Thanksgiving '09

We had another great Thanksgiving this year. It was the year to be with my mom's side of the family which means LOTS of people (about 100)! It was also fun because we had James' parents here with us to celebrate. We got together at my cousin Alex's church in West Jordan and the party began.

Melanie, me, mom
Shannon and Jackson-he is so adorable!

Josh, Sarah, and baby Corbin- I loved getting to hold this little guy!

Mom, Josh, Aunt Chris, Aunt Cindy

To keep everyone entertained after eating, my mom came up with some relay races and games to play. We are all SUPER competitive so it gets pretty funny watching everyone cheat or try to "bend the rules" to win. They had a 3 legged race, hula hooping, rootbeer chugging, pudding feeding, peach ring on a stick handoff, ping pong ball on a spoon run, and finally the fear factor round. James has done this at my birthday bash before and it was a hit. My dad decided to do it here and get turkey hearts, sardines, anchovie filet, and a jalapeno. The contenders were Mike Budge, James, Alex, and Brandon.

Alex didn't make it! Brandon also dropped out after the first bite, and Mike ended up beating James after chugging some jalapeno juice to get his items down. Now that is dedication! It turned out really fun. I didn't get to play this year since I was in charge of the kiddos.

We woke up the next morning at 6 and met at my mom's house for our annual Black Friday shopping trip. We headed up to Tai Pan and ended up shopping for 10 hours! Our stops this year were Tai Pan, Bath & Body works, Target, and Ross with breakfast at Ihop and lunch at JCWS in between. It wasn't the same without Uncle Dan with us but we still had a great time. My aunt Mary even bought me a "slanket" for an early birthday present. It is a knock off of a snuggie and I love it! Hot pink and all! :)

Breakfast at IHOP

Poor Aunt Mary was stuck in the back with all of our purchases after a great day of shopping. She literally could not get out! It was hilarious. Till next year...

Happy Birthday

Well today is my Beautiful wife's 29th Birthday. I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful person. Here are my 29 Favorite things about Heather.

1. She is always happy.

2. She loves music.

3. She is the best listner and is always willing to offer a shoulder to cry on.

4. She loves to read and will finish a book even if it isn't good just to make sure she knows how it ends.

5. She is filled with useless knowledge about anything pop culture.

6. She has a magazine obsession.

7. More than anything else she loves to be with family.

8. She is easy going.

9. She is a social butterfly.

10. She thinks that she is the funny one in the household.

11. She is Honest and will tell me what she really thinks.

12. I will come home in the Summer and find her cleaning and listening to Christmas music.

13. She always shows interest in my interests, even if she doesn't really want to.

14. When she sets her mind on something she just goes and does it.

15. She loves to have dance parties with the boys and educate them on music at the same time (Preston has the dancing bug too now)

16. She always has a special glow about her.

17. She will always try my culinary experiments but at restaraunts she knows what she likes and sticks to it.

18. She will always try something once (like skiing and Tennis).

19. She is the baby of the family.

20. Her love for TV shows about wierd topics such as the 1 ton man.

21. She is a true friend to her friends.

22. She is the first one to laugh at herself.

23. She loves to travel...

24. ...but loves to be home and with her family.

25. She has great fashion sense, so at least one of us can give our kids a chance.

26. Her love of the Gospel and her strong testimony.

27. She is a great mother to our children.

28. She loves to run.

29. That she chose me, I am very grateful for that.

Thankful

Tonight for family night we discussed being thankful. We are trying to get the boys thinking about it more with Thanksgiving coming up and then Christmas. We had them think of something they were thankful for and here were their answers:

Carter said he was thankful for his little brother and that he can jump in mud puddles.

Preston was thankful for his Thomas pillow. He seriously drags that thing all over the house!

James is thankful he has a job and one that he actually enjoys!


I am thankful for a healthy body that can carry this baby. I even thought about working out today. Maybe tomorrow... haha

Halloween Time

We had such a fun Halloween this year. It was nice that is was on a Saturday so that we could enjoy a week full of festivities. The boys made this haunted gingerbread house a couple of weeks ago while I was up in Logan at my cousin Matt's wedding. They loved it and we brought it to my mom's house to share with the rest of the grandkids.

Carter was Optimus Prime the transformer and Preston was the "scary" dragon, complete with scary roar! We had lots of parties to show the costumes off. Peter's birthday on Sunday, Carter's preschool party, the legacy center spook alley, and the actual day of trick or treating. I love getting good use out of the costumes!

James only dressed up on the actual day because getting all this green body paint on and off was not that easy! He looked awesome as the incredible hulk!!

Happy Halloween!!

Scarecrow Festival

It's that time of year again for the annual Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. We have gone the last 3 years and our boys love it! The first thing they wanted to do was go on the shark slide.

Carter was happy as a clam--doesn't he look adorable in this picture? Ok, I'm biased.

Carter was so proud of Presto for going down the slide, he waited for him to come down and greeted him with a big hug and a good job! So cute.

They also love the free games for the kids to play. Preston mostly liked to pick up all the rings to see how many he could gather. The other children waiting in line behind him were not so pleased. But, that is kindof how Preston is-he is a free spirit. I love that about him!

They got to choose between face painting or a treat. Carter no question wanted his face painted. Preston wanted a treat, fried donuts. He seriously ate the entire bag himself minus maybe 1 or 2 he shared with Carter.

We also went on the wagon ride. This time was extra fun with the headless horseman riding behind us. The boys thought it was so cool. There he is!
Me and Carter with the headless horseman
After the wagon ride we walked over to the Petting Zoo and had a great time looking at the animals. Not sure why we took a picture by the chicken coop, but whatever. It was nice this year to feel like the boys were old enough to climb up the slides by themselves and truly enjoy it together. Another successful year the scarecrow festival!

Stephenson Girls Trip '09

Year 4 of the annual girls trip and once again it was such a blast. We went back to St. George this year after going to Park City the 2 previous years. It was good because my Aunt Jean and cousin Jamie could make a quick trip up from Vegas to be with us. So fun!

Eating lunch before going shopping

L to R Heather, Jacque, Cathy, Amy, Shauna, Bethany, Tamera

Shannon, Melanie, Jamie, and Sarah

This was after shopping and we were starving! They just opened up Brick Oven in St. George so we had to go. We just parked it curbside while we waited. We had 4 pregnant girls this trip (including me) and poor Sarah-in purple was due in 3 weeks. She shopped all day with us and never complained. She is a die hard shopper!

Here is all the shopping bags all gathered together before we did show and tell.

Shauna, Mom, Aunt Sharon, Aunt Mary

The Tenney Girls

me, Amy, Shannon, Melanie

Cathy, Jacque, Aunt Chris, Aunt Jean, Tamera

Tamera (my cousin's wife) was nice enough to ask her mom who lives in St. George if we could all stay at her house. There were 20 of us! She agreed and we couldn't believe the amazing home we were about to stay in! We all had the most comfortable beds ever-nobody slept on the floor. It was 5 times better than a 5 star hotel. We had a pool, waterslide, hot tub, amazing view of the red rocks, shuffleboard table, movie room, pool table, the list goes on and on. You would have to see it to believe it. SO awesome! We all want to go back next year! This picture is of my mom with the leopard blankets for each recliner in the movie room. We watched "New in Town" and felt like we were at the movies.

another shot of the comfy recliners

This was the family room where we hung out alot. It had a kitchen to the left with some funky zebra barstools.

My sister took more pictures of the house, but just let me say it was incredible. We ended up playing a "white elephant" game with Ginny, Tamera's mom trying to get rid of some of the stuff she has in her house. She basically gave us all presents that were darling and also had a fun little Halloween craft for us to do. Talk about great hostess!! It felt like Christmas! We had a great time and always look forward to spending time with my great family laughing, talking, and eating. Can't wait for next year girls!

End of summer activities

We had a great summer and kept ourselves really busy playing outside and getting dirty.
Here is a whole bunch of pictures I have been meaning to upload but haven't gotten around to it, enjoy!

Preston found a small mud puddle at the park and enjoyed every inch of it. In case you weren't sure, his shirt is plaid. The mud puddle was a little distance away from where I was sitting so I when he came back to eat lunch, he just casually tells me that he pooped on the grass by the mud puddle. Carter confirms this and so I had to run over there and sure enough he did! I have a dog on my hands! He was so proud of himself, I couldn't help but laugh. (Just fyi, I picked it up and threw it away and washed my hands and his shortly after!)
There is also a really fun splash park in Highland about 10 min. from us that we went to and had a great time! I didn't discover it until around Labor Day, so hopefully next year we can go again and it will still be exciting for the boys.

We went with some friends from the neighborhood and Preston and Lucy Milne were by each others sides the whole day. Here is Preston giving her a smooch. Me and her mom Marcella were joking about marrying them off one day. Too cute!

Someone must have been thirsty!

We promised the boys we could camp in the backyard once this summer. We had so much fun watching a movie in the tent, making smores in the microwave, and me and Presto sleeping in our own beds when it got late. Carter and James were troopers and stayed in the tent all night.

Aren't they the cutest boys in the world? They have so much fun together.

Watching Horton Hears A Who in the tent

We love Stewart Falls and thought this year would be a good year to take the boys. We picked the wrong day on Labor Day weekend when a huge bike race was going on. We almost hit about 5 bikers and found out later that one biker was in critical condition from someone else hitting them. Why would they not close off the road? Not sure... anyway we finally got there and were on our way.

Carter did a great job hiking and didn't complain the whole way to the falls. The way back was a different story, but he did hike 2 miles great. I was proud of him.

Amazing scenery

Eating some snacks at the falls. Preston loves almonds!

Carter found a great hiking stick

Stewart Falls

I am so sad that summer is over but I am looking forward to all of the fun fall things we do as a family!

Bun in the Oven

So yes, for those who haven't heard yet, I am pregnant with baby #3!! We are so excited to welcome this new little one in May. That seems so far away--which it is-- and I am the worst secret keeper there is. For all you women that can keep it a secret until you are 20 weeks, how do you do it?? I guess I just want to have a reason to look fat! haha
Sorry there have not been any updates, our computer is on the fritz and so I just use James' laptop in the evenings, so therefore no pictures or blogging. Hopefully we can get it back up and running soon so I can post pictures of my girls retreat and preschool pictures of Carter. Until then...