It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

CHRISTMAS!



We put the tree up the day after we returned from Thanksgiving in St. George (you've got to love artificial trees). It took me a little longer (and a few more trips to the store) to get the trees up in the boys' rooms.

Maddox insisted on red lights. The first 3 boxes I bought were on a white cord - oops. The next time I headed to the store I made sure to get the green cord - although I am dying for a white tree!



Next I moved on to Griffy's tree. Poor little tree - it only has one strand of lights. I purchased 3 boxes for Griffy's tree as well, but only one (and a half) of the strands worked. I tried, but could not convince myself that it was worth another trip to the store with two little boys to buy more lights. So, in the words of Tim Gunn from one of my favorite shows I, "made it work"!



I thought it would be fun to buy advent calendars to help the boys count down to Santa. According to Griffy Santa should be here already! Griffy scratched, poked, and even stomped on his calendar to get to all the chocolate.



I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

Thanksgiving

You know you're in St. George when your neighbor has a tractor parked in their driveway! We always have a great time visiting Papa & Yaya. Much to their daddy's dismay, the boys love to play in the red dirt. St. George is the perfect place for boys to be boys. We really missed uncle Courtney, but had a great time visiting with all the cousins and aunts and uncles.









Ahh, Griffy's favorite pastime. I'm just glad he's doing it to someone else for a few minutes!

The Monges in Dallas

My family came for a visit the first week of November. We had a great time! One of our first stops was Peter Piper Pizza, we took a tour of the 2 houses we were deciding between, visited the Fort Worth Zoo, shopped and ate... A LOT! We also did a lot of driving. I'm still not that familiar with the area, so we did a lot of back tracking too. We only had one scary moment - as we were exiting from one freeway to another, I looked over and saw Mel waving from the passenger window of the rented minivan as they missed the exit, and were headed to who knows where! Thanks to cell phones we were quickly reunited. How did the world survive without cell phones?



The Primo Prims!

Trick or Treat

The airline lost our luggage on the way home from Trick-or treating with Mickey, I had to work quickly to find new costumes. I was unable to find the original costumes with the adorable built in muscles. We had to convince Maddox it would be cooler to show off his own muscles.

Punkin Chunkin

Maybe this is an "only in Texas" activity, but its a lot of fun! You load the mini "punkin" in the giant sling shot and fire. When the pumpkin hits the ground, it breaks into chunks - PUNKIN CHUNKIN!






Just a few more photos of the pumpkin patch.

GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!

Mad scored his first goal last Saturday! We were so excited for him. In the heat of the moment I couldn't think to hit the record button on the camera. This is a shot of Maddox right after he scored the goal and finished his victory dance!



Thanks Tia Emily & family for sending the balloons!

Our Family Turns 9

We celebrated our ninth anniversary on October 10th! Grant was scheduled to travel to LA for work, so rather than be apart on our anniversary we decided to make it a family celebration. The boys and I met Grant in Orange County on the last day of his trip. Papa and Yaya drove in from St. George. We also got to see Emma and Courtney who still live in So Cal. It was a short trip packed with tons of fun!

Trick-Or-Treating with Mickey










Toon Town





Autopia




Brother Bear's Slide

Tacky in Texas

I had a friend in So Cal who was a native Texan, and was very fond of saying "It's hard to be tacky in Texas". I always thought it was so funny. Unfortunately, now I know exactly what she meant. Flashback to a couple of weeks ago. We were on day 4 of Grant's 9 day shopping trip in Europe - let's just say I don't play single mom very well. I decided to take the boys to the zoo to help pass the time until daddy returned.

We were at the zoo about 20 minutes before Griffin looked like this:


The boys had such a great time playing in this little stream, but every time Griffy squatted down to get a closer look his shorts would get wet.

In the past, I would have made my way to the nearest gift shop to find something for Griffy to wear. Instead, I used my stroller as a clothes line and threw the shorts on top. Maybe I was too hot and sweaty to notice, but I don't recall any evil looks directed towards me and my half naked child with a saggy diaper. Tacky or not, we enjoyed the rest of the day at the zoo.

Primary Program

We had our Primary Program last Sunday. Maddox did a great job and was reverent just about the entire time. He was seated next to his buddy Jack, so there was some giggling and face making.



Mad's part: "The Lord is able to do all things for men"




After the first program practice, Maddox really got into conducting. For days I had follow his hand directions to stand up and sit down.

Superheroes

I picked up these PJ's on a recent Target run. Grant & I had a good laugh!



The Bat Signal goes out - Griffy makes a mad dash for the Batmobile.



Maybe not so fast next time.