THIS IS WHAT CHRISTIAN DOES WHILE I'M GONE AT WORK

(In case you were wondering, Christian was asking Landen if he wanted a "booby snack". A phrase we stole from my nephew Noa.)

THE DREADED FAMILY PICTURE

Every year Christmas sneaks up on me and I am never prepared for it. So this year we got our Christmas shopping done early, we put our decorations up ON Thanksgiving, and we took a family picture for our Christmas cards that I never send out. I totally plan on doing a letter, picture, AND card. What can I say... I'm an over-achiever. Well, as most of you know, when you have 3 young children and someone is just snapping away with the camera NONE of the pictures are going to come out perfect. The below pictures did not disappoint... they are all equally terrible. So let us start at the beginning:


Picture #1: Apparently mom is taking a quick nap, which Mia is confused by. Landen and Dad can't keep their eyes off each other. And Kalea seems slightly amused at how dysfunctional her family is.



Picture #2: I have to say that this picture isn't bad. Kalea looks a little constipated and I can't say that I'm in love with my smile. But Christian and Mia look pretty darn cute. But what's funny is that Mia can look like THIS in one picture and then look like...



Picture #3: .... THIS in the next picture. My favorite of her faces.

Picture #4: I think Landen is trying to jump from my lap while I fix my hair. I'm pretty sure Christian is hating this whole ordeal.

Picture #5: This is Christian's complaining face. He makes this face about once a week. Usually it's when I'm asking him to do chores of some kind... or change a poopy diaper.

Picture #6: This picture is the perfect description of our family without using words... chaotic. Kalea looks genuinely happy. Landen's doing who knows what.... I can't seem to keep my eyes open... and I'm not quite sure what Christian is looking at on Kalea's face.

Picture #7: This is my "I'm EXTREMELY happy to be here face." or my "I'm really annoyed but I'm hiding it well" face. Either way, NOT flattering. While none of my children can manage to look at the camera.

Picture #8: Wiping the drool from my face while I stare at my SEXY husband. Nuff said.

Picture #9: This one turned out half way decent.

Picture #10: As did this one.

I'm sure one of these delightful pictures will end up in your Christmas card. I haven't decided if we should put a really terrible one in there just for the fun of it. Just to show everyone what an unbelievably funny person I am. So... go ahead... wait by your mailbox for my Christmas card. You know you want to.

k

ZIP IT!

WE WENT TO CHRISTIAN'S PARENTS HOUSE ON WEDNESDAY FOR AN EARLY THANKSGIVING. WE HAD SUCH A GOOD TIME. NOT ONLY DID WE EAT TONS OF GREAT FOOD, WE PLAYED TOO. CHRISTIAN'S DAD PUT UP A ZIP LINE AND AWHILE BACK HAD BOUGHT A GO-CART. EVERYONE TOOK A TURN ON THE ZIP LINE... EVEN KALEA AND MIA. KALEA LOVED IT... SHE EVEN WENT AT NIGHT, ALL THE WAY FROM THE TOP (LIKE 30 FEET UP)... 4 TIMES. SHE'S CRAZY!! MIA DIDN'T LOVE IT SO MUCH... ACTUALLY, NOT AT ALL. HERE ARE SOME VIDEO'S OF ALL OF US DOING IT... IT'S PRETTY ENTERTAINING!

KRISTY'S TURN

CHRISTIAN'S TURN

KALEA'S TURN

MIA'S TURN

TWILIGHT REVIEW (NO SPOILERS)

So last night a bunch of girls from church went to see Twilight.  I was SOO excited and antsy for this movie.  I've read all of the books twice and absolutely LOVE them.  Christian thinks I'm such a dork:)  We had such a fun time going and watching all the overly hormonal teenage girls squeal and act like... well... teenagers.  Was Twilight my favorite movie of all time? No, most definitely not.  Was it good?  At parts I really liked it.  There were definitely some cool action fight scenes.  I guess because I like the emotional depth that the books portray, I had a hard time connecting to the movie cause it seemed so much more shallow then the book.  However, I would definitely go and see it again.  And yes, I probably will buy the DVD when it comes out.

* waiting for the movie to start *

* Leah asked somebody 2 rows to take a picture.  Hilarious! *

* Ben and Jerry's... sooo yummy! *

Favorite Parts of the Evening:

1.Cutting in line to get good seats.  We're going to have to go to the Bishop for this one. :)

2.  At one point there is no talking in the whole movie (just music) for like a full minute.  Some teenage girls were giggling... someone yelled "shut up".  And I thought to myself... "YEAH! CAUSE I CAN'T HEAR THE DIALOGUE".  relax people.

3.  Watching Angie swoon over Edward Cullen :)

4. The baseball scene. love it.

5.  Anticipation of the whole experience

GUESS WHO LIKES HIS...

...BUMBO!!

THIS GUY!!

Oh my gosh, this kid is such a stud. Could he be any more squeezable?!?

And check out the cheeks and double chin he's got going on. Crazy! No wonder he's already in 6 month clothes. And to think he starts to eat rice cereal next month. Oh no!!! Chunky Monkey on the loose!!

And to end... a picture of a napping baby. Who doesn't like to see a baby sleep.

(...and yes, i know he's on his stomach, so shoot me.)

MY TALENTED HUSBAND

Christian put together this awesome video of his entire family. Enjoy!

LIVE LAUGH LOVE

The older you get the faster your memory fades. I do pride myself in having a FANTASTIC long term memory. But when I want to post stuff I always seem to forget the fun stuff. So I decided to write some of the things down so I wouldn't forget. TAKE THAT Crappy Short Term Memory!! So is just a hodgepodge of things that I have found entertaining recently.

Christian bought catfish. Yes, that's right... catfish. I've never eaten, smelled, or craved this particular fish.... ever. But it was on sale, which of course means Christian has to buy it. So I looked up a recipe on my favorite recipe site and looked a recipe for catfish. It sounded ok and it got a lot of really good reviews so I decided to try it. HUGE, GIGANTIC, HORRIBLE MISTAKE. Here was my first clue... it contained 2 tsp. of Cayenne pepper and 2 tsp. of black pepper among other things. When I seared this fish of cat it put a huge amount of *something* in their air and we all started coughing up a storm. Ok... if that wasn't bad enough... we ate it. Well, Christian ate it (and nicknamed it Volcano Fish). It was soooo stinkin spicy that I took one bite and almost died... literally. Ok, not literally, but I couldn't eat it especially since I'm nursing Landen and I didn't want him to have a heart attack from it. So I made something frozen, the girls ate chicken nuggets, and Christian ate Volcano Fish of Cat. Did I mention I also ruined the rice? How do you ruin rice? Very carefully....

Can I just tell you how entertaining Mia can be. One of my favorite things about her is her imagination. She can take ANYTHING and make it a person (personification, if you will.) She'll do this with my cooking oil and vinegar on the bottom of the pantry and personify them. She'll do it with shoes, money(change), dolls of course. She has the best imagination and can suck you right in with her. The other day we were walking downstairs together and she looked at me and said, "Mommy, shhhh... don't wake the jaguar." So we had to tiptoe past the Jaguar and did our best not to wake him up. She also has this little black and brown puppy that she takes everywhere. It makes a very specific sound and if you don't get it right then she'll correct you in a heart beat. It goes something like this : wup wup (slurp slurp). But you have to make the slurp slurp noise. And you can't say ruff ruff or bark bark... it is WUP WUP (high pitched). Mia has perfected this noise and Christian and I are quickly learning how to do it correctly. Kalea, however, has failed miserably.

Can I just gloat for a minute about my cute, adorable, chunky, chubby, happy baby. Landen is such a wonderful baby!! I just adore him. He's gotten so chubby that a smile barely fits between his fat little cheeks. I just want to kiss and squeeze his little nugget face (as Brit would say) all day long. And I do... in between feedings, burping, and napping. I just started putting him in his Bumbo see and he LOVES it. He just looks around with his slightly unstable bobbing head. You can literally hold a conversation with him for about 20 minutes and he'll just coo right back at you. I could not imagine life with out him!

And lastly I have to say that I had such a fun time when my Grandparents came in town last week. If you've never had the pleasure of meeting my Grandpa Allen, you are missing out on something fantastic. This man will literally say anything. And what's funny is you can't blame it on old age either, he's always said what he wants. For example: At church on Sunday my mom was introducing a missionary to me that used to be in her ward. As most of you know, my mother and I look NOTHING alike. So my mom was making a joke about it and here comes Grandpa out of left field and says, "This is my granddaughter. Can't you tell." And pulls his eyes all slanty like a 5th grader. And leave it to him to swear... not just around me... around anyone. He just kinda lets it fly and it cracks us all up. Completely uncensored. ahhh... good times.