December Fun

This December has been busy,busy, busy. Especially the last two weeks. The time I've spent baking alone would probably add up to a good solid 36 hours. But we've been able to do some really fun things together as a family too which I love around the Christmas season. This year I decided to take Makenzie to the nutcracker ballet in San Francisco. I've never been and neither had she so it was exciting for both of us. She LOVED it!!! She kept looking over me and smiling and of course, had to comment about every single outfit, especially the dresses and tutus. What a great mommy/daughter date.

We also went up to the Oakland temple to view the lights and visit the Visitors Center. We missed the snow and lights we would have seen at SLC but lights on palm trees are pretty cool too.

And of course, no christmas would be complete without a visit from Santa. Thankfully a good friend had a Christmas party at her houe that Santa came to which saved me a dreaded trip to the mall. Austin and Makenzie were both a little wary of the big man in red.

Yesterday we went down with some friends to San Jose Christmas in the Park. It was fun to walk around and see all the trees and decorations. Tyler even got lucky and saw some random Star Wars Storm Trooper walking around (maybe from the Tech museum close by??) and got his picture with them.

Our Christmas Tree

We cut our tree down again this year. We decided we wanted a bigger tree-- you know.... get our money's worth since it was one price any size. Tyler and makenzie were so excited-- they remembered how much fun it was last year. Last year the day we cut down our tree was the same night that Austin was born so it has good memories for all of us and we want to make it a Christmas tradition.

Mike found this beauty--- Perfectly shaped, just the right size......

or so we thought. Somehow we significantly misjudged the height of our ceilings
and the height of the tree. We got home, brought it inside and tried to put it up and couldn't get it past a 45 degree angle. We had to cut almost 2 feet off!!! Now it fits but it is so wide in girth that when you sit on our couch you can't see the TV. And forget about seeing the clock on the wall behind it. Mike keeps trying to convince me that it is "majestic" and "regal". The tree is so big and tall that the star on top looks microscopic. Next year we'll have to reign it in a bit but for now we are going to enjoy our gigantic "majestic" christmas tree.

Thanksgiving in Utah

This year we decided (somewhat last minute) to drive out to Utah for Thanksgiving and spend a week visiting with our families. It was so much fun to see everyone and catch up and we were even able to celebrate Austin's first birthday with Mike's siblings and their families. I can't believe this guy is already one year old. It has really flown by. He is so close to walking and I'm dreading it because then he will truly be into everything.

Tyler and Austin are best buds. Austin's face just lights up when he sees Tyler and Tyler is so good at making him laugh and smile.

Everyone singing happy birthday to Austin

Aunt Kimber and Austin. Thanks again Kimber for putting us up and for being my Black Friday shopping partner....... even with no sleep.

All 17 cousins

I took a pictures of all the girls and then asked the guys if I could get a picture of all of them and of course, they couldn't do it without being silly. Look at these goobers :)

Luckily, our timing of coming out to Utah happened to coincide with my new nephew's baby blessing. It was so neat to see him get blessed by my brother Jon. This is the only picture I got from the day though--- baby andrew was sleeping.

Ty and Kenzie got to spend a lot of time with Sadie and Cooper, two of their cousins. The first night we stayed at their house, the four of them were up until midnight. Tyler was too cranky to get in this picture-- that's what having a lot of fun, staying up too late, and no naps does.

The kids went bowling and golfing with Grandpa-- it's tradition!

Mike and I still can't understand how Wendell managed to win in the last frame.
Unbelievable.

Tyler at the aerospace museum

For Thanksgiving we went out to Toelle and stayed with Mike's grandparents. I'm salivating just looking at these pictures again. YUM!! So much good food. Funny story: Our last night at Oma and Opa's house, Opa decides to make a fire downstairs in the basement fireplace to keep our kids warm. So the kids are down there watching a movie while Opa gets to work and 10 minutes later, Mike goes down to check on the kids and finds a cloud of smoke hovering through the entire basement. Not just a little smoke -- a CLOUD of thick smoke. So we start opening some windows and my Mike and Mike Shelley start trying to waft some of the air through one of them and five minutes later Opa tells them they aren't going to do any good with that window because there is a cover over it outside. Ha!

It ended up being colder in the room than warmer since we had to open all the windows and doors for a good 30 minutes to air everything out. Mike and I also had to wash every single item of clothing that was out since it all smelled like campfire when we got home. So funny!! Maybe someone needs to take the matches away?? :)

I couldn't get either of them to look at the camera... sheesh!

Wendell with the two youngest grandkids.. Sam didn't want to share him though.

4 generation picture

Going the distance

I almost forgot this picture--My friends surprised me last month for my birthday by taking me out to dinner at El Patio. I thought I was just meeting Ashley there. It was so yummy and such a fun girls night out!!

I had my 30th birthday last month. I thought I would be a lot more sad and depressed about this milestone but I wasn't. For me, thinking about the fact that I have a 7 year old makes me feel older than my age. Or saying that I've been married almost 10 years and out of high school for 12. Those kinds of things make me feel old. But this birthday was a good one-- Mike and the kids surprised me while I was at work and bought me 30 balloons, 30 flowers and made a 4 layer chocolate cake with 30 candles. Then Mike and I rented bikes in San Francisco and rode them across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, took the ferry back to San Fran and went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants.

I did it!!! I finished my very first 1/2 marathon on Halloween morning. I've always wanted to do one and a few months ago my friend, Laura, convinced me that it would be a great way for us to get in shape after having babies. So we started training. Things were going well until after an 11 mile run, we all got injured. Thankfully, none of the injuries were serious and karen, laura, and I were all able to finish the race.

This is the only picture of us running and unfortunately it is in the ugliest spot of the entire race. The marathon was up in Healdsburg which is wine country and our run was through most of the vineyards with the leaves changing colors. It was BEAUTIFUL!! Thanks to Laura and Karen for keeping me motivated, to Mike for driving us and the kids up to the race at 4:30 in the morning, and to my parents for coming up to support me and cheer me on. What a great experience!!

The kids at the pumpkin patch. I'm surprised the wagon didn't break.

Look at that sunset!

Makenzie and Tyler trick-or-treating. Tyler was batman and Makenzie was a cross between a witch and a fairy (don't ask). They had the trick-or-treating thing down this year. They literally ran from house to house for 3 hours straight. it was so nice not to have to follow them up to the door and help them ring the doorbell and make sure they didn't fall on the way to the next house. I could get used to this.

Our pumpkins --