Saturday's parties

This last Saturday was a busy and fun one for me as I had three parties to go to.. It began by waking up to a fresh layer of snow that covered the mountains.. a view from our back door At 10 am friends began arriving for our friend, Justine's, bridal shower. She will be marrying Matt the end of January and came down from Idaho for the weekend. It was a wonderful time filled with laughter and marriage advice for Justine :) We look forward to having her and Matt living here and, getting to know her better.

We ate a yummy brunch & drank mimosas

Got to meet Justine's sisters and mom for the first time....

played the Get-To-Know-You-Toiletpaper-Game

Let our hair down and laughed lots!!

Watched Justine sweat a little as she answered questions to the How-Well-Do-You-Know-Matt-Game (she only had to chew 5 pieces of bubble gum!)

After the bridal shower, my mom and I spent the rest of the afternoon at our friend, Corkie's, house. She always has a wine tasting party at her house around the holidays.. it's always an afternoon full of good times with friends and great wine (and, some not so good wine!)

That evening Casey and I went to his work's Christmas party at our local steakhouse. For some reason I look forward to these work parties... they're always entertaining and, it's nice to hang out with "the guys" wives. I am reminded that my husband works with a rough group of guys... just like last year, a fight broke out between a couple of guys. ~ This year's party was bittersweet. With Dyno closing next month, it was hard to put on that "cheerful" face.. this years topic of conversation was "so.... what are you going to do"?? Inspite of that, we enjoyed our evening out!

Christmas Tree

The kids and I decorated our Christmas tree yesterday. Casey and I decided to get a real, live tree this year and, found this 7 footer at a tree lot in Nampa. After 4 Christmasas of having little, fake, Charlie Brown trees, I was ready for a real big one!! However, I've also realized that with a bigger tree you also need more ornaments and lights! LOL I have to say that as the kids get older each year, Christmas gets funner! They had a great time putting up the ornaments and spent the rest of the day "hovering" around the tree. Our biggest challenge is keeping Trent away from the ornaments and teaching Tys that unplugging and plugging-in the lights is a big NO NO!!
After the decorating was over, Katie asked if she could bring her tree to church and show her friends!

On Monday we did some errands and shopping before heading home. It had snowed in Boise (and Nevada) that morning so, the traffic was slow! We picked out our first real, live Christmas tree :) and brought it home to the kids! I had a wonderful weekend with my husband and, as always, the sweetest moment was arriving back home to our kids...

Boise Part 2

Sunday evening we went to the Gary Allan concert! The Eli Young Band and Jack Ingram opened... It was their last concert on the Get Off the Pain tour. And, even though Gary's voice was giving him a hard time (after 120 concerts mine would be too!) it was all a great performance! They were all in "party" mode... the band dog came out on the stage and, after taking his boots off for a song the backstage hand put shaving creme in Jack's boots. The best part was that we had awesome seats! Just to the right of the state and 5 rows up.. so, we were very close and didn't have to have a bunch of people walking right in front of us.

Jack Ingram

Gary Allan

Two band members... love the kilt

Boise Part 1

I just realized that I haven't blogged in about a week! Well, its been so cold here that we're not doing much besides hanging out inside. The kids have gotten into playing the game Dora Memory and, Trent is practicing walking all around the house with his push-walker! He getting braver and faster everyday with that thing! On Saturday, Casey and I left the kids with my parents and went on a 3 day weekend "get away" to Boise. Even though we missed the kids (it was my first time to leave Trent) we also really enjoyed the quiet time to ourselves. During the ride up to Boise we listened to the BSU vs NMex game on the radio and, didn't have to turn around to take care of kids in the back even once!! On Saturday night we stayed with our friend's, Tim & Colleen. We had a great evening of visiting with them, Meredith and Marie and, eating Colleen's awesome Italian food! On Sunday, after church, Marie had 12 of our friends and family over to her cute, little apartment for turkey soup. How fun!! Here are some pictures from that... My long time friend, Meredith and I

Colleen and Marie preparing lunch... very cute apartment, Ri!! We had a great time seeing everyone!

My little brother, Jake, and friend, Brian. We fit 9 people around Ri's little table... thankfully, we're all good friends :) It was not until afterwards that Marie remembered she had a leaf for that table and could've made it bigger!! LOL That's ok, it really worked out great!

Jake got the "widdle" chair... Brian just couldn't resist!

Afterward lunch, Casey and I checked into our hotel and went to the Ram for appetizers and drinks. We also watched the news announce that BSU is going to the Fiesta Bowl! YAY! The whole restaurant was cheering :)

As Trent gets older, he's realizing how fun it is to play with his older siblings! As they're running around he's usually trying to crawl as fast as he can to catch up with them... shrieking with laughter the whole time! Little People and cars are usually good toys they can all play together; the big challenge is keeping Trent out of Katie's room... since she has a million tiny, little toys that Trent just loves to put in his mouth. I love watching them all play so well together and, seeing Trent getting old enough to do that (the playing well together lasts about 5 minutes before disagreements break out but, its nice while it lasts!)

BSU party

I've been a slacker with blogging lately! On Friday night we had a football party and had about 30 of our friends over to watch BSU beat UNR (score: 44-33) It was a good game and is always lots of fun having so many people around cheering for the Broncos!

Our friends, JJ and Lynette (with my cousin Amber's little baby, Will) JJ isn't a huge BSU fan but brought her only BSU Fiesta Bowl shirt all the way from Tuscan so she could be a true fan for the evening :)

My brother Jake and cousin, Greg. I don't think they left the couch the whole game!

Yesterday afternoon, Casey and I went on a "date" with our friends, Jason and Lisa. We went to Elko for dinner and a movie, The Blindside. The movie was awesome! And, we all had a great time of uninterrupted adult conversation! Thanks to my parents for watching all 5 kids :)