Breakfast With Santa 2011

by Brooke on December 30, 2011

*I’m going to try and update with our Christmas pictures and then we will see if I can blog better in 2012! :) *

One of our favorite family Christmas traditions is to go to “Breakfast with Santa” at the Grand America with Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Russ. The kids get all spiffied up in their new Christmas outfits and we all feast on a YUMMY breakfast buffet.


When we’re sufficiently stuffed we get to have pictures taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus—they are the real deal, folks!!

Haylie was so excited that she ran up to Santa with a huge grin on her face–no tears this year! :)

Annie wanted a Jessie and Bullseye set (from Toy Story 2).

Brandon’s dream was to get an ipod touch.

Haylie asked for a Lala Loopsy doll.

Did Santa come through on their wishes?!?!? Stay tuned to find out! :)

The Grand America is all decked out this time of year, with gorgeous trees and displays all over. This was one of my favorite trees, I love those handblown glass ornaments! They looked just like balloons. This was such a fun (and delicious!) way to kick off December–we love Breakfast with Santa!! :)

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Each year we carve pumpkins and each year I wonder why we don’t just paint the pumpkins—nobody loves scooping out the “guts”! But in the end it’s worth it when we light the candles and see how cool they look on the front porch (and when we eat roasted pumpkin seeds later on). :)

Everyone designs their own pumpkin and it’s always fun to see what the kids come up with. Here is Haylie sketching out what she wanted her pumpkin to look like. She wanted it to be a flower, like this:

I think she approved.

Brandon requested a Harry Potter theme, and with Jaden’s help they created this:

Awesome!

Annie wanted her pumpkin to have a surprised face, so this is how hers turned out:

I love the eyelashes and we used the flower from Haylie’s pumpkin as an accessory! :)

We ran out of time to carve Jaden’s that afternoon (I hurried and carved his later). And for some odd reason, the pumpkin I chose at the patch was petrified or something, because it was hard as a rock and we couldn’t even make a dent in it with the knife. I had to drill off the top to scoop out the seeds, but after that I got sick of it and stopped! Oh well! Just my luck!

Ooooh, but here are the pumpkins all lit up at night:

After we were done with the pumpkins, Jaden went mountain biking so the kids and I made a simple Halloween treat: Spider Oreos.

Double Stuffed Oreos. Twizzler Pull ‘N Peels. M&M’s. (And a little bit of frosting to make it all stick together). Done!

Our favorite part was eating them when we were done. Yum! :)

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Pumpkin Patch {Halloween 2011}

November 6, 2011

Lookie, I’m actually blogging!!!! I’m just going to jump right in to some Halloween memories while they are still fresh! First up–the traditional visit to the pumpkin patch. {Ahhhh, October was beautiful here. I’m still dreaming about it as I look at the crusty snow out on the lawn.} We visited a local farmer’s patch […]

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Fun Ideas Using Silhouettes

June 27, 2011

A few months ago I taught at a digital scrapbooking retreat and showed how to create silhouettes from your own photos in Photoshop. Silhouettes are a big trend right now everywhere, especially in home decor, so it was fun to come up with some personalized art projects and gifts using silhouettes of our kids. There […]

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Bridal Veil Falls hike

June 21, 2011

A week or so ago the weather finally decided to be nice (after a record wet May) so we took the kids to Provo Canyon to “hike” Bridal Veil Falls. I use the term “hike” very loosely; someone riding on a jazzy could easily take on this trail! But we love it anyway because it’s […]

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Well, hello there!

June 20, 2011

Hi! Remember me?!? Okay, it’s been so long that I’ve almost forgotten how to post on this darn thing. As Haylie would say, “Holy Moly Spicy Guacamole!” Life just has a way of being busy and fun and difficult and tender and joyful and stressy and inspiring and frustrating and full of love and sometimes […]

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Remission?

March 15, 2011

Earlier last week I went up to Huntsman with the girls to visit Grandpa Judd. Generally the kids liked going up there. They liked to see Grandma and Grandpa of course, but they also liked ordering shakes and smoothies from the yummy cafe/room service up there. One day Annie and Haylie discovered that the chair […]

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BYU Pancakes {and other random pics}

March 12, 2011

This morning we had pancakes. Just for fun, I dyed the batter blue to celebrate BYU’s awesome win last night over New Mexico in the MWC and Jimmer’s crazy 52 point record. Brandon is a big Jimmer fan so I made him a “Y” as well as a “32” which is Jimmer’s jersey number. It’s […]

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Disneyworld Part 2: Animal Kingdom

March 7, 2011

The whole time we were in Orlando we had a variety of weather. Mid 70’s and humid, pleasant mid 60’s, and chilly torrential rain mixed in every so often. Which made for very poofy poodle-ish hair on me. Thank goodness for hats. The day we went to Animal Kingdom was the torrential rain kind of […]

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Evidence that kids live in our house.

March 4, 2011

In case you wondered….just keepin’ it real…. Various princess gowns left on the floor (as well as magic wands, glass slippers and fairy wings.) Frightening Dora “stump” and bath toys in our master bathroom. Lightening McQueen radio instead of a stereo system?? Littlest Pet Shops. And Silly Bandz. Need I say more? Oh, and random […]

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