Deep Thoughts By Elly

Yesterday in church Elly comes and sits on my lap.
"Mom, I've been thinking."
"Okay about what"
"What do stores do at night when all the people are sleeping?"
"Well they lock their doors and turn off the lights."
"But what about their beds, don't they have beds."
"No, stores don't need beds."
She quietly contemplated this only to reask the same questions moments later.
Luckily the sacrament came and she forgot all about it.

Cookies With Santa

The twins got to go to work with daddy and have cookies with Santa. I dressed them in their Christmas dresses and sent them off. The last time they went to work with Shay was about a year and a half ago. Jane asked Shay about two weeks ago when they could go back to work with him, the conversations was as follows:

Jane: Daddy when can we go to work with you again?
Shay: I don't know, soon.
Jane: We want to go, and this time you don't have to show your bottom.
Shay: What?
Jane: Last time we went to work with you, you burnt the popcorn in the mircrowave and when you went to fan it, your jacket came up in the back and we saw your bottom.

Shay does remember this event, all except the bottom showing. I guess we all remember things a little differently. But we sure had a good laugh at this one.


The girls were so excited to see Santa. Jane even thought this might be the real one, Elly said it couldn't be because his beard was too short. I told her even Santa has to trim his beard every now and then. "Oh, then it could be the real one. We saw the fake one at church, his beard could come off." They both asked for bikes. Very fun.

Skylers Holiday Concert

This is Skylers first year in band. He wasn't really excited to do it, but willing. Which would pretty much sum Skyler up with anything that isn't video games or books. I really tried to get him to play the drums but he wouldn't have it. So the trombone it is. I made him practice like crazy the week they were out of school for Thanksgiving because his concert was the following tuesday. He didn't complain too bad and ended up doing a really great job. He even wore his suit and bow tie. Looking sharp Skyler boy!

Thanksgiving Pies

We had a rather enjoyable Thanksgiving this year. Being 8 months pregnant, I really didn't want to do much and thankfully we were invited to two different friends houses. The first being the Andersons. These are some of the best people around. I had both of their girls as beehives in Young Women and they are very talented and grounded girls. They also have two boys 8 and 5 I believe. So they have a breakfast tradition, where everyone brings a couple of homemade pies and everyone shares pie for breakfast. I love this tradition, because you are always too full for the pie after a big meal, so why not have it first! There were so many pies, I would say close to 20. Each one of them awesome in their own right. I made a fresh strawberry pie and a chocolate brownie pie with hot fudge drizzled on top. They were great, but so were the other 8 pies I tried. (small servings of course, so everyone could try lots of kinds) I think this is one worth keeping. Then we played games and the kids played outside despite the chilly weather. Most of the kids even played in the creek in their backyard, without us knowing of course. Skyler even dared to cross a log that broke and soaked him to his underarms, or so he says. I just figured he was telling the truth because who would do that on purpose, when it is so stinkin cold out. Shay even attempted their fun swing they had made. You climb up on top of a 10ft latter and jump off to swing. I was a little glad I was pregnant so I was not asked to attempt it, I am a little afraid of heights.

We then went over to our friends the Urbanawizs and enjoyed a wonderful meal and lots of relaxing while the kids destroyed their house. I felt a little guilty, but came back the next day to try and rectify some of the disaster we left behind. But actually felt that I made it worse, with the wicked green that I had convinced them to paint their bathroom just days before their fourth baby arrived. Thankfully they are very forgiving people. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Thanks alot guys. You made my day.

Watch out Hanna Montana, Here comes TURKEY TANNA

Kaely had a Thanksgiving turkey project that we had put off until Sunday, due Monday. I really haven't been feeling great and didn't want to help, so I asked Shay to help her. Big mistake, Shay has many wonderful talents, but crafting is not one of them. He gave her a bag of pez candies and said "glue these on." Bad idea, the glue started to disolve the sugar in the candy and they about melted, it was gooey and slimy. I had to come up with a way to cover up the disaster. Before we knew it...Turkey Tanna was born. My inspiration, the skull patch on her vest. Kaely jumped on board and it was alot of fun. I had forgotten how much I love to create. It was really fun and I loved it. I just hope I let Kaely help enough! A few things to mention...her red toenails, her blingin' necklace with the T T (for Turkey Tanna of course)on it, her sunglasses with the Xtra bling, and her super sweet guitar! I really wanted to make her a guitar, but no one thought it would turn out good. Well I LOVE the guitar and I think it really adds to her style. Turkey Tanna just gives us one more thing to be thankful for this holiday season, what do you have to be thankful for?

Okee-Dokee Okeefenokee

My 10 year high school reunion was a couple of weeks ago. The small town where I went did a four year reunion, graduating classes of 96-99. I had 83 people in my graduating class. So they combined four years so there would actually be people to see. It was good taking the kids to see where I grew up. It hasn't changed much in 11 years. The biggest draw for me was the Okeefenokee Festival was the same weekend, otherwise I wouldn't have gone. But I had been wanting to take the fam down for that sometime so we did. We actually went to the beach the day before and the kids loved it. I wanted to look for sharks teeth (we used to find them all the time growing up) but the tide was up and that made it impossible. On Sat. we went to the parade in folkston for the festival and my favorite part was still the band. The kids got tons of candy and Shay was in awe at the floats (most of which were just people driving their dumpy cars in the parade). He didn't get it and I thought it was super funny, because thats just how they roll in S. Georgia. I should have taken pictures. Then the girls rode the pony and we got some gator on a stick, Elly kept saying "mmm that gator sure is good, lets get some more". Then we went to the swamp. We saw a few gators but not many and ran out of time so we didn't get to take the boat ride to see more. Then we went to the reunion and had dinner, it was good to see a couple of people and I won the award for the most kids, with our 5th on the way. The highlight of the trip would be Shay getting in trouble by the lady we stayed with for using a teflon pan she had because if you scratch it, it will kill you and she called Shay a theif for using it! Very weird. We left shortly after that. But overall I think the kids had a good time and I had enough of S. Georgia to last another 10 years.

For the love of General Conference

As much as I love to look forward to General Conference, I am so glad it is over. My brother, his wife their baby (17m), My sister, her two boys, 14 and 5, and my dad came for conference weekend. I am way too pregnant to be hosting family and not so pregnant that I should feel this way. My grumpies took over a couple of times. And I think they could see relief in my eyes when they left. It isn't that I don't love them, I do, but I am hormonal and I really like my house clean. When you have a house this size and that many people it makes it really tough. Then you have conference stresses, where I want to listen but everyone else wants to talk or have lunch or talk about having lunch. I think the truth is I am way too anal and should plan on not listening and just buying the cds later. I would probably be much happier then. But really it wasn't as bad as I make it sound, the kids were overall good and it was nice to send the men off to priesthood and send the kids to bed and watch a girl movie, we also went to yard sales without kids and I got to sleep in my own bed. I also beat them all in Settlers both times we played, they just don't have a chance. So as you see, you just can't win with a pregnant woman, and that is all I can say about that.