The Rest of Our Trip

The grandkids

back row: Spencer, Aneya, Audrey, Carter

 front row: Ivan, Jordan, Jeremiah, Bennett, Lincoln

The Birthday Party

Jared, Rob, Aaron, Kelly, Melissa, Bennett, Ryan, Audrey, Spencer

The boy went shooting out in the dessert on Saturday afternoon

The Shooting Party

Melissa, Rob, Kelly, Chuck, Carter, Aaron, Jared, Jordan, and Ryan taking the picture

Grandpa and Uncle Kelly on the swing with Ivan and Lincoln

I went in one night and found Lincoln sleeping like this

Jeremiah, Lincoln, and Ivan in the tub

The Whole Crew

Back Row: Chuck, Debbie, Krystal, Stacey, Bennett, Rob, Jeremiah, Melissa, Ryan, Lisa, Jared, Jordan, Kelly

Front Row: Carter, Ivan, Aaron, Lincoln, Aneya, Audrey, Spencer

We had a wonderful trip! I guess I'd better admit that Arizona is actually quite nice in the winter time. Thank you Stacey and Rob for hosting this little (haha) get-together. We had a blast.

Other items worth noting: On the drive home we almost ran over a flock (?) of wild turkeys. It was the most random thing. And as they were flying out of our way (they don't fly very quickly), Lincoln yells, unprompted from the backseat, "Turkeys everywhere!" It was so funny. We made it home safely in about 10 hours.

Not Your Typical Thanksgiving

 This Thanksgiving was one of the most memorable Thanksgivings ever, I think. Like I mentioned in my last post, we drove to Phoenix, Arizona to spend it with Aaron's sister Stacey and her family. We brought Kelly and Ryan and Ryan's girlfriend Melissa with us. Debbie, Aaron's mom, was already there. Aaron's sister Lisa and her husband Jared and their four kids drove in from Washington, and Chuck, Aaron's dad, flew in Thanksgiving morning. Everyone on Aaron's side was there except Sydni and Jake and their two boys. Lots of us stayed at Stacey and Rob's and some also stayed next door at the neighbor's house (he was gone).

Thanksgiving morning all the guys went out back to help Rob spread gravel to make a cool pieced granite section in their backyard. They all looked to cute with their safety glasses and hammers. :) Lincoln thought he was so helpful to dig in the dirt along side the older guys. I had to keep reminding him not to put the dirt clods on the newly spread gravel.


Ivan and Jeremiah had fun crawling around on the floor together. They got along really well. I think Ivan weighs about the same as Jeremiah does. They are only about 5 months apart. It was really cute to watch them play together. Lincoln had a fun time hanging out with all the older cousins too. He loved following them around and trying to do what they were doing. Maybe it's because I live in an apartment, but in Stacey's house, even with all the people constantly running around, I never felt like we were crowded in. It must be so nice to have a house. :)

At one point in the morning, Ryan told the kids that he would let them throw him in the next door neighbor's pool, if they could get him to it. I'm sure he figured that this was impossible and that he was pretty safe; however, he did not count on the kids enlisting Melissa for help. With her help, they dragged him to the front door of Stacey's house, lifted him into a wheelbarrow, wheeled him over to the neighbor's house, got him out of the wheelbarrow, and threw him in the pool. It was all pretty entertaining to watch. I think most of the kids got thrown in afterwards, but somehow Melissa managed to stay dry.

During the time everyone was watching Ryan get thrown into the pool, Lincoln was supposed to be taking a nap in Stacey's room (Stacey and Rob let our family sleep in their masterbedroom while we were there. It felt like staying in a castle.) instead he was doing this:

Getting into Stacey's nail polish and spreading it EVERYWHERE. All over him, all over his clothes, all over Stacey's carpet. Nail polish. Grrrrr.....I could have killed him. I put him in the bath tub and did my best to scrub it all off, while Aaron and Lisa and Jared tried to get all the nail polish out of the carpet. If I could only pick one thing for the nail polish to come out of right away it would have been the carpet. Thankfully my wish came true, somehow they managed to get all the bright red nail polish out of the light tannish carpet. Lincoln wasn't so lucky. We tried our best, but it gets to a point where leaving it on his face is less cruel than trying to scrub it off his face. So much for getting a picture of the family to send out with the Christmas cards.

It was my job to make the rolls for dinner this year. Last time it was our turn to be with Aaron's family for Thanksgiving two years ago, I also got assigned the rolls, and I burned them. I'm surprised they let me try again. But I'm glad they did, because I think I redeemed myself. :) They turned out really well, if I do say so myself. Dinner was fantastic. All the food was just as good as you anticipate it to be. And we stuffed ourselves. Then we had about 8 different kinds of pie to choose from for dessert. They were all so good. My contribution was a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pecan pie. I'd never made it before, but the picture on bakerella.com (can you tell this is my new favorite web site?) looked too good to pass up, and it was. I'll try to post the recipe later. Everyone made fun of me because I had made the pie in Provo before we left, and it had to travel all the way to Arizona with us in the cooler. I'd say it was worth it though.

At some point during the day, someone asked Melissa if her family had any Thanksgiving traditions. She said that she and her siblings like to get out the leaf blower and blow it in each others faces while snapping pictures. I guess we must all really like Melissa, and wanted to make her feel at home, because you'll never guess what we did. Yup. Rob got out the leaf blower and we ALL took turns posing in front of it, even Chuck and Debbie. Ya. I felt that it was only appropriate of me to post the pictures of Aaron and I. Everyone else can decide for themselves. It was pretty funny. What would be even funnier was if Melissa was making it up the whole time that it was her families tradition, just to see what we would do. Haha.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was great to have so much family around. And I'm glad that we got to do some really memorable things together. Well, except for scrubbing nail polish out of the carpet, but what ya gonna do?

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

The Drive

to Arizona for Thanksgiving Break. Me, Aaron, Lincoln, Ivan, Kelly, Ryan, and Melissa all in one van:

...and that's about as exciting as it got, except for the time I did a Chinese Firedrill with Lincoln, and when we got stuck for an hour crossing the Hoover Dam, but Kelly has those pictures on his camera, so I'll have to get them later. But the important thing is that we arrived safely. :) The trip took about 11 hours.

Aaron's Birthday...Part III: The Real Deal

Aaron enjoying some Brick Oven rootbeer

Happy Birthday Aaron!! Today you are 26, wow, and only a few gray hairs, not bad. Especially after spending three years with me ;) This morning, if everything would have gone according to plan, I would have gotten up and made you a delicious breakfast in bed; however, due to the fact that our children refuse (both of them) to sleep through the night, I wasn't quite able to follow through with the plan.

I'm sure that your favorite part about your birthday was hanging around the apartment complex to supervise the dryer vent cleaning. Probably a birthday first, eh? We did enjoy having you pop in and out though. :) The thought had crossed our minds to come and see you for lunch, but the dryer vent cleaning people barely finished up in time for us to run to the grocery store to get the ingredients needed for your birthday surprise dessert before nap time. We thought about you though, while we ate our Spaghetti O's.

Aaron's Birthday Oreo Truffles

I know we've been having a lot of desserts lately with all this celebrating that's been going on for your birthday, and I know we are going to have even more over Thanksgiving break, but I got really excited about this recipe I found on bakerella.com and I know how much you love Oreos, so to surprise you I thought I'd try it out. Here you go: Oreo Truffles. A whole package of Oreos blended in the blender, mixed with an 8 oz. package of cream cheese, scooped out into little balls, and frozen for a half hour, then dipped in melted chocolate, and written on with white chocolate. It took me all afternoon. The lettering didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. I cut the hole in the corner of the bag bigger than I should have, and I very slightly burnt the white chocolate melting it in the microwave, so it was a little bit chunky. But over all I'm pretty proud of these.

I'm glad that when you got home from work/school, our little family went out to Brick Oven for pizza. I felt like finally we were doing something special to celebrate your day. And Brick Oven pizza never disappoints. I think both Lincoln and Ivan had a good time too.

I know you think I'm silly, because Lincoln and Ivan aren't really old enough to pick out presents for you yet, so I do it for them, but I really don't want them to be left out. :) I decided that they should give you books, similar to the ones we gave Kelly, Ender's Shadow and Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card. I seriously considered getting you Ender's Game, because I know you like it so much, but I figured that you've already read it and the other one (Speaker for the Dead), and you haven't read these two. I'm also glad that Ryan and Melissa (Ryan's girlfriend) and Kelly came over to help us eat our truffles, because there is no way we could have eaten them all by ourselves. They are very rich.

Anyways, here's to you Aaron! Happy Birthday Sweetheart. I hope dispite it being mostly ordinary, that you still had a wonderful day. I love you!

-Krystal

PS

Aaron's Birthday...Part II: Kelly's Birthday

Aaron and Kelly after blowing out their candles at Richard and Debby's house in Provo, UT

Today was Kelly's birthday. Aaron and Kelly are twins, but Kelly was born on the 22nd and Aaron on the 23rd, so they have their own birthday. Pretty cool hu? Aunt Debby invited us, Kelly, Whitney, Bryan, and Aunt Karen all over for a birthday celebration. She served roast beef and potatoes and carrots and Karen brought a tasty salad. All the food was wonderful. For dessert there was apple pie (Aaron's b-day dessert choice) and Better Than "S" Cake (Kelly's b-day dessert choice), with ice cream. Yum! It was fun to see the Taylor side (Whitney, Bryan, Karen) of the family because we haven't seen them in a really long time. And it's always good to see Richard and Debby.

After dinner and dessert came presents! Kelly took Aaron shooting last Saturday for his present. So we gave Kelly his. The books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, both by Orson Scott Card. They are book that Aaron really enjoyed reading, so we thought Kelly would too. We also gave Aunt Debby and Aunt Karen Christmas table runners that my mom taught me how to sew, they are so cute. Then I let Aaron open his present from me a day early. Mostly because I was storing it at Kelly's house and Kelly brought it over. :)

After that our kids were getting out of control. So it was time to say goodbye and go home to put them to bed. Debby sent almost an entire apple pie home with us. I guess everyone must have eaten Kelly's cake. When we got home and the kids were all tucked in and sleeping, Aaron made an attempt to put his present together. Things were going well until he came to a part where he had to hammer something in, and then we decided that it wouldn't be worth waking up the kids just then.

Aaron's Birthday...Part I: The Beginning

The fam (minus Jackson who is taking the picture) at Los Hermanos in Provo, UT

For my stepdad Kerry's birthday earlier in the year, we gave him tickets to the BYU football game vs. Air Force. So today Mom and Kerry and Tanner came down and went with Aaron and I to the game. Jackson came over and baby sat Lincoln and Ivan because it was way too cold for them to go, plus they would have made me buy a ticket for Lincoln. The game was fun and freezing and BYU dominated, woo-hoo!

Then, since the fam was already in town anyway, Mom and Kerry took us out to dinner at Los Hermanos for Aaron's birthday. We went home, picked up Lincoln and Ivan and Juice, and called Kyle and his girlfriend Kelsey and we all met up at Los Hermanos for some tasty Mexican cuisine. We told them it was Aaron's birthday, so he got some fried ice cream for free.

Krystal serving Aaron his birthday brownies

After dinner everyone (except Jackson, who had had enough family socializing by this point) came back to our house and we had brownies and ice cream. We opened Aaron's present from Mom and Kerry, which was a router. Yay! Now Aaron can finish making our night stand that's been sitting uncompleted in our bedroom for the last 5 months. After that we played an intense round of Disney Trivia. Somehow Kyle (and the boys team) managed to win again. (Kyle has only lost at Disney Trivia about 3 times in his whole life, and we play A LOT.)

Aaron showing off his new router

Jackson (aka Juice Box)                    Gramma Tam, Ivan, and Papa Kerry

Stew Lemmon Day 2009

 Me, Juice, Ivan, and a little bit of Linc in the car after Sizzler

For those of you who are new to the blog since last year, I'll do a small recap for you. Stew Lemmon Day is a holiday invented by our good friends the Ropelatos. Each year on Sept 13, we remember the life of my Dad by eating stew and lemon pie (some years I substitute in lemonade) for dinner and sharing our memories of him. This will the the 7th year we've celebrated Stew Lemmon Day. Seven years since he died of Lukemia.

Kyle, Tanner Jones (a friend of Jack's) and Linc in the van after Sizzler

This year on the 13th my kids were sick, and Aaron had a crazy school schedule, so we didn't actually celebrate on the 13th. But today, the 20th happens to be my dad's birthday, so I thought it would be a good day to redeem ourselves. This year two of my brothers, Kyle and Jackson, live in Orem. So we decided to go to lunch at Sizzler in honor of Dad. Last year Kyle mentioned that Dad probably wouldn't like all the fuss, and it's true, he never was one to want us to make a fuss over his birthday, but any excuse to go to Sizzler (in my opinion, and in Dad's) is a good one, so to Sizzler we went. I forgot to take pictures inside the restaurant, so we improvised and took a few in the car afterwords.

So one of my very first memories this year was obviously of Sizzler. My dad ate at Sizzler ALL the time. He was a contractor, and when he and his business partner would be working on a development, they would find the nearest Sizzler and eat there every single day for lunch. For months in a row. It got to the point where the waitresses knew what time they would come in, and would have a table set and waiting for them, their Pepsis already waiting, and their order on it's way. Kyle mentioned at lunch today that when he and his friend Shawn Miles would do their week long basketball camps, Dad would always take them to eat at Sizzler aferwords. Every day. For a week.

Another restaurant memory...my dad took my mom out on date night every Friday night that I can remember for my entire life. It was their get-away from us once a week. I guess they needed it for their sanity, and really, now that I'm a mom, I don't blame them one bit. But my dad was not super patient. If they went to a restaurant and the wait was going to be more than 10 minutes, he wouldn't stay. They'd get back in the car and drive somewhere else, only to find that they wait was going to be "too long" and then they'd have to go to somewhere else. They'd end up going to 4 or 5 different places until they found one that could get them in in less than 10 minutes. The funny thing is, in the time it took them to drive to 5 places they could have waited at the first place and been in. But that was Dad for you.

My Dad was always surprising me with the way he reacted to things. He'd get really mad sometimes about things that didn't seem like a very big deal, and then other times when I was sure he was going to kill me, he would be very reasonable and understanding. Here's a good example. I was forbidden to get my ears pierced until I was 22. (Why 22 I have no idea, you'll have to ask him.) Anyways, when I was in 7th Grade, my friends Abby and Alicia and I had just watched the newer Parent Trap movie (with Lindsey Lohan) and thought for some reason that it would be an excellent idea to pierce our own ears. We did it over the deer hunt weekend, so my dad was out of town. I remember thinking that if I just wore my hair down for a long time, it would cover up my ears and my Dad would never know. Well, he found out. I seriously thought he was going to kill me, or in the very least make me take the earrings out and ground me for a year. Instead, he took me to lunch (at Sizzler of course), bought me a steak, and gave me a box with diamond earring studs in it. He said he wanted to be the first person to give me diamonds. Then he told me, if he ever found me with more than one hole in each ear, he would rip it out. :) He never was very subtle.

With the holidays coming, it's easy to think of a lot of holiday memories of my dad. He was a food conesuer, and so most of the memories have to do with food. I remember he always went all out for New Year's Eve. Seafood was usually the theme, and we had shrimp, and lobster, and crab, and kipper snacks (barf), crackers, cheese, dips, etc. He was also the instegator of our Back to the Future marathons. We'd watch all three Back to the Future movies while we waited for midnight.

One more memory, and this one always makes me laugh. It's one of those stories that gets passed down and retold over and over and over. One day, Kyle, Jackson and I were giving Tanner a hard time about something (I really don't remember what actually) and my dad came in and said you guys be nice to Tanner, everything is not always Tanner's fault, we didn't need to always blame everything on Tanner, and so on, until he'd set us straight. Then, not two minutes later, he walked out of the room and in the other room stepped on some toy cars that were lying in the middle of the floor, and said, "Who left these cars here? Tanner!" We all busted up laughing. But he never saw the humor of it.

Anyways, those are my memories this year. Later tonight, our little family will be enjoying some stew and probably lemonade for dinner. After the kids go to bed, Aaron and I will watch a movie, in honor of my dad it will be one of these 5 titles: Father of the Bride (1 or 2), Groundhog's Day, Arthur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or A Christmas Story. These are my dad's classic movies, the ones that made him laugh out loud over and over again, no matter how many times he watched them.

If you'd like to help us celebrate and share your memories of Stew Lemmon, please feel free, we'd love to hear them.

Short Stuff

Krystal had a long day with the kids. When I came home, the first thing she said to me was "Great! Your home... they're all yours... Lincoln, if you want anything, you have to talk to your dad." Well, I didn't know it at the time, but I guess a long day with the kids brings about a desire for something to change. So tonight after dinner Krystal decided she'd go get a haircut and she didn't come back for two hours. Come to find out she went birthday shopping and then so far as to drive to Kelly's apartment to hide it from me. Then she snuck into our apartment while I wasn't looking and casually walked out from the back looking like this!...

Short stuff! I think she looks really great. This would have to be the shortest I've ever seen Krystal's hair.

New Hair Cuts are Good...Right?

Sunday was an interesting day. Aaron and I have been working like mad all week on an apartment that needs to be ready to go by Tuesday. We were both really looking forward to "the day of rest". Sunday morning rolled around and both Lincoln and I were sick. Yuck! We were supposed to go to stake conference, but only Aaron and Ivan ended up going. While I was getting Ivan dressed for church, I found an old sweater of Lincoln's and tried it on and it fit! Isn't he cute? And apparently the fetish with kitchen objects runs in the family, not just in Lincoln.

Linc wanted to have his picture take with Ivan, so I told him to go sit by him and put his arm around him. Lincoln went over to Ivan and said, "Wubs, Iman (loves Ivan)" and gave Ivan a hug while I took their picture.

Later, when Aaron and Ivan got home, and after naps, I was laying on the couch trying to sleep. Aaron was playing with the boys on the floor. He decided that he and Lincoln would make a tiger mask out of an old Graham Cracker box. Aaron cut the box in half and started working on one half, and gave the other half and a pair of safety scissors to Lincoln, so Lincoln could "help". I was laying with my back to them. Lincoln kept coming over to me and wanted me to hold the box while he cut, so I reached my hand up over my shoulder and held the box for him and continued trying to sleep without paying much attention to what he was doing. Next thing I know, I hear a snip snip sound really close to my head. I jumped up and turned around in time to hear Lincoln say, "Mommy hair cut!" He was so proud. I looked down and saw a couple chunks of my hair on the arm of the couch. But Lincoln was so pleased with himself that I couldn't get mad. I just laughed instead. Here's my missing hair:

Surprisingly, when I look at the back of my head in the mirror, I can't really tell where the hair is missing from. That's a good thing, because I suppose it could have been a lot worse. But still the hair is missing from somewhere...I guess that'll be my excuse to drive up to Hooper and have my mom give me a real hair cut. :)

I am looking for suggestions of what I should title this picture. Use your imaginations!

Sitting Up

Ivan has been crawling for a while now, but two days or so ago something just clicked and now he can sit up all by himself without having to keep one arm on the floor for support. It's cool when they can't do something and then all the sudden snap!, and they've got it, with no real transition. Ivan is such a fun baby, especially now that he's moving around. He loves to play. And when he gets tired he'll crawl right to me, and I stretch out my arms to him and he lays his little head down on my hand, like he just can't quite make it all the way to me, and would I please have pity on him and just pick him up. Of course I always do. It's the most adorable thing ever. Ivan LOVES balls. If we get one out, it doesn't matter what size, he will chase it, then push it in front of him and chase it some more. He thinks it a great game. Ivan seems to be a lot more agile than Lincoln was as a baby, and a lot more motivated to move. I wonder if that means he'll be athletic. After seven months it's still blowing my mind how different these two boys are.

Theme Day: C is for Cookie

For those of you who are not my friend on Facebook, I just recently posted my status explaining how I save paper bags at the grocery store, NOT because it's more environmentally friendly (although that is a nice plus), but because I have visions in my head of all the cool art projects Lincoln and I could do together using paper bags. How many projects have I done since I started collecting? ZERO. Well, here's proof that Facebook is useful. Haha. At least, after I posted that, I came up with a way to do a project out of paper grocery bags. So now my number can say ONE instead of ZERO.

It was my turn for C today. I decided that in honor of Cookie Monster, C ought to be for cookie. A quick youtube search got me what I was looking for. The video of Cookie Monster singing "C is for Cookie", and I used that to introduce the letter C and the theme of the day, which was cooking. I told the boys that we were going to be chefs, but before we could be chefs we needed to dress like them. We made aprons out of paper grocery bags, and used yarn to have a tie behind the neck and around the waste. We let the boys glue different colored shapes cut out of construction paper onto their aprons to personalize them, and to go over the shapes and colors. Sly, hu? They didn't suspect a thing. Plus, somewhere I heard that letting kids use glue sticks is good for their small motor skills....I could be wrong, but they loved it regardless. I had also pre-made them (because I thought it was above their skill level and attention span) chefs' hats out of posterboard paper.

Then the cooking began! Chocolate Chip Cookies was the objective. It is an interesting thing to cook with two two-year-olds, but they did really well, and cooperated nicely. I had them take turns measuring the ingredients, dumping them into the bowl, and turning on the mixer. All the while making sure to point out that cup, chocolate, chip, cookie, etc. Started with C. Then they each got to scoop dough out onto their own cookie sheet, and then let Mommy put them in the oven to bake. I think they had fun, and the cookies actually turned out too!