Merry Christmas!

To read it, you can click on the image to make it larger.

She LOVES Santa!

OK, so she loves to look at pictures of Santa, and all she could do when she saw Santa was reach for him.  But, when she actually got to sit on his lap...

I'm a Mormon

My profile has been approved and my button now works.  You can see my mormon.org profile by clicking my button to the left.  Wahoo!

Quick Trip to LA

This is really sad, but Shane and I realized a little bit ago that we really have never gone away with just the two of us.  We went to Hawaii and we went with some family.  We did go on our honeymoon...8 years ago.  So, we decided it was time for some us time.  We got online and bought plane tickets for the cheapest place at the time and it ended up being LA.  We looked at show tickets, etc. and found that we could just go to Disneyland one of the days.  Yippee! 

We arrived Friday evening and headed straight for an Anaheim Ducks game.  It was a lot of fun and it even went to a shoot out so that was great!  After that we went back and crashed at our hotel.

On Saturday morning we woke up, bright and early, and headed to Disneyland.  The lack of lines in the morning was wonderful and allowed us to hit most of our top rides early on.  It was great to take it at our pace and was really strange to not have to worry about losing a child.  We stayed for a long time and got to do tons.  We had fun taking pictures, especially on all the kid rides.  After a long day at Disneyland we went to our hotel and got in the hot tub, which felt great on tired feet.

Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel and went to Santa Monica to walk on the beach.  After a nice walk we decided to go to a nice lunch.  Most of our trip consisted of fast food, so it was nice to go somewhere nice.  We went to a place that was right on the Marina at Marina del Rey.  It was beautiful and the food was awesome!  After lunch we went to the airport to head home.  After a delay, we were on our way home to our kids.

We had a great time and it was so nice to just be there with the two of us.  We will definitely have to do this again.  Thanks to all our family who watched our kids while we were gone.

Sorry, we took a ton of pictures!!!!

At the Hockey Game

In Front of Disneyland.  Shane gt us shirts before we left, so we wore the Disney shirts that day.  Shane's shirt is Grumpy and I have Tinkerbell.

One of my favorite pictures of us.
On Matterhorn

In front of the castle.  It was super bright!

Little blurry on Winnie the Pooh. 
We got our own little car.

The newest toys.  Totally adorable!

On the airplane home

At the restaurant at the Marina.

Christmas time at Disneyland.

With Mickey

Two Mr. Incredibles!

Buggin'

At the beach

Shane's message in the sand.

We took this picture under the Tron lights.
No Photoshop or anything.  We couldn't even recreate it.
Pretty awesome!

Playing with my panoramic feature

The castle at night.

Halloween 2010

How did I get so far behind?  I do know I held off posting some things because I was waiting to go private and so other things fell through the cracks as well.  We had a great, albeit wet, Halloween. 

On the 29th the little kids and I went to Shane's work to trick-or-treat.  It was not your average work thing where you go around to a few desks and say hi and get candy.  They had a Star Wars theme and you got your picture with a backdrop.  You could find characters dressed up and they would mark your map and you would get to spin a wheel for a prize.  Then, they had certain spots you could go to for candy and gave us a little gift bag as well.  Awesome!

Here's some of the fun at Max's school and before school:



Joseph and Max.  Don't you love Joseph's homemade costume?



 



Max's teacher, Mrs. Graham



Mom and London watching the parade.





London all cute in the car.



On the 30th we quickly went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat and then headed to Shane's brother's house.  London and I chilled inside while all the boys helped with a little spook alley in the garage.  They had a ball.  We all returned home tired and ready for bed.

Man Cave

OK.  I know there are girly baskets, but we are working on it.  That is the best place for the WII remotes currently.  We decided to make our basement family room a little more manly.  It is where they all play games and watch the game, so why not make it look a little better?  We have more things we want to do, but we started with a blue accent wall with the best team ever on it.  It looks a little crooked, but we have since fixed it.  We are working on the lighting next and a few more wall hangings.  The boys in the house all love it!

Visiting with Jason and Shez Baby!

Shane's brother Jason just got out of his AIT (Advanced Training) for the Army.  He was away from his family for 5 months between Basic and AIT.  They got to see him quickly in between when they attended Basic Training Graduation.  He did so well and we are all so proud of him.  With the end of training came their first move.  They moved from their old home to where they will be stationed.  They were able to pass through Utah and stay with us for a little bit.  It was AWESOME!  I wish Max could see them more often.  He loved every minute he spent with them and cried when they left.  Here are some of the fun moments.  I forgot my camera the first party night, so I will have to look through Troy's pics later for that.

3 cute boys ready for bed.
Treyson, Kabren and Max

London and Uncle Jason
London isn't a big fan of men, so this is huge!

Jason and Shane

Declan and Shezrae

Hugging Goodbye

More hugging

Prior to leaving, all the kids had to dance.  They were spinning on the floor here.

Bedtime.  Sleepover!

Having fun!

Craziness!

Maggie at dinner

Treyson and Max after dinner

Declan in his cute knit BYU hat.  He is a true Baller!

Lola and Troy at dinner

Jason and Shezrae at dinner (with little Declan peeking through)

London and Shane at dinner.  She loves her Daddy!

Elenor Marie Gross

My sister came to my house for a family dinner and wasn't feeling well.  Her husband had just returned home from his Grandmother's birthday in California.  Carrie couldn't fly so she had stayed behind.  Luckily he got here because Carrie's blood pressure was sky high so after a blessing she was taken to the hospital.  She was diagnosed with preclampsia.  They immediately gave her steroid shots and transferred her to UVRMC.  She was 31 weeks and 3 days at this time.  They were able to give her magnesium sulfate to keep her blood pressure temporarily down until all the steroid shots for the baby had been administered.  On Tuesday, November 9th, at 31 weeks and 5 days, Elenor Marie Gross was born via C-Section and was just 2 lbs. 2 oz.  So, even smaller than Max!  She is shorter and has smaller hands, feet and head, but the rest of her reminds me of Max.  She is doing well and is on room air, just trying to gain weight.  Here are some pics.



Her foot is as long as my thumb.