A Christmas miracle

A good picture of Addie. That's what we're calling a Christmas miracle. No weird poses or weird smiles. Her eyes are open and she's looking at the camera! What a cute smile and she looked so cute in her Christmas dress.

Kyler looked cute, too!

Lights at Temple Square

We went to Temple Square the Saturday before Christmas. It was crazy busy, but we still had a great time!

Christmas Traditions

One of our traditions, in the time Mike and I have been married, is to buy a new Christmas book each year. At the front of the book, I put the names of the people in our family and the year. This year I bought our tenth Christmas book! I decided to buy one with Christmas carols. I was happy to find this one with both hymns and other Christmas favorites. We will read one each day before Christmas, and on Christmas Eve we read Luke 2. Another tradition is one I'm starting this year. Every day in December we'll read a scripture, a thought, or sing a song about Christ. Then we'll put one ornament on a little tabletop tree. This year I think I'll just use things I have around the house for ornaments, like tiny homemade paper stars and snowflakes, ribbon, etc. Then by Christmas day, the tree will be decorated!

Thanksgiving in Moab

We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend. We ate a wonderful dinner with Mike's family in Salt Lake. After a yummy dinner and great company, we left for Moab. We hiked all day Friday and most of Saturday. We hiked to Morning Glory Bridge and Corona Arch (probably our favorite hike) on Friday. Saturday we hiked to Landscape Arch and Double-O Arch in Devil Gardens. The weather was great. The kids had so much fun and did a great job hiking (well, Addie spent most of the time in the backpack). Kyler is our little hiker and rock climber. We hiked over 11 miles those 2 days. Go Ky! We would love to camp inside Arches National Park sometime. Moab is just amazing! (Picts to come)

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween! Addie dressed up as Tinkerbell. I was Peter Pan. (I got called Robin Hood a lot. But the funniest was when someone called me the Jolly Green Giant! HA!) Kyler was the star, though. He was Sonic the Hedgehog. My mom made the costume. It was amazing, I thought! (I helped just a little.) At the Cache Valley Mall, he won Best Overall Costume in his age group. He won Disney on Ice tickets! Fun! We had a great time trick or treating, too.

A Fall Walk up Green Canyon

I love fall. It is REALLY hard for me to say goodbye to summer.

But, when the fall colors come out, it's ok. This walk was on a

beautiful Sunday afternoon.

A SPOOKY Halloween dinner

Halloween is a fun holiday. To celebrate, I decided to cook a fun (and very simple) Halloween dinner. We had Mummies (crescent rolls and cheese wrapped around a hot dog) and Brains (a head of cauliflower with cheese sauce). Yes, that's cheese sauce. It looks disgusting, doesn't it? I tried making the sauce from scratch and ended up burning it and it went an ugly brownish-yellow color. I thought, "Oh, that's alright. It adds to the Halloween effect." (If anyone has a good cheese sauce from scratch recipe, send it my way. Mine always ends up flour-y. I don't really like Velveeta, but it would be yummy compared to this!) Anyway, the cheese sauce didn't taste good at all. Kyler's face says it all. And I'm not a big fan of hot dogs, but I did it for the kids. It was fun.

We are homeowners!

We moved into our new home on Sept. 19th. It's in North Logan less than a mile from Green Canyon in a sub-division called Green Canyon Cove. We love being so close to the mountains. So far Mike's been mountain biking three times and we've enjoyed the canyon fall leaves while hiking. We love our new home and our neighbors are really nice. We love having our own home!

What a great tip!

I wanted to share an awesome tip I found in a magazine. I tried it tonight and I thought, "Pure GENIUS!"

My three year old Addie is not a good eater lately. Kyler was the same way at that age, but he grew out of it. I figure Addie will too, but I wanted to make things a little easier while we are going through this stage. In the magazine Real Simple, it has an idea of what to do when your child eats little or none of their meal. Let the child roll dice to see how many more bites they are to take, and then they're done. Addie had so much fun rolling the dice, she ate everything on her plate!

Lake Powell on Labor Day

Who could pass up a September trip to Lake Powell? Even though we were there in July, we had a blast again this time over the Labor Day weekend. The kids LOVE Lake Powell (just as much as the adults) and jumped in the lake with their life jackets over and over and over. Ahhh, Lake Powell is my favorite place!

Kyler is a 1st grader!

Last Thursday was Kyler's first day of first grade. He was really excited! (Mom was even more excited!) It was a little strange to have Kyler gone all day. Addie seemed a little lost without her best friend and was a little leech-y to mom. When I asked Kyler what his favorite part of the day was, he said lunch! Kyler is not nearly as picky about food as he used to be. He had nachos for lunch his first day, hmm. Mike said, "Nachos are considered lunch?" Put some milk and fruit with it and I think it sounds alright. First grade is starting out great!