CANDY

Can you guess what we did tonight?

Graham cracker houses! It's a Lance family tradition...and Rory and I hosted for the first time!

All of us hard at work on our structures...I cheat and use a box. Engineer, I am not.

How we fit everyone and all that candy in our kitchen/family room is quite the feat! Oh, and Joanna, your smile is dorky.

Mine...I always make the same house, different decor. I covered mine in candy this year. YUM!

Rory made this awesome train, with expandable track feature.

Jarom and Steph made a pretty accurate "model" of the super cute gazebo where he proposed to her, complete with diamond ring! CLick on the pic, it's huge and you can't miss it! hehe

Lights Lights Lights!

We went up to the Oakland temple tonight to see the Christmas lights they put up each year. We got there around 6 or so, but ended up waiting to see them come on at eight. Sheesh! We were a bit bored and cold, but it's always fun to see the lights!

My bundled up cutie! Apparently Rory is not cold.

The fam, minus Steph taking the picture. I'm not sure what is up with Janae's face or Joanna's mondo hands. haha

Tada....just wait...

There we go!

O Christmas Tree...

First, a little something to start off the holiday season with a laugh!

Since there are only like 4 weeks til Christmas...we were full throttle today setting up our decorations and getting our tree...

Of course, it's a Lance family tradition to get our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Sorry about the windblown hair and Rory's lack of haircut. He's so scruffy and stubborn.

Sadie loves her carrier now that she can see over the top...lol.

A nice guy took this pretty good shot of us all, including our cousin Joseph and Steph!

Our finished (real) tree....it doesn't have enough lights to really show up well, I will have to take another pic sometime...it really is pretty! We have a fake one that we decorated too and put in the front window. We're so fancy!

Happy Turkey Day

Our Thanksgiving was pretty low key this year...and pretty silly. It all started out innocently enough...

Watching Aunt NaNa make an apple pie...then a fight broke out over the crust.

Then the lovebirds started frolicking...

It even spread to us!

Luckily my chocolate pie escaped the silliness.

It all ended with Janae spraying a whipped cream moustache and goatee on Jarom.

We are so proud.

Of course, Sadie had to show her silliness with a crazy cool moon walk. yeah. I said moonwalk.

I am thankful for: (in no particular order)

my silly family
Sadie (she is the joy of my life!)
my wonderful hubby
his job
My awesome house and all the people that helped with it this summer
blogs and technology
chocolate covered raisins
the gospel and Jesus Christ
rain (but also Cali's awesome weather!)
the bounty of food available to us
our freedoms
sewing and crafting
Sadie's binky
hospitals
cameras and cell phones
and many other things....


Happy Thanksgiving!

boom shakalaka

I love it when Janae comes over because she becomes our own personal paparazzi and I get cute shots like this one. lol.

This video is super cute, it starts out slow, but gets really cute near the end. I'm singing Taylor Swift...of course. It's stuck in my head! Thanks, Megan...hehe jk I love her now!

I love my bebe

My bebe can roll to her side now! She does it all the time, and can roll from her tummy to back if prodded enough! ( I have to tie my hands behind my back sometimes)

Look at that sweet smile!

hehe apparently rolling over is hilarious!

I got this new book for my birthday, so I'm working on some ornaments! Cute, no?

I had pretty much given up on country music...but I've been listening to Taylor Swift for the past two days, so I guess it's not all bad! haha. I used to listen to country a lot actually. (oftentimes on Saturday mornings...haha) Rory and I went shopping for CANDY for our graham cracker house tradition...we got A LOT. Jarom and Steph are on their way here as we speak from Idaho, and tomorrow the Thanksgiving cooking starts! At least for me, I'm getting a head start on my pie and cranberry sauce. (I'm sorry, my Chanberries, for those of you Friends fans.) hehe.

Uhhh...awesome.

So, after multiple shopping trips where I've forgotten items or had to criss cross the store more than a few times to retrieve those items...I had enough of my dumb little handwritten messy lists. So I found these:
Awesome right? Click on the link to see the close up of all the handy things on the list. Simply check them off! I can handle that.

And then....
hehe! I totally want to buy these! Except no one babysits Sadie besides family, so far. lol. Anyways, they're good for a laugh.

Happy Birthday to me...

I'm 24 now!! I don't feel any different! haha. This is what I woke up to this morning, isn't Rory sweet? He even scrambled some eggs, which, for those of you who don't know him, he hates! lol. That's love! He still owes me flowers though.

My wonderful mother in law watched the baby while we (Mom, Grandma, Janae, Joanna, and Cassy) went to Todai's for lunch! yum!

I don't know who this little yellow guy is, but he's cute~!

Joanna and Janae think so too!

We did a little shopping after and Janae kept bringing me hats, so I kept putting them on. I kind of liked this one!

Did not like this one. (you know you're jealous of my Zoolander look)

This one had a built-in scarf! Fancy!

Rory took me out to dinner later and we came back home to a SURPRISE! birthday cake and ice cream shindig! Thanks fam, you're the bestest!

Just some random things...

Baby and I last night...I love this pic, even though Janae cut off the top of my head. haha

My little herbies are growin' still! Still can't use them...I'm thinking they're more for greenery than usage. Someday I would like to have an herb garden though! (uhh, please ignore my dirty window)

Made pumpkin bread for the neighbors today (and myself...I'm not that giving...haha), so good and so easy! I love most versions of pumpkin anything. Planning on making more...the recipe makes a lot!

We went over to my parents for dinner tonight, Janae had whipped up a special concoction that she made up, apparently! It was very tasty. Asian meatballs with veggies, I would call it. YUM...you can cook for me any time Janae. I'll bake. lol. Here's the recipe for the pumpkin bread, it's from Rory's family's recipe book, so I'm not sure where it originally came from. So good though! Make sure you have lots of bread pans!

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

1 15 oz can pumpkin
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 3 bread pans. Mix all ingredients together and pour into greased pans. Bake 50 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

oh, fun times!

Cassy and Rayne came down to play today, and when I say play, I mean Cassy and I had a massive craving for spinach dip, so it was all an elaborate ruse to get her down here. haha. just kidding. The kiddos had fun! Mostly Rayne brought Sadie toys and tried to give her the pacifier. We watched The Little Mermaid, which is my favorite Disney movie, but we had only recently bought it. It's the first movie I remember seeing in a movie theater. My mom stopped the school bus on the way home after school that afternoon, to get me, because we were going to be late, I think. Ahh...childhood memories! Back to present time. Rayne loves The Little Mermaid, so she was transfixed...well, so were we. Sadie even watched her favorite song...Part of your world. Cassy and I even tried making a chocolate souffle, but it didn't...souf. haha. oh well, it tasted good. Another day, another souffle!

Awww cute kiddos!

Awww....crazy spinach ladies

Look at that silly grin!

I busted out the wooden letters I found awhile ago, and of course we had to spell the girls names out. So sweet!

Pizza and playtime!

Today was Monday Morning Mommy day, or whatever you want to call it. We gave up on scrapbooking being our "title", but we are thinking of expanding into other crafts...preferably something we can do while watching the wee ones. Speaking of the wee ones, aren't they cute?


This is the only one Sadie didn't look grumpy in. haha. She's sitting up way better in the Bumbo also! Much better than her Quasimodo impression last time. It will be fun when she gets old enough to play with Payton and Gage!

Tonight I made homemade pizza for dinner. I'm still hammering out my recipe, and this time it was fabulously delicious! Third time's the charm! Rory enjoyed his bo-ring cheese pizza...haha. jk hun.

Janae and I made BBQ chicken pizzas! Mine was with the Devil's Spit BBQ sauce from Famous Dave's...yum! Courtenay and Jarom, do you remember when we had that BBQ sauce on the plate and were tasting all the different kinds there? hehe...yum!

I am either vexed by my pizza or in disbelief at how good it is.

Then while I was putting Sadie to bed, Rory and Janae had an intense standoff involving the camera and a burpcloth. I am not sure on all the details. Maybe who has the best poker face?

And...Janae made me my name in chocolate...something she had been talking about doing since Sunday...(which in Janae time, is FOREVER)

hehe

FUn day.