It's a blanket with sleeves

We had a fun Christmas this year! The gift of the year had to be the Sunggie! How did we live without these!!! Thanks Houston MacDonalds! They are warm and if you wear it backwards you can pretend it's a cape!

We spent Christmas Eve at my parent's house with my my brother's family and had such a good time watching all the kiddos open gifts.

It looks like Emily is holding a glass of wine but pretty sure it's really Pepaw.

Ryan giving us his best mountain man with his new Logchain knife and bear claw necklace.

Christmas morning we were at home and my parents came over and had breakfast with us and opened gifts.

They stayed most of the day and we had a yummy lasagna dinner and played some hilarious songs on Wii Music. The other fun gift this year was webcams all across the country! We were able to Skype to Houston on Christmas morning so fun to get to see and talk to everyone!

Here we are talking to Jerry and Tricia in Houston.

For New Years day we have made it our tradition to spend the day with Bill and Jon and there is always lots of FUN! This year was no different! We look forward to Bill's famous sauerkraut balls, ham biscuits and this year there was a killer blueberry pie!

The iconic Coon Skin Rock ON pose! Made famous by Bill at the Fess Parker Vineyard in Santa Barbara. Now we each have our own coon skin cap for taking pictures everywhere we go!

Em's favorite gift of the year a New Moon Jacob treasure chest. Thanks Bill and Jon!

Hope 2010 is treating everyone well so far!

Happy New Year!

Need to post some pics and things from Christmas and New Years but just doing some house cleaning and trying to get motivated for 2010! Decided to participate in the House of 3 Simply Amaizng project and need to get my binder put together, but first have a Circle Journal to put togehter but have spent the morning working on blog stuff instead, becasue the computer desk is clean and the scrap desk is NOT....procrastinate much... ;)

Also working on PILES of laundry but have a super fun new front load washer and dryer that was a Christmas gift from my parents, and got installed this week, so this weekend laundry seems fun! Thanks m&d love you!

Will try to get Christmas pictures posted this week.

Japanese Friendship Garden

My friends Bill and Jon invited me to join them at the Japanese Friendship Garden for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony and tour of the gardens. My mom and great friend Shannon were able to come along too! It was a beautiful day for visiting the garden, that is tucked in the middle of downtown Phoenix! Once inside you have no idea you are practically the top of the deck park tunnel of the I-10 freeway.

















We had a brief tour leading us back to the authentic Japanese tea house where we were served matcha the traditional green tea, lets just say it's an acquired taste, but the ceremony was beautiful!.

Before entering the tea house we all took turns washing our hands, which is part of the ritual, at stone fountain outside.

















































Once inside there is more to learn about the ritual






























Then we are seated for the ceremony

Like I said it's an acquired taste, you are to slurp your tea if you like it....not everyone was slurping.

It was a great day to spend with great friends.

And yes Bill and I look fantastic in our matching aubergine but no we did not plan this...it must just be our impeccable fashion taste knowing how great it would make us look against the beautiful backdrop of the garden.

If you get the chance to visit here it is a wonderful place to see!

Winter Choir Concert

Emily has been singing with her school's girls choir this semester. They practice one day a week before school, and tonight was their winter concert. Several music classes also performed and the high school choir performed as well.
It was a beautiful show an Em did so well!

Kind of hard to see her in the video...sorry...she is in the back row middle.
The song is called The Sleigh.

Turkey and Two Wheelers

We had a great day yesterday with our family at my mom and dad's house! I love Thanksgiving, all the traditional food, preparing and planning, then eating all the delicious creations! I always make the pies, this year I made one pumpkin and one buttermilk pie. My brother smoked a turkey (it was awesome!) and my dad fried a turkey (MY FAV), we had all the staples stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, three kinds of cranberries, and apple salad. We also had some killer sweet potato chips that we made in the fryer with the turkey.

The meal was delicious and it was wonderful to have my Grandma Eileen there, my brother and his whole familiy, and it was great to be able to spend the day with Solange and Joseph on their first Thanksgiving. We went around the table and said what we were thankful for, Emily was thankful for Rocky, Bryce was thankful for the food, My dad was happy for his 6 grandchildren (he only has 5 grandchildren) Cami and I were a bit nervous about this!! My mom was happy to have Joseph and Solange with us for Thanksgiving, I was thankful my dad only has 5 grandchildren, Gracie was thankful for EVERYTHING, Grandma Eileen was thankful for spending the day with her family, Ryan was thankful for his family, Cami was thankful for her wonderful family, we all thought Joseph was thankful for turkey legs (he ate two!) but he said he was thankful for everyone, Solange's big beautiful smile showed she was thankful for the day!!!


After dinner my dad and Joseph headed out front, Joseph wanted to try out the bike in the garage. Well this kid is extremely athletic and there is not much he can't do! He was off and riding the bike in no time at all!

We all headed out front to watch him, then we all took turns riding the old Two Bike. The two bike belonged to my grandma and grandpa Brown and all the grand kids spent lots and lots of time riding this around their Shalimar neighborhood in Tempe when we were growing up, now this next generation of grand kids get to take their turn riding it! Great memories, and a great day!

Hope your Thanksgiving was full of memories.

Thanks!!!

This month is all about being thankful and grateful for the things in our lives, Em and I have a lot to be thankful for. We have some great people in our lives!

So excited to be heading off to Houston see the best girls in the whole wide world this week! Can't wait for some silly girl fun, shopping, laughing, and being creative at the Pink Store!

A huge thanks to my mom and dad for making arrangements to have Em so I could go, even though they already had plans! I love you both! A big thanks to Jon for hooking me up with a buddy pass for my flight! A HUGE thanks to Timi for having us all! Can't wait to see you all, you girls ROCK!

So grateful to have my parents home from Colorado for the winter...I have already had my dad working on lots of jobs around my house :) broken shelves and kitchen drawers, exterior illumination, windshield wipers, he is the best at fixing things I didn't even know needed work! Love you dad!

One quick pic from our trip to the fair last week, we had a blast eating cotton candy, corn dogs, funnel cakes, riding the crazy rides and posing for fun picutres! View from the top of the big slide....














What are you thankful for this month?

Off to see the Wizard

Well our favorite day of the whole year is over for 2009....now we have a whole year to wait and plan for 2010!
We had an OZ / Wicked theme this year had almost all the characters accounted for...Galinda "The Good Witch" was the only one missing...travelling by bubble back from Virgina...not all of us can travel by bubble.







Emily made a great Dorothy and would so have loved to
throw a bucket of water on me! Luckily I managed to stay dry!







Emily did my make up and did a great job turning me in to Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West, although I know there are a lot of people who think I don't need any help getting my inner witch to show.







Wicked Witch of the East....watch out for flying houses.

Our neighbors Suzanne and Darren came as the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion. Em did Darren's make up too....and a little tip from Suzanne (who learned the hard way) when you cover your tin man funnel hat with duct tape don't put the tape on the inside of the hat!
Even our best buddy Frank (who sadly lives too far away in NJ) and loves Halloween as much as we do, always makes an appearance at Halloween.
Frank the rock gets to go lots of places with us and last night he made a great Wizard!



We had a great night with our neighbors and Em's bff Grey who came to spend the night.

Em and Grey looking great in their pink and blue check! The did well trick or treating, and came back with lots of candy!


Lots of food, candy and Pina Ghouladas...mmmm!




















Guess it's time to put the pumpkins and skeletons away and get out the turkeys.
Hope you all had a great night.