... and he's home

Here he is, so cute, love that smile, and that tie!

This weekend we went to Salt Lake to pick up my brother EJ from the airport returning from his 2 year mission in Paris France. So much fun. It was so good to see him and he is doing awesome. We headed to my sister Melanie's house after the airport for hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls and to open some family Christmas presents.

This is the entire Morgan crew, wow, that's a big bunch!

We then headed to our hotel. The next day we had plans to go into SLC for a day of fun, but the snow changed our plans a bit, but not our fun. We hung out at the hotel, swam, ate and did what we do best, sat around and talked and yapped. I love that.
Saturday we went to an Italian pizza place for lunch, Settebello wow, so good, it was the closest thing to the pizza we used to eat in Italy that I have ever tasted, brought back some good memories. Then we headed home and now it is time to get serious with wrapping presents and Christmas baking, I'm so excited!

Happy Birthday Mollie

Today was Mollie's 2nd birthday. Wow, I can not believe how much time has passed, it really seems like we just brought her home yesterday. (But then again we watched her first few days DVD that Carrie made, and ya, it has been a couple years.) She spent the day singing Happy Birthday to herself and when anyone called to wish her a happy birthday, she wished it back to them. She is so much fun and opening presents was pretty cool and made me really excited for Christmas morning! Have I mentioned I love this little girl! Sadly, this is the only picture we got tonight opening presents, we have some video, but that will take a little editing so you don't have to watch 10 minutes of it all. Perhaps I will post that later, or just make do with this!
This morning she had her 2 year well check appointment, I know I am horrible making her get shots on her birthday, but she was quite the trooper, didn't even cry and was great the rest of the day. She is still my little peanut only 30% in height and weight. As her doctor said, I finally got one that has my genes.

Larsen Family Talent Show

On Thanksgiving, the Larsens held a family talent show. This is something pretty cool. The Larsens are beautiful singers and so it was fun to get to enjoy them all share their talents. I didn't get the whole evening on tape, but a small sampling which you can find below. Elise wanted to do I Have a Dream from Mamma Mia. I got the sheet music and we started practicing, but she decided she would rather do it with the CD, so we have ABBA as back-up. I wanted to post that video, but the sound is such that it is hard to hear anything but ABBA. Reagan played a primary song, Follow the Prophet, and Tyler and his dad sang the Bing Crosby, David Bowie Christmas song, Peace on Earth which is one of my favorite songs. So here you go. (Please forgive the accompaniment, old piano and I get very nervous in front of people) Enjoy!

Turkey Run

Thanksgiving was great his year. Had fun with both families, we are very spoiled, I know. Thanks Larsens for a great meal and good company. Thanks Morgans for other good meals and more great company. We did so many fun things, played games, had a Larsen family talent show, went to Hop 2-it, saw Twilight, hit Target at 6:30 am on Black Friday, talked a lot, ate good food, and ran a 5K.
It was a lot of fun and I am so glad everyone was willing to come and run, we couldn't have asked for a better day.

Here we are ready to run. I think there were a couple more, not pictured.

aThose crazy Morgan Girls. I never realize how short I am until I see pictures, I am really short!

Thanksgiving

I am bound and determined to not overlook Thanksgiving this year. It is truly one of my favorite holidays, but I don't usually dedicate the whole month of November to it, just a few days. Upon finishing the Halloween crafts and costumes and getting homemade Christmas gifts going, I often feel I have neglected Thanksgiving. So this year, I decided to do a little more with this holiday.
I recently decided to start using my Cricut for Vinyl lettering and I have had a blast. Yesterday I decided to put it to good use with Fall decorating and here is the result. I saw something similar to this at the CSI craft fair last weekend. I have one ready to make for Christmastime, but as I mentioned before I wanted to pay proper homage to the now, so that project can wait!

I also pulled out my little Indian and Pilgrim people I made a few years back at Super Saturday. Elise and Mollie have adopted them as their own families, Mollie the pilgrims and Elise the Indians. I often find them talking to them and today Mollie was sharing her sippie cup with the baby. (Weird, or cute I haven't made up my mind on this one).

Private

I am going to go private with this blog, so if you are interested in getting to read the oh so exciting posts I write, leave a comment and I will happily invite you. It is sad to me that we live in such a world where there are too many scary, yucky people, but alas, it is so.

Thanksgiving Turkey Run

I just wanted to invite anyone who is interested and will be in town, to join us for a Thanksgiving 5K Turkey Run. We will begin at 11:00 am at the Hankins Church on Hankins road. I am working on getting the route mapped out, but there is no cost, just come and run. See that way you can have an extra slice of pie and not feel bad about it.

My favorite son!

Not sure about the funny face here!

Can I just begin this post by saying how much I love this kid. Reagan is such a great kid and I love how he loves being a big brother. He is so sweet to his little sisters, he adores them and they adore him. He is smart, kind, considerate and just plain cute. Now on to the post:
Reagan's 2 front teeth have been loose for a really long time, but they didn't seem to be getting quite loose enough. So one day, I decided to give it my best shot and while working with them, I noticed his adult teeth were already coming in, but growing in kind of weird, so I figured I had better leave this one to the professionals. So, on Tuesday we headed to Dr. Tingey to have those baby teeth pulled. Sad that we had to have a dentist do what a piece of string and a door knob should have been able to do. Alas, Dr. Tingey had to fight with them for a while to get them out, the little buggers were in there really tight. But we go them out and the Tooth Fairy even came. Reagan was pretty excited about it all, and was very proud of how tough he was, even though as he says, it hurt really, really bad.

Vote Tomorrow~

I love this lady!


If you have a minute, check out this video as well if you have any question about where the candidates stand on the abortion issue.

Halloween this year!

Happy Halloween everyone. I decided to go ahead and post the kids costumes this year. The blog topper is courtesy of last year, so here we are.

Reagan as a Knight in Shining Armor

Elise as Glinda the Good Witch

and Mollie as a Clown

What a crew these three make. So much fun. Tyler went to work as the Wizard since the bank was going with a Wizard of Oz theme, that worked well and I am Elphaba the bad witch, so stay tuned for those pictures, I know you will be on the edge of your seats.

The Biggest Loser and Haunted Mansions

Part One:
Haunted MansionsSaturday Night my mom, Paula and I went to Albion to check out the Haunted Mansion set up in the old, closed down Albion Teaching College Campus, which closed over 30 years ago and has been rumored to actually be haunted and not just at Halloween. WOW!!!! It was scary. There were 3 buildings we went through, 2 were just empty, old buildings, a theater and the gymnasium that were completely dark, with random zombies creeping up behind us, or jumping out at us from dark corners. Holy crap, I was so glad to have my mommy there. I didn't let go of her the whole night, I am kind of a baby. The 3rd building was the actual Haunted Mansion and it was so well done. I won't give anything away for those of you who plan on attending, but it was very well done and I had such much fun with Mom and Paula. My mom spent most of the night laughing at the 2 of us chickens, mostly me, but it was crazy.

Part Two:
A group of us have decided to start a Biggest Loser Blog Contest. It begins November 1st and will end April 30th. If any of you are interested in joining check out the blog and let me know!

The Kelsey's

This is kind of fun. My cousin Nick and his wife Angie were featured on the Early Show this morning. They were doing a story about getting pregnant after adopting and since that is what Nick and Ang went through, they were selected to be on the show. Check it out HERE.

Time for a Mollie post

Mollie has been a little under the weather for a week or so with a cold, then on Thursday night she was up all night long, (Not even joking) with stomach flu, but today she is feeling better and my happy little Mollie has returned. So today's post is a Mollie post. My sisters Paula and Rachel are so good about recording everything her daughter does, words, songs, favorites, you name it and I wish I had been better with my older 2 and even with Mollie, but alas you get what you get. Mollie is my yellow personality child, like her dad. She is out for fun, nothing is serious, just entertaining. She flits around the house and loves to be cuddled and kissed. Today Tyler taught her Eskimo kisses and she can't give out enough of them. I love my little Mollie and everyday I think she gets more and more lovable!

Pretty sure someone must have said " Say cheese!"

"Check me out, mom"

We did curlers last night in Mollie's hair, but since Elise was sick, we didn't get to show off the curly locks to her friends in nursery, maybe next week.

Isn't she cute?

Happy Belated Birthday to me

I suppose I haven't posted this one yet, because I figure if I deny it long enough, maybe I won't get older. Yikes 35, I can't believe it, that is half of 70. Oh, well, I'll let you know how 70 goes when I get there. Had a fun weekend. Tyler, the kids and I went down to Provo, missed the horrific snow storms though, (yay!) We left Friday night before they hit our area, Provo didn't see anything and then we left Monday when everything had pretty much cleared out, I was very grateful. I got to spend some time with 3 of my sisters and that rocked. Melanie, Rachel and Jacque, thanks for a great weekend, I had a blast.
Saturday, Tyler, Rachel and I ran the BYU Cougar 5K, it was cold, but a lot of fun. We were cheered on by our kids, Jacque, and Tyler's family, thanks guys for the Birthday signs, that was cool. We went out for breakfast, then went to Rachel's to hang out until the guys left for the BYU homecoming game. That's when the girls took off for IKEA, love that place and I love the fun stuff I acquired, woo hoo for shopping! That night we had cake and ice cream at Jacque's house, (thanks Rachel for the cake, so yummy, I miss it already)
Sunday we headed up to Melanie's and had such a great time with her family, you guys are the best, thanks for letting us bunk there and ride out the storm.

Me and the kids, I can pull off 26, right?

Rachel and I, thanks again for the cake, girlfriend, so good!

Mollie and HD had so much fun together, they are a hoot! Cute cousins!
A little Scandanavian, a little Italian, we'll call it the melting pot family

Too much partying for Mollie and me, see I told you I was getting old.

How to peel an egg

I ran across this video on someone's blog, (yes, I was blog stalking and I didn't leave a comment, I know rude!). However, this is the coolest trick I have seen and I thought I would pass it on.

So much fun

Mollie and I arrived home from Michigan last night and I finally got a chance to post about our trip. It was so good to see Elise, Reagan and Tyler again, but we had such a great time, Carrie is the best hostess and we were spoiled by her and her family. Michigan is beautiful, her home is beautiful, her kids rock and I want to take the rest of my family there someday. Here is a quick run down on our activities.

• Carrie and Seth picked us up from the Airport Friday evening. Mollie did so well on the flight. She was cute and happy most of the time. She even slept for about a half hour, so that was nice. Thank goodness for portable DVD players.

Carrie and I are only 2 years apart, she is the sister just younger than I am

Saturday, Seth had to leave for a week long business trip in Belgium, so after he left, we headed into Brighton for the Harvest Festival.

Mollie had fun feeding the ducks once she got over the fear that they might eat her.

What a beautiful downtown. The kids played at the park, fed the ducks and bought gourds that were later artistically decorated.

These kids had such a great time and they doted on Mollie, we both loved it.
Karyna, Mollie, Tayden, Kaylee, and Tyler

• Sunday we went to church and had the opportunity to meet many of Carrie's friends we have heard so much about. Great people and they were all so welcoming, it was nice. I wish Mollie had cooperated a little more, but she won't even go to Nursery in our own ward, I don't know what else I should have expected.

• Monday was Carrie's Birthday, (she turned 29, wink, wink) so we spent the day together, talking, goofing off, making a birthday cake, seeing the gorgeous lakes and homes, and did more talking. Loved it. After the kids got home from school we headed out to Spicer Orchards for some playing and raspberry picking. It was amazing. My favorite time of year is the fall and this was the epitome of what I love about fall.

It reminded me of living in Massachusetts, and those were fun memories. Mollie had such a good time and she is quite the berry picker, I was impressed.
That night we had cake and ice cream and stayed up until almost 2:00 am doing more talking.

• Tuesday we went back into Brighton to do a little shopping and then headed back out to the airport. I can't believe how fast the trip went, but I am so glad I was able to go spend some time with the Cook family. Thank-you guys for a great time, can't wait to do it again.

Michigan

So I am here in Michigan and can't wait for the next few days. Right now I am pretty tired, the flights went well, Mollie did great, but 5:00 am came way too early. But I had to stay up and watch Survivor and Grey's Anatomy, right? Anyway, I will post more later.

Hair Contest

My sister Rachel is doing a Hair show-and-tell contest and so requested bloggers post pictures of how we do our kids' hair. Today was the primary program in church and Elise wanted something "princess-y" (surprise, surprise) so we went with a Princess Tiara type of hairdo. With Mollie I experimented with the "chain link fence" hair, and I really liked how it turned out. So here you go Rachel, my girls' hairdos.

Not the best picture of Mollie, but it was a minor miracle getting this shot.
(I need colorful hair elastics, the itty bitty ones, does anyone know where to get them?)

Top and back shots of Elise

And the Princess, Nose in the air shot, love this pose.
By the way, the kids did great in the program and it was wonderful, thanks to all the leaders for their hard work. Great Job!!

Lady Bruins Volleyball

I was asked to make these cookies for the Lady Bruins volleyball team, it was so much fun. As I was decorating these, I kept thinking back to my coaching days and I wondered why I never made my players fun cookies like this. I am actually feeling really bad about it, dumb, I know. So, if any of my former Volleyball or Basketball players are reading this, leave me a comment, I will make you cookies and send them to you. Thanks for the years of fun, that was a highlight in the "pre-mom" part of my life. You girls Rocked!!!!

OUCH!!!

This came in the mail today with my name on it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry! I have 5 more years to reach 40, come on people! I seriously looked at this and thought, really, do I belong in this group? YIKES!!

It's a Girl Thing!

This last week, my niece Hailey spent some time here with G & G Morgan while her parents did some ATVing in Moab. This meant girl time with Hailey, Kya, and Mollie. Then on Friday, my niece Kate spent the day with us, so it made it even more fun and Elise was thrilled. Kate and Elise are the same age and with Reagan in school, it was fun to have someone to play with. We had such a good time with all the girls. We made fairy skirts, had tea parties and played a lot. Take a look at these cute girls.

The Divas!!!

Does this picture even need any explanation!

Yesterday, the girls and I had fun playing beauty shop. I have recently found a number of hair blogs, thanks Rachel, and I love looking at all the cute hairstyles for little girls. So yesterday we did the Flower of Braids on Elise and on Mollie we did just a couple of cute pig tails with Jacque's Lil' Critter bows. Anyway, it was fun and I think the girls looked adorable. (Sorry this top picture is so fuzzy, not sure what happened).

This is supposed to be a 5 petal flower.

Yes, she is hiding her face in a Game Boy, I couldn't get her to look up. She is a little stinker, but wow she cracks me up~

Lil Critters

Ok, everyone, my sister Jacque is doing a giveaway on her Lil Critters Hairbow blog, so if you have girls and are in need of the cutest hairbows in the world, go to her blog and enter for the giveaway. She is also making Football season hairbows, so you pick your teams colors and they are too stinkin' cute, my girls were sporting their BYU bows today. Go Cougars. So check it out and enter to win! Let me tell you, these bows are so much fun. You can pick any of your colors and she will custom make them, it is awesome!

Friday Favorite

My friend Tess does a Friday Favorite on her blog and I have loved them, so I decided (if you will forgive me for stealing the idea) I am going to do my Friday Favorites. So here is the first one: In honor of the 2008 season's first game tomorrow, I have chosen BYU football. I love it and I am looking forward to a great season. Go Cougars! (I am going to have to settle watching it at home while Tyler and Elise go to the game, have fun you two!)

My 1st grader

Well, I now have a child going to school all day long. (Someone hand me a tissue) Reagan started his first day of the 1st grade today and he was so excited. His said his stomach was crazy, he was so excited.
Funny story: I asked him last week what he wanted for his first day of school breakfast and first day of school dinner. He thought for a moment and then said, "Well something that will go in my lunch box so I guess not pancakes." I asked him why they needed to be in his lunch box and he said, "Well since I will be eating there all day. I will also have to say good-bye to you and dad." We discussed this for a moment, and it came to light he assumed he was sleeping and eating at school "all day". We had to clarify. He is such a fun kid.

So this morning, I asked what he wanted me to make for him, and he said, I will make my own breakfast and you can pack my lunch. So, here he is "making his own breakfast". Honestly, I had planned on making a nice hot breakfast, he wanted cereal.
I will report later and how things went...

New topic: Yesterday we went to the Twin Falls Temple Dedication. It was so neat. All 5 of my sisters came for it, Carrie even who flew here from Michigan. Rachel got some pictures of all us before we went into the temple.

I know I am biased, but I think this is the prettiest temple.

The Morgan Girls: Carrie #3, Jacque #6, Rachel #5, Paula #4, Me #2, and Melanie #1

What a lovely couple! (Forgive our funny faces, the sun was really bright!)

The Morgan Family, with my dad's parents, Grandpa and Grandma Morgan
Evan, Jim, Jenna, Melanie, Grandpa, Grandma, Carl and Paula, Carrie (we missed you Seth), Tyler and Alicia, Jacque and Mark, Rachel and Matt, Mom and Dad.

What a great experience to be in the Temple for the dedication.