THE SNOW CAPPED MOUNTAINS

This is the view from our back door. I thought that the clouds over the mountains were pretty cool. Can I just say that I love the snow at Christmas time?!?

ALL ABOARD!!!

All aboard the Polar Express! While out selling ice cream one day Oren met the Anderson family. Mr. Anderson has built this extensive train track around his home and about four other homes. Every year at Christmas they set it up as the Polar Express. Everything is free, however they do have donations set up for a 9 year old girl in their neighborhood who has a rare type of Leukemia and has just started treatment at Primary Childrens Hospital. They do a GREAT job and make it extremely fun for the kids( OK even us parents thought it was really neat and we all want to build a train set of our own). "When we get there we'll shout yeah laughing all the way........that's the way things happen on the Polar Express."
Here we all are on our little box car. This train holds about four box cars with 3-4 people each. The train then magically took us around to different Christmas sights and lights where we, of course, met up with Santa at the North Pole. It was awesome, even though we didn't get to go down Glacier Gulch...giggle giggle

Santa's Workshop

Lights and such on the ride.

A little house with a merry-go-round inside. The really cool part was the tunnel of lights that we went through the house. It had snowflakes and lots of lights right above your head. Very cool!

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

The kids Loved to see Santa (we even went back for a second time after dinner). About halfway through the Polar Express ride we got to stop at the North Pole and see the big man in red himself! The elves were very friendly and the kids each got a picture of Jesus, a candy cane, and a bell...from Santas sleigh of course.

After the kids saw Santa and the fun side of Christmas they had pictures, music, and props to remind us of the real reason of Christmas. Here is a row of what it looked like to give an idea. It was a GREAT ride and good that the kids could see that Jesus was the center of it all.

The Temple at Christmas time

Beautiful lights...Beautiful family

Here we are at lovely Temple Square. We love to go to look at the beautiful lights. This year we went to dinner with the Stew crew, Anna 'n Jude, and Mary Ellen. We first started the venture by going to The Old Spaghetti Factory then heading to see the lights. We thoroughly enjoyed all the Christmas-y splendor.

Let it SNOW SNOW SNOW!!

YAHOO YAHOO IT'S SNOWING!!!

When we woke up this morning the first thing Elizabeth said was "SNOW!! WE NEED TO GO SLEDDING!" She was relentless and so here we are at 7:00 am bundled in all our snow gear sledding and making snowballs on Nov. 5th. Oh and yes, for all you worried moms looking at this picture of Bubba, we did find a pair of mittens for him to save his hands from the bitter cold and wind.

hey hey he's a monkey......

We borrowed this costume from Brakken and the first day that we got it Calvin did not want to take it off. He wanted to sleep in it because it is so nice, fuzzy, and soft. Now when he gets out of bed he finds his monkey and brings it to us so he can wear it again.

pretty pretty princess

What a beautiful little girl! She was so very excited to be a beautiful princess and she thinks that she has to wear this dress all the time! Ten bonus points to anyone who can name where that fabric came from.

here we go, trick or treating!

Can we say sugar shock?!?

Look at ALL that CANDY!! Two little kids are as happy as can be!

Who are those CUTE kids?!?

Elizabeth thought that the pumpkin "guts" were pretty yucky. She went in one time to pull them out and then let mom and dad take it from there!

Carving Pumpkins!

Calvin think that "guts" were yucky? NO WAY!! He is all boy and guts are SO COOL!!

These are our Jack-O-Lanterns all lit up the picture is kinda fuzzy but it's the thought right?

Happy Autumn

We had to take a picture this year with the BEAUTIFUL fall colors. There are tons of reds here in Payson that we usually didn't see in Provo. We liked this one the best because it captures the feeling of our family perfectly-happy and a little silly!

All Because Two People Fell in Love!!

Elizabeth riding "Captain Horse"
Calvin punk rocker- Cool Doo Dude!!

Halloween 2007 Little Bo Peep and her Sheep

Brittany, Britler, Bern, or my fave - Mom

Blonde?!?

Oren, Dad, or Orn

Here's Oren and new baby Calvin (although at this particular moment he was still unnamed we had a VERY hard time deciding what to call the little man).





This picture is Oren at Glacier National Park. He loves to be in nature and thought that relief on a mountainside was just something he couldn't pass up.......you guessed it he pooped in the park...oh so very Oren!