It's begining to look a lot like Christmas

And even feeling it too! The annual "find the perfect tree" event went off quite quickly this year. There is this farmers market on Power that has the best and the biggest trees anywhere in town and cheap for the size of the tree. It was a great little adventure and before we knew it we were loading up Fergus and bringing him home to make him all pretty for the Christmas season.
(oh by the way, did I tell you we name our trees each year? No? Well we do!)

Carmen sent this to me in an e-mail and I thought I'd just share my answers with everyone. :)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? So gift bags for me. What could be easier, plop it in add tissue paper on the top and viola!

2. Real tree or Artificial? I grew up artificial, no really I did. JK Kirk always had the real thing so I'm glad to say we've been totally real for 18 years. Can't beat that wonderful pine smell in the house

3. When do you put up the tree? This year doesn't count, but Thanksgiving day or right after.

4. When do you take the tree down? After the time it takes to put it up I hate taking it down, but usually after New Years or Valentines, by St. Patricks day for sure cause the tree is no longer green.

5. Do you like eggnog? blech....tastes like the ice cream you throw away when it's sat too long on the counter.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? hmmm. Probably my ABBA album. (kids go ask your parents what a record album is)

7. Hardest person to buy for? everyone. I never know what to get people. I forget to quickly

8. Easiest person to buy for? I'd have to say Blake he's still young so he's easy to please

9. Do you have a nativity scene? I should go count them wait a sec.........I'm seeing 23 but I could've missed one somewhere. We collect Nativities and Santa's each year. I might post a couple of my favs

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Again I'm for easy and e-mail is easy. Plus I can count myself "GREEN" cause e-mail's saves trees. (except for the one in our living room) Yee haw

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don't know if I ever got one that I would consider the worst. I'm not to hard to please, sparkley is always good.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It's a wonderful life. Always makes me cry.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Okay girls did I do good or what? Kirk does most of the Christmas shopping, he says he usually likes to be done before December. I go with him for the little incidentals afterward. Have I told you I hate shopping?

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Only the ones I planned on using for the silly White Elephant gift exchange.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Oh yeah, reindeer poop. Well, thats what we called it so the kids didn't want any of our fudge.

16. Lights on the tree? Uhh, duh? Who buys a tree and then doesn't light it up??? Just for clarification though, white lights on Fergus, colorful on the tradition red and green.

17. Favorite Christmas song? My grandmothers arrangement of "Silent Night, Holy Night"
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Always at home, Kirk would not allow it to be any where else.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Alrighty here we go..... Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and oh course Rudolf.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I inherited, a beautiful 2 foot angel. She is been on our tree for 5 years now. Before that was a Santa.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? I guess it's still morning by the time our kids roll out of bed.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? crowds. Again my distaste for shopping.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? well Fergus this year will be donning shimmering gold and Burgundy with lovely seasonal fruit adorned with just the right amount of sparkling sugar. hee hee
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Our tradition has been turkey on Thanksgiving and Ham on Christmas.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? For everyone to find comfort and peace in this crazy world and have a wonderful season shared with family and friends.

Thanksgiving 2008

Did I tell you I love the Fall Season? I love the colors and the weather. I wish I could say that I made this cake just for Thanksgiving, but I'm not that bored. My mom and her friend made this for her friends' daughters wedding last Tuesday. Beautiful hu?

Kirk and Kylie having a little cheese ball before the feast begins.


Dad Tenney kickin' back before the bird is done.

My loverly table, thank you

The guests have all gathered to stuff themselves almost as much as the turkey was.

This year, Ben, Karolyn and Katie came down from Kanab, (if you don't know where that is, I don't know either, jk) And Karolyn's son and daughter in law Scott and Brittany joined us with their two boys.

Say it with me now.....ooooo aahhhhh total YUM.

We had a total of 12 people at our dinner, and we had 7 pies that we had to go through. Lemon marangue, chocolate cream, blackberry, pecan, a pumpkin turtle pie and a pumpkin spice cake. yummmy!

And my famous totally awesome Apple pie. :D

Time to play catch up

Howdy all,


So a quick re-cap of the last few weeks. After Wood Badge was over, Halloween was next on the list. Instead of having a dinner before trick-or-treating, we decided to have a tailgate party on the carport instead. My brothers and sisters came over with their kids to show off their cute costumes and we had Carne Asada (sp?) and Kirk made a couple of cobblers in the dutch oven. The kids had a good time running around the neighborhood. Kylie and Landen went over to a friends neighborhood and they were towed around in a cage scaring the little trick-or-treaters. Perfect job for teenagers

This is Hobie and Brittany's boys. This year their boys we all the villains from Batman. John Ellis was the penguin, Preston was Mr. Freeze, Jason was the Riddler and Joey was Batman. Ty and Tiffany were so cute but I don't have a picture of them, they dressed as Pilots from the 1930's you know the one's with scarfs and leather helmets with goggles. Amber was, I think , a lady with curlers and a robe. Brooke a cheerleader and Megan was the cave girl.

And Bree was a beautiful butterfly

This little Monkey showed up later in the evening, but we were sure glad he swung by. (Michael's little boy Jake)

So November was mine and Kirk's farewell to Round Table. This was harder than I expected it to be. We both had been there from the very beginning and actually it was Kirk and the Tate's and myself who created the format we used. It was our baby if you could say that. It's been hard to walk away from that, hard but not impossible. For me I didn't have any choice. Work schedules have changed and my children are needing a little bit more of me these days. Kirk did receive his Commissioners Arrow Point for his 3 years of service, one year in the old San Tan District and then the last 2 at Superstition. This is Marilyn Hawley she has pretty much taken over for me and I love her all the more for it.

That same weekend was Deseret Books time out for women convention. I had to work Friday so I missed the Time out for Couples and then bright and early Saturday morning we left to work. It was a great conference and Hilary Weeks, Cheri Call, John Hilton, and a couple other people I'm forgetting, were so awesome. It was so good seeing Hilary and Cheri again.

Then the next weekend I had to go to a Dental convention. Luckily it was in Phoenix so we didn't have to travel all that far for it. Typical dental stuff, and why they show us pictures of rotting teeth and periodontal problems during lunch I'll never figure out.
This is me and Chelle, she one of the hygienist at our office

And Dr. Ballew, Victoria and Danielle waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive so we can get this thing going.


The weekend after that Kirk and I, or I should say Kirk helped my mom and dad put together a yard sale to help with move to Sierra Vista. Kind of a last minute thing for them and they had a lot of things to rid themselves of and Kirk convinced them that they might as well get some money for it and I think it paid off for them in the tune of $500 bucks.


This same weekend was also the highly anticipated movie of Twilight. I had to work the Friday it came out so it was nail biting for me as I tried to get my stuff done so I could leave and they kept putting patient after patient in. Finally I shot out of there around 6pm and headed straight for the theatre and the first movie time was sold out so I had to wait in line for the 8:15, that was o.k. cause I was the 3rd person in line. Kirk and Kylie and Marzena ( a girl from work) met me there and then it started.......I am a purist when it comes to this book. I think I've read it at least 20 times. So I pretty much know the entire book by heart, which is not a good thing when you go and see a movie, so needless to say I didn't care for it at all. They messed up so many good scenes and left important ones out. And Kristen Stewarts acting was horribly pathetic. I've seen better acting on a high school stage. I went and saw it again Tue's morning by myself in an empty theatre just about and it was a little better, but Kristen has to go.


Monday morning Blake was in a spelling bee. So I went down to cheer him on. He was so disappointed that his didn't make it past the 3rd round. He was doing well, but when you go to fast you say things you don't mean. I think it was hard for him to miss a work he knew, than to miss a word you had no idea how to spell. But I told him he's winner for even making it to the finals. 33 kids out of all the 4th and 5th graders at the school is not a bad deal. He'll be embarrassed that I put this in but his misspelled the word Safari. He forgot the F for some reason. And I don't know why this picture is in black and white.

Then this last night was Kirk's all important (to all of his employees) work party/auction. Our house was full of books and products he actions off (play auctions). His employee's love it and they don't leave until everything is gone. Some of them walk away with hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. This year two 14 in Christus that were in perfect condition in my opinion were given away along with tons and tons (no exaggeration) of stuff.

It's almost like I want to say Wheewww, now I can sit back and relax and enjoy the Christmas season, but I'll be eating my words, so I'll just say, I'm glad I'm done with October and November.......almost. Knock on wood.

I'm still here

Wow, it's almost been a month since I've blogged. Unheard of. Anyway my life has not been my own this month and I kinda knew that when I signed on for Woodbadge. I had a wonderful time and made friendships that I will cherish for years and years. (You want to be treated like a queen? Go to Woodbadge) There are 10 men to every one woman. They were all so sweet making sure I wasn't cold, or had enough food, or did I need help across that little gorge, or here, let me carry that chair for you. I have good news, Chivalry isn't dead yet.

The "scribes" or photographers were trying to get a shot of me where I wasn't posing. Not gona happen.

Here's my little Fox patrol showing off their rocket that they shoot off in a competition later

Here I am ready to judge said competition as none other than the Tooth Fairy, hailing from San Francisco. Just kiddin. I was actually shocked to learn that we had 5 dentist on our course.

Dont' cha just love this chair? It was brought up as a joke for our course director. It was actually pretty comfortable.


Here are my Foxy people again. Posing for the Gilwell Gazette. We had such a good time. I might do it again......NOT.

In between my being gone for 2 weeks essentially this month, when I went back to work it was absolutely insane. It was nice to find out that my Dr. requested that I not be gone unless he is too. What a guy. Yesterday we dressed up for Halloween cause most of the staff doesn't work on Friday so here is Dr. Smithson as Elvis. Teri is my office manager and she is a Turtle princess.

The family life got a little crazy as well. Kirk not only had to play Mom and Dad, but had two parent teacher conferences, had to write a talk for last Sunday, and give the spiritual message in bishopric and also had to plan and conduct a youth fireside at our house the same Sunday. Needless to say he was glad to have me home so he could pawn off a few of the responsibilities.

Kylie, whilst I was away, managed to go through 3 "boyfriends" All of which were very nice and quite cute. I'm glad she's playing the field though and having a good time. This is the time to figure out the qualities and characteristics that you want in a future spouse, and if your tied to just one guy that whole time, how are you to know what else is out there. Besides I think she's realized that it's not productive when you can't date. Her last friend was sixteen and even though he would've waited till she was, still it's too early. I don't think I'll have to worry about her finding a date when she does turn sixteen in Feb. I'll have to beat them away with a stick, and Kirk will have to start cleaning his shotgun, regularly. Hee Hee.

When I got back, Tuesday night we decided to take the kids and Kylies friends Cassie and Aaron, and Blake's friend Max to the Corn Maze on Power Rd. It was alot of fun. They have a huge pumpkin patch and fun things to do for little kids. The maze if you looked at it from an areal view, is laid out to be the Statue of Liberty this year. Every year it's a different thing. In the maze you look for check points to punch a card that you came in with and when you find all six then you enter the card into a drawing. Kirk and I won. We got through the maze and found all the points before the kids did. I don't know how long it will be up. I think I heard till the end of this week, so hurry if you want to check it out.

Blake and Max in the pumpkin patch

Aaron, Kylie and Cassie trying to keep their feet under them in the bounce house.

Here is the corn maze, and if you click on the picture you'll see dots that are numbered. You try to find those dots and then punch your card. It's alot harder than it looks. We also did it at night. If you go bring a flashlight. I brought my camera and after finding the first check point I took a picture of the map and that made it easier to find our way through. It's about a mile long and it takes 45 minutes to find your way out again.

Kylie and Cassie and Landen about to drop a pumpkin on their heads.

Ahh Farmer John and his haul. Looks like he got an assortment of fruits and nuts.

The boys are both boyish as ever. Their Aunt Christi has been tutoring them after school twice a week and doing well at it. They still would rather be out with their friends at the park since the weather has been cooling off in the late afternoon, but I'm more for good grades right now.

A whole Boxen of Doughnuts!

For mutual on Wednesday night, the young men were taken to a Doughnut shop and at the end of their tour they were told they could take home as many as they wanted. So Landen proceeded to stuff his box, he couldn't even shut the lid. I think the video will say it all.

Can someone say Sugar high?