Johnny's Christmas

Becky, here are some Johnny pictures for you. From vampire to Santa, he is so versatile.

Here is Johnny as a Christmas mouse.

In front of the tree (with the real Santa).

And last but not least, Johnny attacking the tree. Very frightening.

"Deep Freeze"

Jacob had his first violin concert ever on December 11th. It was so cute. (Don't tell him I said that.)

Of course there is a picture like this. It wouldn't be Jacob if there weren't.

It has been snowing here for a few days now. And we are not used to very much. It started out as just a little and now we have a lot. They even canceled church today. Which was pretty weird. I didn't like not going at all. We missed the Christmas talks and lessons. And I love singing the Christmas hymns. I am hoping that the snow is gone soon and we can get back to life as usual. The only thing I like about the snow is how pretty it looks. We have a lot of big trees and everywhere you look you see this....

I do enjoy playing in the snow, but I would rather go away to the snow than to have it at my house. This is what our back yard looked like after the first day. It is much worse now, I just haven't taken a picture yet.

Fortunately we live very close to my parents house and every time it snows we walk over there. We only get snow a few times a year. I don't ever remember getting this much at one time before. Lorri and I helped push a car that had gotten stuck on our way home.

Frank and Jacob were having a snowball fight using my car as a shield. I have not driven it since it started snowing last Saturday. It has rear-wheel drive and every time that I drive it to work when it snows, it gets stuck in the parking lot and someone has to come pick me up. This year Frank dropped me off every day and either my mom or dad picked me up in their Suburban every day.

This may look like an action shot perfectly captured, but it's not. When he saw me take out the camera he froze. I don't even think he threw it in the end.

Here is the back of my car all covered in snow. And it is still snowing. Although this may not seem like a big deal to you Utah residents, we are rain people, not snow people. There is a thick layer of ice on all the roads and it is quite slick. We just may have a White Christmas this year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

For all you Twilight fans!

Anyone who knows Lorri, knows she is a big Twilight fan. Of course she loves Robert Pattinson, the guy who plays Edward in the movie. Well, the kids and I were hanging out in the kitchen eating pretzels and Jacob just turns around looking like this and says, "I'm Edward." We cracked up.

On Wednesday Jacob had his D.A.R.E. graduation. Here he is with his friend Sam and Officer Correa. He had a lot of fun in the program. When we got home I asked him what he was going to say no to. He said, "drugs, alcohol and tobacco." And when I asked him what he was going to say yes to, he said, "chores". I'm so proud. I may have to remind him of this next time I ask him to do something.

We set up the Christmas tree last week. Here are some shots of it being decorated.

The kids wanted their pictures taken in front of the tree with their pets.

This was the best shot of everyone. Probably won't see it on a Hallmark card but it works for us.

Trying to get everyone in the picture was a challenge. One dog didn't want to participate and the other one looks like she was passed out.

Odds and Ends

I was going through some of my pictures and thought I would post a few old ones. This is Terra. My 1976 International Scout. It belonged to my cousins for 11 years and I bought it last year. I love it. Only it rarely runs. This was one of those beautiful sunny days when I was able to take the top off and take it for a ride. Unfortunately it broke down on the next beautiful sunny day and had to be towed home. Someone from our ward is a mechanic at a dealership and he has offered his help to get her running again.

This is my copilot, Molly. She's not allowed in my car very often so she likes it when the truck is running.

One day I dared Lorri to wear a cape from an old Halloween costume of Jacobs to the grocery store. As you can see she did it.

One day I had gone into Jacobs room to get something and his cat followed me in. I then went into the kitchen to do something and I turned around and found this. He has a pair of pointy scissors attached to a magnetics piece attached to his collar. He picked up the magnet in Jacobs room and the scissors from the table. I'm glad I noticed before he got too far. Of course I had to snap a picture before removing it. Ironically, his name is Lucky.

The other day Jacob had to take a poll for his homework. He had called my sister and when she called him back I answered the phone. She asked for him and when I called him into the room he came around the corner with an ace bandage wrapped around his head. I started to laugh and told my sister that he was a mummy. He said, "Mom, I'm not a mummy, I'm a terrorist."

These are pictures from last month. I thought I should post them before thanksgiving. Frank and I went to a corn maze with my parents and my sisters and their husbands. This is Johnny holding Brittney's hand.

For Halloween Lorri was a vampire, Jacob was a "punk", and Jacob's friend Sam was Jigsaw. I remember the first time I went trick or treating with the kids. Jacob was a power ranger and he was so little. We realized after awhile that instead of saying "trick or treat" at the houses, he was saying "Chuck E Cheese". It was so cute.

I made Johnny's Halloween costume. As you can see he was also a vampire. I had to sew his fangs on. I figured that would be the best way for easy removal.

These are the Halloween cookies I made. I was pretty pleased that they turned out.

It's Official!!!

Today Frank, the kids and I, went to the court house and I adopted the kids. It has been a long and frustrating process but it is now done. Today is actually National Adoption Day. In our county alone there were 35 adoptions. I have been so nervous for the last couple of days. I was afraid they would make me say something. And normally that might not have been so bad, but we were sharing our courtroom with a lot of other families. However I lucked out and only had to answer yes to a few questions. And they were really easy ones. I even got a little teary. Which the kids made fun of me for. To make it official Jacob got to bang the gavel for the judge. It was cute. Next stop, the Temple.

Since it was National Adoption Day, they had all kinds of things going on. They had crafts for the kids, balloons, cookies, candy and Ivars even provided free lunch. The fire department was there and they made the kids temporary firefighters. They were giving out goody bags full of fun stuff, fireman hats and even bike helmets. My parents and both of my sisters were there. Which I really appreciated.

We stopped at a restaurant afterwards. I'm pretty sure that is play dough on Jacobs fork. But with him you never know for sure. By the expression on his face I'm guessing it was not tasty. OK, he didn't actually eat any.

Time for a closeup. Does anyone else with boys have a hard time getting a serious picture?

Julie, here is a picture of me, courtesy of Jacob. Not very centered but I'm probably lucky I was even in the shot.

Six years and counting!

For our anniversary, Frank and I went to Leavenworth for the weekend. It's a small Bavarian town a couple hours away from where we live. It turned out to be the perfect weekend to go. There was a festival going on so there were a lot of street vendors, dancers, and unfortunately we got there too late for the parade. When we got to our hotel the office was already closed. But there was an envelope taped to the window with our key and receipt inside. Weird!! We had the "Fish" room.

See. Room 303, Fish. And yes, everything in the room seemed to have fish on it.

We stopped in this little Bavarian restaurant for lunch. We sat at a table in what seemed to be a hallway. It was really long and narrow. With just enough room for a row of tables and just enough room for a walkway. There were so many different places to eat and I didn't recognize more than half of the items on the menus. Fortunately there was a pancake house across from the main street and we had breakfast there. This is a picture of Frank in one of the candy stores.

There were people dancing in the street the whole time we were there. During the only break I saw they had a man who was yodeling while playing an accordion. They even had an area set up behind these dancers for kids to play. They had a climbing wall and one of those giant blow-up jumping things.

Our hotel turned out to be just a block away from the main street. Which as you can see it paved with bricks. We walked everywhere we went.

This man had his cart parked in the middle of the main street. I don't think he actually had anything in the kegs. I'm sure if he did there would have been a larger crowd around him.

Outside of the chocolate factory was this giant bear. I have a small orange dinosaur that goes everywhere with me and I take pictures of him. His name is Johnnysaur. And here he is.

We stopped at the Applets & Cotlets Factory while we were there. It was surprisingly small even though they produce a ton of this stuff every year. They had free samples out and they were pretty good.

Here is Frank with his awesome hairnet. They didn't have any Johnny's size.

Just a few pics of the kids to get started.

This is Jacob. He just turned 11 at the end of last month. He is in the 5th grade right now. His favorite things to do are play video games, play with bionicles and hang out with his friend Sam.

This is Lorri and her dog Evan. She is 14 right now but will turn 15 in January. She is a freshman in high school now.

This pic is a little old. She has really short hair now and sometime last month she was suddenly taller than me.