Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year at Marc and Frances’ house. They invited us all there so they didn’t have to take the babies away from home for an entire day. (And of course, we all took advantage of the time with the girls!)

We enjoyed spending the day there. We took our Wii and played Guitar Hero, boxing, and Smooth Moves. Frances’ mom and dad and sister (Janell) were there. Janell had her wisdom teeth pulled the day before, so she was slightly miserable, but was a good sport to play Wii games and other fun activities with Ryan. The most entertaining part of our Thanksgiving meal was Mom’s fruit turkey. She has been making a fruit whale in the summer and a vegetable Christmas tree for years. This year she branched out to a new holiday for produce decoration.The table was beautiful, the food was great, and the company was the best. We had a wonderful Thanskgiving!

Thanks to Frances for the picture of all of us!

Bad Game, Good Party

I’ve been tempted just to let this whole thing blow over. You know, that thing last Saturday that we keep referring to as a game. But I will acknowledge it. Mainly because we had so much fun watching it! Ryan and Mom and Dad and I went to Marc and Frances’ house and watched it with them, the girls, and Frances’ parents. We all took yummy food to share, so that obviously made it more bearable, too.

Most of you know that I am the only BYU grad in my family. My mom has two degrees from the U, and Marc’s Bachelor’s degree is from the U. Luckily, my dad has been on the blue side of the fence my whole life. We also enjoyed 11 years of Cougar football season tickets together.

It was a good thing that we watched the game at Marc and Frances’ house. Playing with the girls was distracting enough that the outcome of the game wasn’t quite as painful.

Speaking of painful, Alice was born with clubbed feet, and she got her first casts last week. This set is on for 10 days, and then she gets new casts about weekly for about nine weeks. At that point, she will have to have her Achilles tendons cut (I KNOW!), and new casts for a while. Ryan enjoyed drawing on her casts throughout the evening.

One Word

This has been forwarded to me a couple of times. I'll just post my answers here. If you'd like to play along, feel free to post your answers on your blog.

1. Where is your cell phone? Counter
2. Where is your significant other? ??? (If you know, will you please send him?)
3. Your hair? Reddish
4. Your mother? Teacher
5. Your father? Bishop
6. Your favorite thing? Family
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your dream/goal? PhD
9. The room you're in? Living
10. Your fear? Tragedy
11. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here?
12. Where were you last night? Home
13. What you're not? Bitter
14. Muffins? Poppyseed
15. One of your wish list items? Plasma
16. Where you grew up? Bountiful
17. The last thing you did? Email
18. What are you wearing? Sweats
19. Your TV? Sufficient
20. Your pet? Fish
21. Your computer? Four
22. Your life? Busy
23. Your mood? Relieved (HUGE paper is submitted!)
24. Missing someone? No
25. Your car? SUV
26. Something you're not wearing? Makeup
27. Your summer? Yellowstone
28. Love someone? Yep
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? ?
32. Last thing you ate? Cashews
33. Favorite store? woot.com (Or Coldwater Creek, but that's two words)

The cutest girls I know!

Frances had fun dressing the babies up and taking pictures for a family calendar. She gave me permission to post some of my favorites here.

Pssst...Alice...wanna hear a secret? (My favorite.)

Eskimo kiss... (Ryan's favorite, and now his wallpaper on his laptop.)

Our little angels...

The girls are ready for our next trip to Hawaii!

THE KITCHEN IS FINISHED!!!

It's so nice to be able to fix a meal in the nice, warm house instead of on the cold back porch! It turned out beautiful. The pictures don't do it justice. Feel free to drop by and see it in person!

It's almost done!!!

My kitchen should be finished within the next couple of days! I'm SO excited! Now that it's snowing, cooking on the porch just doesn't have the same "roughing it" charm.

Here are some "before" and "during" pictures. The "after" pictures should be posted soon!

Halloween Extended Sugar High

We had a fun Halloween week. On Wednesday, we had our ward (church) Trunk or Treat. The upper parking lot of our church was completely full of parents' and other ward members' cars. I think just about every Primary kid was there. I took four bags of candy, and only came home with three pieces! Needless to say, Ryan's bag was completely full. It was also fun to see that our little friend Quinn also dressed up as Davy Crockett.
On Thursday, Ryan's school had their Halloween parade. Thursday evening, Ryan attended the birthday party of his friend, Isaac. They had fun telling spooky stories and doing other fun Halloween-themed activities. We also made our annual Halloween visit to our next-door-neighbor, Darlene.

We have a few Halloween traditions. The care center where my Great-Uncle Jim and Great-Aunt Flora live have a trick-or-treat time in the afternoon. We stopped there to see them, and Ryan was thrilled that Amy was there visiting her grandma and grandpa. For those of you who haven't read this post, Amy is a former Miss Utah. Ryan is her biggest fan!
We left the care center, and went to the Main Street trick-or-treating. Not only is it fun walking up and down Main Street, there are also a lot of fun photo ops.
After Main Street, we went to Colonial Square. We like trick-or-treating there because of all of the non-candy items the merchants give. Most of them give coupons for their products and services. We also had fun visiting with our dentist, who is also our bishop.

We went to Rara and Papa's for dinner, and then Ryan had a new fun experience and break from our Halloween tradition. My dad is the bishop of a young adult singles' ward. His executive secretary is engaged. He and his fiancee asked if they could take Ryan trick-or-treating. They took Ry out for a couple of hours, and were thrilled to come home with their haul, including several king-sized candy bars! WOW! Every year, I "budget" Ryan's candy so he doesn't eat it all in a few days. We can usually stretch it out until Christmas!
Our final stop on Halloween night was to the home of our great friends, Jerry and Linda Davies. We only see them a couple of times a year, but we always make sure that we see them on Halloween. Jerry works for Hostess, and they give Twinkies and Ding Dongs for Halloween. They always make sure to send Ryan home with a whole bag of Twinkies and Ding Dongs.
The best part of the week was that Alice was released from Primary Children's Medical Center on Thursday! We are all so glad that she is back home. On Saturday, we went to Marc and Frances' for dinner and to see the girls. We hadn't seen Claire since Alice was admitted to the hospital. It was great to see them both together again. Claire has gotten so big! (Claire is the bunny, Alice is the kitty.)
Ryan took his costume so we could get a picture of all of the grandkids in their costumes. Aren't they adorable?