The children were nestled. . .

My parents always took pictures of us on Christmas Eve so I have continued that tradition with my own kiddos. . .Merry Christmas!

About a month ago Madison and Molly decided that they would just rather sleep in the same bed. The same, tiny, twin bed. Well, whatever works I guess.

I know that Whitney is dreaming of a "Little Einsteins" Christmas. . .

Pretty packages

How could you NOT be excited about Christmas when you recieve adorable packages like this???

Every little detail right down to the adorable tags. . .

Thanks Conradts!!

To: S.C. From: Molly

Here's Molly's letter to Santa this year, complete with lyrics to a song (I'll copy it exactly, then write the translation. . .any of you mom's with 6 year olds should be fine. . .they still write mostly phonetically at that age)

up hiye upon my bed. I hear my santa. my oh my oh my oh my. I like the sawd of that, his jegaln is so true. I wish heed give me that. I love you so much your gifets are so swell. I'ed give you one right nawe.

(Up high upon my bed. I hear my Santa. My oh my oh my oh my. I like the sound of that, his jingling is so true. I wish he'd give me that. I love you so much. Your gifts are so swell. I'd give you one right now.)

This song was complete with a sweet picture of santa in his sleigh crossing the moon with all eight reindeer.

Here's her letter:
To: S.C. From: Molly
Whatever you want to get me is ok. And one more question. How do reindeer fly??

Is that the sweetest or what?

Meanwhile. . . back at the Hall of Justice

Please tell me you love and remember this cartoon. . .with the little swirly "SF" symbol. . .

Anyway, it's all I could think of when I was called to go to the official "Hall of Justice"

I've been selected for jury duty. I hope I don't puke on the courtroom floor.

Not sure what to say. . .

I'm sure if any of you were near a tv yesterday or this morning you heard this news. Omaha is a short 45 minute drive for us, and I've been to THAT mall a gazillion times and THAT store, several.

I know for some of you Utahns, it was a painful reminder of what happened at Trolley Square last February.

As my kids get older, I hate having to try to explain this kind of event. Completely disturbing and senseless. I find myself stumbling over words to tell them what happened. I guess that's a good thing. I did have one emotion that surprised me.

After the initial shock of it all, and thinking of my close friends that live in Omaha that I know shop at that store, I was filled with a true sorrow for that young man. I felt so bad for him and for his family. What a life he must have led, a life he had to struggle through. It made me so thankful for my family and the good life that I had growing up (it was by no means easy, and I certainly made some mistakes, but I was loved and healthy--physically and mentally).

I know people always get so upset about "giving criminals what they want", the shooter himself, said he was going to be "famous" now. But in addition to feeling sorrow for families whose lives changed yesterday, I can find nothing wrong with having empathy for another child of God that was truly lost.

Keeping up with the bloggers

In honor of my competitive nature to keep up with her, her, her, her and her AND her AND her. . .


Let the puking begin. . . .

Rollin' like the high-rollers

Here are just some of the highlights of our trip to LasVegas!

Matt headed straight to the golf course to meet up with the boys and I headed to the hotel, Bally's.

Breakfast with my Mom and sister Lisa, followed by a little shopping at the new Miracle Mile shops, which is right by the new Planet Hollywood Hotel, having it's grand opening that weekend! My sister and brother in law even saw John Stewart walking around on the strip (he was the MC for the big grand opening party!)

Everyone else arrived, and we had a fabulous lunch in a private room at a restaurant at the Venetian hotel. Our room overlooked the Plaza with other outside shops and restaurants. During one of the shows they were performing, one of the "opera stars" came up to our room and seranaded the crowd from our window. After a great meal, Matt's sister (our photographer for the weekend. . .ha! We were like celebs), headed down to get a shot of all of us at the windows and we all sang Happy Birthday to my brother and the whole plaza clapped after we were done!

We shopped some more, and took a gondola ride with some more fabulous singers serving as our "gondoliers"! We went to the Guggenheim Hermitage museum, then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our evening.

We had great seats for the new Cirque Du Soliel Show "Beatles LOVE". It was amazing. The music made it even better. During the Octopus' Garden song they had a huge white "canopy-like" drape that came over the whole crowd, then and the end it dramatically was swept down into the bottom of the stage!

After the show some went to eat (I seriously was just FULL all weekend!), and we hung around the RIO casino, until we headed over to the club at The Palms casino called Rain. (see my observations of Vegas at the end). P.S. We had a huge Hummer limo for our ride to the RIO. Oh my, we were a little crazy in there. . .even my mom! You basically had to crawl in, so everyone was doing this little dance down the aisle on their knees as they got to their seat!

We stayed up and played some games in my brothers suite and headed to bed around 2am, which by the way would mean that Matt and I were up for 24 hours straight! We were up at 4 am our time to leave our house by 4:45 for our flight from Omaha! Yikes. I haven't done that in a LONG time. I'm too old.

The next morning we had the BEST breakfast buffet. So, when in Vegas, make sure to catch the breakfast buffet at the Paris Hotel called "The Village". Can I just say homemade Crepes to order. mmmmmmm.

We met up at 11am and had a shuttle ride to the Las Vegas Temple for a session. It was wonderful to have everyone there.

We had the afternoon free, but who wants to sleep, seriously!, so we did more shopping at the Fashion Mall by the new amazing Wynn hotel. Most of it was window shopping, but they had some amazing stuff!

We hurried back to the hotel to change for our 7pm reservations at the Palm restaurant in Caesars Palace, another private room, and more amazing food. My brother ordered seafood platter appetizers (shrimp, oysters (I even liked them), and mini crab cakes). I had an amazing New York Strip steak and the best Key Lime Pie ever! Everyone overate and we had a great night, I even made up a "How well do you know Todd game", and we all shared memories of Todd.

We made it over to the "O" show just in time and it was amazing too. Most of it in the water. Fantastic!

We all stayed up and chatted and planned our next few "excuses" to get together activites for next year, and headed to bed late again!

Here are my observations of Vegas:

-I am getting old
-the music at Rain was officially too loud and I seriously thought I was having a heart attack everytime the bass hit
-I could still boogy down just like the "babies" that were there
-girls of Vegas. . .wear some clothes, darling!
-smut and boobs and scantilly clad women run that place
-can you can overindulgence and gluttony?
-we had a great time

I will say this. My brother is one of a kind. He is, as my brother in law Scott mentioned in his "memory" at the restaurant, a provider. He makes sure everyone is taken care of, and treated well. We rode limos, and ate (and ate) at the finest restaurants, and saw the best shows, in the best seats and even had chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us in our rooms when we arrived. Thanks for a fabulous weekend. Now, I will sleep.

tired.

yes, yes i am. . .

The REAL way to celebrate turning 40!

Back in August we received a sweet invite from my brother!! So we are heading out early Friday morning for a fabulous weekend. ALL of my siblings plus spouses will be there (and NO kids), and my mom and dad will be there too! Can you just imagine??? He even has some other close friends and old frat buddies coming out for the huge party!!

Todd's Big 4"O" in Vegas
November 16-18th 2007

Here are the tentative plans:

Friday--12 Noon--Lunch--Canaletto - Venetian
7 p.m.--Show - Beatles Love cirque du soleil--Treasure Island
11 p.m.--Dancing--Rain - The Palm Hotel
Saturday--11 a.m. departure--Temple Trip--From Bellagio Main to LDS Temple
7:00 p.m.--Dinner--The Palm - Caesar's Palace
10:30 p.m.--Show - 'O' cirque du soleil--Bellagio
Sunday--1 p.m.--Lunch--Emeril's New Orleans Fish House - MGM
7 p.m.--Show - KA cirque du soleil--MGM

We're heading out Sunday afternoon to get back home to the kiddos so we'll miss the last couple events but we will have a fabulous time! My brother sure knows how to celebrate!!

Can I get an AMEN!!

Don't pass out, but we actually have one room of our huge remodeling project upstairs DONE!! And I have the pictures to prove it!! I've also added some "before"'s of what it used to look like up there!

This is a "before" of the attic space and dormer off to the front of the house.

This is a look at the framed closet of our bedroom and the new doorway to the bathroom.View from our bedroom THE tub. . and yes, that is a cable hookup, Matt said "someday you're going to want a tv there, so I'm just being prepared!!"

A "before" look back toward the doorway, toward where the linen closet and "commode" would go.A look at the framed doorway and door to the new shower.A view toward the shower The fabulous "spa" shower (double shower heads, body jets, etc.) Another view of the shower. . .this time, the seat!

And the best part this time of year. . .take a look at my tree!! And now for the inspiration for the bathroom (at least the sinks), I made Matt look at this and keep it up there so he could duplicate it, and he did so AWESOME!! (Our scanner is off in some closet so a picture of a picture is the best I could do, but you get the idea!)
I still need to add the little details, but I love this sink area!

So, as for the rest of the upstairs, our awesome painter Graham has saved the day (I'm so OVER painting, after 3 years!) He's just touching up trim and filling nail holes, etc, this week so more pictures will be coming!!

I'm stirring and stirring my brew. . . .

Day two (three, four) is coming. . .I promise. . .but in the meantime. .





BOO! Here's some pictures from our Halloween. . .


punkins. . .
Here's our trunk or treat car. . .Me and the girls, I'm some sort of spider woman, something or other. . .Our monster car. . .Roar. . . . The girlies. . .Madison, here in vintage 70's (courtesy of my fabulous Mom.. . .I mean check out that outfit!), afro wig, platforms and shades. .

Molly. . .the PERFECT Dorothy. Although, truth be told, it's all about the dog. .

Whitney. . .our little Minnie (or as she said Mimmie). Adorable.

And now onto the food!!! Here's a look back at last years goodies. . .

Spider jello, devilish eggs. . .(eww. .even the hardboiled eggs were an orangey/brown/looking like a 1,000 year old egg color),



a mummy and ghost pineapple brought their goodies. . .(grapes dressed up like a cucumber) Oreo eyeballs anyone??
And spider cupcakes. . .

These were quite a treat! I made "Bat wings". . .acutally just chicken wings with a teryaki sauce and some green and blue food coloring. . .they looked down right nasty but they were delish. .you just had to eat with your eyes closed!

And the throw up pumpkin was back this year for the taco dip! Also, not pictured (stew, spagetti and meatballs and GOOULash)

Here's my brain cupcakes. .

The classic quote of the night has to come from sweet Whitney, after she had already licked off the frosting of two cupcakes with tears running down her face. .

"more brains please. . "

Happiest Place Part 1

Day ONE

We had the most awesome flight (Direct!) from Omaha to LAX. It was only 3 hours and the kids were great (who cares if we let them spend some money from their Grandpa to buy their own little DVD players. . .spoiled? NO! Smart Mom I say!)

We arrived just shortly after 8am, and made our way to the rental car place where Whitney peed all over herself (those darn pullups don't hold nothin'!), it leaked all over her, the stroller and leaked out the bottom of the stroller. . .holy cow, how much water did I give her?

We drove maybe 10 miles to Manhattan Beach. We even found close parking! The kids ran straight for the sand and water. They had a blast. There were quite a few surfers and walkers/runners too (how the heck can they run in that stuff??). I didn't put the kids in their swimsuits because of course they'll behave and not get too wet since we have no towels, etc. Oh well, they had a good time and mostly obeyed (except Whitney--that's how she ended up in just a diaper).

We walked down to the pier and as we walked Matt looked out and noticed a dolphin about 25 feet out in the water. Oh wait, not just A dolphin, but about 6-7! We watched them play in the surf and even ride the waves in like the surfers. Amazing and the kids loved it. This was the best I could do for a picture.

What's the matter with your eyes? Can't you see them??

After we had had enough and were dried off enough to brush the sand off, we headed for the car. Here's the rest of our day. . .

**Drove down Santa Monica Blvd., and happened to drive right by the Temple!

**Drove down one of the "lined with palm trees" streets in Beverly Hills.

**Found the HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills.

**Illegally saw and took a picture at the Hollywood Bowl. The guy at the gate told us to just walk right up, SO WE DID! They were preparing for the Dave Matthews Band--the kids could just watch themselves at the hotel right??

**Drove down Hollywood Blvd. Parked and walked a bit on the Hollywood Stars.

**Saw Graumans Chinese Theater. (and a bunch of creepy people dressed up like superheros/moviestars/elmo), and was about accosted by every other person handing us something. . .

**Saw the Kodak theater, and walked the red carpet (well, at least where the red carpet WOULD be if there was one).

**Drove by the Beverly Hills Hotel. . .but didn't see Dillon McKay ANYWHERE!!

We didn't see any stars but after reading my People from last Friday, how did I NOT run into Britney that day? Honestly, I guess I could've shopped in Bel Air and gone to the DMV. Oh well.
We made our way toward Anaheim in lovely LA traffic, stopped to pick up snacks and water and headed for the hotel. The Residence Inn Maingate. Fabulous. We had a two room loft suite (kids had a bunk bed and we were upstairs in the loft. Two bathrooms, full kitchen and living room. It was great. My sister Lisa and family arrived around 8pm and were right next door at the hotel. My brother and his family got in later that night too. We hung out, got kids to bed and played cards before heading to bed.

Coming up. ..Day 2 (Disneyland!!), and more family arrives!

. . . Day 3 (Disneyland--breakfast with Minnie, the debut of the Grandpa camp shirts, and California Adventure)

. . .Day 4 (last day for Disney and Cal. Adv., princess breakfast and late night)

. . .Day 5 (last day with Family, time to head home)