Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

Ohhhhhhhhh my Gosh!! Santa's almost here!! He's HERE! Whooooo-Hoooooo.
Well, Santa's helper that is.

Logan and Claire got to visit with Santa Claus last week when a girlfriend of mine invited all of us for a 'Visit with Santa.' She does it every year. She hires this 'Santa' to come to her house, read a couple of Christmas stories and then each child has a chance to visit with

Santa and get a gift. How fun!

Okay, so Logan wasn't too jazzed with sitting on Santa's lap, he wanted to continue playing football in the backyard, but when his sister needed his company, he obliged. (Although, he told me he knew Santa isn't real.)
I only have one believer left. :(

Thanksgiving Day~

This year we celebrated with Chris's family. I must confess, Karen did all the work. All I did was make rolls. Taylor helped make the coconut cream pie, Chris carved the turkey and everyone else just enjoyed having the day off & visiting with cousins!

My heart is full this season. So, so, so many things to be thankful for. Just not enough room here to list them all. The top two are the Savior and my family, enough said. !

The turkey was perfect, in fact.... everything was delicious, as usual!
Thanks for having us.

Thanksgiving Break

Kids were off for a week during Thanksgiving, so of course we had to head over to Disney to get a better look at all the Christmas decorations. We spent most of the day in California Adventure. Gotta get the most out of these passes!

Having passes allows the kids to do all kinds of stuff we wouldn't normally do there, like playing in the 'wilderness adventure' place... (I can't remember what it's really called, but they love running around in here!)

Got to see the Christmas parade too.
Parades, another thing we wouldn't normally do. I liked the parade, but my favorite thing of the day......

.......was watching Claire watch the parade. She had her little hand up the whole time waving to everyone. It was so sweet.

Thankful Every Day

This was our first year of doing a Thankful Tree. I saw it at someones house (Sandi, thank you!) last year and loved it. The idea is to have all these leaves, (or turkeys, as you see I have a few of) under the tree (or by the tree, or wherever.) Everyday you fill one (or more if you feel like it) out with what you are thankful for, then hang it on the tree. Soon your tree is filled with beautiful fall colored leaves. We had everything listed from salsa to answered prayers. During Sunday dinner last week we took all the leaves off the tree, divided them into 6 stacks. Then we went around and shared all the things that had been written down. It was pretty funny and spiritual at the same time.
All of these leaves were on the tree, but I didn't think to snap a photo until after I'd taken them all down. Dawg-gone-it!

Happy Dec. 1st!

I posted this last year, but I thought it was worth re-posting. I can't believe it's December 2009 already! Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of my blog before you push play. Enjoy.

YW's 2010 Theme

I like that:

'Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee.'

The beginning of this scripture is not on here but it reads, 'Have
I not commanded thee......? I'll be putting in my best effort to put this in action, especially since it's a commandment.

Holiday Jobs!

1st job: Williams-Sonoma
I've learned a lot about Chuck Williams in the last little while. Pretty amazing guy, great story to his success.
It's been so fun going to my new jobs! I took on two this holiday. I got them both in one day. AMAZING!

Just minutes from my house.
Love working, love telling people how much I love this store, but love the discount even more.

Feel the love? :-)

2nd job: J. Crew
Ok, lets be serious.......who doesn't want to get a discount at J. Crew? Now I don't have to dream about it. It's real. Real-ly good. Oh yeah, I also get paid to tell people how much I love this store too. Best of both worlds!
Lucky me.

New Moon & the Chipmunks?

Last weekend Kathrine and I went to see New Moon with some friends. I thought for sure the kids would want to take a picture with an Edward or perhaps Jacob, but no.......they opted for the Chipmunks. Go figure.

New Moon
1. Good, not great
2. WAY too many long pauses
3. I don't know who wears his shirt less, Jacob or Matthew McConaughey
4. I actually liked Jacob more in the movie than in the book
5. I would love to ride a motorcycle (just a side note)
6. Edward needs to get on the Jacob workout plan
7. I didn't think Edward was as happy as he could have been when he realized Bella was alive.
8. I would love to drive the McCullen cars, (as fast as they do!)
9. Strange part for Dakota Fanning, (& she wore weird shoes)
10. Uh, Bella haven't you heard? You shouldn't have such a serious boyfriend in high school?

Fashion Island Tree Lighting

The annual Fashion Island Tree lighting show! What a fun tradition. I can't believe this whole production and show is free to the public. It's pretty amazing.

The tree is lit!
Let the light shine.

I think Kathrine was in charge of the camera this year. We didn't get pictures of everyone, but here are some super cute ones of Claire and her friend Tanner. Reminded me of those pictures from a photo booth.

Visit with Scarlett

A couple of weekends ago on our way down to visit my sister and her new baby we stopped by Disney to catch the Christmas fireworks show. I love fireworks year round! The best part was the snow down Main Street all the way to Sleeping Beauty's castle after the show. Very festive.
Let the Christmas Season begin!

Beautiful new miracle. Yummy.

~Something Crafty

Oooooo, I've been itching to do something crafty for a while and even though I've had several burp cloths to make, that just wasn't fulfilling my desire to do something new! A girlfriend of mine makes the absolute cutest hair flowers I've EVER seen, but it can get expensive wanting one in ever color. I decided to take the leap and see if could replicate them for less and Viola~ here they are! It was such fun to enlist the girls help in these. We sat at the table together one afternoon and put these together. Some for us, some for gifts! (Super inexpensive too!)

Kathrine models her favorite one!

Logan models his favorites!
(Chris sometimes wonders what Logan is doing while he's gone, well......here you go.)

Enjoying the Sieg cousins!

Scarlette, born yesterday Nov. 6, 2009! So cute.

Congratulations to Audge, Rob & Sophie. :-)

Mason in the cutest clown costume, hand sewn by my sister-in-law, Malinda.
(The one with all the artistic talent!)

Soph's....also in a hand-sewn Halloween costume, made by my talented sister!

New baby Charlie....brother to Mason. Arrived Sept. 22, 2009
Two new cousins. What a wonderful blessing.

Had Enough Halloween?......I think NOT!

One cupcake order to go!

Pretty proud of myself this year, I don't think I spent more than $5 on Halloween!

cutest apron I got for a present a long time ago ;)

The older girls had a party Halloween night, so it was just my two little ones trick-or-treating with us. Glad we had a great group to hang with!

I'll have one protein burger with extra tomato, add pickles, add mustard, with extra spread. Hmmmmm, my favorite.

Whew! Lots of fun, but I'm ready for Thanksgiving. How about you?

Halloween Dance

The baseball fans

Fearless leaders

Caden, me, K & Lexie.

Me & K.
Love going to the stake dances....such fun!

Trunk or Treat night

When I asked Kathrine to define her costume she was thoughtful for a moment, then told me she hadn't decided what it was. I thought it was close to an 80's aerobic instructor, or a whipped up rainbow, or a color-blind person? Whatever it was, she had fun in it!

Kids and buddies.

Yes, James and Marco will be your servers......

My friend scored these authentic name tags from In-n-Out, but the boys had to be James and Marco....they got a kick out of it!

Taylor was missing for trunk or treat, another party.

Pre-Halloween Fan Fair

The kids were invited to a few Pre-Halloween parties this year. There was even one on Halloween night....(more pic's to come.) Pretty cool for them!

Chris and I attended a party too,....no pic's. For the record, Chris was John from John & Kate + eight, (scary how much he looked like him) and I was Cher.....strange couple, I know. Best costume of the night at that party was the Sumo wrestler and his sushi.

Fun, fun, fun!

Oct. 30th at D-land. I thought it was going to be CROWDED, but it was delightfully low key.

YW in Excellence

Kathrine worked on her baking and cake decorating skills for her 10 hour YW's project these last couple of months. I was very impressed with the YW's flame. She had to paint that by hand with fondant paint and cut it out. The whole cake turned out great and it tasted yummy too!

I'm so proud of this girl! She even got a request to make cupcakes for an up coming Halloween party this weekend!

(Karen note the cake stand....)
I forgot to get a picture of her that night. Whoops.