Thursday, December 25, 2008

Ho! Ho! Ho!

For Christmas we got together at Andi and Jake's. The best part was watching baby Audrey enjoy her new toys.
As her Uncle Carl and her dad, Jake, rocked out to Guitar Hero, she followed along on her new piano.


Carl seemed to be happy with his new toy.


Nothing better for a "wanna be pimp" than a mega pimp glass.


This is Audrey's new set of wheels with a personalized license plate. This is Jake's new excuse for not washing dishes.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Say "Cheese"

We decided to attempt family pictures once again. The last time we had a family picture was about a year and a half ago. Since that picture, we've had two new additions to our family: Lyal's wife, Brandi (the cute blond), and Andrea and Jake's daughter, Audrie (the cute baby in the front).It wouldn't be a normal experience for us taking family pictures if we didn't have at least one picture expressing our real personalities.This is how we all honestly felt by the end of trying to make everyone smile!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Festival of Trees

For the past 6 or 7 years, my sister Andrea and I have been volunteering with the Festival of Trees. It's a huge fundraiser for Primary Children's Hospital. In addition to several other things, people decorate, or make trees and donate them to be auctioned off. The auction is held the first night of the event and then it is opened to the public to come see. Here are a couple of my favorite trees from this year.
This had a sports theme. In addition to the tree there were several tickets to sporting events, and lots of sporting equipment.This is a closer look at the tree made out of golf clubs. It was pretty awesome.
But, this was my favorite. It was made out of blown glass. There were glass ornaments in the trees in the background. The gifts on the floor were also made out of glass. The coolest part is that the lights in the display were all syncranized to music. I couldn't get enough of this tree. I was so fascinated by it.

Temple Square

One of my most favorite places is Temple Square when the Christmas lights are up. As a child, I remember going there often and being amazed. It's almost tradition and not quite Christmas if I don't go there at least once during the Christmas season. I've already been there once this year and am going again this weekend. I'm sure I'll go a couple more times before the year is over. The only thing that could make it better is actually being one of the couples who enjoys the magic of it all, rather than watching the couples who enjoy each other and Temple Square.
Top left to bottom right: Devin, Randall, McKell, Matt, Gentry, Me, Laura

"Party On Wayne"

3 of my friends share the same birthday... day, month and year. Rather than be jealous that my mom was not in cahoots with their moms when they planned to get pregnant, I decided to throw a party instead.






Because it's tradition to enjoy the helium balloons, we laughed as several friends perform a variety of songs, Papa Smurf style. We also enjoy lots of cake and ice cream and a banana cream pie, due to the request of one of the birthday boys.

Red Vines

A few weeks ago I gave my niece, Audrey, her first piece of licorice.


She started out just playing with it.

Then she discovered that it tastes good too.



Next came the face painting.

What a lovely work of art.

Then came the bath to hide the evidence that she attempted to paint herself red. I don't know who was more entertained by that piece of licorice. Audrey thoroughly enjoyed it and I laughed my head off watching her have fun.