Cookiepalooza!

This Saturday was our annual COOKIEPALOOZA Day! (The last Saturday before Christmas) We all headed over to Grandma Darlene's house on Saturday morning with ingredients to make one kind of cookie.

By the time everyone was done mixing, dipping, and dorking, we had some of these...
(Ours were cuter! Sorry, I forgot my camera. Not sure who made these ones!)

and some of these....(Ours were still cuter! We used crushed Andes mints on top.)

...and some yummy caramel oatmeal cookie bars and Grandma Hazel's homemade bread. (Okay, not a cookie, but any kind of baking is allowed on Cookiepalooza day!) YUMMY!

We're having my mom's whole family get-together Monday night, so we saved our treats for the party. Thanks, Mom, for letting us mess up your freshly cleaned kitchen! Thanks, Steph for being the head representative in charge of cookiepalooza. Thanks, kids, for beings so good!! We can't wait until next year.

Snow Day

Picture courtesy of LVRJ--this is the picture/announcement on their website.

The kids are SOOO happy to report that they have no school on Thursday! The funny thing is, as we get ready for bed, there's hardly any snow where we live. Hopefully the girls can go down to Grandma's while Dave and I work because she has about 6 inches in her yard!! I think I feel a little fever coming on...maybe I should "stay home" tomorrow. :)

Snow Fun!

So you may have heard by now that it snowed in Vegas today. I know, I know, this is an everyday occurrence where some of you live, but for us, it is such a novelty! Here are some of our antics in the snow today:

It all started when Morgan came home like a drowned rat!

No fair! It wasn't coming down at all when Ashley had to walk home!

Next, it was off to the park to play in the snow. Morgan begged Ashley not to get her wet. Do you think she listened? Look carefully at her hand!

Ashley, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less about getting wet!

AWWW! Look at that angel!!

No, we didn't build it. We don't even know how!


A snow beauty trying to stay warm. I love the color on these cute red faces!

Sisterly love!

Bye, snow! We'll miss you tomorrow!!

Let it Snow!

Holiday Fun

Here's a little bit of what we've been doing lately:

Making goodies...

Shopping with good friends...(Thanks Les and Al! We had so much fun!)

Dressing up....

And stepping out!!! (We're always waiting for Ashley to put on her shoes so we can leave.) :)

Hope your family is enjoying the holiday season!

Post-edit: Okay, now that I played my funny on Nicole, I have to be honest. I don't really have any friends! These are Nicole's friends that I ran into at Kohl's! We thought we were hilarious to post this. I really do like both of these girls...Nicole has great taste! Maybe we can really hang out sometime--Nicole, too of course!

Timber!!

Warning!! An innocent tree being demolished is documented in this post! If you are a tree-lover, who may become upset that the tree's owners have increased their carbon footprint by cutting down an oxygen-producing tree, please skip this post!!!

Going...

going...

gone!!!

This was the scene in front of my house today as my neighbor's nuisance-of-a-tree was removed. Like my friends up north love to tease, I am such a city girl, and was totally excited by the tree-shredder in the front yard. I was amazed at how this little tiny machine chewed up a massive pine tree and spit it out in minutes. I totally wanted to go help, but Dave assured me that was just weird.

Anyways, this tree has been a pain-in-the rear for the past 10 years. It killed the neighbor's lawn and ours in the early stages of our residency. We all wised up and got desert landscape after fighting the menace for about seven years. The house next door then went through some sad times and no one took care of anything for over a year. My new front yard was soon covered in needle droppings that could not be reckoned with. Imagine our relief when a cute family finally moved in next door and began picking up after the monster. The wife soon found that she had a full-time job of cleaning up after this thing and decided enough was more than enough. Hence the scene above.

When Morgan got home from school today, she was like, "The tree is gone! My childhood memories are destroyed." I didn't know she had sentimental attachments to the neighbor's tree. When I inquired further, she said that she and Ashley and Abigail (our old neighbor), used to tie jump ropes around their waists and try to shimmy up the tree. Apparently, there is also a group of magical fairies that lived in the tree. I wonder where the fairies are going to live now. It was cute to hear Morgan recalling some of her fond childhood memories.

Oh well, if the fairies haven't heard, it's a buyer's market right now. I know where they could get a killer deal on three very tall palm trees!!

Ashley just read this post and told me that leprechauns also lived in the tree. Sorry! I want to give the leprechauns their fair credit!

Oh yeah....

And we've been enjoying a lot of good Jesse time. This is Jesse on my lap on Thanksgiving. He is such a lover! Thanks for learning how to share, Misha!

It's not still Veteran's Day???

Are you sure? I have no idea where the time has gone!!! What have we been up to?

Right before Veteran's Day, I was called to be the first counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. The out-going presidency had several things on the calendar in November, so we decided to keep all of their dates in place and WHOA! I feel like all of November was a blur. I also took a few trips to Reno during that time that threw the whole schedule off! (But I'm loving my new job!!)

Dave just started a new job at the new Wynn property, which is set to open December 22nd. He's been training full-time during the day, and working his other job full-time at night. Needless to say, he is something like a walking zombie, and I'm picking up all of the slack at home. We are just grateful that during this time when so many people we know are out of work that he has not one, but two, full-time jobs!

Morgan and Ashley have been working hard getting ready for Aladdin Jr. Next week I'll be snapping some sneak-peek photos of the set. It's pretty awesome this year! We have some dates now:

Ashley's production is Tuesday, January 13th at 5:00 and 7:30. Morgan will actually be

in Ashley's show, as well as her own, as Ashley's cast doesn't have any narrators.

Morgan's production is Monday, January 19th at 4:00 and 7:00.

Let me know if you want tickets! We are so grateful for Margie and ALL that she does for our girls!

Other than that, we've been decorating for Christmas, shopping (missed you at 4:00 am, Shane!), baking cookies, and Twilighting. Hope everyone is happy and healthy this holiday season. We love you all!

A Jacob Fan

An Edward Fan

And me? I'm just the monkey-in-the-middle!