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Goo Goo Goo Joob

“Let’s play Narnia.” I gave my best impression of Aslan, promoting myself as the most qualified actor in the car for the part of the majestic lion. Liam said, “No, Dad, you…you be Pizza and I’ll be Eggman.”

I leaned over to Carrie. “What’d he say?”

“I think he said Eggman,” she responded.

I asked Liam “Why would I be a pizza? I’m Aslan.”

He said, “No, Dad, you’re Pizza, from Narnia. And I…I’ll be Eggman.” I sat thinking for a few blocks and then figured it out. Eggman and Pizza!

Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha!!

Do you understand where Liam’s coming from?

Christmas fun: Check

This weekend kicked off with our family driving to the Christmas tree lot to pick out a tree. Next year we'll remember not to pick one out when it's snowing. Trying to get one of those things in the house while sopping wet is not fun!

(This is also a picture of the updated living room. I made the curtains with grommets from Joann's. Ever since we saw this home Tanner pictured sliding some curtains open to let in the sunlight. Kind of fun.)

On Saturday we headed downtown to see Santa. When the old clock hit one we saw Santa roll in over the bridge in his fancy black convertible. You can't really tell, but he was so skinny! Everyone was hassling him because of it. Beautiful suit though.

The building downtown that was set up for Santa was so amazing. It was this old hotel that was built in the 40's; a perfect set up for something like this.

You can see on the second floor the women that were singing carols. They were amazing! Being in the building with my family, listening to them sing and seeing all the decorations made me tear up!

While we were waiting to see Santa, Mrs. Claus sat on a comfy red couch and read Christmas stories to the kids. There was hot chocolate, apple cider and cookies that warmed everyone right up.

After seeing Santa Claus we walked down to the Carousel where we made some s'mores and went for a quick ride. We walked over to the river to look at it and Liam started throwing snow balls. Then we walked right into an ice cream truck that was giving away free ice cream! I tried a candy cane sundae, complete with whipped cream, chocolate and nuts.

After that we went to the library to read some Christmas books, do some crafts and warm up!

Another event they had happening was seeing some ponies by the local and favored ice-cream store. There were three ponies standing there and Julian kept running from one to the next to get in maximum petting. He LOVED it.

After hanging out down town for the day we finally got to see the main event; the Christmas parade! It was so cold so we staked out a spot 30 minutes before it began so we could stay in our warm car.

We kept thinking about heading home midway through the day, but I think the boys will always remember this weekend. I know I won't forget it! I'm so grateful for this community coming together like they did!

Fashion Show at Lunch

Liam has an awesome taste for making his clothes extraordinary:

I take him on my errands or to church just as he is. Kids have no shame, so I've got to take advantage of this time while I can. Making people smile is so much fun.

Deer Me!

I don't know if it's the time of year or what, but we've noticed that if we wake up early enough most often we will spot a deer somewhere on our lawn or property. This morning we saw this nice looking buck.

It's kind of been a game with the boys. They run into our room and ask if there is any deer outside yet.

(Outside the window)

A couple weeks ago I was cleaning the paint brushes in the back of our house. It was dark but I noticed a silhouette of a deer laying just a few feet behind me. I went on cleaning my brushes and as I left I took my flashlight and did a panoramic scan of the area right behind my back. To my surprise there were 6 other deer laying only a few feet behind me!

Alright, I've just finished priming and painting the main area of the house. Priming and painting a 15 foot ceiling is not cool :) And because the trim was so dark it got three coats. Three! It's ok though- I'm just so excited to be in a house. I'll post pics of the living room after the curtains are finished.

I started on the boys room this week because I was so burnt out on the living room. I still need to do one more coat on the banister. Anyway, here's the before and after:

If you need a bunk bed we recommend Mark at thebunkshop.com. He'll ship anywhere in the country for free! The beds are really solid and you can pick the stain you want. We're totally impressed with their quality.

Mark is also a humble man and a very hard worker that has come up on some hard times. I'm so glad to give our business to someone who really needed and deserved it.

I think I wrote about this, but my friend Lisa suggested that I should organize my toys by sewing some bags with fabric that corresponds with the toys that are inside. Toddlers can even recognize that a car goes in the car bag. It's so awesome!

People of the World:

To the People of the World:

Please DO NOT paint your home forest green and easter egg green from the walls to the railing to the doors and banisters down to the baseboards!! It does not look good nor will it ever! You will just be creating a huge mess of work for the person moving in after you (i.e. Carrie and Tanner). Note the candid shot of my disgusted look.

Only little 4 year old boys appreciate the Ninja Turleness of it all. Ok, it's not that bad. It's just the green railings, doors, banisters, baseboards and walls that I don't dig, that's all.

Oh yeah. We've just scratched the surface.

We've been pretty busy this week, but I wanted to write about our church meeting yesterday that was particularly touching. Three men from our area were life flighted to Salt Lake City last week due to carbon monoxide poisoning. They were on a hunting trip with their sons and had put a propane heater in their tent. The boys found their parents unconscious and- because of their scouting training- had recognized what was wrong and new exactly what to do. They dragged their parents out of their tent and ran down to an area where they could call 911.

At Salt Lake, the intensive care doctors that were working to help them said that Randy (who is from our ward) was at the top 10% worse he's ever seen. A doctor in our ward told us that to have a comatose patient after carbon monoxide poisoning was very grim at best. His wife was told to expect the worse.

A miracle happened and Randy survived. It was so sweet, especially to see Randy there at church and here how touched he was. His wife and friends were so grateful that his life was spared and you could see how much everyone loved him. They really thought he was going to die and were so grateful he didn't. I thought of some council President Monson recently gave:

"The loss of loved ones almost inevitably brings some regrets to our hearts. Let’s minimize such feelings as much as humanly possible by frequently expressing our love and gratitude to them. We never know how soon it will be too late.

A grateful heart, then, comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude. Often we feel grateful and intend to express our thanks but forget to do so or just don’t get around to it. Someone has said that “feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

I love that last quote he shares, so I thought I'd share. Pictures soon to come about our painting fiasco!

So we haven't been that busy. Six weeks after we moved to our new place we got a call from our LandLord. We were given 30 days to move from her home.

So, we frantically began looking and found this home that fell right in our price range the week we looked at it and 2 days after our notice! We got our loan, closed and moved in 25 days later thanks to our awesome real estate agent! It has a beautiful view from the window in the living room:

The day after we unloaded in our new home we drove to Utah to visit our family. Tanner's parents were leaving on a mission and we wanted one last hurrah before we saw them again (in 18months). We love and miss them so much already!

At the cabin we got to spend time with Dylan and Leah's latest: sweet little Lucy Love H. Check out her sweet monkey hair!

Hello, my gorgeous sister in law. Could your eyes and outfit be anymore perfect?! Leah made Lucy's blessing outfit and Olivia helped stitched the heart. I love it!

Olivia (the oldest) is Dylan and Leah's. She's holding Holden and Nicole's baby girl, Belen. Hendrix is Hana and Nic's baby- he's the adorable one in the green shirt up front. Nash and Gage are Dylan's kids too. We had a ton of fun with these cousins!

While on our trip we got the good news that our awesome friends from Idaho were making a special trip just to see us! We had a ton of fun chillaxin and enjoying the outdoors nearby. Thanks guys!

Super Katie to the Rescue

We had a fun time! Thanks for making our move so much better!

We be Trippin'

The boys and I flew back home for a fun trip to see my brother who's leaving on a mission and all of my extended family.

Everyone but one person of my grandpa's 100+ posterity was there. This included all of his 8 children and spouses, their children and spouses and his great grandkids (a true miracle). The only missing link was Tan the man himself. He needed to save his days off to see his parents who are leaving on a mission next month. Pretty exciting times for us.

Grandpa got everyone tickets to Tarzan that wanted to come. With 20 minutes left in the show Liam turned to me and asked, "Are we outside?"

Grandpa's house

Homemade rockets.

Money hunt. Grandma chucks in some sweet change and the kids fight to the death to find it in the sawdust.

Before the hunt Liam was stung by either a wasp or bee on his cheek. 30 minutes before that he was stung on his arm. I kept asking him what the bug looked like to get an idea...

Later in the day he showed me this creature that Julian's holding. "Mom, this is the bug that bit me."

Get Your Griz On

Tan's work scored us tickets to the first home game and pre-game President's brunch. It was pretty cool; tickets are pretty expensive and everyone from miles around are so excited for this team.

Out of all those attending at the brunch, my name got pulled out of the hat to receive a free Grizzly sweatshirt :) The look on their faces when they read my name was priceless. Nobody had a clue who I was.

During the game both teams got pulled off the field due to lighting that was hitting 3-7 miles of the stadium. After huddling under the concession awning for 45 minutes it cleared up rather suddenly:

To quote a local journalist, "The only things that slowed the Grizzlies Saturday were a couple bolts out of the blue and gray." The team won 73-2 (got to love those first game match-ups).