Jumping the gun

Before I get caught up with the December posts, I had to show off some if elliott's recent art work. He has never liked drawing, so he's never done much more than scribbles (aka roller coasters), but just this year he has started; it might be the preschool, but no matter the reason, I LOVE IT!!

First, a little about Elliott right now. He loves to watch Tom and Jerry; he will sit and giggle through the whole thing. He loves building rockets and cars with his legos, he loves to pet our little dog Eddie because he says Eddie doesn't get enough love, and he absent-mindedly rubs my belly when I sit next to him. I asked him why he does that and he said he just wants the baby to be comfortable. He loves wiping the table, playing monster truck rallies, and singing "I'm so glad when daddy comes home" when mike gets home from work. He is honest and kind and loves to make you laugh. That's Elliott, here is some of his art!

This us what he drew on butcher paper and hung in our stairwell all by himself. See who you can recognize:



































Notice that I even have the baby in my tummy. So cute. Sorry kason, I'm not sure where you are; maybe taking a nap!

Here is his Christmas tree from preschool. I told him I loved the shape and he told me that some kids were teasing him that it didn't look right, "but that's ok huh mom, because you can make it any way you want to.". That's right, Elliott. I love that he does things his way.



This is his manger. Super cute.




That's a view into elliott's creativity! I'll post more on December soon, I just had to post this stuff before I forgot!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Still Remembering November

We made it to AZ! After a shaky start in Vegas, we pulled into Morgan and Christa Johnsons' house around 4. The kids were so excited to play because they each had a cousin their own age: Lucy and Sarah are 7, and Will and Elliott are 5-ish. They began to enjoy the beautiful Arizona weather and sunshine right away.

Lucy tried roller-blading for the first time, and she was hooked. Any chance she could get, she was asking me, or Mike, or Gramma to go out and watch/hold her hand while she roller bladed. The only thing she has on her Christmas list this year is rollerblades. I love this picture...check out the palm trees in the background...c'mon! Arizona is so great!

Elliott loved playing on anything he could get his hands on. A cul-de-sac and great weather are the perfect playground for kids.

Here are the girls...Lucy and her cousin Sarah.

While I either slept or cooked, Mike took the kids out to...guess what?....GEOCACHE! It was the Johnsons' first time caching, and Lund got quickly hooked. They had some high adventures, and even got a night cache in.

The Johnson's swing set and trampoline were a huge hit too. All you safety-conscious people out there are probably freaking out at the thought of jumping off the swingset onto the tramp, but it is a family tradition, and Lucy enjoyed every second of it. 10 kids, a dozen grandkids, and not an injury yet....knock on wood.

I love Lucy busting a move on the wii game in this picture. The girl has moves.

We happened to be in Mesa for the Temple Christmas Lighting ceremony! It was super-crowded, but it was so great! So many memories of walking those grounds with my family when I was a kid. Here is the whole gang, photo courtesy of a missionary taking a picture using Christa's camera .

Even though Sarah was closer to Lucy's age, Lucy is crazy about hanging out with older girls. Cassidy was so patient with her little korean shadow, and Lucy and her cousins had a great time.

Another home-town favorite of mine....Mesa Frozen Yogurt!!!! As a kid, I would ride my bike there with my sister, Heather, and we would spend our entire allowance on frozen yogurt and Mrs. Pacman games. We got to go there twice on this trip, but I could have eaten there for every meal...amaretto with yogurt chips...YUMMY!

Here we all are enjoying the delicacy!

Pappa even took a go at Ms Pacman. Funny how enough of his money (in the form of our allowances) went into that machine to pay for all 10 kids' college educations, and he still puts more money into it. It really is a fun game!!

I was also able to go out to dinner with some highschool girlfriends of mine, Michelle and Sara. What fun! I wish we had more time to go through old photo albums, meet families, and reminisce. They are great girls...friends like that make it tempting to return soon! Thanks Christa for coming with me and enjoying the company and good food!

On the ride home....back to the cold, and our real lives, we stopped to photograph some natural beauty in Arizona. THIS my friends, is a Saguaro cactus (sa-war-o). They are tall, beautiful and EVERYWHERE!

Back on the road...heading to St George for an overnighter with my college roomy, Anne Jackman, and her hubby, Mike's pharmacy classmate, Travis Jackman.

Headphones on, sunscreen up, we are ready to go!

Remember November

Apparently not much of note happened the first 3/4 of the month of November! I can't remember what we did, and we only have one picture, so here it is!

Elliott's preschool has great, big, old trees outside, so the kids loved playing in the autumn leaves there.

Later that same month...We spent 9 days traveling through Utah, Nevada and Arizona on our way to our Thanksgiving destination: Gilbert, AZ to be with the Morgan and Christa Johnson family and the Garinos, Pappa and Gramma Johnson, and Uncle Warren. We had some great fun on the way. The morning we set out, it was snowing so hard that we had to change our route...the Nevada pass was snow-chains only. We hit some crazy snow in southern Idaho, passed about 20 cars off the road, but made it safely to the Utah border where it was clean and dry.

After 13 hours in the car, an In N Out burger stop at the closest one to our house (only 330 miles away in Centerville, UT! Mike's counting), potty breaks ever 2 hours (hey, I'm pregnant remember?), and a few geo-caches, we made it to Las Vegas.

That night, we bunked in Las Vegas where we had dinner with two of my cousins, Alexis and Mckenzie Haglund. They had super-fun stories, super-cute kids, and it was an amazing time together. Here is a picture Lucy took of the action.

The next day we stayed in Vegas to play a bit. Just so you know, there isn't a whole lot for little kids to do in Vegas...make a mental note. But, we did find some fun at the M&M factory....

....an arcade...(a tear of pride glistens in my eye when I see my kids following in my skeet-ball footsteps)...

....and at a 4-d SpongeBob and Polar Express ride in Excalibur Casino....

I was happy because we got to eat at Panera Bread...a place I fell in love with in Minnesota last summer.

It was probably the coldest, windiest, rainiest day in November EVER in LasVegas, but the wind steadied long enough for us to catch a few fountain shows at the Bellagio...certainly the highlight of the day.

At 2:20AM in our hotel in Vegas, Lucy woke up throwing up. After everyone in the room was awake, she had a bath, and we improvised new sheets, we went back to sleep and prayed for a healthy trip to AZ in the morning. Alas, it worked! She was better in the morning and we were able to continue our adventure.

The car ride was fun in our new Honda Pilot. The movies were helpful, and it was a very cozy ride, so cozy that Lucy fell right to sleep ( a miracle for her; the girl doesn't nap).

Onto MESA, AZ!!!! My first trip back to the valley in 8 years! I was a little excited to see my old home, and Mike and the kids were just excited to get out of the car. Next post will be our fun times in the Valley of the Sun.

Second October Post, as Promised

Sorry, apparently being pregnant gives me no desire to do anything but the basics, so this post has been long neglected! Even my awesome husband posted something just so you don't all forget about us! This is going to be a very "pictureful" post because if I don't do them all now, I'm afraid I will be so behind that I will never get around to them! So, here comes Elliott's 5th birthday, and Halloween 2010!

Grandma and Pappa Johnson happened to come to Boise for an appointment just in time for Elliott's birthday. Here he is turning 5 at the Cheesecake Factory.

He was very happy that Lucy got him a remote controlled monster truck; it combines his two favorite things.

I've decided that birthday parties are a lot of work, so we have decided to just do the big ones. So far, that is 5 and 8.... I haven't thought about it much past that, we'll worry about it when we get there. Since I was morning sick for his birthday this year, we had his party at our Taekwondo studio...they did an amazing job.

Here's my little kicker.
He got to invite 15 friends from the neighborhood, school and church, and they had too much fun.

He wasn't excited to use the Samurai sword to cut the cake. You can tell by the complacent look on his face in the next two pictures.

We got to bring a piñata, and they had to punch or kick it. Each kid got two whacks at it...

Then the grown-ups got a turn. I played the pregnancy card and got out of it, but Mike, Harmony, and Uncle Jason all had a go at it.

Mike and Harmony got a good hole in it, and Jason's roundhouse kick blew it all to pieces....Chuck Norris would be so proud.

Fun times....Ok, here is Halloween, starting with Lucy's school party.

We almost didn't carve pumpkins this year, but I couldn't let my morning sickness make me the mom that ruined Halloween. So, the day before Halloween, we got down to business.

Lucy wasn't too fond of the slime, but she cleaned it perfectly.

Elliott never gave up either. This is the pumpkin he chose from the patch on his preschool field trip.

They drew on the faces, and Dad did the muscle work. Here is our proud pumpkin man.

Here is Lucy's cutie.

And onto the costumes. My little "Angel-girl" as I call her, was an angel for Halloween. All the candy, costumes and fun, and she was most excited that I was going to let her wear mascara. She is definitely my daughter.

Elliott was Iron Man. He is very excited to have yet another super-hero costume to add to his dress up with Bo repertoire. Because Halloween fell on Sunday this year, we thought trunk-or-treating on Saturday would have to do. The kids didn't mind. They got tons of loot, showed off their costumes, and had fun too.

One last shot of my angel. She turned on the model-mode while I was taking pictures, and started posing like crazy. It was cute....I kinda like her.

Home at last!

Well, it's been a bit since we've had a post, so here is a quickie (this is Mike, by the way.)

Last week was a wonderful vacation to Bonnie's hometown, the first visit there in quite a while. Our first day was a 13 hr drive to Las Vegas, NV. We woke up extra early, only to find that snow had been falling all night, and our shortest route now required snow chains or snow tires, so we had to go to plan b. Luckily plan b allowed for a jaunt to the nearest In-N-Out burger, a mere 325 miles away, (you can tell this is a Mikey post, because I count In-N-Out burger as one of the highlights of our vacation, no offense against Bonnie's family, but it IS In-N-Out)

When we arrived in Las Vegas we found we somehow brought a cold spell with us, and the rain and cold dampened the mood a bit, but we did have fun there.

We had a wonderful dinner with Bonnie's cousins, and we also got to visit the M&M's world. The kids loved the fountain at the Belaggio, which happens to be my favorite spot in Vegas as well. Also, I visited the site of one of my favorite shows, "Pawn Stars" Unfortunately, the stars of the show don't work weekends, but it was fun to see some of the stuff from the show on their shelves, and see what the inside of the store looks like in real life.

Next we headed off to "the valley" to visit the Johnson's in Gilbert, AZ. Highlights there were the Thanksgiving day feast, geocaching (of course,) and just reconnecting with some of our favorite people. Bonnie will be posting more pics and stuff in a bigger blog later for this part of the trip.

Lastly, on the way back we visited the Jackmans in St. George, UT. We had a great time there as well, and ended up chatting into the wee hours of the night only to affirm that it has been waaaaay too long since we've seen them.

The freeway home was closed, so we extended our drive by an extra day and stayed overnight in Pocatello, ID, but we've finally made it home. More later......