Christmas fun

We were up in Ogden last week for a wedding and we passed a really cute park full of fun Christmas things and Jared told me they used to go there every year as a family! We called Jared's sister Sharidee and planned a night to go and it was so cute. They had a little snack hut where the lady gave the kids marshmallows to roast over a fire and we bought some hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts too. Santa was also there and our boys were insistent we wait in the freezing cold to see him.

Annie was being a pretty big cheeser for all the pictures.





The kiddos


Jared and Sharidee with the chestnuts


The boys waiting patiently to get into Santa's warm house


Annie was not cheesing for this one!


Tanner was really excited. He did say that this isn't the real Santa. It was just one of Santa's many helpers.


Jackson loving the idea of getting whatever he wants just by asking this guy! (luckily all he asked for is a pillow pet!!)



Since Annie was born she's been the star of our family. I guess that's what happens whenever there's a baby around. It's been so much fun watching her grow and do a few new things on her own. She LOVES baths and I can't get her to stop drinking the water. Her new trick is to blow bubbles in the water. Every now and again she gets a mouthful of water too.

Thanksgiving

This year we went to my grandpa Astle's house for Thanksgiving day and had a really nice Thanksgiving dinner. I didn't take my camera so I didn't get any pictures of it. It's always nice spending Thanksgiving there, though. It just feels like the holidays and we've gone there since I can remember.

The Weaver side usually does a big huge Thanksgiving dinner the day after Thanksgiving. It's Jared's mom's side of the family with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. They usually rent a cabin and have a big auction (they donate the money usually to whoever has a missionary out at the time), dinner, and a talent show. This year Jared participated in the talent show.

Jared apparently doesn't know how to suck helium very well. He should have taken some helium sucking lessons before the big show but it turned out pretty funny anyway.


A couple of weeks later I had Jared put up our fake Christmas tree (thinking it would be a good idea so the baby wouldn't eat pine needles all month) but he was not happy about having a fake tree (plus it was a tiny midget tree). The boys were excited about going tree shopping and getting it all decorated!

We didn't get great pictures of us decorating the tree.

Here's Annie and Jared,


Jackson doing his "fire power" move from Night at the Museum.


And no surprise Jackson's staring at the tv while Tanner decorates the tree.


We've forgotten our camera for a couple Christmas parties already! Guess we're having too much fun enjoying our time with our friends and family!!

Raining on our parade

So, this year for Halloween we decided to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood but wished we had gone down to our traditional "Astle's soup and trick-or-treating" party.

Here are the many faces of Annabelle...(I had a lot of costumes from hand-me-downs and we also found some fun stuff in our costume bin)...

Little bunny foo foo


Jackson's hand-me-down lady bug costume (I vaguely remember Jared not being happy about bringing home a lady bug costume for his first born son back in the day...)


Our little fairy princess who doesn't think this whole fiasco is nearly as fun as the cameraman.


A sweet find from the costume bin. Annie's not thinking it's so sweet.


The little Ninjas.




As soon as we went out it POURED!! We only went to a couple of houses then headed over to the mall.


This wig was also another sweet find from the costume bin. Jared dressed up as Brett Michaels but with the way he's holding that umbrella he seems to resemble a princess (and a lot happier one than Annie).


The mall was a mistake so we headed back home. By the time we headed home the rain slowed and Jared took the kids to all the houses the kids wanted to go to. The kids had a blast and all in all, it was a fun Halloween even with all the rain.

Lagging...

I have had a really hard time keeping up with the blog these days. Here are a few things we've been up to...

Jared's youngest brother got married to Michelle Van Hemert in September. Their wedding was small (surprising, I know) and pretty. Here's a picture of all the Weaver adults together. A lot of people still ask me who's who so here they all are...

Left to right..
Jason(Jared's brother)&Shelly, Tomas & Suzette (sister), James (brother) & Tricia, Shanna (sister), Shaylee (sister), Jonny (brother) & Michelle, Mom & Dad, Sharidee (sister) and Jerrin, Cole (brother) & Janet, Sara & Jared (person who these are all related to).

Closer look from left to right of just siblings (number represents where they fall)...
Suzette(5), Sharidee(3), Shaylee(9), Shanna(7), Jonny(8), Cole(1), Jared(4), Jason(2), James)6)

Jared's brother-in-law Jerrin always wants to be the first person to throw a snowball every year so we decided to beat him to the punch (or the throw, ha ha). We drove up Farmington Canyon and packed a bunch of snowballs into a cooler and caught him off guard!




We also took our 3rd annual trip to the Witchfest at Gardner Village. We took some family pictures that turned out pretty nice. And the witches are really cute and I love going there to see it all decorated for Halloween.





One of the things that has been keeping us busy was fixing up Annie's room. It all started when my friend told me about a crafty blog and told me about wallpaper "bead board". It's this cool wallpaper that looks like bead board and it's even paintable. I told Jared right away that that's my new project. He tagged along with me to Lowe's to check it out and talked me out of it. He decided we should just buy regular bead board which would cost us about $200 just for the materials not including the paint. I decided to use Jared's handyman skills to build our own "bead board". The skinny boards were on sale for $0.76 and we cut each one if half. Jared honestly didn't think it was going to turn out well BUT it looks great!! He did a great job. It ended up being a lot of work but it was worth it. Here are the before and after pics. It really doesn't seem like much in the picture but I love going into Annabelle's room and looking at it.

Our summer in a flash...

I don't know what it was about this year but I feel like I blinked and the summer was over. It was one of those summers where it feels like we really didn't do anything yet we were always busy! The kids LOVE being in our new house with ten bazillion little boys to play with in the neighborhood. Jared and I have really become very comfortable here too. I catch myself complaining sometimes that I wish my house wasn't always full of kids running through eating, playing, making messes, and waking up the baby all the time BUT I wouldn't trade it for anything different. Jared thinks I should quit complaining about the constant noise and endless messes and enjoy the fact that our boys are happy and they have so many great friends, I agree.

We didn't have any vacations planned for the summer so Jared and I decided to make a super last minute trip to L.A. so we could get away and just hang out together as a family and sit on the beach. It was a short trip but we had fun. We played in the sand, ate at a delicious little restaurant on a private beach, walked the Hollywood strip, and relaxed.


We didn't get many pictures of our trip. Annabelle didn't enjoy the beach as much as the boys but she was still a little trooper.


A few weeks ago I was looking up some fun things to do with the kiddos and I saw there was going to be a "Star Party" up at The American West Heritage Center in Wellsville. It was the night of the meteor shower, hence the "star party." They had a train ride, a glow in the dark tea party, pony rides, a petting zoo, and some other fun stuff. Jared was playing in "Dusk 'til Dawn" so he wasn't able to come but my parents came with me and it was really fun.

I LOVE Cache Valley and it was a perfect evening with the cool crisp air and the smell of hay and leaves changing (I don't know if I can actually smell the leaves changing, but it seems like I can). I also love that my parents love Cache Valley so they didn't mind coming with me and my 3 little munchkins.









Jared had a goal all summer of sleeping on the tramp and the boys all finally found the perfect night to do it. Jackson and Tanner were SO excited!! They got all of their gear together, stayed up and told each other stories, then quickly fell asleep...until the neighbor's sprinklers came on and they rushed inside and slept peacefully in their own beds.





Annie's been a sweet little baby. For a while she was having a hard time gaining weight. She weighed 12 pounds at her 3 month check up and 12.1 pounds at her 6 month check up. I had to take her in every week to see if she'd gained weight. At first she lost several ounces then I realized I was being a dumb mom and I needed to feed her on a strict schedule. I always just fed her when she started acting hungry. She's just such a content little girl that she obviously wasn't acting hungry often enough. Now she's eating like crazy and she gained almost a pound in 2 weeks and seems to be growing fast.


The summer was really fun but I LOVE, love, love the fall!! I already have some spices simmering on the stove and warm soups on next weeks dinner menu and am ready to put away t-shirts and shorts and pull out all of the hoodies and get ready to go up in the mountains to see the leaves change and buy our first pumpkin! I don't know what it is about this season but I feel refreshed and excited for all the fall festivities to begin!!

Baby? What baby?

So here Jared and I were driving over to Sharidee's house yesterday for your typical Sunday afternoon root beer burping contest when we realized we were missing something kind of important. No, not the root beer. Although that would have been a big deal...



This little gal was back home catchin' some Zzzzz's. I even double checked every door to make sure we had locked up before we left. We usually come home with most doors either unlocked or completely open. I guess in the back of my mind I knew I was forgetting something. Just couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.

Ostrich Bake Anyone??

A few weeks ago Jared couldn't resist buying an ostrich egg down in St. George and we've been keeping it in our fridge not sure who'd be up for trying out the big huge egg with us.
Well, Jared's sister's family and my parents were the lucky ones who got to be the guinea pigs. This is one big old egg.

As my Geology professor would have said, "The egg of interest is on the right. There is also a chicken egg on the left and a silly Grandma for scale."


The men getting out the power tools to conquer the thing...




Now time to blow out the eggy stuff...

A nice close up for grossness

Got some recruits for help. Just like CPR it works best as a team effort.


This one egg equals about 2 dozen large chicken eggs.

We didn't take pictures of the finished product. We made one sausage-tater tot-ostrich egg bake and one sausage-tater tot-regular egg bake and most of us couldn't tell the difference in taste, It's been over 24 hours and as far as I know most of us have survived too.

Independence Day

Our 4th of July was a little bit lazy. We had stayed up late for a couple of nights in a row so we decided to take the morning slow and lazy on over to some friend's for lunch then we went over to Liberty Days (in Liberty UT). There wasn't much going on by the time we got there but the boys got to have their faces painted and they felt like superheroes!!

Tanner going with good old Spiderman


Jackson's an Avatar


Annabelle's 1st time trying out a swing. Although the picture may look otherwise, she loved it. Mostly.


Jared was tired of pushing all the kids on the swing and decided he wanted some fun for himself.


Later that evening we headed over to Huntsville for their fireworks and boogied through the night. The girls in the background make me laugh. Looks like Jared has a couple back up dancers.


The boys spontaneously had a major meltdown. We have no idea what caused it but it seemed pretty serious. To them, anyway.


Aunt Susie offered them a tic-tac if they'd smile and apparently it worked. Jackson got his groove on and put all of us dancing fools to shame.


Doing the worm


Annabelle just couldn't figure out why nobody would let her go to sleep!


We love the 4th of July. We feel lucky to have spent a few back East where our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence and to have been able to see so many awesome historical sights where it all began. It makes us miss VA and Washington DC very much but we also LOVE having family to celebrate with. Not to mention the awesome Utah weather!!!