Thanksgiving

Here is my recap of Thanksgiving because I am such a blogging slacker. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving my brother, Michael returned from his mission to El Salvador. All of my family was at the airport to welcome him home. It is so much fun to have him home. We missed him so much. Lillian was only 18 months old when he left and Isabelle wasn't even born yet. They were excited to see and meet their uncle.

Doesn't he look so cute? Plus he has a cute little Spanish accent to go along with it. Michael came home to a new family. While he was away both Steven and Daniel got married so he got to meet 2 new sisters-in-law. We all thought he might be a little weird and I guess he was but he is still Michael through and through. That night even he would say something and we would all say, "Michael is back!" It was so much fun.

Then we got to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday. We all went to my grandparents house in Bountiful. There were 40 or so relatives all there for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a packed house but it was a lot of fun to see and visit with everyone. My poor grandma needs a big vacation after feeding everyone! Poor Michael's stomach needed a little more adjusting before eating a big Thanksgiving feast. He got so sick that night.

That night we went home because the next day we drove to Island Park to have Thanksgiving with Kevin's family. Kevin's family celebrates Thanksgiving on Saturday so everyone can spend it with their spouses family on Thursday. It actually works out really well. This year Kevin and I and the girls stayed at the Trout Hunter, which is the lodge that Jim guides for. It was so nice. We had a balcony over looking the river and on the river were swans and ducks, it was pretty. Too bad it was like 15 degrees. But we enjoyed the view from the window.

We took the girls and our niece Audrey up to West Yellowstone to the Bear and Wolf discovery center. We go to Yellowstone at least once a year and I have only seen one bear and one wolf, and I barely saw the wolf. Who knew you could just go to the center and see them right in front of you? Sure they aren't in their natural habitat, but I'm not picky and neither are the girls. We learned a lot about Bears and Wolves like: did you know bear gallbladder is a delicacy in Asia? I bet you didn't; I sure didn't. You can kind of see the wolf in the background laying down. I didn't realize how big the wolves are. They were pretty cool. While we were there one of the packs of wolves starting howling. It was the neatest sound, so mournful and haunting. The bears were really neat too but by the time we saw them we were so bitterly cold we just wanted to go in side. I know I am a wimp about the cold but it was so cold there I couldn't feel my hands anymore by the time we went inside. Don't get me wrong it was lots of fun, but it was dang cold.

After Thanksgiving dinner with the Mullen family we drove back down to Bountiful for Michael's homecoming the next day. We drove so much this week, thank heavens gas prices went down.

The homecoming was great, Michael did a wonderful job. It was great to see so many people. My mom kept hugging us and saying how happy she was to have her family all together again. The kids are standing from oldest (me) to youngest (Daniel on the end), and I happen to be the shortest and Daniel the tallest.
Here is my family. It is amazing how it has changed in the past year. It was so fun to have everyone together again.

Twilight!

On Saturday I went with like 20+ women from my neighborhood to see Twilight. It was so much fun! First we went to dinner at the Coppermill, and I got my new favorite. All those in Cache Valley, the next time you go to the Coppermill, get the Ciabatta pizza in the appetizer menu - I promise you won't be disappointed- yum.
I truly live in an amazing place, with wonderful people. I hate to brag but I really do have the best neighbors.
After dinner it was movie time! I loved the movie. Obviously it was not as good as the book, but I really enjoyed it. I was a little skeptical of Edward, but by the end of the movie I was a big fan. Now I can't wait for New Moon to come out!


Oh yeah- my brother Michael is coming home today from his mission to El Salvador! Only 10 more hours to go; we can't wait! Lillian doesn't remember him and he has never seen Isabelle, so I am really excited for him to see the girls. We are so glad he will be here in time for Thanksgiving. I hope his stomach can adjust to all the good food.

Sick, Sick, Sick

This entire past week we have been sick at our house. Let me tell you, it has been a ton of fun. If fun includes cleaning up vomit, wiping noses, and forcing down medicine. Kevin, Lillian, and Isabelle got a super bad cold. I didn't take them to the doctor at first because I hate spending the $25 co-pay and then having the doctor say, "yep, she has a cold." I rarely get any medicine from the doctor, and I understand why, so I wasn't going to take them. Kevin did go to the doctor and he got some drugs. I learned from him the key words to use are, "Dr. I need to get better really quick, I have a lot to do at work." I will be using those words the next time I'm sick.

Lillian woke up on Thursday night crying because her ear hurt, so on Friday I took them both in. Lillian had an ear infection and both of Isabelle's ears were infected. The moral of the story is just take them in because who knows what's going on. I felt awful, I let them suffer all week long! I guess no Mother of the Year award for me this year. For the record Lillian didn't say her ears hurt until Thursday night and Isabelle wasn't tugging or pulling her ears so I didn't know they hurt.

So we spent the week watching a lot of cartoons, because what can you really do with sick kids? Isabelle climbed on the couch and starting cuddling with Lillian, it was so adorable.

When they started feeling better I think they got a little cabin fever because they started doing some crazy things. Well at least Isabelle did....

The little thing she is stuck in is a walker for dolls, apparently she thought she could fit in it.

The family is all on the mend but Lillian did try to convince me today she was still too sick to go to preschool and she needed to stay home and watch more shows. Nice try Lillian.

Bathtime Anyone?

Kevin was getting the girls ready for their bath last week and he left Isabelle in the bathroom putting her toys in the tub. All of the sudden I heard him laughing and telling me to come quick. This is what I found.

Yes, that is Isabelle in the bath with all of her clothes on. She loves the bath so much that she was tired of waiting for mom and dad to get her undressed so she just hopped in.

When I tried to get her undressed she was so mad because I was interrupting her play. She is hilarious. Every day she does something that leaves us just laughing and shaking our heads.

Leaves Here, Leaves There, Leaves Everywhere

Last weekend we went down to Bountiful to visit Papa Dave and Grandma Sherri and also to do a little shopping ( since we don't have the best shopping selection in Cache Valley). My parents have some very large trees in their backyard so in the autumn their yard is full of leaves.

Kevin and Steven raked them into a pile at the end of the slide for the girls to slide down into them.
Lillian was a little nervous at first but she quickly decided they were fun. Isabelle, on the other hand, wasn't a huge fan. As soon as she would get to the bottom of the slide, she was like get me out of here!

Lillian even let me toss her into the leaves. We also tossed my parent's beagle Abby into the leaves, which was very entertaining to say the least.
Isabelle sought refuge from the leaves with Papa Dave, but Lillian was relentless. It was really fun, especially since we don't have any large trees in our yard that produce a lot of leaves. While we were there Yu Ling made us a delicious Taiwanese dinner with noodles, chicken, and vegetables. She also made friend sweet potatoes with sugar and cinnamon, they were so good. I think for Thanksgiving this year I would rather have those than the traditional yams!

Halloween- A Week of Fun

Our Halloween celebrations lasted about a week. It seemed like almost everyday we had a reason to get dressed up. I really got my money's worth out of their costumes! Lillian dressed up as Belle and Isabelle was a 'little, tiny ballerina,' as Lillian kept calling her. On Monday Lillian had a Halloween dance recital. It was very cute and very funny because seriously, how coordinated can a 3 year old be?

Can you see the confused look on her face? Papa Dave and Grandma Sherri (my parents) came all the way from Bountiful to see Lillian's recital. It was so nice of them to come, thank you Papa and Grandma! The girls were so excited to have them there.

How cute are they? She loves dance class. She even prays that she will have a good dance class.

They also had trick or treating at the recital. This was Isabelle's first real experience with trick or treating. She was so amazed people were just giving her candy and we weren't taking it away. She just kept looking in her bucket at all of her loot.

Lillian takes dance with her two good friends, Avery and Amanda. They have so much fun together!

On Tuesday our ward held its annual Halloween carnival. This year I had to help run a booth because the young women and young men put it on. Which also meant I had to dress up. Kevin brought the girls and they got their hands painted, ate donuts, went fishing, and got glow in the dark bracelets. It was lots of fun!

Finally Halloween arrived! Lillian had a Halloween party in the morning at preschool. Then I took them to Kevin's work to eat lunch and to go trick or treating. They were so tired they fell asleep in the car on the way home. After a nice long nap they were ready to go out and get some candy. Thankfully it was such a nice night we didn't have to bundle them up. They didn't go out for very long because Lillian said she lost her energy. They came home and we got out all their candy and counted it and ate some of it. Isabelle kept trying to eat candy that was still in its wrapper. Honestly, I think they had more fun answering the door and passing out candy than trick or treating.

Pumpkin Walk and Some Really Funny Pictures

Every year in Cache Valley they have the Pumpkin Walk. It is in a park and groups get together and decorate pumpkins to look like other things like animals or people. It might sound a little weird but it is fun and the kids love it.

This was our favorite little booth, it was Noah's Ark. I don't know if you can see them or not but the animals in the picture are all made out of pumpkins and other kinds of squash. It was so cute and really quite amazing.

Also at the Pumpkin Walk were these cut outs. The girls loved them and I think the pictures are hilarious.

Doesn't it look like she is looking at Clifford like, 'easy there boy, your sitting right on me!'

Football, Cookies, and Olive Garden, what more could you ask for?

My parents and Steven and Yu Ling and Daniel and Bertha came up and spent a Saturday with us. I made (well mixed a package) of sugar cookies then we decorated them. Mostly we just ate them. The cookies were really good, but the frosting not so much. I tried to make my own frosting. I followed the recipe and everything but I think I prefer the store bought. Let me know if anyone has a good recipe for frosting maybe I'll attempt it again. Oh well, Lillian still had fun decorating and we had fun eating!

It was a really cold day in Cache Valley and so we bundled up and played some football. It was Steven's idea; I personally hate the cold, but it turned out to be lots of fun. Lillian loved carrying the football and having us all chase her around the yard.

Steven was trying to carry the two girls but they were a little squirmy. After football we went to the Olive Garden for dinner. It was delicious and also a little crazy, as are all restaurant dinners with two little kids. We had a great time; thanks for coming up everyone!

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Our Girls

I just have all these random pictures of the girls around the house that I snap here and there. It seems like they do something cute everyday and I just have to take a picture of it.
I love this picture of them together; I am so happy my girls have a sister. I wish I had a sister, but I do have great sisters-in-law. Lillian and Isabelle have so much fun together, I love it. Isabelle was eating a fruit snack when I took this picture, hence the drool. It doesn't get much cuter than this.

Lillian was showing off some dance moves in the kitchen. She just started dance class and she loves it. It is adorable to see her show off her dances. Mostly she just makes them up; I like those ones the best.

Isabelle is our little firecracker. She has so much spunk she doesn't know what to do with herself! Sometimes I don't know what to do with her either. Good thing she is so dang cute.

Isabelle is quite the little mother. She learned it from Lillian, oh, and from me of course. She is always carrying around some baby. She makes sure they have a blanket and that they are dressed in something. She also tries to feed them bottles but she usually hits the bottle all over their face until she finds the mouth. It is amazing how young she is and how she is already so much of a girl.

Didn't I mention she was my firecracker? This is her throwing a tantrum. She does this about 8 times a day. It starts out with this and then she puts her head on the ground and her bum in the air. She cries like this for a little while and then eventually she gets up and plays. She is so dramatic and hilarious all at the same time.

I think Lillian was doing another dance pose, it kind of looks like the Egyptian?

It's a fight to get Lillian to let me do her hair. I think that is because she didn't really have any hair to do until she was like 2 years old. So all of this hair curling and ponytails is relatively new to her. This day she let me curl it so I had to take a picture. Her hair is really straight so the curl is gone in 2 hours or so, but it sure is cute while it lasts!

Island Park and Yellowstone

Kevin's parents live in Island Park, ID. so we took a weekend to go and visit. We went one year with some friends at the end of September and it was so beautiful and so we decided to go again. When we went to Yellowstone on the trip before we saw so many huge elk bugling and so we were hoping to see some more this year.

We left on a Friday after work and got to his parents that night. On Saturday Kevin's dad, Jim took us fishing on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River from Warm River to Ashton. Jim is a fly fishing guide but he had the day off and was kind enough to take us. I haven't done a lot of fly fishing since I had the girls, but Mary was nice enough to watch them for us.

Here is a picture of one of the many fishes I caught. I landed 18 fish! I caught more but a few got away. I was so impressed with myself! Of course Jim was an excellent guide so he helped me a lot. We had a great time. There were two men who were fishing by us for a lot of the day and whenever we would come upon them I would catch a fish. The girl on the river was showing them up. The river was beautiful with all the fall colors. It was really fun to go with Kevin.

We went to Yellowstone on Sunday. We wanted to see Bears and Wolves and so we left Jim and Mary's house a little before 7:00 AM. It was 27 degrees when we left, we were freezing! We got to Yellowstone and we saw a few elk and a few bull elk but no bugling. Here was one bull elk that we saw but it was all alone, except for some buffalo that were hanging around it. We searched and searched for bears and wolves but we didn't have any luck!


We stopped for a potty break in Lamar Valley. Apparently there are a lot of wolves that like to hang out in around here but they must have heard we were coming and hid. When we went with our friends we actually did see some wolves a long ways off. We were hoping to be as lucky on Sunday but we weren't. Lillian was showing us how to do jumping jacks while we were stretching our legs. She actually does them very well and she is adorable when we does them. We all got a good laugh.

Here is our family in Lamar Valley. We were in the car all day and then we drove home that night. The girls were so good in the car. Thank goodness we had Jim and Mary with us in Yellowstone. They were such a big help with the girls.

Lillian kept saying that the bears must be sleeping and that was why we didn't see any. I think she was right.

We had a good time in Yellowstone. I always love going there, it is one of my favorite places. There is so much to see and do. We had a nice picnic lunch by the river and it was warm and sunny. It was so nice!