SNOW DAY?!?!?!!

I'm sure if you are in the St. George area, or know anyone other than me you've heard about The Big Snow of 2008.

Yep, here in the desert of southern Utah we were hit with about 4-7 inches of snow depending on the part of town. Here, it was about 4 inches. Needless to say, we got up the next morning to play in the snow! Poor Matt, had to work in the cold over in Fredonia. :(

The house was coated, but the roof snow melted pretty quickly that afternoon.

In Beau's words, "Is Snow, Ma!"

I got him to walk onto the lawn and at first he didn't know what to do about it. He just giggled and looked down at it for a minute....

Then he moved on to bigger and better things, like jumping in it....

Man he's got little chicken legs.....



Then the playing started and he picked some snow up and threw it up in the air,
giggling in utter glee the whole time.... hehe.....



And, finally a little mischief! WATCH OUT!!!!!



"Is Frosty, Ma!"
Fortunately Beau knew who Frosty the Snowman is from the cartoon. When Matt got home and we showed him our snowman it was, "Is Frosty, Daddy! Is Frosty!!"
Beau helped me pack the snow into balls and would add a chunk here and there saying things like, "is ear, Ma," or, "is nose, ma." Thanks Bud, good job!




Ahhhhh...

Someone loves his Frosty!


We had so much fun that day!!!

Other Christmastime Stuff

The two guys in my life.

They were all dressed and ready to go to the ward Christmas Party this year.

They had matching shirts and everything. =)

For one of our activities we had planned from our advent calendar we had a picnic for dinner in front of our tree. Beau was so excited when he was given a treat after dinner! A fruit roll-up, and I rolled it onto his finger like we did when I was a kid. His eyes went wide and a HUGE grin spread on his face. He wanted it to stay on his finger forever! He was so happy :)

Matt's mom completely surprised us this year with a felt tree. You see, in his family it was tradition to receive "The Felt Tree" at Christmastime while they were on their missions. It started with Jared in New Zealand, then to Merril in Japan, and Justin in Brazil, but when Matt's turn rolled around and it was sent to Canada the tree got lost in translation.... or in Canada Post. So, when we got a box and were told to open it Matt kinda freaked because he was SO EXCITED to finally get a felt tree. It'll be an heirloom, that's for sure. THANKS MOMPAL!!!!! :)

Oh Christmas Tree...

This year we decided to cut our very first fresh tree! We got in the car on Saturday after Thanksgiving, bought a permit at the BLM, and drove up Turkey Farm Road until we were deep in Dixie National Forest on the south side of Pine Valley. We think we picked a pretty awesome tree! Although it appears to have 3 trunks, it actually connects at the bottom and branched, for some unknown reason, off into 3 trunks. Of course, it appeared shorter in the forest....

Matt really had to work hard to get it cut. Since the base was a bit wider from the 3 trunks, and he thinks there was some hard sap inside that sucker. After a few minutes he said, "I don't know, maybe we should have brought the chain saw." That made me laugh, cause I thought we'd need one since I'd never cut my own tree before.

On our way back our odometer hit "111,111." We'd been joking that whenever we hit that we'd stop wherever we were and take a picture, so... that's where we were. Right next to the old Par-3 golf course with our Christmas Tree. hehe...

So, uh, here's the final product... Like I said before, this tree seemed shorter in the forest... Uh... well, we love it! And, if you look towards the bottom there's a little hole and you can see the 3 trunks. We thought it was really cool because it reminded us of the story, "The Three Trees."

It was also really funny last Sunday when the 2 boys came to collect Fast Offerings and after a while we heard, "Whoa, that tree has three trunks!"

And, finally, I just wanted to share this video of Matt and Beau working on making the paper chain together. It was one of our activities to do as a family from my brand spanking new advent calendar I made!

Pies and People

Turkey Day!! Or Thanksgiving, whichever... came and went like a slow breeze. We had the Millers and the Derek Rowleys over for the feast. I made about a million pies.... or five. Including, Apple (above), Pumpkin and Corrode (a.k.a. Pumpkin Cream Cheese) (below), Bananan Creme, and Chocolate Creme. They kinda got ate, but we sure had a TON leftover.

Rachelle made the turkey, which was FABULOUS! And, the gravy as seen below. James made stuffing and his spectacular rolls, too! We ate well, and later, slept well. I wish I had gotten more pics, but, alas, I didn't. Oh well.

What can I say, he likes to sing and dance!

My son, Beau, is going to be incredibly talented when he gets older. He LOVES music. Often we'll be listening to the radio in the car, and he'll be bopping his head, or wiggling his feet along to the tune. But, you should see him when there's music and he's standing up. It's a riot! This little video should give you a good idea about that... (before you press play on the videos, scroll down to my Playlist and press "Pause"!!!)

And then he loves to sing too! He has always loved having me sing to him. I think one of the very first phrases he ever learned was, "More song, Mom?" Well, in the next video Matt and I caught him doing this. Luckily, he kept singing and singing so we could catch it. Matt and I have sung this song when we go out for a family bike ride. He's playing with his little toy bike and singing along. Think, "Bicycle" by Queen.

Catch up time

Yeah, I know, I'll get to it. Promise! :)

Moab Retreat

Well, here's the story peop's.. The day we had to put Hinckley down was the day Kayley, James, Beau, and I were to drive out to Moab to meet up with Matt. He'd been working out in Monticello for 4 days and we were planning a little vacay. How little I knew that I seriously needed a "life retreat". You know what I mean..

So, we packed it all up, and I sucked it up and off we went, 3 adults, 1 toddler and 2 dogs (K & J's). 300 and somethindy miles later around midnight pm we arrived at a Fantastic little place called, "Kokopelli Inn" in Moab (look it up..) :) were we all, and I mean ALL packed into one room with 2 double beds. hehe... SARDINES anyone??

But, no, really, we had a Fabulous Time!! The weather, perfect, the scenery, loverly, the company, awesome, and the memories..........yep, you guessed it..... Priceless.

We Jeeped on Hell's Revenge, did a little late night Geocaching via little yellow flashlights (Thanks James!), hiked a bit in Arched National Park, and ate some yummy food, especially the little Thai food place around the corner!! mmmmmm....

All in all, I was glad we went, but it was hard coming home. I bawled my eyes out the first night back, but I'm better now. And anyways, since I don't want to crawl down that sad little path again, here's some cool pics from our trip. :) Happy Times.

Kayley hitting it hard on an as of yet undefined trail...


Wheelin' his truck in one of the coolest possible places, ever.

Click! Caughtcha! :)

Kayley's still peeved I got the pic first.. whateva..

I don't know that I've seen 3 kids..

I mean boys.. so happy to be wheelin.

Out hiking around, geocaching in the daytime, waiting for Matt to arrive from Monticello.

Warning, My son is a GOOFBALL!!

And check out that "Child Portion"?!?!

James, Kayley, Lucy, and Bentley Campbell

WE MISS U GUYS!!!

:oP