Trimming the Tree

Erin loves the glow of the lights!

The kids hanging their ornaments as we watched Polar Express

Erin so proud of her two year old self! Notice all of her ornaments weighing down the bottom branches...

Thanksgiving Fun

So this was my first year to actually "host" Thanksgiving dinner. My parents, Laura & Brent, & Amber came for the occassion. Everything turned out super yummy! We ate till we were stuffed and headed to the park to burn off some energy before heading over to Laura's where we had desserts galore! I wasn't so great at getting pictures of everyone else but here were a few I did get of my family.

Diva's for a Day

Emma's gal pal Tara had a Diva party to celebrate her birthday. The girls had so much fun putting on make-up, getting their hair done and dressing up. The best part was strutting their stuff down the red carpet for the fashion show!

She looked a little too grown up for my taste but this was right up her alley! She was such a poser!

Erin didn't want to be left out! She and Maleah kept right up with the big girls! They were so cute!

Halloween Fun

I'm a little late on this one but I had a good excuse. I haven't had my camera all week! The kids had a fun halloween though. Grandma Pam came to help them celebrate. She got them from school and suprised them with lots of fun treats! We got all decked out and headed over to the outlet mall to meet up with some friends and trick-or-treat. So their pumpkins were full by 5:30! Grandma took them out trick-or-treating around the neighborhood too so we had quite the stash of candy and grandma got quite the workout! One of the highlights of the night is a house down the street that sets up their telescope each halloween night and gives their guests quite a treat.....a view of the moon - craters and all! Emma especially enjoyed this as she had been studying the sun & moon that very week.

I was very suprised this year that the kids wanted to actually dress up "halloweeny". So I had two cute little witches and one handsome vampire.

seems that witches were quite popular this year...... Emma & Erin with Tara & Maleah

Erin trick-or-treating with grandma and lugging around her "diaper bag" as she called it while doing everything to avoid having her picture taken.

The next day we went and played putt-putt with grandma, Laura & Annabeth. The big boys went to the "real" golf course. It was a beautiful day! Notice how much Erin just loves posin' for pictures. She was not happy anytime we tried to get a picture this weekend.

The girls with one of the elephants

Pumpkin Patch

So when our summer harvest of vegetables was over we decided to try our hand at our very own pumpkin patch in hopes of carving a home grown pumpkin this year. We purchased a pack of seeds for $2.75 and got busy planting. Each day Ryan and Erin went out and watered and took such good care of our little patch. The plants grew and grew covering a whole corner of our yard. We thought things were going well. We saw lots of yellow blossoms but they just never turned into pumpkins!!! When it was all said and done this is all we had..........

Three little pumpkins! That was it! I was at the grocery store the other day and they had similar size pumkins priced at 78 cents! I could have bought three for a grand total of $2.34 meaning cheaper than the seeds. So you would think that we wasted alot of time, money & energy on this little experiment and honestly we probably won't try again next year but Erin sure did love going out each night with daddy to check on "her" pumpkin and water it. So I guess it wasn't all bad but we aren't cut out to be farmers that's for sure!

Week(s) in Review..

The last couple of weeks have just been crazy busy! Here is just a sampling of the past couple of weeks....


Brent & Laura are finally here! We are so happy to have a little more family here in Texas! They are just about 20 mins. away so not too bad. Brent was out of town this last week training so Laura and I got down to buisness and started painting! In just 2 days, we were able to tackle the family room, entry and Annabeth's room and it looks awesome if I do say so myself.


I have survived work this last week. We had a 2:30am newline night at Gymboree and somehow my measly little 2 shifts, 8 hours a week turned into 36 hours for a 2 week pay period!


We also made it through the primary program this Sunday with only a few setbacks....we had one kiddo throw up on the back row. The kiddos around him were great just all scooting down and continued on despite the smell. He left and cleaned himself up and returned to do his part. His sweet grandpa cleaned it up and apoligized saying it was his fault because they had a sleepover the night before and he prob. gave him too much junkfood. Isn't that what grandparents are for? Honestly, I didn't know that it had even happened until after the program so hopefully no one else noticed either. I am just glad it is all over! They did a great job as well as our presidency. I feel very blessed to work with such amazing, smart and talented women! My favorite part of the program would prob. be our closing song. It was 'A Child's Prayer'. The kids sang the first verse and the congregation the second and then with everyone singing together. Amazing!


Seth and Ryan went to the BYU vs. TCU game in Fort Worth. It turned out to be an extremely long night and without reward! They lost 32-7!!! Seth just enjoyed being out with dad. One thing that I do think is pretty cool is that when BYU is on the road they put on a fireside for the youth the night before the game. Ryan took Seth with him. I think Ryan was just as excited to see "real" football players as Seth was. They spoke on being disciples of Christ. The icing on the cake was to meet a few players after as well as Coach Mendenhall who Ryan has great admiration for. Seth even got a few of their autographs....in fact there were even a few kids that asked for Ryans autograph. Guess they thought the big & tall guy must be a player. As you can imagine Ryan was flattered.



Here are a few of the signatures Seth got. Notice Bronco's at the top!

Birthdays....

Seth is now officially in the double digits!! I still can't believe I have a ten year old. Just look at how tall he is. He stands almost a head taller than most of his friends! He isn't far behind me in height now either. We can even wear the same size shoe!!! Seems this is all just going by too fast.....He had a great birthday! The older that he gets the more low-key it is. This year he just wanted to go to Gatti-town with some friends. It is an all you can eat pizza buffet with an arcade, rides and other games. They did their own thing, only stopping to find me when they were out of money on their cards. He got everything he wanted....guitar hero, new football, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and of course money. I am amazed at how good he is with his money. He is my little saver.

My Birthday was just a week after Seth's. I was lucky enough to have family from Missouri here to celebrate with! Ryan's Grandma Smith, Aunt Sandy and Uncle Bill came bearing gifts. We had a great night visiting and Emily spoiled us with a great Kabob dinner and made my favorite cake - a spice cake! We even had time to play dominoes. Grandma Smith stayed in Texas for the week while Sandy and Bill headed down to San Antonio. We had a great time visiting with her. We were able to try out some fun new restaurants. Erin warmed up really quick and loved to show off for her Great-Grandma.