Christmas Traditions...

Today has been a day of recovery for our family. All three kids are sick, Paul is sick and I am sick. We've had family functions and visitors all week and had a great time but are now feeling the effects of it all. We LOVE being around family and having people stay with us, but we may never let another sick visitor into this house again (especially after Blake puked all over the computer, gross)!

Now, as I sit here with sickness all around us, my darling little girls have been begging to put up the Christmas tree telling me we ALWAYS put it up after Thanksgiving. The girls and I always put up the tree while Paul's at work on Black Friday(I can never wait til he gets home to do it) but this year with him being home, we thought it would be fun to do as a whole family. I love Christmas traditions and putting up the tree but just don't feel like it today. As I'm thinking of this and our other traditions, I'm wondering what all your Christmas traditions are (and if I can steal some of them). Leave a comment with your favorite holiday tradition in detail. If you tell me yours, I'll tell you ours :)

It's weird for me to put up a post without any pictures so here's one of the girls decorating last year... We did it before Thanksgiving I think!

Happy Thanksgiving

I love how everyone made a what they are thankful for list so...

My Thankful List:

1. My family! Obviously this is number one. My husband and kids make this life worth living. We have a great extended family who we just don't see enough but we love them all!
2. Being pregnant. Its crazy and tiring to grow a person in you but there is no greater blessing. I am even more grateful that morning sickness/exhaustion is over!!
3. My job. I get done at 12 most days and have lots of time at home. There's not many full time jobs like it!
4. Paul not working for Target anymore!!! We can finally enjoy the holidays and see Paul. The holidays tended to be stressful and tiring for Paul taking away from the fun of it all. I'm even more excited that for the first time in 5 years, we get to go to California! Christmas in the warmth is a very merry Christmas indeed.
5. For blogging. I seriously love it! I love reading peoples comments and catching up with everyone's lives through their blogs. Its fantastic!

Go UTES!

We are a red family all the way when the UTEs play BYU. Paul is an alumni for University of Utah so we support the Utes! (Pepperdine has no football) For those of you who don't live in Utah or have never lived in Utah, U of U and BYU are HUGE rivals. The big football game between the rivals was yesterday afternoon.The football game between them is always super heated. Anywhere you went on Friday or Saturday, everyone was wearing their blue (BYU) or red (UTES). Its a funny world we live in but so much fun. We went to watch the game at Scott and Jenny's (Jenny was at Twilight, lucky girl) with the Ercanbracks (Paul's twin sisters family). It was great. Adam and Lynette's kids are all our kids ages so the kids were quite distracted and we could watch the game! We had a blast especially since our team won but mostly it was just fun being with everyone. I made our family matching shirts on Friday at work (my students found that quite amusing, I think). We had the best time!

Blake is saying "Go Utes! We're number 1!"

Twilight with the Girls!

Let me say first of all that I absolutely love the Twilight books and could not wait for the movie (I feel a little dorky admitting all that). I was so glad when my good friend Lisa set up a girls day out to go see the movie! I think Paul may have been a little more glad seeing as how I would not be dragging him to see it, he does not understand my obsession with the books. I loved the movie but its really no comparison to the books. I had a blast hanging out with the girls and am so glad I got to go! It was an experience, never have I heard grown women swoon over a movie... too funny! Thanks girls for letting me go with ya!

Junior High Plays

Our nephew Rick had his play tonight, Cinderella. Paul's sister and her family are visiting from Virginia so all went to support Rick. He was awesome! We all still think he should have gotten the lead but we might be a little biased. Afterwards we went to Jenni and Jason's place for some cake and icecream, yum! We had a blast. Thanks for inviting us Jenni.

Happy Halloween... Witch Way to the Candy?

Halloween is always a ton of fun. It seems like the older my kids get the more fun they have. Today was a great day! It was the last day of the quarter so I was able to take the kids to work with me. They dressed up in their costumes and watched a movie on my projector and played games on disney. com. Then at night we did the same as last year just a little better. We went to our church's trunk-or-treat. Every year we go. If you've never been to one of these, basically, everyone parks their car and hands out candy from their trunk. The kids line up and get candy. Its great for little ones. Blake was not shy at all; if the candy didn't get into his bucket fast enough, he'd get it himself. Lizzie and Linnie said thank you every time (yes, this mom was quite proud of her two polite girls). Afterward we went to our friend's for some homemade chili (yum!! Thanks Cindy!) The boys took the bigger kids for some real trick-or-treating. The kids got a load of candy! It was a great night.Here's some more fun pictures. I really wish I would have taken more pictures...