Many Pictures, Many Thanks

Thanksgiving was so fun. I am so glad that my children have so many cousins and that they have such a great time playing together. Here are many, many of our pictures.

The much-maligned "kid table" Thankfully they're still young enough to like it.
The beautiful table setting.
The kids on the way to see Madagascar 2
Daddy and Tommy bowling. That metal thing is to roll the ball down for really little kids. I think it was that apparatus that made Tommy's score higher than both mine and Tom's.
The cute kiddies bowling.
Playing outside with Grandpa
My cute kids
Taking a walk on Thursday. Trying to work off our huge calorie intake. I don't think the walk around the block quite did it.
The beautiful girls in their beautiful skirts.
...And the silly picture.
My little angel.

And the boys too.
Rachel holding Eliza
On the train
Cute cousins at the train station
Emma with Eliza
The main entertainment: Playing games together.

I would have liked to be Alice

So I like the Twilight books but I'm not obsessed. I've haven't seen the movie yet nor have I ever been to a website for them. But I saw this on my friend's blog and had to find out who I was in the books. So I guess I'm Esme. Not terribly surprising considering I'm a mom :).

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Do-over

I was tagged, but I've done it. So this is the original post. It mutated so here's the one add-on.

8 Things on my Wish List:

1. Wait for it...my house to sell
2. To sleep for 10 straight hours
3. To catch up completely on scrap-booking
4. More local friends
5. More storage tubs
6. A sink that didn't leak
7. To be 10 fewer pounds
8. Clothes! Shoes! Skirts! Dresses!

So there you go.

The Happiest Place on Earth (Sometimes)

Well, we just got back from a totally fun trip to California. I must say, I'm awfully proud of myself for traveling across the desert by myself with three kids. I don't know that I should be proud of myself, it might mean I'm mentally unbalanced, but I'm going to go with "brave." While there we had the chance to use our Disneyland passes again and it was a blast. It was a gorgeous day and we never waited more than 5 minutes for a ride. The biggest obstacle to riding more things was...us. We were two adults (my mom and me) and 4 kids with one being a newborn and we both worked really hard to have fun :). Between feedings and potty breaks and complete meltdowns from my kids I'm surprised we did as well as we did. We were able to ride the train (supposed to be a method of transportation-NOT a ride, but Tommy loved it), the rocket cars (twice), Buzz Lightyear, the Carousel, Dumbo (twice), and the Haunted Mansion. We also saw Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Chip and Dale, and Wendy Darling. I'm still just not willing to wait hours to see actual Princesses, and my kids don't care that much-any character will do for them. We had a lot of fun and I'm hopefully going to be able to go with Tom in February. I took very few pictures and they're all terrible but I was holding Eliza for all of them.

Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby

So my friend wrote me the other day and said "Why don't you post more pictures of Eliza, don't you love her, do you really have a newborn? You're a bad mother for not posting more pictures" (She didn't say anything of the sort but I'm sneaky like that). So here's some pictures of the cutest little baby ever.

Eliza and her adoring father

This is from a failed photo shoot, I wanted cute naked baby pictures. How does Anne Geddes do it?!?

A semi-cute one. I would love to take a photography class. Nothing serious at all, just enough to know how to get cute pictures of my kids.

Her first smile on camera. What a doll!

GO COUGARS!

In celebrations of BYU's great year in football I have a video to share. The Halloween stuff is still out so Samantha donned a costume from past years and ran around the house doing this. I had her reprise it for posterity. By the way, she's known this song since she could sing anything, since she was a little under 2 I think. You might want to turn up your volume a little bit, she's kind of quiet.

Different State, Different Ward...Still a Winner

We had our ward's Halloween party and Chili Cook-off this weekend. I made a delicious white chili that's my friend Delee's recipe. When she moved into our ward in VA she created an upset when she beat out several of the traditional winners at that chili cook-off. Then she won first place again the next year. Well, on Friday I won...third place. I'm sure it would have won first if Delee had made it, I didn't have the magic touch or something. But it is GOOD! I hope she won't be mad at me, but I think it should be shared with the world (she posted the recipe on her blog so I don't think I'm sharing top secret stuff). Not only is it so very yummy, but it's incredibly easy.

Delee's White Chili:

Saute 1 lb of chicken cut up in chunks and 1 medium onion in 1 1/2 TBS of oil

In a large pot put:

Sauteed chicken and onions
2 cans Great Northern Beans
1 can chicken broth
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1 cup water
1 can chopped green chili's
1 can Mexi-corn
1 tsp salt, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp pepper

Boil all ingredients

Just before serving add:
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 cup sour cream

You can serve with grated cheese and tortilla chips.