I want a new blow up doll for Christmas!

Jessie, this one's for you! Since moving from Iowa I've been on the lookout for that perfect house for the holidays. I think I may have found one that topped our favorite corner house in Coralville. I just wish these pictures would do it justice. It is seriously AWESOME! Everytime I pass it, I think of Jessie and I waiting for the next holiday to come around to see what new blow up dolls they had gotten for that year. We were always anticipating Christmas, of course. I now have something to remind me of my holidays in IOWA. This is for all my Iowa friends who loved that festive corner house!

Cracked NUTS!

We have started a new tradition! Last year we took Lorelei to the Nutcracker for the first time, and to our surprise she sat still the whole time. We now have made this a Christmas activity to do with her Nana. We had a great time watching all the beautiful ballerinas as well as the dainty men dancing around. We bought her the book "The Nutcracker" and during intermission we read it to her. It helped her understand what was going on. When we asked Lorelei how she liked it, she exclaimed at the end of the show, "It was TOO long." However, We TRULY did enjoy it. Lorelei has now been dancing around with our Nutcrackers at home!

"I LIKE SMILING, SMILING'S MY FAVORITE!"

SITTIN' WITH SANTA
"SANTA, I KNOW HIM!"
RUDOLPH AND SNAPPY THE ELF
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Tis' the season to be JOLLY???

So much for starting out our Christmas season being JOLLY! After Thanksgiving is over and we are done stuffing our guts with leftovers of Thanksgiving dinner, we are then prepared to make the trip up into the attic to get out our 6 bins of Christmas decorations. One by one we take them out, trying to figure out which one has "what" in it. We finally find all the strands of lights and decide let's decorate the outside first. We are all happily in the Christmas spirit. Look how beautiful Chad and Lorelei decorated it. It was DANG good! Happiness fills the air, we are so excited that the tree is finally finished. We go inside to relax and about 15 minutes we look outside our window to see our beautiful tree, lightless! What the hell? The next day Chad tries this again, we go buy new lights, string them all around and beauty fills the streets again. We go inside, look outside our window about 15 minutes later and IT'S GONE. So after 4 attempts of decorating that DANG tree, we are throwing in the towel and saying, "Bah HUMBUG."

Going to the Zoo with OMA!

Lorelei had a great time with her Oma in town! She especially enjoyed being able to cruise around on Oma's scooter. She thought it was a lot of fun. Lorelei enjoyed all the attention she got from Oma. She got extra bonding time, since there were no other grandchildren to compete with. They played games, went to the park, sang songs, and spent a day at the zoo together.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Lorelei's Pine cone Turkey!

Oma & Opa coming down for Thanksgiving! We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. We invited the whole family down for Thanksgiving, however, only my parents were able to come. I made everything from homemade pies, to gravy. I can't believe I pulled it off, it was insane, but I did it!
It was DANG good!

Grinch Name!

http://www.yourgeekfriend.com/GrinchName/GrinchName.php

What is your Grinch Name? My Grinch Name is "Scroogeyfrown Crustynoodle"
Makes me nauseous just thinking about it!

What's Tithing?

"Mom, Dad, What is tithing?," Lorelei says, as we are in the car coming home from church. We respond by saying, "tithing is where we give money back to Heavenly Father. If we have 10 pennies, we give one penny back to Heavenly Father and keep the other 9 pennies. He blesses us with everything we have, so we give back to him some money to help him build churches, temples and other things." As we continue home, she becomes reflective and deep in thought. She then declares, "I want to pay tithing to Heavenly Father," and then asked, "How do I give tithing to Heavenly Father?" We said that she could give it to the Bishop or one of his counselors, like daddy. We told her how proud we are of her, but thought it would end there. However, when we got home, she collected all of the coins she could find in her room and brought it into the kitchen to show daddy. She wanted daddy to bring it to the bishop, so he gave her an envelope to put the money in. Later in the evening when daddy was leaving for the YW program, Lorelei ran to find her envelope and insisted that daddy take it to the bishop. So he did. I guess we will be bringing her to tithing settlement next Sunday, so she can declare that she is a full tithe payer!

Primary Program at Church

This year Lorelei is a Sun Beam at church, which means this is the first year she got to participate in the Primary Program in sacrament meeting. It was absolutely hilarious. Lorelei had two parts, which we had months to practice and she had them both memorized. Her lines were, "I have faith that Jesus will help me keep the commandments" and "I can help my mommy and daddy." It was absolutely adorable. Of course, as they start the program with the music you get all teary-eyed as you see your little girl up there forcing out a word here and there to one of the songs. Suddenly, embarrassment flushes over you as you see your little girl, sticking her tongue out, making obnoxious faces, flashing everyone as she pulls her dress all the way up, picks her underwear out of her bottom, and yells out "hello"to one of her friends in the audience. Then her turn comes to say her part. She starts to say something and realizes the microphone is no where near her mouth, so she yanks it down as close as she can get it, almost in her mouth. All flustered, her teacher whispers in her ear the first part of her line, so, she gently WHISPERS the exact part into the microphone, then realizing she needs to speak up, she yells the second part into the microphone. Everyone had a good laugh. It is at that moment that you couldn't be more proud of your little girl, in front of all these people as she does her lines with power and conviction. Way to go LeiLei!!! You did it!!!

Happy 7th Anniversary!

We went to Scottsdale for a nice evening out.

After a yummy Italian dinner, we went on a Gondola Ride.

We relaxed in the boat as our gondoleer sang opera to us.

It was very romantic!

Almost like being in Italy, but not quite!
Honestly, I didn't know we could make seven years happen!! Yes, marriage has good times and bad times and we've had many of both. Sometimes it feels like a roller coaster ride, (which normally I happen to love.) But truly marriage has taught me a lot of things. It has taught me lots of patience, acceptance, sacrifice, endurance, hard work and compromise. The communication is still something to come in the future. As much as I would like to believe there are fairy tales of complete bliss in every one's marriage, I have learned that it is much more like a soap opera. So, here's to seven more years of soap opera life with my sweet Chadwick. Happy Anniversary to a hard-working, sexy, talented, athletic, great sense of humor, intelligent, witty, good looking, loving husband and father!

HOORAY, Jenny comes to visit me!!

Sedona, Arizona
Jenny on Bell Rock
Montezuma Castle
Lorelei and Jenny watching the Orangutans at the zoo Saying good-bye to our fun-filled week of Jenny

I have had the pleasure of having my best friend Jenny come visit me for the week. We have been best friends since we were 16 years old. Her husband surprised her and bought her a ticket down to Phoenix for her birthday week. We had so much fun together. We went up to Sedona for the day. We went window shopping, had lunch, went hiking on Bell Rock and then went to see Montezuma Castle, (basically, an ancient castle built in the side of a mountain) which was so cool to see. We had fun watching movies, going to the zoo, enjoying Boba and Bing (Chinese desserts), temple, shopping and having fun. I miss her already and I'm waiting for my next visitor to come!!!

Happy Halloween!

Clark Kent and Cheerleader Lorelei
Going trunk or treating at the church.

Princess Mommy and Cheerleader LeiLei
Halloween Night and our beautiful Snow White!

Snow White Lorelei & Princess Dora Ashley
Out trick or treating

I have realized that Halloween is so much better when you have kids, I have forgotten how much fun it is going trick or treating. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, I love all the psychotic Halloween decorations, scary movies and haunted houses. It also helps to have a brother born on Halloween, because we were always guaranteed a Halloween party. This year Lorelei and I had fun decorating the outside with lots of spider webs, lights, spiders and bats. We went to many Halloween parties, it was always fun to dress up, carve and decorate pumpkins, and of course trick or treating. Who doesn't love going house to house and asking for free candy? It's the only time of year it's acceptable! It doesn't get any better than that!!!

Pumpkin Carving Tradition

Here we are attempting pumpkin carving. Uncle Steve, Lorelei and I, working on our pumpkins. We made an Ariel and Cinderella pumpkin face this year. It was lots of fun and messy. Guess who did all the work? Who came up with this tradition anyway? Lorelei and Steve were wrestling, Chad was taking a nap and I was working hard on making sure I didn't cut my fingers off. Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween and Birthday Steve!

Happy 33rd Birthday Steve and Happy Halloween! For the past year I have had my older brother Steve living with us. He has been such a wonderful brother, friend, Uncle and fix it man around the house. Lorelei absolutely adores him and is always looking forward to when Steve will be getting home. She runs to him and gives him a huge hug. She has been so fortunate to have an extra male role model in her life. They have so much fun together. Steve has one of the kindest hearts ever. He would do anything for anyone and genuinely cares for others. He loves music and he has taken over my piano and fills the house with music again, I just never have the time to sit down anymore, but glad to hear that the piano is getting some exercise again. He has such a love for animals and adores his pet rabbit Harry, which we have adopted as our family pet too. He has such a wonderful personality and we have been blessed to have him in our home. He makes us all laugh! He is definitely one of my bestfriends! We love our Steve. We just now need to find him a cute girl to set him up with. So if you know anyone, he's single! Here's to the best brother and Uncle ever! Love him!

Mother Natures Pumpkin Patch!

We went to a pumpkin patch this week and we had so much fun. We went and picked out and decorated pumpkins, we did a corn maze and went on a hay ride. We went with our friends to explore the pumpkin fields. Good ole Halloween fun!

The REAL Snow White!

Here are some darling pictures of Lorelei in her Halloween costume. She wanted to be Snow White this year, which is interesting because she has never seen the movie "Snow White." I guess I still need to wait a couple more years until it comes out again. My scanner is broken, so I won't be able to show you the outcome of what we chose, but here she is, adorable as ever. So weird to see her in a black wig! Here are a couple pics before the photo shoot. Check out the website below to see more of her pictures.