We sure have been packing in the holiday activities around here! Sat the 17th we started decorating for Christmas. I hear you moaning in protest, and believe me--I'm with you!!!! Tony, as we all know, is crazy and his largest obsession is with Christmas decor inside and out. We put up THREE full sized trees; one in the front living room, one in the family room and one in our bedroom. Faith & Christian each have 3 ft. trees in their rooms, our kitchen has our 5,4 & 3 ft. trio of alpine trees and the plant shelf above the entertainment center in the family room boasts a family of its own trees pictured here.

On to pictures with the correct holiday theme: Thanksgiving! Faith made a darling Indian costume at school on Mon the 19th. It consists of a headband with construction paper feathers, maccaroni neclace, formula can drum and paper sack vest all of which she expertly decorated. The next day she came home with a pilgrim collar and bonnet. They had dressed up for school lunch Thanksgiving feast--Faith's first lunch at school!

The day before Thanksgiving I was busy cleaning and cooking my take-along dishes and I let Faith borrow my camera. She LOVES taking pictures! She got this one of Christian and I wanted to post it because he absolutely adores books. Tons of times each day he brings me a book saying "BUP, BUP!" and I can't help but drop whatever I'm doing, set him on my lap and read him the bup . . . I mean book.

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She also took this picture of herself (the light blue things behind her are fairy wings).

Thanksgiving day was wonderful. First, here are Faith and her cousin (my sister Sarah's daughter) Alaura in thier costumes from school. Faith made the apron the day before at home entirely out of paper and tape.

Sarah had made these darling napkin holders with each of our pictures.


They were so cute!

The kids had a great time at the children's table, but Christian didn't eat much . . .

until Grandpa Peterson sat him on his lap.

We also had a wonderful dinner at Tony's parents' but for some reason forgot to get my camera out as much. I'm so mad at myself!! This is just after Tina put olives on Christian's fingers (and Tyler peeping from the background).

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That weekend we did some fun activities. Friday Tony, Faith & I went to the Disney movie "Enchanted." We all loved it,it was so cute! Saturday the three of us went to the "Nutcracker Ballet" at Weber State which was excellent! Faith very much enjoyed her first ballet and felt like such a big girl.

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Although Christian was left out of those two activites, don't feel bad for the little cutie! He had a great time with Grandma & Grandpa Braegger and Tammy on Friday and Grandma & Grandpa Peterson on Saturday, so he enjoyed himself as well.

Sunday night we went to the Ogden City park display and walked around looking in all the little houses. They also had done a tremendous job lighting the huge trees in the park.

After the park we went home, all snuggled up in the big bed and ate pomegranates.

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Tuesday the weather changed!! I had been wearing short-sleeved shirts and sandals but then in came a storm that started laying down snow! Here are Faith and her friend, Maura, running home from the bus stop through the snowflakes.

And finally, here is Christian cleaning up his mess with the swivel sweeper. I had just been using it and he saw me put it away. Next thing I knew, he had it back out and was sweeping away! Now that I know he can do it I'll have to start putting him to work all the time!!

I knew I was a little late getting in this blog entry, but I had no idea that it's been almost a month!! We have been busy with Halloween activities and playing outside enjoying the great weather. On Oct. 25th Faith and her friend, Maura, even set up a Kool-aid stand. They made just over a dollar each and even a non-family member (a construction worker working on the house next door) bought two cups! But I wonder who their best customer was . . . . . .
It was Christian and his five cups!! Of course the girls only gave him half an inch of Kool-aid in the cup for his quarter, but he enjoyed it to the fullest!

On Oct. 26th, Faith was lucky enough to get to go to the Hannah Montana consert, escorted by her dad. She screamed, danced and had a great time. And it only took about three days for Tony's hearing to return. That same night Christian and I went to mom & dad's ward trunk-or-treat. They have about fifteen people sign up to bring homemade soups for the dinner, making it one of my favorite fall events.
Christain was, of course, glued to my dad for the evening.

Awesome people stepped up and dressed for the occasion (I think coming as my regular self should have counted, being as that is scarier than any costume I could think of. But, alas, it was pointed out to me that I'm a party-pooper) Here are my sister Joy (and her unborn daughter, Lilly) as a basketball, her husband Jordan as a basketball player from a monster team, and her daughter Sierra as a cheerleader. I must point out that Joy MADE that adorable costume. You can't see the front very well in this picture, but the school name is "Peek-a-BOO Day Scare."

Here is my sister Sarah and her husband Brad in their seventies costumes, complete with afros. Great job! I was showing Tony's sister this picture and she couldn't even guess who they were!!

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Later that evening Christian & I joined Tammy & Zach in visiting the Dinosaur Park. I love to go there at Halloween when they have bloody limbs hanging out of the dinos' mouths, jack-o-lanterns, spider webs everywhere and a fog machine that is out of this world. Christian LOVED it and was making dinosaur noises back at them.

We had lots fun at our ward's Halloween carnival the next night, and Faith found a new way of keeping track of her brother. We ate spaghetti & meat balls and then went to the classrooms with the games. Faith did: eat the donut haning on a string, pin the bone on the skeleton, cake walk, fishing pond (Christian did this one, too!), decorating a pumpkin sugar cookie, musical tombstones, and a spook alley.

Monday the 29th, we met up with Joy's family at the Black Island Farms Corn Maze in Syracuse. We first watched the magic show, then did lots of slides, the baby corn maze (even the small one just about jiggled Christian's brains out riding in the stroller over that rough ground), played in the sandbox of dried corn, sat around the bonfire, teeter-tottered, Faith rode in a little farm train-like thing pulled by a tractor, and saw the farm animals. The picture is of Faith taking her brother up to one of the slides. We had a great time!

On the 30th I carved pumpkins with the kids. Christian loved pulling the "guts" out and even taste-tested some, I think.

Then we went to Lagoon for the last time this year :(

On Halloween night we first went trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood, then went over to Tony's parents' for homemade chili. After that Tony took the kids around their neighborhood with his mom, Tammy & Zach. The kids sure loaded up on the candy! Christian thought having people hand you candy that you can put in your bucket was the coolest thing, ever. He had a vise grip on the handle of that thing!!

Here is Faith with her aunt Tammy. (Another person cool enough to dress up! I tell you, I'm going to put in some effort and come up with a costume next year in an attempt to cool myself up.) We had a great Halloween night!

Faith's 6th birthday was Nov. 1st, but we celebrated with the family the Sunday afterward. We had some great cake and Faith got tons of nice gifts. Unfortunately, one of the main things she asked for and received were the AquaDots. Just a few days later the recall came out because the glue on them turns into GHB (the date rape drug) if ingested. But my mom got them exchanged for a Sleeping Beauty Barbie with magical color changing dress, and all is well.




I caught her in the other room practicing to be a singing star with her new "High School Musical" microphone.

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Funny side note, Faith has decided that her stage name when she becomes a famous singer will be "Princess Rocking Girl." Look for her new album out in stores in 7-10 years. :D

As I said at the beginning we have been enjoying the weather. One thing we love is riding bikes. Christian's favorite is playing in the dirt and Faith loves going over to her friends' and playing on the trampoline or the giant fancy swing set. I'm going to be sad when the weather turns cold and snowy!

Here is Faith in one of her favorite outfits she received for her birthday.

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Last week I took Faith in for her yearly check-up and she got a flu shot. She was terrified of getting the shot and afterward said it made her leg hurt. In the car on the way home she asked "Mom, how do people get wheelchairs?" HA, HA Faith, the drama queen.

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Mostly I spent last week reading the three books in the "Twilight" series: "Twilight", "New Moon", and "Eclipse". Girls, you have to check these out!!! (And I don't mean at the library, there are over 300 holds on each!!!!!)

Here's what we have been doing the last two weeks:

Tammy took us to Arctic Circle for dinner and playland amusement. Faith had come across a dollar store kitty costume (ears, bowtie & tail) in our Halloween stuff and decided she wanted to dress up for the occasion. She was a great helper with her brother taking him on the slide again and again. It was lots of fun!

It was Faith's turn to take home the reading bag which contained the puppet dog "Danny" and a notebook. The kids are supposed to do lots of things with Danny and then (with a parent's help) write a story about what they did. We took a lot of pictures of Faith & Danny's weekend adventure. Christian was enthralled with Danny, too.

One day, Christian came across my stash of extra binkies and decided that one is just never enough!

Faith got her turn at being VIP at kindergarten for a week. We got to make her this poster with her family, her favorite toys & games, pictures of when she was younger, her favorite things to watch and her favorite things to do.

Last Friday I had a party with my friends from my old neighborhood. It was awsome to see all of them!!

We ate soup in bread bowls and pumpkin log roll, showed pictures of ourselves when we were younger, told our favorite fall memories and chatted until late. Since my house was nice and clean, I took the time just before they arrived to take some pictures of my house.

Here is the kitchen (with an extra table set up).

Here is part of the family room and looking up at the "loft" hallway to the play room.

Here is my nearly empty formal living room complete with blue tape, ready for painting (who knows when I will ever get to it).

Here is our bedroom.

Here is Faith's room (just a little girly, huh?)

This past weekend we went to Lagoon. Christian loved borrowing his daddy's sunglasses while waiting to trick-or-treat at the "Spook-a-Boo" attraction they have there during Frightmares.

Tony and the kids tried out some costumes there. And the kids had tons of fun on the rides. Christian even got to ride the cars, baby boats, train and the Kontiki!

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Also this weekend we went to Gardener's village. Unfortunaely, my camera battery was dead so I'll report on that next time when I get the pictures from Tammy.

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The other exciting thing that happened is that Faith started dance lessons. She loves it and is trying to talk us into putting her in tumbling classes starting next month.

Not a lot going on around here the last couple of weeks. I thought I would change things up here on the blog and get a new template. Hopefully then more of you can see the layout as I do on my screen. Apparently only certain screens show the stretched layout the way I want it to look. I also updated the pic of our house to a newer one with GRASS!





Here is Faith just out of the tub helping out her little bro.






Last Tuesday, September 25th I was trying to get a few things done and I found that a certain little stinker pot had thrown most of the items out of the cabinet under the master bath sink and climbed right in! I got him out of there, got the stuff replaced and went back to my laundry folding.









And what do you know? That same someone had found a new "car" to play in! These pictures weren't staged and were taken within five minutes of each other!


















Here are Faith and Christian engrossed in some very interesting T.V. Buddy is holding a rice ball - Tony's favorite autumn snack made with puffed rice and jello.








Here are the kids on Friday at the dollar store trying on cowboy hats. Earlier that day my mom took us to eat at the Greek Festival in South Ogden. Yummy!! Christian ate almost an entire tyropitakia (triangular cheese pie made with phyllo and feta cheese)




And on Saturday when Faith and I were at WalMart she saw this little dog dress and knew that Crumpet just had to have it! We later went to PetsMart and got a new collar and leash so she could be completely decked out.










On Sunday we stopped by Eric's house to see his new bedroom set. It is very fancy with black marble dresser top and marble columns on the bed and dresser front.



















We're so excited for fall to be here and are looking forward to lots of upcoming Halloween activities!