Thanksgiving in Washington

I know that this is a little late, but oh well! It's not like I have the best track record with this blog! For Thanksgiving this year we drove to Vancouver,Washington, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We weren't so sure how things were going to go when Ellie yelled out after only 30 minutes into the 14 hour drive, "I can't take it anymore!" and then 45 minutes after that Ellie and Sam simultaneously threw up! Sam did have a rough journey, but all things considered the kids did a great job.



Once there we did a lot of fun things. We took a little trip to Seaside, OR. It is the cutest little town. On the way there we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and Arcadia beach to play around for a while.
Can you imagine how many 'say cheese' jokes we used while taking this picture?



Arcadia Beach, The Oregon Coast

Aside from our trip to the coast there were other fun things that we did. For those of you on Facebook you can see more of our photos there. Here are some of your Thanksgiving Day highlights. The kids ended up taking most of the photos, so some of them are kind of wacky, but I actually love them! We had a great time.
Jesse, our RM. It was great to have him back home.

Here are all of the grand kids that were there.

It was really fun to have Grandma & Grandpa Dunn there.

We had a wonderful time with our family, and really enjoyed spending so much time with our kids. It is amazing to us how quickly they are growing up and what wonderful personalities they have developed. We have been mindful this year as we have gone thru certain trying times that we have so much to be grateful for and we were certainly thinking about our many blessings these past few weeks thru the Thanksgiving season.
As my brother in law would say- "Peace out!"

I heart Edward, and now everyone knows it!

So the time has finally come, the release of the Twilight movie! I know that there are some people who think that this is annoying, a big waste of time, all Twilight fans are fat,ugly ladies who neglect their kids (not my opinion), blah, blah blah... I have heard it all, but who cares! I HAVE SEEN TWILIGHT!!!This was actually one of my favorite scenes!

This has been a big day for me and my 'I heart Edward' t-shirt. It started this morning with being quoted in an article that happened to be on the front page of the Deseret News. If you care to check out the article,(thanks for caring Mom!) here is the link: www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705264485,00.html
I must say that while I am very grateful that I am still represented well, I am completely misquoted. That said, I have never been in the paper before, much less the front page!
This afternoon I 'neglected' my family yet again and headed out for a night on the town. First stop- The Cheesecake Factory. Yum.
Here are the twins, Karen & Kay, and Char.
After dinner we headed to the theater where our wonderful friend Melanie had reserved 2 entire theaters for a 7pm premiere!!!On the way into the theater they actually checked our purses and wanded us! Since my purse is so big the usher wanded the inside of my purse too! I wish I could have taken a photo, but they were checking for cameras and recording devices. My friend Abby was asked if her baby had any hidden recording devices on her...nice.
Here is a large chunk of our group...


and of course, no event would be complete (see jason mraz post...) without a 'long arm' self portrait with Candice. What a great night!!!!

I'm Getting Excited...

Things are kicking into high gear around here! The Christmas tree (in all it's sparkling grandeur) along with all the other decorations (indoor, anyway) have found themselves in their rightful places all around the house, the majority of our Christmas shopping is done, and the Christmas music is finally organized into various helpful play lists on the ipod....so now what? Now we can focus on:



Tomorrow my brother Jesse gets home from his mission to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He was part of the evacuation that took place several weeks ago and finished these past few weeks in the Lima, Peru mission. We were certainly grateful for his safe arrival in Peru, and we will be relieved tomorrow when he arrives at our Mom's in Washington. ***Can I just take a moment to brag about my brother? of course I can, he's wonderful. By the time he graduated from high school he had his associates degree and a full time job at a bank! He will be joining us here in Utah in January as he attends BYU, so if anyone has any cute, single sisters.....

Anyhoooo....Friday night we kick off our Thanksgiving holiday with an early Thanksgiving dinner with Matt's family, and one of our famous game nights! They are so fun! Scott will be in town for the BYU/Utah game so we will have a fun filled night of food, family, & fun...all while playing Scott's "fat dog" game I am sure. I was going to take the opportunity to learn to bake pies, but will be going to Costco Friday morning instead! Then Saturday morning we are driving to Washington for a family Thanksgiving/reunion with Jesse. We have been busy scurrying around making the necessary arrangements for the trip and things are finally starting to fall into place. Today I was able to find us a hotel that is right across the street from a sports "restaurant" so that we can stop in Boise to watch the BYU/Utah football game.(GO COUGARS!) I felt kinda silly calling hotel after hotel asking them if they got 'the mountain' channel, but all worked out!


In other great news, in exactly 48 hours I will be sitting in my seat with warm, buttery popcorn watching a premiere of TWILIGHT!


What a great week.....

Halloween

Halloween was so much fun this year. I have to say that it is one of my favorite holidays, second to Christmas, of course! Trick or treating with the kids is such a blast! I am not sure what I love most- the boys racing from door to door, Ellie announcing every piece of candy she got at the top of her lungs, or just walking around with my hubby enjoying the evening and our kids. We spent the evening with some family and some friends, and made out with loads of candy! The kids still fit into last year's costumes, so that was nice. The boys were power rangers and Ellie was Jo-Jo of 'Jo-Jo's circus'. We hardly took any pictures, but here are a couple from our pit stop at Grandma & Grandpa's.



The weirdest thing was going to bed that night, full of candy and thinking about ghouls and goblins, and waking up Saturday morning to the radio in the boys' room blasting Christmas music! I thought that I was freakish about Christmas, but this year I look perfectly normal. I usually have our decorations/tree up around our anniversary which is Nov 12th. It drives my hubby crazy, but I love it. This year, though, I have been shocked at how many fanatics out there have beat me to the punch. The radio is playing 24-7 holiday tunes and last night I actually saw a tree up and lights on! I guess I'm not the only one feeling festive this year!

Jason......

For some reason I have been especially busy the past 2 weeks or so. Why? Beats me. But on Tuesday night I took the evening off and went to the Jason Mraz concert!! It was fantastic. After seeing MUSE (my favorite band) in concert I figured that I need never go to another concert again- it was so amazing I was ruined for all others(and as my sweet hubby pointed out, it was so loud I would probably never even be able to hear another concert.) It wasn't MUSE, but Jason certainly didn't disappoint! He is an incredible musician and it was a wonderful night, despite the horrid smell in West Valley! I went with my wonderful friend/cousin-in-law Candice, who has had her own very busy week. (congrats on the cutest baby ever!)Here is a picture of us in the parking lot just before the show.

We really enjoyed watching the brass section dance...they had sweet moves!


Thanks for a great night out Candice! And even more thanks to the best hubby ever for holding down the fort!

Fun at the Fire Station

This week the fire house in Orem had a safety fair. This was the 2nd year we have gone and it is a lot of fun. The fire fighters and EMTs do demonstrations with the fire hoses, the jaws of life, putting out a live fire, loading the ambulance, etc...Here we are with The Murdocks and The Normans. Maybe our kids would take us a little more seriously if we wore uniforms like this on a regular basis.

Also, we went to Cornbelly's fall fun place a few weeks ago. It is a family favorite.

this was before we went into the belly of the beast...the smiles weren't so plentiful afterwards.

here we are on the hayride...i put this picture on so that you can see the beautiful pumpkin patch behind us....which was not captured in the family photo!

nice bus....

anyway, it was a beautiful fall...all 2 weeks of it! now we move on to the snow. (I can't believe it snowed yesterday!) I love Halloween, and it is a good thing because it is the only thing keeping me from busting out the Christmas decorations. I am going to get a head start on the holidays by loading my Christmas tunes back onto the ipod. I wont listen to them yet, but i want to be prepared for when the time comes!

Dancing Queen

We were outside one evening and decided to capture Ellie's sweet dance moves

Pictures from Summer / Fall

Here are some random pictures from this summer & fall...

Yes, we're still alive!

Ok, so i know that we have been terribly pathetic when it comes to updating our blog. Sorry about that. I won't guarantee that I will post faithfully, but I will give it a try.
There is no way that we could really catch you up on all of the events of the past several months, but I will try to fill you in a little. The main reason we stopped contributing the the blog-o-sphere is because I (Melissa) got very sick. This happened towards the end of January (happy birthday to me!) and stretched out month after month after month. Finally things changed this summer and i am now feeling so much better. Hooray! We are really grateful to so many friends and family who offered prayers on out behalf, helped out with the kids, brought meals, etc.
Now we are busy with all the normal activities that fall brings. Josh started 2nd grade and loves it. He is a great student. Sam started Kindergarten and is a good student as well, but i was informed at parent/teacher conference the other night that he has a problem with kissing all the girls! Ellie is in preschool 3 days a week and LOVES it, as do I!

Matt had the opportunity to go to Louisville, KY a couple weeks ago to be a volunteer at the Ryder Cup Golf Tourney. He stayed with his sister Niki in Lexington and went to the tourney with Jared each day. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ryder Cup, it is only in the USA every 4 years and it is the USA vs. Europe. (USA= 16 1/2 Europe=11 1/2. GO USA!)


For some reason I decided that I needed to make lots of jam, so yesterday I did 4 batches of peach and today I did 3 batches of pear. I haven't even used half of my pears! (guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year!) After I dig out from this project I will try to do some more posts or slide shows with a few of our other summer / fall activities. Be patient with me. Also, if you would like to see more pictures of the fam I post quite a few more more on my facebook page than I will in the blog. (I lOVE facebook!)

Renovations #2

The living room. Under the carpet in most of this house is wood. A real nice wood floor. Back in the day, it was common to put carpet over the top of wood. That made things a little easier for us. We ripped out the carpet and then had the wood floors underneath refinished. That was the biggest change to the living room. We also took down the 30 year old curtain rods that were stretched across the 12 foot windows. So we completed the crown modeling above the window and added some nice dark curtains to accent the rest of the room. The last things we did was paint. We decided to add an accent wall as well. All in all, this was one of the easier rooms that we worked on, but one of the rooms that underwent the biggest changes.

You can see we used to have 2 sets of blinds to cover the window. The walls were a light tan color. We had to put our entertainment center up on the fireplace while we worked on the floors, we couldn't get it out of the room.



The finished version. You can see the curtains we added for the windows. We also added a nice area rug and this is a good view of the accent wall.



Good view of what we did with the entertainment center, I do have to give the credit to Jeff, it was his idea. I was ready to destroy it just to get it out of the room.



Finished version. You can see the contrast of the wall colors, we were pretty happy with how they turned out.





Check out our previous Renovations posts to see other rooms.

Ellie gets her hair cut!

So Ellie has had plenty of trims, but it was definitely time for a cut so before church yesterday I chopped off her crazy locks. She looks so much older!
Before:
After:

Also funny...after church we asked the kids to change out of their Sunday clothes so that we could go to grandma & grandpas, and this is how they came out....Josh in mis-matched camo and church socks, Ellie in camo capris that were way too small, and 2 crazy mis-matched shirts with flowered sandals, and Sam in one of Josh's shirts and khakis!

PRAY4US

This past October we went to St George to watch Matt's brother run the St George Marathon. (Way to go Scott!) After the race we saw this driving instructor's car and loved the personalized license plate! I wonder if these poor kids realize why all the folks in the cars around them are laughing all the time...

Renovations

So here it is, Friday again, and we haven’t posted this week! What slackers! Quick recap for the week...Josh celebrated the 100th day of school this year - only 80 more. Mom is so sad! We have gotten more and more snow...can’t think of a time when we have had to shovel everyday. Why does the winter wonderland have to come after Christmas? I am still muddling through these issues with my health. Thanks for the prayers, they are much appreciated. And thanks for all of the birthday cards and calls – they were very sweet.

On to the renovations… the house we live in has been in Matt’s family for close to 50 years. His mom grew up here. It is a great house full of functional things like a special vacuum closet, and lots of great drawers/cabinets. Last fall we decided to spruce up these plaster walls with a new coat of paint, and the project grew from there. When it got to the point where we couldn’t live here anymore we moved in with Matt’s wonderful parents. Weeks turned into months, and we painted every wall / piece of trim in the house, ripped out the carpet in the living room, hall, and master bedroom, re-tiled 2 bathrooms, and so much more. We have decided that we’ll post pictures and descriptions room by room, and tonight I’ll start with the hall bathroom.
This room was a huge challenge, and in my opinion was the biggest transformation.
We started by ripping out the floorboards, the tile, and then the hardwood flooring underneath that. (The toilets were out in the living room for 3 weeks because we did both bathrooms at the same time.) We also ripped out the counter top, medicine cabinet, and smashed out mirrors that lined 3 walls.









The orange tabs on the walls are the adhesive that once held the mirrors, 12 of them to be exact! (This bathroom was once the domain of 4 teenage girls...they each had a 'station'!)
We are so happy with this bathroom now. It has new tile, paint, counter top, & mirror. We also added higher baseboards, a cute little towel rack that i stained, and pretty new curtains.

Shouldn't a posting on a Friday afternoon have a joke in it?

There are a lot of people in my life, both past and present that I care about and think of often. Unfortunately, most adults and probably all moms understand that this does not always mean that we do as well as we’d like at keeping in touch! It seems that we get so caught up in the responsibilities of kids, work, church, home, etc., that we can’t seem to extend our attention to the many other important people in our lives. This is one of the reasons why I have really enjoyed our entry into the blogosphere. I love to go to your blog sites and see your photos and read about the thoughts and happenings in your lives. A blog entry certainly does not take the place of person to person contact, but it is nice to have a quick way to share a lot of information with a lot of people in a short amount of time! I really dig this blogging stuff!
So, with all that in mind, I will take the opportunity to pass along a few words…

First of all, HUGE congratulations to our friends and family who have either had babies this week, or announced upcoming babies! 4 babies in 5 days (all boys!) and a few announcements mixed in as well – what a week! I am truly happy for all of you….I am also truly happy that I can come hold your babies, share the love, and then come home to 3 kids who are all potty trained! (As well as boys can be potty trained – do they EVER start hitting the bowl consistently?)

Next, to those of you who have wondered why I seemed to drop off the face of the earth, I am soooo sorry. I have left some of you hanging… breaking plans, missing functions, being fairly unavailable, and I am terribly sorry. I know that no one is mad at me – you are all much better friends than that, but I feel badly nonetheless. There is a reason – I have been quite sick lately. I will spare you all the details, but it has been a rough few weeks for me. I know that we all have trials, and I guess this was/ is one for me. I also know that there is always much to be learned from our tribulations, and I am trying to looking for those things now! All I can say is that I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. There is a quote that I have been thinking about a lot lately, so I will share it. I find that it resonates in my mind quite often!

“(Sometimes) the Lord…responds…to prayer by withholding an answer when the prayer is offered. Why would He do that?
He is our perfect Father. He loves us beyond our capacity to understand. He knows what is best for us. He sees the end from the beginning. He wants us to act to gain needed experience:
When He answers yes, it is to give us confidence.
When He answers no, it is to prevent error.
When He withholds an answer, it is to have us grow through faith in Him, obedience to His commandments, and a willingness to act on truth. We are expected to assume accountability by acting on a decision that is consistent with his teachings without prior confirmation. We are not to sit passively waiting or to murmur because the Lord has not spoken. We are to act.” - Richard G. Scott

On a lighter note, I finally took down the Christmas decorations...

Snow Day

More snow! This past Monday we got another big snow storm. We had about 8 new inches when it was all done. This is on top of the 6 inches we got last week. Since early December, we have probably had about 30 inches of snow fall at our house. I know, I know... you people that like to do it all at once got 22 inches (Ogden) and 16 inches (Sandy), but for Orem, this is a lot of snow and I don't live in either of those places. All I know is that my back hurts. I have shoveled more times this year than the last three years combined.

Ok, now I am on my soap box, please allow me to wax for a moment. I really do not like the snow. I get it, I live in Utah, if I hate the snow I should move. Let me explain before you extradite me from the state. I will keep them brief, if you really need me to explain, just ask me later.

• Driving or walking on my pavement before I get a chance to shovel
• Dirty piles of snow everywhere until July
• No golf
• Endless layers of salt on my car
• Slipping when I try to get out of my car. Come on, you have to give me this one, I am really 60, didn't you know.
• No golf
• Scraping, scratching, grinding, clawing... anything to get the ice of my windshield. No, I will not put plastic on my windshield every night. I am stubborn.
• No golf

Ok, I am done. This was really not supposed to be the theme of my post.

Back to snow day at our house. We really did have a great time. We went out into an untouched backyard, made a fort and buried the kids (in the snow... we let them out...). Josh and Ellie relaxed and let us dump snow on them. Ellie laughed the entire time.

Our fort is... still under construction. We used plastic storage containers and packed them with snow to make our bricks. We have plenty more snow for another layer, but we were a little ambitious and made a 10x8 fort. Hey, if I lay flat on my back, you can only see the top inch of my belly.




Sam shoveled and moved snow the entire time. He was usually over in the soft fluffy stuff that no one had touched yet just digging. I think he liked the snow.








Ellie was completely worn out. She was done! I believe that she would have slept there if we would have let her.









Overall, it was a fun day. I am really looking forward to the next storm... in three days! That's right, more storms on the way. The weathermen were actually laughing when they talked about it... nice. Friday and Monday will bring more snow so we can expect more of the white coat all week long (sorry, you have to be from Utah to appreciate that one).

Matt

Baby Names

So in the spirit of the new blog. I have decided to add my first post. So yes, this is Matt, or as my blogger friends call me, The Guitar Hero (I am really not that good. Have you seen the 5 and 8 year olds on youtube?).

Baby names. I have two sisters that are expecting right now. Both have now found out what they are having. So, of course, the next question is, "Do you have a name picked out?" I mean, come on, it has been 2 minutes since you told me you are having a baby boy, that's old news. What's the name going to be?

Of course the first suggestion from the loving uncle is, "You know, Matt is a good strong name. Everybody loves Matt." Everyone laughs. Alright, I laugh. But seriously, what is the name going to be?

For first time parents (good luck Carie and Robby) the experience is great. You go out and buy the book of 500,000 baby names. As you scan the book, all you see are names that you would never use. Process of elimination? Ouch!

Then the next step, you start paying attention to what other people are naming their children. Mountain, Apple, Tundra (isn't that the truck from World of Warcraft?), Seven, Pilot Inspektor (thanks Jason Lee), and all of the other celebrity baby names we have come to enjoy. Or you can take the route of a friend of mine, pick the name from the ingredient list of a shampoo bottle. Come on, are you serious? Can't we do better then that? "Hey, Yellow Dye #5, get over here" Really people!

Ok, so here is what you do. Ask another little kid. It's brilliant! We did it for our last child. We knew it was a girl, we had no options, and the time had come. So, turn to the boys. Alright kids, you are going to have a baby sister, what name do you want to be yelling when you are chasing her down. Sam was the first to speak, "Ellie", he shouted out. And there you go. We had our name.

So listen up Niki and Carie. Here are the names our kids came up with when we asked them a couple nights ago.

• Jake
• Sam
  
• Josh
  
• Mark
• Evie (Ellie gets a little confused)

Then we reminded them it had to be a good match with the last name. Here are the good ones, celebrities in the making. Absolutely no coaching, we just let them start talking. Sam came up with the best ones. Just yesterday he started calling Ellie Saquajawia all day and common names for Josh are Turbo and Frolipe.

• Clown (goes great with Brown)
• Optimus
• Jazz
• Bacon
• Broom

And the winner of the night, from Sam again.....
Lightning Mc'Brown (you're welcome Carie)

There you go. Naming a child, what a strange, strange experience.

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

I received an email today that I enjoyed. Matt used this object lesson in his class at church several weeks ago, and I have been thinking about it ever since. There are many lessons to be learned, so I'll share.
(Matt used a bucket w/rocks & sand.)

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 Hours in a day is not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now" said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and Favorite passions - - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full."

''The pebbles are the other things that matter, like your job, house, and car. The sand is everything else -- the small stuff.”

”If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.”

”If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.”

”So...Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play With your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.”

”Take care of the golf balls first -- the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand. One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.
The professor smiled. “I'm glad you asked”.
”It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

old movies....

I am a reader. There are times, particularly in the summer when I feel that everyone should have a break, when I burn through 2 or 3 books a week. I don't really read books that are totally inspiring or classic, but I love to lose myself in great fiction. Typically I go about my list of things to do, waiting for a few stolen moments here and there to read a page or two. I will not deny that I am kind of a nerd!
I recently re-discovered something about myself that I knew a very long time ago, but had long forgotten. (I guess it wasn't written in anything that I have read recently.) I love old movies. Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart....these are some leading men! Much like the fiction that I enjoy reading so much watching the clean and quirky goodness of an old classic can transport me to a totally different place and time so different from my reality. My problem is that I have a very small knowledge of these ‘old’ films. I will write out a quick list of my favs (out of the few that I‘ve seen), and if anyone else has any other suggestions I would love to hear them.
Here goes:

• The Philadelphia Story
• The Shop Around the Corner
• The Little Princess (The Shirley Temple version)
• Arsenic & Old Lace
• North by Northwest
• Bringing up Baby
• 12 angry men
• Two Weeks with Love
• Neptune’s Daughter

Last night I watched Two Weeks with Love. I hadn’t seen it for a while. What a great movie! It has singing, dancing, fireworks, and corsets, (huh?), and that guy from Fantasy Island (Ricardo Montalban). I highly recommend it.

Matt Clark's Rockin' the new year!

Now I've done it! I have set up a blog page, complete with cute little slide shows. Now it is time to practice with posting pictures and videos. Over the next few days i will be playing around with this stuff, trying to figure out where everything is, and then I should be all set to go. 'sorry for the overload of information, pictures, slide shows, or whatever else as I get going - I'll calm down!

As for life away from the computer, I am still trying to get into the swing of the New Year. We are on our 2nd round of strep throat around here, but the kids seem to bounce back quickly. We had a great time over the holidays, but Josh and Sam are glad to be in school again ( mom is glad too!). Back to reality... maybe our days of hanging out in our PJ's should end. (ellie can even make jammies a fashion statement. Maybe I should take down the Christmas decorations? I cant bring myself to do it yet. We had 8 1/2 inches of snow at our house today, so maybe I'll have a cup of hot cocoa, turn on the christmas lights, and enjoy it for another nite.
In other news, Matt has achieved his goal of becoming 'The Guitar Hero'.......we are all so proud!

Rock on, Honey, Rock on!

Christmas Break