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 :)

Bring on Halloween!

We are excited about Halloween around here! Took the little cuties to the park and let them play around in their costumes this weekend. Got to enjoy the costumes while they can! :) Check out the cutest bugs ever!

I told the kids (well, Luke mainly) that if they would sit still for some pictures, they could have a lollipop. Ella rather enjoyed hers. Luke thought it was pretty cool for a bit, but was soon DONE with photos and peaced out to play frisbee with dad.

And, I wanted to blog about last week. It was kind of rough!
Jake was at work from six in the morning until midnight or later a few days. (Jenni, you are so awesome to do that all the time!)
I had a tire blow out on 1-15 (Where it's really scary and under construction and there is not a shoulder and the lanes are super narrow and Jake was at work and couldn't help)
We missed swimming on the tire issue day.
Someone stole our cute fall wreath that was on the front door.
Ella has been teething and grumpy (went from having 4 top teeth and two on the bottom to five (almost six) on top and four on the bottom!)
This same cute little grumpy pooped in the tub a couple of nights ago. Now that is fun to fish out of the tub after a long day (in sick green water her brother has splashed all over the bathroom). Disinfecting all the bath toys was even more of a party.
Another day she escaped from me during a diaper change and peed on the floor.
Luke freaked out at play group at the park Friday because it was "hot" (it wasn't) and we left early.
I made poppy seed muffins and was excited to eat them. Turns out the seeds I used were super old, expired, and nasty.
Just one of those weeks. I hope this next one is better! With a cute spider and butterfly around though, how could it not be?

Wild Things, Pumpas and Soup.

Friday night we loaded the kids and a bunch of blankets, pillows and snacks in the car and headed over to the drive-in theater. It was fun! I hadn't been to a drive-in since I was a kid. We saw Where the Wild Things Are. It didn't live up to the high expectations I had and was kind of long, but the characters were cute and Luke seemed to like it.
Saturday we made a visit to the pumpkin patch. It's tradition now! I hope the next place we move has one too. :)

Ella loved all of the "pumpas!!" Whenever I was carrying her she would be squirming to get down and touch them. They had big piles of various kinds of squash too. She was having fun!

Checking out the animals...

This big peacock flew up right next to Jake! It was huge and creepy.

Hay maze...

The pumpkin Luke picked out! He picked one for Ella too, but we don't know what happened to hers. Mysteriously disappeared from the car on the way home.

And one last thing.

We tried a new soup recipe last week. It's from this fun Halloween book that my grandparents gave to Luke and is pretty tasty! Looks really festive too in the pumpkin. You should try it.

Extra Good Alphabet Soup in a Pumpkin

Slice off top of 1 medium size pumpkin; clean out inside of pumpkin and set aside. Saute 4 cut-up chicken breasts in 3 tablespoons of butter until golden. Remove and saute 3 sliced carrots, 2 sliced celery stalks, and 1/2 cup scallions. Add 1 can each of cream of chicken soup, cream of celery soup, and chicken alphabet soup. Stir in 1 can water, 1/3 cup sour cream, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. Mix well and pour into hollow pumpkin. Top with pumpkin top. Place on baking sheet and bake in a 350 oven for 90 minutes. Scrape pumpkin sides when serving (the best part!) Makes 8 servings.

Cutie Walker

Ella has been getting better at walking over the last couple of weeks, and now she's pretty much a pro. I love one year olds! Such a fun age. Hearing their cute little voices start to talk and watching them lose their wobbliness is so much fun. Today was perfect outside. Breezy, cool, and just right for playing at the park. Check out my cute walker!

I guess she didn't want Luke holding her hand...
Yeah for kites!
Luke wanted to take some pictures, and I think this one he took of his feet actually turned out kind of fun!