Britt's Birthday Weekend!

Today is my good friend Brittany's birthday! Her cute little husband (actually that sounds funny to call Mont little, he's 6'5") planned a surprise weekend for her at The Chateau at Deer Valley and we got to come along. First we went to a yummy dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and then went up to Deer Valley to stay at The Chateau (which is sweet by the way). Britt opened her present from us, her favorite present ever I believe. She's been wanting a Sheewee ever since she heard of them... (if you dont know what a Sheewee is you'll have to ask me later, I'm not putting it on the blog) And then we stayed up late playing games and I lost but we hadn't placed any bets so I didn't have to do anything stupid like the running man, or sing the National Anthem in an English accent, etc. Britt and Mont were mad because I usually never lose so the one time I do there are no consequences. Ha, ha. Even when I lose, I win! But anyway, Happy Birthday Britt! As Mady would say, I luv ya like a sista!




This is what happens when your husband packs for you. "Hun, I packed your striped socks to go with your striped PJ's"


What! We have to leave The Chateau?

Black Friday

Yes, I got up at 3:00 to go shopping (Dusty was supposed to go with me but I couldn't get him to stay awake long enough to get out of bed) and yes, I stood in line to get into the store, and yes, I got what I wanted and no, I didn't see any fights or trampling. But there was some drama during my shopping trip. After my first store it was totally hard for me to pull out of my parking spot, the wheel wouldn't turn very easily. And then when I would drive the steering wheel was kinda shaky and kept pulling in one direction. Well, like the natural blonde that I am I completely ignored it and drove to two more stores. When I got home, I told Dusty, "There's something wrong with your power steering. The car was really hard to drive." And he looked at me and said, "Uh, does it have a flat tire?" Oh crap. "Um, I don't know" So, we went out to the garage and yes indeed, it has a completely flat tire! I'm really mad I didn't take a picture of it. But anyway, I drove around on a totally flat tire and ruined it (hopefully the wheel is okay, we'll find out today). So, I might have saved some money on my Christmas shopping but that tire is going to be expensive! You know, if Dusty would have just gotten out of bed, we wouldn't of had this little problem. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whew, our tummies are full! This year we were with Dusty's side of the family and Ryan and Raelin were crazy... um, I mean gracious enough to let us all meet at their house for dinner. They moved the couches and set up tables all over the place! After a lot of delicious food the men watched football, the women poured through the Black Friday ads and the kids basically ran amuck! It was a good time!





Even after all the pie we've had for the last 2 weeks, we still managed to eat some more!

Some kids just can't eat pie in a civilized manner...


Now, how am I going to fit all these people in my house on Christmas Eve?

Tweens and Twilight

My girls begged me to take them and some friends to New Moon this weekend. They don't normally get to see PG13 movies and Dusty couldn't believe I was letting them see this without screening it first. Well, I had read the book and knew there really wasn't anything in it, but his comments must have gotten to me because the night before the movie I dreamed that I had taken the girls and the movie was full of inappropriate content! I'm glad to say my dream was not a vision of things to come, I'm really not sure why the movie is rated PG13. Anyway, the girls loved it and they LOVE Jacob. It's pretty disturbing actually to hear your little girls go on and on and on about how HOT Jacob is. Ashlyn wishes that he was only 11 right now and that he could be her boyfriend when she got older. Nice. When we took the group photo after the show they all wanted to stand by Jacob. Poor Edward, he's not feel'in the love.

Must...keep...playing

Kaden is ADDICTED to Star Wars Lego on the WII. He fell asleep playing it the other night.

Pie night fiasco

We have been assigned the pies for Thanksgiving so Dusty has been baking pies every night for the past week trying to get the best pecan, chocolate and apple pie recipes. Not to mention, he is also trying different crust recipes. Well, my mom called the other day and decided that since it is our off year for Thanksgiving (that means we all go to the in-laws) she would have a pie night, and we all would bring a different pie and just eat too our hearts content. We wanted to try something different than what we have been eating for the last 7 days and when we were watching the Food Network Channel, Tyler Florence was making a Pumpkin Banana Meringue Pie that Dusty thought looked delicious. He decided to make that for pie night. Well, this is a very made from scratch pie, it took hours! We had to buy sugar pumpkins and cook them and then scrape out the insides, and roast the bananas, and buy a food processor to mix it all together, then bake it forever and whip up the meringue (I like that I'm making it sound like I helped. All I did was run back and forth to the store). The recipe made tons, we had three pies. We thought, "Great! We can eat one tonight, take one to my parents tomorrow, and give one to the neighbors". When the pie was finally done, we were all so excited to taste it! This is a Food Network gourmet pie for heaven sakes. After one bite we immediately scraped the meringue off and topped the pie with bottled whip cream. Meringue is GROSS! After a few more forced bites we all decided that this time consuming gourmet pie was no good. Our three pies went directly into the garbage. So, that was a waste of time! It was now 9:00 and we still needed a pie for the party the next day. I had to run to the store again, for the millionth time and Dusty whipped up our favorite chocolate pie from our taste testing week. It was delicious but I think that by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, we are going to be pretty sick of pie.

Dinosaur Museum

Today I got to go with Kaden and all his preschool friends to the Dinosaur Museum. He and his cousin Hunter were so excited, they love dinosaurs. I think their favorite one is a 'fastspider' T-Rex which I believe is one they made up...

The kids all gave me their best dino roar before going inside.

Mom's Night Out!

Last night some of my friends and I went to a 'Twilight' Mom's Night Out Party! It was a party put together to kick off the opening of New Moon next week and they had massages, manicures, hair and make-up makeovers, eye brow waxing, lash tinting, SHOPPING, cheesecake, chocolates, a catered dinner, goodie bags and lots more. It was SOOO much fun!



This tile cracked us up.



Here we are after some make-over magic. Can I get someone to do my hair and make-up everyday? Please!

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

Whew, it's the end of our "we didn't do anything while we were off track so let's cram it all into one week" week! Today, Britt and I took the kids to The Living Planet Aquarium (we're lucky we got there without anyone throwing up in the car, gotta love motion sickness). They have some really great exhibits, the kids ran from one thing to the next and really enjoyed themselves!



It's pretty cool to see jellyfish close and not be in danger of getting stung! We asked Kaden if you could put a jellyfish on your peanut butter sandwich and he said, "No, but Spongebob can."



This octopus was awesome! I was so interesting to watch it wiggle up and down the windows. I feel so bad though, because Britt and I were taking a bunch of pictures of the kids next to it. Unbeknowst to us, there is a sign on the other side of the exhibit that says to turn off your flash because it will damage the octopus' eyes. CRAP! Sorry little octopus!



THIS was almost everyone's favorite part. The kids got to put their hands in the water and pet the stingrays. They loved it! Well, everyone except Kaden. He had no desire to touch a stingray.




"Hey, kids. Come and touch this button..." Zap! This display was next to the electric eel exhibit and of course we had the kids touch it before we did. It gives you a little shock as if you touched an electric eel. They were all pretty mellow about it, they just giggled, that was it. In fact, the best reaction came from a mom who jumped and gave a little scream when she touched it.



Standing in front of the HUGE snake, that you can't really see.



And they ride off into the sunset... see ya!

We're gonna sc-or-ore tonight

We're gonna sc-or-ore tonight! We're gonna rock, we're gonna roll, we're gonna bop, we're gonna bowl, we're gonna score, score, score, tonight! Sorry, can't talk about bowling without Grease songs running through my head.

So, this is my kids last week of 'off-track' and we've hardly done anything! I feel like such a slacker, so I've been trying to pack in some activities this week to make up for my neglectfulness. On Monday, my friend Brittany and I took the kids to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (didn't love it, at least the MOMS didn't love it) and today we took them bowling! It was a fairly new experience for my kids and they had a really great time, so we'll have to do it again.





The kids enjoyed some tasty nachos that their wonderful mothers, who are so nice, went and got for them.



They showed their gratitude by taking our turns while we were gone and getting a big fat 0 for Britt and only knocking down 1 pin for me. Britt was not very happy, I tried to get a picture of her mad face...



Even though Breckyn had bumpers during her turn, she still managed to get her ball in the gutter. Now that's a special talent, not everyone can do that! After the ball hopped the bumper it managed to get stuck and Ash volunteered to go get it.




Oh, wait, who has the highest score? Why I believe it's me! (Although it's still a pretty pitiful score...) And if you'll notice, the Atkinson girls took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Yeah, we rock! Sorry guys! Better luck next time!

Funnies

As I've said before, I was not good at recording ANYTHING that has happened in my family's life for the past 14 years and I was feeling a little bit sad that I never wrote down any of the cute things my kids have said when they were little (and which have now been pretty much forgotten) and I was thinking that since they are getting older now, I may have completely missed my opportunity... but NO! Breckyn and Kaden each provided me with a sweet child faux pas just the other day!

We were driving home in the car and talking about what kind of dogs some of our friends own and when we got to Scout (who is a Chocolate LAB), Kaden piped up and said, "I know what Scoutie is! She's a Chocolate Factory!"

Breckyn has outgrown her old bike and is now using Mady's first moutain bike. Dusty overheard her telling her friends, very matter of factly, that she was riding a new bike and that her dad was taking her old bike to the I.D.

Biking, again?

Yes, I went biking again! And it was my idea! Dusty is in heaven!

This Is It

We went to see the Michael Jackson "This Is It" movie with some of my extended family tonight. It was alright. Well, it was pretty good, and a bit nostalgic to hear the MJ songs we listened too growing up, and watching the choreography was awesome, and seeing what goes on behind the scenes of putting together a concert was interesting, and sometimes it was hard to not start dancing in my seat, and watching Michael Jackson was... I don't know what that was... he's a genius and really weird all at the same time... but it did get a little long (kind of like this sentence). Mady and Ash were falling asleep during the end and I was heading that way. All in all, a good night. (Everyone thought I was crazy for wanting to take a picture at the movie theatre. They think I'm getting a little bit anal with this blogging stuff)


Riley, Jenn, Me, Mady, Ash, Mom, Dad, Sydnie (Dusty was taking the picture)


We did a little switcheroo so Sydnie could be standing by Riley - you know how newlyweds are