RILEY'S FIRST SLEEP OVER

We have had a good ole cold taking it's turn with each member of the family this week so to give Andrea & Heather some much needed rest Grandpa & Momma Lynn offered to let Riley and Bella have a sleep over so Heather and Andrea could sleep. Riley was so excited about the whole "My first sleep over" concept that he could hardly stand it and Bella was just happy to be where ever Riley was. Riley of course thought he should get to sleep in Bella's cage. It took some coaxing to get him to let Bella sleep in her own bed.

Finally we were able to get him out of Bella's cage and into his P.J.'s and ready for bed.

Of course he had to make one last check to make sure Bella was alright.

Finally he was in bed but it took some time before he ran down and quit talking and singing and telling stories and anything else he could think of and finally gave in and fell asleep. He and bella were both so exhausted they sleep through the night.

Whew what a work out.

My Smart Little Boy

This afternoon, we were putting up our Christmas decorations. I was working on getting the tree up and lit and Riley was so excited. Unfortunately his idea of helping is taking a strand of lights and spinning them around like a lasso, so I gave him my phone to play with. Reed has learned over the years of being married to me that when putting the Christmas tree together he just lets me do it all and only offers to help if I ask. He may have had to learn that the hard way. Now he pretty much ignores my muttering and cries of frustrations because he knows if he interferes I usually have a surge of irrational tears and say, "Fine if you think you can do it better call me when it's done." Yeah. I'm not proud, its just how I am. So he was wisely keeping busy cleaning out our window wells muttering how disgusting a job it was. I must have gotten really involved in what I was doing because I realized that I hadn't heard from Riley for a while. He was no where to be found. I went to the stairs and called up thinking 'why isn't he downstairs?'
When he came down he had my phone on the notes page. He likes to pull up the page and 'tap' as he calls it. Usually it is just random stuff. Jibberish mostly. Today however when he showed me what he 'tapped' he was so proud. Here is a transcription:

Reed is. Rilehy. Ufrad. Uff duskcusteg chags yes he is rilehy du

Now this may look like jibberish still but when he showed it to me this is what he said was written:

Reed is really afraid of disgusting things yes he is really does.

I find this rather impressive. Not knowing how to spell he was able to put down things that are fairly close phonetically to what he wanted to say. I was awfully proud. He's only 4 people. He astounds me every day. :) As a side post, its a blurry picture but I wanted to show off my war wounds from getting fingers pinched by putting up the Christmas tree.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone, I wanted to be the first to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! I love you all so much and want to say how very thankful I am, especially for family and for how blessed we all are to have grown up surrounded by so much love and fun. I couldn't have asked for better parents, or siblings. I love you all so much and whether you are far away, like Rachel and Adam or close to home I hope you all know how thankful I am for you. I LOVE YOU!

Andrea's Dinner Dance

So I thought that I would post a few pictures from Andrea's work dinner dance this past weekend.  Her branch was hosting a charity ball in Payson. There wasn't a huge turnout but it was a lot of fun.  Dick Chappel, the VP for Andrea's bank (Chappel sound familiar? Yup he's a Wayne County Chappel. I don't know if I'm spelling it right.) Anyway, he has this really cool 'Big Band' group called Mississippi Mud. Reed said that he and some old military buddies were stationed in Mississippi during WWII which is when they got the band started. They reconnected years later and have been playing ever since. They were really good and it made for some fun dancing. As a side note, I am amazed at Reed's ability to hear and remember these random old stories about people. I think Dick did some kind of announcement but seriously, get Reed around someone with some kind of story and they tell him. Don't believe me, ask him about the homeless man he walked around with down at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Back to the story at hand, sorry the pictures aren't the greatest. Apparently my phone does not do so well with action shots. :(  Enjoy!

Here  is dad dancing with Chris Jennings, who works in the AF branch. She is pretty much Andrea, just at the Walmart up there. 

Here are Mom and Dad dancing to the final song, Goodnight Sweetheart. 
Here are Andrea and some random guy that works for the bank doing the Tango. Casey had to go in to work to get ready for the big Thanksgiving rush that is coming and Dick dedicated the tango to Andrea. Dad gracefully backed out (A.k.a hands in the air going 'oh no. I don't tango. Don't look at me to dance with you.) So Andrea had to round up someone to dance with.
Here are Reed and I sitting out the fast ones. His back wasn't up for all that hopping and swinging. Though he did threaten to do 'the worm' but I told him if he tried and ended up back in the hospital I would write my insurance and tell them not to pay the 40K for back surgery again because he was stupid and deserves it.  Just kidding hon. But seriously no more 40K surgeries okay?
Here are Dad and Click dancing up a storm. I don't think I have ever seen someone so tiny and, well, old (Sorry Click) dance so well or so fast. She was like a little jitter bug who wouldn't stay still.  It was great. 
Here are Casey and Chris (mentioned earlier) dancing. I came late so I didn't get any of Casey and Andrea and he had to leave shortly after I got there. 
Anyway, that is all. Hope that you enjoyed the blurry pictures!

A beautiful surprise

Reed said he never got to ask me to a dance so he thought he would get
all official for andrea's dinner dance tomorrow night.

Riley-ism

As I was putting Riley to bed last night, I gave him a big hug and said you are such a wonderful kid. This is his reply. "And you are a fantastic adult."

This kid kills me... :)

A trip to Provo

Riley and I ran to Provo to take care of some Christmas stuff and decided to pop into the hospital to say hi to Reed. As a side note, I can't believe that Thanksgiving is so close and my Christmas shopping is only just over half finished. Aghhh! I hate letting it sit until the last minute.

Riley LOVES the revolving door at the entrance.

And of course, pushing buttons in an elevator are on the top of his list of things he HAS to do himself.

Here is Daddy at his work.

As we were leaving we saw some guys rappelling down the side of the building to wash the windows. Riley thought it was awesome to see. It reminded me of a story I was told at work about a law student. Thanks Kayla, I will never be able to see a window washer again without thinking of cancer. Its a bit of an odd story that probably wouldn't be as funny if I wrote it out so sorry fam, I'm not gonna tell ya. But I still love you all.

A Little Fall Fun

Riley and I went over to Momma Lynn and Grandpa Brad's this afternoon. The temperature, while cold was still nice enough that we decided to go outside and play around a little/rake the leaves. I know that we reported snow the other day, but it has since retreated to just the mountains.

After some fun playing a little frisbee...

We decided to get down to the business of raking up the leaves and taking them to the garden so Momma Lynn can compost them. Since we all know how much Riley loves to help out, I thought I would show you just what a helper he is.

Even after the leaves were out, Riley decided that an empty wheelbarrow looked like just as much fun as a full one. Lucky Grandpa!

It's Snowing

This is a picture of Riley watching out the front window at the...snow. I am not ready for winter. I woke up this morning to a beautiful steady rain, making a pleasant gray wet day. Perfect for
staying indoors and making cookies. As I was downstairs printing off the recipe, Riley hollers down that it is snowing. My first thought is "crap.". I come upstairs to find Riley like this. After I snap this photo, without even turning his head Riley tells me "I really love the snow." Sigh. I guess I need to get used to the idea rhat winter is pretty much starting. Now Riley wants to go outside and catch a snowflake with his tongue.

Happy Holidays

This is the sight that greeted me at the local Wal-mart today. Now I love Christmas as much as anybody but hello? Did we decide to skip Thanksgiving this year? Or maybe this is a subtle reminder to start the rush on present buying. Nothing like blatent commercialization to put you in the holiday spirit.

Riley's Halloween

Happy Halloween Everyone! I know this is technically being posted in November but I wanted to put up a few pictures of how adorable Riley was in his costume. Here are a few pictures of Riley getting ready for all the fun to come. And I couldn't help but sneak into a few shots.

At about 530 we headed over to our church's parking lot for a little trunk-or-treat fun.

It is always fun to see how everyone is dressed and how some very creative people had the trunks of their car decorated.

And of course, you can't go wrong when your best friend is a pirate!

As the candy slowly ran low and everyone started packing up their stuff, Riley announced that he had to go to the bathroom bad! Fortunately our church is a block and a half away from Momma Lynn and Grandpa Brads. We threw the candy in and headed over there. Here is a picture of our little monster with his grandparents.

Now here I am getting in on the action.

And a final picture of our little family in costume. I know that Reed looks suspiciously like he is just dressed to go to work but in all actuality he is supposed to be the mad scientist that created Frankenstein, he just couldn't find a lab coat in time.

Happy Halloween! I am leaving you with a little video of Riley doing his best Frankenstein
trick-or-treating. Sorry. I couldn't figure out how to get it to post right side up.

My Work Halloween Decorations

I was in charge of decorating the center for Halloween this year. I thought that I would share what it looked like. One of my favorite parts were the glowing heads we had. Our work has a display of hats from the fire department and police department between our consoles. We put some glowing heads underneath that made them appear ultra creepy.
Here is the door to dispatch, as seen from the dispatch side. It's kind of hard to tell but there are cobwebs draped over the tree and the netting that is around the door has purple lights in it.

What Halloween decor could be complete without a graveyard somewhere? The placard says graveyard and we made funny headstones that said things like, "I told you I was sick." Or "Here lies Henry Blake. He stepped on the gas instead of the brake."

We also made some tiny cutouts of Ghosts and Bats that we hung from the ceiling.

And how could we not create a 'crime scene' with special Halloween tape. If you look closely you can see bloody handprints on Lt. Lougee's board in the background.
We had an ominous message left in blood to greet us in the bathroom mirror.
And to top the whole Halloween season off, we had a candy bowl shaped like a skull that was kept fairly well stocked with candy.

It was a lot of fun. I even got the girls at work to dress up for Halloween. Here are some awesome pictures of their costumes. Here are Julie and Mindy. They are American Gladiators, Blaze and Ice. AND they made their costumes themselves. Awesome no? Julie made the outfits and Mindy made they boppy sticks. I don't know the correct term. Look, they don't even look scared that wolverine is behind them. Brave women.
Here is Julie posing in her outfit that she put on before she left work.
Kayla is an athlete. She is an actual runner in real life, using one of her race #'s pasted on the front of her shirt from a race she and her husband just ran. She is even doing a race on Thanksgiving with her brother and sisters when she goes back to California for Thanksgiving.

Denise has a bun in the oven. So super cute! She is pregnant in real life, though you can't really tell in the picture. Isn't that incredibly adorable? I loved it!


Here is Stephanie our resident Hawaiian goddess. Gorgeous huh? And her Grandmother made that dress. I love it.

Whitney, another of our pregnant in real life dispatchers, is Batgirl! She borrowed her son's batman mask and cape. She is lucky that she has a son who is so willing to share with his adorable mom.
Last but not least is Sarah, our princess in training. She is dressed up as a princess, and is also currently one of our new hires going through the training program so I thought I would be funny and combine the two. I kill me. I'm so funny. :)