restaurants that we only go to when we go to Boise or Utah...We are glad that PF Chang's and Cheesecake Factory aren't local or we would go broke...but they are worth every penny. Andy and I call it the quality scale.

Wendys=20.00$

Olive Garden=40.00$

PF Changs and Cheesecake=80.00$

See the quality of the food doubles by twenties..ha! I know that doesn't make any sense unless you have eaten at them.

We love the lettuce wraps at PF Changs. And our kids even liked the lo mein they had. At the cheesecake factory my favorite things are of course the cheesecake, but the salads are probably my most favorite...

We ordered cheesecake to go and sadly one of our pieces got left in the fridge in our hotel room. Some lucky cleaning person got a nice treat. My question is though, do you think they really ate it? Most people seem to think that they would, but I wouldn't eat it so I don't think that they did? Any thoughts? Ha!

Another one of our favorite places to go is to the Sandy Aquarium. This was our second time and Peyton just breezed through it and seemed a little bored, but Sonnet loved everything and would stand and look for a long time at all of the cool fish and exhibits. Peyton kept wondering when we could go back to the hotel and swim!

These are my cute frog wranglers!

There is another place in there where you get to pretend you are driving a boat. Peyton loves this place and of course, sister had to do it too!

This part is my favorite part of the aquarium. It is where the jellyfish are and they sit and swim around and it is dark and the light changes and they just keep floating. I love to photograph them and also to watch them! They are so cool!

Sonnet wanted to pet this big old octopus, maybe because it was behind glass, because when she had a chance to pet the sting rays...she wouldn't! I don't blame her. They are pretty slimy.

Peyton ran right to the sting rays and wanted to pet them and said he was going to pet them (he wouldn't last year!) I happened to catch the whole process on film. You can see one right by where he is standing. Then he tentatively puts one finger out to touch it, but it suddenly flaps its (wing?) and it freaks Peyton out! (third picture in this series). It was hilarious!

As you can, they are kind of creepy looking. I had no desire to put my arm in this year, but I did last year!

Andy was the only one brave enough to actually touch them this year!

You can see she doesn't want to stick her arm in that either!

The cute little explorers going on an expedition! or at least posing for a cute picture!

We had a great time school shopping and doing some fun stuff too!