Holiday Fun 2009

Halle loves to dance. Her dance company had a little Christmas party where the girls were able to show a fun little dance. We also watched a cute performance by their travelling company. Lots of fun :)

For our Ward Christmas Party this year we went to Main St. Bethlehem in Burnett. It has turned into our new family tradition. We have been there every year for 3 years. It amazes me every time the display that they put on. So inspirational.

Biv & Gabe pet lots of animals. Biv was not so sure about it!

We had lots of fun this Holiday Season. We were invited to go and have breakfast with Santa at the Cordovan School of the Arts. The kids had a great time. Santa walked around and talked with everyone. Gabe was in awe!!

Gabe kept telling Santa that he wanted lots of MONSTER trucks!

Olivia wasn't so happy!

Group shot...What a great lookin' family!

On a side note, the owner of Cordovan School of the Arts used Steve as a model for his painting of Captain Moroni. They took pictures about 18 months back. I kind of forgot about it all but when we were there for breakfast with Santa we saw the painting.

He is still working on it, but I think it looks great! I am so excited to get the print when he is done.

MY DAD...comes to San Antonio!

Betcha thought I was going to say Austin! I found out a couple days before that my dad was coming to a carpet convention in San Antonio. I was so excited! We coordinated some time and I drove the kids down to hang out with their Papa Curt for a while. My grandpa Allman and favorite uncle Sam were there too. We made this a family affair. Who doesn't love carpet conventions?? :)

I haven't seen my dad since Christmas of 2008 and I didn't think that I was going to see him until we went to Utah in June. I was so very happy that he came! The kids were thrilled too. Steve was hunting so it was just me that took the kids to San Antonio.
We walked along the Riverwalk waiting for my grandpa to get out of one of his meetings.

Kyle loves doing flips off of anything that he can. In this case, it was a tree!

Boy I love this man! What a great dad. Good lookin' too :)

Here is another one of my favorite people...Bumpa. I love you!

We were even lucky enough to meet up with Uncle Sam!

We had lunch on the Riverwalk at a Mexican Restaurant. It was great being able to spend time with them.

Afterwards, we walked Grandpa and Sam back to the hotel and the kids and I went bowling with my dad. It was lots of fun.

This was Gabe's first experience with a bowling ball. He was pretty good. He played 2 games.

Checkout the scores. We really stunk it up! (Actually, I didn't bowl once...that would be Gabe that did it for me.) But my dad...WHOA! He didn't even break 100 the first game. He redeemed himself the second game.

Thanks for taking some time for us dad. We had so much fun. We can't wait to come to Utah and hangout with the family. I love you very much.

Pioneer Woman Visits AUSTIN! December 2009

When Jeannie & Sara both told me about Pioneer Woman coming to Austin, I didn't think much of it. Oh, I love Ree Drummonds blog, but I don't do these crowd things so much! The week of the signing Jeannie calls and is so excited about this that I couldn't help but jump on board with excitement. Jeannie writes about all her preparations here. Let's just say that she totally cracks me up!

We had a lot of time before the the signing to look around. Anthropology happened to be next door. Wow what a store! They have a lot of very beautiful...very expensive stuff. We had lots of fun playing around.
Melinda and I waiting in the dressing room for Cheryl to try on a fun dress. The dressing room was ginormous!

The signing was at a cute bookstore in downtown Austin.

Jeannie and Melinda...so excited about putting wristbands on!

Thinking that now is about the time that I should pay for BOTOX!

Jeannie had the awesome idea of bringing her gifts. So I whipped up a board that had the name of her blog on it (in the same font and all!) I think it turned out pretty cute.

We all took turns signing it. Jeannie took forever trying to think of the most perfect thing to write for her.

This is what we all wrote:

I loved Jeannie's cheesiness this whole night. Her energy and nervousness made it all the more exciting and entertaining! You can read her post about this experience here.

Sara and Melinda were too cool to sit by us...really they had better seats!

There were loads and LOADS of people in this quaint bookstore.

We were thrilled to hear that she was going to do a Q & A session. It was pretty entertaining. She is so down to earth.

This is a picture from one of her blog posts. Jeannie added our names to show where we all were.

After the Q & A we got in our line according to wristband color. We were lucky enough to be in one of the first groups.

The beautiful sign that ChattyWalls made. (That would be me!!)

Okay...really?? Which way do we look?? :)

The group of fun girls that we went with. Melinda, Jennie, Jeannie, Cheryl, Me, Sara & PW

The girls with part of the Drummond Family.

Me and Marlboro Man.... :)

This was sooo funny. Cheryl pretended to pinch his behind and we were hysterically laughing because he had no idea!

After the signing, we hit a little mexican restaurant. Good food, good friends!

On a side note, I was reading PW latest posts and look what is in this picture....MY SIGN!! WOW :) Of course this was the before...my sign didn't make it into the after, but I am sure that it is in another special place at their house. SO COOL!
Thanks ladies for the invite. It was so much fun!