Chase's New Talent

This trimester Chase has had the class "FACTS."  (Its what they used to call Home Ec)  The last unit they worked on was sewing.  Chase made a little draw string bag and then he made these pajama pants.  I had to buy the material a few weeks ago when we had the flu.  I didn't want to run into Logan or Brigham City so I found a little fabric store in town.  The flannel selection was limited because most of it was for baby blankets.  But Chase found this fabric.  When I went up to pay for it, the fabric cost me $24!!! Maybe I should have driven to Logan!  I told Chase these would be the most expensive pajama pants that I ever bought him.  He did a great job sewing the pants!! The nice thing is that he actually wears them.  (He's grown out of most of his pajama pants so I think he's desperate to have pants that are long enough).

Crazy Tanner

While Tanner was at Grandma R's house when we were in Chicago, he loved playing with the marble ramp and the marbles.  So Mom said "why don't you take them home so Tanner can play with them because he loves them!"  (Our marble ramp is packed away some where.)  At first I thought that it was a great idea.  But the next morning as I was eating breakfast, Tanner dumped the whole bag of marbles out and then was "bouncing" the marbles on the tile.  I sent the picture to mom and told her that it wasn't a good idea after all.

Our first snowfall of the year!  When Tanner woke up he looked outside and said "It's snowing!"  He immediately wanted to go play outside in the snow.  I convinced him to eat breakfast first but then we bundled him up to play outside.  This little snow suit has been the best!  I couldn't find any gloves that fit him.  They were all too big.  But he still had fun playing in the snow.  It makes me a little sad to see him all alone with no siblings to play with (Chase and Bridger were at school).  Luckily he has Sophie to play with.  He would take a chunk of snow and then throw it at Sophie.  She would jump up and get it and Tanner thought that was the funniest thing ever!  He would laugh and laugh.  It was cracking me up as I watched him from inside.

We have these baskets that I keep some of Tanner's toys in.  He dumped out the toys and then climbed in one.  He had the biggest smile on his face.  He said "Mom!  Take a picture of me!"  I love this little guy! He finds joy in the simplest things.

When I got out of the shower, I found this mess.  Tanner had taken some rolls of ribbon and had unwound them and had strung them all through the house.  (Up and down the stairs)  He was so proud of himself.

Fun at the lot!

 It seems like we drive out to the lot almost every day.  Sometimes Matt goes out several times.  When the boys come home from school, we normally go out as a family so we can see the progress on the house.  Bridger and Tanner love to run around and find things to jump on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was our year to have Thanksgiving with my side of the family so we had Thanksgiving dinner with the "Taylors."  About a month ago, we made a list of food with mom.  Then we divided it up and Mylissa posted it on Facebook so the other relatives could sign up too.  Everyone was so great to help out.  You can see from our pictures that we had an abundant amount of food!  Mom brought 4 turkey breast!!  Mylissa and Rob pealed over 30 pounds of potatoes.  Mom brought four trays of rolls.  Everything was delicious!  We had to have a separate area just for the desserts.  Add a chocolate and banana cream pie to the picture.  We have lots of great cooks in the family.  Originally Matt was first call so I was just going to leave him alone and head down for dinner.  But the day before, Layne called Matt and offered to cover for him while he came down for dinner.  We were so happy that he didn't have to stay at home alone and he could join us for the fun.

The only family missing was Brian and Leslie and Brandon and Jill.  Even Katie and her husband flew in for the holiday and then Janika and her husband came too.  We ate lunch at Marilyn's house at 1:00.  Everyone was supposed to come at noon and help set up the tables.  Thank goodness she has that big family room!  Marilyn figured that we had over 40 people! (That's including all of the kids).  Marilyn worked really hard to clean up the basement and clear off the pool table so the kids loved playing pool or "roller ball" as they called it.  It's fun to see the little kids playing with their cousins.

When I got home later that night, I found these pictures on my phone.  Shan left me some great selfies.

Rocks!

 They had to bring an excavator back out to dig out our walk out basement and the post for the back porch.
 While we were waiting for the framers the only progress we saw were rocks being delivered.  Big rocks!!!  We hadn't heard anything from Chris about the rocks and we didn't have any rocks in our budget so we were really worried that the rocks were going to cost us a fortune.  We we talked to Chris about the rocks he told us that he's building a house up on the mountain in Odgen and these are some of the rocks that they dug out when they were digging the hole for the foundation.  So we only had to pay $3,000 for all of these rocks!  We got a screaming good deal on that!

Chicago Meeting

Matt was nominated for president elect of the UANA and won the election.  In October, he began his two years as president elect and then after that he'll be president for two years.  Ted's president right now so he's excited about serving with Ted.  The AANA put on a training meeting in Chicago for anyone serving on a board.  There were four people that came from Utah.  Ted and Amber, Eddie and his girlfriend Jenny, and Cheryl and Jordon.  Jenny hung out with Amber and I.  Cheryl's husband only stayed a day.  I really enjoyed getting to know Cheryl.  She's an amazing person!  It was fun to spend some time with Amber too.

At first I was really torn because Chase had a football tournament in Mesquite at the same time and then Shan was blessing Hazel.  I worried about Mom taking care of the boys.  But then things fell into place.  The J's offered to take Chase to the tournament.  Tiff had Chase sleepover at her house on Wednesday and then took him to the J's Thursday morning.  We dropped Bridger and Tanner off at Mom and Dad's Wednesday evening and then Dad drove us to the airport.  Everyone was so sweet to help us out.  We couldn't have done the trip without their help!  We flew out Wednesday evening so we could have one full day together before Matt started his classes.  We played all day Thursday in the city.  Our hotel was about 45 minutes away from the city so we figured out the subway system to get into the city.  Once we got into the city, we realized how dumb we had been because we thought it was going to be warm enough so we left our coats at the hotel.  It was freezing so our first stop was Nordstrom Rack and we bought jackets.  Shan recommended an architectural boat tour.  We went on that at 3:00 and it was really fun.  The sun was starting to set by the end of the tour which made it really pretty on the city.  The Cubs won the world series the week before so everyone was so excited about that.  There were signs everywhere congratulating the Cubs.  

We were in Chicago just a few days after the presidential election.  When we walked pass the Trump building, Matt said "I've got to take a picture of this and send it to your mom."  It made me laugh!  The city of Chicago was very upset about the election and everyday there were protestors in front of the Trump building which made things exciting.  I joked with Matt that I was going to go join them.  

Before our boat ride, we asked a local where to go for lunch.  She recommended a pizza place.  We ordered their famous stuffed pizza and it was really good!  We ordered some garlic cheesy bread that was the best cheesy bread I've ever eaten.  After the boat ride, we stopped by Ghiradelli's for a yummy dessert.  We both got the caramel sea salt sundae and it was delicious!!!  Their chocolate is so good.  We headed back to the hotel around 6:00 and met up with the people from Utah for dinner.  The next day, Amber, Jenny and I took the subway into the city.  We ate lunch first at a pizza pub place that the hotel recommended.  We ordered the stuffed pizza and it was even better than the one I ate yesterday.  Then we went to the National Gallery of Art.  They have the largest collection of impressionist in the US.  Jenny is an artist so she loved the museum and wanted to see everything!  We spent half the day there and it was wonderful to just enjoy the art and not be rushed.

On Saturday, Amber and Jenny wanted to hit some shopping outlets that were close to the hotel.  But I wanted to go into the city and shop there.  I was fine going by myself.  I'm so grateful mom raised me to be independent.  My first stop was the American Girl doll store.  I spent almost two hours there and it was pure bliss.  I kept texting and calling Mylissa. It was so much fun.  Then I walked along Miracle Mile and hit some shopping.  I found the boys a Cubs shirt.  I stopped by a big Disney store and bought Tanner a little Jake and the Neverland pirate figure set.  Everyone was raving about "Garrett's" popcorn so I found a store.  But the line went outside the store.  It was a 45 minute wait.  I waiting in line for about 10 minutes and the line wasn't moving very fast so I bagged it.  Cheryl was on the same flight home so we left the hotel together.  While we were at the airport, we found a Garrett popcorn store.  We were so excited so we each bought a big bag.  I bought the traditional Chicago mix of half cheese and half caramel.  It was so good!!!  But I'm glad I didn't wait 45 minutes for it.  

Hazel's Baby Blessing

While we were in Chicago, we missed Hazel's blessing.  I felt really bad about it.  Mom was watching Bridger and Tanner so she brought them to the blessing.  Then Chase was on is way home from his football tournament so the J's woke up early on Sunday and dropped him off at Shan's at 8:30.  (9:00 church is hard sometimes). Everyone said that Robby did a beautiful job on the blessing.  Hazel wore the same dress that the other two girls wore.  Shan was worried that Hazel would cry during the prayer but she was an angel and didn't make a peep.  Shan served a brunch after church.  Mom made several egg casseroles, there were muffins, fruit and donuts.  Shan said the day turned out really nice and was happy with how everything went.  

Turkey Trot

Last year Bridger won the Turkey Trot race at school and was awards a big turkey from K's grocery store.  I've been intimidated to cook a big turkey because I've never cooked one before.  The turkey trot race was coming up so I finally cooked the turkey!!!  I took it out the day before and called mom and asked her how to cook a turkey.  She laughed and said that it would be too frozen and I should have taken it out days ago.  She told me to put it in cold water and hopefully that would speed along the thawing process.  That night I put it in the fridge and by morning it was mostly thawed out.  I followed mom's directions and prepared the turkey even though it totally grossed me out!  It was Bridger's primary program so we invited Grandpa and Grandma A, Angie and the girls, Marilyn, and Grandpa and Grandma R to come to the program and then stay for lunch.  Bridger did a great job in the primary program.  He said "I've learned many things from President Thomas S. Monson.  If we pray, we will be blessed."  He knew every song!  It was a beautiful program.  

Everyone enjoyed the dinner.  The turkey was a little dry but with Mom's gravy it was great!  Bridger ate one of the legs.

The next day was supposed to be the Turkey Trot race but it was pouring rain so they postponed it to the following day.  Bridger really wanted me to come and watch him so Tanner and I came to the school and cheered Bridger on.  Bridger was really nervous about the race.  They made the race twice as long this year.  Normally the kids start at the school and then run to the end of the street.  But this year they changed it and the kids had to run around two blocks which made it a big circle back to the school.  At the starting line, a police officer was running it.  He asked "who won it last year?"  Bridger raised his hand and he jokingly said "no winning it this year, ok?"   I was texting Matt when I heard "Go Bridger! You're almost there!"  I looked up and there was Bridger coming towards the finish line and he was in first place!  Unfortunately I couldn't get my phone fast enough so I didn't get any pictures.  Bridger won first place again!!!  He was so excited!!!  The kids were really nice to him and congratulated him.  Bridger was a little disappointed because they were not giving out turkeys to the  winner.  He won a 1 liter soda and a candy bar.  The second place got just a soda and the third place won a candy bar.  But Bridger got bragging rights so he was ok with it in the end.