Thanksgiving 2008

Zacky's still in to this 'army' thing and now he needs a flag to represent his country as he fights.....so we found some fabric and he actually painted the entire flag! We went from skateboards, to guitar, to art....who'd a guessed? :) This is a rare moment in his life!
I walked into the room and asked Zacky what he was doing....he said with a melancholy tone, "just waiting for my legos". He cracks me up! He knows Pop-pop sent more legos after a magazine trip together over the phone :)
Time to decorate again! We had a little trouble with the star!
Zacky thought he was going to fall hard!
Taylor's STILL making snowflakes (she said she had a great day at school on Tuesday because they learned how to make these big, cool snowflakes!)
We had our Thanksgiving dinner at Kelly's...Kimmy ended up at the kids table :) We had our dinner on Friday so that the Phillippi's could have their Phillippi family dinner in peace :)
Mom brought spaghetti squash for Bryan :)



Zacky just loaded mashed potatoes on!
Taylor is really learning how to pose from Kimmy and Kara! Fierce!
I brought a table cloth for Thanksgiving handprints :)
Bryan fried a turkey for us! It was great!!
He was SO proud!
Our actual Thanksgiving day was hilarious....we first took the kids to a couple of shelters in Salt Lake with the Bleyls in the morning. It was a great experience. Taylor was amazing...she just walked around and handed hygiene kits out and talked to everyone! We thought we'd lost her at one point! Zacky wasn't so comfortable with the whole thing...but he did comment on how lucky we are :) Then we stopped at empty Del Taco on the way home because nothing else was open. We had then planned to go to Olive Garden for dinner, but after realizing it was closed along with EVERY other restaurant in Utah County! (and believe me, we checked as we drove the entire stretch of State Street!) we ended up at IHOP! So funny! We've never eaten out on Thanksgiving, so who knew? Then we had an adult date night at the movies. We watched Four Christmases and had fun just laughing together! Not your typical Thanksgiving Day, but lots of fun!
Right after this picture was taken, Zacky was pummeled to the ground in the parking lot! He hobbled around for a day on his sore ankle!
Our classy Thanksgiving dinner :)
We actually had a fun waiter and a great breakfast meal!
Taylor loves when I get my camera out :)


The kids wanted to sell their crystals from our hike....Zacky wanted to ask $20!
The kids spent the entire day on Wednesday making their i-oreo (like i-carly) 'web cast'. I am never invited in the room (Taylor is 'embarrassed!' so I had to sneak in for this shot! We love having our cousins close!
We took another hike on our first holiday day...the kids had a blast finding crystals :) They even found one that looked like an oreo cookie so of course Taylor was thrilled!




















We went out to dinner for Erin Tetro's birthday up at Sundance (Bryan LOVES the fancy food!) and somehow poor Erin ended up in the back seat :) He could hardly get out!

Little Girls trip to Vegas and taylor's teeth extraction!

This week Taylor had yet another 'injury'. Did I mention she is a magnet. I have to fake being sympathetic at this point :) She got hit in the face on Monday night and by Wednesday morning had a ginormous lump with pus and blood oozing from it! She was pretty freaked out and, honestly, so was I! It looked like her tooth was poking out from the top of her gums. She was crying a little and after trying to calm her down, I asked her what was wrong and she said "I'm going to look like Derek!" (poking out front teeth) I just laughed! After a morning of trying to figure out which dentist I trusted (pitts or healy-still going with neither!) we ended up extracting 2 teeth. She is normally the calmest and toughest kid at any appointment (she'll never complain to them) but she had herself so freaked out this time...she was actually crying in the chair. She did have laughing gas and after we left she was embarrassed because I told her she was yelling a little :) She had a nasty infection that had exploded out the side. yuck! That night, though, everyone surprised us and showed up with pudding and treats and a hug. Noelle brought an especially 'touching' card saying she was sorry for wacking her and that she looked ugly :) . We don't have weeknight parties with everyone anymore (everyone's too busy these days!) so it was a fun night :) Taylor felt very special!














We had a yummy soup dinner at Becca's to celebrate Rachel's 2nd birthday. Rachel IS kimmy...she looks more like 3!

Zacky started basketball season...so he was excited about getting new high-tops! And this is what he wore to school the day he got them :) We also got to go to a Jazz game last night with the kids. They had fun with their slapsticks! They collected about 20 after the game too!
*Taylor had a sad night last week...we went to the Reflections program...she entered a 80 page book in to the literature category...she didn't make it to state and was VERY sad! She spent a LOT of time on it (so did I on the editing!) I figured she'd win because she always gets lucky in competitions (like winning the drug free writing competition)

And I got a new camera for early Christmas :) So I played with Zacky a little...the kids are just thrilled ;)












Taylor got a new hoodie from grandma Drexie :) She LOVES hoodies...I can't seem to get her to wear anything else!

Zacky got a new gun...an "army guy" came to speak at his school last week and ever since he says he wants to be in the army when he grows up and is constantly playing 'war'

























Grandma Gayle took Taylor and Noelle on a special girls trip to Las Vegas to visit Alexis and Arianna. They had a blast! Build-a-bear, shark place?? shopping for books, McDonalds and just hanging out together. What a great idea grandma! :)



The last shot is a picture I found on Taylor's camera....it's NOT her boyfriend Austin Earl :) I laughed when I found it....I have no idea where she took it! Sneaky girl!

sickness, legos, wedding dresses and soccer

Back at the doctor! This week was triage unit time at our house. We were ALL sick...I had bronchitis and could hardly speak most of the week, Bryan had a killer sore throat, Taylor had some virus that wiped her out pretty hard (when she gets sick, she gets sick! couldn't get her to eat much so she gets so weak!), and Zacky had a headache and stomach ache (and some faking...he also mentioned to the doctor that his heart hurt...even the doctor laughed :). We missed lots of school! Not a happy week!
Kimmy turned 21! Kelly and I went over in the COLD and filled her jeep with balloons (fill is a strong word...I had some balloon issues and couldn't seem to find a simple bag of balloons!).
It snowed that day and we dressed for COLD and sexiness!
Pop-pop cheered Zacky up and out of sickness with a new star wars lego set...1300 pieces! Thanks grandpa! :)
can you hear the squealing!?

This was serious buisness! I asked him if he wanted my help and he just laughed!
In 3 days it was done! He was so proud. He wanted me to take LOTS of pictures to show all of the cool things it could do! (He put most of it together himself...Daddy helped a little).
This is a picture he took himself to show off his army inside :)

Taylor learned to play Kara's guitar during the week...she watched the dvds and can now play Jingle Bells and 2 cords! She LOVES it. Every time I'd look over, she had the guitar in hand. Guess what she wants for Christmas?? Zacky, who we got the dvds for, lost interest pretty quickly after realizing he'd have to study and practice! He has written another guitar song, a love song. He also told me this week that he wrote Lauren a letter and told her she looked cute :) If she could just hear his song, she'd be hooked!
For Kimberly's girls-night-out-birthday-celebration, we went dress shopping (3 hours at David's Bridal with the crabbiest employees!) and out to Olive Garden (in that order so as to have no bloating in the dresses :) We actually found lots of great ones! She went ring shopping on her birthday, so I'm thinking the proposal should be anytime :) hint Devin!
There was back cleavage :)
I always imagined 'princess kimmy' in this type of dress, but it was a no go? She poo poo-d it!
bring on the sash! We decided that any dress looked great with a cabernet sash :)
This was my vote :) I loved it the second we walked in the door...mom thinks it too plain...that's probably why I like it!
Kara had a little bridesmaid dress party herself :) She was loving it!
Saturday, against Bryan's wishes, we went up to Roy for Zacky's makeup soccer game. Melisa went for the pizza place...we had a little party after the big fat loss :(
Bryan hitched a ride with the Tetros!
We were missing Jonah and Shad so we brought Derek with us (he could use Jonah's card because he is his twin!). It was the first place team with 11 players and we knew with our barely 6 we'd get creamed! They actually did great and fought pretty hard. (11-0) Luckily it was a pretty day (we were prepared for a blizzard!) so at least Bryan couldn't complain about that :) Zacky was very frustrated after...playing goalie a lot of the game stinks! He's our best goalie and Bryan has him play on the field at the same time too...you should see him running down the field and then tearing back off to cover the goal :)
Taylor hung out with Ethan and actually came home with us after pizza...he loves her!
Before the game...Bryan had to give Hudson one of his socks...we all laughed...he did not :) our team looked so sad compared to there's and their official 'warm ups' Oh well, season over! Time for basketball. We'll do great next season when Alec comes back and hopefully we can find a goalie!