10AM TOMORROW, SANTA'S COMING...

SANTA!!!

Owen was not thrilled with Santa this year. He did not want to have anything to do with him. He got to meet him in Preston at the Festival of Lights with his cousins. Owen would not sit on his lap so Santa said "mom, you just sit on my lap and hold him"...pretty sure the big guy had the hots for me, just joking. Besides, Mrs. Claus was sitting right next to him! Owen finally looked at him when I told him that Santa was going to bring him presents. Then he got a candy cane and a coloring book and was happy. I might make him try it one more time this year, mainly because this Santa made me sit on his lap and he didn't even ask me what I wanted for Christmas, what the heck's that all about??? I have been a good girl this year, and I think I deserve a present or two!

Door Busting

Every year me and my 5 sisters door bust. We wake up in the 3's(am) and stand outside in line waiting to shop our heads off. There is never ususally anything that is a good enough deal for me to make it seem like it's worth the cold, tiredness and ugly people, but it's a tradition and as long as my sisters do it, I will too. Melissa and I went to Kohl's first and then met Ang, Monica, Mel and Amb at Walmart. I will never bust Walmart again. It was ridiculous! The people were crazy and the store was completely unorganized. They didn't even have all their sale prices right when they rang stuff up so the customer service line was huge because people paid way more than the ad said they would be paying. It was kind of pathetic. I mean come on Walmart. We ended up shopping for a good 12 hours. What a day. I was very successful though and got nearly all my shopping complete and managed to only buy a few things for myself(usually I only buy stuff for myself on this day). I love being able to do this with all my sisters. We ALWAYS have a good time, no matter how tired we are.

so Thankful

Thanksgiving. One of my favorites. All my sisters and their families were at my parent's this year and Mandi and Brandon as well. It was so fun having a full house. Jason, Owen, Dad, Amberly, Monica, Maxwell and I went to the church in the morning to shoot some hoops. Owen loved running around the gym and playing on the stage.

Most of us helped out(somewhat) with the preparation of the meal. Mom is super woman. I don't know how she does it. Ang was the sweet potato nazi and would not let anyone stir them or help with them at all. She does make a delicious sweet potato though. Jason made cranberry sauce. My family always had the yucky canned cranberries and then Jason came along and I learned that I love cranberries, thanks Jas!

It was a delicious meal. I struggle with Thanksgiving dinner though. I have no problem eating a big meal and in general I am a pretty fast eater. Well on Thanksgiving I eat like three meals in one sitting and I feel like I have to eat all of it super fast cause I don't want any of it to get cold. Stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey, sweet potatoes, corn...it all gets cold very fast so I kind of hoover it. Oh well, it's worth it.

While we were finishing up Dad had us go around the table and say what we were thankful for. Always a good time. Monica was the most memorable this year being thankful for her "strength and her big muscles". I am so greatful for so many things...Jason, Owen, my family, Jason's family, my friends, my faith and testimony, that I know I can be with the people I love most in the world for eternity, the strength and hope I receive through the gospel of Jesus Christ, my freedom's, my opportunities, my job, school, sunshine, snow, wind, rain, laughing, crying...really I can't think of any reason i should ever be grumpy or sad(at least for too long) because I truly am blessed and have so much to live for and be happy about!

After dinner we played spoons and looked through the ads to plan our big day of shopping. It was a really great day!

what if i'm...the bad guy?

Jas took me to the movie on Friday afternoon and melanie, mckenzie, monica and amberly came too. We were sitting way too close to the screen! Here's my take:

HIGHLIGHTS:

- Edward and Bella...good casting. I am not in love with Rob Pattinson, like I am with book Edward, sometimes he looked real ugly, but for the most part he did well

- cheering when the cute boys came on screen(any other movie I would have been very annoyed and this type of thing is usually why I don't go to movies on opening weekend, but this time it was kind of funny and added to the excitement of the show)

- Charlie

- Victoria and James...really good

- Bella's school friends

- the baseball scene to the end of the movie

- there was no hissing from the vampires at leaset that I really noticed

- Jason liked it, or didn't hate it at least

LOWLIGHTS:
- you could tell it was a low budget film
- a lot of weird close ups
- Alice...got kind of ripped off as far as her character goes and i would like a recast on her
- Rosalie...liked her character but didn't quite live up to the intimidating beauty she was described as in the book(not that she was ugly at all) although she is beautiful inthe above picture, maybe I have misjudged
- Jacob telling Bella the story of 'the cold ones' not good enough, way too short and weird wolf flashbacks
- a book full of description crammed into a 2 hour, low budget movie
- Jasper reminded me a little of Edward Scissorhands

Overall, really liked it. I would like to see it again with a better seat. I think my main disapppointment was that the characters really got shorted. Even the main ones. There was not enough time for them to become the characters I loved in the book...or there was time but they had weird close up moments and spider monkeying up trees instead, not really sure. I think the acting was good and I am thinking the sequels, since they will probably get huge budgets now that Twilight has killed, will be really good.

photobooth

Me, Jason and Owen taking a break from hours of Christmas shopping.
Click on the picture to make it bigger cause Owen's face in the first two are hilarious!

did you buy it or rent it?

Here is the short verison of one of the nicest stories you will hear this year. Angela posted a picture of Amberly and her kids testing out the trikes at Utah Trikes in Spanish Fork on her blog. She wrote about how Amberly has always wanted a bike and how much she would love to get one. One of the sweetest girls I'll ever meet read this blog post and decided that Amberly had to have the trike. She has never met Amberly. She asked for donations for the trike on her blog so Amberly could have her first bike. People that know Amb and complete strangers donated up to $400 to get Amb this trike. Kellye, thank you so much for your kindness towards our sister. I know that a lot of people donated money(thanks so much to you too), but this would have never happened without you. Kellye and Jon are what this world needs a little bit more of. The love and kindness people show towards Amberly is so awesome. It truly amazes me and inspires me. Amberly misses out on a lot of things and being able to watch her get her first bike was incredible. I will never forget this.

Rich opened the garage door and Amberly ran over to the bike,

"who's is this? did you buy it or rent it?"

She checked it out a little more and Angela told her it was hers.

Melanie explained that Kellye and everyone there helped buy the bike for her. She was touched. It was the best day of her life. Of course she ran around and hugged everyone. I think she was still kind of in shock.

She got on and dad ran behind her as she rode. The brakes will take her some time to get used to, but she loved it! She even had her first crash. Apparently she needs to learn to balance her weight a little better when she turns corners on hills. She got a cut in her nose, but was a good sport about it and kept on riding.

She looks so cute on her new bike!

life off. game on.

Jason, Owen, Amberly, Monica and I went to the Jazz game tonight. We got our tickets for $11 and we were on the very top row. Really it was the best seat to have if you have to be high in the upper bowl. We had a lot of empty space behind us so Owen could run around.

They turned the lights off and did fireworks for the starting line up. Little Korver was loving that.

This is the only picture I have of Monica and Amb...freaky Mon!

Kyle Korver was doing a charity drive called coats for Korver. If you took a new coat to the game you got to meet Korver. There were a lot of people and they were very efficient about getting things signed and getting you out of there, but there was enough time for me to get a smile from him. What a babe. We had him sign Owen's Korver jersey.


Sorry I forgot to red eye him. He really is pretty dang cute in real life.

Costume party

Every year for the last several years we have had a family halloween party. This year Melissa and Steve hosted it and they did not disappoint. We had good food, good company and lots of fun! This post is gonna have a lot of picts cause I can't figure out how to do the collage thing, so bear with me.

You know we have to have a giant photo shoot!

All of us

Annette and Lilly. Annette didn't put her costume on but she said she was just going to wrap herself in a blanket and be "pig in a blanket". Funny Annette!

Manda and Brando

Cope Fam

Oliver Fam

Summer's Fam

Keller Fam

Clark Fam

Harris Fam

And some random photo's of our night. We played Rock Band and Melanie had a cute craft for us to make since it was november 1st she bought stuff for us to make 'thankful" books. They were so cute and so fun to make. We ate all night and seriously had a great time. And everything about my costume was bought at the mall the day before halloween. I think I am going to start dressing like this for real, cause I feel bad that I missed out on this wild, colorful generation.


oops! Melissa wasnt' sure how to pull off the leather pants.

Brandon and Whitney.

Booster shot!

Good cop, bad cop.

garage rock band

Melissa and Steve had rock band set up in the garage for our rocking out pleasure and man did we rock!

This video is of all of us singing Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional. We all sang at the top of our lungs and brought the house down. Steve was a little worried the cops were going to be called. I am going to send this video to Chris Carrabba so he knows how much we all love him!