A visit with Santa

We made our traditional visit to the mall to visit Santa yesterday. I thought it would be fun to post the past years photos so you can see how the kids have changed.




2008

2007


2006

all I could find for 2005was this crappy picture :(

2004
]
2003




2001

Lance and I have come to realize that family traditions are very important in keeping a family close. We are both grateful for the traditions we were raised with - they gave us stability as we grew up. Each year we seem to make a few new family traditions but there are some that we have stuck to for many years. Some examples are: taking my mom with us to eat dinner at the Cracker Barrel and drive through the Spanish Fork Christmas Light display ( we even did this when she was in the midst of her Chemo), spending Christmas Eve at my mom's with the Jeppson cousins, reading "A Christmas Dress for Ellen" (the Jeppson family Christmas story), reading Luke 2, opening Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve at my mom's, spending Christmas Day at Lance's parents with the Madigan cousins, I pick out a special ornament for the kids each year, using our many many advent calendars, watching the old animated Christmas movies like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. These traditions, for us, define the season and make it more magical. I would love to hear what other people do each year to make Christmas special!

Anyone still out there?

I haven't blogged much lately - it seems that most of the info I would put on the blog I already put on facebook. For that reason I am not sure anyone is reading the blog anymore. But I have been thinking lately that about how I use the blog to refer to when I do my scrapbooking so I am going to try and be more faithful with it. My biggest frusteration is what a pain it is to upload photos to the blog. Facebook is just so much easier. If anyone has suggestions for making it easier I would love to hear them. I realized that I haven't blogged about Lance turning the big 4-0! I just want to say that I have the best husband ever! I know other people say that but truly- for me - he is the best husband I could ever imagine. He is a great dad, super supportive of all my crazy endeavors and never complains about doing half (or sometimes more than half) of the boring stuff that keeps our house running. He is truly my best friend and I still love staying up late and talking to him! I love watching him wrestle and tickle the kids. I am grateful that he works so hard to provide a comfortable life for us. We are truly blessed. Some of the little things he has done for me lately that have really meant a lot to me are: clean out the carport so I can park the van in there (it is so nice not to have to scrape the windows in the morning!), taken ALL the kids to go Christmas shopping, hauled numerous heavy boxes full of Christmas decorations up and down the stairs, bought me a new vaccum and then used it to vaccum the house, put up my mom's Christmas lights in the snow/rain when he already had a cold, he is always willing to take care of the kids when I want to go out with my girlfriends, he lets me drag him to events like the New Moon preparty and midnight showing without making to many sarcastic comments, lets me take pictures when he is covering stories for the newspaper and then makes sure I get the credit, he is always prepared and willing to give priesthood blessings to family and friends whenever it is needed. I could go on but I think you get the picture that he is an all around great guy -sorry ladies he is taken!

Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights: 8 questions, 8 answers, 8 tags


8 TV shows I love:
Glee
Pushing Daisies
Castle
Scrubs
Ugly Betty
Masterpiece Theater
Penguins of Madagascar
The Soup


8 movies I love:
Pride and Predjudice (A&E version or Kiera Knightly version)
Bridget Jones Diary 1 and 2
New Moon
All the Harry Potter Movies
Persuasion (Amanda Root version)
Emma (Gwenyth Paltrow version)
Jane Eyre (Timothy Dalton version or new BBC version)
Strictly Ballroom


8 restaurants I love:
Sukura
Cafe Rio
Rubios
Rumbi Island Grill
Zupas
Italian Place
Los Hermanos
Sweet Tomatos

8 things that happened yesterday:
celebrated my birthday by sleeping in
finished a digital scrapbook layout
had sushi with friends
sorted mountains of laundry
watched several episodes of Pushing Daises
read lots of facebook birthday wishes
listened to Christmas music
hugged and kissed my kids many, many times

8 things i look forward to:
when Lance gets home from work
phone calls from my girlfriends
editing photo shoots
working on my scrapbooks
Asher being fully potty trained
our next family vacation - whenever that might be!
book club nights
getting Lasik on my eyes -- Dec. 4th!!!!


8 things i love about winter:
Christmas music
Christmas lights
Christmas decorations
the sparkle of sunlight on the snow
Hot cocoa
the spirit of giving
slippers
comfy sweaters and sweatshirts

8 Things on my wish list:
a new car
Silhouette SD cutter
my basement to be finished
tile or hardwood flooring for upstairs
my shower door to be fixed
for my mom to go back to being able to care for herself
a trip to Disneyland
a dvr


8 friends I tag:
Jen M.
Cari O.
Holly M.
Jana S.
Rachel M.
Rachel Y.
Jenn C.
anybody who wants to do this

JJ's Baptism

Wow, it is hard to image JJ is now 8! He is loving Cub Scouts, and VERY excited to be baptized this Saturday. We were a little concerned because he was sick yesterday, but he is feeling better today so we are going to go for it. Not sure how many people read the blog anymore (since we update it once a month if we are lucky), but thought I would throw something on here for all the world to see.

8 is great

Pumpkin Eaters

Last week Lance's parent's graciously invited us and our friends the Zellers to come by and pick the last of their pumpkins. The kids had a blast running around picking which pumpkin they wanted. Jaxon and Carter got to use the hand saw to cut the pumpkins from the vines. (No fingers were lost in the process!) Carolyn had made up some goody bags for each of the kids to find around the pumpkin patch. Missy and I had fun running around trying to get the kids to hold still long enough to get a picture or two. Asher was the fastest, consequently there aren't too many pictures of him! This week marked Lance starting his new church calling - Assistant Scout Master. I am excited for him - he is great with scout age boys (maybe is relates to them ? ;) Swine flu mania is in full force here in Utah County, as it is around the nation. Lance knows whether he will be working late or not based on if the County has flu vaccine in stock or not. And no, we still haven't gotten the shot yet - none of us fall in the category of people who can receive the shot yet. We are not looking forward to the lines but when they do open it up to the general public we will be braving them as soon as it is made available. The week we are also preparing for JJ's 8th birthday. I really can't believe that my baby boy is going to be 8 on Friday. I am preparing a special post dedicated just to him for later in the week. For those interested in attending - JJ's baptism will be Saturday, November 7th at 9 am. Mark your calendars! I will send out more information via email, facebook and phone calls next week sometime.

New Family Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we "won" a free 8x10 from Fotogenix. So we thought "what the heck we will give it a try". We set up the outdoor photo shoot, went and felt like it went well. We had to wait a whole week to view the pictures in the studio. Now a smart person would have taken the free 8x10 and headed out the door but NO we decided to purchase a 16 x20. We then learned that on top of the fee for getting the print we would have to pay extra for a collage style print, extra for switching the heads on the picture so that everyone was smiling etc. Both of those extra options are things I could do in a matter of minutes if I had the digital files. Oh yeah to get the images on CD would cost at least $500 dollars. Stupidly we went ahead and ordered the $250 print. We then left, talked about it and decided that we shouldn't have done it. Called back within 20 minutes to be told that they would not refund our money. Needless to say we are not very happy with ourselves or Fotogenix. A week later my friend Missy took family portraits of us. We are much happier with these images, by far! And guess what? They were free! Live and learn. Check out mine and Missy's photography blog here to see some of our recent photo shoots. Here is the slideshow of the family photos we took with Missy.

On another note - this past week and weekend we have all been sick with the flu. Some of us are still fighting it off while others are pretty much recovered. Not fun but we are getting through it.

Life is busy

The month of September has been filled with lots of different activities. Congratulations go out to my niece Michelle and her new husband Brad. We are so happy for them to start their new life together. My niece Holly and her husband welcomed a new baby girl, Lucy, just a few days after Michelle and Brad's wedding. We are so excited for them as well! We have been absorbed with soccer, school and cheer leading. Coordinating schedules got just a little more difficult this school year. Asher started attending a playgroup/preschool class once a week. We rotate between four different homes, each mom taking a turn to host. It has been some what difficult for Asher. He is considerably more shy than JJ and Hannah and warms up to people slowly. Once he knows people he can be really fun and outgoing but until then he is very reserved and quiet. I think this will be a great way to ease him into going to real preschool next year. Lance attends a plethora of meetings as usual. Many of the meetings pertaining to the infamous H1N1 or swine flu. He spends his spare time working on various projects around the house. I got a new calling recently, I am now the compassionate service person. I am sure I will learn a lot in this calling. I have also been using my spare time to read, scrapbook a little and edit photos from my friend Missy's photo shoots.We visited the State Fair as a family a couple of weeks ago. JJ had completed the State Fair Reading Program so he got a free ticket to the fair as well as some other freebies. He was so proud of himself! We had a great time walking around looking at the different animals. We had to practically tear Hannah away from the momma pig and her babies. Hannah kept insisting that she NEEDED a baby pig or a bunny rabbit! JJ, city boy that he is, kept complaining about the smell, while Hannah said it didn't bother her one bit! Asher loved the display of diggers and back hoes. The kids climbed all over the big trucks and it was hard to get them to leave. We capped the evening off by sharing a huge funnel cake covered in half carmel and half strawberries. Yummm.

So far behind

I haven't blogged for almost a month! I can't belive that I have let it go this long. I just kept waiting for us to get our new hard drive installed so that I could download the pictures off of the camera. And now there is a ton upload. I will try to just put up a few. This month found JJ starting 2nd grade and Hannah starting kindergarten. Everybody says the same thing but I really can't believe how the time has flown and my babies are getting so big. JJ was a little nervous about this school year because he was getting a teacher that is brand new to our school. She is very young! So far things have gone well. Hannah was ecstatic to start kindergarten. She already knew her teacher from when JJ was in kindergarten. She didn't have a single nervous moment. I got a little emotional on the first day of school but I blame it all on Missy (she was bawling her eyes out!) I think I have signed my self up for way to many things this year so we will see if I am still sane by the end of the year. I am going to be one of JJ's room moms. I am doing publicity/website for the PTA. I volunteered to help with reading etc in both JJ and Hannah's classrooms. I am now the compassionate service person in our ward. I am still active in a book club and I have now discovered and fallen in love with Zumba. Last of all Missy and I are doing a little sideline business of photography together. Check out our blog: Sarey & Mel Photography. This month Lance and I attended the annual Elder's Quorum Meet and Skeet. (It wouldn't be Lehi if the activities didn't include guns) Hannah and JJ have both started soccer this month as well. Lance is coaching Hannah's team. It is rather hilarious to watch Lance try to get 7 -five year olds attention all at once. He will get them all looking at him and then one of them will shout "Look, a bird!" and they will all be completely distracted again. JJ and Hannah are becoming good little ball players! Hannah also started her Cheer class again too. We are a very busy family at the moment but trying to enjoy every moment.

Good time had by all

We have had some great times these last few weeks! We attended stake Lagoon Day and had a great time meeting up with the Moessers and the Bones. We don't have pictures of Jamie, Lyndi and I going on the Cliffhanger! That was a step out of my comfort zone but I had a blast! Thanks to Jamie and Lyndi for getting me to go on it. We also went on Rattlesnake Rapids which was a blast!
After this picture was taken the worker got after Lance for sitting on the carousel horse with Hannah.

All the kids LOVED the kiddie rides. They were just their speed. We had to do the boats- they have been there since 1963!








Evan was fascinated by Hannah's skirt!
JJ, Hannah and I are kind of in the middle of the picture. I am the one with my arms around two kids who have their faces buried in my lap. They did NOT like this ride. So much for me trying to get them to try new things.

Our sweet little Asher turned 3 on August 1st! We love him so much and he was so cute at his birthday party. He liked the attention at first but quickly hid his face when everyone started singing Happy Birthday.

I unintentionally put on trick candles that wouldn't blow out. After trying for a while we had all the kids try and blow them out and then just took them off the cake!



After the cake and ice cream the Zellers and some of the grandparents joined us at the Dinosaur Museum. We had fun together!
Hannah and Jaxon were buddies!

Kynlee and Asher were buddies. Asher wasn't too sure about having messy hands.
Grandma and Asher had a snack under the sign that says no food or drink.
OOOO scary!

Earlier in the month we had fun playing in Grandma's backyard with Chloe, Jace, Aunt Ruth and Michelle. There is no better place to be on a hot summer day than Grandma's backyard -playing in the pool and eating donuts.




Although we haven't gone on any big vacations this summer we have had a great time together. We are so blessed!