Oh there's no place like home for the holidays.....

And to me, home still is Utah. Sorry Washington people, but when I've lived here for 28 years, then I'll consider home WA. But we are leaving tomorrow for Utah and kicking off the holidays with Thanksgiving and Christmas at my moms. I am overly excited and not bothered by the fact that I still need to pack, get the laundry done, and a few odds and ends. I am excited to see my family and play games. We are a game playing family and I am very excited. May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with an endless supply of rolls.

Makes you think

My brother Dan, is a mortician in St. George Utah. Last night he sent me the following email.

Click on the print to make it larger. It's pretty sad and makes you think about your life. Say 10 kind things today.

Disney on ice

I took the kids to see Disney on ice Friday night. It was so fun! We went with my good friend Lisa and her 2 girls. It was a very loud car ride there, but once we were all inside the kids got excited. The lights dimmed and Mickey and Minnie came out, sending Nat into a waving frenzy. She was so excited she pulled herself up in my lap and stayed there the rest of the night. They both thought it was pretty awesome, as did I. We saw Lightning McQueen, Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Tinkerbell with her pixie friends. The kids were clapping and waving and eyes were glued to the ice the whole time.

At intermission we hit the Disney booths. We came away with a Lightning McQueen snocone, and a Little Mermaid light up wand. After Mason finished his snocone, he's looking to throw his cup away. I told him that we are keeping the cup, for sure. Because as you can imagine, the soncone wasn't $2.00. We'll use that cup until the cows come home!

Anyway, it was alot of fun and I'm glad the kids enjoyed it. All the kids crashed on the way home, which made for a very pleasant car ride. What a fun time!

Moron...

Really this is the only title I can think of that fits with what I'm about to say. I found myself at Toys R Us this morning looking around and thinking maybe I'd get a jump on Christmas shopping. While cruising the aisles, I found a Disney princess umbrella. Good for 2 reasons:
1. It rains in Washington
2. It's on Nat's list for Santa.
I sneakily open it up and make sure it's good, put it in the cart, and cover it with my purse. As we go to check out I distract her with something so she won't see the umbrella. I put it on the counter, lean forward and whisper to the clerk," Could you please put this in a seperate bag? Thanks". She WHISPERS back "Sure no problem." Of course I grabbed the umbrella with no bar code on it and she can't ring it up. I tell her it the price, but no she has to ring it in the computer, so what does she do? Grabs the loud phone and booms over the speaker, " I need a price check on a Disney princess umbrella." Nat runs over and sees her holding her precious gift and starts asking if it's for her. And " I really would like to borrow that princess umbrella because I just love princesses mommy. I really do." MORON!!! Big huge MORON!! I lie to my child and tell her it must be for someone else because we can't get an umbrella today. Luckily I blamed it on the fact that, at that exact moment it wasn't raining so we didn't need an umbrella.


Work with me people, work with me! Seriously. Moron.

Halloween mixed with a schmidge of religion

I know, you're all thinking,'How can Halloween and religion be tied together?' I'll get to that. But first on to Halloween!! Tyler is wearing his Harley skull mask, which actually is pretty scary. I am Dorothy of course. I've been Dorothy since 1994. Classics never die. Stick with what works. Mason wanted to be a ghost "Just like on Charlie Brown with the two eyes cut out". Simple and easy. I did paint his face white to make him look ghost like. Natalie, of course is a princess. Cinderella this year. And the Dal Pal is a Utah State basketball player.

If you look close you can see the Utah State logo on the bottom of his runners. We had trunk or treat at the church followed by a chili and cornbread dinner. MMMM tasty! The kids got good candy this year. No gum ( I don't like gum) no junk candy like chewy gross, umm chewy gross candy. But lots of chocolate bars and licorice sticks. We went out Halloween night and got a few more treats to add to the stash. The hit of the night was the lady who handed out twisty straws. After that, the kids were done, wanting to go home and have a drink with their new straw. We've combined both buckets of candy into one big basket and are eating them at free will. MMMMM tasty treats! No one comes to our house for Halloween. To tired maybe to walk down the driveway- it's pretty long. Or because we live on the corner and there's no where to park. We did have my friend Ali stop by with her two cute girls and we gave them full size Canadian Crispy Crunch bars. It's like Butterfinger times 10! So, if you want a full on bar of good chocolate, take the time to come down the driveway!

And because I'm a mother, and mothers love their kids, I simply must share this story as I'm so proud of Mason I could burst right this very minute. He invited his friend Phoebe from first grade to the ward trunk or treat. She's not a member. After candy and dinner, they had games set up for the kids to play in the gym. Mason came up to me and said," Mom, when Phoebes done with her game can I take her out in the hallway and show her the pictures of Jesus?" Instant burst of proudness from everything in me! I said"Of course you can! What a great idea." I watched as she finished her game, Mason told her to follow him, and then watched the two of them walk out into the hallway where my son, my sweet 6 year old boy, took her around the whole church pointing out the pictures on the wall of Jesus and the Prophets.

Yes, I'm so proud I can hardly stand it! I had to share. I just had to. Now, on to Thanksgiving!