Journey

Happiness is a Journey, not a destination.


Namaste.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Trimming the Tree

We decorated our tree in our jammies this year.  I've let go of the idea of having a "perfect" tree.  It's so much more fun just to let the kids go for it, and it seemed to turn out close to perfect anyway. 

From December 2011


From December 2011


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Monday, November 28, 2011

Second Thanksgiving

I LOVE our family's tradition of Second Thankgiving!  Every year, the sunday after Thanksgiving, my mom makes another Thanksgiving dinner.  It started out as a way to give her mom a relaxing meal, but now we all look forward to it as a way to prolong the festivities and hang out as a family. 

The Kid's Table
From December 2011


YUM!
From December 2011


Hanging out!
From December 2011


Hunter...
From December 2011


Logan...
From December 2011

(that mischievious face...)

It was a wonderful afternoon with my family! 

Friday, November 25, 2011

Thankful November

Does life ever slow down?  Apparently not, because I feel like there are never enough hours in the day or days in the week. 

After a fun filled Halloween, I headed out to Game Stop.  Right at Midnight, 11-1-11, I purchased and brought home a very fun time drain..."Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception".  It's the 3rd game in a series, and I LOVE it!  I finished it by Wednesday morning, but that was just the 1st time through...I've spent most of my free time this month playing it. 

Indy and Lily have finally made friends. 
From November 2011

She really is a very sweet, personable lap cat, and we feel like she was meant to be ours!
From November 2011


I had the fun task of making a super yummy birthday cake for my Mom's birthday party...
From November 2011

I used our family chocolate cake and frosting recipe, and the "rose cake" decorating technique I was introduced to on I am Baker that is soooooo easy and pretty!  Plus, it uses a lot of frosting, which is always good in my book :)

Alec actually earned his Wolf in Cub Scouts back in June...but we were unable to make Pack meeting until this month, so he was finally able to get his award. 

Painting his face with the sign of the Wolf...
From November 2011

From November 2011


Then, this Holiday week, I dragged my family to the Christmas Tree Jubilee in Ogden.  My mother in law donated funds for a small tree, and my sister in law and her friend did a large tree to benefit the early intervention pre-school, which has been so amazing for my nephew. 

From November 2011

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I thought both trees were really pretty, in fact, I thought all the trees were amazing...
From November 2011

I had to take my kids picture in front of Bonneville High's tree...it is our Alma Mater, and our kids will go there as well!
After we were done, we decided to get pizza.  Not just any pizza, the AMAZING, YUMMY pizza at The Pie. 
From November 2011

Cole is thrilled that he finally has a child who will willingly eat salad...
From November 2011


The boys
From November 2011


From November 2011


Heaven in a slice...
From November 2011

From November 2011


And then, of course, came Thanksgiving Day...

I went for my first run in 2 weeks to start off the morning.  I've been plagued with injuries the last month...I got a small tear in the ligament in my left quadriceps, then I fell down the stairs on the 30th and injured my left hampstrings and glute muscle.  I just got all that healed up, and I tripped and injured the lateral meniscus ligament in my left knee.  I've been wearing a brace during the day, wrapping it with an Ace type bandage at night to keep it stable, and it finally feels healed.  I was disappointed (but not surprised) that I had lost a lot of my endurance in the last month, so it was a run/walk effort, but I was glad to get back out there.  We spent the rest of the morning perusing the Black Friday ads while I baked cookies for our Thanksgiving dinner. 

We headed over to Cole's parents' house around 3 for dinner. 
From November 2011


The kids love to take any opportunity to play the Wii, since we don't have one...
From November 2011


Me and my sweetheart...
From November 2011


Mmmmmmm...dessert!
From November 2011

Alyssa and Heath enjoy their pie...
From November 2011

(Erin and Hunter were in St. George at a soccer tournament)

Since my kids and my sister (in law, technically) Amanda don't like pie, I usually make cookies...
From November 2011

Talia enjoying one of a few cookies...
From November 2011

Dani loved the cookies!
From November 2011


We had a lovely evening sitting around and talking...

Grandpa loves playing with the kids...
From November 2011

From November 2011


Cole and his mom...
From November 2011


Me and Dani....
From November 2011


Then, of course, after the holiday, comes Black Friday....

We didn't have any specific, "big ticket" deal we were looking for, but we love the Black Friday thing, so we headed to our favorite Walmart around 8....we wandered the store looking at all the deals, and then we picked our spots...Cole by a $20 shop vac, and me by the $5 DVD's...

The crowds...
From November 2011


DVD's in the produce section...because that's the first place I always look for them! ;)
From November 2011


At 10 pm, we grabbed our selections, and met up at checkout....this was the line behind us. 

From November 2011


There were a couple more small deals there that didn't start until midnight, but I wanted the deal at Macy's more, so we headed over there to wait...and got a rice cooker for $19.99, but it has a $10 rebate....they also had these $40 amazingly soft fleece blankets on sale for $12, so we picked up a couple of those as well...We stopped off to get a snack, then headed home to bed!  All in all, it was a successful Black Friday, and a great month!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Scenes from Halloween 2011

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We had a spectacular Halloween this year.  The weather was beautiful, and everything was amazing.  We had over 600 trick or treaters, we ran out of candy at the very end, and I had to dip into my kids' Sunny D's for the last few, but we were very, very pleased.