Spaghetti

Have you ever wondered what 22 pounds of spaghetti noodles would look like in your fridge? Well here you go. We had our ward Christmas party on the 17th, which Barrett was in charge of. We've been preparing for it for a while now. I should have taken a picture of the about 40 empty presents I wrapped in my living room for decorations. We were going to divide the spaghetti up between the committee members to cook, but the night before the party my dear husband told them that he would just cook it all the next morning. Well you can guess who got to do it. That would be me! What a process!

The party turned out really well. I wish I would have gotten pictures of the decorations and all the people, but we were busy. Last year at the party they had about 80 or 90 people. This year we had about 140 or 150! We had to set up extra tables. Luckily we had enough food. There was a live band, which was really fun, and Santa came. I sat Reese on his lap and she didn't even cry, she just gazed up at him. And that was the moment my camera broke. I couldn't believe it. (The lens is jammed and won't open or close. I'm very upset.) Luckily my friend Laura was right there with her camera and took some pictures of her smiling and looking up at Santa.

Early Christmas

We had Christmas with the Batchelders two days after Thanksgiving. So we had already decorated for Christmas, listened to lots of Christmas music, and opened presents before December even started!Our Christmas tree

This is the annual looking through the doorway Christmas morning picture. We look a little cheesy, but Barrett's family always had this picture taken growing up before they could go into the living room to see what Santa brought them.

Reese has already been spoiled with lots of presents this Christmas! It was so fun to see her try to open this first present.

We bought these Christmas pajamas for Reese last Christmas before she was even born!

Every year of his life, Barrett has received at least one Christmas ornament from his parents, and sometimes he got them from grandparents too. So he has a whole box full of ornaments he has gotten throughout his life. He now has his own small Christmas tree to put all of his ornaments on. We still receive ornaments every year from Barrett's parents. These are this year's.

I'm posting these pictures for you Sherry so you can see what pictures we put in them!

The fam on our "Christmas morning"

This is at the Sims family Christmas party. Brittny was our team reindeer in the reindeer game.

Reese and Taylor

All of the "reindeer"

The Batchelder family. Reese was obviously not happy!

The Sims family

Grandpa and Nana come to visit

The lights in downtown Ogden.

Reese with Grandpa and Nana

Reese and Aunt Brittny

Waiting for Nana and Grandpa to arrive at the airport. We had told them that only Barrett was going to be there to pick them up, and then the four of us were there to surprise them!

Getting all bundled up to go for a walk.

Playing with Brittny and Grandpa.

We were able to have Barrett's parents here from New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. This is only the second time they were able to see Reese so it was really fun for them to spend time with her and see how much she has changed. We went on walks, shopped, went out to eat, went to the Christmas lights in Ogden, had Thanksgiving, then had Christmas two days later.

Family pictures

Now that Reese is getting older, I wanted to get a new family picture. About the only one we had before was when Reese was a month old. I was going to get some taken of Reese, and some taken of our family, but instead I bought a tripod and we went over to McKay Dee hospital and we took these pictures ourselves! I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Of course it's hard to get a baby to look at the camera and smile, but she did well. I also wanted to send out Christmas cards for the first time this year and they were having a sale on the photo cards at Smiths that day, so you will be seeing this picture again!

The Zoo!

While I'm talking about things that have already happened a long time ago, I'm going to post some pictures of when we went to the zoo in September. For some reason I really wanted to go to the zoo before summer was completely gone and it got too cold. I hadn't been to the zoo since I was really little and didn't even remember it. Barrett and I were watching the Alder kids (Dr Alder is the Radiologist I work with) while they were on a cruise for 10 days. So we decided to take them to the zoo. It was perfect weather the day we went, not too cold and not too hot. We got this carrier for Reese to ride around in with Dad and she loved it! She loved to be able to sit up and look around at everything. She was perfectly content the whole time. What a fun little zoo we have.

Hollyn, Jeni, and Lauren on the merry-go-round.

I heard on the news the next week that one of the elephants at the zoo had died. How sad!

Our Halloween

I realize that it's too late to be talking about Halloween, but that's the story of my life, I'm always a little behind! I'm terrible at posting things on the blog, it's always at the end of my list, and never ends up getting done. Anyway, I still wanted to post some pictures, I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on seeing mine and Barrett's halloween costumes. We never dress up, so it's a rare occasion that we did this year. We actually did more for Halloween this year than we ever do. First, Barrett got us tickets to go see Thriller! It's a halloween dance theater show. I've wanted to go to it for a few years, but we never have. One day out of the blue, Barrett decided that he wanted to take me to it, so he bought the tickets and took me on a date! What a fun show! I love to watch dancing, so I thought it was great. And it was so good for Barrett and I to go out and do something together. We don't do that often enough. Thanks Bear!

Then came the Sims Family Halloween Party! We had so much fun celebrating with the Sims. EVERYONE dressed up, we ate pizza, decorated cookies, and played games. This is Stan and Connie playing the secret prize game. They had three boxes on the counter and they would show a prize (such as this lovely Happy Halloween banner) and each person could either choose the prize they show, or choose one from behind one of the three boxes. It was so fun! The kids thought it was the best thing, and the adults probably had just as much fun. The prizes were probably the funniest part. Most of them were hand-me-down halloween decorations and Connie announced before the game that everyone HAD to take their prize out of the house with them when they left. Thanks Sims family!

Reese and Aunt Brittny

All of the Sims kids at the party.

Of course I had to show off our little bumble bee! I made the tutu, which was so fun and easy to make!

Then we had the Ward Halloween party. Barrett is the activities supervisor, so he was in charge of the party. I am not even on the committee, but I am involved by default I guess, and boy are we glad it's over! It went really well though. Everyone dressed up, including the adults, we had a trunk-or-treat in the parking lot first, then everyone came in and ate taco soup for dinner, we had a fish pond, cake walk, and pumpkin decorating. We don't have any pictures of it because I was too involved in taco soup. All I remember is taco soup, I didn't hardly look up from the taco soup. We had such a good turnout, we love our ward! Now we have the Christmas party to "look forward to".

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And now, ta-da! the Mexican wrestlers! (Barrett and Lauren) When we were in Mexico a couple years ago, Barrett wanted these masks for his souvineer. So we decided to make them our Halloween costumes this year. I made the capes and little underwear things the night before we wore them. Barrett made our belts and his boots. Embarrassing. But it was actually pretty fun!

We put them on again on Halloween and went to Shopko to show Wade. He didn't want to be seen with us. Weird.

Red Sox: Part 2

So the shirt did turn out to be good luck that night! The Red Sox won. (Too bad it didn't work last night) We watched the game with our friends Dan and Tara in Hooper. Well, mostly the boys watched the game, Tara and I made hair bows and talked (which I must say was more fun). We had such dedicated fans all in their Red Sox attire, we had to get pictures. Tara and I made the Red Sox blankets for our husbands for Christmas a few years ago. I think that Reese has gotten bigger than Bricey!

You're invited to a party

I was going to post pictures of what I've been making for the past week, but I realized that I'm going to give them as gifts to my mom and mom-in-law, who both look at the blog, so I guess I won't post any pictures or tell you what it is. My sister-in-law Brittny and I saw these things at a boutique we went to, and decided to make them for ourselves and give them as Christmas gifts. Then Brittny's friend Morgan invited us to sell them at a party she is having, so we made 15 more this week. Anyone who wants to come is invited to the party, it's just kind of far away (it's in Liberty-about 30 min away from Ogden). Other things that are being sold (besides our secret item that I can't talk about) are:

At Home America (home decor)

Scentsy

Cookie Lee Jewelry

Miche Purses

Mary Kay

Caramel apples

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Thursday, October 23rd

6:30 p.m. Open House

5627 N. 3100 E. Liberty, UT

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Go up 12th street canyon (Ogden Canyon). Turn left to go over Pineview Dam. Turn left at the Maverick & Valley Market. Go 3 miles, turn left at the stop sign, then take the first right. House is on the left, look for the balloon.

Go Red Sox!!

This post is for my Daddy, Uncle Wade and dad's friend Dan. I had to wear this shirt today so the Red Sox will have good luck when they play tonight. I hope they win! Either way, I look stinkin cute!