Getting ready for Christmas...

It was Jared's day off on Wednesday (the one before Thanksgiving) and we decided it was time to start decorating for Christmas. Really we felt pressure to keep up with the "Madsen's" if you will. For those of you you haven't experienced Todd & Shan's Christmas Wonderland upstairs you really need to stop by and visit. They have trees in every room, and a huge 12 ft or so Christmas Tree. It really is spectacular! So with that being said we needed to get started. Alayna was starting to ask if we even celebrate the Christmas holidays. So that's when I left to play basketball and I put Jared and Alayna up to decorating for Christmas.

She was in heaven spending one on one time with dad and I came back to a decorated house. Thanks fam.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving #1...with the Aitken Family.

(My mom's side of the family)

Here we are getting ready to play Human Foosball...It was really FUN! We were trying to work off all of our turkey and mash potatoes!

Alayna is saying, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Thanksgiving #2 - hanging with the Sukers

(Jared's side of the family)

Jacob has discovered is new favorite treat...OLIVES! I was shocked when he ate one, then he asked for, "More" he continued to eat the entire bowl! He gets this from me NOT Jared or Alayna.

Randy, very tired Jacob, Heather, Gr Denny, Gr Ludd, Jason, Mike and Jared.
Grandpa Suker and Alayna enjoying some football.

I think Alayna is holding her heart saying, "I love my Aunt Ashley and Uncle Brian!" These two are the BEST when it comes to allowing Alayna to "boss" them around. She has so much fun playing with them. Thanks for entertaining her she absolutely LOVES spending such great quality time with you!

Here is a perfect moment to show you how great these two are...Alayna and Ashley are hiding from Brian in the famous game of hide and go seek. They picked to hid behind the couch. Alayna was giggling so much she was trying to cover her mouth so Brian wouldn't find them. I couldn't resist capturing this precious moment! So cute.

Thanksgiving #3...Hanging with the Perry clan!

(My dad's side of the family)

Finally, best for last, right? No, all our Thanksgivings were great! This one was fun because it happened after a long morning of shopping on Friday...so we had worked up an appetite.

Here's my mom spending time on the grand kid table.

Kari (cousin), Ange (sister), Josh (cousin) - I wish I ended up with the cute pictures of there kids. Josh & Kari have twin boys about 8 weeks old and Ange has twin boys 2 years old. How did our family end up with two sets of twin identical boys? Either way all four boys are adorable!

Bring on the games!!! First my mom had us play a word game. Each person had two letters around there neck. We had to jump up and turn around to form the words. It was surprisingly competitive...Way to go girls - we WON!!

Here's Doctor Jared himself...while he was making the rest of us sick touching my uncles foot, he was making an assessment! I think they both are enjoying it a little too much.

I didn't end up with pictures from two other games we played. We played a salt shaker game. Where you hold hands under the table, and squeeze down the row of people. Then the two teams try to grab the salt shaker. It was an absolute riot! I will give more instructions if your interested. Then we played life-size "Rock, Paper, Scissors!" This was an absolute FUN activity. We'd huddle make a choice, then line up on the line and on the count of three we would do our action of "Rock, Paper, Scissors!" Then if you win the bet you chase after the other group to have them join your side! Then we ended the night with Speed. It was a fun think as usual!

Finally all the turkey and mashpotatoes are over!!! YEAH. So far Jared and I have tried to eat very light...we are trying to recover from all that heavy food. Yummy, but too much! Thanks for all the fun fam!

Preping for Thanksgiving...

Here's my cute little Jakey helping me make the famous yams for Thanksgiving. He has loved this new freedom of standing up on a chair and being able to see everything that is happening at the counter.

Funny thing Alayna just said...

Alayna was having hot chocolate with her cousins and she ran downstairs..."Mom, do we have any candy canes?" I said, "No, we haven't bought any yet!" She then sat down next to our old broken printer (it's waiting to go to the DI) and she lifted up the paper holder in the back and pretended to start typing and looking at the screen. Then she said, "Well, I'm just going to get on my computer and check to see if there is any online!" I laughed and laughed...then she said, "Yeah, I found some on sale!" Seriously, how funny is that...I do very little online shopping, let alone in front of her, so I have no idea how she pieced it all together. Funny huh?

Really, I don't need to say anything!

For all my family and friends who wore the other color on Saturday I won't say anything! But this is the color our family was wearing! We had a great time watching a great football game. We LOVE college football. Go UTAH!

So following the game I joined my sister and some friends to view the "Oh, so long awaited movie...Twilight!" (I hope your sensing my sarcasm!!!) I won't begin to unleash my opinions and feelings about #1 the books and #2 this attempt on making a movie. But I will share the #1 thing that literally ruined the movie.

Yes, that's right...Edward's car! This is the car I pictured...this is the car that Stephenie Meyer had listed on her website as Edwards car! How could they create the movie using a hatchback Volvo???? Since when were hatchbacks cool? The moment the car scene of him slipping and sliding to save Bella in Port Angeles happened...I was ticked! It really made me so frustrated that they missed this major detail. A hatchback? Seriously...So with me venting my annoyance with this one missed detail I will stop, so those of you that haven't watched it will not notice all the other mistakes they missed.

As we were walking out of the movie theater the cute old lady asked, "So girls was it worth it? My response was..."Well, the tickets were free!" So that sums up how I felt.

Here's to prove that I was a reader...of books 1, 2 and 3...with 100 pages left of book 3 I stopped. I couldn't take it anymore! So yes, I must admit that I have not and will not read book 4. Sorry. I tried.

Yes, here is my sister standing in front of the actual real La Push beach on the Quileute Reservation. This was the best part of the movie, seeing the amazing views once again from the beach. It is spectacular! On my families girls trip last May 2008 we went to Seattle and my sister who is a Edward-Twilight-Stephenie Meyer- groupie if you will insisted we visit all the sites...Forks, Port Angeles, La Push, etc. It was a fun thing to say during the movie, "I've actually been there!"

I can't wait to hear what you all think about this post!!! :)

His favorite past time...

Just another picture to document some of Jake's favorite things to do in the kitchen. He LOVES my salad spinner. Whenever I pull it out of the cupboard he runs to want to do it. He waves his hand up and down saying, "Me! Me!"

Just wanting to show how Jared wants me to grow his hair back out again. It really is SO wild...but it matches his wild personality!!! (ha ha ha)

I don't understand...

Jake is saying, "Cheese" - What a cute kid!

Is my child the ONLY one that insists on drinking his sippy cup while holding his yogurt container? or bowl? Jake insists on finishing or not finishing his food and then placing his sippy cup inside it and drinking it that way! He's done this for months and months and I figured I might as well snap a photo because this really is his trademark for drinking milk!

A little excited for Christmas...

The other day Alayna and Olivia had a cute friend over to play. They were playing so well down in Alayna's room for quite some time. So when I went to check on them I heard tons of giggling. I walked in to find them saying, "Oh, mom (referring to their make believe mom) we are trying to decorate so fast for Christmas day, it's coming tomorrow!" When I walked in I had to laugh...they had decorated the tree with anything from Alayna's drawers and papers (there cards for Santa). The only thing I didn't take a picture of was that her entire floor was COVERED with all her clothes from the closet. Hey, at least they were using their imagination, right?

If you look to closely, you will see underwear! It really was so great. For those of you wondering, I haven't decorated yet for Christmas, this was an EXTRA tree that Todd had that he wanted us to use this holiday season. So when we had to pick a room Alayna would only allow it to be in her room. We just picked up our Christmas decorations today, so sometime this week we will get around it!

Kleenex...what is the deal?

Jake has found the joy and wonders of a box of Kleenex...He also has learned to fake cough and cover his mouth with them. It in its self is cute and very clever for a little guy, but very annoying when I have to stuff them all back in the box. Oh, well. Cute nonetheless! I've learned my lesson though, the box is now up higher out of his reach...well until he climbs up on a chair...which is happening daily now!

Poor guy, he got the Kleenex stuck on his tongue!

Just so cute!

Thinking he is so funny with his large pile of Kleenex! Silly kid!

Dinner in a Pumpkin...

Here's to my mom trying to keep being adventurous and introducing fun new things to our kids.

Dinner in a pumpkin...who would have thought? Not me! My mom has always wanted to do this for Halloween but it's so busy on that day that it wouldn't be appreciated. So a few days later for a FHE she brought this for the kids. It was a success! (Sadly, I never tried it!)

The kids LOVED it! Now, for those of you who know Alayna, she NEVER eats. So to get her to actually eat something this strange and to ask for MORE. Was something I had to take a picture of. But I witnessed her eat at least two plates of pumpkin...WOW!

Here is a classic picture of Conner. He is MR. G-Q. He poses for every picture. It's hilarious. But he does it well. The girls thought they'd be funny and be like Conner.

When dad is on duty...

This is hilarious. Jared was watching Jake and found him literally shoveling the cheerios into his mouth.

This kid LOVES mornings mainly for cereal and being able to eat. These pictures really show how Jake wishes he could eat at this mass consumption. Thanks to Jared he knows to capture cute moments like this when I'm gone!!

I love the Holidays...

I'm sure everyone is being reminded of how much they LOVE the holidays. Well, there is nothing that brings me more warm feelings and "Oh, I'm so excited for the holidays" then when I think of oranges and cranberries. Today I finally had all the ingredients to make my favorite holiday sweet bread. The smell, taste, everything is exactly what recalls all my feelings for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions. I just wanted to share the recipe with you all. It really comes on the bag of Ocean Spray Cranberries, so it's not extra special other than it is fantastic!!

Cranberry Orange Bread

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg, well beaten
1 1/2 cups Ocean Spray® Fresh or Frozen Cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped nuts (OPTIONAL for nut lovers...I am not a nut lover!)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. (or 4 mini loaf pans)

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in orange juice, orange peel, shortening and egg. Mix until well blended. Stir in cranberries and nuts. Spread evenly in loaf pan.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (about 35 minutes for 4 mini loaf pans). Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. Wrap and store overnight. Makes 1 loaf (16 slices)-(or 4 mini loaf pans).

I really enjoy College Football!

Go Utes!!! What a great game...I'm sure it was exciting if you were in the stadium the whole time...but at home it was FANTASTIC the last few minutes! Bring on BYU!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

~HAPPY HALLOWEEN~

Here are my two little Super Heroes!!

The kids were NOT interested in getting a family picture...they had their mind set on filling their pumpkins with CANDY!!!

Livvy and Alayna are ready to go trick-or-treating!!!

Drum roll....here are all the super heroes and two twin cowboys...Kierra, Conner, Jake, Alayna, Olivia, Kennady (trying to reach and grab her candy!), Isaac, Logan and Sawyer! There are the all grand kids.

Here's a shout out to the "SUPER PECKS!" Krista ran away with the super hero costume idea! She did a matching family costumes! Looking good Riley in tights!!!

Here's to year #3 of cooking hot dogs on the barbecue! It was another success.

Our cute neighbor Karen came over dressed as a giant hot dog, exclaiming, "Todd, I've eaten too many hot dogs!!!" It really was hilarious.

Once again Aunt Ashley and Uncle Brian came to support our cute little kiddo's. Brian dressed up as a Ute fan! He was quite the sport to have to wear RED all night long! I just think we should have had Jared wear all of Brian's BYU clothing! Maybe next year!

Grandpa Randy came also to spend some time with the grand kids. Danette was lucky enough to spend Halloween with her grand kids in Chicago. We were happy to have Grandpa Randy come join in the crazy fun.

Here's to Papi. The Halloween fanatic. He thrives on taking the kids out all night long until the get the most candy. His famous line is..."Who is up for one more house? Just one more???" The kids LOVE to go with him. So thanks dad for being a trooper with so many grand kids!

I don't think she could be any happier! It's amazing how a little bit of chocolate can bring us all so much happiness! (This is a total candid picture!)