Cookies and Friends

The other morning Morgan and I went to decorate cookies and play with friends. It was great doing something different for a change, for both Morgan and myself. Our neighbor Sara invited us over and provided all the cookies and frosting and sprinkles, so we just showed up and had fun. Morgan loved playing with other kids, (he needs a sibling so bad!) and even ate some cookies! That tells you how good they were, Morgan's not much of a sweet food fan. (Yet something else he didn't inherit from me.)
While the kids played I got to have some adult conversation. Thanks Sara, for inviting us over!

This picture would have been better if I had gotten it a second earlier. He was making a cute face. Probably one similar to those in my last post! :)

Here's Morgan, Katie, Mason and Sara.

Morgan's Cheese

I was looking through our photo library and made a discovery. Morgan pretty much uses the exact same expression in all of his planned pictures. Cheesy cheesy cheesy.

Chrismasified!

Oh the happy day when you get to decorate for Christmas! I did on Saturday. We won't get a tree yet, but everything else is up. So, this is what our house looks like decorated. (I kind of feel silly posting this, knowing how creative many of you lady readers are and how cute your houses must look come the holiday season. I'm so amateur!)

The first Christmas that Aaron and I were married we made our own nativity scene out of clay. Each year since we have both made an additional piece. So, here is our lowly nativity. But we love it.

So, Aaron made the cute sheep, as well as the two short dudes in the background. He originally planned to have them be shepherds, but we think they make better inn keepers. I made the young shepherd in front, and Aaron made the jolly fat one. The long armed angel was my creation, as well as baby Jesus and Joseph. Aaron did the Mary. The Arabic looking wise man and the donkey were mine and the other two wise men are Aaron's masterpieces.

Okay, so I know it's tacky, but hey, we have like, fifteen strands of these white lights leftover from our wedding reception and I like to use them! So over the blinds they go!

My first skiing experience

Homeschool Ski. That's what they called it. If you homeschooled, you could sign up for three days of skiing at Bogus Basin, which included a lift ticket, ski rentals and a ski lesson, for a very low price. I think the local schools had a similar opportunity. So me and my three younger brothers, plus some of their friends, all signed up. Boy was I excited! We arrived about an hour and a half before the lessons would start, so we decided to try the bunny hill. I first waited for my brothers to go down. I watched them and they seemed to have no problem, so I went up the lift, and started down the hill full of optimism and hope. I immediately had an out of control crash, and wrote the following...

Jan. 13, 2002

It amazingly didn’t hurt physically. My pride, however, was bruised. It took me about an hour to get down the hill. I fell so many times, and it is so hard to stand up. I also spent about 10 minutes trying to get a ski back on. When I was nearing the bottom, I took a nasty spill right into the tow rope. My arm hooked something that you hold on to anh it nearly turned me around. I was in a lot of pain. I was so mad, I was ready to cry. Embarresment, pain and frusteration aren’t a good mix. So, I just took off my ski’s and walked the rest of the way down.

Then I mentioned how it was almost time for the lessons.

However, at this point, I despised skiing. I never wanted to return to the evil place. I wanted to leave right then. All the boys had no problems with the sport. They zoomed past me like 3 times when I was trying to figure out how the brakes worked.

So, I explain how Jason managed to get us into the wrong class. We wanted Beginner, but we instead went into level 1. Oops. The instructors immediately knew that I didn't belong there and got me into the right place. However, all of my brothers and their friends stayed in the Level 1 class since they were already skilled enough for it. Oh the humiliation. But wait, is that a silver lining I see?

My instructor is Joseph. He’s really cute and nice.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. Aaron's family came to our house for the feast. We actually hosted! Does that mean we are officially adults yet? However, we sent out food assignments so it's not like we did everything by ourselves. We had the three from our household, plus Aaron's parents and sister Arielle. They stayed with us a couple nights, which was great fun. Thanks for coming down! We also had Aaron's grandparents come as well as his cousin Brian.

Here is our Thanksgiving as told by pictures.

Bathtime fun

Here are some cute pictures of Morgan. I think his expression is very cute in both the pictures.

Journal Time!

Stephanie, you should be thanking me right now for the major editing I've done. I was tempted to put a lot more in, but since it isn't about me, (not necessarily all about you either) I will exercise discretion. But let me just say I used very descriptive language. Oh the adjectives and exclamation marks! I won't even add the back story.
January 2, 2002
But the next words that came out of her mouth were like a blow that shattered any of my hopes that I had a sane sister.

Still, I would have rathered to be left alone and unassociated with their group.

He’s a gross, disgusting, vile creature.


January 11, 2002
The other day Dad tried to teach me to drive a stick shift. It was scary. We only went around the block three times. . . Jason was in the pick up bed the first time around. He got a little banged up. I don’t like stick shift.

It is an unfortunate truth that I have been to the Boise cruise on numerous occasions with Laurie. She always drove, which was frightening. Though we did adhere to my mom's rules of never getting out of the car or getting into anyone elses car.
Last week I went to the Cruise with Laurie. That was one of the funner times that I’ve been. Even though it wasn’t too crowded, the guys were cute and they didn’t all say, “You’re friend is hot.” “I like your friend.” This time only one person flipped us off. Laurie’s not the best driver. She doesn’t see well at night and cuts people off a lot. Scary.