2010 Calendar

Every year, I undertake a BIG project, I make calendars for Jake's family and my family, there are 82 people that encompass the two families. . .so it gets stressful, and sometimes, I miss new babies, and sometimes I mess up on dates, but I love having my kids look at the calendars and remember fun things about the cousins, or the time they were. . . and I love getting to at least think about the birthday person or the couple that has enriched our life. . .so, it is a labor of love that encompassed this December! Nonetheless, here is the final product, I took some of the pictures of the two families calendars and put them into the slideshow. I used the Shabby Shoppe's premade calendars and then put the pictures in. . .I liked how they turned out mostly :)

Our Christmas Card/Letter

I know Christmas is gone and over, but.. .I didn't get this posted yet. . .so, if I don't have your address, or if I missed the boat, and there are a few very late Christmas card that are coming (one just surfaced today) here is what we sent. :)

Jake REFUSED to let us get family pictures this year, and we didn't think to take any family pictures on our trip to Philadelphia or New Hampshire, we were having too much fun . . .so, I used one of my favorite? pictures of my boys from Mary's photo shoot this summer, and I created a card to go with it!

Christmas Tradition

Last week, our family "braved" the "frigid" Arizona temperatures and went and enjoyed the temple lights. Beautiful and it was nice to enjoy a light jacket. This is one of the most wonderful times of the year!

Ever since I was in probably High School, maybe younger, my parents have always had me make cinnamon rolls, I have used several recipes, but I have one that I LOVE!!!! I made several recipes last week, and will probably try to get some more made this week to take to neighbors and friends, but if you don't live in the area, or you are in need of a DELICIOUS recipe, here you go:

2 TBSP dry yeast
2 cups warm water
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup instant non-fat dry milk
2 eggs
6 to 7 cups flour

In mixing bowl, combine yeast and water, let stand for 5 minutes until yeast foams. Add sugar, butter, salt dry milk, eggs and 2 cups flour. Beat together until very smooth. Add 2 more cups flour and beat until smooth. Continue adding flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough is sticky and soft. Use as little flour as necessary. Knead until smooth and satiny. Allow to rise until double. Punch down and let rest for 10 minutes. Divide dough in half and roll each half to rectangle. Spread with softened butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, nuts or raisins, if desired. Roll up, cut and place on greased baking sheets. Allow to rise again until double. Bake at 400 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes (mine actually take about 20 minutes). When cooled frost with buttercream frosting. Note: Dough may be refrigerated overnight. . .Delicious.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we had Grandma and Grandpa Brown home from their wanderings throughout the world, so they got to host Thanksgiving at their house. It was delicious. We enjoyed having Marlene, Jon, Grace, Jon's dad Jon, and GG there with us in addition to Tyler and my mom and dad. I didn't take many pictures, but Spencer was way into the whip cream, but I missed the total effect. . .but he was loving life.

Happy Birthday Spencer

We have a five year old in our house! Spencer celebrated his birthday in November! He came home from preschool that day very upset, he reported "Mom, I don't want to go to school next year!" Why, I queried, "I don't want to do hard work and have to do homework and go to school everyday! Preschool is all I want to do!" This would sum my Spencenator, Punk, French Fry, Nator boy up. He loves to have fun! Play, entertain himself, learn what he wants to and do whatever he thinks up at the time being! Five facts about Spece:

1. He loves to use his imagination, he can play by himself for hours.

2. He is the best airplane traveler you have ever met. People always comment on what a good boy he is on the airplane. He has gone on more airplanes than we care to report, but I will say he has been to: Switzerland, Austria, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Utah, Colorado, California, Nevada, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois and a variety of other airports in his short life. He loves airplanes and is always interested in learning about them at science museums!

3. He is a friend to everyone and has an imagination that will cover at least two . . .Cooper, I tried to upload the pics of you two, but they wouldn't! :)

4. He loves his big brothers and can't wait to go and get "The Brothers" from the bus every day!

5. He hates getting his picture taken. . .he is getting better, but I still have to beg/bribe him when we get pictures taken to have him cooperate -- everyone of these was taken on the sly!
Happy birthday Spencer! We love you and are so glad that you are a member of our family!

Catch up time

I am finally taking the pictures off my computer, in November, to finish wrapping up a busy fall, our family
went to Utah to see Jake's parents and some of his siblings. This is the second year that we have taken advantage of going
up right before Spencer's birthday, does that make it an annual tradition? Time will see, but we were all pleased
at the outcome. . .We, meaning, Jake and I do not care for snow. I HATE driving in it and Jake doesn't like the coldness,
so, we traditionally don't go very many places when the weather isn't good. When we flew into Salt Lake the sky was clear and we could see that they had had some inclement weather recently, but it was perfect. As we drove down to Kanosh, the weather looked a little bad, but we went over Scipio summit without even a snowflake or a sprinkle, so no worries. We arrived in Kanosh and about thirty minutes later we were hit with SNOW! It was a pretty intense snow storm, the boys LOVE the snow about as much as I HATE the snow, so they were dancing and jumping for joy! We had a pretty good snowstorm that afternoon and got at least six to eight inches over the afternoon, and then the weather cleared up. The boys LOVED playing in the snow and playing with their cousins. We celebrated Spencer's birthday with his cousins in Utah and all the boys loved that. By the time we came home on Monday, the weather was PERFECT and the roads clear. . .a perfect weekend!