My Cranium Hurts!

Christmas was so much fun. We ate, played and it was so fun seeing all the babies together! Tavan and his family gave us the game Cranium for Christmas and the whole famliy enjoyed it, well, at least for the most part. I am not sure if the girls love it anymore. The stinky boys beat us twice. There is just no explanation except for cheating! I have asked the makers of Cranium to start an investiation on how the boys could have possible won and hopefully us girls can get our pride back and be deemed the ultimate champions!

Christmas Come Early (For Scout)

We are taking a plane to Reno for Christmas and would not be able to fit Scout's presents in our luggage, so Scout's Christmas came early this year. We set out her presents last night and she got to open them this morning after a little breakfast and dragging mommy out of bed. We made a video, but for some reason we can't post it. So, below are some pictures of Scout enjoying her new toys.

Christmas Has Come

I will try to make this story brief, but I felt like I should post it to hopefully spread some Christmas cheer (without getting anyone drunk...). So, my record player stopped working about a month ago, which was really bad timing because we have a handful of great Christmas albums on vinyl that we enjoy listening to. This is the third Christmas Sarah and I have spent together and so far we have always listened to our records, so we thought this year would just be a bummer. Well, our home-teacher, the infamous brother Brian Phillips, is a graduate student in the electrical engineering program here at BYU so I thought I'd ask him if there was anything he could do to try and fix it. Well, to make a long story longer, he came over and we disassembled the record player and he told me the motor was shot. After finding out that in order to get a new motor, we would have to make a bulk order of at least a thousand motors, we felt a little helpless. Well, my calling-magnifying home-teacher is not easily daunted so he took the motor apart to see if he could fix it. He did indeed fix it. He came over tonight and we reassembled the record player and then stood in silence and listened to the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies from The Nutcracker. Brian didn't have to take time to do this for me, especially during finals week, but he did and I'm very grateful. Merry Christmas.

The Ward Christmas Party

This post may very well be an excuse to post more pictures of Scout for the Grandparents! Yesterday was our church Christmas party. It turned out so well. The food was good and the talent show was awesome. There was even juggling, unicycle riding,throwing of crazy objects, Chinese yo-yo and accordion playing (all by one guy!) Cedric played and sang Bing Crosby Christmas songs that he arranged so cleverly. Here are some pictures.

Our life is one big never ending party

I thought when I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints my crazy hectic life style would be done with. Almost three years latter I have come to the realization that "the party of life" it self is raging more than ever. Crazy and hectic don't even cut it. The past two weeks have been so busy. First our cars transmission went out. Out came my mom from Sacramento with my dad's Tacoma to the rescue! It was so nice to see her over the Thanksgiving weekend. I rented a bed from BYU and she stayed in our tiny apartment and was happy when it was time to go! That same weekend and all in one day we had Darin, Ross and Toby Tiner over for brunch and then the neighbors over for dinner and visited numerous times with our other neighbors Missy and her girls while somehow in there we managed to fit in a visit from Maria and Brookie! Then it was back to workout group, grocery's, work, and trying to be a good mom, friend, neighbor and wife. Anyway, I love my life and all the people and things that are a part of it. Here are a few pictures.

Scout Turns ONE!

That's right... Scout is now at the ripe old age of ONE. We got her some blocks to play with and as can be seen below, she loved them. We had a small party with Micah, Camille and Nigel, Uncle Andy, Ken, Missy, Elise and Addy and The Madsens (Jeremy and Amanda). As Jerry Seinfeld would say, your first birthday is a lot like your last- all your food has to be mashed up for you, you're probably wearing a diaper and people are assuring you that everyone at your party are in fact friends of yours.

Here's Scout snuggling with her new best friend- a wooden block.


they say these types of toys help your kids get smart fast- we didn't think they would have such quick results!



Party Time




Scout is about to destroy the beautiful cake that mommy and Missy made for her

She Walks!

Yes, we realize she's not wearing pants. She's a little hippie, but she's our little hippie. I love how it looks like she falls into a hole at the end of the video... she's fine, by the way.

Apples and Pumpkins and Pies, Oh My!

This Fall has been off to a great start! I finished sewing my apron (no pattern!)and made apple pie with apples we picked as a family (see past post.) Halloween has been the best ever with three awesome parties and pumpkin carving. Scout, our neighbor Amanda and I even got to visit Gardner Village. Scout and Cedric are actually decedents of Archibald Garner, the pioneer that settled the village. The Oka family was able to join us for some of the fun as well! On to Thanksgiving.

Just to Give Mom a Heart Attack...

On October, 25th Nick and Julie Escobedo had their Monster Mash of a Halloween party, which lived up to it's ever-growing reputation of coolness. This year, Bob and Rita Marley showed up and rubbed shoulders with none other than Amelia Earhart and Barack and Michelle Obama. Barack and Michelle won the costume contest by popular vote and about ten minutes later, the McCain campaign called demanding a re-count. Also pictured below is Cedric's birthday party at Tucano's Brazilian restaurant. Good times.

"The Veggie Vampire"- a Halloween poem for you

Late at night, all dressed in black, below a moonlit sky,
I sneak into the orchard and I suck the apples dry.

The bitter juice of lemon fruit, with ripened nectarine
makes nice dessert for artichokes with turnips, beets and beans

Yes, oranges, peaches, passion fruit, zucchinis, peas and pears,
had better not stay out at night, and if they do-BEWARE!


For, in the early morning, farmers find the peels and rinds,
and shriveled up tomatoes hanging sadly on the vines.

And gardeners and cultivators grasp their produce tight
for fear that I, the Veggie Vampire, strike again tonight!

Stop... Apple time.

Here are some pictures of Scout and daddy-o picking what turned out to be a decade supply of apples from uncle Grant's haunted orchard. We gave a lot of the apples away to our neighbors in hopes that they would cook delicious things using the apples and then bring those delicious things to us in thanks for the apples. So far we've had some delicious apple pie from our upstairs neighbors, but nothing from anyone else. We have taken note of the people that we gave apples to who haven't offered us delicious apple-based treats and we plan on egging their apartments Halloween night.




Scout's first car- we told her she can start driving as soon as she fixes it up.

Catch up

In the past few weeks we went to the zoo, Scout sent her first text message, she also started learning how to do head stands and the whole family went to General Conference.