She skis!

I can't even believe my baby is old enough to be doing this!

Some holiday cheer

Every year we make ornaments as a family. I've been doing this since I was a baby. My kids love to pull out all the homemade ornaments and decorate our tree each year. This year we kept it simple with some yarn balls wrapped around styrofoam balls. They were quick and fun.

November

Get ready for random…

Hadden made dinner--Calla helped. He made peanut sesame noodles from this magazine. We LOVE ChopChop! It is a great resource for kids in the kitchen. The recipes really are easy, the instructions are good and the food is yummy!

Chris headed to Florida on a boys trip and saw a football game. Go Gators!

Calla built a Lego Pyramid herself.

So proud.

I helped put on the Holiday Relief Society Dinner.

I should have taken a picture of the food, since that’s the part I really did, but my hands were covered in salad dressing at the time…

I did, however, tie EVERY SINGLE ONE of those chair cover bows. I then decided that if I am ever consigned to eternal punishment it will probably involve LOTS of bows.

The Breaking Dawn Part 1 premiere happened, and our lovely resident chef, JaDene, put on a wonderful class with this awesome cake, which happened to be the yummiest pretty cake I’ve ever had.

Happy Wedding, Bella & Edward.

On to Thankgsgiving. Chris’ parents came to visit. Time to tickle Pabo

“Helping” with the turkey. It was gigantic!!!

Making frosting with Grandma. They made these cute turkey centerpieces out of oreos, candy corn, frosting etc. Too bad I didn’t take a picture.

Chris was on duty this year. More on this later.

The feast.

Hadden got to play a trombone at the neighbors. This has been a dream of his for a while.

My parents were supposed to come for Thanksgiving and ended up sick, so they came later. Reading with Grandma.

These are Calla’s new favorite thing…

And this is why I have so much time to catch up my blog/sewing/projects that require sitting, and why Chris did most of the Thanksgiving. I am on crutches (and a scooter inside—see above). I have a broken sesamoid bone in the bottom of my foot. It’s super annoying being the mom on crutches but I’m trying to keep busy with projects. Anyone want a crocheted hat???

Happy Birthday Hadden

Hadden’s Birthday was over UEA (fall break) this year, which we loved! We headed down to Salt Lake for a weekend of fun and acting like tourists! We stayed in a hotel (thanks Kevin!) where the kids swam and played. We visited downtown and all kinds of sights. Chris and I also spent a good 3 hours in IKEA. It was the first time I’ve ever gone there with no kids and no time limit. Dangerous. Very, very dangerous!

Waiting for the train.

Here it comes!

She’s a little nervous.

In the “bride spot” on the temple.

Cute!

They thought this was so awesome to go right up to the door.

Our neighbors were also visiting temple square that day, so the kids got to see stuff with them for a while.

Grandma came too!

From the top of the Church Office Building.

Calla was loosing it by this point!

We went to Market Street Grille for Hadden’s Birthday dinner. IT WAS SU YUMMY! I can’t wait for a reason to go back!

All kinds of treats were part of the birthday package.

Hadden’s dessert. This has a funny story. We let him pick whatever he wanted off the dessert menu. This kid is a berryaholic, so we weren’t surprised that he picked this berry trifle thing. It had some sauce on it which, in hindsight, we should have asked about BEFORE we ordered it. He had a few bites (mostly of the whipped cream on top) and then let his dad taste it. Chris confirmed it was good and then passed it back to Hadden. After another minute, he passed it to me and I took a bite. It was SUPER alcoholic! Chris proceeded to tell me I had no idea what I was talking about and it was fine for Hadden to eat it. I held my ground and we asked the waitress. She confirmed that the sauce was made of three different kinds of alcohol! Oops. Hadden ate his dad’s cake and Grandpa enjoyed the rest of the trifle.

The next day was his actual birthday. We walked around the farmer’s market and had a yummy waffle downtown.

Then we headed to the tabernacle and got to hear an organ recital. Hadden is mildly obsessed with organs and he loved every minute!

The next weekend Hadden got to have a little birthday party. He wanted to go rock climbing. Since Chris and I and the other dad who was helping (thanks Ken!) had our hands on the ropes at all times, I gave my phone to the kids to take pictures...

Hadden

Kate

Noah

Payton

Mason

Thanks Mr. Ken!

Payton

Calla coming down

Kate. I promise she has a rope on, you just can’t see it.

Go Kate!

Hi Calla!

Wow, Hadden!

Calla showing off her safety gear.

Calla finally made it to that big red hold right above her! Nice work!

Hadden is such a smart boy! He loves, loves, loves reading. Some of his favorite books are The Magic Treehouse Series, Little House on the Prarie, Henry Huggins Series, and anything about airplanes. He is a great student and very musical. We are so proud of you Hadden for growing up to be such a big kid!