So lots has happened the past few weeks- PHEW!

*Brian interviewed to be Head of the Science Dept. at his high school *New Nephew Born 29 years and 1 minute exactly from Brian. Brian was born Nov 28 1977 at 7 pm and Vance was born Nov 28 2006 at 6:59 pm. Congrats Kami and Chris!

*We bit the bullet and decorated for Christmas on Nov 26 (it felt VERY early) and forced ourselves into the Christmas Spirit by doing so. We got past the funk as we decorated the tree and put up our little tree village.

* We Celebrated Brian's Bday by going to Chili's - which I THOUGHT was my favorite restaurant. Apparantly - its not anymore. I was not that impressed at all (I think it didn't help that we heard their birthday song LITERALLY and in all seriousness 17 times in 45 minutes. UGH!!!

*We went to Jacksonville for Thanksgiving. My mom and I cooked for 1 1/2 days straight - stopping to sleep of course. My dad, realizing none of the food was for the Wednesday we were cooking like crazy, took it upon himself to make dinner - and tried to thaw frozen chicken by slamming it repetitively on the kitchen floor. AFter about 8 huge thundering house-shattering THUDS my mom calmly suggested he use the microwave to defrost the chicken. He thought that was a good idea. *Tami, Kevin, Sarah, Brent and I decided to be some of those crazy lunatic people that slept overnight at Circuit City to get the good deals. We orignally decided to do Best Buy - but since people lined up at 9 am on Thanksgiving day- taking shifts to eat their Thanksgiving meal ...and we came at 7 pm...we went with all the other Best Buy Line Rejects to the Circuit City line. The line at Best Buy was 70 people - while we were number 15 or so at Circuit City. STILL - because everyone in line has 1-3 friends for every person - we didn't quite get the deals we anticipated (the CHEAP laptop) - but we got some good deals. What we do these days to make ends meet! (ebay in this case)

*My days as Primary President doubling as Primary Chorister came to an end when Heavenly Father answered my prayers with an available, capable musical person who moved into our ward (Kami - who just had the baby yesterday) - YEAH KAMI!!!! I AM SOOO GLAD YOU ARE HERE!!

*By the way - I am SOOOOOO done with eating pies and cakes for awhile - I totally go overboard each year with those dang pies. They alone are one of my biggest weaknesses - especially with some nice whipped cream - YEAH BABY! ESPECIALLY the Martha Stewart French Silk Pie I made this year that was like the BEST PIE of my life - (look it up on the website) - I had 1/4 of that pie in 10 minutes. If you make it - make sure you HAVE to share it with a lot of people so you don't do what I did. (BUT IT WAS SOOOOOOO WORTH IT, let me tell you!)

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HALLOWEEN!!!!!! 2006

So - yeah its been almost 2 wks since Halloween - but better late than never to talk about it, right?

So Primary was in charge of the Halloween Activity this year - COMPLETELY.
No help from Activities committee. So since it was a ward activity, we had our work cut out for us. But hey, it was a lot of fun. You would never be able to guess, but I was "SWISS MISS" from the hot chocolate. Brian was "Swiss Mister" (the husband of said maiden) and Brooke and Tyler are our barnyard animals...or something like that. Brooke was a sheep and Tyler a Dog. At one point Brooke wore Brians wig and cracked us both up.


Brians Costume was AWESOME. I would just look at him and burst out laughing...no...more like giggling like a litte school girl. A couple of people confused him with a "large girl." He did end up winning the FUNNIEST COSTUME. Even now while I do this blog, I giggle to myself on how funny the whole thing looked.


Tyler did NOT like Trick or treating. He retreated into his stroller on that frigid night and quietly sucked on a sucker - don't BOTHER him with getting out for every house...he made it known. After trick or treating for 30 minutes, ALL kids were in tears - I should say OUR kids were in tears. Our niece Abby still seemed as happy as could be.


Brooke and Tyler went trick or treating with Cousin Abby (Tami and Kevin's daughter) and then later with Evelyn and Amanda (Chris and Kami's kids).

Earlier in the Day in the Play Pen together:

Here are a couple of my favorite shots from the past couple of days:

THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT VOTING DAY!!!!

Last Voting day -the Primaries - earlier this year, we won our trip to Cancun on WLS on the radio.

TODAY - November 7th: VOTING DAY- we just won $890 on WLS radio!!!

May EVERY DAY be a VOTING DAY!!!!!!!

So Terica English gave an invite to list FIVE things about what weird, unique or bizarre things makes me, me - so here goes Mrs. English:

I ALWAYS have a song in my head
A few minutes ago it was. “That’s why we give thanks everyday.” Before that is was a Benny Goodman song I was listening to. Beware any week I listen to “WICKED” because those songs stay in my head for TWO WEEKS at least – and they refuse to leave. If I decide to listen to WICKED I have to seriously prepare myself for the repercussions.

I love remembering embarrassing moments
Sometimes when I am just walking and reflecting, I get a real kick out of remembering all of my terribly embarrassing moments. I just laugh and laugh at myself. Believe me – I have definitely had my fair share. The saying, “we will laugh about this later” is true for me! Laughing at myself keeps it real for me and puts things into perpective.

I am always thinking of new outlets for my entrepreneurial spirit
Since I don’t like JOBS, and having had some choice bosses in my day, and because I have kids, I LOVE to think of fun and new ways to venture forth and earn money in entrepreneurial ways. Just today, I have my mini day care, 12 things selling on ebay (with several people asking me to sell their things for them), I have 50+ items listed on Amazon, I am a professional garage saler – for those reasons; I do weight loss coaching and nutritional consulting for Herbalife, I am a fitness instructor for the MOMMY TUMMY class for our Park District, I sew (not this year yet) for craft fairs…for me it’s a GREAT OUTLET – and extra money is something I can’t complain about. My next target – Craig’s list (www).

I love to experience firsts
I feel a great need to try things I have never tried – or go places I haven’t gone – or try exotic new food or recipes. I still yet have to go bungee jumping, sky diving. I have yet to try a molten lava cake and pumpkin crème brulee. I have yet to go to Europe, Tonga, and Greenland. I am excited to do PTA and be room mom and stuff like that. I like the feeling of expanding my repertoire and stretching myself to new challenges. I am one of those BORN volunteers.

I love to do lists and organizing
I get GREAT pleasure in crossing things off of a list – it proves to me, on paper at least, that I have been productive. Along those lines – I get an adrenaline rush when I organize a closet how I have been wanting to. When I see organized places and areas I feel very relaxed , calm, and slightly giddy.

So those ARE the five things - but I MUST agree with Terica that I LOVE being at the hospital and having a baby - the smells, sounds, food, the presence of new spirits just receiving bodies - AWESOME!!!! I think it is SOOO FUN!!!

So now I am calling out to five of you - Cassidy, Rachel, Nancy, Kelsey, Mareilles!!!!

So we went to this really cool

Pumpkin Festival with pumpkins (of course) everywhere, a cornfield maze, pig races, pony rides, etc. It was SOOOO cute we decided to make it a tradtition to go every year.

Nothing like Playing on Daddy during conference!

This will be our family Christmas pic - this is taken just 6 feet from my parents house - they live THAT close to this cornfield. My dad, who took the pic, was leaning against the garage!

Yes - went to Oprah again. These are girls from my ward. This time it was MUCH Peppier - it was on aging and beauty - Nora Ephron, Gena Davis and Dianne Carol (sp). We got two free books at the end. I sat in a TERRIBLE spot, again. Tami got to sit in the second row in the middle. I could see her shoulder for 20 minutes during the taping!











Tyler is already learning that control of the remote control is key!!




Tyler and Abby have recently started PLOTTING together (Abby is my neice - Tami and Kevin's daughter that I watch a couple days a week). Here they are deciding how to take FULL advantage of this situation: A bathtub being filled with water.....OOOOO the possibilities!!!!

We also decided to go to the Homewood Flossmoor (our alma mater high school) vs. Bolingbrook (where Brian currently teaches) football game...AT HOMEWOOD -where we live. So here is how the game went: H-F - good play. We looked at each other passively and said, "Cool." Bolingbrook - good play: We look at each other and passively said, "Cool." It went on like that for 2 hours. Loving BOTH TEAMS MAKES IT HARD TO CHEER!!!!!

Here is a local petting zoo - Homewood Days Event!

Brooke's First Night Time Prayer All By Herself:
"Please bless Tyler, Thank you for Mommy and Daddy....Thank you for the crib....Thank you for...the books, Thank you for the bookshelf....Thank you for the Blocks...and the games" (then she ended it. Well, from the mouths of babes! At least it was sincere!

SEPTEMBER 14th 2006 QUINCY WARD REUNION AT THE OPRAH SHOW

Yep, Oprah Show Again...one week later! I had a great reunion at the Oprah show (for the exact time and day one week later) with my friends from Quincy, Illinois. Ironically, we all live in the Chicago area. Leave it to Oprah for getting people together!!! Left to Right: Rachel, Allison, Vianey, and me.

We all spent the morning catching up and, of course, attending the taping of the Oprah show!

I was sad (but knew it was expected) that my friends from BYU freshman year (sexy six) couldn't come on practically NO notice (4 days). But you know, some things end up working out GREAT!

The Topic - WAS HORRIBLE...AGAIN!!! I have decided that Wednesday morning taping are the Serious, TV14 topics. I don't even need to go into more detail.

Sufficed to say that we were a little quizzical about why Oprah even decided to do this show. SERIOUSLY! However, Rachel and Vianey had a bit of luck. They just happened to be sitting on the far back corners of the room and therefore got a "golden ticket" from one of the producers. This entitles them to come in the next 6 weeks and bring someone of their choice. COOL.

SEPTEMBER 10th TYLERS 1st BIRTHDAY PARTY

So my little boy is 1. I think he is SO adorable, of course! He now signs please, all done, more, milk, and yes. His first official word 2 days before was "BONNIE" followed a few hourse later by "BYE BYE" followed a few hourse later by "DADDY". He also now says "ALL DONE" and we think he may have said that before. It is like something just CLICKED in his brain. He also now says "TYLER."

With the whole cake thing, he picked all of the frosting stars off one by one first...got a little braver, and took a chunck of cake with his fingers...got a little braver and picked up the whole cake and ate it......got a little braver and dumped out his ice cream and smeared it all over the table.

APPARENTLY he gets more brazen in stages. He and Brooke love to laugh together at night when the lights are off. Tyler will look through his crib, egg her on, and giggle at her. She will them wiggle or say something silly and they will both laugh and laugh. We have a hard time disciplining that one becuase we are both laughing at them!!!

Here is Brooke at Tyler's bday party. She is 3 1/2 years old.

Tyler can now stand for up to 5 minutes, and crawl faster than an adult's brisk walking pace. When something is taken away from him, he will hurl his head to the ground, sulking. If he is really upset, he will then proceed to crawl in circle, head burrowed into the ground....so you just see this headless body crawling around in circle accompanied by an upset sulky cry. Here he is - a future missionary.

Tyler also LOVES Brooke - here he is trying to wake her up this morning!

OUR OPRAH OUTING

So we went to the Oprah Show Taping today - I, along with a couple of my friends from college - Cassidy Lundgren, Terica English, and my sister Tami. After rising at 5:15 and arriving fairly early, we waited with bated breath about what the show would be about. They gave us a questionairre on confessions of motherhood - do you love one child more than another, do you feel bad about things you do as a mother...kind of thing. So we at first thought - O.K....So its a Mom episode - thats cool. Well, rumor started spreading in line that it was a "serious show."

The night before we all joked about 3 topics we didn't want come for - and, yep, you guessed it, THIS EPISODE was one of those topics. Yeah, it was on pedifiles - GREAT! And then we find out the episode being taped after us was JANET JACKSON - and had we gotten out of the bathroom sooner, we could have stayed on to see that one. DANG IT!! Well, hey, we are a little more depressed and a little more wiser and disturbed for what we did see. So, here we are waiting in line to show our pic id. And, oh yeah, We got sat up at the very front and when she walked in I gave her five - cool!

Here we are after the show, and at lunch. YEAH!

Brian is SO good at giving the kids a bath

We went with the moms in the ward to an Orchard/Petting zoo - here we are feeding the bunnies!!

Out for a Sunday walk to Grandma's house!

AUGUST 30th

So, Nauvoo was fun - my parents were in the Joseph Smith Pageant there. Even though this pic is a bit blurry - it shoes my mom's cute costume.
Here is my mom's side of the family with us!Brooke is in her phase of sleeping in weird places - like this doll crib...yeah doesn't look too comfortable to me! I watch Abby, my neice, a couple of days a week - her and Tyler play side by side - their cute together!

And lest I forget, here are some pics of my bro n law coming home from Brazil on the 9th with the fam.

A Fiji Sister in our ward made this lei for Mark

- it took here 11 hours!!

And I can't forget going to see the Bear's practice. And YES we are really good friends with a couple of these guys - what can I say? We are cool people! In fact, one of the players, Gabe Reed, was our upstairs neighbor in Provo!