Temple Square

Last night we went to Temple Square to look at the Christmas lights! It was SO FUN. We have made it a tradition for about the past 2 years at Christmas to plan a night and go. First we have dinner at The Lion House and then we walk over to Temple Square to enjoy all the beautiful lights. Since Sydney is only 9 months, we figured she would'nt do very well going all over the place, plus it's too cold for her, so Mom baby-sat for us. Thanks, Mom...sorry you weren't able to come.
Anyway, Dad, Mark, Grandpa and Elizabeth and I had a great time.
In line at The Lion House we saw my cousin Miquelle and her husband. So, we talked to them while we were waiting.
Then we walked over to the lights. Elizabeth usually loves this part. She was on such a high! She was excited about everything. I bundled her up with a sweater, her Old Navy coat that's super-warm, her scarf, her mittens and another extra warm hat. She looked so cute!
These pictures don't show the vivid colors of the lights very well. There were so many pretty lights. Candles all over the Reflecting Pool. And of course Elizabeth is beautiful in every picture.
Thanks for the fun time, Dad!

Christmas 2007

Here's the rest of my pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
My FAVORITE pictures have already been posted below. I couldn't wait to show off my girls!
The rest of the fun is right here. Enjoy...there's a lot!
I need to say how great it was to see my Uncle Dean, Aunt Kathy, and my cousin Lindsay and her husband, Aaron and their new baby girl, Daylynn! She is precious.
I'm so glad they were able to come here from California to spend Christmas.

Santa's Little Helper

We had a wonderful Christmas 2007!
Sydney had a great 1st Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

New Van and 9 months

I know it's a weird post title.
So, here's my new van. I LOVE it!
Then here's a cute picture of Sydney.
She's 9 months!

Our Gingerbread House

I just had to show off our little gingerbread house that Elizabeth and I put together and decorated. Isn't it beautiful? We had so much fun!

Breakfast with Santa

We had a great time at Breakfast with Santa this year!
It's the first year with our 2 girls.
Hogle Zoo put on a really cool atmosphere. There were people coming around with fun animals for everyone to look at and touch and learn about. We got to see a ferret, a snake, a bearded dragon and an oppossom.(..not sure how to spell that)
Anyway, the breakfast was yummy and Elizabeth had a fun time. We made an ornament in the craft room that was cute.
Then after we ate, we went over to Santa and got our picture taken. The girls were so cute with him. Sydney couldn't take her eyes off him! Elizabeth asked for a My Melody doll (she's Hello Kitty's friend) and she asked for a stuffed animal toy for Sydney.
Then Mrs. Claus was having storytime. She read How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Which, by the way, is Elizabeth's FAVORITE thing right now! We watch the little cartoon movie all the time. It's very cute and I really like it a lot, too.
Not the Jim Carrey one, the real one. It's much better.
So, it was a good time and I hope you like the pics even if a few are kinda dark. :)

Little Elf

I'm so excited that this is Sydney's first Christmas. And this is her first Christmas ornament. I thought it was just perfect for her.
She loves all the lights and the Christmas tree. Everywhere we go, she loves to just stare at the decorations and take everything in.
Next Saturday is our Breakfast With Santa. We started doing the tradition 2 years ago. Now Sydney will be a part of it. For the last 2 years, we've done it at The Grand America hotel. This year I thought we'd go a little more casual and probably more our style and go to the zoo! We are members at the zoo and so I thought why not take advantage of it.
When I heard it's indoors and they have crafts for kids, I was like "Ok, that's it! We're going to the zoo!" Should be fun.

The Snowlady

This is Elizabeth's snowman that she made with Grandpa.
She's very cute and Elizabeth was very proud of her. She kept looking out the window and checking on her. It was FREEZING when we made her, but well worth the memory we now have. Can't wait to make more...and snow angels!

Festival of Trees

Last week I went on a fieldtrip with my class to the Festival of Trees.
Here's a few pics.
It was very fun. The kids had a great time!

Thanksgiving and After Thanksgiving

We had a great time this Thanksgiving 2007. It was Sydney's first and she was so cute. It's been so fun to have her here for the holidays. She's going to love Christmas. She already loves the lights that we've seen already.
My mom always does Thanksgiving at her house. She does everything. My dad helps out a lot, too. I've taken on the green bean casserole. This year, however, Mark made it.
He did great. Mark is actually the cook in the family anyway. I hate to admit, I cannot cook. So, it was very good. Thanks Markie!
Then we had pie and pudding. Dad had to go back to Marie Callender's because instead of getting 2 pumpkin pies and 1 apple pie they gave him 3 apple pies and 0 pumpkin pies! It was kinda annoying, but now it's really funny.
Then later on that night, we took Elizabeth to her first movie. We all went to see the Bee Movie. It was cute. Very Jerry Seinfeld...if you like that show, you'll understand the humor.
Elizabeth liked the whole atmosphere of being at the theater. She inhaled popcorn and candy and watched a little of the movie and then she fell fast asleep. So, we woke her up after it was over. She was such a good girl and I'm so proud of her.
Sydney had fun staying at home with Mom and Dianne.
It was such a FUN day and night! Hope everyone had a great time, too.

Funny Sydney

This is Sydney's latest trick. Crawling/scooting over to the coffee table and climbing onto the shelf underneath to play with the shoes that are there.
She's so funny how she gets so determined and just goes for it. Then we move her somewhere else and she goes right back to chew on the shoes!
She's such a little stinker!

Aren't these the Cutest Cupcakes?

Ok, so now that birthdays are over with for now, I came across the cutest website!
I've been hearing about how gourmet cupcakes are the "in" thing right now. I know there's a place called Sprinkles in L.A. and there's a few more places in Cali, but I was mad that we didn't have one here in Utah. Or so I thought! We DO have one.
It's called Curious Cupcake. They have the cutest stuff! There was a number to call if you want to order and it says they deliver right to your door! YAY!
There's cupcakes for every occasion. I'm loving the holiday ones.
So, check them out.
www.curiouscupcake.com

Happy Birthday Melissa!

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

HALLOWEEN 2007

It was a fun Halloween this year!
It was Sydney's 1st Halloween and she loved it. Elizabeth had so much fun the whole month of October. At pre-school they do so many FUN things! Learning new songs and doing arts and crafts to go along with Halloween and Fall. So many activities. By the end of the day we're all beat!
The teachers and other students take all the kids trick-or-treating around the whole school and have a parade. The girls looked so cute in their costumes.
At my school we also have a parade and all sorts of fun parties for Halloween. All the teachers dress up and some of the costumes can get pretty outrageous.
There's 1 teacher named Miss Westenscow...Emily and Jonathan know who she is...and she was a bucket of movie popcorn! It was funny. I wish I got a picture of her.
I was Hermione Granger. It was fun to dress up. I havn't dressed up for Halloween in a very long time. We had a lot of fun at my mom and dad's house. My dad and I took Elizabeth around the neighborhood trick-or-treating while Mark stayed with Sydney back at the house. She loved being in her costume. It suited her very well. Elizabeth as Minnie Mouse was perfect, too!

Fall

Boulton Elementary

For those of you who don't know, I work in the Functional Skills class at Boulton Elementary. I work with the BEST teacher! Her name is Mary and today was her birthday, so I wanted to take pictures. The girl with the red bandana on is her daughter, Maura, who is a 4th grader there.
I've been doing this for 7 years now. 5 years at Meadowbrook Elementary and this is my 2nd year at Boulton. The benefits are wonderful. So, while I'm at work,Elizabeth and Sydney go to pre-school at Bountiful High School. Elizabeth has been going there since she was 2 months old...and then same with Sydney. It's great because our schools are right next to eachother, so I'm just down the street. I miss them SO MUCH during the day, but, I know they're getting the very best care and doing so many fun things.I'll do a post on the pre-school later on...I could talk about it for days!
In my class, we have 8 kids. 7 with Austism and 1 Down-Syndrome. All the kids have their own unique personalities. They are all so different. I just love them all so much. And Mary and Kim...(Kim is the other girl that works with me)
We do so many fun things everyday. I do art on Tuesdays. Of course right now we are doing Halloween crafts. Painting pumpkins and stuff like that.
It's a good school. There's a lot of great teachers and the other students are so awesome with our kids. Mary has set up the "buddy system" where the kids from their homerooms can sign up to be that person's buddy for the day. That means they come get them out of our classroom and help them with some of their work or help them at lunch or recess or an assembly...or just whatever is going on. It's made them all so outgoing and gives the other students a real insight on who these kids really are and makes it so they're not afraid of them or think that they're different. They find out that they're just like them!

Garden After Dark

Every October Red Butte Garden puts on a big event called "Garden After Dark". There's usually a theme to go along with it. Last year it was Dinosaurs and this year it was...yay!...Witches and Wizards! My favorite!
So, there was this big room with a Potions class and an Herbology class...just like in Harry Potter. Oh, I was loving it.
There's always hot cocoa and candy apples. We took Elizabeth and she had the best time.
Some of the fun things that were there...
Painting your own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch
Bean bag toss into the witches cauldron
Magic show
Crafts
Glow-in-the-dark area with black lights
Walking through a maze...Elizabeth loved that one.
Colorful lights everywhere

It was all so whimsical and had such a neat atmosphere about it.
Elizabeth had a lot of fun looking at everything and exploring.
We are going again on Monday...Elizabeth is going to wear her costume this time!