Thanksgiving!

We've been having fun with family over the past week! The kids and I don't really know what to do with ourselves today since Jake is at work and the last of the guests went home yesterday. Boo... Back to life! Haha. Mom and dad, Todd, Jenny, baby Amy, Abby, Chris, Dak, and Daniel all stayed at our house to play for Thanksgiving. Fun times! Here are some highlights of their stay.

* We ate way too much food and I think a diet is in order now. Well, for me anyway! Todd brought these ridiculously good chocolate treats that were sitting out the whole time for people to munch on, mom brought yummy brownies and rice crispy treats, Abby and Chris stuffed us with their Dutch pancakes, we made a trip to Cafe Rio, I had a few too many creamies, and I have yet to mention Turkey day food. Yum!! Everyone helped out and we had fun cooking, baking, and roasting together. Here's everyone hard at work... Girls and the pies, boys making the turkey, and my dad really knows how to make tasty mashed potatoes.

Oh, and I cut my hand ON A CAN LID really badly making caramel apple pie. Ouch! Jake and I had a date night in the ER, where they stitched me back up. Such an Erin move to make. Pretty sure I'm the most accident/injury prone person ever. I'm thinking next year I'll buy the pies instead.

* Luke and Ella couldn't get enough of baby Amy. They had fun checking this baby girl out! I did too. She has grown so much since we saw her last!

Luke even said that he would trade Ella for her. Haha. Because "she has blue eyes like me."

Ella takes a long time to warm up to new faces lately, but she loves my mom!

*We all went down to walk around on the strip one night. I think this is the coolest picture from that little outing! If you've ever been to a casino on the strip you may have noticed that in the parking garages, there are footprints all over the ceiling. We were trying to figure out how people get them there and Daniel decided he'd jump to leave a mark of his own. He came close! We think people must just take off their shoe and slam it up there to make footprints because dang... that's a high jump! Here's his good try!

*Other pics from that night...

*One morning some of us went for a hike.

Grandpa Paul let Luke ride on his shoulders when his legs got tired. I got a kick out of these pics. Love that crack! :)

*Todd, Jenny, Abby, and I made a black Friday shopping attempt. We took off to Toys R Us before midnight to get some good deals. When we got there the line was wrapped around the building and people were already arguing, so we left. I'd rather pay a few more dollars then fight the crazies! The girls went to target and did some shopping on Friday. Fun to get out for a bit!

*The boys got their game on. And watched lots of football (Go BYU!!).. *Luke LOVES his uncles. This time he followed Chris around a lot. Chris was working on a Doctrine and Covenants class and Luke sat by him to read his scriptures too. * One afternoon we took pictures. Here are a few. Grandmas, I think my mom is sending some your way. I love my sis and brothers!

Daniel took the pictures for us... Thank you!

Kiddos...



Thanks everybody for making the trip! We love you all!

Our Ride on the Polar Express

One of Luke's most favorite movies/books is The Polar Express. So, this weekend we decided to take a little trip to Williams, AZ to kick off the holiday season with a ride! We loved it. Abby and Chris watched Ella for us and we took off with Luke.

My little buddy was soo excited! Here he is waiting for the train to pull up to the station!

Can't lose the ticket!

Yay!! It finally arrived.

The three of us starting on our journey to the North Pole...

Everything is a lot like the movie on the real Polar Express.

Including awesome dancing chefs who serve hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies. After about half an hour of music, story time, eating and fun, we went through a magic tunnel. They say it speeds the train up to the North Pole. Pretty awesome. Then, we arrived at the North Pole! We saw Santa, his reindeer, sleigh, and a few elves. Everything was lit up in lights.

Santa hopped aboard the train!

He gave all the kids a bell... first gifts of Christmas!

Luke had to make sure his worked.

On the way back from the North Pole everyone sang Christmas carols. The men on the train had to stand and sing solo when the "five golden rings" line came around in the Twelve Days of Christmas. Check out Jake and his moves.

Once we were back at the train station, Luke got to sit on Santa's lap. He says he asked Santa for a big boy bike, a marble toy, and a marshmallow shooter. He thought that we would go home with what he asked for and was a little annoyed to find out that he has to wait for the elves to make the toys... (They don't let parents use flash on cameras because they want people to purchase $20 clear photos. Bah! Hence the blurry Santa picture)

And that's the way they do it on the Polar Express!

If we're living somewhere relatively close next year, we want to go again!

Trip to Flagstaff

Thanks to Abby and Chris for letting us invade their apartment Saturday night! They let us crash at their place in Flagstaff after we rode on the Polar Express. Our stay was not very long, but we had so much fun with them! Abby made us a tasty dinner and we watched a movie and hung out. Their apartment is so cute. And, they watched Ella for us so we could just take Luke on the train. Thanks guys! Can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving.

Luke and Ella are champs in the car. Any time Ella starts to get fussy, we just roll the windows down and she LOVES it! Here they are on the ride home this morning. Car rides are always more comfy in pjs!

We Love Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Rick!

Jake's parents came to visit this past week and it was nice to have them here! Luke was excited to take them to see the volcano at MGM, and we walked down the strip to see the Bellagio's fountains. Went to the Atomic Testing Museum (pretty interesting! Oh, and did you know that there is a Miss Atomic Bomb?! I didn't either.) and tried a new BBQ restaurant. We spent quite a bit of time just hanging out and watching the kids at the park. It's been nice outside! Oh, and Veterans/Active Duty Military got free lunch at Applebees on Veterans Day, so Jake and Rick took advantage of that! Thanks for coming Rick and Sherry! Come back soon :)

Kind of a tangent, but I'm starting to really take advantage of all the military discounts out there! Old Navy has been giving 30% off for military, so we got some warm coats for the kiddos (and I saved way more then I paid since they were on sale + 30% off!) Can't beat that. Not that they will need warm coats around here very often, but we're planning on making some trips this winter to the snow. Yeah for discounts! :)

Unexpected Visitor!

We didn't know that Daniel (Jake's younger brother) was going to be in Vegas this past weekend to hang out with one of his college buddies, so it was fun when he stopped by for a couple of hours on Sunday! Good to see you Boon! And, you might want to know that Luke told me after you left that you are better at making Lego planes then me.

And Sherry, these are for you. I'm finally getting these pictures up! Here's Ella in her cute birthday clothes! Thank you!!

(Apparently the cute polka dot shoes were meant for skinny baby feet... so we had to make a switch) :(

Trunk Or Treat

After a month of playing in costumes, the kids finally got to trick or treat! We went to the stake trunk or treat Halloween night. There were so many kids!! We bought a lot more candy then we usually do, and still ran out early! Luke was excited to trick or treat, but after walking around for about fifteen minutes he started wheezing and feeling sick. He told us that he already had enough candy and just wanted to sit in the car. Poor kid! It's taken him a couple of days, but he's feeling a lot better now.

Here's Luke right before the trick or treating started.

Ella was loving the treats..

They were making me laugh walking around the house before we went!

In my last post I was going to put this picture on because it's the only one of Ella without lollipop all over her face, but I forgot. So, for the next blog book's sake, here's the clean face butterfly!...

Oh, and pumpkin painting... Luke painted both he and Ella's pumpkins while she sat and colored. Serious pumpkin painting skills :)