Christmas Card Preview!

Every year we take a Christmas card photo and at home we have a wall where they all hang, starting before any of us were even born. For the most part, Hank, a family friend has taken almost all of the pictures and the last two years he has decided that he should add pictures of just the three of us in! So here are a couple I thought were cute!

(Bland was throwing snow up to try and make it sparkle, and i guess that was more interesting than the camera for ALL of us)

Christmas Time

Padgett, Tucker and I went for a walk one beautiful day!

We always have a fantastic Christmas Eve party at our house in Jackson, and it has been so long since we have had little kids their. So this year family friends of ours brought their little girl Ashland and she sat for so long next to her Grandma, Tica, while she played the piano! It was the cutest thing!

Shane and I made Gingerbread houses!

And one more cookie bake night at Lara's house to top it all off!!

This little guy was so fluffy and provided me with lots of entertainment while I was home! Although very, very dumb and kept running into the house and finally the day after I left hit a little too hard... poor little thing! But I had a sweet picture of him to remember him by so I thought I would share him with everyone!

Bake Sale

Every year for the past half-decade, I help Christi make cookies for her church's bake sale. We have had a couple of disasters in the past (measuring miscalculations, burning and emergency runs to the store for forgotten items), but this year we had none of the above! We successfully made three very different non-traditional snacks: Biscotti's, Wreaths, and Christmas Hard Candy!

Tada!

So thanks Christi for giving us a good reason to make cookies and not have to eat them all ourselves!!

***Results of the sale - Biscotti's and Wreaths were the first gone!

Smash Ball Fun!

We (Me. Padgett, Bland, Sam and Charlene) played Smash Ball on the beach today for like 3 hours! It was endless fun and we created every different variations to the game... We tried playing with our left hand then we decided that we had to say a state every time you hit the ball or some random category. And didn't stop there we had to jump and hit the ball or hit and then spin or hit and then trade places with someone, or moving in a circle and playing and reversing the circle! Just funny that you can take such a simple game and change it in so many different ways... just shows you there is always something you can add to make it BETTER! All and all the sun started setting and we got some fun photos that I thought I would share because I thought they were AWSOME!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Always a success is the giving of THANKS! I had an amazing day! Running on the beach in the morning, played with a gigantic hula hoop (video's to come... it is hilarious) and laid out by the pool! Could it get any better! Then had family and friends over for dinner, which is always amazing. . . the food and company was GREAT! And ended the night with Scattergories!

And now must go to bed because as tradition has it, Padgett and I must go shopping tomorrow to join in the fun of . . .!

San Diego!

I forget how pretty Balboa Park is!

He was just standing there reading... I thought it was CRAZY!

Of course walked down the La Jolla shores beach! We ran into a wedding that was happening on the beach and the groomsmen's suits matched the sand... ewww!

Went to SeaWorld! Great as always and they had a special Halloween Sea lion and Otter show!


I was in dire need of a vacation and Christi and Lara helped me make it happen!! We all needed to get away and what better place to go than La Jolla! We were going to have a girls weekend and added Robbie so it turned into an adventure! We were just there for 4 days but we packed in a ton of stuff!

Happy Birthday DADDY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

I can't wait to see you in a couple days!

I want one!

I love this so much! It's in the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book, which has many a fun items but this little guy is GREAT! Who doesn't need Cupcake Car.... seriously! It didn't occur to me how cool they are until I saw them on the Today Show... HILARIOUS!!

ode to VACATIONS!

I think need a vacation, so instead I went back to reminisce about a couple vacations of the past! And as seeing as it is terrible weather outside as we speak it becomes even more of a problem... yeah snowing in parts of the valley already (I think I live in the wrong state)!

Starting from the top - Venice - New York - Prague - Australia - Bahamas!!! All fantastic and would go back anytime!

I LOVE TV!

One good thing about fall is that all my favorite TV

shows come back! I enjoy so many shows it is hard to keep up with all of them, but I do my best... and all I can say is thanks goodness for DVR!

My all around favorite is SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE! I love it so much and keep all of the episodes that my DVR can hold.... I love it and can only aspire to be able to do all of it one day!

So here is my shout out to some of my favs... really I like them all and it would take way too long to list them all so I will just give you a couple GREAT ones!

CBS with "How I Met you Mother" and "The Big

Bang Theory" if you have not seen them they are very entertaining! And to go along with "Project Runway" they have started "Models of the Runway" so you get to see the other side of the show... great who ever came up with that idea!

"Glee" ... is so cute, I loved it after the first episode!

And "Into the Pride", I pretty much could watch any of the shows that have to do with Africa now, but this one was really good! The man in it, Dave Salmoni reminds me of my crazy brother sometimes!!

Of course you can't forget the classic "Grey's Anatomy" and the spinoff "Private Practice" which I actually really like! And can't wait for both of those to start!!

So just to mention a couple... there are so many that I forgot, like "The Biggest Loser" and "Heroes" and thats not to even get into all the Great HGTV and Food Network shows that are always good anytime of the day! And lets never forget the always good anytime always over and over "FRIENDS"!

*Baking*

I volunteered to make Cup Cakes for a friends Wedding Ring Ceremony, why I don't know cause I am for sure not a baker! And I got all stressed out realizing the day before that I had done nothing to prepare to make these 50 to 100 cup cakes! So thank goodness for a co-worker with an amazing frosting receipt and the help of Hannah to frost them, they turned out fantastically! Well at least now I know I can successfully make CUP CAKES! Oh and by the way the Ring Ceremony was beautiful too, I even sent the Bride and Groom with an extra box of cup cakes because there were so many extra!

July 2009

July has been GREAT! Lots of sun and it has been really hot! The 4th of July was so much fun... I love fireworks and Sugarhouse Park puts on a really great show and there are always amazing people watching opportunities, and Utah is great because you don't stop there you also get to watch fireworks again on the 24th! We went to the REAL game and watched a really exciting soccer game that we ended up winning... (although we were sitting on the wrong side of the field for ALL 6 goals)! But really fun and that firework display was amazing! So good times all around and I can't believe it is August tomorrow..

Hudson!

Hudson and her darling mom and Shane's sister Joey!




Shane's niece is the cutest little thing! She has the greatest personality and is so much fun to be around! And we had a great time dancing all around Gateway!

Mini Vacation!

I got to spend a couple days up in Eden with Shane's family at the end of June! It was fantastic, the weather was perfect and it was fun to have his sister, brother in law and niece here too! We played at the pool and at the lake! Played tennis, did some hiking, picked flowers, played games and had some great meals!