Oh Temple Lights Oh Temple Lights!!

Yes we did it again. We willingly went out into the blistering cold and froze to walk around beautiful temple square and see all the amazing lights and watch the life like nativity set they have.
The start of the evening was great. We went to the Gateway mall in downtown and ate at California Pizza. I believe we found the kids new favorite place to eat. They downed so much food. It was incredible.


Then we drove down the road to temple square and tried to find parking. Well that a bit ridiculous. There were NO parking places anywhere!!! We actually drove around for 45 minutes. We were all pretty dissappointed and starting to get testy with eachother. Eric and Stephanie decided they would drive around temple square one more time and if there wasn't a spot we would go home. The time was 8:00 pm at this point.
We just had to find a space to park! Stefan was already crying because he wanted to see the lights, Janine was in the back saying she is hot and just wants to go home and Jacoby is crying. Such helpful children with parents who are already on edge. But wait!!!oh yes you guys we found a parking spot!!!! we had to backpack in but we found one and had a very nice time. Temple grounds always make you happy and you always feel the spirit while there.

A Turkey & A Tree???

Well it just wouldn't be right to just skip over Thanksgiving entirely this year. We must blog about something right?...Well if you can believe it Stephanie forgot to take pictures of Thanksgiving this year! But since we print our blogs into a book we must write about thanksgiving. We were unable to attend Thanksgiving in Arizona with Stephanies family this year. (tear) Since buying Kneaders life has been crazier than ever and there was no way we could leave our stores. As luck would have it our new Managers family got snowed in up in Oregon and couldn't come so we had them over for Thanksgiving dinner. His wife is Russian and has never had a true thanksgiving before so we felt "cool" that her first was with us. We had a great time.




The saturday following Thanksgiving we decorated for Christmas. We put up all our decorations and saved the tree until Sunday. Stephanie ordered a few new ornaments this year and our tree looks the best this year than ever before. We actually have a few more peppermints up on the tree now so there is more on the tree than what it shows in the picture. Its always fun to decorate the house with kids because their energy and Christmas spirit just infects you so much that you find yourself just as giddy and hyper as they are. Its really fun.
Of course Saturday after we finished decorating that hyper spirit I was talking about became too much for Stefan we think. He was running, fell and smacked his forehead on the corner of one of Stephanie's glass presents and split his forehead. We looked at his head and it was in between taking him to the doctor or just bandaging it and leaving it. We all chose to leave it. That was quite the adventure to have your child approach you screaming with blood dripping through their hands.....my how the tables have turned.

Halloween Fright!

Well we hope you are sitting down and have fastened your seat belts because this is going to be one long post!! To start out Stefan got these helicopter plastic twirling things for his birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Powell, and we have spent many days down on the track flinging them up in the air and watching them fly down and trying to catch them! Great Gift. Next on the list is Janine. She wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake this year. She decided this is what she wanted to be back in september. So Stephanie ordered her a costume and when it came in the mail it was too small! So Stephanie mailed it back and ordered the next size bigger and lucked out getting the last one. When we recieved that one in the mail the hat and tights were a small but the dress was a toddler! so again the dress didn't fit and Stephanie sent everything back but the tights and made Janines costume herself! We all tried to convince Janine to be something else. Stephanie even took her to Halloween City and said whatever you want Janine you can have it and she looked and thought everything was cute but finally told her mom that she just really wants to be strawberry shortcake. Making this cute dress was quite the chore to say the least. (I will shorten this story up so that you wont spent your whole day reading this blog.) Stephanie was constantly on the phone with her mom trying to figure out sewing jargin and trying to understand how to make this dress. well after stephanie thought she understood her mom she sewed the top together and pulled it right side out and there was no BACK! so she unpicked everything called her friend Gabby and she came over to help Stephanie figure it out. And of course it is so stinking simple when someone shows you how it is supposed to go! After gabby left stephanie went to iron the dress top out and of course the iron was on too hot and Stephanie melted a hole in the dress! (see what I mean about this dress) well eventually I got it all sorted out and the finished product turned out really cute. We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening last week. The kids still won't stick their hands in the pumpkin and rip the guts out! aaahhhh....someday i guess. Stefans pumpkin is the bat, Janines is the Cat and Stephanies is the diamonds all over. Eric didn't have his own this year. He was the master carver. So he pretty much did 2 pumpkins. The kids had their halloween carnival and program on friday. Both kids did well. Stefan didn't do any hand motions but he did sing which is an improvement from last year. Janine did the hand motions and sang! Which we were very proud. Janine hasn't said a word yet in school but has started to say a few words in Nursery. So we are very excited and know that she will start to talk soon enough in school. Erics family came up to decorate the stores for Christmas. (i know crazy) Christmas has to be up in the stores November 1st. So his family came up to do that and Loni and Whitney stayed with us and joined in on our family Halloween day. We went Bowling as a family and had a great time. The kids are always so good for the girls. Stefan ages 10 years when they are around. This was Stefan and Janines first time "real" bowling. Real as in not on the Wii. They loved it.

Afterwards we went to Maceys to get some groceries to make our Fall Chili for the Chili Cook Off at the ward Halloween Party. We won "The Manliest Chili" Eric and Stephanie figured it was because our chili was chunky because there was no red meat in it. Only Turkey. But we were happy we won an award. Our Family recieved so many compliments on our Costumes this year. Stephanie has finally rubbed off enough on Eric that now he slightly enjoys dressing up with Stephanie every year. Eric was a Pharoh and Stephanie was Cleopatra. Stefan was a blue Ninja and Janine as you know was Strawberry Shortcake and sweet Jacoby was a Chef. We enjoyed our Halloween this year. I condensed each story for the sake of those reading. Happy Halloween from THE ALLANS