Big Dose of Holiday Cheer

So playing a bit of catch up, I wanted to post lots of pics from the past weeks to get caught up. Holidays are super busy but Daniel gets done with Finals tomorrow so things will be less stressful after that.

Anyways here's some photos of my grandma who is turning 92 this year! She looks pretty awesome if you ask me!! She is so amazing and healthy, she is sweet and kind and I think I love her kisses the most! She is always so complimentary and has always been that way... the sweetest grandma :) Loved seeing her and my aunt and uncle and a few cousins this thanksgiving. (also she gave me hope because she said Addy has hair just like my Aunt Beth did at that age and my auntie had super long and thick gorgeous hair so hopefully it happens (Addy is obsessed with long hair))

After the visit with family we decided to run up to Smiths Mesa to get a Christmas tree on the Stout family land up there. We always have a good time on Smiths and the views of Zion are unbeatable.

The roads got a little muddy, but this was me happy even though we were sliding around a bit

but this turned into this

when this happened and the windshield wiper fluid ran out... hahaha luckily there was snow on the side of the road.

daddy and Addy going to find the tree

Liam slept in the car we just left him there because it was warm and he was out. He slept the whole time. After some searching I spied this little guy, just the right size we took it.
(getting a real live wild tree isn't about being perfect but about the experience and, we had a fun family bonding time doing it)

(Addy had so much fun it was warm even though there was snow on the ground. We taught addy to build a snow man and throw a snow ball)
When we got home the kids wrestled while we watched the BYU/UTAH game (sad day :) But we felt great about how we spent it.

So we had Daniel's work Christmas party and it's something I look forward to because it's like the one time where you kinda go all out trying to look nice (well the one time for me :) My only problem was I really have nothing that fits me since I've lost weight and haven't wanted to go shopping until I hit my goal so thanks to Steph and Comet, and my niece Ashley and a $4 shirt from Target I was able to put something together, I actually really felt good, and the night went surprisingly well. His work does this fun thing where they have wrapped gifts (that are gag gifts, and a few cheap good gifts) and then the unwrapped gifts are really nice.. like ipads, flat screen, ipods, gps, wii, xbox 360 etc. Anyways they draw out names saying this is for a wrapped gift or this is for the gps. If your name gets called and you've worked there for more than one year you can pass (one pass for every year you've worked) we had a pass this year and we passed on a wrapped gift and were really excited when our name got called for the wii. We were not expecting something good. Of course when we got home I had to kinda convince Daniel that we needed to take it back because we needed the money more plus a gaming system while going to school really isn't that great of an idea. So we took it back, but I did give in and say he can get a gaming system of his choice when he gets his bachelors. One more incentive right?

ME getting ready with my sweet Maiden Boise t-shirt!!! the oufit... and me and the hubs excited to win a prize :)

Just wanted to throw this awesome news out there! Guess who is going to nursery full time? He is such a sweet boy and is always trying to make us laugh. He also loves talking on the phone. I love how both my kids have that "quizzical brow" Love love love him!

Well that's all the update I'll do now. Though a big shout out to Comet for her birthday!!! Love her! And just found out my sister Clara had her first baby tonight at 9 pm. So excited for her and can't wait to meet sweet baby girl :)

give o give away

All I want for Christmas is to win this giveaway :) My sister in law uses this product and absolutely loves it... I really need to do something to document those cute kiddos.

Saw this on my friend Comet's blog I realize I have some I never finished that I should and some I never started that I should, and some I've never heard of that I should look into. Do you have some reading to do?

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy.
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky-not an easy read
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez...SOOOO good
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney -
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare-
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

CHRISTMAS CARDS!!!

Soooo we took all of those pictures and now are trying to get Christmas cards together. I saw this link to Shutterfly that is just for bloggers. Check it out, you just might be able to get 50 christmas cards free, and they have a ton of really cute designs.

I have ordered photo books from Shutterfly before. I love how you can just throw a book together and then order it again and again. I have waited until they have coupons and discount codes (and they always seem to have them) and have found that ordering those hardbound books are a lot cheaper than I thought and great for memories. Anyways I am excited to try their Christmas cards out. Here are a few of my fav's.

Find these HOLIDAY cards @ http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

I like the idea of a letter actually on the card, one less thing to print off or fold, and makes for interesting fridge reading eh?

I guess I like the blues this year.... maybe that's because we wore blue in the pics! I love this retro card.

I like when there is multiple pics it's just too hard to choose sometimes especially when you have kiddos.

Snowflake Reflections

Cocoa

Find these Christmas cards @

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

I like Holiday cards because I am so slow about getting the cards out but really I don't celebrate New Years that often so I like the wording of MERRY CHRISTMAS

it bugs me a little when people and commercials basically the media world just say "Holidays" come on people the reason for the season :)

Well I hope that I can get some cards and if I do maybe with the money I saved on printing I can pick a favorite family photo and get one of these: http://www.shutterfly.com/home-decor/canvas-wall-art

wouldn't the one of the us faded in the background with the kids in the forefront be some cute wall art?

30 Day Challenge

So I decided to do a 30 day journaling challenge. It is only day 3 but I have been writing in a journal everyday and also putting at least one thing that I am thankful for, for the day. I think dwelling on these positive things and concentrating on my blessings will be really good for me and hopefully can keep the holidays in perspective. Also I have been reading scriptures with Daniel every day so far, so already I am seeing the benefits of starting this. Well one thing that I am thankful for this month is a sister in law who was nice enough to take pics of our little family. Thanks Angelyn! The first two are of us getting ready to take pics the last one is just one of my favorites even though the kids aren't smiley... Addy was so whiney guess it's a tradition of hers to be grumpy for family pics :) BTW note to self, even though I've lost lots of weight picking a horizontally striped shirt was probably not the best idea hahaha oh well I'll learn. I do however fit into size 6 jeans the only problem is I don't own any, but Steph let me borrow some jeans and that was her shirt. Thanks Steph, I'm hoping Santa will let me get a new wardrobe soon :)

Unexpected

Daniel had to work this Thanksgiving so we knew that going home wasn't an option. We also knew that he'd be working Christmas Eve so we knew heading that way wasn't going to happen this holiday season. I was pretty bummed out about not going home, but I ended up suddenly going the week before Thanksgiving. My mother's brother Mark passed away very unexpectedly. Now I've talked about my cousin Caleb and his wife Steph a lot and this is Caleb's father. This is my Uncle who hauls hay and trains horses, this is the Uncle who I always thought looked like James Coburn and Arnold Schwarzennegar combined. He was really tough, the Steele's just are but Mark was what you'd call a man's man. Anyways this was so sudden, I couldn't believe it and my heart went out to my 7 cousins who just lost their father. Daniel couldn't leave he had a wedding he was the best man at so LaRae and Adam and the boys got my sister in laws Excursion and along with me and the kids we went on up there. It's sad that it takes a death to get so many people together but it was neat how many cousins were in attendance. Counting Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, cousins children, and other relatives there were over 180 relatives at the funeral...did I mention my family is huge? The funeral was really great and the kids spoke and sang they did a fabulous job (yup their tough, who else can speak 3 days after you lost your dad?) One neat thing was that in Mark's patriarchal blessing it had said he'd work every day of his life. Mark had put in more that full days of work the day before he passed, he wasn't meant to grow old and weak and spend time with walkers and wheelchairs, I found that very comforting.

So my brother Will and his wife Leslee and their kids came too so it was like we had our own little holiday with most of the family there. The night we got there we went to my town's Bingo night and had a bunch of fun. We also went to a craft fair that weekend (good job Denise :) We got to see friends and family and Snow. Caleb rode back with us and we hit a few storms. We also got stuck in a huge traffic jam not moving for at least 2 hours and then the next hour going under 25. We found out that it was a 22 car pile up and sadly a little baby girl died in this accident. I was sure glad that Adam was very cautious, and even though LaRae and I were both past our limits of patience with the kids after sitting bumper to bumper for over 2 hours and adding 4.5 hours to our trip I must hand it to Adam who was very patient and actually laughing at LaRae and I for being ready to rip our hair out. Though it was a sad reason for us to go home I was really glad that we got to go and to see so much family. I really am blessed to have such a great family and extended family.

I love my very large family!

2 of the cousins Katelyn and Keili. All of the little girl cousins had a girls night and Shayla was the baby sitter. Addy had fun!!

This is my cousins daughter Adelaide. My great grandma's name was Adelaide so here are the two Addy's. Both beautiful girls.
Our schedules were so messed up, we had to take naps where we could.
Will brought his dog Tippy. She is a portuguese water dog and is really talented and soooo soft. Addy loved her.

breakfast of Champions. My mom went up to a community Bazaar and bough 6 dozen cinnamon rolls, 5 pies, and had apple crisp and ice cream out. We laughed when she said here's breakfast. Needless to say the kids were in heaven.


How we made it with four babies on a 11 hour drive.

Headless and other Randoms

So I've been a horrid picture taker (I know that's not proper english). But I have a few really random things that I wanted to share. Addy's been big into pretending lately. She pretends to be a cat and crawls around, she pretends to be the mom "making dinner" or "going to church" she also changes her name. She tells us "I not Addy, I Cinderella" (I still can't figure that one we don't own the movie not even sure she's seen it) She has taken to wearing my heels frequently but a week ago I found her attempting (not very successfully) to wear Daddy's boots she fell about 5 times just trying to take 2 steps but her grin was priceless.

We had a flu bug go through our extended family and our own family. Dressed in my church clothes I was handed my son after Sunday dinner. As soon as he was with me he proceeded to puke for about 2 minutes straight all over my clothes. I was surprisingly calm, thankfully Daniel was not working and took Liam to the bathroom while I cleaned up, I got sick the next day and was miserable but luckily only for the day. When Steph got sick I took her kids for the day, I also took LaRae's boys one night because Adam was gone and I wanted her to have one night of peace. It was a pretty funny night. The boys did good but they wanted to sleep all in one room. I gave them a chance but Addy was to excited that her idol Tyson was there so I moved the one of the toddler mattresses into Liam's room and soon after Addy and Lincoln were asleep in their respective beds. Tyson fell asleep but then he woke an hour later crying a lot, it woke Liam up so I decided to move him into my closet. Yes, I am a mean auntie not to let him sleep in my bed (Daniel was at work) but LaRae's boys are hard to sleep with. I'm not a cuddler and they like to be right by you and they toss and turn...I actually wanted to sleep. So I put the toddler bed in my closet and he went right to sleep. Meanwhile Lincoln woke up and I went to see what was wrong, he wanted to sleep in bed with Addy so I let him. Like I said Lincoln likes to snuggle and he's really bad about having to have an arm or leg wrapped around you. So I was laughing when I saw this:
Now keep in mind my daughter is like me she doesn't sleep with people right next to her so I wasn't surprised when she woke up crying I went in to ask what was wrong and she said "I want Linky to go away!" I had to laugh at her plea for help, so I put her down on Linkys original bed. Finally everyone was set. When LaRae picked the boys up I told Tyson to tell her where he slept. He was so excited he said "Mom, I slept in Susie's closet all by myself" Made us crack up that he thought he was such a big boy, never mind the fact the closet door was open and I was sleeping 2 feet away from him :)

So last week I was pretty excited for my parents because they got to go to Italy! My mom served her mission there when it was all one mission. She hasn't been back in over 40 years. My dad had been there when he was 8 so it's been a long time for both. I am so glad they took this opportunity to go. Most people don't know before my parents met and had children they were world travelers having been and living in several different countries. But they haven't gone anywhere together so this was quite fun. They got to see one of our former foreign exchange students while they were there. And she told me my mom still spoke Italian beautifully. Way to go Momma!!!

So I forgot to post this on my Halloween post, this was the coolest costume I've ever seen. This is a family friends son. He came up with the costume himself and his dad just walked beside him as he went up and down the most populated street full of trick or treaters. It was pretty realistic and the boy said his horse was spooked when he first saw him.

Finally finished my second month on the Take shape for life program. So excited seeing myself get closer to my goals, and I feel so great!!!!

hahaa I feel like the evolution chart because Daniel took the pics farther back but you can definitely see the progress!!! Thanks Karli

October Just Flew

I can't believe it's November! Time has just flown by. Here's a little bit of what October 2010 looked like.
We savored every minute with Daddy as they were few and far between, especially one crazy work week where he worked 84 hours and went to school full time... then a week where mom went to Vegas with the kids to babysit so a few weeks of basically no daddy and it was NOT fun.

We've dressed up in crazy outfits and bright red boots to go jump in puddles because we've actually gotten a lot of rain this month.

We've danced bare bum in the rain because it was a new experience

We've dressed up for story time.

We've fallen listless on friends because we love them and because we have a huge molar coming in for the last 2 weeks that refuses to break through.

we have enjoyed some time with Aunt Comet and her new puppy dog Ray

We loved trick or treating and were pretty cute as Little bo peep and the lost sheep. We also have mastered walking :) Officially have 2 toddlers :) See little bo peep sing her song in the previous post.

Photo Giveaway

I really want to win this giveaway. Finally I found a decent photographer in St. George area. I think her infant pics are adorable!!!! Hope I win.

http://myframedphotography.com/Blog

Month 1

This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I've done but I was thinking about how many people I know could use something like this. I have had some people ask me recently what I've been doing but for those who can't see me they just have to take my word for it. I have been doing an amazing program to get healthy . Karli C is first and foremost my friend but also my health coach. I trust Karli, she inspired me to lose 40 pounds before but nothing changed mentally for me so I gained it all back. When she started this program I thought I can't do it, it's too much money. After two weeks my husband was like order again we'll figure it out. He said "I've never seen you happier and so encouraged". The book that comes with the program has been amazing, I really feel like I will be able to keep off the weight when I achieve my goal. So though I am little less than half way there I wanted to share my progress. If anyone is considering this, I say go for it. It may be expensive but it is amazing how you will feel and how you see results!!! If you are interested click on the Karli's name for the link.