Santa visited us!!

Surprise surprise...Santa came even though we were so excited we forgot to leave him so cookies and milk!! We had so much fun at our Party, we forgot to put out some treats! Poor Santa had to search the cupboards for a little snack!! :0) We decided to just let the girls wake up whenever they did, and luckily it wasn't until about 8 that they woke up! We went out and saw that Santa had come, and played with the toys for a little while before opening presents. My parents came over to watch the girls open presents.

Here's Teniah with her new clothes! Yay for new clothes!!!

Here's Kierstin with her baby and carrier! Oh how she loves this baby!!!

My cute little cheeser!

Opening presents!

After that we went over to my parents house to talk to my brother Kyle. He is doing so great in Indonesia! We are proud of him and all the hard work that he is doing!! He had just played Santa at the mall....and we all got a kick out of that one!! People of Indonesia...NO Santa isn't over 6 foot tall and skin and bones! They had done a little program at the mall and he said it was so much fun! It was GREAT to talk with him! As my only little brother, I have missed him more than I thought that I would...and it was awesome to hear his voice!

While we were eating our Christmas lunch, we all decided to go to Avatar!! So we hurried up and got in the car, and drove to the theater. OH NO...it's broken!! But, they had it at the other theater, so...back in the car, and across town, we went. There I am standing in line, and I see a sign, HEAT BROKEN! Oh great...in what movie? Of course it was ours. Luckily we lived close enough that we were able to run home really quick and grab some blankets! The movie was AMAZING!!! We all loved it!! Hard to believe that it was CGI after a while! Teniah enjoyed the visuals, but couldn't stop listening to her "Ipod"(really a mp3 player)!! Kierstin surprised me, by sitting through almost the WHOLE movie!! She lasted til the last 30 mins or so.

We had the BEST Christmas!!

Christmas Eve PARTY!!!

It's always a blast at the 'P' Family Christmas Eve Party! There is always good food,
(Here's Teniah...by all the goodies of course!!)

lots of fun and games. Sometimes movies, and of course PRESENTS!!

Kierstin got a baby doll, do you think she likes it??

Grandma got a Christus Statue


Teniah got Mariposa Fairies



And Grandpa got a skunk (inside joke!)


And of course...the Christmas Eve Pajammies!!!

Oh Christmas Tree

Robert went out the day after Thanksgiving and cut down our Christmas tree. He picked a really good one. It was about two feet too tall, but we took care of that really easy!! Our tree was about 12 feet tall! This year Robert convinced me that we should flock our Christmas tree. I was a little hesitant at first, but it turned out so pretty, I think we may do it next year too.We did a blue and silver tree, very classy and beautiful. I love Christmas trees!!!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. I can't believe how much good food there is to be eaten! First we had a dinner with Robert's family, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We sat around and ate dinner, and then we watched the newest Star Trek. We had a blast visiting with everyone, and eating all that YUMMY food! Then for actual Thanksgiving, we went to my grandmas house in Parowan. She has been feeling down in spirits for the last few months, and then about two months ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been such a strong woman and has dealt with it very well. She had a surgery, and all the cancer is gone. She won't need any chemo or radiation, and hopefully it will stay away. But, she was in the best of spirits on Thanksgiving, because all of her family was surrounding her. We had a HOUSE full of people ... close to 40 ... and we only had a few people missing two cousins, one husband and one missionary! We had so much food that we actually had thanksgiving two nights in a row!! It was great!! I love potatoes and homemade noodles and fresh cherry pie!! Oh...it was all WONDERFUL!!

Leftover Turkey Soup

On Sunday, we were able to have Thanksgiving dinner with some of our BEST friends. The food was amazing, and the turkey was perfect and juicy! Needless to say, I cooked WAY too much food, and we have been having leftovers all week. Tonight, I decided that I wanted to make some soup. So here is the recipe for all of you to enjoy! You might need it next week to help with your turkey leftovers! :0)

2-3 c cut up turkey meat

1 large can cream of chicken soup plus, 1/2 the can water, and 1/2 can milk

1 can carrots

1 can and 1 small can of cream of corn

1 spoonful minced garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Add 1 TBS oil and garlic to your pot. Warm up and add the turkey. Saute the turkey for a few minutes. Add all other ingredients and bring to a boil.

Enjoy!

Recipes

Hey all! I decided that every once and a while (probley once a week or twice a month) I am going to post a recipe that we love. I know that I am always on the prowl of new healthy easy recipes. So here is the first of those to come! :0)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!!

(Now I know that cookies usually aren't considered healthy, but hey, these are made with veggies!! LOL)

1 Spice Cake Mix
1 Can of pumpkin (if you use the one that already has the spices, then you don't have to add anything else)
1 cup of chocolate chips/raisins

Mix all together, and spoon on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees! Big HINT: DO NOT add any water!!! The pumpkin moistens everything!!

Happy Halloween!

We had such a great Halloween this year. Sarah and Cooper

came down to visit and go trick or treating with us. We had dinner and took pictures of the kids.

Heres the two hardest kids to take a picture of!

Here we have Vampire Hannah Montana

The Gang!

Little Pebbles

Maybe we had too much fun taking pictures! HEHEHE

Then headed out into the neighborhood for our treats. We ran into this scary monster, who wanted Cooper's banana. (love Cooper's face!)

Kierstin loved trick or treating. It didn't take her long to figure out that she would get candy if she knocked on the door. She was so cute! She would take at least two candies from each house, if they offered her the bowl. She was so cute they didn't get mad! :0) Little stinker!

So...

My mom reminded me that I actually have a blog, and that it would be nice if I updated it!! So...here are some brief moments for the past month or so!

**Spent Labor day in Parowan with Robert's parents. We went to the Parade, the fair and the carnival. Gramma was brave enough to ride the Ferris wheel

and Teniah and I were brave enough to ride the Gravitron with daddy! I was surprised at how well she did!

**Robert hurt his shoulder playing Rugby...and was incapacitated for two weeks! (He is doing quite a bit better now, but it isn't 100% yet.

**Robert's grandfather passed away. He was a great man. He always made me feel like one of the family. He left a great family legacy, 37 grandchildren, 105 great grandchildren and 1 great great granddaughter.

**Kierstin has gotten, if at all possible, 5 times cuter than ever. Here she is wearing the princess shoes, and reading mommy's book!

** And I messed around with some hair color! Sorry about the deer in the headlight pictures, but...alas, I was the only one to take the pictures....so you get what I can take! haha

I promise I'll be better at keeping my blog updated!

Before After

First Day of School!!

Teniah started first grade today!!

I can't quite believe she is old enough! She was very excited to ride the bus, which I forgot to take a picture of! But she gave me the biggest grin and a big wave, and she was off!

She is also sporting a new do for school! She wasn't too sure about getting a haircut, but she ended up getting more hair cut than mom...which is a surprise!!

Big Tree

During our hike we saw, what I am guessing is, the biggest redwood in the park. The reason that I say it is the biggest is because it is named.....Big Tree! Here is the 'stats' on Big Tree!

It is amazing to me that this tree is so tall, so big around and SOOOOO OLD! If you hear me complaining that I am getting old, just remind me of Big Tree!

The Redwoods!

After our weekend at the Ranch, we thought that we would make a quick trip to see the Redwoods, because I have never been there before. We looked at the map, and figured we were only about 3 hours away. So we figured that we were too close to not see them. So we headed off. Well, 6 hours later we ended up in the Redwoods. We had a limited amount of day light, so we figured out the couple of things that we wanted to see and headed off. We went to one section of the park, and hiked around there for at least 3 hours.

It was one of the most beautiful hikes that I have ever been one. You were enclosed in trees. The trees were so big and so green, it was beautiful! The girls did so good walking and hiking through the forest.

They had fun being brave and climbing into a redwood

and having daddy take pictures.

We had fun watching daddy try and climb the redwood,

and giving us some perspective on really how BIG the trees are!

Teniah enjoyed learning about the rings on the trees and trying to figure out how old the trees were!

Hiking to the Waterfall

Just minutes from the ranch was a little hike to a beautiful waterfall. The area was green and beautiful and COOL!!! The kids were surprisingly good and most of them walked the whole way, with only little bits of complaining. I think that the round trip of the hike was a little over a mile, but it was fairly cool and shady and a good way to get out some of the kids energy!

I was able to catch Kierstin giving Robert a hug. She sure loves her daddy!! Unless it is first thing in the morning, then she just wants MOMMY!!

Chillin' at the Ranch!

Most of the time spent at the Ranch was lazy-dazy just chilling enjoy some much needed vacation time! Here are some pictures of us....just relaxin'!

Just the guys...can you be any more relaxed?

Here is Robert taking the girls for a ride!

Don't worry, Kierstin was really happy to be on the four wheeler, but she wanted to be in front with Audrey!

Here is Audrey and Kierstin playing in the dirt! These two had quite fun 'playing' together at the Ranch. Their 'playing' mostly consisted of Audrey lovin' on her cousin, which usually resulted with them rolling on the ground!

This is my newest niece, Kembrie, she had quite fun with Aunt Mel! She is such a sweetheart!! I don't think that I heard her cry the whole weekend!

Just one of Kiki's crazy faces!

Swimming at the Ranch!

We were able to enjoy the P Family Reunion this year at Jan'l & Jason's Ranch. This was the first time that we had been, but we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. There is a "lake" (as Teniah would call it, but it really is a pond)...

that everyone really enjoyed cooling off in...and I mean COOLING! It was freezing water, but it did feel good in the hot sun. I didn't think that it would be that hot, but it was about 90 degrees this day...so it felt great to cool off in the water. Robert was the uncle to show the boys how to do a cannonball into the pond. I even dared jump in...twice!

Hummm...

Kierstin did enjoy the water...but only a little bit! It was too cold for her, but she loved watching all the kids jumping into the water and riding on the paddle boat!

Just the girls!! (Me, Kierstin, Elise, Haleigh and Teniah!)

After Teniah saw me jump in, she was finally brave enough to jump in by her own will! This is the procession...note, I have three other pictures of her almost jumping in that are not included, because I thought them repetitive!

This is the "its FREEZING" face!