Goodbye 2009!!!

Last one of the year! I know we are far from the end of the year, but let's be honest, I'm headed to Kanab for the week and I KNOW I won't be posting again before the new year. This last week was lots of fun. I held the first annual "uglies" party at our house. The idea: everyone just wears their uglies christmas sweater. Two of the couples couldn't find any, but some of us did thank goodness!! Taylor and Austin won for the best sweaters. I was DYING when they walked in. Thanks for getting into it guys.....

In attendance: Chad and I, Jodalyn and Scott Buck, Spencer and Emily Clark, and Taylor and Austin Gardner

Tay's pants made the outfit.

What a cute couple.

Last night was our ward christmas party. These are most of my primary kids getting ready for their part in the Nativity.

Gracie was an angel and Mike was a cow.. soo cute.

Aaaaanndd this was our experience this year with Santa. Mike calls him sasa.

I just threw these on. Gotta love IKEA

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Everyone!! I'll see you in 2010!!!!

Dance little Monkey DANCE!!!

Finally I get to post the pics of our chrismas tree. You'll notice I don't have any up of the finished product, it took us about three days to figure out a stand. Chad finally built one and it turned out SO pretty. I'll take more pictures and post them when I get a chance. The kid's loved helping this year and I think Grace is finally at the age where she "gets" christmas. She is so much fun. This weekend Gracie had a dance recital at the festival of trees at the South Town Expo Center. She did so good! I thought for sure she would get shy when she saw all of the people there, but she did so good. I couldn't have been more proud!!

Chad and the kids putting up the tree

I had a little sewing night with a few of my friends and it turned out to be SO fun! I Think we will make it a weekly thing! Taylor is helping me un-pick my pillow case at this point. I really messed it up :)

One of Gracies chores on her chart is to help do dishes. She does so good to load them in the dishwasher.

I don't know what it is with my son and accessories, but now he is sporting a santa hat that he refuses to take off.

This is Gracie's friend Saige. She is in our ward and we get to take her to dance with us every week. They have become pretty good friends.

Elivate your body...

Grandma Lydia kept Mikey entertained while Gracie danced. She always has lots of fun snacks.

She did so good!!

Eating a hot dog after a wonderful show

Gracie LOVES the grinch. She watches this show pretty much every day.

Taken tonight.... Sporting the hat....

Turkey, Gifts and B-day!!

Thanksgiving was a blast this year. We had so much fun but it's nice to be home to gear up for christmas. Time to take down the pumpkins and put up the tree! This year was the Staheli's year for Thanksgiving. There are 27 of us all together, so we went to the church to eat. The kids had a blast running around and making a total mess of the whole church. We ate until we couldn't eat anymore and exchanged gifts. Chad turned 29 on saturday the 28th. He is so lucky that every birthday he gets to be surrounded by family. This was a pretty low key birthday, we need to save ourselves for the big 3-0 next year. Here are the pics!!

Chad and Mike getting ready to blow out the candle on the cheesecake (chad's fav)

Before the gift opening!

Lyndy and Bekah making suckers. We were mass-producing these things

Gracie and Jaime

Roasting dogs with Grandpa

Happy Birthday!!

Of course lots of games were played

My boy

Mmmmm....

Mason and Jake

Jakey

Gracie and Scott

Linda took all of the girls to a jewlery makers house. We got to pick out a neclace for the Lady to make. It was lot's of fun! Gracie and I picked out ours first, so we were killing time.

Lyndy and Linda were SOOO excited!!

Miss Mckay after making her choice

hmmmm... so many choices

We had a white elephant gift exchange after thanksgiving dinner, Lyndy and Travis got the best ones... An autographed picture of Delilah and a pic of Mike and linda... which of course was photoshoped to make them look like old cowboys

We had a family talent show and Chad and Bekah played a christmas song on their trumpets. I love hearing Chad play. He hasn't picked up a trumpet in over 4 years and he did awesome.

Mikey sang "m m m Barak Hussein Obama" ( a song uncle Chan taught him)

the neices played piano

There was lots of coloring

These pics are backwards, but Mikey LOVES baby davis. He kept going over an giving him kisses and hugs and pointing to his face features.. He got a little rough when he was pointing out the nose.....

Kisses better

Gracie with the spoils of her fish pond

Chad and Mike carving the bird

Cute little Aimee and Mike watching a movie

Grace and Jaime on the spinner

The boys playing ball

The day before we left we had a play date with Joshy. Grace loves having friends over. I had to post it because look how cute :)

A dream is a wish come true....

What a fun week we had at the Staheli household. We were able to get out an enjoy the last warm day of the year by re-painting our fence, and also enjoy the first big snow of the year by having a snowball fight! You've gotta love the Utah weather. On Monday, we had an FHE lesson on Adam and Eve and how Adam was given the job to name all of the animals on earth. We decided to take a trip to Cabelas to see some of the animals he named. Mikey is finally at the age where he really enjoys seeing animals. They were so cute!

looking at the peesh (fish)

What is a trip to Cabelas without the chance to shoot something?

Yes, that is my son putting crayons in his ears.

On Saturday, we took Gracie and the boys to see Disney on Ice. I hear all of the time how "magical" it is, but I never thought so until Saturday. I couldn't keep my eyes off of Gracie. Her eyes were as wide as quarters most of the show. When Ariel came out (her favorite) She started yelling and pointing " Mom Ariel is really here! It's really her!!" She was making my eyes water the whole time. It was so cute and well worth the moolah..

She held on to her ticket the whole show

The picture doesn't do it justice. She was mezmerized!

During the show, there was a little girl sitting next to me who had this magic wand that light up. Every time she would push the button to make it light up Gracie would just watch her. She would wisper little things to me ever time like "mom, it has Ariel on it" or "mom there is a princess crown on top" What made it special was she never once asked if she could have one. She just stared in envy at the little girl. I wispered to Chad maybe we should snag one for a christmas present. He said " she needs one for the show" So he got up to go buy her one. Right when he sat down I told Grace to look at what dad had and she ran over and gave him the biggest hug I had ever seen. I don't think she has put it down since we bought it.

The gloves... ohhh the gloves. We bought these at the dollar store on Saturday and Mike WILL NOT take them off. He loves them. If I take them off and we can't find them again he is perfectly content wearing his sisters pink ones. Like he did for church on sunday.

Tagged

It has finally happened. I haven't blogged in a while, so I got tagged to MAKE me blog. Thanks Mrs. Talbot....

I have been nominated...wish there was a prize, or check of some sort...!
My reward is I get to answer these questions in one word (or pretty close). Let's get started!

1. Where is your cell phone? Pocket
2. Your hair? Bun
3. Your mother? Amazing
4. Your father? hilarious
5. Your favorite food? Steak
6. Your dream last night? Fabric (?)
7. Your favorite drink? Dr.Pepper
8. Your dream/goal? Happiness
9. What room are you in? Kitchen
10. Your hobby? Crafting
11. Your fear? My house
12. Where do you want to be in six years? skinny!
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something you aren’t? Picky
15. Muffins? Blueberry
16. Wish list item? Dishwasher
17. Where did you grow up? K town
18. Last thing you did? Chores
19. What are you wearing? Sweater
20. TV? Glee
21. Your pets? Roxy
22. Your friends? The best
23. Your life? Rocks
24. Your mood? sleepy
25. Missing someone? Nope
26. Vehicle?Acura
27. Something you’re not wearing? A bra.. ha ha.
)28. Your favorite store? Target
29. Your favorite color? Yellow
30. When was the last time you laughed? Ten min ago
31. When was the last time you cried? Saturday
32. Your best friend? Chad, Lizzy, Lexi, Case, mamma.... There are too many for one word!!
33. One place that you go over and over? Chi town
34. One person who e-mails me regularly? Beth
35. Favorite place to eat? Tuscanos.. mmm...


I TAG: Casey, Lexie, Lizzy, and Tavi

All Hallows Eve....

Another halloween has come and gone. Where did October go? Is it me or did that month fly by? Although I love Halloween, I'm excited to see it go. That means we are one step closer to turkey, gifts and snow. My children are getting so big I can hardly stand it. They are getting so much cuter and smarter every day! This year we spent Halloween in Kanab because my Uncle Andy Gant was put in as bishop. He is such an amazing example. I love him so much. We were so happy to be there to support him because he is always such a support to us. Spanish Fork Halloween will have to wait until next year! I didn't get very many good pictures, but I did take some.

No reason, just cuteness.

Gracie got to wear her costume to school on monday before Halloween. She, of course was a witch.

So every year Spanish Fork has a scarecrow contest for the local businesses. We look forward to it every year because it makes going downtown so much fun. And this year, a few of our families favorite characters showed up....

This was just some scary grim-reaper

The Easter Bunny

?

king opera

I wish I would have gotten a better angle of this one. It was the S.F. fire department and they had two guys getting a cat out of a tree. They even backed up one of their trucks. SO cute.

One of our favorites. "pumpkin bum"

Peanuts

Pancho Villa a.k.a. Clayton

Toy Story

Chandler thought this was a real lady

My personal favorite... Jacob Black!! Mid-transform

Gracies favorite. Ever since she was a year and a half old she has had this obsession with the hulk.

Gracie playing fish pond at dance

Poor Anna B had a bad ankle injury and Gracie was so cute to help her around. Anna would hold her hand and they would just gimp around together. They are bestest friends.

(most days)

Dax man pulling a scarrrry face

Wrestling at Aunt Rhondas

This is sort of an inside joke, but it was hilarious. My dad wears this outfit EVERY day after work. We always make fun of him because the sweater is so ugly! But he wears it anyways. All of the time. With tube socks and his crocs. He also has a rockstar every day, and he LOVES chocolate cake. So Lex was him for halloween. I swear I laughed until I cried.... hahaha

Gracie, Anna, Grandma, and Mike

Gracie and Me

The fam. Chad and I recycled our costumes from last year. So we were ghostbusters again.

The farmer in the dell

No words really.....

Moment to document....

Gracie is 4 and she has never gone bowling. So we decided to change that. We took her bowling in Payson for the first time tonight. Needless to say she is a natural and she LOVED it. I think this will be her date of choice from now on.

Chad helping her line up

Gracie helping Mike be safe

Ta da!!!

Patch-O-Punkins

Have I mentioned I love the fall?? The cider,the pumpkins, the leaves, the smells... ohhh all of it. We had a wonderful fall weekend. The weather has been absolutley amazing. On saturday we went to the big red barn in Santaquin and took a little hay ride to pick out some pumpkins. It was actually hot! I was in jeans and a sweater and a BLACK shirt. By the end of the ride, I had my sweater around my waist, my pants pulled up and my sleeves pulled up. It was warm! We also were able to have Daxton visit wich always makes for some fun activities. Mikey and Dax are starting to be pretty good friends and it's so fun to watch them together. Mike runs around the house saying "Dax? Dax?" And pointing to his picture on the fridge. It's so cute.

Dax man eating some scettios

Mike waiting for his turn on the hay ride

He is just too cool for school

My cute lil fam

Let the choosing commence!

This one didn't quite make the cut

So many choices so little time.....

Chan's choice. The eyes are already indented.

Dax didn't care. All he knew was there was a huge field and lots of orange balls to play with.

Sometimes you have to hunt your prey before you get to take it home.

Chad's choice.

Dax's choice

Mikey still trying to decide......

and still.......

Gracie's choice.

We had a really fun weekend! Stay tuned for the scarecrow showing.... You'll see what I mean......