Happy New Year!

We rang 2009 in with a BAM!!! Who better to start a brand new year off with, than being in the company of great friends? Kenny and I love to have parties so we decided, with the help of Mason, to have a party at our house. We invited 22 families and had a pretty good turn out. We had tons of food and spent the evening eating and playing! We had karaoke and dancing in our front room and the Wii & Rock Band in the family room. The kids watched movies upstairs in the loft, but loved watching the karaoke and dancing. Only two babies, including Owen, slept and the rest of the kids stayed up, so they could let off fireworks in the backyard at midnight! We had a wonderful time and can't wait to do it again next year.
The Ladies

Anna, Vivian, and Johanna rocking out!

The boys making music.

Mason...the entertaining performer singing "BAD!"

Kenny surprised us all with the highest score singing, "More Than A Feeling." Kenny belting out his song!

Mario Kart - The Next Generation

Kenny & Ben

I've been told, that back in the days when Kenny attended BYU, that he and a particular friend, Ben Barlow, spent hours/days playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64. I believe it is because of this game that Kenny did not date very much and was still single when he came out to K-State for Vet school. So, I guess I will always be grateful for this game and how it kept my husband so occupied while in Utah. I'm just glad he didn't have anybody to play it with him while in Kansas.

My brother Adam bought Kenny a Nintendo 64 for Christmas, so Mario Kart has now reentered our lives. Of course all the boys, both big and small, have a love for Mario Kart. Ian is quite a natural and even beat me today! I love how excited Kenny still gets when he plays and I'm happy that he has some buddies to play with him.
Its a little harder to play when you have kids crawling all over you!

BEN...this is an open invitation...please come out to CA to visit, so Kenny can play someone who can really test his skills!

Tis the season to be Jolly!

We had a fabulous Christmas this year! On Christmas Eve we had the Dunn Family over for dinner. We had our traditional fondue dinner and dessert. It was quite scrumptious and as usual we had a fun visit with the Dunn's. The boys then were able to open grandparent gifts. They loved all their gifts and were extremely excited for Santa to come. Drew wrote Santa a letter, while Ian prepared his snack. Both boys were in awe that Santa could fit through the chimney and even made me take them outside to see the chimney on the roof. We then read Luke 2 before going to sleep and talked about the importance and miracle of Jesus birth.


So as I wrote previously, Ian has the "no control when it comes to gifts" gene and came running into our bedroom at 3:00am saying, "I think Santa came, lets go downstairs and see!" I put him in bed with us, which was a mistake because he kept asking every 5 minutes if we could go downstairs. Owen then woke up at 3:15 (I think he has the gene too) and I put him in bed with us also. Ian and Owen then proceeded to play in my bed until 4:30am when I finally threw Owen back in his own bed after playing on Kenny's head like it was a drum. I kept thinking, if Drew wakes up we are going downstairs, but he just kept on sleeping. Drew woke us all up at 7am and we headed downstairs. Drew's favorite gift: his new bike and horn
Ian's favorite gift: his $.40 package of skittles
Owen's favorite gift: his new soccer ball
Daddy's favorite gift: having three boys who all love soccer
Mommy's favorite gift: her new Pottery Barn light for above the island that is coming, back ordered until Jan.

We are so thankful for family and friends and hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas. Thank you to all our family for the fabulous gifts!!!!

Christmas in our home....

Our Mantel

When I was in the 8th grade I made Christmas stockings out of an old quilt for my mother in home ec. class. She gave them to me so that I could use them in our house.


You can tell if you look closely that they are sewn by a kid, but I still love them.


We have a couple of Nativity's in our house, but this is the one Kenny gave to me for Christmas a couple of years ago, really I bought it and told him they were from him!

No Self-Control!

There are two things that I have no self-control with: chocolate & presents. With this being the holiday season we have been given lots and lots of yummy chocolate, which I have successfully finished off by myself, and have gained five pounds. I will work on that next year!

Presents.....I love giving them and receiving them! However, I hate waiting to open them or knowing that someone has something for me, but isn't giving it to me right away. This has been a problem in my life for many years. When I was little, I found out from my brothers that my parents hid the Christmas presents under the stairs, so every year I would sneak downstairs and look through all the presents so I could see what I was going to get. I did get caught one year and got a talking to from my Grandpa Elliott. I know this is childish, but this is still a problem I am facing. Kenny knows this about me, so has gotten better at hiding my presents, I know this only because I haven't been able to find them yet this year. I am afraid though, that Ian has been born with this gene in him too. He has been asking me more weeks when are we going to open presents. He even plays presents, by pretending he is opening the presents and then acts all surprised by what is inside...he also wraps himself up and we have to unwrap him. This morning I told the boys that we can open "grandparent presents" today after dinner if they are good. Well the only thing that Ian heard was, presents & today. So as I was doing laundry, I hear Ian downstairs saying, "Oh wow, that is cool!" Right away I know that he has just opened up a present, but instead of being mad at him, I was really secretly hoping that he had opened up one of my presents instead of his own! I can't wait until tomorrow!!!!

Christmas Cheer

Ian had his Christmas party for preschool yesterday. They celebrated by going to a retirement home to sing and then back to preschool to decorate cookies and exchange gifts. I was very proud of Ian for how well he did singing "I wish you a Merry Christmas." After he sang he took a Christmas tree that he had made and gave it to an elderly gentleman, he then saw a lady next to him and gave her his little jingle bell. He wished them both a Merry Christmas and gave them a high five.




Here's Ian being silly with his friend Breckyn.


Out of all the children, Ian spent the most time and detail on his cookie. Are you really surprised? The finished product.

7 Blissful Years

Kenny and I got married 7 years ago today in the Manti, UT temple. It was a magical day that I will never forget. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing husband and friend. I look forward to the many more years we have to be together.




So yesterday Kenny surprised me with tickets to the play Wicked! He had babysitters lined up for the whole day and lunch and dinner planned. We went to the Pantages Theatre (Broadway in LA) on Hollywood Blvd. The play was fantastic!!!! We had lunch at Olive Garden and dinner at Outback Steak house. It was the perfect day. He did so well....

Who needs an MD when you have a Doggy Dr.?

On Monday night Kenny and I went down to Palm Springs for dinner with some friends. Just as they brought the food out, I got a frantic call from our babysitter saying there was an accident. My heart started racing as the babysitter told us that Drew had blood all over his hands and that he had a big cut on the back of his head. Kenny and I got our food to go and rushed home. Turns out he was playing on a bed and hit his head on the windowsill. He had missed the pillow. We came home and Kenny assessed the situation and thought Drew needed stitches. He didn't want to wait for hours at Urgent Care or have to hold Drew down while they deadened the area, so he decided to call our other "family" doctor....Dr. Westbrook, from Banning Veterinary Hospital! Mart met Kenny at the clinic, shaved Drew's hair, and glued up the cut while Kenny held Drew. Drew was appreciative of Mart's help and glad he didn't need stitches.

I'm going CRAZY!

I love Owen dearly and I love his curiosity, but he is about to do me in! I can not keep up with this kid and he is destroying my efforts of keeping a nice tidy house. He loves to push the chairs around the kitchen and climb up on everything, the desk, the sink, the counter tops...no height is too high for him to climb and he has no fear. He believes the table is his stage and that everything goes into the trash. Today I caught him taking out the silverware out of the drawer and throwing them away! I'm a little worried because I can not find the remote to run our DVD player and we took the trash out yesterday to the curb. I try to use my stern voice with him, but its hard when he just looks at me and giggles. I love you Owen, but please don't you think momma needs a break?

Check this out....

Our inspiration for next year's light endeavor!

My Chef & My Artist!

Drew came home from school talking about the Gingerbread Man story and asked if we could decorate gingerbread cookies. I got a great recipe from my mom that was yummy and super easy. Ian, my lil' chef, was giddy through the whole experience and put much time and detail into his cookies. He also used almost a whole bag of M&M's and finished off a new container of sprinkles. Drew decorated one cookie and proceeded to sit at the table and draw, color, and cut out gingerbread men out of paper. It was a fun and messy afternoon in our house.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

The boy's favorite part about Christmas isn't the presents or seeing Santa, but the lights. As Drew prays, he often blesses the lights! We first took Drew around to look at lights when we were visiting Kenny's side of the family in Colorado in 2005. We all piled into a car and drove all over Grand Junction looking at the Christmas lights. Drew kept repeating at every house in a Gollum (Lord of the Rings character) voice, "Look at the lights." His excitement for lights today is just as high as it was back then as we drive around town almost every night looking at Christmas lights. As we drive, we roll down the windows, let the boys get out of their seat belts and sit in the front seat, and listen to Christmas carols. Drew keeps repeating, "That house is sooo Awesome!" and questions why we do not have every blown up Christmas figure in our yard. Ian is usually more excited about Kenny letting him sit on his lap and steer and Owen in his shrill little voice, continuously yells, "Wo!"

Well we decided since we were going to be staying around for the holidays we too should put up our own lights.


The prep work...


Gotta love Christmas in CA...boys can continue to only be half dressed!


The finished product!