Something from Sara

I am so excited that Thanksgiving is this week. Tyler has an ABC feast at school today. He has the letter T, so I'm making him take Tomatoes. He hates them and wants to take Tacos. I told him that there was no way that I was making 21 tacos for him to take to his class. Then there is no school tomorrow (at least no kindergarten). And on Thursday morning, we are off to Idaho for Thanksgiving with my Grandma Carver. Now there is a real lady. I've really missed her, so I'm totally excited for the couple of days that I get to spend with her. When I get back I'm going to put up my Christmas tree and really go all out with the decorations, and I get to post my new Christmas Playlist for all of my blogging friends. I've been working on it all month. And I must admit that I am pretty happy with it. I had to make a few adjustments this morning, but now I'm pretty sure that it is complete and how I want it. You'll have to stay posted for that. I just love this time of year. I love Christmas shopping. I've already started, and I think that I have a lot of it done. Tomorrow, I am expecting a shipment from some online shopping that I did last week. It is like you get two Christmases when you do online shopping, because it is so fun to have stuff delivered. I am also exploring the world of Handmade gifts this year. I'm starting small with just a tu-tu and an activity book, and a blanket. I'm already feeling the pressure for these though, so we may need to stick with only a few small handmade gifts every year. I have also considered baking things to take to my neighbors...I might not get around to that. Anyway, I don't anticipate another post until after I get home so Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Today is Tyler's 6th Birthday. I got to go to his school and help out. I was in charge of the worksheet called Will It Float? and we got to experiment with different objects and see if they would sink or float. It was a lot of fun. I didn't tell him that I was coming to his class and I think that he was suprised. Anyway, I like to see what he is doing in school and how things work in the classroom (rather than just wonder), so I had a great time.
Tonight later we are having a small family birthday party. Mostly just the grandma's and grandpa's, and Chels and Josh and Hallie. He really wanted a friends birthday party, but I think that I am still burned out from the one last year, so I told him that he had to wait another year. Now I feel a little bad about that, but I think that it is ok if I don't let him host a huge party every year. Anyway, I hope that he has a fun day. His cake has a Transformer on it. It looks pretty cool, I'll post some pictures tomorrow of his party.
I can't believe that I am old enough to have a six year old. I hate the fact that I can CLEARLY remember more than a decade of my life.

Yesterday I made some rolls for lunch at my Grandma Judd's house. I put the frozen roll dough in the pan and covered them and let them rise while I was at church. When I got home I found that I had left the remainder of the bag of frozen dough out on the counter as well. They were thawed but still cold, but I couldn't re-freeze them. So I put them in the fridge until I got a second to do something with them. Just before bed I made my favorite Christmas breakfast... the caramel rolls.

You need: 18 frozen rolls
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of packed brown sugar
1/2 package of cook and serve butterscotch pudding
nuts (but we don't do nuts here, so I just leave those out)
and a Bundt pan

First you butter your bundt pan (with different butter than what is listed on the recipe, you'll need all of that for later). Then you sprinkle in the nuts, and put in the rolls, then sprinkle the pudding mix over top of the rolls. Next melt the butter and brown sugar together and pour it over top of the rolls too. Then leave the whole thing out on the counter overnight and in the morning bake on 350 for 30 minutes. You won't be disappointed I promise.

Don't add more rolls either because I had two dozen that I had to use up last night and so I put them all in there and I had to cook them for about 10 minutes extra and the rolls were pushing the caramel mixture out of the pan all over the bottom of my oven. It doesn't look like 18 will be enough, but in the morning your pan will be full. I promised myself that I wouldn't make these until Christmas morning this year. Oh well, I've made them now and I'm loving them. I think that I've eaten about seven of them today so far and it is only 2:00!

Here is me and Tyler. He is sticking his tongue out and having a great time.

Here is Tyler with his $12 Snow cone that we'll call Bruce. He was a little mad that I wouldn't let him get the light up sword, but in the end (the next morning) he was glad that he had the new mug. And it is microwave, and dishwasher safe which is more than I expected.

Here is our family (well most of us) having a fun family activity. Maybe next time we can get a smile out of Shane.

Bottom Line: I LOVED the Disney on Ice. I will be returning again. And the Disney Company has found yet another way to separate me from my dollar.

P.S. I didn't dare take my nice camera to the ESA, so the poor quality photos are a result of my camera phone. And just a side note about the ESA, I think that they probably have enough funds to hose the place down every once in a while. The floor was really sticky and gross from the moment we walked in the doors, yuck.

I forgot to mention two things in my earlier post. #1 A couple of weeks ago I was riding in the car with the twins and Tyler and they were watching a movie in the backseat, and I was just driving along, listening to the radio, when it occured to me that there was talking going on in the backseat. You know how you just kind of tune stuff out. Well I started to listen to what was being said and it was Chris. So I looked back and said "What?" and he looks at me and puts his hands out and says "Where my binky at, Bebe?" I laughed so hard. What a funny kid. And #2 is that I got the new Nursery manual. I read that the Church was recommending it to use for family home evenings, so I wanted to give it a try. I have the FHE lesson manual that I was using, and adapting the lessons for my family, and it was getting the job done...but I am totally recommending the Nursery Manual. It has short lessons that are complete. They have all the pictures, songs, something to color. My kids loved it. And it was simple enough that they were participating. I just wasn't getting that from the other book. I know that I've only used it once, but I'm looking forward to next Monday when I can try it out again.

Since Tyler's birthday is in November, Shane and I get a chance to go to Toys R Us before the Christmas rush. Because the place gets so crazy (as do all the toy isles in every store around the world) right around the time of his birthday, we go ahead and get all the toys that we think that we will be needing for Christmas too. So we went on Saturday. We took the twins with us, because they will forget anything that they see anyway. The place was a MADHOUSE! It was only the 8th! There were people everywhere. I couldn't believe it, but I am glad that I won't have to go back. Besides that, I got two "big toy books" in the mail, because I am such a great customer, and I got one in the Sunday paper a few weeks ago, so I had tons of great coupons. I saved roughly $25.00 on my purchases, and I got 2 $10 gift cards back. I thought that was great!
After I got home from my aerobics class last night, Shane had to leave for an Elder's quarum meeting. My muscles were still shaking from the workout, but the kids insisted that I show them every excercise that I had been doing. Then they tried it. "Watch me mom!" It is so fun when they are excited to see me! I was not really excited to be doing more excercises, but they were laughing and playing, and jumping around. On a different note, I also got home to catch the weigh in on the Biggest loser. How the heck did ED get back? And when will Heba get kicked off. For next week I'd like to see Heba and Vicki go below the yellow line and then in a shocking twist they both have to go home...I was so happy to see that Amy didn't vote for Michelle. I wanted Brady to go home.
Tonight is the night that I've waited for for a really long time...DISNEY ON ICE! I know that most of you have already probably seen the Disney characters skating around the ESA, but I haven't. In fact I haven't even been to the ESA since it was the Delta Center in 1997. And that was not for Disney, but for Alannis Morrisette. So I am excited for tonight, and I know that we are going to have a great time.

I was just up with my twins, and as I was putting them back to bed Tyler woke up, went to the bathroom and requested that I tuck him back in. So I did. As he was crawling back into bed he said to me, "My butt is a lazy butt, because all it does is sit around." I'm not sure where he got that one, but it made me laugh and I didn't want to forget it.

Here is Tyler the "Bloody Ghostbuster." This is his costume for Halloween night

Here is Chris. He was a frog. I would have posted a picture of him without candy in his mouth, but I didn't have any. In fact he had to throw himself down on the ground while we were in the middle of trunk or treat and have a little fit because I wouldn't let him eat his candy yet.

Here is Tyler as a "Bloody Football Player." This was his costume at school. Jill saved this football uniform (it was Shane's when he was little), and recently gave it to Tyler to play with. The elastic was all shot out of it and needed to be fixed. On Halloween morning Tyler asked if he could be a bloody football player instead of a bloody ghostbuster. I said well I'll have to see if I have enough elastic to fix it. I did and I set off to work getting the new costume fixed. Over an hour later I had repaired the costume and had lovingly set aside all the things that I had to do before Tyler went to school. So I went into his room to help him clean it up and I picked up the ghostbuster costume and started to fold it and he says to me "Can we leave the ghostbuster costume upstairs in case I decide to still be a ghostbuster?" My response was "I just spent OVER AN HOUR sewing your pants so that you can be a FOOTBALL PLAYER! There is no deciding if you want to be a football player, you are going to be a football player!" I was a little ticked.

I wanted to make Brook a witch costume. A few months ago Tyler was asking the twins what they wanted to be for Halloween. They didn't know what he was talking about but Brook said that she wanted to be a pink bunny. My mind immediately remembered that Hallie had once been a pink bunny and I called Chels. Here is the handmade (by Grandma Robin) costume. In a way I was kind of glad. I didn't have to buy one costume this halloween, and except for the last minute repair job on the football costume, I didn't have to sew any costumes either.
I hate Halloween. Maybe next year it just won't come at all.
On a better note. I LOVE November. Why? I don't know. I love that it is almost Thanksgiving. I love that it is almost Tyler's birthday. I love wondering if I am going to go Christmas shopping on black Friday. If it snows in November I don't feel like it is too early, I still get that excited first snow feeling. And you can bet that on the way home from my Grandma's house on the day after Thanksgiving I'll be listening to my Jessica Simpson's Christmas CD. And in November this year I'm taking Shane and Tyler to Disney on Ice! I've wanted to go to Disney on Ice my whole life, and now I finally get to go. Is Shane excited to go? Heck no! But I told him that we were going to have a fun family experience and he had to participate. That is on the 12th. I hope that my mom remembers that she is tending the twins for us that night.