Monday, December 31, 2007

What the New Year!?!

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and I sure haven’t gone and posted anything lately! Here’s the update:

We had a lovely holiday. About a week prior to Christmas we made “cookie houses” for Family Home Evening. Jack loved it (by “it” I mean eating the candy he was supposed to be putting on the candy house!). He especially loved the green “dummy” bears (aka, gummy bears). By the way, Jack has decided that green is his favorite. He likes to announce that every time something green is available. (Mommy, can I have a Skittle? I want the green one, green is my favorite!) I broke with the whole “house” theme and made a cookie and candy ship. Tyler called it the good ship lollipop, but you can clearly see that there are no lollipops on that ship.






Here are the girls in their Christmas finery. Whooo whooo.

Started on Christmas Eve with a tasty turkey dinner. Corey and Jenni once again graced us with their presence (and presents, too, but that was just a fringe benefit!).
We opened a few presents from the Birds—look how cute the kids look in their new PJ’s!

Christmas morning we opened tons of gifts, joined Tyler’s sister’s family for breakfast. We then stayed for lunch and dinner (Grandpa Larry and Grandma Diane joined us!). It was even a white Christmas—2-4 new inches before morning! The kids loved their gifts--our family and friends were extremely generous! Thank you!

This Sunday we finished up family holiday stuff with Tyler’s brother (and all the siblings that were out here for Christmas!). Oh, what fun! We didn’t bring our camera, tho, so we’re hoping to get some from family members (hint hint!).

Hope y’all had a lovely holiday. We’re kickin’ it at home this New Year’s, just put Jack to bed after a sweet party with munchies and dancing. We'll be living the crazy life and watching the latest Pirates of the Carribean. Bet you wish you’d been invited!

Jack Jack Attack


I call these two “Jack Jack attack”. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I'm taking a page from Keith and Nicci's blog and filling in the blanks for Tyler. These are the things I'm fairly sure he'd say. Anyone who's tagged us recently, count this!

4 Jobs I have had in my lifetime:
1. Fundraiser for LDS Philanthropies (it's his "real" job)
2. Seminary teacher
3. MTC Teacher
4. Landscaper

4 Films I have watched over and over again:
1. All the Star Wars movies
2. Remember the Titans ("What is pain?" "French Bread!")
3. Pirates of the Caribbean (#1)
4. Finding Nemo (Well, it was Jack's favorite for a year, so Tyler has definitely watched it over and over and over and over...)

4 Shows I would watch religiously (actually, in Tyler's case, he doesn't really watch TV ever. So, these are shows he watched regularly at some point in his life):
1. Sports Center (of course)
2. College Football (GOOOOO COUGARS!!)
3. GI Joe
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (he was just quoting from the old movie last night!)
5. Either Saved By The Bell or Full House. You might want to check with him on that one!

4 Places I have lived:
1. Provo, Utah
2. Latvia (the country)
3. Pleasantville, NJ
4. Heaven

4 Of my favorite foods:
1. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
2. chicken (esp Chicken tortilla soup or white chicken chili)
3. pretzles
4. frosted mini wheats
Oh look! Now you all know what Tyler eats almost every day!

4 Favorite colors:
1. Blue
2. Cougar Blue
3. Not red
4. green

4 Places I'd love to be right now:
1. With my wife
2. with my kids (nope, they're sleeping...so Tyler'd rather be in bed sleeping, too!)
3. Hawaii (can't wait til January!)
4. New Jersey

4 Names I love but my wife would never let me use on my own kids:
1. John (I'd only let him use it as a middle name)
2. Zintars (it's Latvian)
3. Bradley
4. umm....Ok, Tyler isn't the picky one!

4 People to tag:
1. "Beth"
2. Eddie Barfield
3. Kevin Tams
4. Ruth (get to work on your blog, girl!)

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Let's kick off the Holiday Season!!

Well, well, well, what have we here? THE HOLIDAYS!!
Of course, the official holiday season kicks off with Thanksgiving. We had great turkey for Thanksgiving (and we aren't just talking about Jenni and Corey Blaser, who supped with us). Man, BRINE THOSE BIRDS! Our 11 lb turkey was gone in less than 24 hours. The other stuff was really tasty, too. We had a very relaxingmeal (which was actually ready on time--I've witnessed my first holiday miracle!). I do enjoy making the Thanksgiving meal, but really enjoy the contributions of our guests--in this case DELICIOUS blackberry pie and pumpkin pie, as well as rolls. YUM.

Usually, we put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, this year Thanksgiving fell too early. By the time Christmas rolled around, we figured a "real" tree would be a real big messy pile of dry needles. We were supposed to get one today, but it's snowing (and who wants to try and put up a very wet tree?). Sigh. Jack, however, has LOVED the snow and built his first snowman with Daddy. He then built his second snowman with Daddy (that happened right after the first snowman was completed, kinda like snowtwins or something--but not identical snowtwins). We did buy our first snow shovel today. Sniff, what a proud moment! Now, we're like real grown ups...almost.


BYU had their employee Christmas party this morning, which meant we missed out on the Home Depot Kid's workshop. Jack thought the trade-off for Santa's lap wasn't a bad idea, but Sheridan wasn't so sure. She was great the whole hour she and I spent in line (Jack and Tyler met Cosmo the cougar, did crafts, and played in a winter wonderland, but the girls carried the day by saving a place in line so we could meet said Jolly Old Elf). Of course, the moment we got to the front of the line she started freaking out, and the second we finished we were happy. I think, perhaps, she had gas (remind her of that when she turns about 15). She did chill out for about 5 seconds when she saw Santa's beard, but other than that, she didn't feel so jolly!