Bon Voyage to a Canadian Christmas

We leave early Monday morning as we set out for a 14 hour drive up to Canada for Christmas this year. Even though the temperatures will be arctic cold, we're still looking forward to a white Christmas! I'll post some pictures soon!

Picture With Santa

I took the girls to Thanksgiving Point today to get pictures with Santa. Although it was kind of a long wait the picture was free for Thanksgiving Point members, so that was an awesome deal. We had fun waiting in line and playing with the other kids, but when we got up to the front of the line and Tess saw Santa she freaked out! She clung to me and screamed and cried. So I ended up in the picture too. Here's to funny Christmas traditions.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Ava's Surgery

Yesterday, on November 17, 2010 Ava had her adenoids taken out. Adenoids are similar to tonsils but where tonsils are in the throat area, adenoids are higher and behind the nose. The surgery was done by Dr. Hill, a pediatric ENT, at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Everything went really well and Ava is happily recovering at home. Here are some pictures from the day.

This is the room where Ava changed into her "hospital jammies." Luke wasn't here yet so I just took these pictures with my little cannon powershot.

Luke arrived as Ava and I were in the waiting room, just waiting for her turn to go back into surgery. Just as Luke arrived Dr. Hill arrived to take Ava back. We walked together to the big double doors where we had to say goodbye. Ava was very excited and skipped her way down the hall. I don't think that's normally how kids go to surgery so we were very lucky.

This is the mask Ava wore that put her to sleep. She breathed in a strawberry scented drug.

The recovery area.

All the parents wear their kids names on them. I think it's a good idea so everyone knows who you go with.

Ava was very tired after the surgery and slept quite a bit.

My mom gave her a Barbie before she went into surgery. She obviously couldn't take it back with her, but when I met back up with her in recovery I gave her the doll back.

The nurse wheeled Ava out to the car for us and then we drove home. The morphine made her feel sick so she threw up a couple times, but she's fine now. We've got a week of rest here at our house and we'll probably be watching lots of movies!

The Deseret News

So I'm going to brag a little about my husband Luke. He just got his first picture published in the Deseret News. Last night he shot the BYU mens basketball game and Deseret used one of his pictures in their sports section of the newspaper. Also, they used 10 images on their website. Awesome! I'm so proud of him! He's living his dream. And loving it!

Here's the link to check out his pictures on the website: click here

For the past year I've slowly been trying to accumulate some food storage and finally I've got a system that works! I'm so excited about it so I just had to post! The inspiration comes from the book "It's in the Bag." Basically, what I've done is compile items with a recipe together in a bag that is easy and quick to make for dinner. The items in the bag have to be food storage stuff, like canned veggies, powdered milk, rice, pasta, canned meat, stuff like that. Yesterday I took inventory of my food storage and compiled a list of any additional ingredients I needed. Today I purchased the additional items and organized everything into 20 bag meals. Each one is a complete dinner and they're really delicious. We had one for dinner tonight! It was a recipe for Caribbean Chicken and Rice. I totally recommend the book and system because it helps you rotate your food storage as well as enjoy a couple easy meals each week. The book costs about $10 on Amazon.

Luke's Pictures

Luke has probably already put these pictures on his blog, but I thought I'd update mine as well. He's been having a good time with his camera lately!

Quiet Time

During quiet time this afternoon things got a little too quiet. If you're a mother of toddlers you know what I mean. Suddenly you realize, like a 6th sense, that something sneaky is going on in your house. When this happened to me today, I immediately went in to Tessie's room. I found her laying on her bed enjoying her entire bucket of Halloween candy while watching Nacho Libre. I don't know how she got the candy, but it was all over her face, the DVD player, and her sheets! What a mess! And what a funny little girl!

Breakfast with the Witches

So I did some crazy edits on these pictures. Why not right, it's halloween, a time to have some fun and be silly!

At Gardener Village this year we went to Breakfast with the Witches. The girls loved it! I thought that Tessie might be scared but she wasn't at all. She wanted to get right up on stage with them! This was a girls only outing so Luke wasn't there to take pictures, but I did take his old camera and I did my best with it. Fun times! Can't wait for trick-or-treating tonight!

There's a Little Witch in All of Us

Here are some pictures from our annual witches meeting hosted by Teri Harman. It was one of the most fun events I've been too in a long time, and by far the best Halloween celebration ever!

This image shows the school house in more daylight. It was the perfect spooky setting that night. The school house is 112 years old and pretty much out in the middle of nowhere in a small town called Camp Floyd. Jill and I carpooled out to the party and as it got darker we got further and further away from the city. The full moon was out but party covered sometimes by clouds. It was perfectly spooky! I wish I could go and do it all again tonight!

Colors

I checked out my sister's blog and discovered her color is Kelly Green. I decided to follow the link she had to the website Colorstrology to find out my color. Turns out my color is Burnt Orange. I do love orange so that is pretty fitting. Here's what the description says:

Action should be your middle name. You are never boring and your life usually moves rapidly. Your mind is quick and quirky. You can do more in a week than most people can do in a month. Scattering your energy in too many directions is often a problem. It is important that you care for your body and learn to stay in the present time. Your personal color reminds you to embrace each moment. Burnt Orange encourages loyalty, moderation, relaxation.

I do think my mind is a little quirky, but I really don't think I get more done in a week than others, in fact, it feels to me like it's the other way around. I see other people doing so much and I think, "Wow, I'd be lucky if I could accomplish in a week what others may do in a single day!" It's a goal to strive for. Anyway, it is always wise to live in moderation. Scattering your energy between too many tasks and people will result in a dissatisfied life. That much I know.

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge Jane Austen fan! I just finished reading this book, which isn't written by Jane Austen but is about Jane Austen. I enjoyed it, a pleasant read, but of course not even comparable with the real Jane Austen! It got me thinking about some of my most favorite quotes from Jane Austen. Here are the top 4 I could come up with today: (this list may change day to day!)

1. The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. - Northanger Abbey

2. The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Pride and Prejudice

3. A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. - Pride and Prejudice

4. A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. - Northanger Abbey

The second quote reminds me of my Dad, because he has a saying that pretty much sums it up.

Haste makes waste.

And he's right about that!

Graveyard Scavenger Hunt

On 10/10/10 my mother-in-law Jill organized a Graveyard Scavenger Hunt at the Salt Lake City Cemetery. It was so much fun! We had beautiful weather that night. The assignment was to find as many graves as we could on her list and take a picture of each one to prove that we saw it. Here are a few pictures that we took:

Emo's Grave.

A prophet's grave. There are 11 Presidents of the Church buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

An angel.

The most elaborate angel.

A broken tombstone.

Someone who died on Halloween.

Lily E. Gray - Victim of the Beast 666

A Soldier's Grave.

Some of the other items on the list to find were:

- same birthday as you

- same last name as you

- longest last name

- oldest tombstone

- A Governor of Utah (there are 5 buried there)

- An Apostle (there are 35 buried there)

- A Star of David

- A Lamb

- A Dove

- Most romantic epitaph

- Most humorous eptitaph

The Giant Pumpkin Festival

This festival was at Thanksgiving Point a couple weekends ago and we took the girls for an hour or so. They loved the giant pumpkins! Ava's still talking about it. The girls got to make some crafts and eat popcorn and candy corn. The pumpkins were later weighed and measured for the competition, but since we didn't stay I don't know which pumpkin won. Fun times!