Christmas Eve

On the evening of Christmas Eve we all got together at my parents home and read (also acted out) the Nativity Story (it's a family tradition). Then my dad read "Twas The Night Before Christmas" and we played songs on my Aunt Janets chimes. Santa came also and gave everyone candy canes. It was a very fun night.

Mary, Joseph, & baby Jesus

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An angel coming down from the heavens to the Shepherds

The Wisemen giving gifts to Mary

Pa-Pa reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Everyone playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on the chimes

Here's Faith & Logan with Santa. Faith was too scared to go near him so Grandma had to help out a bit.

Grandma Grape

Uncle Clint & Santa

Grandma with Santa

Santa & I

Family Nighter

We had our annual family over-nighter the Friday before Christmas. We make reindeer pretzels, snowman cupcakes, and had a dance competition. Here's the pictures of the fun.

Here's the Reindeer

The Snowmen we made

Faith Decorating her Cupcake, she did an excellent job!

Preston won the dance contest with his wild moves

"Pa-pa" doing the San Francisco version of the Nutcracker

(yes he does have underware on)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone. I hope your Thanksgiving went well. Ours was very different than every one we've ever had. This year it was just the kids and I, grandma & grandpa, grandma grape, and Tawnie, Dezi, and James (my Uncle Robby's kids, he had to work). We ate a delicious turkey, stufing with cranberries in it, yams, homemade mashed potatos, and green jello w/cottage cheese in it. We had everyone write on the tablecloths (plastic) what they were thankful for and then went around and told everyone. It was really nice not having a huge crowd this year, especially since my dad has pneumonia (sp?) so he can't be around a lot of people. My mom, grandma and I all said how thankful we are that Jon is ok and how much we appreciate everything he's doing out there. I said I am very thankful for my family and modern medicine so children can be diagnosed very early and taken care of and because without it my dad would have been dead years ago. Also, I am very thankful for modern technology so I can talk to Jon almost daily. Anyway I didn't take any pictures of it but I am looking forward to what everyone else did.

Say Hello To...

Our new car! It's not 100% final but 98% as of today. It's a 2006 Jeep Liberty and it runs great! I love it and so do the kids. We're getting a good deal on it and it only has 13,500 miles on it. I am soo excited, I hope everything works out.

Cats

I was looking at my blog today and realized

that I never posted any pictures of when we

saw Cats. Well, here are just a few of them.

Enjoy!

Halloween 2006

Here's our Halloween pictures!

Faith and Logan had so much fun! We went Trunk-or-Treating

at the Farmer's Market and then Trick-or-Treating around

my parents house. Logan walked almost the whole way and they

both carried their own pumpkin to hold their candy. Logan wanted

to knock on every door and Faith learned how to say "Trick-or-Treat

very well. It was lots of fun. Wish we would have been able to get

more pictures though, my dad's camra battery died just

after these two pictures.

Faith is a Snow Princess

Logan dressed up as Tigger

Family Reunion-Hanging Out

Here's some pictures of

eveyone hanging out.

Grandma Marlene swinging with the grandbabies

Brody, Faith, & Macey

Michelle & Xandra making taquitos

Keira & Faith playing DDR

My brothers Clint (Left) and Brandon (Right)

Playing Guitar Hero on PS2

Brandon & Clint again

Macey, Faith, Brody, & Logan playing with the water table

James, Keira, and Brooke

Family Reunion-Halloween

Here's our Family Reunion Halloween picures.

We carved pumpkins, ate Chili and biscuits, and went to the Staley

Farm and went through the Haunted House.

Grandma Marlene helping Macey, Summer, and Faith

Brooke, Logan, Keira, & Cullen carving their pumpkins

Preston, Faith, & Summer carving pumpkins

Witch's Brew

Brody & Logan

Keira, Cullen, & Brooke

Family Reunion-Mexican Day

One day was our mexican day. We had taquitos with beans, rice, salsa, and a pinata.

Faith was the first to take a chance with the headless pinata.

We filled it so full of candy it's head fell off when we tried to hang it.

Preston doing everything he can to break the pinata

Summer hoping to be the one

Cade taking his turn

Cullen was the one to finally break it

Keira being herself

Update

In case anyone was wondering where I have been, my computer was having major PMS. It's been broken for over two weeks. So I just got it back last night and just my luck, everything was deleted. Oh well! We did go trick or treating last night but blogger won't let me post any pictures for some odd reason, will try again later. Last Saturday my brother Clint took me and my parents out to see Thriller at the Tuachan. It was AWSOME! A dance company from around Salt Lake has been coming down for the last three years and been putting on this Halloween show. There is amazing dancing and lots of comedy. I highly suggest that everyone go see it at least once. The week before that we had a family reunion with all my brothers and sisters. The only person we were missing was Jon :(. It was the first time we had this many family members together in over four years! We saw the play Cats at the Tuachan, celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, and birthdays, had our annual family auction, went to the Staley Family Haunted House, killed a pinata, and played lots of games. It was lots of fun! I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

You asked for it, so here it is!

Here's the recipe's everyone's been asking for.

BLACK FOREST TRIFLE
1 Package (9oz) Devil's Food Cake mix (plus ingredients to make cake)
2 Bars (1.55 oz each) Milk Chocolate candy, divided
1 Can (30 oz) Cherry Pie Filling
1 Teaspoon Almond Extract
1/2 Cup Cranberry Cherry Juice
2 Cups Cold Milk
2 Packages (3.3 oz each) White Chocolate Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1 Container (8 oz) Frozen Whipped Topping, thawed

1- Preheat oven to 350. Prepare cake mix according to the package directions;
spread over the bottom of baking pan. Bake 25 minutes or until toothpick
inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely.

2- Loosen cake from sides of pan & put onto a cutting board. Cut cake into 1 inch
cubes; set aside. Chop 1 1/2 of chocolate bars. Save remaining chocolate for
garnish.

3- Combine cherry pie filling & almond extract in a bowl; remove 1/2 cup for
garnishing and set aside. Stir juice into cherry pie filling.

4- Pour milk into a seperate bowl; whisk in pudding mixture until it begins to
thicken. Fold in whipped topping.

5- Place half of the cake cubes in the bottom of a large bowl. Layer half of the
cherry pie filling mixture evenly over the cake cubes. Sprinkle with half of the
chopped chocolate; top with half of the pudding mixture, pressing lightly.
Repeat.

6- Garnish top of trifle with reserved cherry pie filling and chocolate candy bars
(made into curls). Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

Yield: 10 Servings


CHEESY VEGETABLE SOUP
4 to 5 Cups Cubed Potatos
2 Cups Sliced Carrots
1 to 2 Cups Chopped Celery
24oz Broccoli or 1 Floret
1 Cup Chopped Onion
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 1/2 Cups water
1/4 Cup Margarine
1/2 Cup Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Mustard
6 Chicken Bouilon Cubes, dissolved in 2 cups water
1 1/2 Cups Grated Cheese

Steam and Simmer potatos, carrots, celery, onions, and salt in the 2 1/2 cups water. Add broccoli and simmer 7 more minutes. Melt 1/4 cup margarine, add 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon mustard. Cook until thick then add bouillon mixture. Allow to thicken again then add grated cheese. Add drained, cooked vegetables.

Serves 12 to 15

2 Weeks with Jonathan

Many of you already know that Jonathan had a two week break. It was awsome to have him here and the kids took to him amazingly well. Jonathan came in on Monday the 4th and then we stayed in the Honeymoon suite at Holliday Inn at an amazing rate ($60/night) thanks to my uncle, Thank you Uncle Roby! We stayed there for the first two nights he was here, then we met up with my sister and our kids at the Hurricane park. Faith was hesitant to go to Jon at first but he just had to take her down the slide a couple times then they were best friends. Logan of course went to him right away and without any hesitation. We ate out a lot and watched a lot of moves and played games. We also were able to get sealed for all time and eternity on the 15th, which was an amazing experiance. My mom had an open house at her home after we were sealed and lots of family on both sides came. Jonathan and I pulled an all nighter last night (he was afraid he wasn't going to wake up) and I took him to the St. George airport at 5am this morning. Sorry there are no pictures yet but Jonathan and I forgot to put the pictures on my computer so I have to wait for him to e-mail them to me, which won't be for a few days, but I'll have them up as soon as I get them.

I'd like to thank everyone who was able to come to our sealing for coming on such short notice. Thank you all for coming and supporting us, especially those who had to travel long distances and with newborns and small children. I hope you all made it home safely and I really hope to see you all again soon!

My mom's new dog

This is Tia, my mom's dog she got two weeks ago. Tia is a teacup yorkshire terrior (yorkie), she's only as big as Grandpa's shoes. She's a sweet little thing and loves to be around people. It's been fun having Tia around. Faith and Logan are pretty good around her and Tia loves to follow them around. Luckily everyone gets along, most of the time anyway.

Update from Jonathan

Jonathan sent me these pictures today and said it was ok to post them. He's doing great and working hard. He gets his 2 week break in September and if all goes well he'll get pinned his E4 on September 1st! Horray!

Feel free to e-mail me for his mailing address or any updated info.

Here's Jon being....Jon

This is a Christian Church

Happy Birthday Logan!

Today we celebrated Logan's first birthday. His birthday really isn't until the 28th but we decided to celebrate due to some upcoming events. My sister and her four kids came over and celebrated with us. We had cupcake cones, corn dogs, a jello salad, and chips. Logan received a push-car from his daddy, a tumbling tigger from my sister and her kids, a whale with blocks and a cute t-shirt from the Easton's (friends of the family). It wasn't a big deal but it was fun. All the kids enjoyed the toys, especially my sister's boys!

Everyone right before Logan opened his presents

Logan watching Tigger


Logan and his push-car


Here's the cupcake cones that we had instead of cake.

The best babysitters ever!

My nieces Keira and Cullen have been coming over and babysitting a lot lately which Faith and Logan both love. Keira is almost 12 and Cullen will be 11 soon and they are the best babysitters I have EVER had! They love babysitting Faith and Logan and my kids love having them as babysitters.
Here's Keira with Faith dressed up as dinosaurs.
Keira was the only one who could get Faith to dress up!