My sisters are getting married!!!

Congratulations to both of my little sisters, Saundra and Stevie. They are both getting married, Saundra in February and Stevie in March. Since they are so close, we are having a combined bridal shower and my other sister, Stacy, and I are in charge of the fun event. I am so very excited because we decided to make it a Pampered Chef shower. I don't think anything sounder more fun than cooking, eating a lot of yummy food, and just hanging out with a bunch of great ladies. I was in charge of making the invitations. I had a lot of fun doing this and I think they turned out really cute. What do you all think?
I will let you know how everything goes. I am sure it will be amazing.

Christmas

Christmas was great this year. We got to celebrate Christmas 3 times. The boys loved it. Chris had to work on Christmas eve and Christmas so we had Christmas early with our families in Tucson. Then came back home Christmas Eve to have our little Christmas with just us. Everything turned out really nice. The boys opened their one present on Christmas Eve - pajamas. Then we got to open all the rest on Christmas morning. Since Chris had to work, I kept the boys up late so that they would sleep in and let Chris get some sleep before starting the big day. It worked because the boys didn't get up until 8:30. It was great!

Parker stayed up really late on Christmas Eve because he was so afraid that Santa was going to come into our house. He came to me, with watery eyes and said "I go night night at Nana's house. No Santa at Nana's house". I said, "Don't you want Santa to bring you presents?" Parker, "Yes presents, no Santa." I had no idea that he was so afraid of Santa. I knew he wouldn't sit on his lap, but WOW, this is funny. We finally had to call Chris at work and talk to him about Santa coming and then I had to tell him that Santa was at his house in his own bed. Then he finally went to bed at about midnight. It turned out to be a really long night.

The boys got some great presents - legos, wii games, movies, gift cards, and the favorite was the nerf guns (thanks mom). This was a favorite with all the boys including Chris.

I really liked getting my pressure cooker. I can't wait to try it out. Thanks mom. My mom is the greatest.

I spent almost all day in the kitchen making a big turkey dinner. It was our first time by ourselves for Christmas, we always have turkey on Christmas, so I thought I should do this nice dinner. It was my first time making a turkey and everything that goes with it, except mashed potatoes (I have made those). I made everything, a nice yummy maple glazed turkey with cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and homemade bread. It all turned out great, but it was way too much work. I will keep it simple next time. I would rather be playing with my kids then making a big fancy dinner (that can wait until they are bigger and they appreciate it more).

We had a great time spending some time with our family in Tucson and then enjoying our own time of just us. We hope that everyone else had a great Christmas also.

We wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!

A long time

WOW!!! It has been a really long time since I have been on here. Football kept me really busy, but it is over now. It was a lot of fun, but I am glad it is over.

Cole is now 3 months old. He is starting to be a lot more interactive when people talk to him. The boys are really liking that. Cole will smile, talk, and even laugh at them some. He is starting to put his hands up to hold him bottle, grab a hold of things (Parker likes it when he grabs his finger), and really focus on things. He even moved out of our room and into the crib. So much fun!

Halloween was fun. We went with Chris's family out to Apple Annies and picked our pumpkins and of course ate some kettle corn (ok. a lot of kettle corn). We do this every year and it is so much fun! The boys had a great time on Haloween. We had our ward chili cookoff and then the trunk or treating. Then we went back to the house and handed out candy. I think the boys had more fun handing out the candy then getting it. I am happy with that, they only got about half the candy they got last year. Yeah!!!

Football

It is football time. Jacob and Riley decided they wanted to play football. So, Jacob is playing Mity Mites (tackle) and Riley is playing flag. I was really surprised when Jacob told me he wanted to play after finding out that he was too old to play flag this year. They are both having so much fun. Games start this Saturday and will be every Saturday for the next 2 months. Here are a couple of pictures from practice.
Jacob in all his pads.
Jacob is the one on the right (white pants, red shirt, no W on helmet).Riley in the blue shirt.

Cole is 1 month

My baby is now a month old. He is starting to get a little more fun for the boys. He is such a good baby. He hardly ever cries. I love it that he is starting to stay awake more during the day and sleep for 5 hours at night. I really didn't like only getting 30 min. -1 hr. sleep at night. All in all, everything is great around here.
I really liked this crazy face he was making. It makes me laugh.

Update

It has been kind of crazy around here, staying very busy, so I haven't even had time to turn my computer on.

A couple of weeks ago, my family went to Lake Powell (they go every year). We try and go every year, because it is so much fun, but sometimes we can't. Jacob and Riley really wanted to go this year and so did Chris, but I didn't really want to take a 2 week old baby for a week in that heat. So, Cole and I stayed home and Chris took the other 3 boys. It was really nice having a week with just Cole. Thank you to all my family who helped take care of my boys. Here are some of the pictures of their trip.

There is always a pirate day. You can't go a week, surrounded by water and not pretend you are pirates. This is always the favorite day for the kids, maybe even the adults. This picture is of the treasure hunt.I was told that Parker's favorite thing was to ride the jet skis.Riley in the tube.Parker grew some new, crazy hair on the trip. He really did not like it at first, but he got used to it.My cliff jumpers. This was always on of my favorite things to do. It was Riley's birthday on the last day of the trip. Isn't he so lucky? I think so. Then of course we had to go camping. This is our very beautiful family picture (we will not be using this one for our Christmas card) during our long, up hill hike. So fun!Parker always seemed to find a way to look like this after only being out of the trailer for 10 minutes. I really loved the dirt finger marks down his right eye. We has a tone of fun camping but I didn't take very many pictures. Camping trips are always too short. Oh, well.

Cole is 2 weeks old

OK, so I am trying to get back into life. Cole is now 2 weeks old and doing well. He just had a doctors appointment and he lost weight. The doctor has no idea what is going on because he looks so good. The doctor thinks it could be one of 2 things, the scale could have been wrong last week when he was weighed or that he has a really high metabolism. So, the doctor put Cole on a higher calorie diet and we need to go back next week to get weighed again. All in all things are really good. The boys all love their baby brother. Parker is still really good with him, he will let other people hold him now. Jacob and Riley are loving school. Things are good!