Lion King Play

Aaron and I took Anson and Rebecca to the Lion King at Gammage on Saturday afternoon. Anson took his nap in the car on the way there, and Aaron carried him in while he slept. He woke up just as we got him in his seat.

We had the brilliant idea to bring in Rebecca's booster and Anson's car seat for them to sit on. Not only could they see better, but Anson was strapped in! He actually stayed put and was really good the whole time. Well, except for that time right after intermission...

We forgot to buckle him in before the show started again after intermission, so he wanted to walk around and make noise if we tried to hold him on or laps or anything. I could tell he was going to be yelling and screaming if I tried putting him in his car seat right then, so I took him out in the lobby. We stayed out until he decided I could strap him in and he could be quiet about it. It took quite a while, but he did great once he decided on it.

No pictures, but it was a fun time.

Central America Trip

Aaron is FINALLY coming home from Central America tonight! He has been gone for 10 days. I'm thinking this is not going to happen again. That is definitely way too long. Especially since I only got to talk to him on the phone once. (I am grateful for that though!) I think he had a good time, but I'm sure he was so homesick for his beautiful wife (yours truly), and wonderful children.

He posted a few pictures on my picasa web album partway through the trip, so I will post some of those for your blogging enjoyment.

These pictures were taken at a live volcano near Antigua, Guatemala. My daredevil husband got about 4 feet from the lava. He said he felt like he was burning his skin off!

Manning Family Christmas Party

Every year we have a party with Aaron's dad's side of the family. The last two years they have started assigning seats. They didn't do that before, so it seemed the families would congregate with their own families. Since the assigned seats, I have gotten to talk to a lot of people that I only briefly would talk to before. I hope it sticks as a new tradition!


This was too cute. I saw Anson over by the manger with baby Jesus in it before the party started. He approached tenatively at first, then picked up the baby and gave him a big hug. What a sweetheart!


We did a Nativity, and Rebecca was thrilled that I let her wear the white wings I've had up in my closet (even though Angels don't have wings). Anson had a cool Shepherd's crook, so I had to dress her costume up somehow!


Every year Aaron's uncle Steve tells a really cool story. This year it was a cowboy story, and Anson was enthralled. The whole time. Pretty surprising considering the story was probably 10-15 minutes long. Really tells you what kind of a storyteller he is, huh?

Katie and Daddy. Rebecca roping during the Cowboy Cousin song for talent time. Anson was busy riding a stick horse around the stage. He's definitely my little cowboy!

Polar Express

We had the opportunity to take the kids on the Polar Express this year. We went 10 days before Christmas, and it was snowing! The roads were very scary, but we made it. When we stopped in Williams to get gas, the convenience store person told Aaron that the freeway was closed, so we would be stuck in Williams. Not too happy about that, we went to the train depot. The train was late with the first trainload, so we saw Santa and looked around the gift shop. They had a movie of the Polar Express playing, so we watched that for a while too. Finally the train came, and we ran through the snow to the second to last train car.


Getting on the Train (in their pajamas!). We were going to wear our pajamas too, but with all of the wet snow, we didn't really feel like changing into them.

Katie, Daddy, and Anson all bundled up on the train!

The story "The Polar Express" is about a boy that has a train pull into his front yard on Christmas Eve. The conductor invites him in, and they are on their way to the North Pole. The servers on the train give them hot chocolate and goodies to eat. When they get to the North Pole, the boy gets to ask Santa for the first gift of Christmas. He asks for a bell from the Reindeer's harness on Santa's sleigh. Santa gives it to him, but it falls out of a hole his pocket. He is sad, but on Christmas morning, he finds it wrapped under the tree. The bell can only be heard by those who believe.

The conductor and our "elf" giving us cookies!

So on our Polar Express ride, we had cookies and hot chocolate served by "elves" that were dressed like the servers in the book. They read the story over the speakers while the "elves" showed the pictures to everyone. Then we saw Santa out the window in the North Pole and he got on the train. We were the second car to see him. He gave each child a bell. Then we sang Christmas songs led by the "elves". The kids loved it and we all had a good time!

Santa visiting with the kids on the train.

They could hear the bells! This was a favorite toy for the rest of the Christmas season.

Disaster or Blessing?

So I posted a while ago that Aaron was in a car accident the day before Thanksgiving. He had taken my car to go work out at CAC, which he never does. His keys were right on the dresser (one of the two places they should be), and he decided not to disturb me and just took my car. Then he was hit by a drunk driver. Allstate originally was going to fix about $10,000 worth of damage. Then they opened the car up and found about $5000 more damage. They still were going to fix it. Aaron had to fight our cause (not being stuck with a car we could sell for WAY less than we owed on it, plus who wants a car that has been pieced together with old parts?). It took a long time, but 2 days before Christmas we found out that our car would be totalled! We have GAP insurance, so that should cover the extra that we still owe.

We ended up with nothing, but found a much cheaper minivan. I got a super deal on it. It is a 2007 Honda Odyssey with about 36,000 miles. It is really nice, and perfect for the family. It can seat 8 to capacity, but I took out the middle seat and put the 2 bucket seats next to each other so there is room to get in the back next to the door. It will get better mileage too. What a blessing in disguise!

Baking and Saturday Update

I have been the worst blogger lately. Don't worry though. I'm still checking all of your blogs. Just not writing on my own. I have been a baking queen recently. Last week I made pita bread, wheat bread, ginger snaps, chex mix, and pita chips. The pita bread and ginger snaps were definitely the favorites. I couldn't believe that the pita bread actually had pockets in it! Go me! I couldn't stop eating the ginger snaps either. They were so good! Yum! I hope I don't gain a ton of weight this month. Or make my middle way bigger. I plan on baking a bunch of other yummy stuff still. Luckily I've been running a couple of times a week with my friend. Well, its actually turned out so far to be about once a week. But we have good intentions!

We had a really busy day on Saturday. Katie had a fever and threw up on Friday night so we took her to my mom's house while the rest of the family went to sing at a nursing home. Aaron's side of the family puts on a Christmas program every year. Rebecca sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and Aaron sang "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)". I sang all of the group numbers with Rebecca and Anson while Aaron played the piano. Anson will be old enough for a solo next year.

I would say that this year's program was very long and not very smooth. I think we performed for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Normally we try to keep it to about 45 minutes. Nobody was really ready for their entrance at all. Everyone would pretty much wait for the person performing to finish before they thought about who was next. Then they would have to scramble to get their stuff together. Needless to say, there was a ton of down time. My perfectionism didn't care for it, but I don't think the people particularly cared for the most part.

On our way over to the nursing home, Rebecca had noticed a cemetery. Aaron's grandma and grandpa are buried there, so we stopped by on our way back to pick up Katie. We had a little trouble finding their grave stones, but eventually found them. Aaron's cousin is buried close by too. She died when she was in her mid-20s and had 1 little boy. It was so sad to see her name all on her own stone and Aaron's grandparents sharing a stone. Her husband is remarried, so he will probably be buried by his new wife. It made me really grateful for my family and that I get to see them grow. I hope I get to share a grave stone with Aaron some day far in the future.

We went over to Aaron's parent's house to make gingerbread houses after we picked up Katie. We had a lot of fun. I had trouble constructing Rebecca's house, but it eventually got put together. Aaron's mom helped Anson decorate his house (which Aaron built), and I put some frosting on for Rebecca, but she pretty much decorated herself. We ate a piece of each house last night for the family home evening treat.

These kids are obviously contemplating the delights of indulging their sweet tooths (or teeth?).

Is it just me or does it look like Anson is about to pick off a piece to eat?

Aaron went running with his brother Jonathan after he constructed Anson's house. Since his car accident he hasn't done much running - mostly just swimming - so he was pretty sore and tired afterwards.

I took the kids over to my house while Aaron was running. They watched the kids while Aaron and I went to a class at Shar's about making tamales and chili rellenos. We got a recipe for pico de gallo which we made on Sunday and enjoyed for dinner. It was really good.

The class got done somewhat early so we went shopping. We found out about the delights of Fresh and Easy (a grocery store if you are unfamiliar with it). You can sample any item that is the fresh and easy brand, and they have areas in the store with super LOW prices. We got a bunch of stuff for a steal.

Then we went to Lee Lee's market. They sell all sorts of ethnic foods. We got the ingredients to make Taro Root smoothies. They are Aaron's favorite at Lee's Sandwiches and he got a recipe for them from someone. We made them on Sunday and enjoyed them that night too. They turned out just like the smoothies they make at Lee's Sandwiches, so he was happy. I must admit that they have grown on me and I actually like them now too.

Then we stopped off at Deseret Book. They gave us some apple pie and Lion House rolls with honey butter to sample, but then were out of rolls so we couldn't even buy them! We finally picked up the kids around 6:15.

We went to the temple lights and enjoyed the atmosphere on the temple grounds. We saw all of the nativity scenes in the visitor's center and Anson really enjoyed the Christus statue. A little too much. He kept pointing to it and saying "Look Daddy!" during the presentation. I finally had to take him out because it was getting to be a little too distracting. We enjoyed seeing the different scenes around the grounds - like Isaiah, Mary and Joseph on the donkey, the shepherds, the manger scene, and the wise men travelling to see the baby.

We left the house around 8:00 in the morning and got back around 10:00 at night. It was a long day, but very fun-filled!

I'm Up Way Too Late!

Well I'm up way too late tonight. It is 11:16 by the clock on my computer. I'm excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I am running in the Turkey Trot Fun Run in Mesa. I'm only doing the 2 mile one. Better than nothing though! We're having Thanksgiving with my family this year. I made homemade pumpkin and apple pies earlier tonight. They look good- hopefully they will taste good too!

Aaron was in an accident this morning. He was driving my car (he couldn't find his keys this morning) to the pool at CAC when a driver came the other way and swerved out of control. Aaron tried to get out of the way, but couldn't. He was hit on the back driver's side. It blew the back tire and all of the airbags deployed. Luckily we have pretty good insurance (if you want the name of our Allstate agent, I'd be happy to recommend him to you). The whole thing will only cost $300. Aaron is excited because they didn't have a car big enough for 2 boosters and a car seat at Enterprise, so they gave us a truck with a double cab instead. He has graciously allowed me to use his 4Runner so he can have some fun with the truck. I'm really not a fan of trucks because I'm always scared something will be stolen from the back. You also can't put stuff back there when it rains (unless you cover up with a tarp, and who wants to go through all of that trouble in the rain?). So we pretty much will never have a truck of our own again unless something happens to seriously change my mind about it. Anyway, so Rebecca had music class this morning too. My friend was kind enough to let me borrow her car to get there.

We just got back from a great trip to San Carlos, Mexico with some friends from our ward. I haven't downloaded pictures yet. We left Rebecca and Anson with our friends the Gardners and took Katie with us. She was pretty good except for the 1/2 hour naps. They were just WAY too short. She slept well at night though. We had a perfect view of the ocean from our condo and there were gorgeous sunsets every night (except one when it was too cloudy). We went to a street market in the nearby town of Guaymas, ran on the beach, Aaron swam in the ocean (there were little fish that nipped on him, so I just watched the ocean from the safety of the beach), ate Mexican candy (dulce de leche and coconut candy - yummy!), played many a round of Scum - I even was President for a few rounds! Go Me! (I was even more excited because the first night I played I was TERRIBLE!) It was very relaxing and we got a lot of reading done!

Applesauce and Pumpkin Puree

I am cool. I made homemade applesauce and I roasted a pumpkin and made pumpkin puree today. I have the applesauce in the refrigerator and it is GOOD! I have the pumpkin in the freezer for Thanksgiving pies. I am cool.