Happy Birthday Joseph

Cool then...

Cool now:

I love you babe.

O Christmas Tree . . .

Monday evening Suzy, Ryan and Allie came down to Provo for our annual "buying of the Christmas tree" ritual. We started out by heading over to Baum's Christmas Tree lot in Provo, our very favorite place to buy our trees.

Suzy & Emma looking cute:

I found our tree in approximately 3 minutes. Suzy, on the other hand, took about an HOUR. Poor Ryan . . . how many trees did he have to hold up?

For some reason, there was this kid by the lot riding a pony. I wanted to get a picture of my kids by themselves, but I couldn't get the other kid to get out of the picture. It also appears that Sophie has a future in horse whispering. She seems to have a "connection" with this pony:

After we bought our trees, we headed over to the pizzeria for a yummy dinner.

After dinner we headed home to put the tree up. Thanks Ryan for helping me get it in the stand.

Sophie apparently couldn't wait for me to get the ornaments out, so she made some custom ornaments:

When I finally did pull the ornament box out, we couldn't get Sammy out of it:

In fact, four days later, the ornament box is still sitting on the kitchen table because I don't have the heart to take away Sammy's new little bed.

The payoff:

Our Thanksgiving

I know I'm a bit late, but here is the recap of our fun Thanksgiving weekend.

We started our vacation with a trip to the movies with Suzy & Ryan. I felt like the last person on earth to see this:


It was good. Even Joseph liked it.

On Thanksgiving morning Joseph & I decided to take the kids to see this:

It was great. Funny, action-packed and even a bit tender....it could actually bring a tear to your eye.

We discovered that no one in Utah goes to the movies on Thanksgiving morning. There were only about 4 other people in the theater. In fact, the mall doesn't even bother turning on the lights. Whatever...

After the movie, we got ready for dinner. This year's guests included Aunt Carol, Uncle Bob & Taylor, Kiara & Yoda, and Ryan. Auntie Carole made an appearance a bit later. Here are some random shots of the evening:

Emma made adorable personalized name-tags for everyone. Should I feel bad that mine was personalized like this:

Shocker!! Joseph is napping!

Mom & Dad celebrating the last Thanksgiving in the Pleasant View house:

Suzy's deviled eggs:


My beautiful mandarin orange cottage cheese salad:


My delicious spinach dip made with REAL mayonaise.... yum:



Sophie modeling with the turkey:

I hope your Thanksgiving was as fun as ours.

Watch out Christmas... here we come!

Happy Anniversary Pizzeria 712!

It's hard to believe it's been a year already.

Last week was the pizzeria's first anniversary and to celebrate, they threw a beautiful dinner party for friends and family.

The menu was fabulous. First course: farro rissoto; Second course: pear salad; Third course: wild boar ragu; Fourth course: roasted apple with gingerbread cake. yum.




Our table of family & friends. (left: Sophie, Jen, Jake, Dad, Mom & right: Emma, Allie, Suz, Roy, Marilyn)

Dad, Colton & Joseph:

Brian & Matt:

Busy plating dinner:

Graham:

Timmy & Ethan:

Here's to many, many more successful years!