Greetings from California

It's been a while, I know! Since the 25th of November we've been out in California spending this holiday season with our family. I haven't had much time in the last month to spend blogging, but I have missed it. Just wanted to post real quick to wish you all happy holidays, I'll be updating soon with all our comings and goings. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and are having fun getting ready for Christmas!

Don't skip Thanksgiving!!!

I love, Love LOVE Christmas time...really I do, it's my favorite time of the year. I love everything about it. The fact that Christ is the center of the holiday,the music, lights, gift giving, baking, family time, traditions, the list could go on and on! I have one little problem though...

What about Thanksgiving? We seem to get fixated on the commercial side of holidays and since Thanksgiving isn't hyped up as much as Easter, Halloween, Christmas, and others, we seem to forget that it's so important to be thankful for ALL the blessings we have.

I have to admit that when it comes to holidays it's all about family traditions, and for Thanksgiving there aren't really too many that come to mind beyond what's on the dinner table that day. That being said, this year I wanted to focus on our everyday blessings and start a new tradition in our family. I went here (you should too)and downloaded the little tags, made our own little autumn-ish container, and each evening we pick something out and do what the tag says. It's not much, but it helps us to serve others as a family, be grateful everyday, and learn/teach new things.

I know you just can't wait to pull out those Christmas decorations, start playing that music, and baking those goodies...but try to remember and FOCUS on Thanksgiving first. It's REALLY important. I think it's great that we even have a holiday where at least once a year, people that usually don't stop to think of the good things in their lives, do! It just kinda makes me sad when it's almost viewed as a "ugh, gotta wait til Thanksgiving is over...til Christmas!" kinda thing. Ya know??? Christmas is an uplifting,exciting and magical time of the year, but I think if we can remember/find new things to be grateful for, it will make our Christmas that much better :)

Happy 50th Birthday Mom/ Nana!

This is our card this year :) You don't have to feel guilty or debate when your b-day is over, if you should throw it out or not. It'll be here forever!

We love you so much, and like I've said a million times, and probably a million more, we just can't wait to see you soon! You are so beautiful and I love so many things about you. Hope you had a great day at Disneyland with Jennette's crew :) (we colored this card before we knew you were going to D-land, it was meant to be!)

Side note: Skylee continues to ask when we're going out to CA and I would have to say a couple months for the longest time, and she would correct me and say "No, NANA said a couple WEEKS!" Now she's right! See you soon, we'll celebrate this day again together!

Happy Halloween 2009

can you tell we wore this shirt as many times as possible this month? lol

Baby P's first Halloween :)

Ready to go!

Skylee's pumpkin

Parker with his kitty pumkin

Kissable I tell ya!

Happy little monkey

Silly kids ready to trick or treat!

Skylee was so excited to wear make up!

Isn't she cute?

Brittney's and Ryan's pumpkins

Looks delicous doesn't it?

Skylee and Parker

Skylee cleaning out her pumpkin

Parker's first Halloween :)

Did you get all that? Enough pictures for ya? We really had a lot of fun this Halloween. 3 parties, carving pumpkins, and trick or treating with Skylee this year was really cute. Since Ryan and I got married Halloween didn't really seem to feel like Halloween, until this year. No pregnancies, or moving...just tons of fun! Parker's costume was a full body suit with a tail, but it's still so hot here(even when the sun is down), we had to improvise and he wore brown shorts and one of my brown shirts along with the head peice and booties, it worked I guess? Next year hopefully I'll plan a little better ahead of time and get coordinating costumes for our family! Hope you all had a great Halloween!

October Visiting Teaching

Last month I shared what my comp and I did for September, and thought I would do the same for this month. Usually we do our V.T. on the second Tuesday of each month, but this month one of our sisters that we teach was out of town, so we did it today. A little late, but it's done ;) This idea can be used for any month or season of the year. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the finished, all put together project but here's the idea...

Made some "witch shoes" from scrapbook paper found here
Mine were more like Halloween shoes instead of "witch shoes"

Whipped up some cake pops of all scary sorts

Pumpkin pop!

I wrapped the cake pops in little treat bags with a black bow, then stuck a few inside the shoe for our gift this month. You get the idea right!?!

P.S. I actually only dipped a few cake pops, I had the Sister Missionaries over, they wanted to learn how to make them, so I let them have at it :) Skylee had a great time helping to make the faces too!

Pumpkin Pile

Yes...A Pumpkin PILE! These pathetic places don't even deserve the term "patch", it's just sad around here. As tradition would have it, we took the kids to pick out a pumpkin this weekend. We found a good one, over priced of course, but a good one.








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Halloween Party

Skylee our Witch

Parker the Monkey

I was supposed to be a judge (it's all I could come up with last minute!)
Fun Trunk or Treating!

Ryan the Skeleton

So sad...

Just have to vent a little here...the other day Ryan came home from work, went to his laptop to work on a research paper for his current class, and the computer's hard drive had CRASHED!!! I was sad for him since he had a lot of really valuable documents on there, but was happy it wasn't our main computer. Then I realized that ALL, I mean ALL of the pictures/videos of Parker's birth, hospital stay, coming home, and so on were only on HIS computer! They are GONE. It's been a couple days and I'm still so sad. I just had backed up all our other pics/videos recently but not the ones on his computer, since it is pretty new still. We've been through losing pictures before (when our moving truck was stolen) but I at least got most of my pictures back, this time they are gone. Thank goodness for blogs, all 5 pictures are better than nothing I guess.

A Rare CG Treat

Today our Coast Guard station had a morale event for all the families. They brought out their 64' boat and took us for a fun ride (that's the rare part), had great food, bounce house for the kids, and good company at the St. Mary's waterfront park. Summer decided to stick around here for quite a while, but today finally we had some really nice weather! Skylee thought the boat was so fun, it was pretty cool to go out on it and check it out! It was nice to meet other wives, and some of Ryan's coworkers.

Seriously so easy and YUMMY!

Don't let this picture scare you :P

You've got to try this recipe. I found it here at Skip To My Lou and knew I had to give it a try and I'm so glad I did! Ryan LOVED it and I thought it was pretty tasty too :) The recipe calls for kosher salt , I didn't have any so I just tried using regular salt. Don't do that, it's better left without the salt if you don't have the kosher. Believe me...I usually salt everything, but this doesn't need it!

Roll out Pillsbury pizza dough to a rectangle. Top with favorite toppings (mozzarella, pepperoni, spinach). Tightly roll like a long cylinder, keeping the filling inside. Tuck in ends. Coat with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Place cylinder, seam side down, on baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for 12 – 14 minutes. Let rest. Slice on the diagonal and serve with pizza sauce on side.

Easy right? RIGHT!

Little Man and Crazy Face

Recent pictures of the munchkins: