What a weekend!

This last weekend was crazy family fun! Full of Thanksgiving feasts, seeing the new Twilight movie ( which was disappointing to say the least!), Black Friday shopping, Baptisms, baby blessings, and a long nap on Sunday. So, with all that going on, it is only fitting that I post all the pics to go along with the excitement!

I love this picture of Dylan! He is just such a cute sleeper!

Poor Ayden wanted out so bad! He sat at that window and solemnly watched the kids play outside.

Mason is planning out his black friday shopping.

Ema's baptism

Ayden and Dylan's baby blessings

All three girls with all three boys.

Worthless

The other night Jake's sister, Valene, and I decided to whip up some homemade shakes. I had done this many times when I was younger and found myself reminiscing about Sunday nights with my siblings. We would make a mess as we created chocolate chip shakes but we loved it. One thing stood out though. It was always impossible to get the blender to mix them right. It would pulverize the bottom but leave huge chunks of ice cream on the top. I would have to jam a wooden spoon down in the mixture several times trying to get everything broken up and by the time I was done I would end up with chocolate chip soup on the bottom and random whole chips through out the shake.

The other night, we set about to solve this problem and decided to try my food processor instead. Genius! It whipped it up so fast! It made perfectly thick smooth shakes with evenly dispersed chocolate goodness! I have decided that the blender is completely worthless. I have tried to convince myself that it is good for something but I cannot come up with one thing. Everything that I have thought of can be accomplished just as good, if not better, with the food processor. I love that I have found a fabulous way of making shakes! I don't love what those shakes are going to do to my hips!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend full of food, black friday shopping, baptisms and baby blessings. Hope your holiday was wonderful as well. I will try to post pics soon.

Lately, every time I log on to facebook there is always someone that is ringing in on their attitude about Christmas pushing out Thanksgiving. The opinions vary from disgust at the stores for "decking their halls" in November to giddiness that Christmas music is in the rotation at the radio stations. I have watched the comments on such posts and they can become very animated as people express their opinions. As I read and consider these battles, I find myself in a very strange place. One that I am not used to. I find myself without an opinion. I have tried to pick a side but it comes down to the fact that I really just don't care. Yes, I recognize the fact that Thanksgiving is often downplayed by Christmas. Yes, I see that Thanksgiving is completely skipped over by most retails giants. No, I don't put Christmas decorations up until after Thanksgiving. BUT- I don't get disgusted when I see Christmas lights and candy canes gracing the shelves. ( I actually really like buying my first chocolate orange of the season! ) If someone wants to put up Christmas lights on their house on Nov. 1st- more power to them. I wish my husband would do that. Then I would have some lights on my house for the holiday. I still love Thanksgiving. I love the feel of an overcrowded house with more food than is humanly possible to consume. I love the board games, the movies, and the pies. But I also think we shouldn't get too heated over Christmas entering the scene prematurely. After all- what is Thanksgiving all about? ( I mean other than the day after shopping? ) It is all about being thankful right? And what is Christmas all about? Our Savior's birth. I can't think of much more to be thankful for than His birth. Maybe the solution is to create a new holiday. Or combine the two and do a month long holiday. I am ok with that. We can call it Christgiving or Thankmas. Anyway- until our legislature creates that holiday- deck your halls and stuff your turkey. They are both wonderful holidays with wonderful messages. I just hope we can keep those messages in mind.

My friend came and shot some pics of my kids. I just wanted to show you how cute my baby is.

On Saturday I took the kids out to a recital that their cousins were performing in. My nephew Levi really wanted to come to my house after to watch the BYU game and Tylie really wanted to stay in Grantsville to play with her cousins so we did the classic kid swap with plans to meet later that night. Well, the game went longer than normal and it was pretty late to be running all the way out to Grantsville at ten o'clock at night so we sent Levi home with grandpa and Tylie got to have an impromptu sleepover. Sunday morning came and Jake and I found ourselves in church with our kid count back down to two. When sacrament was over I asked Jake if he would take Mason to nursery since I wasn't sure which nursery he was supposed to be in. Our ward has three nurseries and due to bed rest and newborn baby time, I felt confused to where he should be. Jake just looked at me with shock and told me that he didn't know either. "Tylie always takes him and picks him up. I don't have a clue to where to take him." So there we were. The parents in the situation wishing our five year old were there to show us the way. I know that they always say that parents take care of the children and then a time comes when the children take care of the parents. I just didn't expect it to happen this soon.

Cade's blessing

We blessed Cade yesterday. It was a great day full of lots of family and special moments. There is just something that gets me everytime I see those wonderful men surrounding my baby dressed in white. It is such a selfless act on all of their parts to come and use that preisthood for my child's benefit. Thank you to everyone who came and those who wanted to but couldn't. Sundee, as usual, we missed you. We are excited to see you at Chrsitmas. Britt and Rick, we missed you too. 3 weeks is not much time but my kids are counting down the days that you come and they get to see Dylan again.

What have I become?

As I have stated in previous blogs, my football fanaticism has only recently started in recent years. It came with the territory on that day I was all dressed in white and promised myself to Jake forever. In marriage sometimes you do things just because your spouse wants to and that is why I started watching football every Saturday in the fall. It is what Jake and I did when we lived in California and then I, unexpectedly, began to love the game. I am not claiming that I am an expert but there is just something so fun about sitting around the TV praying for a hail mary with ten seconds left in the game.
My addiction started slowly. First, watching the games with Jake. Then I started to watch them without him. Shortly after that I found myself watching games that I wasn't really cheering for either side, I just liked watching the game. Before I knew it, I was part of a Fantasy Football league, following injury reports of players, setting the DVR for several games because I was watching another at the same time, and making sure I had the right line up on my team as I was driving to church Sunday morning. I can say that I do not check my team while I am at church but I will not say that I have not been tempted.
The other day I was cleaning up the house and Tylie and Mason were in my room watching some cartoons before I made them get dressed for the day. Mason was dancing with the "Little Einsteins" as he always does and inadvertently jumped on the remote control and changed the channel. It changed to ESPN and the were running a highlight reel of the previous weeks football games. As I rounded the corner I heard Tylie in a hushed but worried voice talking to Mason. "Hurry, Mason, hurry! Change the channel before mom sees the football!" I couldn't help but ask myself as I laughed behind the wall- "What have I become?"

Mason is three!

Mason turned three on Oct. 2nd. I felt bad because it was the day after we got home from the hospital so I was in no shape to plan a party. Thanks to my wonderful family who made sure that he did not feel forgotten. It was a great day.