{Preston turns 1}

Today Lynda and I took pictures of our friends son Preston for his 1st birthday.  Poor little guy had fallen and skinned his nose the day before.  I still think he's adorable even with a skinned nose. We started out taking pictures in freezing downtown Roanoke, one of our favorite picture spots.  The shoot started out great but soon Preston didn't want anything to do with the camera.  We had to get creative and ended up using his dad as a prop.  Thanks Greg!  After moving to the Roanoke Soccer Complex, Preston had had enough.  Even when he's upset he's still cute.  As soon as his mom picked him up he fell asleep in her arms.  Happy Birthday Preston.

{superbowl}

We celebrated our first super bowl in our new house with a super bowl party.  In this house we love having people over and what better time than this.  We thought the game would be better but at least we had good food, good friends, and hopefully a good time.

I made these football cups after seeing something similar on pinterest.  I just took plain brown cups and white painters tape that I found in the painting aisle at Hobby Lobby.  Its not like the regular blue painters tape either.  I cut the tape in small pieces and stuck it to the cup to make it look like football laces.

For the table I used green poster board, the white tape from the cups, and some numbers from the scrap booking section.  I bought yellow napkins to resemble the flags that the referee's toss for a foul.

Everyone brought different snacks.  We had chips and salsa and feta dip.

 

Kettle corn and cookies.

The yummy feta dip.

I made a bunting for each team with their colors.  Orange and blue for the Broncos and Green and blue for the Seahawks.

Every time  a team scored the kids were able to get a piece of candy.

We made a grown up pool that cost $1 a square to get in.  I won 1 quarter and the final game.

We also ate buffalo chicken dip.

Celeste made this yummy cheese fondue, it was so good.

The spread.

I also saw these football ice cream sandwiches on pinterest but I could never get them to look as good.  Next time I will make my own icing and use a small tip.  The kids didn't care what they looked like they thought they were delicious.

I can't wait until next years Super Bowl, hopefully it will be a better game.

{BYU Bowl Game}

Last Thursday we went to the Poinsettia Bowl to see BYU play SDSU at the Charger Stadium in San Diego.  Tickets were a little pricey but Michael said that if we could get 15 people our tickets would only be $40 each.  So after lots of texts and phone calls we were able to get 15 people.

Sydney and Michael took Cole for his Christmas present.  Cole loves BYU but he has never been to a game.  He was so excited and as soon as we got to our seats Cosmo came to see him.  Talk about perfect timing.

Danny had two extra tickets so Chloe was able to come too.

Michael Sydney's husband is a junior at BYU.  They have been to just about all the home games this year.

Chloe did this cute pose after they scored a touchdown.

When BYU came out onto the field Danny was one of the first players out.  Danny is the youngest of 6 kids. All 4 of his older brothers have played college football.  Danny grew up in our ward and I was their babysitter.  I still remember when he was born and now here he is playing football at BYU.  His parents are still in our ward so we get to see him when he comes home.

This was the view from our seats.  We sat directly behind the band.  We thought that it was going to be bad but they never really got in the way and the noise wasn't bad either.

Danny plays safety and he made several great plays.  The first half was pretty much all defense so we got to see him a lot.

Here he is trying to make a tackle but this guy got away only to be tackled a few yards later.

Danny's brother Cody and his son Kaden came over to visit with us.  We got to see Cody on Thanksgiving in Texas.  It was fun visiting with him again.

Here is some of the group.  Were missing Darian, Garrett, Will, Michael, Cole, Chaz, Chase M. and I.

Cole at his first BYU game!

Now here is a funny story.  During halftime I was looking at Instagram and my friend Shaila (whom I have never met in person only on her blog) posted a picture of her ticket.  I could see her seats so I decided to walk over and see if I could find her.  As I was looking in the seats I noticed her boys and her husband but she wasn't there.  As I turned to leave she was coming up the stairs.  I finally got to meet her all the way in San Diego and she only lives in Moreno Valley.  So funny.  Other than BYU winning this was the highlight of my night.  I can finally say that I have met her in person.  I snapped this picture in the 4th quarter from my seat so that I had proof. You can only see her hair here well I'm assuming its her blond hair next to her husband.

Can you see all the Sorensen's?  We only sat a few sections over from them.  I am so glad that we were able to go to the game and see them win!

{up and coming}

Tonight Chase and his friends are going to their first Dance at Grand Terrace High School.  It is the Homecoming dance but because they haven't had any graduations it is called Up and Coming.  Chase is going with a girl named Jazmine.  I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the girls because they are all meeting at the dance then going to Denny's after.  Hopefully I can steal pictures from someone else.

Jake Jones, Brandt Dixon and Chase Baker all came over to get ready at our house.  Brandt is wearing a suit because he is nominated for Sophomore Up and Coming King.

 It's still amazing that these boys have been friends since elementary school.  Now there in high school and soon they will be graduating.  Where did the time go?

{candy corn cupcakes, activity day girls}

One of my responsibilities at church is working with the 8-11 year old girls it is called activity day girls. Once a month we meet at my house to learn new things and pass off goals. For the month of October we learned to bake cupcakes and then we delivered them to friends. Well we actually "Boo'ed" them. It was hard to hide during the day but the girls had fun trying.  My girls have also been inviting their friends to come to activity days too.

Here is how we made candy corn cupcakes.  We made a plain white cake mix and then divided it in half in two separate bowls.  We then added food coloring to make one orange and the other one yellow.  It was an easy process.

Next we added a small amount of yellow cake batter, then orange  We had to be careful and not mix the colors.  The girls did very well.

We then baked them according to the directions on the package and this is what they looked like when we took them out.  Make sure you get the white cupcake liners so that you can see the different colors through the liner.

We added white frosting to a plastic bag snipped the corner and then piped the frosting onto the cupcakes.  Then you had the three colors to make it look like candy corn.

We put candy and the cupcakes in a Halloween bowl that I picked up in the dollar section at Target.  Last thing we did was to add a cute poem and ghost then we went to deliver our special treats.

The girls had so much fun and when we were all done they wanted to make more so that they could of Boo'ed more people.

{St. George}

We left for St. George early Thursday morning.  It was dark and rainy when we left Grand Terrace.  I went with my parents, Sydney, Michael, Kaidee, Cole, and Paisley.  Darian was coming up later with Chase, Garrett, and Chloe.  Darian had to teach his class and the kids had their state testing.

The sun finally peeked out from behind the clouds in Baker.  It was still cloudy and drizzling.  When we looked in our rear view mirror we saw the most beautiful rainbow we had ever seen.  I got the camera out but I could not fit the entire rainbow in my camera.  This was the first time that I had ever seen a complete rainbow.  The pictures don't even come close to how beautiful it really was.

Sydney and Michael followed us in their car.  Cole and Kaidee rode with them.  I thought I was giving them the easy kids but they said that Cole talked the entire time up until we traded kids just before Las Vegas.  When we did trade cars Cole told us that he knew why he had to come in the truck it was because he talked too much.

A tip I have learned in all my traveling (especially back and forth to Texas) is too put car seats rear facing.  Paisley is almost 3 but when I put her car seat facing backwards she is so much better in the car.  She sleeps longer and she doesn't see everything going on in the front seats so she isn't asking for stuff all the time.  Besides its safer.  I recommend this to anyone with a child in a car seat.

My parents have been coming to St George for at least 20 years.  It started as a little reunion between 8 couples that had all lived in California at one time but had moved away over the years.  Now the children are coming with their families.  How it works is the guys all go golfing while the girls stay back at the hotel swimming and shopping at the nearby outlets.

St. George is a beautiful city.  I love the red rock against the beautiful blue skies.  This was our hotel pool.

Chloe and Kaidee loved playing with the other kids. (the moms did too)

Cole and Will became instant buds, they are only three weeks apart in age so it was perfect.  Its just too bad that they live so far apart.

This is Chloe's way of putting on sunscreen.

Paisley was scared to death of the water she didn't even like it when she was being held by someone.

This is what happened after she got out of the water.

Her pink made it all better.

Then she started to feel more comfortable in the water.  She still doesn't like being in the water but she was warming up too it.

She was able to swim to the edge.

This made her a happy girl.

Can you see something funny in this picture.  We were all sitting in the jacuzzi when this couple came and sat in there with us.  They looked like they might have been on their honeymoon.  She was sitting on his lap and they were acting like we weren't even there.  It was a little odd.

Every night after dinner we all went out to the jacuzzi and talked while the kids swam some more.

Sydney and Michael were inseparable except while he was golfing.

Garrett was a great big brother.  Cole loved having him in the water especially when him and Will made huge waves.

See what I meant about inseparable.

Here they are again shooting Chase with water guns.

I will miss St. George but we will be back in another year.