A Surprise Left On My Phone.....

Love this Charlie boy of mine!

Cousin Sleepover

Last weekend we had our cousins, Addi & Beckett, for a sleepover!  Charlie talks about Beckett often and sometimes introduces himself as, "Beckett's cousin."  Needless to say, he was thrilled to have him over for a night!

That afternoon the boys and I made cookies for us to decorate that night. 

For the first hour Tony and I didn't even see the kids.  They were upstairs playing and eventually we were able to get them to come down for dinner.  We decorated cookies later that night and it was fun to see how everyone did theirs differently.

Joey was all about the sprinkles...

Beckett was all about the frosting...globs and globs of frosting with a few sprinkles here and there.

Addi was definitely Miss Detail!  Here gingerbread men had shoes, buttons and eyes all of out sprinkles.

Charlie liked a little bit of everything--a little bit of frosting with a little bit of sprinkles.

Charlie & Beckett

The kids cuddled up for a Christmas movie before bed! 

 I'm so happy my kids get to have relationships with their cousins now.  We love having them close by and can't wait to see them again after Christmas!

Company Christmas Party

A couple weeks ago we attended Tony's first company Christmas party!  It was a huge event with 500 people in attendance.  My first thought was, "I can't imagine setting up all these tables, place settings, double goblets, etc."  I guess your perspective changes when you have worked in catering :)

It was fun to get dressed up and do something different!  The food was awesome, there were some fun presentations and best of all was the live band (We Are the Strike) and dancing at the end.

they played Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, Bruno Mars...my kind of music!

  Hopefully it didn't bring out any Elaine Benes dance moves :)  

It was such a fun night and we're looking forward to next year!

First Snow!

Joey refused to wear two gloves!  He needed one hand for snow and the other to hold a toy truck. 

We move from Arkansas to Utah and what happens?  Arkansas gets a HUGE snow storm and has more snow than us.  We got our first snow a couple weeks ago and the boys could not have been happier.  Here are some photos of the boys  playing in the snow for the first time this year!

they think throwing snowballs at the back door is hilarious

Thanksgiving

Starting the Thanksgiving break off right!  

Watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas. 

 According to Charlie, "it's a spooky movie.  The Grinch tries to STEAL Christmas!!!"

This past Thanksgiving break was so relaxing.  I love having Tony home.  

charlie helping me make banana cream pie

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family up in Centerville.  I think it has been 5 years since I have spent Thanksgiving with my parents?  It was wonderful to be home.

We had quite the crowd together for the holiday!  Our family, my parents and siblings, Brian & Laura's family, my cousins and their families (Marcus, Brittany & Aimee), and the Moore's, our good family friends. I think there were 26 of us total? All of the adult females split the food assignments.  I was in charge of the stuffing, two pies and rolls. It was so fun to try everyone's dishes!  I'm still thinking about my mom's punch with raspberries & pomegranate seeds, Laura's artichoke dip & Wende's pecan sweet potatoes (and I don't even like sweet potatoes!).  Seriously, can we get together for a second Thanksgiving feast?!

I rolled out 64 of these homemade beauties

hanging out at the kid table

Joey loved the rolls and just happened to sneak up and steal one as I snapped this photo--too perfect. 

My cousins--Brittany, Marcus & Brittany

The boys loved playing with their aunts and Allie!  Joey even fell asleep in Chloe's arms.  I don't remember the last time he has done that with someone!

a blurry picture of the pies 

Charlie keeping Crew & Finn content in their car seats

It was a great holiday.

I'm thankful for so many things this year.  It has been a year of change for our family, but I feel our Heavenly Father's hand in our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Halloween

Halloween this year was a blast.  We enjoyed Halloween, but Joey went CRAZY!  It is definitely Joey's favorite holiday of all time!

even Captain America says his morning prayers

We started the day with Charlie's Halloween program & costume parade.  He was so proud to be in his Captain America costume!  That afternoon the boys and I decorated Halloween sugar cookies while waiting for trick or treating at daddy's office.

I had some fun with Halloween make up and Charlie's tiger ears

The boys majorly scored at the office.  They also handed out all of the "good" candy too (chocolate) so Tony and I were pretty excited :)  Joey ran from each desk, grabbing a handful of candy and screaming, "CANDY!!"  I followed behind him, reaching in his bucket to put back the multiple pieces he grabbed.  We kept telling him, "just one piece," but the excitement was just too much.

At the office--taking a break to enjoy some of that hard earned candy

off to conquer the neighborhood

Can you tell Joey is ready to go?!

Tony took the boys trick or treating while I stayed back to hand out candy.  

my big helper

After 1.5 hours the boys came back.  Charlie wanted to help mom hand out candy to "customers." Joey was still going strong.  He and Tony stayed out for another 1.5 hours and he ran to every house.

We have multiple videos of Joey, but no pictures!  His reaction was too hilarious not to video tape.  Unfortunately I don't have them loaded on this computer and considering Christmas is next week, I better just get this posted for now!

It's mid December and I still have Halloween candy in the pantry.  Our combined bag of candy was ginormous!  The majority of it was Joey's.  He must know that too because everyday he reminds me for a piece :)