I Elfed Myself

Grandpa? or Santa Clause?

One afternoon while I was at my in-laws, Santa Clause came bounding through the door. Denton seemed to recognize Santa Clause right away. Julia kept her distance at first, not knowing what to think. Cody was shy and didn't want to look at Santa. Turns out, Denton was right! Grandpa Bonewell really was Santa Clause! The beard is real even. My kids have always been scared of Santa Clause, so this is the first time I was able to get pictures of the kids with Santa without them crying. I think Grandpa Bonewell made the perfect Santa Clause. Thanks! We love you Grandpa/Santa!

Little Rascal

I put Cody on the floor by the Christmas tree so that he could enjoy it while I put Denton and Julia to bed. He wasn't within arms reach of the presents however. When I came back to check on him, I found the little rascal trying to get into the presents. He's only 5 months old and he's up to trouble already :-)

Festive Pics

Count Down

Denton got this adorable Santa-count-down-to-Christmas chart at preschool. I'm really excited about it because we are using it as a count-down-until-daddy-comes-home too.

Smurfette

Julia came to me asking for a marker and a piece of paper. I grant her request and give her specific instructions: only color on the paper, not on the table, your clothes, or anything else... only on the paper. Up until now, the instructions have worked and my kids have always been really good about keeping it on the paper. Well, Julia decided to turn herself into a smurf. You can tell by her face that she knows she is in trouble.

Let's Bumbo!

Thank you Alisha, for letting us borrow the Bumbo! I was excited to put Cody in it, but he's so used to laying back and he was trying to lay back in the Bumbo. I put toys on the tray and he finally leaned forward into a comfortable position. He still only lasted 5 mintes, and that's ok with me. I'm in no hurry for my baby to grow up. I absolutely love this stage and I'm enjoying every minute. He's on a good schedule and we have a system down. Cody even sleeps 11 hours at night without waking up. I get him up at 7:30am to feed him. He smiles and giggles all the time. At 5 months he weighs 17 pounds, is 26 inches long, and is above the 95 percentile for weight, height, and head circumfrence.

The Whirlwind I call November

November came and went way too fast. I was happy to have Brandon home, but still didn't get to see as much of him as I would have liked. He made a total of 3 trips to Michigan, two were interviews and one was just to work in the ER of the residency program he is hoping to get into. Every spare minute was spent studying for boards (8 hour long test) that he took on Nov. 17th. We were excited for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was a glorious day of food and more food. I talked my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law into going to see New Moon with me Thanksgiving night. I really enjoyed the movie and found it to be much better than the first. Friday, we went to visit my parents and got to visit with Jared, my oldest brother, while I was there too. Friday night Julia and I got very, very sick. We had a very bad stomach flu. Without going into too much detail, I'll just say it gave the ol' abb muscles a work out. Saturday, Denton had his birthday party at Pirate Island Pizza. I wasn't able to go because Julia hadn't recovered from the flu, so I stayed home with her and Cody. I heard he had an awesome time. Thanks to all the family that came and brought gifts. Saturday night, Brandon and Denton got the nasty flu. Brandon was able to get up and go to Hadley's baby blessing while I stayed home with the sick kids again. Sunday evening we drove home and the kids slept all the way. I was glad to be home again, but Monday meant saying goodbye to Brandon until Christmas. He drove to New Mexico on Monday. Tuesday he made it the rest of the way to Oklahoma City. I hope this month goes by fast. Oh, my video camera broke so I bought one on ebay. I will soon have video of my handsome little Cody on here.

My Birthday

My Birthday was awesome this year! My friend Teresa babysat all the kids for 6 hours while Brandon and I went to dinner and Phantom of the Opera. It was so great to go out on a real date. I loved seeing Phantom. I loved hearing the live music so loud that it shook my insides. I can't believe how many special effects could be used on one stage. It was amazing! I have always been a fan of the music, but hearing it professionally sung was incredible.

Halloween 2009

On Thursday night I took the kids to their cousins school Halloween carnival. Denton and Julia had a blast. They played pumpkin bowling, fishing, cake walk, slimey worms and face painting. Aunt Jennifer actually painted Julia's and Denton's faces because the 2 teenagers where taking 5 years. Denton said his spider looked like a fly (sorry Jennifer :-) They had a punch card with 10 punches. When it was time for the party to end Denton started crying because he didn't get to use all of his punches. It was unusually cold for St. George and a lot of the activities were outside. By the end, I was exausted and wanted to just curl up under a blanket and go to sleep. It was a lot of fun though. Thanks for inviting us Turbow's!






I survived the month of October with no Brandon. I'm so glad to have him back! Saturday we picked him up at the airport and had a few hours to get him a costume and get ready for Halloween. Brandon was a blind ref. Denton was Optimus Prime and I was an angel (there are no pictures of my costume because I was the one holding the camera, and amongst the chaos, I forgot to get myself in a picture), and Cody was a sleeping baby. We went to the ward trunk-or-treat. The kids got a lot of candy and enjoyed seeing the other kids' costumes. We came home when we ran out of that stash of candy and started our at-home stash of candy. We had quite a few trick-or-treaters and Denton and Julia loved putting the candy in the tick-or-treaters bags.