Thanksgiving

We have been home for 2 days now and I finally have some time to blog. The laundry is all washed(but not put away) and all the junk from the car is put away. When you go on a trip for that long, its like packing your entire house and then moving back in when you come home. Hard work, but soooo worth it to see family. (I spoke too soon, the baby just woke up. Be back later)

What a week. We left after the kids got out of school on Friday and rolled in about 2 am. Thank goodness for TV screens and new movie releases.

On Sat. we met the Lomu family at the park for a picnic. They had a Neds sub and tons of good food. YUM!! The kids played and had so much fun being able to play outside again. I broke out the shorts and flip flops for this trip. It was so good to see all the family again.

Ana and Sophie.

Drew and Avery werent quite sure about each other, but by the end of the picnic, they were buds!!!

Grandma got a new puppy (Harry Potter Lomu) and Lani would not leave the poor thing alone. Her and Leila followed him everywhere. I bet he was glad when we left.

This girl is the cutest thing. She never will smile at me and she is just now starting to even acknowledge my existence. I was so camera happy at the park and I got some really cute shots of Sophie in action. She is just too cute not to take pictures of.

Sophie Moody

I attempted a photo shoot with Caleb and Tyson. I was trying some new things out with my camera with different lighting and settings. This one of Caleb is my favorite.
These two were wrestling and I snapped this one. So cute.

Now, this kid I could take pictures of all day. He is the most photogenic kid I have ever seen. Those big eyes and huge dimples are too hard to resist. I think I took about 50 pictures of him. This one is my all time favorite.
Drew Taylor

On Sunday, 8:00 church and loungin the rest of the day. I actually cooked dinner and made cinnamon rolls for the whole family. Im not much of a cook, but it turned out pretty good. I used my sister-in-laws homemade lasagna recipie-so good!!! In our house, Sunday = PJ's. After church the kids race to get into their jammies-its the best.

Lani and Mady.

Monday night we went to Bills counsin, Tusi's, daughters 1st birthday party. In the Tongan culture, the 1st birthday is a HUGE event. Tusi had Moki's cater the party. This is one of my favorite places EVER to eat. If you have never been there-you MUST go. Its on the corner of Val Vista and Southern-in the Safeway shopping center. We couldnt stop eating, it was so good.

Bill and the birthday girl, Melenani Lutui.

(she was real happy about her birthday!!)

Bills cousins wife, Crystal is a chef at the Ritz Carlton. You know there will always be good food when Crystal is involved. Her and her sister made this amazing cake. I just had to take a picture of it.
The customary pig. Yuck. This is one custom I will never get used to (or eat)
Bills cousin Tusi. This guy is HUGE and Avery wasnt quite sure what to think of him. It was such a fun night. We always have a good time with this side of the family. Thanks Tusi and Pua!!


On Tuesday night, My parents took us all to Chuck E Cheese. Places like this are the best. You give you kids some tokens and you dont see them the rest of the night. This place was particularly nice because they stamp your hand and your kids cant get out unless they are with the stamped parent. Its nice knowing that if I lose track of one of my kids they arent going to be kidnapped or lost of anything. We also ran into some fellow bloggers. That was a nice surprise.

Tom and my Dad got in some Bball

Noah was the ticket KING. After he got his prizes he said "that was a rip off, I could of gotten this at the dollar store."
We couldnt find Caleb and Britney happend to glance down to find this.

I guess when your tired, your tired. This kid can fall asleep ANYWHERE.


On Wed. night be went bowling with Bills family. I havent been bowling in years. It was so fun and the kids had a blast. I only have pictures of our kids because Bills family are all camera phobes. I tried, but once the camera went up, they all scatter. They told me if I put any pictures of them on my blog they would kill me.

Tyson thought he was so good because he knocked the pins down everytime. I should have played with bumpers too!!!!

This was Ana;s first time bowling. She did pretty good and had really good form.

Lani wanted to be like the grown ups and not use bumpers or the ball roller thingy. She tired it once and didnt like it so much.



Thanksgiving day was full of food, family, and at my house, white trash video games. I have never even heard of this Guitar Hero game before, but apparantly its huge. After about 1 song I wanted to jump through the window. I like all types of music, but the 80's hard rock does not fall in that category.
Curtis thought he was pretty good.


My mom watched Finn while Trent and Jackie went to the ASU game. He couldnt stand the music either.


My parents surprised the kids with a bounce house and some new bikes and scooters. They didnt leave the outside the entire day and night. This is all the kids minus the 2 babys and Madison who wasnt there that night.

We were lucky enough to get to go to both familys Thanksgiving dinners. I think I ate a weeks worth of food in one day. Then the guys all dogged their familys for the game. (my ticket fell through or I would have dogged too!!!!)

On Friday,I am usually up at 4 ready to battle it out for whatever great deal comes my way, but this year I was really dissapointed at the sales. Not too interesting. SO, I slept in until 7 and went with my sister, Stacy to a couple places. There were no crowds at all-I was surprised.

Later that afternoon, my family got together to have a "Family Prepardness" meeting. These are always good to remind us to stay on top of our year supply and 72 hour kits.

Then it was time for round 3 or 4 (I lost count)

Trent and Jackie (she is going to love me for posting this)

The kids played and played and crashed so early, which was a good thing because my parents bought the Wii for Christmas and broke it out early for the adults to play. That game system is seriously the coolest thing. I played ping pong with Stacy and I was totally sore the next morning. This might be on my christmas list!!! ha ha

All the grandkids. It was pure craziness trying to take a decent picture. I guess I shouldnt have waited until the end of the night when they were all dirty and hair a mess.

Such a fun time with both familys. I cant wait to come back at christmas time. The kids really miss their cousins and Grandparents. Thanks for a fun week Malones and Lomus!!!!


Sadly on Saturday it was time for the long journey home.

NOTE TO SELF: Dont wait until the day you are leaving to take family pictures and when you are leaving in 2 hours and havent even packed yet. Because if you do, you might wake up to...

A cranky husband who just learned his schedule was being thrown off because I wanted to take pictures

And...

A sick baby who wont smile or look at the camera. I seriously only got 2 pictures of her looking at the camera and one of her smiling.

She looks so bad in this picture with those huge dark bags. She doesnt do well sleeping in the port a crib.

We had to bribe the kids to smile and be good for the camera. The thing was, we only had one sucker and it caused a lot of fights.

The kids were kinda all in their own worlds most the time. (except Lani who was posing it up for the camera the whole time)

Lani loves animals more than anything. She found this cat wandering the Temple grounds and picked it right up. Sorry Lani, but sadly we will NEVER have a cat.

This was the ONLY picture of Avery smiling and it happend to be in a picture that no one else was looking at the camera. I just thought this was the cutest picture of her and I had to blow it up.

Whew, that was the longest post ever.

Luckily, I was ahead of the game this year and I decorated before we left on our trip. It was nice to come home to a Christmas house. Last night we did Santa letters for family night and today it is snowing so Tyson thinks its Christmas. Im excited for this Christmas season to try and start some new traditions and teach my kids the true meaning of Christmas. We are on the fence about where to have Christmas. Its hard to lug all our stuff to AZ for Christmas and then lug it all back. Do we go for Christmas or leave the day after and stay for New Years? That is the million dollar question.

We already have a scrooge story for this season. Sunday morning when Tyson woke up, he didnt see Bill in bed so he went to the garage and opened the garage door to see if Bills car was here. He didnt shut the garage door when he was done. Someone broke into our garage and took Bills power drill, the boys big remote control hummer, Bills paint gun (but not the tank) and worst of all, they took Bills shot gun. I have no idea how they even saw that. Bill had it hidden on top of the garage shelves out of the kids sight and reach. Weird random things. Its scary knowing someone has his gun. Is this something we need to report?? Im not sure. So, we are all bummed out about that. Not a nice thing to happen during the season.

Anyway-thats all folks!!!!

Merry Christmas.