THE COUSINS' NATIVITY

Mommy's little goat.

The nativity with the cousins at Nicole and Brian's house...

Del was the narrator.

4 generations...Wayne (great grandpa), Del, Del and Del (Trey). Trey is still wearing part of his goat outfit. We don't usually dress him like that.

3 sister-in-laws with the cousins.

THE SUNS GAME!

We got to go to a Suns game while in Arizona thanks to Brian (and his season tickets)! It was very awesome! We had great seats, as you can tell...maybe the 10th row at the top of the key. Here Steve Nash is dribbling the ball. It was awesome to see them play up close...

Okay, I can't tell who is shooting here, but if I were to guess, I would say Chris Bosch because he scored over 20 points on free throws alone that night and a 42 point game high.

Okay, this is really very embarrassing, but I wore a RED SHIRT with WHITE SLEEVES! Which is only totally the Toronto Raptors' colors! Oh, so embarrassing! Brian kept teasing me and saying things like, "Your team is really making a come back..." as if Toronto were catching up to the Suns and I was cheering for them. Oh my.

Cousins: Kellen and Trey

Del's bro. Shawn and his wife, Colette, and Del and I took Trey and Kellen out to eat to an Indian food restaurant...as you can see, it was a great success! :) Cheerios and fishies were strewn everywhere! It was a lot of fun though!

After the Indian food we went to Shawn and Colette's house and got the boys in their jammies and put them to bed. Here they are playing as we're getting them ready for bed. Kellen is two months older than Trey...so it's fun to see the things Kellen can do because it gives us an idea of what we have to look forward to with Trey.

After they went to bed, us adults watched Ocean's 13 on Shawn and Colette's Blue Ray DVD player. Very cool, might I add!

The real truth behind the photo session...

Now, I have to admit that the "four cousins" photo session did not go as smoothly as it might seem. Trey wasn't feeling very well that day...or it could have been a combination of being tired and hot and who knows what else. So, we ended up with a lot of pictures like this:



Afterward, Trey was (for the most part) back to his normal sweet self. The four cousins generally had a pretty good time during the photo shoot. The other three were much more interested in the candy canes than Trey was.

Just a few Christmas pictures

It was specifically requested that we upload a few pictures while we are out of town (in Arizona) for Christmas. Without further ado, here are the much-anticipated, long-awaited pictures of the "four cousins" (not to be confused with the Four Tenors):

Trey's Growing Up So Fast!

Look at those blue eyes!

He got his first big bonk on his head. He was running with his blanket and tripped and landed right into a potruding object. I was pretty scared, but it didn't really bleed much nor did he cry much. Turns out he's okay, just a bruise and scab to show for it.

For those of you who think that Trey never cries, here's one for you. He is wanting the camera in this picture, but of course we won't give it to him...because we're using it!

Wearin' his little Hawaii sweatshirt.

It's Christmas Time!

Does anyone else's house look like this when you are wrapping presents? Those are socks on the floor from Del's sock drawer. It's hard to get much done when you have a little toddler at your feet...or maybe I should say it's hard to keep things clean while doing other things with a toddler at your feet. Do you like the N'Sync picture above the bed...that's Del's gift he got for Christmas last year. We are graced by it's presence every day! Thanks Jen and Corey! (I think it was you guys!)

Our biggest nativity...this is by Willow Tree. I love it. I participated in the stake nativity event this year and donated about 4 or so nativities. It was open to the public and had hundreds of nativities that were donated by all the wards in our stake. It was really neat. One of the neatest things was a Christmas tree with only nativity ornaments...all different kinds. It was just so neat and beautiful. They belonged to just one woman in the stake. She collects them. Very neat reminder of the true meaning of Christmas, the celebration of the Savior's birth.

Some more Christmas decorations.

A few weeks ago I was in the mood to paint two walls in our kitchen, so I bought some yellow paint (first) and tried it out.

I really liked the yellow paint, but I didn't think it looked right with our cabinets...soooo....

I repainted the walls with this beige color. I think it looks okay now...I guess.

Here's our mantle. It's a little blurry.

Thanksgiving and other items of interest

Hello, faithful blog-reading audience. We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday and ate way too much food, just like us. Tina and I wanted to share a few recent pictures.

Don't they look cute together?

And here's Trey after performing his favorite trick: get food all over his hands, and then rub his hands all over his face. The point here is that I did not smear food all over his face just to make him look messy. This was all Trey's doing.

I decided to put one of my shirts on Trey, and here's the result:

This has become one of Trey's favorite things to do recently: hide behind/under all the clothes in the closet.

Here is a classic Thanksgiving "action" shot of Walter and Cindy enjoying their food. It was a pretty small gathering (only five of us), but Tina's brother and his family joined us later that night.

After the feast! Trey's become quite the picky eater (remind you of anyone?), so we are always trying to find something that he's willing to eat. So far, we've found that he likes bread. No Atkins diet for this guy.

This is the picture that we're thinking of using for our Christmas cards this year. What do you think? Leave comments!

WHAT'S COOKIN'?

I was making Cream Cheese Pinwheels for a party I'm going to tonight with some friends from church and noticed my camera sitting right by where I was working and thought this looked pretty...the green and black, etc. and so I decided to take a picture! Here is the pinwheel in the making with just the spread on it.

Here it is rolled.

Here they are cut.

This is my mom's recipe...so I'll include it for any who might be interested!

Flour tortillas (large)

2 - 8oz. pkgs. cream cheese

1 sm. can chopped green chilies

1 sm. can chopped black olives

1 chopped green onion (stem too)

few sprinkles of garlic powder

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Mix all together. Spread mixture on complete area of flour tortillas. Roll-up and wrap tightly in saran wrap. Place rolls on plate and let set overnight. When ready to serve, unwrap and slice with a sharp knife. Arrange on serving dish.

Better Late Than Never!

These are pictures that I just got from my mom's camera. Here we are celebrating Del's b-day (a while ago) at my parents' house! Happy B-day Del!

Here's Kellen when my mom and 3 nieces babysat him & Trey at our house so that Del and I and his fam. could go to the rodeo.

Kellen with Ashley, Kenna, and Elle.

More pictures of my nieces...

Del with Trey. You just can't get enough pictures like these, right? :)

Tagged, Again!

I was tagged again. This time from my sister-in-law Colette. It's a little different, so I thought I'd do it. Here are the rules:

A. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.

B. At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names.

1. I love to read. I particulary enjoy historical fiction. The Killer Angels, (about Gettysburg), is one of my favorite books.

2. I love to play board games & card games. Unfortunately for me, my husband doesn't, for the most part, when it's just the two of us. He really likes trivia games (which I don't like). But, luckily, when we get together with groups of people to play games, he participates and I think he usually has a good time.

3. Habit: I usually drink 1 can of Dr. Pepper a day. It's a sad day when I run out.

4. Habit: I sleep with ear plugs. I blame my sister-in-law Nicole because after hearing that she slept with ear plugs, I don't really know what possessed me, but sometime after that I started to too. Thanks, Nicole!

5. I am a fantasy basketball (obsessive compulsive, but working on it) junkie. That's right! As long as I have an okay team, I can breath...ahh..and just enjoy the fun. Otherwise, poor Del who has to live with me! Go Dirk!

6. I love, love, love being a mom & want lots of kids.

I tag: Brandy, Marji (come on Marji, you know you have the time! :) ), and Brynn.

HALLOWEEN FUN!!

Trey and Mommy at the start of a fun night!

We took Trey trick-or-treating around our cul-de-sac plus a few other houses in the neighborhood. Here he is walking with his dad.

This is Trey with our neighbor's pug dog. Trey is a dalmation and the pug is a cow. They both are wearing polkadot costumes, so we had to get a picture.

Trey with Daddy.

Here we are trick or treating at our friends', the Pettys, door. They live around the corner from us and go to church with us.

Trey walking up to this scary house!

Here we are at a firestation close to our house that we happened to drive by. We had to stop and get a picture with the firemen since Trey is a dalmation!

Here is Trey at our friend Staci's house.

The Collinson kids. Do you like Clark Kent? They are all so cute!

Me (Tina) with my nieces and nephews and one of their friends. After we went trick-or-treating we stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Jordan's house and had sandwiches, hot dogs, chips, cookies, etc.