Weekend at Forest Lakes

Are fabulous neighbors, the Marx, invited us to their cabin in Forest Lakes. Of course we jumped at the opportunity. We drove up Friday night and stayed until Sunday morning. T&T slept horribly Friday night but I suppose it's okay being that we didn't get out of our jammies until 4 o'clock Saturday. It rained all morning and then turned to snow. It actually snowed!! I was so excited, Tatum had been bugging me for weeks to go to the snow and it just so happened that it snowed! We HAD to play in it! Chris and Mike had a snow ball fight and unfortunately for Chris, Mike had the last word. The rest of the time we played games, watched movies and the Office, ate great food, and relaxed. We really appreciate our friends the Marx!!

The snow was more like sleet and the kids lasted only 10 minutes. Who has clothes for the snow anyways? We couldn't make a snowman "because we forgot a carrot," said Tatum.

Aren't they so cute! Notice Tucker's snow boots, they were his obsession the rest of our stay. He wanted to wear them so bad even though they were 2 sizes to big.

Here is Kojo (Tatum named our car that and very affecionately calls her so), frozen solid. We tried to go to church early Sunday but her doors were frozen shut and the windshield wouldn't defrost. So we decided to go to the one o'clock time in Payson. We got there just in time for the sacrament but they didn't come into the foyer. Hello! There were absolutely NO seats anywhere so we left without attending church. We gave it a valiant effort!

Tatum posing in her "Christmas dress" in the snow. Where is her jacket? Chris and Tucker enjoying the 30 degree weather.

We each put our favorite pop out on the porch to be chilled by the arctic temperatures. Long live Mtn. Dew!

Winter Wonderland

We have Christmas lights, YEAH! Chris nearly died putting them up. So Chris gets off of work early and decides to surprise me and hang our Christmas lights. He's up on our roof and he steps down onto the ladder to climb down and oh shoot, the latter falls to the ground and Chris is left hanging off the roof! I am not there to yell to and so he's just hanging there as his life flashes before his life! Fortunately for Chris, our neighbor works at home and likes to spy on his neighbors (not really) from his second story office. He looks out his window and sees Chris hanging there and wants to know if everything is alright. Of course it's not, so he comes and rescues Chris. Mike saved Chris's life! But he couldn't prevent him from getting scratched all up his leg. For the rest of the evening all I heard is, "I almost died," and "Oh my leg, it hurts." Drama, drama, drama. We did get a lovely, festive house out of Chris's near death experience.

This is Chris. I just want to publicly thank Mike for saving my life. As I was hanging off the roof (okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit) and close to death, my life was flashing before my eyes. I got to thinking about my family and everything I take for granted. I was also thinking about how my foot and leg really hurts (the picture doesn't give it justice, it's really a laceration and probably needs medical attention). So if I die a sudden death, like falling off the roof and cracking my head open, then I want my family to know how much I love them and that I'll be watching over them.

Ice Cream Let Down

This is my favorite thing to get at Coldstone so you can imagine my excitement when I was driving home Saturday night and Chris requested a "treat". I anxiously place our order and race home to devour my devilishly fantastic ice cream. You can only imagine my disappointment as I bound through our bedroom door to find Chris asleep. My shoulders slump as I ruffle the brown bag to wake is sorry behind up. "Oh, we can still eat it if you want," he says. Heck no! Then I look like that fat one and we can't have that! It's okay I tell myself because there's always tomorrow, we'll put the kids to bed and I'll curl up in a warm blanket to finally eat my treat. So Sunday evening arrives, the kids are in bed, our bedroom window is open so our room is extra chilly, I'm in my comfy clothes under the covers as I begin to demolish my heavenly goody. The first bite was good, not great so I kept eating expecting to die and go to heaven any second. I keep eating and get oh so disappointed with every bite. The ice cream girl decided to add 10lbs. of almonds and that is all I can taste! Gross! I like almonds in the proper amounts but a whole mouth full, bite after bite is too much! This mouth-watering combo is ruined! Too many stinken almonds!! I've wasted all those calories!! AHHHH! I hate being disappointed in my food!

Thanksgiving

We had such a fun, busy Thanksgiving! It started with the Turkey Trot. My sister, Dad, and I do it every year, we have to earn our turkey dinner! We ran our little hearts out. Between the 3 of us Natalie came in first and beat her time last year. I followed, although I didn't beat last years time I'm still rather pleased with my time as I hadn't ran in a month. And pops trailed behind with a strong finish. It's been like 3 days since the race and my knees still hurt! A small price to pay I suppose.

For dinner we went to Uncle Danny's house (my Dad's brother) for a shmorgis board of delicious food! We love to spend time with my dad's family, they always make us laugh. We don't get to see them often as they live so dang far, Peoria, so it's always nice to see them!

Marshmellow and Marshmellow

In observance of Turkey Day we decided to make our own turkeys, out of cupcakes. They both decided to name their turkeys Marshmellow, I have no idea why. I tried to get Tuck to name his Tom but to no avail, he wanted to be like Tater. Tucker hardly got any frosting on his because he ate it all. Gross! He had to steel Tatum's. When we finished, more like when I was finished, we delivered them to our neighbors to wish them Happy Thanksgiving!

Gilbert Days Parade

On Saturday my rugrats experienced their first official parade, the Gilbert Days Parade. I was more than a little worried they would be bored and ready to go 5 minutes after it started but I was pleasantly surprised! We ended up staying the entire time and had plenty of oohs and aahs. Tatum's favorite part was dancing to all the music, I wouldn't really call it dancing, more like jumping. Tuck's favorite was a toss up, either the 2,000 horses or the motorcycles.

Tatum and I sitting on the curb enjoying the view.

Tuck insisted on wearing his glasses AND the hat. At least his hat matched his pants!

Our cute little friends Sadi and Maci came with us. They sat in their wagons waiting for the parade to start. It didn't last long though, they wanted to play in the street most of the time. Thank you Sadi and Maci for being our friends and for coming with us!

Fabulous 4

I feel like I didn't add enough about my fabulous four year old. About how sweet she is and what a great big sister she is. She can be so concerned about her "little buddy" (Tucker), she'll put her arm around him and help lead him to wherever. She defends him when a little friend isn't so nice, which is really funny because in the big sister tradition-she's the meanest. I often find her shoving him or chasing him with teeth clenched and nails ready to attack. But this is a nice post so we won't go into that! We all have our moments. She's not really a cuddler but sometimes she won't stop hugging or snuggling, how I love those rare, random occasions. Some of her favorites:
*princess Polly Pockets, she'll play forever with these funny, rubber dollies
*her Noni
*singing, any song will do but her favorite is I'll Follow Him In Faith or Going Campin
*ice, for the longest time she refused ice but one day at breakfast she said she changed her mind and ice is now her favorite.
*Sunday dresses that twirl
*ANYTHING Tinker Bell
*movies-Annie, Cinderella, Island Princess
*to be tickled, not the annoying tickle but the soft, relaxing tickle. She insists on being tickled before bed and begs for "one more minute"
*Primary, she loves her teacher Sister Knollmiller and is always so excited to sing the new songs she learned in Singing Time
*anything active: riding her scooter, running, dancing, chasing bubbles
*she loves to camp, begs us to take her camping
How we love our little princess. She brings humor, love, and kindness into our home. She has such a sassy attitude I can't help but laugh when she dishes it out, it worries me though for the dreaded teenage years. She has spunk and personality that make even the hardest hearts smile.