CHRISTMAS DAY

The long awaited Christmas day finally arrived, the kids were beside themselves! Santa brought the boys more Star Wars ships, Addie got the Strawberry Shortcake baby she just had to have and Ava got baby toys. Yipee!

THE JAZZ GAME

For Christmas, Christian got a Williams jersey and a ticket to go to the Jazz/Mavericks game the next night. He was thrilled! He is a HUGE fan of the Utah Jazz. We met up with our friends, the Hirrlingers who used to live in Dallas so they were rooting for the Mavs. My brother in law Craig and some of his family also joined us. It was a great night and to top it off, the Jazz won!

DOWN MEMORY LANE

Here is my family with my wonderful Aunt Janice, it was always a huge treat when she would come to visit, she would spoil us rotten! She is still just as sweet! This was around 1983.
Here we are with our new baby cousin Asha (Aunt Janice's daughter), we were on one of our famous road trips from Alaska to Nevada. 1986
Here we are again with Asha, note that Page is playing with a snake we caught and kept in a shoe box in the suburban(my poor mother!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

This was one of our attempts to do a family picture but I have surrendered to the reality that I can't be in the picture and try to take the picture at the same time! so this year we are doing individual pictures, oh well! Where is Justin Hackworth when I need him?!

ADDIE AND AVA'S PICTURES

Here are Ava's 6 month pictures, I can't believe she is already this old! I love her cute cheeks,

her whole face lights up when she smiles!
I finally got around to taking the girls pictures since the boys had theirs done in the fall. Addie loves getting hers done, I think she loves getting the one on one attention with mom. Anyway, we got it done, phew!

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND

Addie waiting in line for the big dinner
The cousins hanging out at Little America
Check out these cute cheeks!
Andy helping Addie decorate the tree

Addie enjoying her chocolate covered strawberries and marshmellows
Of all the food there, the boys went for the pizza!
Isaac loves the turkey!

What a great weekend this was We got to go to Little America and be with a bunch of family. We all had a blast. The cousins always love getting together and they thought we were staying at a palace. We later went to my sisters house and hung out with Craig and Kristi. We were hoping she would go into labor while we were there but it wasn't to be. This ended up being a blessing in disquise since she caught a stomach flu and spent Saturday very sick. We still had a good time since the best thing about being together is just hanging out!

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!

I am getting so excited for the holidays, we got our tree out and the Christmas music going, it is so magical! It has been fun to see the excitement on the kids faces. Ava is mesmorized by the lights on the tree. She loves to sit in front of it and watch the lights twinkle. I know we are breaking the unwritten rule about waiting until Thanksgiving is over but....oh, well!

BOISE STATE FOOTBALL

For Isaac's birthday Andy suprised him with tickets to the Boise State football game. So early the next morning we drove to Logan and spent the day at the game. The weather was awsome, the Boise fans in front of us were scary. I still have cow bells ringing in my ears. It was a great day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ISAAC!!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Z gave Isaac an R2-D2 robot, Isaac said we could have him do the dishes and decorate for his party next year!
Here is everyone trying to figure out how to get R2 to do something besides tell us 'No', (we eventually figured it out and he was pretty entertaining!)

Isaac wanted to have a spongebob birthday party, so we did everything spongebob!
Isaac blowing out his 6 candles
We let the kids spray down Isaac with silly string (thanks for the idea Magan!)

AVA'S SMILE!

Ava is full of smiles lately and we just can't get enough. This is such a fun stage, their entire face lights up. She is such a bright spot in our life, as each of our children are.

HALLOWEEN

Isaac and his buddy were both Robin for Halloween
Ava trying to eat some candy....sorry kid, I guess mom will have to eat it for you!

first stop, the other side of our twin home
going to the school carnival, this year Christian was a knight, Isaac was Robin(again!), Addie was a pumpkin (or as she says, a pumpkin pie), ans Ava was a sweet flower.

GRANDMA POLLY

Grandma telling the grandkids stories

Some of great grandmas grandkids
Uncle George taking control of unruly boys. christian and isaac kept trying to sneak up and give him wet willys so he tackled both of them and showed them whos boss.

We had an enjoyable sunday afternoon getting to visit Debbie, George, Judy, Frank , Julie, and Grandma Polly. Rachel, Ana, and Lily were there too. It was nice to see all of them and catch up on everything. They are wonderful people.

FAMILY HOME EVENING

For family home evening last night we went to go find this pumpkin patch we heard about and on the way home Andy took us to this place he used to go fishing. It was so beautiful, the fall trees were so vibrant and the river was so calm, it was a perfect mirror image of the trees. So we grabbed our camera and took some pictures. It was a gorgeous evening.

KRISTI'S BABY SHOWER

The kids got shirts from Hawaii, thank you Uncle Craig and Aunt Kristi
My sister, Kristi, and her cute daughter, Savannah
Ava trying out her Halloween costume, the cutest flower I've ever seen!

.......

This weekend my sister, Tori and I wanted to have a baby shower for my other sister Kristi who is due to have a baby boy on Nov 19th. We are so excited for their family! We went to a place called Mimi's Cafe and had lunch. It was fun to get together with the Colyar girls and spoil Kristi. She seems all ready for this baby to come. He sure will be quite the stylin' little guy. His bedroom is done up very cute! Craig and Kristi just moved to American Fork from Dallas and are getting settled into their new home. The best part for Craig is that they moved in 2 doors down from Bronco Mendenhall (BYU's head football coach). Craig is a huge BYU ftball fan! They have a lovely house and they live about 3 minutes from my sister Tori, so that is wonderful! It was great to spend the weekend with my sisters, staying up until 3:30 talking and especially the Krispy Kreme doughnut taste test (we got 2 dozen variety K.K. doughnuts and so we could decide which is the best one, 52,000 calories later, we all concluded the basic chocolate covered dogughnut was our favorite! The sacrifices you have to make to find these things out!) My boys on the other hand had their own party this weekend. Basically you can sum it up with ...Pizza, Playstation, Sleeping, Movies, and Golf. Andy said that he took them out to eat at Gringo's and the waitress came over and asked if there was anything else she could get them and when she turned around Christian said,'How about a backrub?' Anyway, we all had a good time. Thanks for a great weekend!

WE LOVE ANA!

Here is our shoutout to the beautiful Ana Rennaker. It was 9 great years ago she graced all of us with her lovely spirit! It has been wonderful ever since, what a gift it has been to us to have had the opportunity to know her and watch her grow. Her spirit is so full of life, you can tell she must have been so excited to finally get to come to earth. I love her creativity, her enthusiasm, and she is always so willing to be a big helper. I love what a true friend she has always been to Christian. I have a home video that rachel and thomas took right after christian was born. they were looking through the nursery window as christian was lying in his little crib crying and thomas was holding ana up to see him. rachel said to ana, 'look ana, there's your new best friend!' it makes me tear up whenever i see it because they really have been true friends over the years. we love ana so much, what a joy it has been to watch her grow in to a beautiful young lady. what a wonderful life you have in front of you, enjoy it, we were ment to have joy! happy birthday!

BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP- YUM!

Okay, one of these days I will actually put on a recipe that is from me but since I have zero culinary skills I have to use others. So today the credit goes to my lovely sister-in-law, Leslie Hurst. Most people related to Leslie already have this recipe but if you don't you've definetly heard me talk about it since it is one of my favorite soups to make. My sister Kristi requested the recipe so here it is. It is a perfect marriage of autumn and bliss. It is DIVINE! Thanks Leslie!

1-2 lrg butternut squash(depending on how flavorful you like it)

1 c. chopped onion

2 bay leaves- still good without

2 tsp. brown sugar

1 tsp.ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

4 cups chicken broth

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

2 cups milk or cream

cut squash in half, remove seeds, cover in plastic wrap and microwave for about 8 minutes, or until tender. scrape out squash and set aside. in lg saucepan, cook butter, onions, bayleaves, sugar over med heat about 10 min. add spices, broth, s/p and squash. simmer about 15 min. puree in blender or with hand blender until creamy then add milk, simmer about 5 more minutes. do NOT bring to a boil or it will curdle.