The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Alex had his first sleepover about two weeks ago. A little boy down the street form my parents house who I've known for 4 years now. Apparently it was his first sleepover too as his mom very very excited to drop him off.

Or maybe they were looking forward to a quiet evening, oldest child-free? Who knows.

The evening started with making english muffin pizza. I pre-cooked some Italian sausage for Dustin, grated some cheese and had a bowl of sauce on the counter for everyone to put on their muffin. Then, the idea that maybe giving 6 and 7 year old boys free reign over the pizza sauce distribution wouldn't be such a great idea, I proceeded to sauce and cheese the muffins myself and let them put on their toppings. They looked like this:
Very yummy and tasty. A great way to satisfy the unending appetites of growing boys.

After dinner, they went to play in Alex's room only for us to find various signs posted around the house.
And then they paraded around the house in a harmonica parade.

The sign on the front of the friend's shirt? It says 'Join the Buterfie Team'. I'm raising a macho son who chooses the name of his harmonica parade to be the Butterfly Team.

Darn right.

After that weekend, Dustin was able to get his Christmas present a little late.

See how delighted he is with his new HD radio component? Too bad it broke and we had to take it back a week later. But we did get an even better one that can go into the office and has a dvd player and a ipod dock. YAY!

Alex got a fish from his grandpa. He wanted to name it galoompf but I talked him into something easier. Meet Pip
So, it was a great holiday season and I'm glad my decorations are down and my living room is back to normal. If only it would warm up, just a bit. I'm shivering here!

December in Las Vegas is usually really nice. The January winds haven't really started and its chilly but not truly cold unless its 3 am and you should really be in bed before then anyway. For the most part.

Except for yesterday. It started out decent enough. Good cloud cover and the thought that if we got any snow it would be flurries in the north part of town. Those thoughts lasted until about 1:30 when the snow started. Didn't stick at first but by 3pm it was coming down and staying down. Wet, fluffy snow perfect for snowballs.

But I certainly didn't throw a bunch of snowballs at my 6 yr old son. Nope. Not me. Can't prove anything. Just like I can't prove that it was my loving husband who threw the big one that hit me right in the butt.

Pizza hut had a 2 1/2 hour delivery time so we decided to brave the 3 + inches of snow/slush and get some Little Ceasar's pizza. What is so delicious about pizza that is already waiting for you at the restuarant without having to call ahead? We actually did call ahead because we wanted Italian Cheese Bread and once you order that and wait for it, might as well splurge and get the deep dish pizza for $7 instead of $5. Yup, we're big spenders.

After stuffing ourselves with hot, gooey cheese and pepperoni, we walked over to the main street by the house to watch the police clean up an accident. People, if you start to skid, you have to turn INTO the skid. Going the other way will be very very bad. And a truck is more likely to flip over too.

The best part of the night was making our snowman. I think I'll name him George. He kind of looks like a penguin and the chocoapuff eyes and mouth will dissolve as soon as the snow starts to melt but I think he's cute.

Thats only about 1/3 of the snow in the backyard too. I had to brush off the poor palm trees before the pictures so they looked like palm trees and not lumps of snow. The flakes were so thick and coming so fast, they were covered again shortly but for a few minutes, they didn't have the weight of the world on their poor fronds.

Merry Christmas Las Vegas!

Busy month. I should have pictures galore to update with the next post. The new house, Halloween, our anniversary cruise and anything else thats cute. For now, all you get is words.

The house is great! The move was fairly easy but it would have been much easier to pretend we were moving farther away and didn't take smaller loads over. It would have been a better idea to buy more boxes and box everything up instead of boxing, driving across the street, unpacking and bringing the boxes back. Next time...

Its wonderful having a ton more room though! Alex was upset his room wasn't set up the way he wanted so we'll rearrange that and probably end up painting the guest room even though we swore it was just our room and the office. But now the rooms we didn't paint don't look nearly as good as the ones we did. We're awesome painters but its freaking hard work! The kitchen is almost put away, the living room looks great, alex's room is done except for moving some things and our room is almost done. The guest room and office aren't put together yet but those are different.

Halloween was fun. We attended our ward Trunk or Treat and discovered that the mummy costume I made wasn't very well made. Its easier to buy a costume when you don't sew very well...or at all... I made Alex divy up his candy to share.

Next week marks our one year anniversary! To celebrate, we're taking a short weekend cruise to the Bahamas. Its supposed to rain on Saturday when we have our kayak and snorkel excursion. I'll have to remember to pack a light jacket because even when its 80 degrees, its cold when you're wet. Let's all pray for the rain to go away. Even chant that song from when we were kids!

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!
COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY! Like when we're not on a second honeymoon. That'd be great.

Everything else? I'm not touching the election except to say that Alex pronounces Barack Obama's name as O'rourke Obama. Like he's Irish.

Oh yeah...I promised

Here's Alex's back to school picture. Such a cute first grader!

Let's ignore the bug spray thats easily within reach of little hands and the cluttered pass-through to the kitchen...

Moving and other fun stuff

We are moving! A carefully worded ad on Craigslist to advertise that we're LDS and therefore responsible, non-drinkers, non-smokers, non-college-age-partiers who pinky promise to take good care of their house in exchange for rent that is only slightly higher than what we are paying now and voila! we are moving into a 4 bedroom house just across the street from where we live now.

Which means moving. And packing. And attempting to sort through things that haven't been used since 2001 but seem to insist on sticking around anyway. Considering I sift through all my belongs every time I move and I've moved a lot the last few years, I'm kind of surprised I still have things to sift through. This does not include Dustin's impressive t-shirt collection that I'm hoping will take up residence in a new storage ottoman for the foot of our bed after Christmas...hint hint.

But I was only hoping for a 3 bedroom. One for us, one for the rugrat and one for a guest room with the desks and computers and stuff. Four bedrooms! That means we can have a separate guest room and office! The futon will probably still go into the office since there will probably be a smaller tv in there or something but that frees up a whole bedroom to be something else.

The very best part of the house? Its in a new ward and we'll lose our calling. Primary is not my bag, baby, and I'm thrilled to be able to talk to grown-ups again. Let's do the happy dance!

I started my Bachelor's program this month too and I'm working through my first class. Business Management HERE I COME! Yeah, my excitement is out of control...

Who, What, When, Where?

I was reading Becky's blog yesterday and decided to check out what the 20 comments could possibly be on. I won't touch the political stuff cause I don't want an angry mob of comments to drown my little site. What I did notice was a familiar name. I wasn't sure if it was the name of a cousin of ours that I didn't know had a blog or if it was someone else. A quick cursor over the highlighted name revealed it to be Kristina whom I know from another internet forum.

Which got me thinking (dangerous, I know. The world might explode!) how she knew my cousin. I check of her BFF blogroll lead me to a different cousin's website. But, I didn't see Becky's on there. Its a mystery to me.

Not such a big mystery that I'll actually e-mail Kristina and ask how she found my cousin's blog but enough to give us our first post of September. Yeah, I'm lazy and hoping she'll post a comment and answer the buring question.

Wait! September means back-to-school! Maybe I'll find my camera and post Alex's first day of First Grade. I think its buried under our towering pile of Ensigns that we can't bring ourselves to throw away even though they are available online. It seems like a trip straight to the dark, fiery pits of the Underworld and I try to avoid the space under our bed. Its scary.

Bad cakes

You might have noticed a new addition to my Favorite Blogs list. You haven't? Well, you should notice. Go ahead, I'll wait.



I highly recommend all of these get checked out but my current new favorite is Cake Wrecks. The ability of people mispelling words, adding punctuation that isn't needed and committing the unforgiveable sin: Making cake look so gross I can't eat it! I honestly don't think I could eat a piece of fungal toenail if it was made of manna.

And the pregnant belly ones resemble a c-section too much for me to be able to choke down a piece.

But I'll have the piece with the ("Olnypic Rings") on it.