"Santa, baby, I just want a date!" (Didn't I ask for that last year?)

"Well, if Santa wouldn't get me a date, then my kids decided to (but there is a story to it!)

When we were at Tara's house, she told us a story about a lady she knew. Someone gave her a "flat Stanley" - a paper card cut-out of a guy that she went places with and took pictures of as her "date". Well, when we were at Tara's on Saturday, my "present" was a flat Stanley. He got stored away and I came home after work, the following week, to find that I had an official date with "flat Stanley" (actually a poster of Jeff Gordon). They made spaghetti and had sparkling cider, chocolate cake and a box of chocolates. They set the table with my Christmas china and candles. It was really fun (especially after a difficult day at work!). Dinner is served, my dear!

"Hey, Santa, I would
LOVE a stereo for my
car!"
(un-huh!)

"Hey, Santa I want a cell
phone! Pronto or I will go
crazy!"
(No, it will be mom who goes crazy
from being asked so many times!)

"Santa, I would like CD's, stereo,
High School Musical...."
(Holy Cow, the gifts change when they
became teens and Santa only has reindeer
not cash cows!)

"Santa, I want a Blackberry Storm
and driver's ed"
(Driver's ed - maybe. Blackberry Storm
is that a type of ice cream?)

"Beautiful!" Let's eat!" "The perfect turkey!"

The kids and I went down to Payson, Utah for Thanksgiving. Tara and I spent Wednesday and Thursday cooking. The meal was beautiful and good! We were thankful for much! Later that day, Tara and I went out to Walmart and cased out their sale items that were posted for 5:00 the following morning. Late Thanksgiving night, Tara and I went on to LDS.SINGLES.Com and she "persuaded" me to send flirts. We had fun and were laughing really hard by the end (late night silliness). I was the critic and she was the more open one, I suppose. Anyhow, we got to bed REALLY late and didn't get up for the sales until 8:00 am. By the time we got to Walmart, it was packed and of course, the majority of the items we wanted were not there. But, I did get a couple of things for the kids so I'm glad that we went.

Saturday, Bret took the kids to Boondocks which they loved and they stayed the majority of the day. Tara and I went to the peppermint factory where we were able to buy stocking stuffers for the kids at a really cheap price. Then Tara and I went to Gardiner Village which is sort of like a mall. There are little shops that look like houses and they are set apart from each other. We went to a really fun candy shop like the one we went to in Boise. It had every type of candy you could think of. Then we went to the Christmas Shoppe which had ornaments and nativities of all sorts. I bought a little moose ornament with my name on it. We went to the bakery and had supper. Then, Tara and I drove to SLC Temple Square to see the lights. It was cold! Tara only had a t-shirt and I had a breezy sweater. We shared a light jacket and baby blanket to keep warm. We got some strange looks! We enjoyed jumping from building to building (to keep warm) all while enjoying the lights. We watched the tv commercials in the visitor's center that made both of us cry. We went up to the Christus statue and I looked out at the lights. It was a great day!

Saturday, Tara and Bret had rented out a clubhouse. It had a pool table, huge front room with a fireplace, kitchen and (my favorite!) a theatre room. We watched "Polar Express" on the projector and upstairs they could literally feel it when the train thundered through.

We had much to be thankful. My job even with the reductions and uncertainties and most of all, for family.

Celeste went as a person going to a masquerade ball. Celina was a dancer from "Dancing with the Stars". I was a great big M & M. We went to the trunk or treat event put on by our ward. They had a chili dinner under an army tent and then we gave treats to the little kids as they came around. Sterling put our carved pumpkins next to the car and lit them so others could see. I handed out M&M's while Sterling and Celeste handed out other candy. We ran out of candy and had to borrow from Celina. Then we ran out again and the ward member in the car next to us filled up half our bowl. By the time we were done, we had about 14 pieces of candy left. Sterling and I raced to Winco to buy 3 more pounds of candy so we could give it out to trick or treaters in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, we only got about 12 trick or treaters. After the trick or treating, I took pictures and we listened to Halloween music. Alec and Sterling had fun goofing off! Then we watched an older fun, scary movie called "Wait Until Dark" with Aubrey Hepburn. I ate so much candy I felt sick during the night. I don't think I am as young anymore.

Sterling and Alec in costume! At the last moment, Sterling decided to be a Ninja. Alec was "Dr. Creepy" (sort of like Dr. G, if you know who that is on tv - a coroner). Alec's trick or treat bag was a head.

These are pictures that we carved onto our pumpkins the night before Halloween. It took quite some time before we were done. It was very difficult to get pictures but we finally got these and they look pretty good! Celeste did the skull and crossbones. I did the wolves. Sterling did McCain and the Republican symbol. Celina did one that isn't posted but it was computer symbols. Alec was at his play that night so the next night he did a pumpkin with ghosts.

These are pictures that I took of Celeste and Celina on the day I took Sterling's. Alec was doing home teaching at the time and was not able to come.

Well, we finally got it! The REAL pose that we are going to use for his pictures!

Bashful!
La-la-la!

"The professor"

"yeah, RIGHT!

Taking senior pictures with Sterling about drove me crazy! These were some of the more common pictures. I took Sterling back up to Cherry springs last week so that we could take some more pictures since he only got one the time before that was half-way decent. The weather was nice and when we were done, we went back up to Scout Mountain for a meal of stew, bread and apple crisp.