Charlie Brown Tree

Disclaimer: This excursion was against Arthur's better judgment. But I convinced him that nothing bad could happen. I was sure I wasn't having the baby that night, and I wanted to cut down our tree instead of getting it at Lowe's.

So . . . . On Saturday afternoon we went up to the Jemez mountains in the Southern Rockies to cut down our tree. Unfortunately, we left a little too late and only had about an hour of daylight to find the perfect tree. Well, when you are looking around the forest for the perfect Christmas tree with a two-year-old and a nine-month pregnant lady, you don't walk around the forest as quickly as you might otherwise. Sean was such a trooper, but he kept tripping on hidden twigs and logs. Every time he fell, he would get up and would say, "I did it!" But I spent most of my time helping him up, and brushing off the snow. Dallin and Daphne were great at encouraging him to keep going. Eventually, we stayed by the car while Arthur made a big (faster) sweep of a certain area as we were running out of daylight. Meanwhile, the kids were getting cold and hungry and cranky, and we ended up cutting this tree next to the road that was a far cry from last year's perfect specimen, but passable. We lovingly call it our "Charlie Brown Tree."
I don't have any pictures of the tree we chose because we were racing the setting sun trying to get it up on the car and back home. In fact, we were grateful to actually make it home with any tree at all after we had some trouble getting out of those snow-packed forest service roads. Our first attempt back out, we spun out and decided we'd need some chains to get out. (Keep in mind we're in a mini van. No 4-wheel drive for us. ) Oh, and we forgot our cell phone. So we had no way to contact anybody if we actually got stuck.

Unfortunately, one of our chains broke the first time we tried to make a climb. Not good. We limped along with chains on one front tire and the other front tire spinning out. We prayed and prayed and Heavenly Father was looking out for us, because Arthur was finally able to maneuver us out, and I'm thinking we may have had angels pushing us up the final ascent.

Meanwhile, maybe because of the full moon and the emotional stress of contemplating the worst possible scenario, I had some pretty good contractions start up. But they subsided when we got home and I put my feet up. We felt very, very grateful to be sleeping in our own beds and not in the car out in the wilderness waiting for the next mornings' tree hunters to come find us. And especially that Arthur didn't have to deliver our baby out there in the freezing cold car.










We brought the tree in last night to decorate for Family Home Evening. Once the holes were facing the corner and it was fitted with lights and ornaments, I must say it doesn't look half bad.
















Here is a video of the kids decorating the tree for Christmas.

I've Got Plenty to be Grateful For!

Hurray! My family finally made it out to visit us! Mom, Dad, Melanie, Reed, Emma, Jacob and Nathan were able to drive out for Thanksgiving and we loved having them come. Everybody helped with the food prep for the Thanksgiving feast, and we played games and watched movies and just enjoyed each other.

Mom's mouthwatering crescent rolls

The delicious pomegranates imported from Nevada!

Thanks for washing out the turkey, Dad. You're the hero of Thanksgiving for taking on that most undesirable job. It was sooo delicious.

The FEAST!

Yummmmm . . .

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have eaten so much!

We got a couple of inches of snow Thursday night, so Jacob, Nathan and Dallin made a tiny snowman with all the snow they could collect off the grass the next morning. It was shorter than Sean, but it counts for the first snowman of the season!
(Gotta love the Darth Vader helmet.)

They had to leave Saturday, and even though I know I'll see them all soon, I was still so sad to see them go. Thanks for coming out, guys, and putting up with the crowded living space! We love you and can't wait to see you in a few weeks for Christmas and Julianne's wedding!

Happy Birthday Dallin!

Dallin turned 6 last week. His birthday was Tuesday, but since his Nona and Grandpa, and five of his aunts and uncles (Melanie, Reed, Emma, Jacob and Nathan) were coming into town late that night, he opted to wait for them and celebrate on Wednesday. We had a lunch-time party, but of course all I heard that morning was, "Can we just have a breakfast party?" It's funny how time crawls by when you're anticipating something big. I am due to have this baby in eight days, and time has officially slowed down for me too.

After looking at all the available party themes at the store, (Star Wars, Spider Man, Cars, Transformers, Shrek, etc.) Dallin chose a very original theme: "Go BYU, and Go USA." That boy definitely thinks for himself. So we had football plates and Red, White and Blue streamers and American flags to decorate with. Nona made his birthday cake red, white and blue and it said, "Happy Birthday Dallin!" on top with "Go BYU!" and "Go USA!" on the sides.

He had a great time with the aunts and uncles there.

Happy Birthday Dallin! We love you and are so grateful you are in our family.

Blog tag-and I'm it.

So Natalie blog tagged me which apparently means I get to write six things about myself and tag somebody else. So if you aren't interested in six "Sharee facts" you can skip this post. I won't be offended (because I won't even know.) It's kind of hard to think of six things that aren't super obvious. Let's see . . .

1. I love to sleep. When I'm finally done for the day, and my head hits the pillow, it is like heaven. Arthur calls it "the flop" when I climb into bed and just drop into the downy goodness of my wonderful pillow. I really can't find words to describe it--It's just marvelous.

2. I have been keeping a journal since I was 8 years old. I received my first journal for my 8th birthday and have kept one ever since. I have filled probably 14 journals since then. I am not consistent by any means; I don't write every day or even once a week. Sometimes it's just once a month. But I enjoy keeping a journal because it's kind of therapeutic for me -- besides, "one should always have something sensational to read on the train." (name the play/movie).

3. I grew three gray hairs when we were in New York while Arthur got his Masters at Cornell. I couldn't believe it when I found them, and plucked them out as fast as I could. Thankfully I haven't sprouted any more since then. I guess that's just proof that stress can age you prematurely. Poor Arthur got too many gray hairs to pull out that year, so he is just accepting those gray hairs, however premature they may be. He's still very handsome though, gray hairs and all.

4. I believe in long, hot showers. I think that a long hot shower can fix almost anything. Does your back hurt? take a hot shower. Are you congested? shower. the steamier the better. Are you anxious or stressed out? shower. Can't hear yourself think? you can in the shower. How about a vocal rehearsal room? Can't beat the shower. It even has cool acoustics. I love hot showers so much, sometimes I take two in a day. I know it's a bad habit, especially for somebody who lives in a desert, but what can I say? I just believe in showers.

5. I don't watch TV. I watch movies, but I rarely sit down and watch TV. I don't have any TV shows that I watch regularly, or care if I miss. Even the sound of it continuously on bothers me. I'd much rather curl up with a good book and relax that way.

6. My senior year in college, I wrote a really great paper that my professor thought I plagiarized. I worked in the music office, and he knew me personally, so I was shocked that he could believe me capable of that dishonesty. I was almost in tears when he confronted me about it. But after several minutes of grilling me about the paper, I eventually convinced him that I'd actually written it. I guess that could be considered a compliment in a weird, twisted sort of way, if you can get past the insult on my integrity. Anyway. I got a big fat A on that paper, so Go Me!

And here's a bonus tidbit, since I'm on a roll: My favorite candy bar is Twix. mmm . . . I love those.

Okay, I'm tagging Melanie, and I don't know if this is allowed, but I'm tagging Julianne and Jenny too, even though they don't have blogs, because I wish they did. So maybe you guys should start one and your first post can be "Six Fabulous Facts About Me!"

A Hogwarts Halloween

After practically living at the sewing machine for two weeks, I finally finished everybody's costume. (I sewed the last button on Arthur's just a few hours before the Halloween festivities were to begin.) Hopefully it's obvious what we all are, but in case you aren't familiar with Harry Potter, we are Harry Potter (Dallin), Hermione Granger (Daphne), Ron Weasley (Sean), Professor Trelawney (Sharee), and Professor Snape (Arthur). Technically, I didn't sew my costume. I found most of it at Good Will.

We went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat for Halloween which is great, because our neighborhood isn't a very big trick-or-treat neighborhood. Not a lot of porch lights on, and not a lot of kids to be disappointed by the lack thereof. We've had to outsource our trick-or-treating to other neighborhoods the last few years anyway.

So the trunk-or-treat was fun, but the gusty cold winds that came out just for the evening kind of put a damper on the party. Our dry ice potion blew away too quickly, and wind always makes people a little less keen on hanging around. Oh well. At least our costumes were awesome. Here are a plethora of pictures to satiate your burning desire to see them in all their glory.

Getting dressed takes almost as much time as we spent at the Trunk-or-Treat. If you look closely at the trash can on the counter, you'll see the rest of Arthur's wig. We had to alter it significantly since it was originally a long black "Elvira" wig with strands of gray in it.

We gave Arthur's wig a haircut and then added a bunch of pomade for that nice greasy look that Snape has. And we used a toothbrush to apply Sean's red hair color, without which, how could he possibly be Ron Weasley?

Two "Harry Potter" families. The Andersons were Cederic Diggory, Tonks, and a couple of Hogwarts owls.

An unlikely romance has developed between Snape and Trelawney.

Sean never holds still, especially for pictures, so here's a candid shot of what he does best. Run.

Harry and Hermione

After we got home, I tried once more to get just one shot of the three kids by themselves. At this point, they've had a little too much sugar, Dallin's glasses got sat on, I think, and Sean is trying to drink Dallin's glow stick. Nice.

And finally, the "de-Weasley-fication" process.

Jack-O-Lanterns!

We carved pumpkins for Family Night this week.

Here's Dallin scooping out the guts.

Sean wasn't very interested in gutting or carving the pumpkins. In fact, we ended up putting him to bed after he scribbled on his pumpkin and then ran off somewhere--probably to break some more DVDs.

But Daphne and Dallin enjoyed it.
Daphne requested a "cute happy face," which Arthur helped her with.
Very cute and very happy, don't you think?

Dallin designed his very own angry face, which came out great. And those straight lines make for some speedy carving action. It's the blasted curves that take forever!

I ended up carving a face Daphne drew since Sean's design was impossible to carve.
Halloween just brings out the creative genius in us all. Happy Haunting!