Happy Birthday Dad and Parker

Matt and Parker both had birthday's this week. The energy that goes in to two birthdays back to back is tough! There is a lot to do, a lot of pre-planning that needs to happen, and a lot of shopping! Matt took the day off, and spent it up in the mountains snowshoeing with Molly. I had a big Relief Society function that night, so he then took the kids out to his parents for a birthday dinner. Who better to spoil him on his birthday than his own Mom when I couldn't? I was glad he had somewhere to go and yummy food to eat.

All Parker wanted for his birthday this year was a motorcycle and another garbage truck. He got the motorcycle, but we went a different route and got him this "Rescue Hero" set that is so great! It's this huge package that comes with a fire trick, boat, helicopter, motorcycle and tons of rescue hero's (fire-fighters). It was perfect for him. He was in heaven when he opened it, and has played non-stop with it.

Parker doesn't eat much of anything. His favorite meals are mac & cheese, peanut butter and jelly, occasionally ramen, and cereal. He'd eat fruit snacks all day long if I'd let him! I seriously don't know how he survives half the time. So for his birthday I had been asking him for days what he wanted. I thought we had it figured out, he said "meatballs and noodles" so I was going for that. He changed his mind and wouldn't agree to anything! I finally showed him one of my cookbooks, and he looked at the pictures until he found "Hallowieners." It is a hot dog, with a "snake" around it. I am not a crafty mom, so this was the best I could do to replicate it. He loved it, that's all that matters! He also wanted green Jell-O and an Iron Man cake.

Here are just of the few things I LOVE about my Parkie!

• The way he talks (talks with his hands, scrunches his noes, and speaks with a "Boston" accent, no joke)
• He loves to snuggle
• He prefers me to Matt (a REAL Mommy's boy)
• Says "of course" when I ask him to do something for me
• Is super shy around people he doesn't know well, and tries not to smile in front of them (which means he'll bury his head in to me with a huge grin on his face)
• Parker has such a sweet disposition, and will typically share without being asked to (he is famous for saying daily, "Here you can have it."
• His missing tooth!
• His skinny little legs
• His love for books and a good story
• His excitement for school days!
• The way he pretends (making motorcycle noises, explosion noises, crashing noises, etc.)

Christmas Tree 2010

We had such a great Thanksgiving at Steve and Mandy's this year. We enjoyed being together and eating the traditional feast: turkey, stuffing, yams, corn, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, lemon pie and rainbow jell-o. It was a little strange not having Grammy and Grandpa here, but it was nice to spend time with Steve and Mandy and their family, Eric and Katie and their family, and Trent, Janice and our family. I don't have any pictures of the day, how sad! It was really tasty though!

The next morning (after an-alnighter of shopping at Toys-R-Us, Target, Kmart, Toys-R-Us again) we headed off to the mountains to chop down our tree. This year we packed for the cold. We had everything we'd need for sub zero temperatures. It actually turned out to be really nice! The temp was in the mid 30's (at home it was around 19). In all our winter packing we forgot to bring the back pack for Aubrey, so I spent the time sledding with kids while Matt kept on treking through the forest to find the perfect tree! He picked a great one!

Here is our cute little tree. This is 24 hours after it was decorated and already looks like the kids have "re-decorated" it. The point is they had fun, and they love to help decorate the tree.

Girls Weekend

Happy Birthday to Joan-e-joan! Joan came in from Pittsburgh just to celebrate with us (sorry Chad, either you have to send her to us or we come to you, you never get her to yourself on her birthday!). This is a cute flower cake Chad sent her on her birthday. It was such a cute and fun surprise. My kids were obsessed with it and wondered if we could eat it (it even had candles in it).

We of course had to go get pedicures!



We went shopping, ate at cheesecake factory, ate TONS of candy, watched girl movies, and enjoyed a great weekend without kids! And yes I did eat my entire dinner there.



We ended the weekend at the cemetery to visit Joyce. Joan bought her this cute bouquet of birthday balloons. We stayed there for a while and had a few more laughs and tears. Their birthday will always be a favorite of mine! I get to spend it with my best friends, and I know Joyce is there too! There's no way she'd miss out on a fun sister's party. I always feel like where ever Joan is, Joyce is there too!

Halloween & Fall Stuff

A huge thank you to Sara! She did Amber's hair and makeup. She brought over her big bag of supplies early Thursday morning so we could get Amber ready for her school parade. What would I do without good friends? Honestly, Sara is a champ and I was so grateful for her. Amber was so excited to look pretty. Sara pulled out a can of hairspray from her bag, and Amber said "What's that?" Is that sad or what that my 5 1/2 year old daughter has never seen a can of hairspray!!!!

Doesn't she look awesome? Seriously I think Sara should do hair and makeup professionally!

"Iron Man" was being a little camera shy and wouldn't wear his mask.

Amber looked so beautiful as a "Halloween Fairy." This is Amber with some of her school friends.

We finally convinced Parker to put on his mask. Aubrey wanted to pose with her brother and sister. She is such a copy cat and does what ever Parker and Amber do.

This was my attempt to re-create Sara's look. I couldn't do the hair, I tried and tried and ran out of time so we had to leave it down...but she still looks beautiful!

Parker had made up his mind at least a month ago he wanted to be Iron Man. He sure looked cute. I saw quite a few other Iron Man's out there...Spencer for one, and Jake a friend from Preschool and Jackson Loveland too!

Aubrey was obsessed with her costume. I told her it was a ladybug, and she said "EW" because she doesn't like any sort of bugs. But as soon as I showed her how cute she looked in it, she wouldn't take it off. She kept saying "hold you" when it was off, which was her way of saying "put it on please!" It was so cute. We went to get family pictures Saturday morning. When she saw her costume out, she started screaming "HOLD YOU" and freaked out because we wouldn't put it on! What a way to start picture day!

Halloween was such a joke this year! We had planned to meet up with friends around 5:00/5:30. So we were ready at 5:45 and headed up the road. Just as we got to our first house, it started to pour rain! Matt got called in to work so I was on my own with the three kids and our dog, and it was literally pouring! We made it to two streets and called it quits! Aubrey was soaked through and through. Matt caught up with us and we headed straight for the car. We went to our friend Abby's mom, Marsha Roger's neighborhood, so we could "meet the witches" and then hung out the rest of the night with Abby and her family. It was fun at that point because we were indoors, eating yummy food and watching the U game. It ended well! The kids had a great time eating candy and playing with friends and we enjoyed it for the same reasons. So although it rained hard and we got very little candy, we still had a great time and enjoyed the night.

We went for a drive a few weeks ago to admire the fall colors. We tried our best to get some pictures of the kids, however just as we got out of the car it started to rain (not to mention we had to wake Parker up) so we didn't get one of the three of them, but did get individual pictures. It was such a beautiful drive! We went up Payson Canyon and saw where Matt spent his summer scouting for Elk (and where he eventually got one). The colors were all so beautiful and bright. I wished the weather would have cooperated more so we could get more pictures.