Merry Christmas!

Here are some of the fun things we did yesterday. I should have included a picture of Chris and I plowing snow on our tractor, since we bought eachother the snowplow as our solitary gift giving effort this year, but I forgot to take a picture, so just try to imagine 2 feet of snow with 3 inches of ice underneath it. Happy Holidays!

Snuggling with Daddy! He's back!!!

Hadden and Calla's New Kitchen

I cooked a ham and a turkey breast! For those of you who know me well, you know this was huge and deserved photographic evidence.

Calla is just so cute!

Buckeyes!

My grandma--my mom's mom--used to make Christmas cookies every year. My favorites were always the buckeyes. Basically, they are a really yummy Reeses peanut butter cup. She passed away a little over a year ago, so this Christmas I thought I'd make buckeyes to carry on her tradition (and because they are yummy). The kids helped, by which I mean they ate as much as possible while standing on chairs at the counter, but I did the dipping after they went to bed.

Taking a chocolate bath












All done and waiting to be eaten

Calla really liked them!

What I should have taken a picture of was my hand after I was done dipping. Next week I'll post a picture of me on the treadmill, thanks to all the buckeyes! Sorry about the formatting issues. I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind blogger's justification of the pictures.

Making Bread With Mom

First, we mix the dough, or pound the metal measuring cups together to rupture people's eardrums, whichever you prefer

While we are mixing, we might as well spill a little flour...and eat some

Now, we need to form the loaves

But, first I think we should try the dough. Yummy!

All Done! Such big helpers!

Christmas Picture

Happy Holidays! Here is the kid's Christmas picture. We have some curse that says that we must lose all the addresses our in our Microsoft Outlook every year. We are also not smart enough to have backed them up, though after the 3rd time, one would have thought... Anyway, we'd love to send you an actual photo, if you'd be kind enough to email us your address, again. Happy Holidays!

Dancing With Daddy

Chris has been teaching Calla to dance lately...to her new favorite song, which should be playing, if I finally figured it out. I did shrink the player somehow, sorry (free blog advice always accepted!). I think we might have another music lover on our hands. Hope all your Thanksgivings were great! Ours was, and we survived black friday too.


On Daddy's Toes

Her Favorite part is the dip.

Obsessed

Please bear with the background for a few days. The movie is almost here!

Weekend with Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa (my parents--Chris' parents are Pabo and Grandma Nancy) came up this weekend to see Hadden in the primary program. We all had lots of fun playing with legos, riding the tractor, reading stories and, of course, going to the "cheese store," as Grandpa and Hadden call Gossners. Calla really fell in love with her Grandpa this weekend. Whenever he wasn't in sight, she would say, "Mo, Bupah!" Then, when she would see him again, she would do this deep, devilish little laugh and shout, "Bupah!" It was adorable. I also think it melted "Bupah's" heart.

Hadden and Grandpa tilling on the tractor

Grandma and Calla, so cute!

Reading Calla's favorite book, Time for Bed

Putting together Hadden's first lego set, a police helecopter. It was promplty broken about 10 seconds after they finished it.

Calla loves driving the wheel

Our silly Hadden

Hadden's First Date

Before all you LDS people have a heart attack, DON'T! I was his first date. We went to the African children's choir last week. They were in town at the local theater, and Hadden happened to notice them practicing as he was leaving his once-a-week choir hour. We bought tickets for the next night, forced him to take a nap, and headed out for a great evening. The choir was amazing! They sang and did traditional dance. The kids are all between 7 and 12 years old, and are all either orphans or from families so impoverished that they cannot afford to care for them. There were also three adult narrators who had been in the choir previously. I was totally amazed to learn that the choir sponsors these kids all the way through college. They only tour for one year, but then everything (food, education, housing, clothing) is paid for until they have earned a degree. I was amazed! Hadden loved the song, dance, and drums, all of which were performed by the kids. There was one song with a lion stage puppet that was a little scary. He kept leaning over for the next half hour to whisper to me, "Mom, was that lion real?" He's still talking about it, though, so I think we can call his first date a success.

BOO!!!

Boo is Calla's word of the week. She has also been "roaring" a lot lately. However, tonight when it was actually Halloween and she was dressed as a lion, we couldn't get her to do either! They never perform when you ask them too. The kids were adorable anyway and had a great time trick-or-treating. I am not a huge Halloween person, but we had a fabulous time with the Moores. Hadden and Audrey were very involved in trick or treating. Chris asked Hadden what his favorite part of the day was and he said, "When I knocked on peoples doors and said 'trick or treat' and they put candy in my pumpkin.'" That's the essence of Halloween, buddy.

Carving the pumpkins
Hadden literally spent 30 minutes cleaning his pumpking out all by himself. It was great!

Chris was Woody (fogot his hat for the pic.) to go along with Buzz. Calla was the cowardly lion, and I was a vampire (Alice), of course!


Cute Kids!

Twilight Junkie

OK, for those of you who don't know, I am a total Twilight junkie. First step to recovery is admittance, right? So, if you've nothing better to do on November 21st, come join us...well, me. Chris will be playing daddy that night. We are having a dinner and a movie cooking class at the store that night, since it's the day the Twilight movie comes out. Click on the picture above for all the details.

Happy Birthday To You!

Today is your birthday! Today you are you!
If we didn't have birthdays, you wouldn't be you.
If you'd never been born, well then what would you do?
If you'd never been born, well then what would you be?
You might be a fish! Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob! Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of hard green tomatoes.
Or worse than all that...Why, you might be a WASN'T!
A Wasn't has no fun at all. No, he doesn't.
A Wasn't just isn't. He just isn't present.
But you...You ARE YOU! And now isn't that pleasant!

...Come on! Open your mouth and sound off at the sky!
Shout loud at the top of your voice, "I AM I!
ME!
I am I!
And I may not know why
But I know that I like it.
Three cheers! I AM I!"

Do you know this book? We love it. Highly recommended.

Today Hadden turned 4! Everything I have to say about his growing up into a kid sounds so cliche--They grow up so fast! It seems like he's always been a part of our family. I swear it was just yesterday that I was carrying him everywhere in the Baby Bjorn and cleaning up his spit up all day. Maybe that's how cliches come about. They are just a simple way of expressing a universal truth.

And truthfully, Hadden is such a kid now. There is something about 4 that just leaves all that baby and toddler stuff in the dust. He is riding a two wheeler with no training wheels. His curiosity is raging (we've decided that every sentence spoken by a 4 year old must contain the word "why" at least once). He hears everything, even when we are sure he isn't listening. Sometimes he is even truly helpful around the house! Get me a "diaper/potholder/towel" I'll shout as something I'm working on goes awry. And suddenly, there he is, and more often than not, he brings the actual item I asked for!

We had a great day with our grown-up kid. He enjoyed having his grandmas around and a very fun party with some of his friends. It was a Thomas-themed party, so we even had a special guest appearance by Sir Topham Hat (thank you, Chris--I know you didn't want to, but it was really great, and the kids loved it.) The best part of the whole day was how well behaved Hadden was. I kind of felt like we all got a present today! I love you buddy!

Chris was a very good sport and Hadden still can't decide if it was Dad or the real Topham Hat.

I love how he is showing dad how old he is on his fingers.


Cute friends eating treats.

...and more treats.

Loving the top hat.

Thank goodness for artistic grandmas!

Story time with Sir Topham Hat.

Blowing out the candles.

A New Cousin

We made a day trip to Salt Lake yesterday to meet my brother's new baby, Tyler Alexander Shields. He is a cutie! Hadden would have been happy holding him on the couch all day long. We did eventually make him share, if only so that Calla could attempt to lovingly poke his eyes out while chanting "bee bee" over and over. Thankfully, she didn't succeed. The kids had a great day playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Thanks Mom and Dad, we love you. And congrats Kelly and Jo Jo.


Hadden, the happy cousin.


Tyler, who was so mellow!


The kids love the cat. The cat doesn't feel the same, but he's a good sport.


Climbing trees in the yard.


So easily entertained. This little bridge was fun for Calla for quite a while.

Kudos to Chris

My hard working hubby recently got some well deserved recognition. He was named one of the 20 under 40 by one of the top magazines in his industry. Way to go Chris. I love you!

It's kindof a long feature, so I won't post it all here. The whole article is here. They didn't put the picture from the hardcopy version on the website, so I'll post that below.

Because I need to admit I'm never scrapbooking again

That's why I finally gave in to the peer pressure and started the blog. Plus, I'm always a lurker on everyone else's blogs, so I was starting to feel like a total freeloader. Someone is going to have to clue me in on how you make the blogs look cute...eventually. Anyway, here are some fall pictures of the kids. I tried taking them myself, without Chris there to make funny faces and get them laughing. It was nearly impossible. Here are the few tolerable shots.