Allison Dances

Here's Allison at dance class doing a little performance to some Christmas music. She just loves her class and teacher and really does great. We love to watch her being so cute!!

Our first real live Christmas Tree

Well the vote this year was for a real tree so here we are so excited to have found the perfect and cute one for us. It's a very unique one, the only one at the farm like it. I can't remember what kind they said it was but it smells great!

Here's a cute shot of the kiddies after decorating. They were so excited, especially Allison. She was just dancing around putting the stuff everywhere. What a nut!

Well they seem to be winding down a bit, ya right!!

Here's a good shot.

And now back to dancing and craziness...

Festival of Trees

I went to the Festival of Tree's at the expo center with my mom and daughter today. What an amazing sight! Filled with hundreds of Christmas trees and decorations, this display is an awesome Utah tradition that totally benefits our community. One hundred percent of the proceeds raised goes to Children's Primary Hospital. If you've never been, you should. This tree above is called the Marshmallow Tree and was one of our favorites. It's hard to tell how adorable it is. It's covered with thousands of colorful small marshmallow and matching decorations. So cute! It's a great cause and most trees are dedicated to special people done by family and friends or companies. And the goodies alone were worth going for!!

A HAPPY THANKSGIVING WITH THE FAM

Well another Thanksgiving is over and with it came some fun times and yummy food of course. Mom made her great turkeys, yes 2 of them, and all the fixins. Sister Sara made really delicious pies and I contributed 10lbs of mashed potatoes. We like it all. There's lots of left overs for those casseroles and sandwiches too. Me and my sisters all went to see "Twilight" . I really liked it and actually saw it 2ce with Sara. That was fun. That's what Thanksgiving is about to me, going to the show and shopping and eating large amounts so to that end it was a very successful holiday.

The moms took all the kids to Thanksgiving Point's Dinosaur Museum which was lots of fun for everyone. It's a very cool and kid friendly place with lots of hands on activities.

Here's Allison with her new birthday bike. It's her first big girl bike and she can really ride! She was so excited when she saw it. We just think she's the cutest girl ever!

Here's the birthday girl. Can't believe she's 5. I made the pink cake and we put the no blow out candles on it. She got a kick out of that. We had a party with the family and cousins. She really wanted everyone to go swimming at the rec center but that wasn't gonna happen so we compromised and took one of her little friends. She's a water baby just like me.

MOMMY, CAN WE GO SLEDDING!!??

Well, we went up to take the kids sledding on Timp after repeated begging bouts and there was hardly any snow down low enough for a good spin. We did manage to find a couple hills to satisfy their craving. They are so funny! It was actually a nice time though our fire didn't quite take off as we had hoped so no roasted marshmallows but that didn't stop them from gobbling them up. We just put them in the hot chocolate instead.

If we could have taken a road up higher we could have found some better snow to sled down but we made due.

Here's the kids playing on the bridge over the river.

Halloween 2008

Well we had a great Halloween this year. We were very busy but we made it through, yae!! Jorma decided he wanted to to as Darth Vader this year which was easy enough but not as creative as I wanted to be but it was his turn to choose. Allison is Ariel the little mermaid. They had so much fun with all of the activities - school and church parties where they marched around in their costumes in various parades. We also had a get together at our house with family for some of Grandma's yummy homemade pizza before we sent them off to get candy.

Here I am at the church party playing Halloween bingo with all the kids. I'm a scary witch if you can't tell with warts and all. One of my many costumes this year. Did I say I love Halloween..

Jorma at a Utah Lake adventure with a silly expression on a nice October eve.

Darth and Obi-wan face off! Cousin Ethan and Jojo had a fun night together going trick or treating in my brother's neighborhood. They got so much loot that I about died. They were all hopped up on sugar for the night.Jorma's school party where we played good ol' bingo again. Allison got to play too. Very good kids in his 3rd grade class.

Our 2 pumpkins in the middle - skeletor and kitty.

Here are the gypsies dancing around the fire (behind them). Grandma, Alli and Mary having fun at our house.

Cool jack-o-lantern! Daddy did this one.

Here we are getting ready to go out trick-or-treating. I'm Ursula the sea witch from The Little Mermaid to go with Allison's costume and the other mermaids in the family. I was also a butterfly fairy for another party the next night. Everything was fun this year. Jay and I love it when the kids are so thrilled and full of excitement. We took them around to some fun places and got to go to some spooky houses for some fun and scary skits by our creative friends. Sad it's be over but glad all went well.

Tales of the Heeby Creepy!!

Once upon a hallow eve,we gathered for a creepy train ride....

on the Heber Creeper....

poor little Allison was scared while some of us were excited...

Then the ghosts came....

And other scary ones....

There were also cute gnomes with gramps...

But the scariest of all was Grampa Conehead (aka Tom Bosley in the cartoon David the Gnome). Silly and scary fun was had by all!!

Witchy Times at Gardner Village

Well, it's fall break for our kids - yae! It's always great to have extra time together and do fun things. The kids and I picked up Grandma and went to a cute shopping area with great decor for the season called Gardner Village. The kids love the excitement of Halloween and they go all out here. The theme - witches!! Lots of different witches, human or stuffed, either way it's good fun!

Cheesy!

Spooky owl!

Here's a good one of my sweetie. She was lookin like a yummy candy corn! Did I mention this is my fav holiday? Well it is if you can't tell. The weather is so totally awesome right with that great October crispness in the air.

A beautiful view of the moon rising over Timp at twilight from our living room. Can't you just picture the bats flying in front of this scene?? Mwaaaaahhh!!!!

Grandma and Jojo goofin' around and trying on hats. Aren't we a silly bunch? I loved Jorma's with the big orange spider emerging from it. Cool man...

This is a groovy looking witch. She reminds me of Cher. What a fun time we had!! The only thing we didn't do was eat a caramel apple, darn it! The lines were just tooo long! Oh well, I'm sure we'll find one soon.

THESE ARE A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS..

These are some of our fav Halloween books. This one is very cute and has great illustrations! This artist does other great stories too.

We love this book, especially at Halloween. It's so cute and sweet!

This is an all time favorite of our families too. It's pretty neat. Grammie Mac always reads it to the kids.

MERMAIDS IN THE SUN

Allison and the cousins Becca, Mary, Haylee (pictured) Avery, and Katie went to the waterfalls Thanksgiving Point gardens to pose in their wonderful Halloween costumes that Grammie Mac made. Each one is a little different and special in it's own way. Thanks so much Grammie. We love you so!

Then we went to the Hutchings Museum for Harry Potter night. The kids loved it as did the grownups. They were so creative and made it so fun and a little spooky. It's a very old place to begin with so just thinking about creepy things gave us a little thrill. They had very cool exhibits too. The kids got up close and personal with some neat owls, bugs and rats. Fun times.. Now if the other 5 cousins were there too dang it! We missed you Ethan, Isabel, Bryce, Rory and Kyle. But we can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving!

Here we are again but not so happy as the sun is making us crazy! The little ones had a rough time but are so cute anyway.

Here's my sweet little mermaid Ariel (Alli)..

Cutie pie!

We lit our fireplace for the first time this season. As you can see the kids love it! I dropped the ball tho, no marshmallows. What was I thinking? We are loving fall and the crispness in the air! We've tried to be outdoors as much as possible because winter is coming...

Fall Colors

We ran into my brother Andy & his family on our trip to the mountains. We had a fun time wading in the river and the kids played lots. Then poor Andy got his flip flop stuck in this little marshy area and couldn't find it so he had to go barefoot for a bit. But it was too funny! We all had a good laugh especially when the other fell off and he just said "I'm leaving them here". It was a beautiful and fun day.

At Bridal Veil Falls where we got married....oo how sweet...

The four of us posing at one of the trail heads on Mt.Timponogos. It started raining a bit at this point. Not for too long though. Still they wanted to keep their swim suits on.

Time for lunch and a campfire. The kids loved the fire and just kept making us crazy by poking it with sticks that would light up. They were running around the forest with torches, ugh! Now, my brother Andy loved fire too much so this could be a hereditary thing, haha. I'm sure most kids are intrigued by it.

Nice Colors...

Cousin Haylee and Allison love to go on adventures. They are at such an adorable age and they really enjoyed each other which makes me so happy.

Jorma and Ethan found a fun little trail. And were plenty muddy in the end! But kids just love mud so it's all good.

The gang swimming in the river, or trying to at least.

This is of us at the park for a "Hog Wild" Harley festival. Cool bikes and good music. Jorma is so funny - he took a pen and notebook pad with him so he could keep track of how fast the fastest cycle could go. 180 MPH were his findings. What a nut!