Stockings?

I mean, they are stockings right?

We also put up and decorated our tree. We have never had a tree before and I am so thrilled with this one. I know it looks kind of skinny and maybe a little pathetic, but I seriously love it so much!

"You just decorated a Christmas tree, what are you going to do now?" Stand here against the wall and pretend like we aren't having fun.

The Great Thanksgiving trip

We had such a great time in Virginia for Thanksgiving. Thank you so much Nancy and Richard, Mom and Dad, and Kevin and Kelly. They made the trip truly wonderful for us. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Nancy's house followed by a movie with Grant's school projector on their living room wall (does it get much better than that?) Friday Margaret was kind enough to watch the kids while we had a day out with Bryan, Anna, Reed and Kyle. We went to Tyson's Corner and did a little shopping. I've never gone any where near a retail establishment on Black Friday, but it actually was quite fun. Friday night included dinner and a short Christmas program at Grant and Margaret's. Saturday included the watching of the BYU vs Utah football game at Kevin and Kelly's. GO COUGARS!! Apparently Roger and I put on quite a show while watching the game. If the Utes and Cougars could quit playing heart stoppers, we wouldn't make such fools of ourselves. We had a great time even with the humiliation! We left for home late Saturday night.



We had such a great time. Thank you Chris and Kim for letting us stay at your house, it was so great. We miss all our friends and family in Virginia so much. I caught myself a couple of times wondering why we ever moved.



The other great thing I did while in Virginia was cut off my hair! About a year ago I cut off 10 inches of hair to donate to Locks of Love. My hair was getting longer and longer and was driving me more and more crazy. I didn't have quite 10 inches to donate but luckily I found out about Pantene's new Beautiful Lengths program. They only need 8 inches. Anna agreed to cut off my hair. It's shorter than I've ever had it before and I love it! Luckily hair is not one of those things that I feel emotionally attached too. I plan on cutting it off to donate again as soon as I can. It's something that's easy for me to do, so why not do it? I may not be very good about donating time and money, but I sure can donate hair!


The boys (by boys I mean Kevin, Bryan and Roger) made this game more for themselves, but it got taken over by the grand kids. Avery was very serious about it.

Before, man that hair needs to be cut!

During the cut. You maximize hair to donate with more ponytails and really it's quite a fashion statement.

After. I was very done having my picture taken. Anna did a good job huh?

Wouldn't it be more interesting?

I was up way too late last night doing what I do that keeps me up way to late... getting sucked into the black hole known as the blogosphere. I was reading a few different blogs and I like to look at writers profiles. As I was doing that I had an overwhelming urge to throw up. I'm not a normally cynical person, but give me a break. How many times do I have to read that so and so likes to read, to cook, go to church and spend quality time with their children. Alright already. I guess it's mostly my own insecurity and inferiority that's making me pick on poor blogging women. Wouldn't it be more interesting if in profiles we read about peoples weaknesses and funny things that happened to them? I think you can tell a lot more about a person's character with things like that. That's why I've update my profile. What do you think? Are you in?

Haircuts

It was time for hair cuts this week, or rather haircuts were way over due and I decided to do something about it this week. I had one of my haircutting fears come true. I was cutting Avery's hair and was doing OK but soon realized I was cutting more and more off. When I combed the hair in front of her face to compare the left side with the right side, one side was much, much longer. I had to just about start over and cut all of it again. Her hair ended up really short, but we actually really like it. Every morning when she would wake up, pre-haircut, her hair looked like she'd been rubbing her head back and forth over her pillow all night. Post-haircut, not so much. It's actually easy to comb and she doesn't get as mad at me, that's a definite plus! Ashby's hair could be shorter. She wanted it really short, but then wants to wear ponytails. So now it's long enough that it still gets in her face and bothers her but it's just a little too short for a ponytail. Looks like she's headed for a mullet, that's the only solution right? Here are the before and afters.

Avery before in her favorite place in the house. I like how she has pulled the computer monitor all the way to the edge of the desk. Apparently she has a hard time seeing it when it's back two inches....

Ashby before. We got these fun hats after Halloween, so she had to ride the rocking horse and sing at the top of her lungs.

Both girls after. For whatever reason they smile like this when I ask them too. No real smiles here anymore, just fake ones.

Weekend of great theater

Friday night Roger and I were able to go to Midland, PA to watch Reed (Roger's nephew) in a production of 42nd Street. It was so amazing. He was so amazing. We went to the same place to see him in Cats and I really enjoyed this one more. (both were great, of course) Reed is truly so talented and I count myself very lucky to get to see him perform.

A very pleasant side effect from 42nd street was that we got to see Richard and Nancy and their family as well as Grant and Margaret who were in town to see the play. It was very fun to have Richard and Nancy stay with us. I don't think I saw our kids almost the whole weekend, they were very busy with Naomi. Of course I forgot to take pictures, but we had a great time!

The other theatrical event (I use the term loosely) we witnessed was our ward's primary program. When Ashby was younger I couldn't wait until she was primary age just so that I could see her in the program. Believe me, she didn't disappoint. You know how there's always that kid that sings louder than every one else and slightly off tune? You know how there's always that other kid who picks their nose while on the stand? Well I am very happy to report that she was both of those kids! I attribute the loud off key singing to her age. She did know all the words at least, but she doesn't quite understand things like key and pitch (wait, I don't either....). She had several lines that she memorized and said almost perfectly. She had the first speaking part in the program, she did great. She loves all of the primary songs and knew them all quite well. It was so fun to see her doing something that she loves. I look forward to many years of fantastic primary programs! I didn't get a picture of her on Sunday so this will have to do.

Green week

OK I know I watch too much TV, because I happen to know that NBC is doing a green week. They have done things like leave the lights off in the studio during Sunday Night Football halftime and post game. They said that saved enough energy to power a household for a month. The contestants on The Biggest Loser worked out for a whole week without electricity. And so on. I always say that I'm an activist at heart. Things like global warming always pull at my heart strings, but not enough for me to do anything about it. You could say I'm a passive-activist (he, he, he). Anyway NBC green week got me thinking about somethings that I can to better to conserve, recycle and reuse. So here's my list (by no means am I doing this to toot my own horn, rather to keep brainstorming about ways to improve).

When we moved into the house in March we saw that we had grape vines. I was kind of grouchy about it at first because I thought it would just be messy and annoying. However when the grapes started growing, we got excited. We were able to can about 24 quarts of grape juice. It was our first experience with something like this and we loved it. It was nice to get something from your own property, i.e. free!

While my parents were here, my dad helped Roger build a garden box. Gardening wasn't something I was ever too interested in doing, but lots of people do it around here and I now think it's way cool. We have a little yard, but we will make the most of it. We also started a compost pile. Roger will probably build two more boxes in the spring. We are just doing a little at a time.

This is now my new favorite thing. Giant Eagle has these reusable bags that you can buy to cut down on the use of plastic grocery bags. We all know it takes forever for those to decompose. These bags are quite a good size so I won't need as many.

I'm sure I am making a lot of people laugh with this post because these things are probably not that significant, but it's a place to start. Our borough doesn't offer recycling, but there are places to recycle paper and some plastics nearby. Little by little we are doing better.

What tips and ideas do you have to make a difference, big or small?

Halloween

Introducing Princess Avs and Panda Ashby. I thought they looked pretty darn cute. It apparently is serious business posing for photos on Halloween, no one would smile. Some of the definite highlights of the day were:

• Avery and I going to the grocery store, she was the only one in costume and got lots of oohs and ahhs.
• Avery's dress was long on her so she would hold it up in the front when she walked. She did that with a royalty like reverence, it was so funny.
• The weather was unbelievably good for trick or treating. Neither girl needed a jacket, long sleeved shirts did the trick.
• When the girls would trick or treat, they wouldn't hold their pumpkins up to let our neighbors put the treats in, they just held them in front of their bodies. The girls are short, so the poor people had to bend practically to the ground to land the treats in the pumpkins.
• We managed to hand out all of our candy (really we left it in a bowl on the porch while we were talking to our neighbors and it mysteriously vanished....)
• The girls did actually fall asleep prior to midnight. Hopped up on all that candy, I thought we'd be in for a long one!