Halloween already

I know, I suck at updating the blog. It is one of my biggest sources of guilt! So here are some Halloween pics, I hope you like. It was a little unfortunate, our playoff game got moved from that Saturday before Halloween, to Halloween night. Not much you can do with mother nature dumping snow in October! So we were a little rushed that night but here are the pics:

Adam's Temple Day

Don't these look like lovely pictures? They sure are! Jeremy's baby brother went to the Temple in preparation for his mission to Bolivia-Cochabamba. There was a good bit of planning to get us all there on a day when Dad and Jeremy could both get off work, and Mandy was gracious enough to watch all 5 kids (3 of hers plus our 2).
The irony that on the way to the Temple we were almost killed. Now don't worry, I'm not making light of a potentially dangerous situation, but it was certainly memorable. Jeremy was driving and I was in the back seat on the passenger side. We were approaching the exit for the Temple off the beltway and Jeremy was one lane over from the exit lane, and we were in a bit of traffic. Being the kind wife that I am, I most delightfully asked him if he knew the exit was in less than a mile and suggested he get over one lane. Well, I didn't realize that all the traffic was making him a bit stressed so he snapped back some question asking if I thought he was an idiot, and he reminded me how many times he has been to the Temple. I think he may have asked if I trusted him or not. Well, honey, of course I trust you, but the 12-axle truck to our right may keep you from getting off at the correct exit. Which, of course, it did. And, of course, it was my fault. And if you know anything about the Washington D.C. beltway near the Temple, getting off at the next exit doesn't get you back on the beltway. It gets you onto a 4 lane highway with no possibility of a u-turn for a least a mile. We anxiously drove that mile, knowing we had a Temple appointment to get to. We finally turned left at a light with a gas station on the left corner and a residential neighborhood 100 yards behind it. At this point, Jeremy wanted to U-turn on this side street to get back to the 4-lane highway so we could get back to the beltway. He did this by moving toward the right shoulder to make room to u-turn left. When he (I say he didn't put his blinker on, he says he did...no matter) veered right, the guy behind him tried to pass him on the left and as we turned left, we almost t-boned him. If we were in Williamsport, that guy might break, throw his hands in the air, wave us on, and we'd all go on our way. Not outside of D.C. The guy did NOT break, almost goading us on to actually hit him, until we both came to a stop. Jeremy veered right towards the residential neighborhood so we could turn around there, and at this point, the guy got out of his car. When we turned around to head toward the gas station, he was in the middle of the lane we were in. There was no way to avoid him. Like we were going to stop and chat with this guy! So, Jeremy went to the right of him and he POUNDED HIS HAND ON TOP OF THE VAN WHEN WE DROVE BY!! Who does that? So we are at the light, we turn right to head back to the beltway, and this guy gets in his car and drives 60 m.p.h. and is on our tail. Seriously? Oh, and he's on the phone, no doubt calling his posse to come track us down. Now we are starting to freak out. He follows us for a good bit and Mom gets his license plate number off the front of his bumper, and we are trying to figure out when is too soon to call the police. We pull into the left lane to move a little faster, and he pulls up next to us on the right. You could tell my his body language he was really mad and was wanting to inflict harm on us. We jockey for the lead and then as we slow down to try to lose him, he breaks so that we are both nearly stopped on this road. What the heck is happening here?!?! Jeremy quickly pulls into a turning lane to his left and the other guy is slightly in front of us at this point and since he can't get behind our van to follow us, he turns right at the intersection, and then u-turns so that he can follow us once we turn left at this light, if you can picture this. It is at this point that I really wish I carried a concealed weapon. Where's Jon when you need him? Once the green light turns yellow, Jeremy pulls out of the turn lane and goes straight through the light. And since this guy was 3 cars back on the side road and boxed by other vehicles, he can't follow us. We went to the next light, turned right into a residential neighborhood, made as many turns and got as lost as possible, and pulled over to breathe.

Of course, we made it to the Temple fine. You can see by the 'after' pictures that it was a wonderfully spiritual event. But I'm sure every time we talk about the day Adam went to get his endowments, there will be a vivid re-creation of our road rage incident. Oh, and did I mention the part about being in the celestial room with my family? And how it was really neat, after losing my own brother at age 12, to see Adam, who I met when he was 8, grow up before my own eyes these last 11 years and be with him when we went to the Temple for himself for the first time? Yeah, that was pretty cool too.

December Christmas activities

Okay, I'm getting caught up on the Christmas portion of the blog. These are a little out of order which is the one thing I hate about Blogger and I just don't have the patience to move them all because it's too annoying! Anyhow, this is a quick snapshot of the 'kid table' for Christmas Day dinner.

And the 'adult table'. I even busted out the chargers for under the plates!

Jon got the coolest present with a beach shirt and matching ones for the dogs:
Brynn was pretty proud of the apron that Aunt Mandy sewed:
The beloved 'Barbie Glam Vacation Jet':
We got our first 'real' Christmas tree and it really did make our house feel extra special:
On Christmas Eve, Jeremy wanted to add to the Taco Night theme and we made some home made pinatas. One was an alien, one was a unicorn, and one was a soccer ball. Some fared better than others to the little girls swings but they were totally fun:



It was a phenomenal Christmas season, every part of it. It was really precious to see Brynn and Elyse have so much fun with Edie and Allison. Their bond grows every time they see each other. It definitely felt like a piece was missing without Matt, Regen, Kenley, and Brisen and look forward each day until the Beach House on June 11th, which Brynn asks about at least every other day. We love our family so much!

December pre-Christmas

atSo my friend Melissa and I decided to have a birthday party for Jesus. Now that both the girls understood what some of the worldly Christmas traditions were, I thought it was good to get to the root of it all. We made birthday "funfetti" cupcakes (their favorite) and acted out the Christmas story, complete with burlap costumes. The cutest part was when we were shopping at Wegmans the week before and Brynn asked if we should get a card for Jesus since it was his birthday. She had a cute 'My Little Pony' one all picked out! These are the kids all dressed up:
While I was working on Christmas cards, Brynn made some paper clothes out of construction paper for Elyse. She now has all of them neatly organized in the dresser in the office.

And Tracy learned how to do Sand Art Brownies and other baked goods in a jar at Enrichment. So we made this our neighbor/friend gift for Christmas. We had a huge assembly line across the kitchen and Elyse's job was to level off the cup of flour. She thought the flour was for body painting.
Elyse was able to join in the fun at Brynn's nursery school Christmas party:

And Brynn with Santa...it was much fore fun this year as she didn't think Santa was out to get her:
The best part is this is the same Santa that Brynn had spoken to 3 weeks prior and asked for a "Barbie Glam Vacation Jet." And she deserves the credit for having faith that Santa would pull through after all the good choices she had been making. So when she got a smaller, Jasmine Polly Pocket Doll, she quickly said,"This isn't what I asked for?" I had to explain that the Jet takes a long time to make and this was just a smaller present until Christmas morning!

Not even close

Yes, I know I'm a lame blogger. My heart wants me to update the blog every week...it just never happens. So I'm not even going to try to sum up since my last blog post last July, I'm just going to cover last month. I think it's a nice compromise. We'll start with our Florida trip, which was December 1st-7th. In case you weren't aware, my parents sold their regular house and bought one near Orlando. They spend the winter there and then come back in the spring to spend the summer and some fall months at the lake house on Lake Ontario. It's a sweet deal for them, as they have worked uber hard their whole lives and deserve a nice retirement, and it's sweet for us because we have free housing and transportation in the kid capital of the world known as Disney.

Above is a picture of us at Disney, the first time for, not only Jer, but the girls, too! And with us is an old babysitter of mine who now works at Disney, named Anna.And we went to Sea World, which we all loved...aren't they so cute?!?


And even though there were tons of live animals, Elyse just loved "riding the dolphin".

What an experience to see the whale show and know that one of the trainers was killed there last year. Very emotional! I felt like I was about to cry the whole time.