Thanksgiving weekend

We had a wonderful time celebrating Thanksgiving this year. We loved focusing on the things we love the most - our faith, family and friends. We enjoyed a visit from Allen's youngest brother, Jake and his wife Erica who spent their break in Seattle visiting with us and Erica's two siblings who live in the area. It was great fun to have them in our home for a couple days during their visit and they enjoyed taking a tour of MS with Allen, playing football together on Thanksgiving day and hanging out with us at night after their sightseeing. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of their visit but we loved having them with us. 

We joined Erica's family for dinner for Thanksgiving dinner and enjoyed getting to know them better. Our family before dinner:

 After dinner we drove down to Vancouver to spend the rest of the weekend with my sister and her family. As soon as we got to Vancouver (at about 10 p.m.) Allen dropped me off at Target to meet my sister and older nieces to start the black Friday shopping madness. I'm thoroughly disgusted that stores are starting their shopping earlier and earlier and encroaching on families spending the day together but there I was shopping anyway. It was fun to be together until the wee hours of the morning and we stood in line for nearly 2 hours to make our purchases but it is a fun memory.

On Friday the little kids stayed in their pjs for most of the day and played games together and generally ran amok. My sister and I braved the mall for some more shopping and I was amazed at the stamina of my teen nieces. We got some good deals and had fun. The Jackson's very graciously cooked a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner for us so we could enjoy the meal together. Seriously yummy food!

On Friday night Allen, Carter and I joined the Jackson's at the Forgotten Carols. I have seen it several times but it was new for Allen and Carter. We had a great time and loved the message of the play.

 Saturday morning we got up and took the little girls to see Pinaklicious, the Musical. I was so excited when I found out it was being performed in Portland because I had heard so many great things about it. It was DARLING and did not disappoint at all. It was a small cast and only about 1 hour long so it was a great length for a younger audience.

 At the performances on Thanksgiving weekend there was an all pink Santa that you could have your picture taken with after the performance. It was adorable. We went out for treats after the performance.

We had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend and enjoyed so much being together with both sides of our family during the week. We are grateful for the abundant blessings in our lives.

Allen's Half Marathon

One of Allen's resolutions for 2012 was to run a half marathon. Of course when he set this goal he had no idea what a crazy year we would have - moving, new job requiring LOTS of hours (70-80 per week), being the YM president both in ABQ and in our new ward in WA. You get the idea! But he was determined and was able to find a race scheduled for a Saturday (most are on Sundays).

The only race that worked for our schedule was a trail half marathon. Allen diligently trained over a few months but he always ran on paved roads and trails. He really had no idea what to expect running a trail race. Afterwards he said he thought he would be running on a groomed trail but it ended up being a very "rustic" run with no grooming - rocks, roots, mud, etc. It also took him quite a bit longer than he was expecting because of the rough trail and because it was only 1 runner wide. But he completed the race AND his goal and we couldn't be more proud of him!

I waited (and waited and waited) with the kids while Allen ran. We went to breakfast and ran a few errands while he was running. As we were waiting for him to cross the finish line I started snapping pictures of my kids. I think these turned out so great and GUESS WHAT? -  No one is in a matchy, darling outfit. No one has a cute hair accessory and I didn't preplan the location. Sometimes I forget that the circumstances don't have to be perfect to get great pictures. It is a good reminder for me to just take pictures and not worry so much about the details!

 In the end Allen said he will probably never run another trail race but he accomplished his goal and has gotten the running bug again! (I have more pictures coming from the race photographer but they won't be here until January)

Mom's 70th Birthday

My mom turned 70 in early November. Over the summer my siblings and I started to plan a surprise party for her. She had no idea we were coming to Colorado for her birthday and we caught her by total surprise when we showed up on the front porch singing "Happy Birthday" on November 1. Nicole and I flew in from the PNW and Teresa and Steve drove over from Utah and were able to pick us up at the airport.  I took a fun video of her reaction when she realized we were all there to celebrate her big day with her. 

The next day we spent the entire day getting ready for her birthday party that we hosted that evening. I did most of the planning from a distance with my mom's dear friend Kathy who helped me with the details.  We served a ton of different desserts and had about 50 of her friends attend. It was a really fun night and I loved seeing my mom's friends gather around her to help her feel loved. My parents are so blessed to have amazing friends in their area.

Mom with some of her guests:


The 6 of us at the party:

 

Mom with her darling friend Kathy who helped me plan the party:

 

 

We spent all day Saturday hanging out and playing together. It was honestly really strange to be together with no kids or schedules. All day long I kept worrying that I needed to go home to take care of someone or something. We cannot remember another occasion when we have all been together without any of our kids. It was so much fun! We were able to attend the temple together in the morning and spent the rest of the day shopping (so much shopping), eating out and going to the movies. It was glorious and went way too fast. We stayed up late chatting and had a great time together.

Sunday morning was spent at church before we all had to go our separate ways and head home. We took a few pictures together before we left.

 

 

 I am so grateful we were able to celebrate my mom's birthday with her. As I get older I realize how very lucky I am to have such wonderful parents and siblings that I love and am friends with. The weekend went so quickly but it was wonderful to be together if only for a short time!

 

 

 

 

Halloween 2012

 October was once again a crazy busy month for our family. Between soccer games and practices, vacation, Halloween and all the celebrations and being room and soccer mom it was sheer insanity. I still love that we managed to get in most of our traditions despite the busyness.

Decorating pumpkins and roasting the seeds:

 This year we chose to do an angry bird and spider pumpkin. I think we can handle a couple more pumpkins next year since the older kids are way more into it now than in years past.

We spend a Sunday evening decorating our spooky gingerbread house:

Costumes: This year I wanted the girls to dress up as glam-witches. I had an idea for their hats and decided to build the costumes around my idea. I let them each pick a color and paired it with black for their costumes. 

Unfortunately Emery was having NONE of the costume wearing. It took several tries to get her tutu on her and she wanted NOTHING to do with her hat. Boo! I ended up wearing her hat during our party going.

Close up of the hats. I found mini witch hats on Etsy and embellished the heck out of them. They turned out SO SO SO cute and we got lots of compliments on their costumes. My original plan was to take the hats apart and use the different bows but  I've decided I'm going to keep them together to use them for Halloween decorations 

Carter and Allen as BYU super fans. I was so so grateful that Carter chose something really simple for me to put together.

Our crew pre ward party/trunk or treating:

I made the kids our traditional Halloween lunch. This is really minimal effort and makes them ridiculously happy! It's a mummy dog, ghost cheese stick, jack-o-lantern orange, Halloween peanut butter balls and a mini can of vampire sunkist.

 I was in charge of Makenna's class party this year and was so busy I hardly had a second to take any pictures. We had 5 stations that kids rotated through - pumpkin painting, donut on a string eating contest, Harvest bingo, decorating pumpkin sugar cookies and musical chairs. We also had tons of yummy food and goodie bags. It was really stressful pulling it all together but her class had a really fun time and I learned a lot for the next party! Kenna decorating her sugar cookie:

 

I also had a chance to help at Addie's school party. Her school has an actual pumpkin patch on property and each child was able to pick their own pumpkin. It was so cute. They did lots of crafts, read books, sang Halloween songs and had treats. It was so fun to see her in her element!

 We attended a total of 8 different Halloween parties and I was exhausted by the time Halloween night rolled around. I was so grateful when a neighbor invited us over for dinner after Trick or Treating with a few other families in our area. It was a really fun and low key way to end such a busy holiday month (I swear Halloween goes on ALL month). My kids got way too much candy that I'm sure will be around here for months. We still have some of LAST years candy stowed away that I need to get rid of.  Happy Halloween!

Utah Trip, Part 2

On Friday of our Utah trip we got up early and started down to the Provo area. We stopped first to buy Makenna a baptism dress and then stopped for lunch at Cafe Rio before going to Thanksgiving Point. We were so excited that our former CT neighbors who  now live in Utah were able to meet us there to go to the pumpkin patch. We hadn't seen these neighbors since we left CT 6 years ago so it was great to spend time together even though we have kept in touch over the past several years. The weather was not ideal to play outside in. It started raining almost immediately after we got to the patch. There was a ton to do though and the kids had a really great time despite the near constant downpour the first hour we were there. Luckily it stopped raining and we were able to spend a couple more hours enjoying all the many activities this patch had to offer. 

Cornbelly's had tons of fun wooden vehicles all over the place that the kids loved playing on. 

Outside the super creepy haunted house. I literally had to DRAG Carter through it but he ended up loving it.

We all had a really fun time riding around on these peddle bikes

All the kids together!

 These girls got along famously. It is amazing that kids can develop friendships so quickly. These twins are just a couple months older than Makenna and it is funny to think that if we had stayed in CT they would have been great friends.

Parents and kids in front of the amazing carved pumpkin display. 

We're so grateful we were able to spend time with their family during our trip. We very much hope that it's not another 6 years before we see each other again!

After leaving Cornbelly's we headed over to Texas Roadhouse to meet Allen's mom, Steve, Meghan  and baby Ben for dinner. It was so fun to spend some time with them. We spent the night at my cousin Lisa's house and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning chatting with them (we lived in their basement apartment the first year we were married and just love spending time with them!)

Overall we had an amazing trip to Utah and got to spend time with lots of great people. There are always way too many people to see and we didn't get to everyone we wanted to spend time with but are grateful for people we did get to see.

Utah Trip, Part 1

We decided early this year to make our family vacation a trip to Utah. It seems like we're always driving THROUGH Utah to get somewhere instead of doing all that UT has to offer. We wanted to take our kids to a BYU game and decided the homecoming game actually worked best for our schedules.

We left Seattle Tuesday after school and picked up Allen from work. We had been up late the night before getting ready and I ended up driving much of the way while Allen worked and we were tired. We rolled into Boise at about 1:00 a.m. to stay overnight with Allen's mom.

This was our first road trip in our new car and we LOVED it. It is so roomy and offers a lot of seating flexibility. We were debating about installing an entertainment system in our car but Allen found a cool contraption for our iPad that was a perfect and inexpensive solution (you can see it hanging over Emery's head)

After not nearly enough sleep we got up early for breakfast with Grandma. Allen's mom loves to cook for her family and we got a good laugh that she made us homemade apple pie and creme brûlée for breakfast. It was a perfect beginning to a week of glutinous eating :)

 We drove into Ogden and went to Grandma Frost's timeshare that she very graciously lent us for the week. We had a couple hours of sunlight left so we took a beautiful fall hike:

I love the way the sun is coming through the trees in this picture. We played some games at the playground before heading to the hot tub. We had a fun dinner and watched The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with the kids before heading to bed.

On Thursday morning we got up and drove down to temple square for the morning. We stumbled onto a tour of the conference center which ended up being fascinating. I loved seeing all of the original artwork all through the conference center.

We spent a lot of time wandering through both the visitor centers on temple square. The kids loved the model of the temple, seeing the Christus statue and the display about the welfare system. We spent 5 hours on temple square and did not even see everything. The girls loved walking on the temple grounds to see brides that were out having their pictures taken. 

After we left temple square Carter pulled Allen aside and told him that he thought it was going to be a boring day but that he ended up loving temple square and really felt the spirit there. That conversation alone made our trip worthwhile.  We headed over to City Creek to grab some lunch and walk around for awhile.

We spent the rest of the day at This is the Place park. Neither of us has ever been there before so it was fun to see all the fun activities they had. We started at the petting zoo and randomly ran into one of my cousins and her family there which was really fun. The kids all had fun riding the ponies, except for Emery who bawled and clung to me like we were sending her away forever. She loves animals from afar but freaks out if she gets too close.

 The favorite part of the day was panning for gold. The kids spend a good hour playing in the stream and picking out pieces of "gold" to trade at the bank. Addie proved to be the most adept at finding the pieces. The kids were able to the bank to trade the gold for candy but all the kids chose to keep their gold pieces. We also visited the school house and general store, rode the train and played in the teepee.

Grandma Frost met us for part of the time we were at the park and she bought the kids a fun souvenir at the gift shop.  We left the park and met my brother for dinner at In N Out (yum yum yum). We also stopped by Allen's aunts house on our way back to Ogden where we visited for a couple hours and had a great time.

{I'll come back with lots of pictures from Friday}

We stayed with my cousin in Provo on Friday night and were up bright and early to spend the day in Provo. We started the day by having breakfast with some young men from our Arizona ward. Allen was the Hancock's home teacher while we lived in AZ and was also their boys Priest quorum adviser. Both are at BYU now and it was fun to spend a morning catching up with them. It is was so fun to see the new student housing (in the background). BYU has really stepped it up since we went to school there.

The kids were dying to hit the bookstore with promised of candy counter treats and souvenir purchasing. The little girls picked pom-pons, Makenna chose a stuffed cougar and Carter got a BYU tie. The kids were all decked out in their BYU attire and were so excited to be on campus and go to the game.

Steve and Meghan were also in Utah for the homecoming game so it was so fun to spend some time with them and meet baby Ben (6 weeks old). Despite losing, we  had a great time at the game. We love being in the hoopla of the game and doing all the traditions of BYU football.

We left town after grabbing some dinner at El Azteca (our favorite taco shop from our early married years) and drove back to Boise that night. We had a very full 5 days on our trip and are so glad we were able to see so many friends and family and make some great memories with our little family too. Until next time Utah!