Family Fun

Sam's family came in for Thanksgiving this week. We had Jeremy and Amee over to our house on Friday and we had lots of fun playing the Wii, while all the kids followed Franklin around the house. We had a blast. Here is a video and some pics.

This is video of our neice, Kiera as she's getting attacked by Franklin. The cutest thing is that Kiera goes and chases him right after he attacks her. The two of them bonded! It was really cute!!


We had so much fun playing "Dancing with the Stars" on the Wii. We all had such a blast looking like the biggest nerds!

Here's a pic of Dartanian. He's sure growing up fast!

The kids thought it would be fun to chase Franklin around. He was having a lot of fun until the kids started pulling his fur. That's when he hid under the dishwasher. I thought this was a cute pic of the kids trying to coax Franklin to come out!

Be Thankful

So I've been having a pretty tough month this month. Then tonight the words to the song "Count Your Many Blessings" popped into my head.

"When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done."

So I decided to do that tonight. I made a list of 50 things that I'm thankful for. Here's the list I came up with (in no particular order).

1. My hubby Sam

2. Our psycho new kitty, Franklin

3. Oliver

4. A loving family

5. Great in-laws

6. The little house that we own

7. Christmas time

8. Our trip to England

9. Our upcoming trip to Paris

10. Chocolate

11. Clothes

12. My red car

13. The sisters I serve with in my calling

14. Great co-workers

15. My degree

16. My friends

17. Blogs

18. The phone

19. Traveling

20. Christmas music

21. Music

22. My leopard slippers

23. Liz, my hair stylist

24. Our big TV

25. A shower

26. Blankets

27. The gospel

28. Temples

29. Temple marriages

30. Kids

31. My job

32. Fans and heaters

33. Ice cream

34. The beach

35. Snow in the mountains

36. My BYU-Idaho experience

37. Candles

38. My chiropractor

39. The fridge

40. Dolphins

41. The ability to bake and cook

42. A washer and dryer

43. Freshly cut grass

44. Flowers

45. People who love me

46. My independence

47. The country I live in

48. Hugs and kisses

49. Books

50. The love Sam has for me

This was just a therapeutic post for me! :) It's amazing how great you feel when you start focusing on the positives. If you can think of anything else you're thankful for, please let me know!

Christmas Questions!!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg nog?!!? Ewww!! Hot cocoa all the way! Especially hazelnut...yum!!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wraps his gifts because otherwise I'll search the whole house for my gifts. I'm not very good at waiting!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I think the white lights just look so classy! We have the white icicle lights outside our house.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you put up your decorations? The day after Thanksgiving. It'd be earlier but Sam will only get the boxes out of the sheds on Thanksgiving Day. So I usually spend all day on Friday, while Sam's at work, decorating our house. I'm sure Sam would rather I do that than spend money! :)

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Gosh, I don't have just one. I love the hot, fresh, moist turkey, pumpkin pie, homemade rolls....I LOVE IT ALL!!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? I remember one year all of us kids started saying that Santa wasn't real. So on Christmas Eve while we were all sleeping, my Dad put his boot in the ashes of our fireplace and then placed footprints all the way up the inside of the chimney. When we awoke, we saw Santa's footprints. We HAD to believe in Santa after that!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but even now on Christmas Day I secretly hope that Santa does exists and that I'll have more gifts waiting for me when we wake up.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No! Sam is such a Scrooge! He won't let me open any gifts at all on Christmas Eve! Bah hum bug!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? When Sam and I first got married, my Grandpa gave me all of his 1940's red ball ornaments (I'm sure they're full of lead paint!). So I bought some accenting silver ornaments and now our tree is decorated in silver and red.

12. Can you ice skate? Nope! I'm pretty clumsy.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A few years ago, Sam bought me my KitchenAid mixer and I LOVE it! He told me that he had selfish purposes in buying it.....he'd get home cooked food out of it! I use my KitchenAid all the time!

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Seeing all our family members that we usually don't get to see. Plus, the gifts I get....duh! :)

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pumpkin Swirl Bread...Sam's favorite (pumpkin bread with a cream cheese mixture in the middle)

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Once we finally do put our Christmas tree up, Sam will turn on our Christmas lights, put Christmas music on, and he'll turn off all the other lights in the house, and Sam will slow dance with me in the light of the Christmas tree! It's one of my FAVORITE things!!

17. What tops your tree? A silver glittery star (it matches our garland!)

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? I agree with Amanda, it's fun to do both. I like to go shopping and buy things that I think people will like. But it's also fun to get stuff!!

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I LOVE ALL OF THEM!!! Our FAVORITE Christmas song is called "Green the Whole Year Round" by Celtic Woman. It's SUCH a good song, but you can only hear it on YouTube!

20. Candy Canes? They're pretty sticky...but they're good to crush up and put in brownies and other things.

21. Do you feel Christmas is too commercialized? Yeah, but it's still fun!

I want to hear all of your responses now!!!

And His Name is . . .

The decision has been made. We've decided to call our new kitten ...........Franklin . . . unless he's really a girl (we're like 90% sure it's a boy). Some other close names (submitted by Sam and rejected by Marcie) were Lee Vining, Mammoth, and Compton (j/k on the last one!). Franklin was the obvious winner. He looks so sweet and innocent...but don't be fooled! His latest thing is to jump onto your calf as you're walking by him. Holy cow does it hurt! He's quite a little ball of energy. I can't wait for him to be an outside kitty! :). My poor house and furniture won't last long if he becomes an inside kitty.

Our Furry New Addition

Sam and I have a furry new addition to our family! For the past 2 years, we had 2 cats- Oliver and Celeste. They were inseperable. However, when we were in Tahoe this summer, Celeste was hit by a car. Oliver has been so sad without his friend.

Well, yesterday some kids found this abandoned kitten and I offered to adopt him. He's pure white, with a tan tail and ears. He has the bluest eyes! He was so sweet and calm at the school, but once I brought him home, I couldn't keep up with him! He has so much energy. We haven't found a good name for him yet, but we'll hopefully have one soon. I don't think Oliver and the kitten will be friends any time soon...they've already had a couple of fights. Perhaps they will over time. He's too little to be an outside cat, so we'll keep him indoors for now, and then hopefully make him an outside cat (our poor house and furniture can't take an indoor cat!)

So I've posted some pictures of him. It was REALLY hard to take any pictures because he just won't stay still long enough for me to take the picture! Hopefully he'll calm down and be a good friend for Oliver!!

The Happiest Place on Earth!!

In celebration of my birthday (it actually was on Wednesday), Sam and I went to Disneyland. We usually only go once a year in between Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it's usually not very crowded. We got down there early Saturday morning, and by 11AM, we had already ridden everything that we wanted.

Then at about noon, would you believe that the sky got all dark and it started to SNOW!?!?! I'm being serious! Although, it wasn't snowing snow, it was snowing ash. There was a HUGE fire nearby in Yorba Linda, and the HUGE smoke cloud came through Disneyland. It was very dark, and it literally was snowing ash. Sam and I were covered in sot! It was pretty gross!

At about 4 o'clock, the wind died down, and so did the ash. We were actually able to enjoy the evening! So we were able to ride Matterhorn and Splash Mountain 4 times, and everything else 3 times. The longest wait was about 15 minutes for the Matterhorn. Anything that was a 30 minute wait, was just too long for us to wait! :)!

All in all, Sam and I had a great time (besides the whole smoke thing). It was a definite needed break for the both of us. Until next year!

Disneyland was all decorated for Christmas. It really put me in the Christmas spirit (and I may have to decorate our blog all Christmasy soon. I'm really trying my hardest to hold out till Thanksgiving!)

Sam and I waiting for the Indiana Jones ride. Doesn't he look so happy?! (I need to teach Sam how to smile in pictures!)

Hey Kyle, doesn't this look like the mountains right now in Utah?! Only it was like 80 degrees down here when I took it at Disneyland!! Hahahah! (Sam told me to write that! So any recourse should go to him)

This is about when the smoke started to come in.

The smoke kind of made for an eerie picture at the Haunted Mansion.


Also in front of the Haunted Mansion.

Yep! We were sure breathing this air! Probably not the smartest thing we've done before! The smoke actually looked much darker than our camera shows.

Luckily, the wind died down in the evening and we were able to take some non-smokey pictures. This is Splash Mountain (we got pretty soaked the last time we rode it!).

New Orleans Square. Look at all the Christmas lights!!

Cinderella's castle looked so beautiful in the night. We didn't stay long enough to see them light up the whole castle (we'd already been there for 12 hours at this point....we just wanted to get home!).

My Halloween Adventure

Ok, so I'm a bit late in posting Halloween pictures. But hey, it's better late than never. I had a pretty good Halloween. It was cloudy and rainy for most of the day, but it kind of added to the ambience of Halloween!! Well, all 3 of us 3rd grade teachers dressed up like the 3 blind mice (do you notice the pattern of 3's? :) ), and our adopted 3rd grade teacher (she actually teaches the emotionally disturbed students at our school), dressed up like the Farmer's wife. In this pic, she's holding our tails because in the poem she cuts off our tails with a carving knife.


Of course, I can't talk about Halloween without posting pics of my students in their cute costumes. I was REALLY excited because this was the first year that our principal allowed the students to dress up. It was awesome to see how creative their costumes were. We had: a werewolf, devil, bride, witch, cat, alien, soldier, skeleton, Hannah Montana, another skeleton, Pippi Longstocking, and a Ghostbuster. I was REALLY excited about Pippi, but most of my students didn't know who she was. One kid asked me, "Isn't that the girl from the Wendy's commercials?". I sadly shook my head, pulled out my Pippi Longstocking video from my filing cabinet and showed my students who Pippi was. Kids these days!

In the afternoon, we had our party where we ate LOTS of food. Look at all the food that was donated!! I loaded my students full of lots of sugar, and then happily sent them home for their parents to deal with their sugar highs! :).

During our party, we also watched "The Charlie Brown Halloween". There's nothing more Halloweeny than that! Notice the anciently old brown paneling on my classroom tv! :)

As for Halloween night, Sam had inventory at work and he didn't get home until around midnight. So I went over to my parents' house, where we ate lots of candy and watched lots of cooking and home decorating shows! What a night! Until next year!!!!