Christmas

We did end up with more than 4 Christmas cards I'm happy to report. I even got an empty envelope from my good friend Megan. That was one of my favorites! I hung it up. When it was all over with, I was just glad we actually sent our cards out because it helped us get in touch with people we haven't talked to in a while...And that meant more to me than just getting cards. We have been getting a lot of snow here. Dad went from building snow forts to sledding hills all over our yard. We had two in the front and one big one in the back. The kids had fun with those.

Mark layed one of the garbage cans on it's side and stacked the snow on top to give the kids a high start. Our front yard is a big downhill so the kids went pretty fast.

Garret and A.J. were too small to get on themselves, so they would lay on their tummys and go(only about 3ft.) face first down.

My mom came to visit from FL on the 20th. It was great having her here to spend Christmas. Thanks for everything Mom!! Christmas was great. I got the white Christmas both my mom and I wanted. It was snowing on Christmas Eve too!! It was so beautiful. Cora woke up at 3am Christmas morning, but my mom told her to wait until 5 to wake us up. I'm not sure what either one of them were thinking, but Cora went back to sleep and didn't wake back up till 7. Here are some pictures from Christmas morn.

We had a great morning, and I think everyone got something they liked. I got a fluorescent orange running cap. I asked for a running hat, and that's what I got. My husband got it from the hunting department at Sports Authority. I have a picture of me in it, but I'm not sharing. I also have a picture of me in my new swim cap with an American flag on the side. But I'm not sharing that one either. I must say it was a very practical Christmas for me. I even got water (big bottles of water). Cora got a new bike, Garret got a dinosaur nightlight, A.J. got a batman motorcycle, Jorie didn't really get anything. She got two toys, but nothing exciting. Mark got a ladder, but he was really wanting a Wii. I'll have to work on that one for his birthday...Maybe Garret's in February. Anyways...Christmas was great!!

Ok...there's my new running hat. Pretty hot huh?? So if you see somebody running down the road in a bright orange hat it's probably me. Don't honk. You'll give me a heart attack.

Peterson Christmas Party

I'm so blessed to have come into such an amazing family. I love you guys!!

Christmas Cards

This year has been a pathetic year of Christmas cards for me. Let me explain why exactly. Julie is my sister-in-law. That's why. Not really, but it does have something to do with it. If you go over to her house you will see she has a lot of Christmas cards. I sincerely appreciate the 4 cards my family has gotten this year (especially yours Kari...it was first!), but there were 2 cards Julie got that I didn't; one from Mark's brother and one from their cousin. Julie explained to me that she was really close with this cousin, and I was fine with that...until I went over to their other brother's house and he had both the cards that I didn't get. It was a family party so I said to the one brother's wife who didn't send me a card, "Did you get my address yet Steph?" I was so seriously bothered. She said yes, and I assume my card is in the mail still. I must have expressed my feelings to Julie because she called to ask me if I sent out cards last year because that could be why I'm not getting Christmas cards. Yes, I did. Then she asked me if I was going to send them out this year. I wasn't planning on it and I told her if I had to send out Christmas cards to get them then I didn't really want them. (I told you this was pathetic) I started feeling guilty so I got a family Christmas picture into the form of a Christmas card and sent them out yesterday. Last night there was a cousins Christmas party. Guess who was there?? The cousin who didn't send us a card. She came up to me and told me she was trying to get my address from Julie so she could send us a Christmas card. I told her all about my experiences, and we laughed. Now, I can't help but wonder how many Christmas cards we'll get next year?? Perhaps you really do have to send out cards to get them because I know we have more than 4 friends in this world. We'll see. One more thing to add here...I just talked to Julie on the phone, and she asked me if I would be offended if I didn't get a Christmas card this year because she didn't have enough. How funny is that??!!!! She hasn't red this yet either.

Christmas Tag

I have yet to do one of these things like this, but I'm bored right now so here goes:

1.Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper, but by the time I'm all done wrapping I wish I would have just thrown it all in gift bags.
2. Real or artificial tree? Real
3. When do you put up the Christmas tree? We try to do it the day after Thanksgiving
4. When do you take the tree down? January whenever I get around to it
5. Do you like eggnog?- No...there is something too thick about eggnog...the eggnog is too thick!! Any drink you can put Rum in and have it still taste almost the same is way too thick.
6. Favorite gift received as a child?- A scooter when they were really big like 17 years ago. I threw a big fit one Christmas because I thought my parents didn't get me one, but it was just hiding in the garage. I was a brat I think.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes
8. Hardest person to buy for? My sister. She buys everything she wants for herself.
9. Easiest person to buy for? My kids
10. Mail or email Christmas- I didn't even do cards this year so I'm just going to take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas to all!! So I guess my answer would be...blog.
11.Favorite Christmas Movie- A Christmas Carol/National Lampoons Christmas Vacation
12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Day after Thanksgiving
13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?- I feel too guilty to do that. I can't handle the pressure when somebody is so thankful for something I had nothing to do with. I crack!!!
14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas time? Fudge
15. Clear or colored lights on the tree?- clear
16. Favorite Christmas Song?- All the Christmas songs off of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation movie.
17. Travel or stay at home? Stay at home
18. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yes...Who can't???
19. Angel or star on the top of the tree?- We have a snowman, a star, and something else, but I can't remember....we have six small trees
20.Open presents Christmas Eve or morning? We open one on Christmas Eve and the rest Christmas morning
21.Most annoying thing about this time of year? Well, this year it is all the Campaign 2008 crap going on. I'm so sick of it all!!!!
22. What I love most about Christmas? The Christ-mas spirit and Christmas music all the time, getting a chance to think about what someone might really like and getting it for them (something meaningful and cheap).
25. What is your tradition on Christmas eve? Opening the jammies...spending time with family...taking pictures of the tree with all the presents

A Colossal Sandwich

My boys were watching Higgley Town Heroes today, and on that show the little round people with no legs of Higgley Town decided to make a colossal sandwich. That's all I know about the show today, but after watching it Garret brought me two slices of bread and wanted me to make him a colossal sandwich. He got really frustrated when I had no idea what he was talking about so I told him to go downstairs and pick out the ingredients he wanted for his sandwich. This is what he came up with:

1 banana
honey
mustard
cumin
hot sauce

I convinced him that cinnamon would be better than cumin, and then made his sandwich. He ate it and liked it. How bout' adding that to your recipe blog Julie??

Who knew I was so dang tough??

You Are Trinity

"Touch me and that hand will never touch anything again."

What Superheroine Are You?

I stole this post from both of my sister-in-laws...I might steal yours too if I like it!!

Just a quick thought from President Hinckley, "Be not faithless, but believing. Believe in your capacity to do some good in this world. God sent us here for a purpose and that was to improve the world in which we live. The wonderful thing is that we can do it" What a great time of year as we see Believe all over that we believe in God and his love and our capacity to do good with his help. What a great time to be doing good!

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

This is what I want it to look like outside my window on Christmas Day. Seriously. I want a white Christmas this year. I've never had one, I want one. So I've been praying for that lately since we need moisture here anyway. I figure why not go a little more specific in the prayers and just add in "on Christmas...please". That's ok right? We have been having some fun snow days lately. It has been so much fun for the kids. They enjoy getting out there and making snow forts with Dad. Cora has been trying to make a snowman, but the snow just hasn't been right for that when we get out there. They are getting into the snow or "no" forts as the boys call them. We have one in the front of the house that is igloo style and Cora covers up the entrance with a big snowball at night so no one goes in. It's great. Mark slides the kids into the fort, head first with a garden shovel, has them clear out the inside, and pulls them out by their feet holding the snow they cleared from the top. This a picture of the fort in front of our house. The picture below is the fort down at the park that the kids and Dad made.
On the morning of the first big snowfall we had, Cora woke me up at around 7:30a.m. letting me know the snow was perfect for making snowmen. Now, again, if I were Mom of the year I would have hopped out of bed, gotten my snow stuff on, and made a snowman with my daughter. Instead, I told her the snow wasn't going anywhere and we'd make one later. Well, later the snow wasn't good, and we have yet to make a snowman. Here are some pictures of the first snow day we had here.

You don't put your head in the snow for snow angels when you don't have a hat on. I didn't have a had for Garret so we improvised.

I tied pants around his ears and head. It worked very well actually. He didn't think anything of it. Cora went down to the park to play on the playground when it had all the snow on so I don't have so many pictures of her as I do of Garret. Just in case you were wondering.
Cora loves the snow!! The kids were both so excited to get out there in it. They played for about 40 minutes until.... they were done and crying. They wanted to come inside so bad, but I made them stay out there for a minute so I could take this picture. I'm so mean, but it makes for a great picture. Tonight, Sunday, we went down to Temple Square to see the lights. It was so amazing. There were nativity scenes set up all over to represent different countries. The lights on all the trees...well they start putting them up in August so you can imagine how many lights are up. It was fun. None of the kids cried, we brought hot chocolate to drink, and we went with some new friends down the street. It truly was Heavenly...in all respects. "I love to see the temple..."

Viva Las Vegas...but it's just not for us!

Thanksgiving in Vegas...who knew it would be filled with so many butts??!! I didn't because I had never been there, but it seemed there were butts everywhere. Lovely. Anyways...We left Wednesday morning at aroun 8am. The drive went well and the kids were great. The baby didn't cry once on the way down. Unfortunatly it wasn't as warm as we were hoping it would be (it was 63 degrees), but that didn't stop the kids from swimming right when we got there. They swam everyday whenever we allowed them to. During the day we went downtown to walk around the hotels and see some of the stores like M&M World. The kids really loved playing the carnival style games and winning the stuffed animals. We came upon one of those robot men on the street and the kids gave Vegas a show. He tried to give the kids suckers and they were real hesitant, but they took them. Then the guy asked for garret's animals he had won. garret gave them all to him and didn't know what to do next. Everyone stopped to watch them play all this out. It was so cute! Definatly one of the highlights of the trip.


That was on Thanksgiving morning when we went downtown to walked around. In the afternoon Mark and I had to do a timeshare tour so we could get all the promised perks of our trip. We walked away without buying anything. They tried hard, but we did it. We took our free gifts and left. Thanksgiving night we went to Circus Circus and had a turkey dinner before going to play more games. garret played that stomping game for the longest time. I looked over and he was sitting on the game trying to cover all the things at once. He also tried laying down, but I didn't get a picture of that one. We had a great Thanksgiving. Mark and I went out that night by ourselves while our exchange students stayed with the kids. We went back to circus circus and played more games. It was fun. I'm going to write more later, but I'm done for tonight. I have to sleep. I just wanted to get something new up.

Throne of Lies

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Happy Thanksgiving!! A little early, but it's ok. We will be in Las Vegas during Thanksgiving so we had a mock Thanksgiving Dinner tonight. However, I didn't have turkey or ham. We had pan sered chicken breasts, and I even made gravy from the juices!! I sliced it up like turkey and the kids couldn't tell the difference. We had mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and Christmas music playing in the background. None of this was planned until our dinner plans got cancelled and I had to come up with something. Not bad huh?? After dinner we watched Elf. It was a great night. Bring on the holidays!!! We're ready.

This Week in Words...and a Few Photos

I've decided that writing every day isn't the best idea because I would bore everyone other than my Mom and in-laws. So, unless anything really fun happens, a few times a week will have to do. Thanks to my Mother-in-law for checking everyday and letting me know she actually does care about my blog! ;) This blog's for you Marilyn!! We'll start with Sunday. Church. Garret had the scripture in primary, and luckily, Cora remembered as we were leaving...late. The topic was "My faith in Jesus Christ blesses my life. I am thankful for my blessings." Mosiah 2:22 "If I have faith in Jesus and keep His commandments, He will bless my life." Garret was one of those cute little kids that had his mouth right on top of the mic so you could hardly understand him. He did great...so good that Cora has the scripture this week. I just got the reminder call or I would have forgotten again...I still might forget.

Excuse me for a moment...I have to go wipe my son's butt for the second time in 5 minutes. "Mommy, I all done" "Mommy, I all done". "No your not!! Stay on the pot and finish pooping please."

Monday. Mark was off work for Veteran's Day so we picked Cora up from school for lunch and went out to eat. We went to Mimi's Cafe. Unfortunately, we forgot a Binky for the baby and were squashed into a booth. I have to admit there were a few times I thought to myself, "why did we do this?", but the kids were so excited and having so much fun it was worth the insanity. Family night was great too. Our exchange student gave the lesson. I felt bad for her because she worked so hard preparing, and the kids listened for the first couple minutes and then the last 1 minute. Garret wanted to give a lesson on saying please. "When somebody says 'Give me that toy!!!'...that not nice. You need to say 'please give me that toy'." This was in the middle of the other lesson, and he got really upset he didn't have every one's attention. Mark and I just looked at each other and smiled, glad it wasn't either one of us for a change. Tuesday. Maybe I should write every other day because I don't remember. Wednesday began early with Mom's and Muffins at Cora's school. The kids and I went into school, ate some Mimi's Cafe muffins, read a book, and got a button. I love Cora's school. On Wed. night I went to traffic school because I got caught in a speed trap. That was a treat for me. Being a stay-at-home mom you forget how goofy people in the outside world can be, and there were a few goofy people there. I was amazed. Thursday was Spa night with cooking club. I wasn't sure I wanted to go because I was so sleepy and my house was a mess, but my students cleaned the house, my husband got pizza so I went. I had a blast! Good food, Great friends, and I got to soak my feet and watch Pride and Prejudice. Thanks ladies...you guys rock!!! Friday was eventful. Cora was star student this week at school, and Friday was her day to shine. She wanted to bring in a pet...our cat that hates people. I convinced her to settle for the guinea pig so we brought the pig and some blow pops into her class. The kids started asking me questions: "What is your favorite funny memory about Cora?" I can't remember what I did Tuesday, how am I supposed to remember specifics??? I felt like a horrible mom. My poor daughter just waited for me to say something. Then she reminded me of when she crawled through the doggy door as a baby. So we went with that one. The kids laughed. Then a little girl asked me the same question again. It was not pretty. I even forgot to take pictures. Immediately following star student, we went on a service field trip with Cora's class to rake leaves.

We finished up Friday with an end-of-season soccer party for Cora. A pretty fun week. And I decided I'm running a half marathon in March so I've been training for that. We'll see how long my body holds up, but I'm up to 5 mile runs now!! Yee Haw. That was our week in words and a few photos. I don't think I'll ever do that again. I started at 10 am and didn't finish until 9:30 pm.

Embrace Your Inner 13-year-old Challenge

If you haven't read my friend Kari's blog (in my list at the right) stop reading mine, and read her blog about her 7th grade self. I took on her "embrace your 7th grade self" challenge and found a picture of myself on the first day of school. It's nowhere near as wonderful as hers, but I am wearing M.C. Hammer pants. That has to count for something. I thought those things were so cool that it was my first day of school outfit, and you only wear your best outfit on the first day of school. I had black dress shoes on, with white tights, and the M.C. Hammer pant legs are even pegged! Wow. I even got voted homeroom president on that first day of school. I'm so convinced now that it was because of those pants!! If those things ever come back in style....LOOK OUT!! Thanks Kari...that was fun!

A Day off of School

Cora had another day off of school, and we were not going to sit around the house one more day watching Playhouse Disney. We have season passes to the children's museum down at the Gateway so we packed up the car and headed down there. It's one of those places that's fun for the kids, but kinda boring for the moms. I know if I were mother of the year it wouldn't be boring for me, but I'm not, and it was. At least they got out of the house, and it wasn't very crowded so they basically had free run of the place. I knew it was time to go when AJ was circling the family eating their lunch like a lion stalking it's prey. Then he went over to the garbage can and tried to get food out of it. "Time to go kids!" Next time I'll bring lunch. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home for a little something to eat...each kid got a hamburger and like 6 french fries. "We're still hungry!" I can't bring myself to spend a ton of money on that food so we went home to eat some more and take naps. I got a 3 hour nap yesterday thanks to my husband. 3 hours!!! Had tacos for dinner and had family night at the movies. The boys saw Harry Potter and the girls saw Hairspray. It was so good!!! Jorie just sat in her car seat smiling and laughing. We had a great day off of school.

As you have probably already noticed, we had so much fun in our leaves. Getting them off our lawn was no exception. We had no clue; however; that our garbage can was possessed until it was too late. And now it's time for some back-blogging. Halloween...It was fun, the weather was good, and we got a lot of candy. Who could ask for anything more? Halloween is definitely Cora's favorite holiday. That girl is defiantly her Daddy's daughter when it comes to sweets. She dressed up as, what she called, a pirate girl. Then the kids in her class told her it was a Dracula's Wife costume. So she started calling it that too. The package said "Gothica Princess"...I still have no idea exactly. You be the judge.

Dad took the kids to the first couple of houses in our neighborhood, before Mom and the kids went over to Julie and Trent's for a little trick-or-treating with the cousins. Garret was a "pooky keleton" because they didn't have a dragon costume in his size, and AJ was Batman, and Jorie was Eeyore. Daddy was an Air Force guy while Mommy and the girls from Argentina were Army chicks. (So out of character I know) After about 45min Garret and AJ were done so we headed back home. Cora was not even close to done, so Mom and Dad took her around our neighborhood. It was good to have that time with her. We finished out the night watching Garfield's Halloween Special and eating lots of candy! It has been a week since Halloween now and both the boy's candy is gone; Garret shared most of his with anybody he could and AJ just sneaked it all; and Cora eats one piece a day so she can make it last all year. Halloween is one of our favorite holidays for sure!! Can't wait till next year!!

Fall Family Fun

We have big tree in the front of our house with a lot of branches. Those branches had tons of leaves on them that ended up covering our yard. We raked some of them into a big pile, lined the kids up, did a countdown, and let them run full speed into the pile. It was such a fun night for us all. After playing in the leaves for a while, we went inside and carved pumpkins, roasted pumpkin seeds, and watched It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!! The kids have been asking to repeat these events almost every night since. We had a great time together.

To Julie

And here we go...the first official "Blog entry". What is the first thing I'm going to write you may wonder...It's a dedication to my Sister-in-law Julie, who is a fanatical blogger. Without you, Julia Goulia, and your constant...um...INSPIRATION this would not be happening, and your parents would have no clue which baby was Jorie and which was Quinci. Thank goodness for you Julie and Blogspot (of course). Blogger for life!!!

Anyone else love eating leaves?