Temple square this year....

Here's a few pictures of our visit to Temple Square this year. We were lucky enough to have Aunt Heidi & our good friends Ben, Tara & daughter Harmony join us. This year it was a really nice visit, yes it was crowded but not as freezing as years in the past.
This was Shelby's first time to see all of the beautiful lights so that was really exciting. However seeing as it was past both of their bedtimes by the time we got there they both did surprisingly well........except we sort of lost Shelby at the end....she was either falling asleep or crying out of exausation poor girl. And Ethan as usual absolutely loved it and full of energy.

Regardless.....here they are, Enjoy :)
























What a memorable experience that we love doing every year :)

Santa Clause came to town

Growing up one of my families unforgettable traditions was taking pictures with Santa. It was the greatest thing when I was little. How cool was my mom that she knew a place to go where we could meet Santa every year AND take a picture with him too. We always dressed our Sunday best, actually every year my mom would always make matching dresses for the girls and create cute little outfits for the boys. The whole ensemble always perfectly matched up in color ( you are so awesome mom ). It was a wonderful childhood experience I'll never forget. My sister and I have carried on that tradition, well tried to anyway. She's been good with it every year, I decided not to do it last year b/c Shelby was so young and still under lights for her jaundice and plus I just barely had a baby I wasn't in the mood to stand in line at the mall for hours. However I do have a picture of me when I was little with Christoper, I was only 2 weeks old in the picture, way to go mom, I couldn't do it.
Anyway so here we are carrying on our families tradition, Carrie and I. I'm sure she'll be posting her kiddos picture soon- www.texandersons.blogspot.com
And here's EfyTom & Shelbel. Miss Shelby was just fine the whole night, surprising considering that we were there after bed time for both kids, standing in a hot line with lots of other irritated kids. So she did pretty good and then we sat her on Santa, she was fine and then came picture time. Ethan of course, Mr. Abercrombie & Fitch model, photogenic of course but Ms. Shelby got a little worried and started to do the whole- baby arch her back thing. ha ha, it wouldn't be a cute baby picture if she didn't do something babyish, so I think it's a perfect picture.....
but here they are with Santa!

Thanksgiving time

So I'm a little behind, like usual with my postings........I like to pretend things will get better after having the baby but.........I'm sure that's not going to happen. But here's for hoping right?

So here's a short glimpse of our wonderful Thanksgiving......
We started out a day early this year. My bro. Brent, sis in law Janeen and their adorable son Jackson James came down for a short visit. I say short b/c they were here the day before thanksgiving and then flew out...........Thanksgiving morning at around 4 am, yikes !! They were actually surprising my whole family, my mom and sis Carrie were the only ones who knew they were coming. It was especially exciting b/c my lil' bro Jeffrey and sis Caitlin had never met Jackson so it was extra exciting for them. As for us we decided to have a little pre Thanksgiving party with them since we had them for a day :)

Here's a couple of shots of our fun...
we ran over to Nathan's bank to have a little ping pong tournament. Janeen and I had fun but it was mostly Nathan and Brent....an on-going battle between them. We enjoyed watching :)


We ate some good food- fajitas cooked up by Nathan, very yummy and then some good old fashion Turkeyday pie which turned out pretty good, I'm not a big pie lover but not too bad. And of course the Carver tradition of Shirley temples. As you can probably guess we were up late and being silly in these pictures.


The fellas giving cheers




The ladies ...


The two real stars of the show.....Shelby & Jackson, we can already tell they are going to be good buds. They are about 6 months apart and they love each other. It's so cute to watch them play. They are both mild mannered little peeps, both sweet, cuddly and playful. We love them :)





Since I was the one who took the crew to the airport Nathan was so kind to do lots of the food preparation for me so I could catch some sleep. ( I have an awesome husband!!! Sadly I couldn't catch him in the act of doing it on film, too bad ;)

Here's Etom presenting our feast. He was so excited with the preparation, watching us, asking questions........(his favorite thing to do right now) and helping as much as he could. However once things got under way and we began eating he wasn't that excited about that part. I think he got worn out just watching us. It's like he knew it was a special day and it was exciting but couldn't quite get what the whole thing was about. We tried to explain things to him as much as we could. For the most part he loved that we were all together and mom and dad were his that day.

Part of our finished turkey, turned out very moist and delicious, thanks to any helpful advice brought to you buy infamous cook "Tom Carver"



The princess loving the show

I think this was a shot after eating a bit of the pickle..........and his Iron-man by his side.

Enjoying the Shirley temples

We loved the Turkey and all of the yummy food!!!

Hope Everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving too!!!!

Here's our dream city......wish we could live here