December - Raking Leaves, Festival of Trees and Christmas Trees

December flew by! We started the month out with Jacob and I going with friends, Marcia and Andrea and their kids, Kate and Connor,to Festival of Trees. I had a good time chasing Jacob and trying to help him realize that no, he could not go under the ropes and touch the toys.

So after looking at trees we took Jacob and Connor over to the kid's section and they got to "fish."
Mom wished she had looked at what the fishing "treats" were before encouraging the activity--they were "Dumb Dumb" suckers. At this point in my life I do not think suckers and 2 years olds should be in the same room. But alas, he had fished it out and I was not going to spoil his fun.

We had a very warm and long fall season this year and so the leaves had not fallen off the trees before the first snow fall. Once that snow had melted some leaves fell and we got them raked up. But the tree in the back yard still had about 1/2 it's leaves still on. Finally at the beginning of the month, most of them had fallen. So the 2nd week of December we were out raking the second batch before the next snow storm. Just seemed weird to be raking leaves in December!

December also brought the celebration of my Dad's 79th birthday,
visiting Santa Claus (which went pretty well if Santa had a little treat to distract Jacob from the fact that he was sitting on his lap). If you look at his face he is cautiously allowing Santa to talk to him.

We celebrated Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Safsten's house. Jacob was Joseph during the Christmas story. He got a car map that he can drive his cars on from Grandpa Safsten. It has Gr. Safsten and Gr. Wong's houses on it as well as other sites for his cars to drive to.

Christmas morning with Jacob was fun! He came down and saw his gift from Santa--a tool bench and he was very excited to play with it! He also got a train set and a Magna Doodle.


Christmas day we spent at Jason's dad's house with the cousins.We opened presents and had a nerf gun battle.


New Year's Eve is upon us--amazing that 2010 is over. Happy New Year!!

Can't Believe November is over!

The month has gone fast. It began with beautiful weather and has ended with a ton of snow!!

We had a good Thanksgiving. I decided to do a craft with Jacob and we (mostly I) made little place markers for Thanksgiving day dinner. Jacob helped with the glue and did a good job. After that he just wanted to play with the googley eyes.

We spent Thanksgiving at my sister, Heidi's house. My parents were there and we had a fun and relaxing day. Dinner was so good and Jacob got to sit at the kids table with his cousin Olivia.

After dinner, while we were visiting, some of the kids went in to play with the Wii. Jacob, wanting to be in the thick of it, grabbed the TV remote and ran around the room waving it so he could be "playing" with the kids.

Jason took a vacation day on Monday. We had about 6 inches of snow on Sunday night so we put on the snow gear and walked down to the park to sled with Jacob. This really was my first time too. "What!" you say? "You're how old and haven't gone sledding?" And I probably wouldn't have gone yesterday, except that Jason has snow pants I could use, and, last year, we bought some boots for me. My "normal" snow clothes are a coat and boots to get me from the car to where ever I need to be. You also have to remember that I grew up in California and did not see snow until my freshman year at BYU. To you who grew up with snow that seems weird...just like it is weird to me that kids grow up without seeing the ocean!


It was fun to see Jacob sled down, get up and be so deep in the snow that he couldn't move.

We also decorated (semi decorated depending on which decorations I was willing to put up, knowing Jacob would be touching and rearranging all month) for Christmas. Jacob thought it was so exciting to get the tree out and put things on it!
Can't believe tomorrow is December!!

Halloween

Since Jacob doesn't really take naps anymore I am finding it hard to blog. Nap time = blog time. That is why I am behind. I think between this blog and the previous one, I am caught up. :)

This weekend one of Jason's old college roommates, Robert, his wife, Rachael and I went up to The Homestead to stay overnight. Robert and Rachael happened upon the grand opening of the Deserest Book flagship store downtown back in May. They were having drawings so they threw their names in. They were drawn out for several overnight stays at The Homestead and they invited us as their guests. We had dinner, went in the pool and hot tub and had a good night's sleep. Got up leisurely, had breakfast, walked around the grounds, went on a short hike, before heading back to our little bambino. It was fun to get away, but fun to get back to Jacob too!

Jason's dad and Mary watched Jacob over night while we went up. We took him to their house in the afternoon and they were going to take him home to have him sleep in his own bed. Mary said she'd ask him if he was ready to go home and he said, "No." She waited and asked again. He said, "No." So she asked him if he wanted to have an adventure at Grandma's and sleep over. He did and slept on the floor by grandma's bed. She said he did great!

Saturday night we celebrated Halloween. Jake was a race car driver. I took him up our street to trick-or-treat at the neighbors before we went to Grandma and Grandpa Wong's to trick-or-treat and see cousins. This age is so fun!

Fall Fun

September and October have been beautiful this year...so Jacob and I took advantage of it and did fun things.

In September we went to This is the Place Heritage Park with Tamsin and Emma. We rode the train We LOVED the petting zoo

















Rode horses Panned for gold Went to the school house By the end of the day our little pioneer children were very tired as they walked, and walked, and walked and walked...
We love This is the place. Right now it provides great bang for my "buck!"

We also went to the Zoo. This picture is the same place and basically the same pose as 2 years ago when Tamsin and I went to the Zoo with the kids.

We rode the carrosel. And played on the slide.

In October we went to Thanksgiving Point with the cousins We painted pumpkins We took a horse ride and looked at the decorations

We went to Park City and played in the pool

Please note, he is in the pool with dad. As a child I never understood why my dad always took us swimming and my mom only went once in a while. Men swim, shower, shake their hair dry and are off. Women swim, shower, do make-up, blow dry hair, curl hair....I get it why mom preferred to send the 6 of us off with dad while she stayed home. :)

We went again to This is the Place Heritage Park for Little Haunts. This time with Andrea and Connor. They had a fun trick-or-treat set up with a maze of doors. Some had people behind the doors and when the kids knocked they opened the door and gave them candy We did the petting zoo again rode the train and had a great time!

Later in the month I met up with some friends from our old singles ward. Terri and Debbie. Terri has 2 boys and Debbie has a boy and 2 girl twins! We went to Gardener Village to see the witches.

The very next week we went from this type of weather....
 .......to this!










Our trees still have leaves on them and some branches were touching the ground from the weight of the snow. We got 7" over night.

It has been a fun fall!

Things They Don't Tell You about Food Storage

You hear a lot about how you need to store food, rotate it, try it so your family isn't thrown for a loop when you HAVE to use it, etc...

What they don't tell you is how to get it open! I tried three can openers this morning to use powdered milk in my pancake mix and this is the result.

Pancakes tasted fine...my sliced finger did not AND I still have to figure out how to get the rest of the lid off the can!!