Another Utah trip

Daniel and I celebrated our 8th wedding Anniversary this past month. Hooray!

Daniel had an edible bouquet sent to me while he was at work.
We also decided to take another quick trip to Utah with Autumn, Ryan and the boys since Utah finally got some snow. We had to borrow snow clothes but the boys ended up having a blast sledding down a hill close by.

Cody loved making snow angels

The boys managed to be their crazy selves!We took the kids to a couple of museums that had a lot of fun things for the kids to do. One of them had this helicopter outside for the kids to play in.

Great Grandpa Bell got down on the ground to do some wrestling with Cody. It scared me to death but great grandpa said it was okay! And Uncle Alan thought it was pretty funny too.
At one of the museums they got to make some cool little pimp daddy hats

We had a fun time!

We couldn't stay away too long!

Thanks to my parent's Christmas gift we were able to once again get annual passes to Disneyland. I actually started the day a bit in a frantic realizing while on the tram that I forgot to put deodorant on...which could be very stinky on a day that is suppose to be 80 degrees!! (yes it is January and 80 degrees here in California) After combing Downtown Disney for someone who sold deodorant, we spent the day at California Adventure park trying to see and do things that we have not done there before (hard to believe that there is stuff we haven't done but we usually do the same rides for the kids). The weather turned out perfect and it was not crowded in the park so that makes for a great day of Disney fun!

This was King Triton's carousel. A change from just the regular horse carousel at the Disney park.

Lucky us only had to wait 20min for the new Pixar mania ride. Cody loved every second of it. Big hit!
We visited the pixar aquarium show where you got to see and talk to Crush the turtle.
That too was a big hit.

Cody swimming in Nemo scenery

Daniel and Cody with the Nemo back drop.

We got to see and take pictures with Lightening McQueen too. Nothing better than a fast, hot car. I wish they would make a Sally car for us girls.

We also forced Cody to try the Soaring over California ride and he was so not into it until it started, but said he really liked it afterwards. I don't know if it was that he liked it or he liked the bribe candy we gave him for trying a new ride. Whatever works, right?

Here's to trying something new!

I was inspired!

Today I went to this store to get some curtains that were on sale and I was amazed with what I saw. I think I have been in this store maybe once before to look at dish towels but never really looked around. They have some of the coolest arwork, huge bamboo plants and pots and things from Thailand and other countries. I have definately found my inspiration for what I want my house to look like. I am sure it's not for everyone but I was definitely inspired! Check it out sometime.

A Happy one

This Christmas came and went pretty quickly. It's definitely fun to have a child around this time of the year. I'll hear him randomly singing Jingle Bells or Santa Claus is coming to town and it makes me laugh inside. Among all of the gifts I did try to remind Cody that it is Jesus's Birthday and that is why we have presents but I think he got lost in opening the presents during that.

Santa turned my boys into skaters this year and got me ready for more convenient exercising...big surprise! Santa gave both Daniel and Cody skateboards. Cody loves going out everyday and practicing. He surprisingly is doing well and we've seen a bit of an athlete in him yet even though he's taken a few good spills on the back and butt.

Cody made out pretty well this Christmas and has been pretty entertained with all the toys. Lets just say that Cody's gifts this year took up half of the couch. Unfortunately he left his much loved light saber in the shopping cart at K-mart today and by the time we got back to the store it was gone. He has been pretty bummed about that.

Cody with his gifts from Santa

Daniel also got a new pack for hiking since he, his brothers and Dad are going to be climbing Mt. Whitney this year. Good luck to them!

We thank our family and friends for the wonderful cards, gifts and time spent together this holiday season. As the economy has hit many of us hard, we've been very lucky this year not to experience the loss of job and our hearts and thoughts go out to the many who did and are in tuff situations this past year. We truly hope this next year will be better for everyone.

Lets make it a healthy and happy new year!

What do you do 2 weeks before Christmas?

The past few weeks have been pretty busy here at our home. With Christmas just a couple of weeks away I really felt the pressure to get everything done so I was over half finished with my Christmas shopping...phew...but had many more things to do!

We spent about half a day trying to figure out what to do for a family picture for our Christmas card. This was not the final picture but this was where we started off in the morning on a damp/rainy day. My hair was nice and straight, Cody was all smiles, clean, and Daniel was not upset, and bribing Cody that if he could sit still and smile for one more picture (which was actually like 10 more pictures) he could have a sucker.

Cody had fun taking pictures with me but when it came to a family picture...forget it! As you can see in the picture my hair started getting wavy from the damp air quickly

The Young Women's President at church was out of town for a couple of weeks and it was my month to conduct in Young Women's and teach the first Sunday of the month. I made some ornaments that I used for my lesson about doing good works this month.

Cody and I also made some other ornaments. Cody had fun painting his ornament but eventually dropped, and broke it.

We had a fun Santa visit at our ward Christmas party. Cody was pretty excited this year to tell Santa what he wanted. We are having a Wall-E obsession this year.

Daniel got the lights put up outside quickly and we had to find a tree, decorate and of course Cody had to put the star on top of the tree before any decor was put on.

We made our annual goodies this year. This is Cody frosting a sugar cookie and about to lick the frosting off his hand. We made about 4-5 dozen this year, along with fudge, chocolate dipped pretzels, and Daniel made his famous homemade salsa to distribute. One of my larger projects though this year was to make our 12 young women fleece, knot tied blankets. I did about one a day, some days two. I didn't get any pictures of me actually cutting and tying the blankets, but all of the work was worth it when the girls opened them up and really liked them.
Other than that, it was just the final shopping details I had to finish for the family and try to stay dry (from the rain) while doing that. It was great getting people's Christmas cards in the mail also! We can officially say that we are ready for Christmas. How about you???

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Man in Uniform

Daniel's department (SAFD) had their 125th Anniversary. The city had surrounding cities cover the stations so that all of the guys could dress up in their class A uniforms and take pictures. It was kind of a big deal so I decided to catch Daniel before he changed and took my own pictures since I probably won't see him in his class A uniform again for who knows how long. Nothing like a man in uniform!

Mom, you would be so proud of me! I had to take the hem out and let his pants down so he wasn't flooding. They turned out pretty good. My first real hem job. All of those years I never wanted to sew...who knew!!

My future firefighter??

Trying to help out

Last night I had Daniel come help me set up tables for our Young women's activity and Cody was playing with his little girlfriend, Belen. He was pushing a metal serving cart from the church kitchen and chasing it. Sure enough...he tripped and hit his eye on the corner. I heard him crying from the other room and came running when I heard that it wasn't just your average cry. He cut his eyebrow open. Daniel had already done his own assessment of course and we decided that he needed to go to the ER and get stitches. I stayed at Young Women's and Daniel volunteered to take him. They left about 7:00 and didn't get home until after 11:00. Cody was pretty brave until the mention of the word "shot" came up in our conversation. We popped a sucker in his mouth and all was good until the Dr. went in to stitch up. They ended up only doing one stitch and they glued the rest shut. Never a dull moment for Mommy's with little boys!!