Made With Love - 2009

Today we finished our handmade ornaments for 2009.  In keeping with our handprint theme, Riley created snowmen on a plain blue (shatterproof) bulb from his handprint.  We may consider making them from Kendall's hand, but not too sure how she'd enjoy me painting her hand...she always wants me to clean them when they get messy.

This next one I got the idea from a blog I follow.  I took pictures of the kids' profile, cut them out with my exacto knife, colored them black with a sharpie and modge podged them onto painted white wooden discs.  Then I hot glued some ribbon on the back and they are ready to hang on the grandparents' trees.

Popping With Appreciation For R's Teacher

In trying to come up with something clever as a Christmas gift for Riley's teacher, I ended up creating this...I bought the bowl at Ikea, broke out the cricut and created the vinyl lettering, bought microwave popcorn, movie theater sized candy and a gift card to Blockbuster.  I'm also planning on having Riley make her a card to go along with it...I know that teachers need to feel appreciated more than anything else!

Merry Christmas Mrs. L!

Home Sweet Home...

I snapped a few pictures of the house today while I was there.  I couldn't get too many because I had both kids with me by myself, but you can get a feel for how things are progressing.  Right now they are telling us we should be able to settle between 1/14-1/24.  I'm hoping it's closer to the 14th because Andy is traveling for work during the latter part of that window.  Although it wouldn't be the first time I had to do the majority of the unpacking myself!

Here is the staircase from the front of the house - standing in front of the playroom doors.  The painters were there today prepping for paint and stain.  The railings will be stained a dark color as will the hardwood floors.  The walls will be a shade of tan as well as the carpets.  There is tile in the foyer, hallway, laundry, kitchen and nook.

This is an example of the trim on the top of each doorway.  This is going to look so beautiful, especially with the high ceiling in the foyer.

This is the fireplace in the living room.  It is concrete and will be painted white.  this is a wood-burning fire place...a battle I finally won with Andy.  I know they are inefficient and messy, but nothing can compete with a roaring fire on a cold winter's night.  The sounds of the wood popping and the smell of it burning...I can't wait!

This is looking into the living room from the dining room.  The wood floors are wider plank than we've had in our homes before and I can't wait to see how they look stained.  We've also chosen a darker stain than in the past...

Here is the fireplace in our family room.  This one is also concrete and will be painted white as well.  It is a gas fireplace and will help to heat our family room and kitchen area.

This is our kitchen from the family room.  I love how the tile looks with the grout - good choice Kevin!  The railing you see on the left connects with the foyer stairs and then upstairs from the landing.

Andy and I feel so blessed to be able to afford this beautiful home.  We spent a lot of time worrying about resale and making choices to help us when the time comes...but as in the past, if it's God's plan for us to move, he'll sell our house once again.  We've decided that since we're going to have this big home, we need to make the most of it and have lots of people over.  We both agree that this home is our most favorite one yet and is going to be the hardest to leave...

Hotel Chunko is currently taking reservations...The last week in February has already been booked!  We are so excited to have company planning to visit us so soon.  Let us know if you want to come out to ski, hike, mt. bike, kayak, sight see in the numerous National Parks like Bryce, Arches or Zion, camp, etc.  There is so much to do year round...and a plus is that it doesn't feel nearly as cold as the northeast in the winter time!

All I Want For Christmas is...

Kevin and I took the kids to see Santa at a photo studio nearby.  Riley came prepared with a letter for Santa.  In his letter, he included pictures of the 3 items he asked for.  How lucky am I that he chose to ask only for 3 things!  He included the pictures because he was afraid Santa would screw up like he did last year...he brought the WRONG Speed Racer car!  Who knew there were different ones?  He asked for Morgan's Mine for his Thomas tracks, a Tonka garbage truck and a True Heros playset.

Sissy was pretty scared of Santa...When I put her on his lap, she FREAKED out!  Just as I expected though.  The photographer did a great job of capturing the moment.  Here's a peek at her first visit with Santa (well, actually her second visit, but last year she slept through it!)

Snow Much Fun!

After three days of snow, I finally got around to buying us some new sleds.  There is a nice sledding hill at a park nearby so I bundled up the kids and myself and we headed across town.  Uncle Kevin met us there today which was a great treat!  Riley had a great time trying to go over a jump made out of a bale of straw.  He missed it more than he hit it, but he had a blast.  He and Uncle Kevin hit it together and Riley flew off and rolled and Kevin ended up going over him!  Thank goodness he got up laughing!

He and I went down together and spun around in a 360 then both went rolling down the hill together.  We also attempted the jump together and I held onto him and not the sled so we both launched off the sled and landed on top of mom!  I am thankful the snow made a good cushion.

I didn't realize that it would be so much work to carry a bundled up toddler and a sled back up the hill each time.  I think I need to tie a rope to the sleds so I can drag them back up with me next time!

Afterwards, we stopped at Artic Circle for a candy cane milkshake.  We split it between the three of us - Kendall hogging most of it and then snuggled up to watch Elmo's Christmas Countdown together.  What a great afternoon.  I am so blessed to have two wonderful children who bring me such joy!

Watch out!  Here he comes!  He can't steer!

Whew!  He made it down without crashing!

All Is Calm...All Is Bright

At one of the local stakes, they put on a live nativity.  We decided to take the kids to check it out.  It is similar to the Walk Through Bethlehem we did last year in Ponte Vedre.  This one you had to wait in line and walk by and through the scenes.  It was well done.  They had small fire pits through out the line to keep you warm and they had people dressed in costume walking around with their goats which kept Kendall's attention.  Riley liked the costumes and scenery while Kendall got most excited about the animals.  It is a great way to show the kids how people lived during the time when Jesus was born.

This is us waiting our turn in the very long line.  Thank goodness we got there early or the we would have waited longer!

Here are the wise men.  They also had a scene with someone writing while the Christmas story was being told via speakers.

They had 2 camels there and K went NUTS!  This one actually started to get close to her, but Andy got nervous that it would spit on them.  She was disappointed when Andy took her away from it!

She was in pure heaven here.  I have to say I was too - I love calves.  It was so soft and K loved to pet it.  She could have stayed there petting the calf all night.  There was a dog inside this pen with the calves and it barked every time kids tried to climb up on the fence!

She loved petting the goats as well.  Maybe she'll be a vet when she grows up?

All in all it was a great night.  Cold, but worth it for the kids to see what life was like over 3000 years ago and the type of world Jesus was born into.

She Can't Get Enough...

After our elf hunt today, we headed over to the house for our daily check in to see what progress was made.  It was almost dinner time and I didn't have anything prepared for a meal so we decided to go out to dinner.  So we headed over to Goodwood BBQ.  Kendall is rather picky at mealtime.  But they had something on the menu we knew she'd like.  Her new favorite is onion rings...

These were a hit, but a bit big for her little mouth!  She didn't give up though!

The Outside Is All But Complete

Now you can get a better look at our soon to be new home.  They have a little bit of work to do outside - like around the foundation, grading the yard, etc.  They should be finished with sanding the tape by early next week.  The tile should be started on Wednesday, then the hardwood goes in, followed by the finished carpentry/trim.  After that it should fly...I really hope!  Andy's even starting to feel cramped in our tiny apt. and he's not here for more than a few hours a day!  I'm thinking some flower boxes at the garage windows would look pretty...

Elf Scavenger Hunt

We visited Gardner Village today.  We were there this fall to go on their witch scavenger hunt and had such a blast, we decided to return for their elf scavenger hunt.  Riley and Kendall enjoy looking for the different elves they have on display there.  We did some window shopping along the way.  They have some wonderful stores, but I behaved and didn't purchase anything other than some hot cocoa and a cookie for each of us when we completed our task.

Here is Riley with an elf selling candy canes

This was one of my favorites.  The elf is hanging upside down while trying to place the star on top of the tree.  Check out the ice on the old mill!  It's so cool!

This elf was privy to the "naughty" and the "nice" list.  We tried to see if Riley's name was on either one!

Daddy took this picture of Mommy and Riley kissing under the mistletoe.  Unfortunately he forgot to include the elf holding the mistletoe in the picture!

I forgot to mention that it was a balmy 27 degrees out today when we started out elf hunt.  The winds picked up and snow started to fall, but we just darted into some of the stores to keep warm.  The hot cocoa felt great as a treat afterwards!

Christmas Fun...

We took the kids to Thanksgiving point to see the Christmas lights they have on display.  It was the kind that you drive through.  The kids enjoyed seeing the display while listening to Christmas music.

Afterwards, we went to see the reindeer that they had in a small pen.  Kendall went NUTS over the reindeer.  She screamed when I took her away from them to go into the store to get some hot chocolate!  She reminds me of a certain relative who also loves animals...

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

Our original plan was to buy a little Charlie Brown type tree to decorate with strung popcorn and paper chains, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized we have NO room for a tree in our cramped little apt.  The other issue is even if we did make room, Sissy would find a way to destroy it!  So we had to compromise and this is what we did instead:

Riley painted a piece of poster board green and then we cut it out.  I then cut out the cute lights and Christmas balls with my Cricut and let Riley glue them on to the tree.  It's currently taped on to our wall in the family room.  Daddy's only issue with our tree is that there isn't a train under the tree...We've ALWAYS had a train under our tree, but Riley said "I guess we'll just have to wait until next year Dad!"  Seems like he's satisfied with our make-shift tree!  Maybe we'll give it a trunk yet...

Here it is...

They've been working on the exterior, but the interior seems to be moving incredibly slow. They should be putting up the tape and mud today, but I'm not holding my breath. We're meeting with the new project manager Friday morning to discuss the progress or lack there of...I can't wait to get out of this cramped apt and into our beautiful new home...

Our Visit With Santa

There is a photographer out here who has a studio in her house and has "Santa" come to visit.  She sets up two afternoons of photo ops.  She schedules 4 kids every 15 minutes and for $10/child, you kid gets to visit with Santa and get their photo taken.  You also get a 4x6 included in your fee.

Uncle Kevin went with us to see K's first real visit with Santa.  Last year at Kiawah, she was sleeping in his arms so it was peaceful...not the same today.  She played hard to get with him at first.  She only got close enough to touch his jingle bell bracelet and then go running back to the safety of Uncle Kevin.  I then held her next to Santa and she started screaming bloody murder!  It got worse when I put her on his lap.  Poor kid got traumatized today!  But I expected she'd freak out so no surprise there.

Riley on the other hand was very prepared.  He had a letter for him containing a list of his top 3 items including the pictures we took at Toys R Us.  He didn't want Santa to get it wrong!  He acted a little goofy, but it was because he was nervous.

I can't wait to see what the pictures look like.  We won't get to see them until Dec. 7th!

After seeing Santa, we drove over to a Christmas tree lot that had some reindeer in a pen.  K loves reindeer...well, she loves just about ANY animal.

Sissy and her "boyfriend" checking out the reindeer.

Riley sitting in Santa's sleigh while chomping on his first candy cane of the season.

It's Riley the Red-Vested Reindeer!

Our First Visit To Temple Square

Being that we're living in Utah, we figured we'd better at least visit Temple Square while we live here.  What better time than to see it at night while it's lit up for Christmas.  We started our night by meeting Uncle Kevin & Aunt Cara at the Trax station in Sandy.  We all boarded the train and headed to Temple Square.  It's nice that the light rail has a station right out front.

When we got there, we entered the South Visitor's Center.  They had a number of displays explaining their beliefs and how they came to Utah and how they built the Temple.  There was a group of singers performing there as well so we took in part of the show.

This is a view of the southwest corner of the temple in Salt Lake City.  It's such a pretty building.  From what I understand the stone used to build it came from Little Cottonwood Canyon.

This is a view of the southeast corner of the temple.

This is the northeast corner from the garden.  I'm not clear as to what exactly takes place inside the LDS temples, but I do know that "heathens" like me are not allowed in.  You must have a temple recommend from your ward bishop to enter.  I know some people get married and sealed in the temples and that they baptize for the dead here.

This is the entire temple from the northeast side.  This building reminds me of a castle.  It's got such beautiful architecture.  I really like the lights at the top.  It's so neat at night.  There are 3 temples we can see from where we are in Utah.  They are all lit up at night and look so pretty, but they don't have nearly the same architecture as this one.

Riley sitting in front of the fountain by the visitor's center.

This is a view of Assembly Hall with all the lights on the trees.  This building is really beautiful from the outside as well.

This is the Tabernacle where the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs.  We got to take a peek inside between concerts tonight.

This is at the pond in the gardens just outside the walls around the temple.  Still haven't found out why they have walls built up around Temple Square.  Seems like they want to keep people out instead of invite them in...must investigate that one.

They had little balls floating in the water that were illuminated.

The water was so pretty reflecting all the lights on the trees.

The front of the temple.  I think someone mentioned that this temple took something like 40 years to build?  No wonder.  Looks like it was worth the wait.

We snuck inside Assembly Hall during a performance.  I got scolded for taking this picture so hope you enjoy it!

So many lighted trees around Temple Square.

And what visit would be complete without a bagpipe playing Santa?

It was a great time with awesome friends.  The lights were beautiful!  It was a little bit on the crowded side - we were hoping that the Utah/BYU football game would keep some of the crowd away, but the concerts and the lights being turned on last night, and a holiday weekend, probably had a lot to do with it.  On the lawn between the tabernacle and the north visitor's center, they had a nativity scene.  It was narrated and had beautiful music to go along with the show.  They lit up parts of the scene as the story played over the speakers.  It was nice to show Riley that.  Didn't quite match up with the "Trip Through Bethlehem" in Ponte Vedre last year, but it was neat.  Andy wants to go back again without the kids so we can take in the lights and then go out on the town afterwards.  Even the streets of Salt Lake City were lined with pretty blue lit trees.  The Salt Palace has a HUGE light tree in the glass window that you can see from numerous sides.

I wouldn't mind taking a tour of Temple Square at some point just to learn a little bit more about LDS beliefs and get a closer look at the buildings.  Not sure they match up exactly with what we believe, but it's always good to understand what and how other people believe.  Maybe I'll do some family tree research while I'm there!  The LDS church has a building where you can go to research your family tree for free.  They have tons of information - I assume it has to do with the baptisms, but I'm not sure.  They may have the answers to my Dad's Dombach or Gerlach side or my mom's Stauffer side.

There is so much to see and do here!  Last night we took the kids to Thanksgiving Point (where Corn Bellies was and where the Dinosaur museum is located) to drive through their Christmas light display.  They also had a small pen filled with Santa's reindeer which K screamed when we took her away from it!  She didn't know what they were, but she loves "ga-gas"!  Silly Sissy!

So Much To Be Thankful For...

I have a lot of friends on Facebook who are using their status to share what they are thankful for this year.  I thought I'd post mine here for all of our friends and family to see.

I am thankful for...

a relationship with Christ and the gift of grace

my wonderful husband who works so hard so I can stay home with our children and continues to love me no matter what insane things I say or do

my little man who is my very own miracle - you'd never know the hurdles he's overcome in 5 short years

Sissy - who brings me so much joy with just a smile

two incredible parents who have supported me through every challenge in my life

a brother who is independent and strong and loves his little girl more than anything in the world

a roof over our heads - as cramped as we are, I am still grateful for a place to stay that allows us our dog and a short term lease and is located within the boundaries of Riley's school.

a new car that doesn't make any noise when I make turns

friends who accept us into their family and love of us as if we were family

my computer to allow me to keep in touch with those who are far away from us

an incredible church family in Florida who helped prepare me for this new chapter in my life

finding a new church to attend in Utah...that's not an easy task out here

warm blankets to snuggle under with my man while watching football

the smell of food baking in my oven because it means we have enough to eat

doggie kisses on my hand in the morning as an alarm

friends from childhood who still love me and don't judge me

friendships I've made while living away from the comfort of home and family

snuggles from the munchkins

my camera for it allows me to capture the moments in my children's lives and preserve them so we can look back on them and laugh or cry or smile

phone calls from friends who I haven't spoken to in awhile...it's nice to know you're missed

hand written letters in the mail

the smell of fall in the air

Toddler Gym - where I met my best girlfriend

14 years of wedded bliss

leaf peeping

toilet seats & lids that are kept in the down position

the smell of a newborn baby

our soon to be new home so we can spread out and have room for the kids to run

out of town guests

sweet tea - although I haven't had any "real" sweet tea since August 12th when Leigh brought me a gallon from Angies

Riley liking his new school

being able to meet new friends in Utah and feeling like I belong in a rather short time

"I love you Mom"

being able to share my children with their grandparents

back rubs

4 wheel drive

beautiful mountains out my back door

long, hot baths with a good book and a glass of wine

beautiful snow covered branches

listening to Riley read to his Daddy

sunshine to warm my skin

digging my toes in the sand

the laughter of children

junior mints

a big bowl of popcorn to share with my kids and the dog while watching a movie

a steaming mug of hot chocolate

the sound of "Da Da!  Da Da!  Da Da!" when the door unlocks at 5:30 pm

service men and women who keep me safe and allow me all the freedoms I enjoy

the families of those service men and women who sacrifice more than we can imagine

the smell of my Nanny Hershock's dried corn recipe

a place to go home to

We're wishing all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We hope that you are surrounded by loved ones today and are able to spend some time reflecting on the things in your life for which you are thankful.