O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Every year we go and get a Christmas Tree. This year we were walking through the forest and we came upon some tracks...

We decided to follow them and this is what we found...

I'm Grateful for...

Rules: I'm suppose to tell 5 things that I'm grateful for, but it can't be sappy, boring, too sentimental, blah, blah, blah. They are suppose to be "fun" so here they are...

I'm grateful that my Brother-in-Law Chet finally got to live his life long dream and learn how to ride a real horse!

I'm grateful for friends who are good sports when I play pranks on them.

I am grateful for the Charlie Brown Christmas tree because it makes my tree look really good!

I am grateful for falling gas prices (that are 6 cents cheaper since I took this picture)!

And last, but not least I am thankful for the two wonderful men in my life!!!

What's Wrong with this Picture?

Cody and I take turns getting Gavin ready for church on Sundays. On this particular Sunday it was Cody's turn. He always dresses him really nice and he always matches and he always makes sure that he is not wearing white sock with his black pants and black shoes. But look really close and you can definitely see something wrong.

Here's a hint! Cody didn't even notice. I had to point it out to him. Gavin even knows how to put his own shoes on and he has never put them on the wrong feet. Way to go Daddy!

Operation Mahi Mahi

Cody found this crazy Mahi Mahi fish at a job sight this spring. We were saving it for a white elephant gift for my work christmas party, but since we are not doing white elephant gifts this year we decided to leave Paul & Erin a little present on their doorstep like they left for us.

Yes, that is the ORIGINAL hot dog that was in our mailbox. I kept it because I knew it would come in handy ( I'm weird I know). We taped it to the inside of the fish's mouth. Unfortunately, Paul & Erin were not home when we made the drop and they live out in Annis (suburb of Menan, which is a suburb of Rigby) and an animal of some sort had it for dinner before they got a chance to see the hot dog.

We still had our pumpkins from Halloween so I decided to get a little creative and put some faces on them for a little extra decor on their deck.

...more pumpkins. The pumpkin on the right is actually Gary Sinise's face cut up.

We also had a HUGE zuchinni that we didn't know what to do with so I jazzed it up a little bit with some rusty nails. I gave it some hair, ears and a cute little face. We put it next to her flower pot on the deck.

Yeah, I'm a Twilight Fan...just like everyone else

My cousin Angie(love ya girl) told me about the Twilight series last year and they did sound interesting, but I never got around to reading them. Then this summer the "Twilight Craze" hit work and everyone was talking about the books, so I borrowed( I didn't want to buy it just in case I didn't like it, little did I know) the first one from a co-worker. She brought it to me on Friday. I started it Friday night and was done by Saturday a little before 11 pm( Gavin takes pretty good care of himself !). I was hooked and I totally wanted to go buy the next one in the series right then and there and probably would have if Cody had not of been giving me such a hard time. Needless to say I bought New Moon and Eclipse on Monday and had them read in the blink of an eye, bought Breaking Dawn the day it came out and of course I went to the movie last night.
I had mixed feelings because I had "My Edward" in my head and didn't want my memory to be invaded by some "Hollywood Edward", but there was so much advertising that "My Edward" slowly became "Hollywood Edward" anyway, so I decided to go.
Steve, a CRNA I work with rents the entire theater in Blackfoot every time a Harry Potter movie would come out, so we (with the help of his wife Stacie) talked him into renting the theater for Twilight! Thank you Steve!!
I didn't get all crazy and wait for hours in the lines (which I don't completely understand anyway because everyone already has their tickets, but whatever!), but I did do something crazy, I brought my husband!!! (I know, I know!)
I took Gavin to my sisters for his very first over-nighter EVER (I cried, he didn't) and then when Cody got out of class we headed to Blackfoot which was actually really nice because with our crazy schedules it seems like we never have time to talk.
The theater didn't open until 11pm so we waited in the car for a couple of minutes. The line was forming, but Cody wouldn't get out of the car until he saw another man in line. Finally another guy showed up so we walked to the line, then the guy went back to his car and Cody almost bailed, but them some more "testosterone" showed up. ( I warned him multiple times that he would be greatly outnumbered, but he still wanted to come, even after our friends decided not to come with us because they didn't think they could stay up....Cassie and Scott!!! You should have went).
While we were waiting they had a Twilight quiz for us and a costume contest for the people who dressed up, Cody decided it was nap time...
Even though a movie could NEVER be as good as the book I loved the movie and once I got past Edwards HUGE eyebrows he was pretty dreamy, James wasn't to bad either and I loved Alice). I was surprised at the details they did put in from the book and of course a little disappointed with some of the others. The house's (The Cullen's and Charlie's) didn't look at all like I pictured, but it was good and I'm excited for the rest of the movies, but I'm definitely re-reading the books before I watch the movie. In their defense it really is hard to condense 300+ pages of good reading into 1-2 hours of a movie. Cody even liked the movie even though he hadn't read the books. I had told him about them, but had to fill him in here and there for a few things. OK so I'll stop rambling, but I'd love to know what you all thought about the movie.

Hot Dog Mystery Solved!

" I KNOW A WEINER MAN
HE OWNS A WEINER STAND
HE SELLS EVERYTHING FROM
HOT DOGS ON DOWN
SOME DAY I'LL JOIN HIS LIFE,
I'LL BE HIS WEINER WIFE
HOT DOG I LOVE MY WEINER MAN!

Paul & Erin

I know where you live and I know where you sleep and I don't get mad I get even...Beware!

The Case of the Abandoned Hot Dog

So there we were minding our own business. I was on the computer and Cody was chillin' on the couch watching TV when the doorbell rang. He wasn't completely dressed so he ran to the bedroom leaving me to answer the door.

I opened the door and no one was there. Upon further inspection I found this (see picture above). A lonely cold hot dog hanging out of our mailbox with no one there to claim it. Me being the nice person that I am took the lonely little hot dog into the house where it was nice and warm since it was abandoned and didn't have a coat or anything.

I immediately blamed our friends The Lewis'(I played a prank on them the day before) for the hot dog prank and called their home phone hoping to catch them before they got there...they answered(Liz & Oliver, sorry for blaming you). OK so it wasn't them.Mystery unsolved...

I work one day a week and it happened to be Wednesday morning, the day after the abandoned Hot Dog. I have to be to work @ 6 am and this is what I found on my window (lucky for me I didn't park my car in the garage) @5:45 am. A little note just for me with extra traction on my windshield wipers to get the frost off and a pretty wrapper for decoration. I promptly took the hot dogs off the window leaving them on the side of my yard for some starving animal. To my surprise the "hi" was still on my window. Apparently Hot Dogs keep your window from frosting up. I think I have a new invention!
Later on I found out that Cody also has a surprise on his truck. He had hot dogs speared to his antenna, the poor little things didn't have a chance.
FYI: To the person who did this, I sent the hot dog wrapper to be analyzed for finger prints. YOU WILL BE FOUND and YOU WILL BE PUNISHED. You will be forced to eat hot dogs until you can't stand it, which should only be about two!

Baby Alyssa

Our brand new niece


Alyssa Marie


Born: November 3, 2008
8 lbs and 20 inches

Gavin is Growing Up!

After he drew on his forehead with a black crayon(at least it wasn't a Sharpie and he's washable) he decided to text some of his homies...

...and call the rest on Mommy's phone.

His very first picture he colored in Nursery!

HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

O.K., so it's a holiday so I took LOTS of pictures. Here are a few of them : )

We grew pumpkins in our garden this year and we ended up with 12 (or 14, I can't remember). Gavin tried to lift the bigger ones, but couldn't, so he stuck to packing the little ones around.

He loves to pull his wagon around and be pulled around. He was doing pretty good at pulling these around as long as he was headed downhill.

My sister and I took the 3 kids to the carnival at the Home Emporium and we had to get pictures of them in their costumes. Gavin just wanted to play with the pumpkins and kept jumping ship. In the meantime Faith was freezing her wings off!

Finally, we had Faith and Taylor hold him still so we could get the picture. Faith is a fairy (NOT A BUTTERFLY), Gavin was a binky sucking dragon, and Taylor was a cowboy.

I let them pick out their own pumpkins and we carved them. Faith takes after my sister, Karen, and doesn't like all the owey gooey stuff so Taylor and I had to get the guts out. Gavin kept sticking his hands through the eyes in his pumpkin. They turned out pretty cute.

Faith and Gavin were the cutest pumpkins of all!

IF LOOKS COULD KILL!
We decided to dress Gavin up in part of my costume, but apparently he didn't think it was as fun as we thought it should be.

We took Gavin Trick-or-Treating at Great Grandma and Grandpa Butikofer's , but he wasn't interested in the candy. He just wanted to play with her bucket of balls she keeps out for the great grand kids.

The Red Dragon wanted to take a few trips down Grandma & Grandpa Blakely's slide while we were there Trick-or-Treating.

We went to the Trunk-or-Treat and carnival at our church on Halloween.
These are some of my nieces and nephews, Isaiah, Aidyn, Alexandria, and Taiya.

Lukas was our other little pirate, aarrgh!

Gavin walked behind this and stuck his head through the hole and of course I missed the photo op, but he did decide to push the entire thing over and I was there to catch that before it fell on some unsuspecting little ghost or goblin.

Alexandria is the bat, Aidyn is the pumpkin, Madilyn is the witch and Lukas is the pirate patch ghost

Drake as the pumpkin and Treysen as Robin Hood

Gavin really got into the games at the carnival, he kept wanting to go back to this one and play. I'm not sure if it was the fact that the guy kept giving him money or the fact that he got to play in the water, either way he loved it.

He also loved the inflatable castle, he wouldn't come out so I had to go in and get him. Talk about feeling like a beached whale! They should have those at World Gym, people would really get a work out climbing in and out of that thing.

Drake and Lukas

After the carnival we went Trick-or-Treating at Grandma and Grandpa Fry's and then we all went to Godfather's for some pizza.