I've seen it all

Wow - I don't even know where to start.......

The Past Few Days

Okay, here is a quick synopsis of the past few days.

On Tuesday we went with my family to the Zoo Lights at the Phoenix Zoo. It was totally fun and the girls had a blast. Even Tiffany. She loved looking up at the trees at the different colors. They had a giraffe at the zoo named Jango that you could tell him what you wanted for Christmas. Elle asked for TMNT (surprise surprise) and Ashlee asked for Roller skates (the first we have heard her mention these). Afterwards, we went to my parents and ate Pie from Village Inn. Yum Yum!!

Aaron really loved this tree!

On Wednesday, I pulled Aaron away from putting up Christmas lights to join Ashlee at school for her Thanksgiving Feast. It was really fun to see Ashlee show us off.

On Thursday we ate, and ate, and ate. And then Aaron went with the men to the ASU game. That's enough on that topic - it's too painful to talk about it.

On Friday, Aaron, Tiffany, and I went to JCPenny's at 3am to purchase a Christmas tree for our new home. We were the 8th in line and we were able to get everything we needed there, at Sears, at Target, at Harbor Freight, and many other stores. We were done shopping by 8am and joined my parents and Michael at Village Inn for breakfast.

Friday night we went out to Aaron's brother's home and had a Johnson family get together. His two brothers Rod and Kevin and their families were visiting from out of state. It was really fun to see everyone again.

Saturday we kept putting up Christmas decorations and tried to clean the house.

Sunday, went to church and then we went to the Temple lights that night. It was really nice to wear a jacket and feel a little cold. It is so sad that here in the valley, anything under 70* is the dead of winter.

So that leaves us to today. Nothing going on today except more cleaning and decorating. Gotta love the holidays!!!

Here is our home - only a quarter of the way done. YIKES!!! More pictures to follow!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIFFANY BROWNE!!

So it's my bestest friend's birthday today, and I would tell you how old she it, however, I can not count that high!!! I met Tiffany just a little over five years ago when she moved into our ward in Texas. Her husband Steve and Aaron were ward missionaries and had meetings together on Sunday. I was prego with Ashlee and Steve had asked us if we had someone to watch Elle while I was having Ashlee. We told him no and he volunteered Tiffany to watch her. So after having dinner with their family, and doing my own background check and finger print clearance, I decided that it would be okay. To be honest, my first impression of her was that she was a goody -two shooed molly mormon.

After I had Ashlee, she invited me over to hang out while Elle played with her kids. We were in her kitchen and she was drinking a Vanilla Coke. That's when I decided that we could be real friends. We were so much alike, and since I got a discount on tithing for being her friend, I decided it would be okay to be best friends.

I love Tiffany for many things, not just because she makes the worlds best Sushi,

Or because she would cook my family dinner while I cleaned her house (I hate to cook, she hates to clean, perfect match), or because we have a mutual understanding that it is okay to purchase gifts for each other and not mail them for at least a year. (Yeah her gift from last year is still in my room - maybe by Christmas).

Or even for the fact that she is such an animal lover. Mostly of cross eyed cats!

I love her because she has wicked Bedazzler skills.

The woman can bling bling up anything and make it look smokin white trash hot!! She really should start her own line of clothing, from picture frames, to underwear, to even black tight shirts, you name it she can do it. Like I said, wicked mad skills!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISTA FRIEND!!

Little Tiffybeth

Okay - so Aaron and I went out Saturday and Aaron's folks watched Tiffany for us. Here are a few pictures they took of her. She is soo funny. She loves her grandpa's (well, men in general she loves). She is such a butter ball!!

That time of the year

Okay, I love my husband. He may be a little strange, but I still love him. However, this week, every year, he leaves me behind, and starts romancing his two other loves. Black Friday Ads, and Christmas lights. You read correctly.
My husband loves Black Friday - loves loves loves it! So much in fact that when he was in Iraq, I had to mail him the ads just so he could get the rush of looking at them. (This was before the wonderful website of www.bfads.net) He is one of those crazy people who eats on Thursday and then goes and camps out all night at the store, and yes, he always gets what he wants. He has managed to pull my uncle and my brother along as company, but they got smart after the first year, and never went out again. I imagine he gets the same high drug users get when they do their thing.
His second love is Christmas lights. If I had a penny for every Christmas Light bulb we have - I would be a multi-millionaire!! The Griswold family in National Lampoon's Christmas has nothing on us. One of the selling points for us moving into a bigger house earlier this year, was that he would have more space to display Christmas lights. He only buys the lights after Christmas, then he can get them for 25 cents a box and then he plots and plans all year how he will display them. It's nuts. Well, like I said, this is our first holiday season in this house, and so he has already taken off this Wednesday so he can get a head start on his light display show thingy. Unknown to us, our neighbor is a big Christmas light person too. He has been putting up lights all week. Yesterday, after church, when he was out front working on his lights, I asked if he was almost finished (there were so many lights and trees and reindeer, and really no other room for more lights) he then replied that he was only a quarter of the way done. Aaron's jaw dropped, and I could see in his eyes that this was going to be war. Great. In fact, as we drove by last night on my way to my parents, he muttered "damn" under his breath on seeing how much this neighbor is doing. I have this really bad feeling that Aaron will give up his Black Friday shopping just to put lights on the house. If he purchases more lights or displays prior to Christmas - I'll know he has a problem and I'll then check him into rehab.
P.S. The lights are nice he puts up - the bad part is that they stay up - pass my birthday.

Prematurity Awareness Day

The month of November is Prematurity Awareness Month, and today is Prematurity Awareness Day. In case you care. Over the next few months, I'm going to be bugging everyone to help donate or join our March of Dimes team. Tubular Team Tiff (get it - all the tubes she had at birth - okay corny, maybe I'll change it now that I think about it). The walk will be in March and we are hoping to raise a boat load to thank them for everything that the did for our family. They are a total blessing!!

Little Miss Tiffany is amazing! She has developed quite a personality. She also has discovered her voice. She loves to talk, especially at 6am when she knows that at anytime Papa will be getting up to get ready for work. I guess she feels he needs a wake up call. She also loves my dad. Just the sound of his voice, even if she doesn't have him in sight, makes her smile. Yesterday we were at my parents and my brother Michael took her downstairs to see my dad, when Michael started to bring her back up stairs, she started to cry, I mean, full on cry, so Michael took her back downstairs, when she saw grandpa she stopped. It was rather funny.

Aaron and her have a little trick, I need to have Aaron load the video of it to the computer so you can see it - he balances her. She sits in his palm and he holds her up and she sits up and balances and laughs. She loves it - it is really amazing to me that someone who was sooo small, and I could never picture getting big, has grown sooo much!!


Side note - my friend emailed me this video - you really need to take 6 minutes and shut out the outside world and watch it. It is amazing. It really has made me appreciate my kiddos!

http://www.ignitermedia.com/products/iv/singles/570/99-Balloons

Happy Veteran's Day

So today is Veteran's Day. I thought that since I am a wife of a Vet, that I should pay tribute to him and let him know how appreciated he is for the service and sacrifices he gave for our country. I know, totally cheesy!
When we were engaged Aaron wanted to join the Navy. I told him that it would be too hard on our marriage for him to be gone so quickly after the wedding. I put my foot down and told him no. He always knew he would someday serve in the military.
When our home teachers came over to our house just after Elle was born and one of them told us that he was joining the Army because of all the benefits they offer. Since we were poor starving students, we looked into it as well. Four months later he was in Georgia at boot camp. (Side note - that home teacher never joined - brat). We ended up being stationed in Texas, and I absolutely loved it there. It was so beautiful, and the people really are friendly. Even though it was tough having him gone a lot for training, having to put up with retarded commanders and serving a year in Iraq, it was the best thing for our family. Without him joining, we would have never met all of our friends, including our best friends the Brownes and Throckmortons and we would have never experienced all the neat things we did.

THANKS HONEY FOR ALL THAT YOU DO!!!
(I think I just threw up in my mouth for being so cheesy - nope, it must be the food poisoning that our family is experiencing - another blog for another time)

My Halloween Blog

Monkey Monkey

Sleeping Beauty

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Flavor Flav

We had a great Halloween - the girls only wanted to trick or treat for about a half an hour - much to Aaron and Michael's (Flavor Flav - aka - my bro) dismay - they wanted a ton of candy. I spent the evening out in my parents front yard with monkey girl roasting marshmallows over their fire pit. It was nice - a tad warm - but nice. Is it me or has the number of trick or treaters gone down? Maybe they all just have moved out to Johnson Ranch. I hope you all had a happy halloweenie!!!