I can cook! (kind of)

We had Thanksgiving at my parents' home with my family (minus Steven, of course), and Lorae and her 2 children and my Uncle Rob. I actually helped a lot with cooking. I made the mashed potatoes, southern cornbread stuffing, double chocolate gooey cake, and pumpkin gooey cake. All recipes (with the exception of Mashed potatoes, I'm not that dumb : )) courtesy of the Food Network and Paula Deen. Everything turned out well. The Chocolate gooey cake was especially popular. So, now it's going to be harder for me to get out of cooking. Lorae is already saying I have to make Christmas dinner all by myself. I don't think so! Lorae made her homemade mac and cheese, yams with glazed pecans and marshmallows, and she and my Dad partnered up for the fried turkey. We tried to keep it easy for my mom, but she still made gravy, stuffing, rolls, and roasted a 2nd turkey. A few of the other relations came over for dessert (Jenny, Jimmy, Dan & Jeanine and their kids, and Kathy), and then the original group was joined by Lorae's former mother-in-law and nephew to go see Enchanted. It was a nice Holiday.

I finally got a new camera the night before Thanksgiving, so I will be posting more pics and won't have to beg for them anymore! I'll post some from Thanksgiving as soon as I figure out all the workings of my shiny new Canon SD-1000 : ) My family did a lot of day-after shopping. Denise and Shauna got me the one thing I reallly wanted, a KitchenAid mixer. It was too good a deal to pass up! Though after the night we spent at my parents, and all that cooking, Christopher and I really needed to sleep, so I couldn't go with them. I was glad to find the camera online early for the BF price, too! Going out in the cold is not my idea of fun!

Halloween 2007 Pics

So, these are pics from C getting ready to go Trick or Treating and coming back. He loved it, as I described in an earlier post. The Mickey ears were kind of weird, and usually far back on his head, but he was still cute, and after a night of mostly refusing to wear them at a church party, he was pretty good the actual night of. He loved walking by himself like a big boy! Oh, and he kind of liked eating the candy too : ) Luckily, I've been able to hide most of it from him and we still have a lot! I plan on using it soon for potty-training bribery : )

Blue Toyota Corolla 1998-2007

Ahhhhh! I totally forgot to talk about my poor, departed car! I am so sad that last week we lost my trusty Corolla, which I bought when I was 18 and Joel has been driving since we bought the Camry a little bit before Christopher was born. We knew the transmission was going but last week found out that there was a pretty significant hole in the engine! So, there's not much left to do but say good-bye to the poor thing. I'm just really grateful it lasted through baseball season, and that it's fairly convenient for Joel to take the lightrail to work.

World Series, Halloween, Joel in school......

Well, obviously my intention was to summarize each World Series game, but that didn't happen. Suffice it to say I was really busy and then just ticked during that time. I really think at least 2 of those games we should have been able to come away with. Getting swept was not even in my realm of possibilities after the run the Rox had been on. But my biggest disappoinment was just that they couldn't even pull out one game so that my parents could come on Monday. Honestly, I didn't really expect them to win. I thought it was amazing they got that far and had that great run at the end of the season. So, great season and I plan on going back to my job next year.

Halloween pics should be coming soon. I honestly was kind of dreading that day. Halloween has been very cold and at times even snowy the past few years here. And I thought Christopher might be a pain to drag around that night. HOWEVER........ I am THRILLED to report that it was great! C loved it so much! And he could have gone on for miles! Lillianne and JoJo were tired way before he was. Of course, he was carried about half the time. But he wanted to walk a lot and towards the end at every door he was saying "Trick or Treat" "thank-you" and "Happy Halloween" It was so precious. I don't even know how Christmas can top that for him. If he had all the words, I'm sure he would have been asking us why we don't do this Trick-or-Treating thing every day of the year. He dressed as Mickey Mouse and was so cute. Like I said, pics coming as soon as I can get them from Jaime.

Also, yesterday Joel enrolled to take college courses online from the University of Phoenix. Financial Aid and such is still pending, but he starts classes the 19th and we're very excited. The decision to do this just felt right to both of us and we're looking forward to the opportunities this will open up for our family. The plan is to get a Bachelor's Degree in Business Hospitality Management. He has to do the Associates first, so altogether it will take him just over 3 years or less to do what would have taken 6 years of college. It's a good time for him to start and his company has a program to pay for continuing education, so it's a great deal all around.

Hmmmmm....what else? I spent most of last week unwinding from the baseball season and spending time with my family. Shauna and Mitchell were on Fall Break, so we got to see them a bit and just hang out. Shauna's friend Jordan came into town for the long weekend, so we did some tourist stuff with her too. We visited the US Mint (C really wanted to get a hold of all those pennies!) and did the tour at Coors Field (yeah, I did know most of the stuff- and more than the tour guides!- but it was still fun). Saturday we took C to see the Bee Movie, which he loved most of. Now we're mostly back to whatever normal is and trying to get the house in order before the Holiday season starts for Local Affairs and we're all over the place again!

WS Game 1

OK, so game 1 sucked. I couldn't even watch most of it. But I still have a few points to make (or hopefulness to express, however you want to look at it : )).

1. I really think we were just letting the Sox get all the runs out of their bats. Might as well let them exhaust their offense while Josh Beckett is on the mound, right?
2. The layoff. Though I have been cursing the commentators on ESPN (And everywhere else) for talking about it non-stop, it's not normal in baseball to have more than a day off at a time, the exception being All-Star Break, which is still only 3 days for the players. That being said, the break didn't need to be that long. The days off without travel were ridiculous. And I'm sick of everyone making it sound like the Rockies did it to themselves. What did you want them to do? Throw a game and risk a comeback??? Anyway, the point is, the guys probably did have some rust to shake off. And while it might keep showing up in the starting pitching, I think they did that.
3. I'm not sure having Eric Byrnes back on our side is helping any. He dissed us while they were here, and we swept the DBacks. Now he's singing the Rockies' praises and then we get totally routed like that. I think he should go back to underestimating our team.

So, it can't get much worse, right? Even if they lose tonight, they come home for 3 games. And by the way, I hope there will be a lot of security for the Fox people, because their desk is pretty close to the command center, and I would love to slap that woman for saying the 20-1 run was "lucky". They've had enough time at this point to do some research and be informed about the Rockies. Ignorant National Media.

Sisters

All of the girls but Denise (she's back in Utah but will be home this weekend for the World Series) at Mom and Dad's this past Sunday evening. I was a little sunburned from Mitchell's football game. Also, speaking of siblings, in case anyone doesn't know, Steven will be coming home a little early (To start school) from his mission. On January 3rd.

Fall 2007

Some pics from a "photoshoot" we did the other day. Shauna took some great ones last year right outside of our building so I asked her to do it again. I love them and you can tell he had fun! And we got it in just in time (last Saturday) because that night it snowed and now all of those pretty leaves are sopping wet! Not nearly as fun and crunchy. Christopher does love to stomp in the snow too, though. It's all a win-win for him.