We ended up going to Colorado Springs for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with family! We have been highly blessed this year in many, many ways, not the least of which was the safe return of Wesley's brother Tyson from Afghanistan! So, we were able to go see him and his family at their new home on base in Colorado Springs. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and visiting. Wes and Ty played a lot of racquetball (resulting in a butt injury for Wes), and Lindsey and I were able to go do Black Friday shopping sans children. It was Lindsey's first time going, and it was a blast to go with her and show her my tricks for the day. I was surprised to find by far the longest lines I have ever waited in though. (We waited for over an hour in line at both Kohls and Toys R Us! It was nuts!!!) All was well though and at the end of the day, I had all presents bought for Christmas except one (curse Toys R Us for being out of the Skateboard set I wanted for Spence-not that it was big enough anyway...) I have a couple funny stories though of the battle known as Black Friday shopping-
1-I had to force a lady out of the way to see the mens jeans at Wal Mart-she was blocking the aisle with her cart and not letting anyone by. I won the battle though and got Wes some jeans.
2-Some jerk took ALL the boys size 5T jeans and those are the ones I needed most-I did not get any.
3-I took jeans out of someones cart for me after I told her she did not need 35 pairs of jeans, and I was taking 2 of them. Found out later she was the daughter of the Men's Jeans lady with the cart.
4-Lindsey and I got the VERY last 2 3-wheel scooters (I swear if anyone tells me kids that is what they are getting...) for Armour and Heighley-there was one boy one and one girl one and I swooped in and grabbed them just in time!
5-We waited in line at Toys R us with 2 very funny ladies that were buying stuff for their daughter...they were hilarious and made the wait a lot more entertaining.
6-I love getting all my shopping done and I love a deal, so I go, I fight, sometimes I triumph, sometimes I fail, but doggonit, I get the job done, and it is a blast! I will so be there next year in Omaha-who is in?!

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving day. I have more pics that will be in the next few posts.

While the lady-folk was cooking (and looking through sale ads), we sent the men and children out to play football. They played for quite a while, but by the time I sent the camera out, most of the children were inside as they were SOOOO done with the cold!

Here is Brenden throwing a football. Brenden and ArmyTy & HeighleyThe lovely tableJust before eating Our picture perfect turkey

My not-so-picture perfect yams-I let Wes do the marshmallows...they don't look pretty, but they tasted AMAZING!!!
ArmyHeighleyEnderBrendenSolace
Kindle

Kindle and aunt Lindsey-this is what Kin's hair looked like at the end of the day when the pony tails came out...A closer look...(she is slobbery and teething...)

Me (Wes thinks I do not post enough pics of me...there is a reason for that...)

Real Chinese food

Well, a couple weeks ago, Wes invited over 6 Chinese exchange students for a turkey dinner (very classic American). The students are med students that are on a 3 month exchange. They then invited us over for real Chinese food, and last Sunday we ate dinner at their house. The food was GREAT!! I am drooling just remembering it...Here are some pictures. (They loved our crazy kids and kept talking about how it must be so fun to have siblings as they are all, of course being from China, only children.)

Before the pictures I should probably explain a couple things. One is that they gave the kids this HUGE balloon to play with-you will see it involved in many a pose. Second, yes, Armour is pants-less. Upon arrival and sitting at the table, I noticed his chair and pants were very wet. I took him up to the bathroom to change him, and to discover that for the 3rd day in a row, he had taken off his pull-up and had replaced it with underwear. This is fine as long as it is not a surprise to parents, and as long as he will actually go potty in the toilee. Sadly, he obviously followed neither of those rules of wearing underwear, and we ended up cleaning up a mess, putting on a pull up and taking pictures where he is in fact missing pants...sorry about that...

Watching the Furious Five on a laptop...

Turkey Bowl 2008

Every year in every ward and every state we have lived in there is the great extravaganza called the Turkey Bowl near Thanksgiving. This year, our ward had it the Saturday before, and thus we were able to go before we went out of town for the holiday. It was a butt cold day, and the kids and I mostly watched from the warm car parked up the hill, but came down to run around and watch close up for a while. We did get to witness We do a somersault of sorts at one point, and we saw the bishop tackle him while he ended up kicking the bishop in the chest in the fall. It was pretty funny, especially since I did not know it was the bishop until later (so as not to alarm anyone that Wes was being too rough with a frail old man, I feel I should mention here that our bishop is only 2 years older than I am). Here are a couple random pictures. (Wes is the bald guy in the coat with yellow stripes down the arms.)

Baby and Birthdays

Hello, I have much to blog about and thought I should start with this. First, Happy Birthday to Melanie (late)! The big 2-0...out of the teens...nice...do you feel old Mel?! Do ya? You shouldn't! Enjoy your 20s-they were a lot of fun for me, very eventful! :) Second, Happy Birthday to Angel-how fun to get to spend your birthday in Utah with the family! I hope you enjoyed it and of course the fun part was having a new baby born to share your birthday!

Which brings me to the big news...

Welcome to the world and to our family Tomas!

My sister, Andrea had her little baby boy on Angel's birthday yesterday (November 30). He was just shy of 8 pounds and a very tall guy at 22". As you can see above, he is adorable and chubby and cute. We are glad he had come and there is no more bed rest! Life can go on now! Congrats to Andrea, Jeremy, Jaxon, Kyara & big brother Ender! Yeah!

Go Utes!

So my Utes beat BYU in the big game on Saturday and are still undefeated! YES!!!! GO UTES!!!!
This means we will be going to a BCS bowl! YEAH! It really was a good day if your blood runs red!

Now, I wanted to also mention that I am sad. That of all the special days in the year, the day I miss being in Utah with my family is inevitably the BYU/Utah game every year. (Especially when the Utes win). I LOVE the rivalry! I love the trash talk and I love watching my Utes win! Admittedly the day does have a bit of a damper on the occasion BYU wins...but a big part of the fun for me is all the leading up to the game. Now, I realize this seems silly that I miss that feeling of intense fans rallying behind their teams for a big football game when I live in Nebraska. Here, every Huskers game day has that feel in the whole darn state. And it doesn't even have to be a game with as big a rivalry as BYU and Utah. Every game is intense here. The state practically shuts down for the Huskers-they broadcast it in stores, the grocery stores pipe it in on the intercoms. I have tried to be a Huskers fan and get into the feel of it, but I have learned I am a Utah Man...er woman (sorry got caught up and started singing the song in my head). I love my UTES and I LOVE that they won.

GO UTES!!!!!

Happy Birthday Brenden!

Well, our awesome nephew/cousin Brenden had a birthday a few days ago and as usual I am behind on wishing him a very happy birthday! We love you Brenden and hope you had a very, very fun birthday! I am sure it was great since you got to have your daddy home with you! We are excited to see you in a couple days! Happy Birthday 5-year-old!

Congrats!!!

Shout out to Heidi, one of my oldest and dearest friends, and her husband Spencer on the birth of their first child. I know absolutely no details other than he was born the other night, but I want to say congrats! Heidi-I love you, you are awesome, and your life just changed in more ways than you know-you will LOVE it!!! Congrats and cannot wait to hear all about the little guy! Oh and Andrea wants me to remind you that you owe her still miserably pregnant self a lunch...(I should also note that when I say Heidi is one of my oldest friends, I mean I have known her longer than most of my friends-not that she is old...just thought I ought to clear that up before all the people started to point out how much older I am than Heidi...)

First Dives...

Solace

Ender

Armour

Swim Lessons (aka a post for mom)

I was surprised when my mom called last night and said "Well, you must be as busy as we are. You haven;t blogged in a week." I took that as a hint that she wanted to see more pics of her adorable grandkids. So, Here they are at their swimming lessons. These pics were taken 2 Saturdays ago. I will also post the pics from last Saturday when they all got to try their first dive off the diving board into the deep pool. Solace and Ender have class at the same time, and Armour has "daddy and me" lessons after the big kids finish theirs.

Solace

Solace swims to wallSolace and teacher left, Ender and teacher right.
EnderEnder swims to teacher (you would not believe what a big step this was!!)

After their lesson

Just before Army and Wes jumped in

In the pool

This is what daddy and me lessons are like...

How high can we go?!

Jumping in to dad...