One thing we have been enjoying lately has been pomegranates! As soon as they come in season, we go through 2-4 per week, even though they are quite expensive. Tony and I both grew up loving them, so we continue to be surprised by how many people haven't heard of them or do know what they are but haven't tried them. Not only are they delicious, the seeds take awhile to get out of the skin (so they make for great TV snacks!) and researchers have recently found that the super antioxidents in them help prevent heart attacks. Go get some today!!

When I saw this picture for the first time (you can see it full size if you click on it) I thought, "man, that looks like high-velocity blood spatter on his face!" Obviously, I've watched way too many hours of CSI :D

.

The weather has been so mild lately that our flowers continue to bloom! This picture was taken November 22nd, but as of three days ago we still had quite a few. Monday it snowed most of the day, but it was too warm to really stick.

.

.

.

.

Here are the kids later that day enjoying some crazy big wheel riding. As much as I hate cold weather, I'm ready for a white Christmas!

On November 25th we went with Tammy and Zach to Classic Fun Center for Faith's school family fun night. The kids rode their scooters around the rink for a bit, then we ate and they played in the arcade.

.

.

.

.

..

.

I HATE how crowded and noisy that place is and I can't believe I let Faith talk me into it again, but the kids enjoyed themselves.

Thanksgiving Day was a lot of fun and a whole lot of food.

.

First we went to my parents' where I brought my Grandma Quinn's Party Vegetables (recipe in an upcoming post). Sarah gave her girls and Faith these adorable dolls that she had hand made!

You just flip the skirt up, turn it upside down, and the doll changes from Pilgrim to Indian. She had seen the idea somewhere and wanted some for her girls, and decided that Faith would feel left out and made one for her also. The thing is, she started making them for last Thanksgiving, couldn't complete them in time, and then spent countless hours working on them to finish them this year.

Sarah is so incredibly talented! She made up the pattern herself and embroidered on each of the little faces. Faith loves this little doll and it will definately be a treasured heirloom for her.

.

We had a great dinner and a lot of fun there, then we drove on over to Tony's parents' for a second Thanksgiving spread!

.

More delicious food and fun were had, and then Buddy fell asleep in Tammy's arms as she read him a story. We used to love to play dominos and card games, but couldn't with a medlesome two-year-old, so we were excited to get to play again! Faith felt so mature because she was finally old enough to learn the games and play with us.

The next night, my mom had invited Faith & I and Sarah & her girls to Ballet West's The Nutcracker Ballet. We dressed the girls up fancy for their night out on the town, but little did we know that they would all match so perfectly!

Sarah really gets into the girly stuff and had seen to every detail, including providing her girls with bejeweled little mint boxes!

The girls were complete angels for the performance and entirely enjoyed it. Celeste had been twice before and Faith had gone with Tony & I last year, but Alaura was there for the first time. After the show, grandma gave them each a satin box containing a beautiful "Clara" ballerina ornament.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The next week contained such fun events as singing in Sacrament meeting (see post below), getting a new calling (1st counsilor in the Primary presidency), a Christmas PTA meeting brunch, Relief Society "International Christmas" party and an awesome girls' night at Brandi's house.

.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of any of these, so I'm moving on to our Stake Christmas Extravaganza. Grandma & Grandpa Peterson, Grandma Braegger, Tammy, Zach and Tina all came! (Here's Tina taking care of my little guy.) It all begins outside with carolers and musicians,

a live nativity, girls bringing around bread in baskets,

a mini Dickins village, hot chocolate, a jingle bell craft,

horse drawn hay rides, and fresh, warm cinnamon almonds.

.

Then you move inside the stake center for a program featuring adult, children's, and young women's choirs and a twenty five piece orchestra! It truly was an amazing concert, and I'm not just saying that because my little Faithy was in the children's choir! Below are two short, shaky video clips from it. (I need to get a bigger SD card or an actual camcorder one of these days--sorry!)

.

It was a great night and everyone was impressed with all the talent, especially Faith's :) Somehow, we completely lucked out and Christian slept through the program in Tina's arms so we didn't have to hear "Go, now!" a zillion times during it!

.

I've been meaning to put up some pictures of our overload of Christmas decorations, but since I've been so sick, the house isn't looking it's best this week. But I'll at least put up pics of three of our four full-sized trees (yes, you read correctly, FOUR):

.

This one's in our formal living room-->

.

..

<--this is our family room tree

.

.

.

.

and this one's in our master bedroom.-->

.

We also have one up in the playroom, but it has mostly lights since we used up our ornaments on the other trees. Tony put that one up because our neighbor has a tree showing in his bonus room window, and Tony thought that was an excellent idea for our extra tree that was just sitting in a box in the basement.

.

I need to still get pictures of our plant shelf, railing, kitchen cabinets and the outside of the house for you to truly understand the insanity that I endure! It is fun right now, though, (just not putting it up and taking it down) and the kids love it. I'm surprised that Christian has even been pretty good at not messing with it too much.

.

I'm hoping to get posts up with recipes and some Christmas movie & book reviews in the next few days, so check back!

Lots of singing going on

One of the things we have been so busy with are choir practices. I was practicting to sing with three other ladies in Sacrament meeting (which we did on November 30th), Faith was practicing for our stake Christmas program (which was December 6th--info & pics in next post!), and I'm singing in our ward choir the Sunday before Christmas.

I love the arrangement of "Abide With Me" that I sang in our little quartet. Here is a little video montage with pictures of Christ and a professional (obviously) recording of the song:

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I've had so much going on (and now I'm sick with a horrible cold) that I haven't posted all of the things I had planned! I want to start today with a "thankful" post that I meant to get up in time for Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for everything in my life!! Of course, the thing I am most thankful for is my family.

A few months ago, Oprah showed a YouTube video on her show about a couple who was pregnant with a baby that had trisomy 18 which is a birth defect that causes most babies who have it to be stillborn. Baby Eliot lived through birth and his parents celebrated every single day they had with their son. I hope we can all celebrate every day and remember how precious each one is.

(WARNING--do not watch this video at work, just before driving or operating dangerous machinery, or if you don't want to have a good, hard, cleansing cry. It truly is more uplifting than sad, but even Oprah and Celine Dion were doing the "ugly cry" after seeing it on the show that day.)

Here's another blog I peruse - Dooce. I don't have a link to it at the side because it needs to come with a language warning for her occasional potty-mouth-ness, but it is interesting and sometimes funny.

She has daily pictures of her dog, Chuck, in this section.

She writes letters for her daughter at monthly intervals and I especially liked last month's: Month Fifty-seven. You'll have to read through the anecdote about the Halloween candy to find out what kind of card Faith and Christian are getting next Valentines day ;)

The best day ever, a party, and some decorating fun

Man, I sure got in a bunch of posts two weeks ago while Tony was out late at his buddy's playing Xbox football, didn't I?! Too bad I haven't been able to keep up that pace ;)
.
Here's our Crumpy-dump nestled up snug as a bug in a doll carrier. It's a little soft-sculpted moses basket that came with one of Faith's dolls. I thought it was so funny that she thinks it's a doggy bed, and as tiny as she is, it's too small for her!

On Saturday, November 8th, we went down south to Spanish Fork & Springville. Tony had been wanting to have us try his favorite lunch spots for awhile, and we finally got around to it. For those of you who don't know, Tony works out of Salt Lake, but delivers to that area every day. We first went to a fun candle warehouse store called For Every Body in Lindon. That place is huge and has great smelling candles as well as some home decor. Next, we went to feed the ducks at the Springville Industrial Park that has streams going through it.

The kids had an absolute blast and went through an entire loaf of bread in no time. Christian would probably stay there forever if he could, it really is a fun spot!

The sun was hitting the water and causing a glare that played tricks on my camera,

so I used that opportunity to get some cool "backlit" shots. I'm gettin' so artsy now! (you can click on the pictures to get a larger view)

After the ducks, we went to Hickory Kist in Spanish Fork. They have bread, beef jerky, and Tony's favorite deli sandwiches of all time. To start with, the place is cute and country-y inside. Next, their sandwiches are HUGE! They bake the loaves of bread for them in extra-extra large bread pans, and then they pile up the fillings super high (we got one sandwich and a small bowl of clam chowder to share between the four of us). I so wish I would have remembered to take pictures! We got turkey, provolone cheese, lettuce, onions, sprouts, mayo, mustard, and cranberry sauce on it and I have to say, it was delicious.

.

Even though we were already kind of full, I decided that I needed to try his other favorite place while we were down south. Next stop: Zubs in Springville. Tony & I split half of a "steak 'n stuff" sub and this was also top notch. They bake their buns fresh and it is probably the best "Philly cheesesteak" I've ever had.

.

On our way home, we dropped by Gardener Village to buy Faith a toothfairy doll that she had seen on our last visit. Unfortunately, they were sold out, but we managed to procure some fudge, homestyle lollypops, and chocolate advent calendars from Sweet Aftons and frozen butterflake roll dough from the Naborhood Bakery while we were there :)

.

After we returned home and got the kids in their jammies, Faith turned to us and said, "This was the best, day, ever." To which Tony & I looked at each other in astonishment & confusion and just said, "Huh??" and then giggled. But it was a fun day and Faith is such a positive, bubbly, "stop and smell the roses" kind of person that she thinks many, many days are the "best day ever!" and that is one of the things that make me feel so blessed to spend each and every day with her. We could all take a lesson!!

.

(Funny sidenote: while writing the above paragraph, I googled, "name for a person who loves life" trying to come up with an adjective for my Faithy. I didn't find anything useful, but I came across the following question on Yahoo Answers: "What do you call a person who enjoys the finer things in life, a person who enjoys going to opera and fine arts, etc as opposed to going to football?" She got answers such as: refined, stuffy, worldly, and a connoisseur. But my favorite was the one that got one vote for being the "best answer"--"Are you looking for the term 'Douchbag'?" ROFL!!!)

.

(Even funnier sidenote: I know at least half of my readers will have to google "ROFL" to see what it means. I don't internet chat or text and I still know a few of the accronymns! Come on people!!!! And by people, I mostly mean you, mom, hehe)

.

The next Thursday, I hosted the neighborhood ladies' night. We had some awesome appetizers and treats, chatted and played games. Three of the ladies came straight from a stake dodge ball game (where they were the only people to even show up--better luck getting to actually play next time), hence the awesome sports attire!

As the night wore on, some gals had to get home to bed, but four hard-core partiers stayed past midnight, and three of them didn't get home until 1:45 am!!! Now that's what I call a party! I had so much fun and laughed so hard that it was the best ab workout I've had in ages. I can't wait to get together again next month!

.

The next day, I finally had time to help Faith make the breadstick bones that we had been meaning to do for weeks. Faith got the idea from Family Fun Magazine and they turned out really cute! (And kind of extra creepy since Halloween was over)

Speaking of Faith, here's the picture I promised you of the two new holes in her smile :)

.

.

.

I know I've posted several pics of the kids each wearing these outfits, but this one of them playing dress up was just too darn adorable not to include here!

Faith saw something where the person used a timer to take a picture and remarked that she wished my camera could do that. So, I figured out how to use that feature, and here is the result. (Yes, the camera is sitting on a toy that is only 2 inches off the ground, my hair is scary, and Faith and Christian aren't wearing clothes--but we were just playing around and it came out kind of cute!)

.

We have already begun our tedious, bazillion item, Christmas decorating. Tony argued that we had to put it up before Thanksgiving because it falls so late this year! We're not finished yet, but we do have up three full-sized trees and our outside lights (which I will post pics of and blog about next post).

.

.

And I was just enjoying our fall decorated plant shelf! It and the railing garland will get done this weekend.

Christian has been busy, as ever! Here is a cute drawing that actually looks like a face (and his face, as usual, is covered in something),

.

. . . . . . . . he helped bathe and dry Crumpet,

.

and here he is doing a crazy song and dance number while standing on the kitchen island.

.

He also has been somewhat vengeful lately--on Tuesday Faith had to bring a game to school and she picked "Candy Land". I got it out to send with her, turned around for only a minute, and then turned back to find that Christian had opened it, shoved the people down between the couch cushions, and had taken the rubber band off of the cards. I told him that he needed to give the cards back to me, but he screamed "NO!", jumped off the couch, ran over to the entertainment center, and threw the cards behind it. I had to get a stick and dig out as many as I could before Faith left for the bus stop! I'm already sick of the "terrible twos"!

.

.

p.s. Can anyone besides me stand my new playlist music? I'm totally loving it!

TAG!

I've been tagged by Kim to go to my photo files and post the 4th pictrue in the 4th file, then tell 4 things about it.

Here's the pic:


1. The picture was taken September 9, 2008.
2. I took it because I had gotten cute pics of Faith and Misty sleeping and wanted to include him in a blog about it.
3. You can find that post here.
4. He had originally fallen asleep for his nap on the couch, but slowly changed positions (he didn't fall) until he was on the floor!

I now tag: Carolyn, Brandilee, Rachel, and Joy . Thanks Kim, this was a fun and easy one!

Music change up

Il Divo sang "Amazing Grace" on Oprah last week and it was amazing. (You can see the music video here.) I was wanting to change up my music and thought it would be a great addition to a "thankful" inspired music list for this time of year, but it wasn't to be found on Playlist. I have added another great version, though, which I also love. Maybe you think it seems weird to go from "I Kissed a Girl" to "Amazing Grace", but that's so me--weird! Also, my thinking is a bit convoluted because, as I was searching Playlist for songs with "thankful" or "blessed" in the title, I thought I would look up "prayer". I then spied Madona's "Like a Prayer" and decided to throw it's awesomeness into the mix for good measure! Anyway, it's an interesting assortment, and I hope you don't listen to it and agree, but sarcastically think I've used "interesting" as a euphemism for "crappy" :D

And the fall fun just keeps going, and going . . .

I think I'm finally getting caught up here!

On October 27th, I took the kids to Black Island Farms for their fall-themed "agritainment" and had a ton of fun. We got there just after 5:30 and the weather was about 70 degrees, perfect for hay slides!

Christian got pretty good at climbing up the haybales with the web-like rope ladder on the back of the slides, although I did need to help him up this monster:

Then the kids rode this "train" which is pulled by a big tractor and goes through the corn field. Throughout the night, Christian rode this about 87, 498 times. Every time it came back around and the ride was at an end, he would shout, "Again, again!" and, because it wasn't very busy, I just let him go :D

The corn sandbox was a giant hit again, this year. I don't know how long they played in it, but it seemed like forever standing there for me!

You can almost make out the kids in this jack-o-lantern bounce house picture. I spent another eternity waiting outside of this.

.

.

.

Finally, Joy and her family arrived. Sierra loved doing everything with her cousin, Faith. The kids played in this corn husk tunnel, and Faith went through the kiddie corn maze with Joy's family while I took Christian on the train again several more times.

We did more slides together and Joy even took baby Lily down this one!

The kids ate their dinner of hot dogs ($3!!!) sitting in front of the bonfire, which was nice and warm even though the temperature had plummetted. We also enjoyed pig races, a magic show, and seeing the animals. Christian even got to feed a calf some crushed corn out of his hand, which is still spoken of by him with tremendous excitement to this day. Can't wait 'til we get to go again next year!

On the 29th we carved our pumpkins. Christian LOVED the pumpkin guts and Faith designed and carved one of hers entirely by herself.

Tony was even home early that evening and got to help out. The only bad thing was that I burnt half of the pumpkin seeds by putting them on too low of a rack in my oven. Darn! We love those things!

October 30th was Faith's class Halloween party. I somehow ended up in charge of it and had the kids make some accordian folded bats and tissue paper ghosts at my center. I was a little surprised to find out that it had to end 20 minutes early becase one of the student's grandpa had flown in from Hawaii and was a professional ukulele player, but it just added to the fun.

Here is the proof: a happy class at the end!

In additon to the crafts, we had two games, story time, and a treat where they had donuts and root beer while they waited to get their faces painted. Mrs. Crow, who did the painting, was an amazing artist!!

That evening, there was a very unfortunate accident. Gladly, Christian didn't smash his face up, as it appears in this photo. He found the red Halloween lip gloss and expertly applied some, then stuck his bottom lip out in a pout when I took said lip gloss away. Luckily, he was left with no visable scars ;)

Halloween morning, we went to a wonderful party at Ann's house. Somehow I managed to FORGET MY CAMERA *gasp*. You'll have to check us out on Natalie's blog, and you better hurry because she's going private soon. If you love to stalk her blog even though you don't know her, and only follow the link to it from my blog, just comment here with your email and Nat would be happy to invite you!

.

We went straight from the party to Chuck-a-rama for lunch with mom & dad, my grandma, my aunt, uncle and Sarah's family. Christian, of course, made my dad change tables and sit by him.

.

That night, we went out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood just after 6 p.m. It was warm (over 70 I think) and Christian was absolutely enamored by the idea of everyone giving him candy. I was surprised that they tired out so quickly, Faith requested that we return home and go on over to Braeggers at about a quarter to seven! I am glad that they didn't get too much candy, though, since they'd already gotten so many Halloween treats that month.

.

It's hard to see in the picture, but my mom made Faith the most darling treat bag. It's black with feather boa trim around the top, and had a ribbon with some cut pins on it, including a light up skull. A diva bag for a diva girl!

We headed over to Tony's parents and on the way, Chirstian fell asleep. Tony just carried him up to Tammy's bed and he slept the rest of the night away, worn out little guy! We enjoyed some homemade chili, cornbread and cupcakes, and then Tony took Faith out trick-or-treating around their nighborhood for a little while.

.

I was supposed to make Crumpet a bat costume (according to Faith), but it never came to be. Instead, I saw this bat headband which even lights up and thought we could attach it somehow to her harness. That never really came to be, either, so Faith wanted to at least get this picture with Crumpet "wearing" it. Maybe she'll be costumed out next year!

The next day, November 1st, was Faith's birthday!! We took our little seven-year-old to Lagoon at her request. We didn't remember Lagoon ever being open after Halloween before, so Faith felt pretty special this year.

The kids played in the water,

.

.

rode lots of rides, and loved that there were no lines.

.

.

.

I love this picture of them waiting, only for the kids from the last ride to exit. Faith is so serious and Christian is climbing the bars and being crazy. It truly captures who they are!

The weather was perfect and warm, and the trees in kiddie land were dressed up in their birthday party best.

.

The lines were so short that we were finally able to do "Spook-A-Boo" where the kids get to go through little rooms with different themes (set up where the baby bumper car ride usually is) and collect candy in a bag. Christian was TOTALLY into these gummy-candy fangs and just asked for more just yesterday. Next year I'll have to find them and stock up =-)

Tony got this pic as we were speeding past on the merry-go-round. Faith is obviously not prepared for a picture and I'm pointing out Tony to Christian.

.

.

We topped off the day with a visit to Krispy Kreme. Faith is seen here wiggling her loose tooth which she lost two days later. Yesterday (three days after that) she lost the one on the other side! I'll have to get a pic of her holey smile.

On Sunday, we celebrated with the family. First we went to Braegger's. Wow, check out the cute kitty stuff that Tammy got to match Faith's "Littlest Pet Shop" cake.

.

By the way, how come there weren't any comments from offended people for the blog about Christian's birthday after I made an inappropriate remark about Tammy and party supplies? Not even Tammy? Is no one reading the commentary that I write? Too distracted by my adorable children to notice? Everyone who knows me just expects such inappropriateness, and maybe even thinks that I actually show some restraint on this thing? Something to ponder ;)

.

Faith was so sweet that she even let her brother help her open the presents.

Some things she got: giant pony coloring book, Hello Kitty wallet with a WalMart gift card inside, a set of Pony in my Pocket, satiny pj's, earrings, a little horse box, and a High School Musical shirt.

.

.

.

.

At my mom and dad's, she opened: dog trainer Barbie, an alarm clock, a puzzle, a cool ant farm, a Bobby Jack sweat outfit, and a Hannah Montana blue hair streaker stick.

Here she is with her pajamas and clock that night at bedtime. My mom actually glued on gems to the clock to "bling it out."

She had a great two-day birthday celebration!!

Check out this awsome treat bowl that I got the other day. I saw one at mom & dad's trunk-or-treat and I just had to have it! Christian was scared of it at first:



but now he loves the thing! I've always liked the ones where the hand bends down to grab you when you put your hand in, but with this one the hand is entirely hidden in the wall of the bowl. Plus it has the red, light-up eyes!

Turtle pumpkin pie

Several weeks ago, Tammy made this delicious, ultra rich pie. Several friends wanted the recipe when I told them about it, so I thought I would post it:

Turtle Pumpkin Pie (from the Kraft foods website)

Prep Time:15 min
Total Time:1 hr 15 min
Makes:10 servings

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. caramel ice cream topping, divided
1 HONEY MAID Graham Pie Crust
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. PLANTERS Pecan Pieces, divided
1 cup cold milk
2 pkg. (3.4 oz. each) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided

POUR 1/4 cup caramel topping into crust; sprinkle with 1/2 cup pecans.
BEAT milk, pudding mixes, pumpkin and spices with whisk until blended. Stir in 1-1/2 cups COOL WHIP. Spread into crust.
REFRIGERATE at least 1 hour. Top with remaining COOL WHIP, caramel topping and pecans just before serving.