Polar Express

Every year in Williams, AZ the Grand Canyon Railway turns into the Polar Express and travels the North Pole. :) In order to ride, you have to make reservations a year ahead of time. We made our reservations last January and we didn't tell the kids a thing about it. We spent the night in Prescott with Mom and Dad McBride. The morning of our train ride, we had the kids watch the animated Polar Express movie. Then later, we said we were going somewhere special. When we got to the train station, we went to get our tickets and we had the ticket master tell the kids where they were going. Logan and Landon got so excited! They couldn't believe they were actually going to ride the Polar Express to the North Pole!

Before we got on the train, we got to go visit with Mrs. Claus and write letters to Santa. There were gift shops and a line to take pictures with Santa. Logan and Landon are waiting in line to sit on Santa's lap. Papa is holding Marlee while in line.


Logan was born in Logan, UT, but he was only 1 year old before we moved to AZ, so he doesn't remember the snow. This is the kids first time playing in snow. They thought it was pretty neat. It was weird to be so cold and to touch snow again. We were so glad we could drive back home and not have to live in it. We'll definitely have to visit it again sometime though.

Nanny made special bathrobes for the boys to wear on the train (thank you Nanny!!). On the train they served hot chocolate and a cookie. On the way to the North Pole, they told the story of the Polar Express. On the way back, we sang Christmas songs the whole way until Santa came on board and gave each kid a bell of their own (it was a nice bell too, not a tin piece of you know what).
The train is taking off!! Yay!!


Going on the Polar Express was a special family activity that we won't forget soon. It was fun to have Nanny and Papa along with us. We won't do it every year, but I'm sure we'll do it again sometime in the near future. The kids loved it!

Wanna hear a funny joke?

I stole this joke from my cousin's blog---it's too funny! Lock me up!!

The Bathtub Test

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director how you determine whether or not a patient should be institutionalized. "Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, and then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub." "Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup." "No."said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

Performing Polynesian style :)

For those of you who don't know already, I have been polynesian dancing since February. It started out as a Samoan woman (Tia) in my ward teaching a few of us a couple dances to perform for the Relief Society birthday for Enrichment. None of us expected it to be a long term committment. But after the Enrichment, a few more activities came up that we would need to perform for. It has just kept going and going and more and more people are asking us to perform for them. We now know 6 dances as a group (I know 8). I would be embarrassed if everyone knew how much time and thought I put into my polynesian dancing. I haven't been really good at something for a long time---probably since clogging. I don't have any real strong talents (for show anyway), so it's been exciting to find a new talent and to be pretty good at it. I help teach the new girls that join the group, and my instructor has told me that I do all the dances like a real polynesian....that made me feel really good. Last night we performed for the city of Casa Grande. Every year they have an Electric Lights parade with entertainment downtown before the parade starts. We were the finale of the entertainment. Here are some pictures of us dancing:

From the island of Hawaii (I'm in the middle back cuz I'm "tall")

From the island of Samoa

From the island of Tahiti

Another Hawaiian dance (yes, we are wearing skin colored leotard tops) :) I'm so happy to be dancing next to my dear friend Jocey...I love her!

From the Tongan islands

Another Samoan dance (I'm in the middle again)

I really love being in this group, and I love my instructor too. I've made really good friends by being a part of this, it really is so much fun to dance and perform. Plus it's great exercise--we practice twice a week for at least an hour and a half each time. Maybe I'll figure out how to put a video clip on my blog and you can see us in action sometime. I guess that's it. :)

Christmas is coming!

For Family Home Evening this week, we decided to decorate our Christmas tree. The kids got to hang up the shatter proof ornaments (thank HEAVEN for those!--and for prelit trees!), then I rearranged them evenly on the tree the next day, and added the bows. I'll have to add a picture of the final outcome of the tree later. We like our Christmas tree. The kids had a fun time decorating, and we talked to them about why we have Christmas, and why we put a star on the top of the tree. It was a good FHE.

My dolly :)

We are constantly being told how cute Marlee is (which is true of course). :) This past Sunday in particular we got a lot of comments on her cuteness, probably because of this cute little hand-me-down dress she was wearing. I just had to post it because she really is a doll.
For the longest time Marlee has had these cute curls at the bottom of her hair. I'm posting this more for journal reasons than anything else in case her curls go away. We get lots of comments about her cute curly strawberry blonde hair too. Can you tell I love my dolly? :)

Baby portraits

Recently Bryce created a website for the wife of one of his mission companions who lives in Awhatukee (30 mins from us). The website is for portraits that she sketches of people from pictures that you give her. In return for services, she drew these pictures of our kiddies at 1 year of age (except Marlee, she's 9 months in hers). They are perfect images of the kids, we LOVE them so much, and they are hanging in our livingroom for everyone to see. She charges $250 for each picture, so we feel lucky to have them. They will always be a treasure to us!

Halloween 2007

Ok, I know this is long overdue, but since Bryce doesn't have mutual on Wednesdays anymore, I've really gotten out of the habit of blogging that night (he's the Exec. Secretary now instead of YM pres). Anyway, here's our Halloween picture. That's right, just one picture. We are really lame when it comes to cameras......we didn't even snap them trick or treating, we just had them pose in their costumes. We'll do better next year, hopefully. Also, most people start planning Halloween costumes about a month ahead of time so that they have time to make the costume and put a lot of effort into it. I, on the otherhand, remember that Halloween is a few days away and I scramble to think of what we can throw together so they can feel "dressed up" (as you can see by the picture). In case you're wondering, Logan is Luke Skywalker. He used his imagination a lot that night, but we don't think he knew that no one could tell who he was. :) Lanny of course, is Darth Vader. And Marlee is a Pooh bumble bee (found her costume the day before at a moving sale for $3). I was just glad to find something for her to wear. :) Anyway, the kids had a great time at our ward Trunk or treat, which we had the Saturday before Halloween. And I'm SO glad it wasn't Halloween day, because Logan came home from school on Halloween and started throwing up. We couldn't even blame it on too much candy because he only had one or two pieces at school that day. Then of course Lanny started in a couple days later, followed by Marlee a day or two after that. Thankgoodness for our trustworthy barf bucket (an old gallon ice cream bucket). So needless to say, we didn't do any trick or treating on the actual day of Halloween, but the kids didn't seem to mind, and they got PLENTY of candy at our ward party, so they're good for treats for a couple weeks. That's our Halloween story, I'm sure you're completely amused.

Suns open practice

Bryce decided to buy Suns season tickets this year as an investment (meaning we'll sell most of them and hopefully make a good profit). Last night on our way home from our "vacation" we stopped in Phoenix for the Suns open practice. Because we are season ticket holders, we got reserved seating on the floor for the practice....we were in the second row from the court. The kids loved seeing the Suns gorilla and he came by to give them fives. There was such fun entertainment, Logan was going crazy.

As you can see, we got a real close-up look at the players in person....we have to admit we were a little star-struck as we are major Suns fans. Bryce was in heaven. We sort of felt out of our league because we don't really fit the season ticket holders mold. There was a meeting before the practice on being a season ticket holder and there were all sorts of fancy looking people there. I had to go to the bathroom and a worker from that meeting escorted me there personally to make sure I could find it ok (I just expected him to point the way and tell me good luck). It felt funny being treated so well. It was a fun night, and hopefully something we'll do as a family tradition each year. Go Suns!!!

Fall Break

This week is fall break for Logan, so we decided to go to Nanny and Papa's house for "vacation." I put vacation in quotes because, for me a vacation would be without my kids, right? A vacation away from my job. Oh well. It was nice to have a change of scenery anyway. Nanny and Papa have a mile-long tub from the 70's, so we decided to throw all three kids in together. Even though Logan is a little big for that, they all had such a blast splashing and laughing. Thanks to Nanny and Papa for hosting our family vacation. :)

We still love his chubbies

I just love the many faces Landon can make with his chubbies. I'll be sad when they thin out and we can't play with them anymore. He looks like a baby kitten in the one. Silly Landon.

Princess Leah and Luke Skywalker

Logan loves to have light saber battles, and would have them all day if he could find someone willing to play along. Anytime the battle starts, Marlee comes up whining to play along. So we give her a light saber and she's so happy. She even moves it side to side like she's fighting too. It's very cute.

Hide-and-seek Marlee

Sometimes Marlee will "go missing" for a few minutes and I have to wonder why it's so quiet. Recently I've found it's best to look first in the bathroom. She goes in, usually in the dark, and sits on this little stool and plays with the bath supplies. Thankfully she can't open the lids by herself yet, but I'm sure that's coming soon. We'll have to put the safetly latches on asap, darn it. She's so cute when she's sitting there in the dark, and gets this cute look on her face when I find her, like "look what I discovered, and you caught me!"

Love you, BYE!

Every time either Bryce or I leave in the car to go anywhere, these three line up on the couch to sign "I love you" then wave "bye bye." If we drive off without signing "love you, bye" back to them, they fall apart and cry forever....."call him, make him come back, I wanted to say love you bye bye....please call him, make him come back!" Needless to say, we don't usually forget to sign and wave. :) We don't want to invoke the belly-achin' on the other spouse stuck at home. :)

Lightning McQueen

Logan always picks out tomatoes from his dinner because "they're gross"---the other day he picked this one out. After he finished the rest of his food, he was looking intently at this tomato. He said "hey guys, this tomato looks like Lightning McQueen!" Sure enough, it does look like the profile of the "Cars" star. :) The basil even happened to be in the right place for the tire. We thought it was pretty funny.

Rub-a-dub-dub

We've never given Marlee a bath with the boys before, because the boys have always bathed together (and 3's a crowd). But Logan is having his own baths now, because he's a big boy of course. So we plopped Landon and Marlee in together and Marlee thought it was the funnest thing ever. She squealed and splashed and had so much fun. Landon thought it was a blast to be taking a bath with sissy too....so novel for both of them! Marlee discovered that she can make "toot" noises with the ducky in the tub by squeezing it with the hole on her wet squishy leg (she does have minimal amounts of leg chub, believe it or not). She just laughed and laughed and laughed every time she did it. We got that one on video (unfortunately our camera isn't digital, so I couldn't post that cuteness here). Rub-a-dub-dub, two silly gomers in the tub.

Lullaby Lammers

So Landon has been in a phase of sometimes taking naps, sometimes not. Lately I've been giving him the choice of sleeping in his bed, or playing quietly in his room with toys (either way, I still get MY quiet time). He always chooses to play quietly with his toys. The past few days he's been REALLY REALLY quiet in his room. And every time I go in to tell him he can come out (which is about an hour after I haven't heard him at all), I find him here, just like this (not always wearing the hat though, this time was too funny to not take a picture):

Book of Mormon Stories

One of our favorite things to see is Logan reading Book of Mormon stories to Landon and Marlee. He only needs help with a few words, but he does a great job. They do this together every night for family scripture study. We sit nearby to help explain whats going on, but Logan reads for the family. It's fun when they actually remember the Book of Mormon characters and what their stories are.

Off the subject, but just FYI.....Marlee had her second Echocardiogram today. The hole in her heart looks the same, and the right side of her heart is still enlarged. The left side is supposed to be bigger than the right, but in her heart, the right is about twice the size as the left. The good news though is that the left side is supposed to be shaped like a donut, which hers is. If the right gets so big that it forces the left to shape into a "D" shape, then we'll have to act sooner about it. But so far so good. She'll meet with the cardiologist in one month and he'll discuss the Echo with us further (the lady who did the Echo told me this info today). But everything is about the same as what we knew before, no better, but no worse either that I know of. We'll keep you posted!

I've been tagged--7 random facts about me

I've been tagged by Kristi to share 7 random facts about me, so here it goes...

1. I always sneeze just after putting something minty in my mouth (mouthwash, gum, you name it).

2. I eat my dinners at lunchtime and my lunches at dinnertime, because I can't wait until 6pm to eat a big yummy meal.

3. I call people "stupid idiots" when I'm driving....(terrible habit that has rubbed off onto Logan, poor kid....I'm a bad mom sometimes) :(

4. I have nightmares about my teeth coming loose and falling out.

5. I'm pretty good at Polynesian dancing, for a white girl. :)

6. I have Batesbutt syndrome--(My butt is disproportionately larger than the rest of my body, makes me ANGRY!!).

7. I could talk about the "Twilight" series for hours, and I wish the characters were real. :)

Now I'd like to tag Jen and Erin to share random thoughts about themselves on their blogs!

Brothers

Since Logan has started school, he and Landon seem to get along so much better. Maybe absence really does makes the heart grow fonder. :)

Landon's birthday

Landon's birthday was August 14th, and he wanted to have a Superman cake. He also LOVES Toy Story, so he got Woody and Jessie. He was SO excited to go to McDonald's AND Peter Piper Pizza (we did PPP for Logan's birthday and spent way too much for yucky pizza that no one wanted to eat, so we ate at McDonalds and played at PPP--MUCH cheaper). So his b-day had a "variety" theme. :) He tells everyone we see that he's "thaweeeeee" now, and holds up his three fingers. He's so cute, we love our Lanny.

Elmo and Grandma Bates

This picture was taken when I was home in Nyssa, OR for my 10 year reunion in July. Marlee is cuddling with Grandma Bates (Marlee has Gma Bates' name, Rebecca, for her middle name). Marlee also loves Elmo. In fact, "Elmo" has been one of her newest words, along with "baby," "hot," "up," "bye-bye," "no-no," "mama," and "dada." (Not to mention the 12 other words she can sign, little smarty).

MY Man!

This is a blog copycat, but I liked the idea and thought I'd share a little about "us"

MY MAN:

Who is your man? Bryce Jared McBride

How long have you been together? 8 1/2 years

Dating/Engaged/Married? dated 10 months /engaged 2.5 months/ married 7 1/2 years

How old is your man? 30

Who eats more? I would love to say Bryce but we probably eat the same most the time

Who said "I love you" first? Bryce knew I loved him before he loved me, but he was the first to say it.....I hated being patient. :)

Who weighs more? Bryce, thank goodness

Who sings better? I would have to say Bryce, but we sound pretty good together.

Who's Older? Bryce

Who's smarter? Depends on the subject

Who's temper is worse? We both have short tempers, but when I'm pregnant, mine is much worse!!

Who does the laundry? Oh solo mio!

Who does the dishes? Mostly me, but he lovingly takes a turn now and then.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you're standing at the foot of the bed facing it, I sleep on the right

Who's feet are bigger? Bryce's by far---size 12!

Who's hair is longer? Mine

Who's better with the computer? Bryce by a million

Who mows the lawn? Mostly Bryce, but I've taken a turn or two

Who pays the bills? Bryce makes the $$, I manage it

Who cooks dinner? I do, but Bryce is good about doing it here and there too

Who drives when you are together? Bryce--he gets car sick when someone else drives

Who pays when you go out to dinner? Bryce

Who's the most stubborn? We both are a little, but I'm probably worse

Who is the first one to admit when they're wrong? Bryce, he's such a good man

Who's parents do you see more? Bryce's--they live LOTS closer than mine

Who kissed who first? Bryce kissed me....he told me to close my eyes and stick out my lips

Who asked who out? Technically, Bryce asked me first, but I was totally the first one to pursue a conversation/relationship with him

What did you do? We ate at some restaurant by Movies 8 in Provo, then saw Patch Adams at Movies 8 with Enoch and Dan.

Who's more sensitive? He is more sensitive to my feelings than I am to his

Who's taller? Bryce by a mile, ok, really by only 10 inches

Who has more friends? Me

Who has more siblings? Me, by 10

Who wears the pants in the relationship? We each have one leg in the pants

Logan's First Day of School

Ok, so Logan started school a few weeks ago, but I had to blog his first day pictures. His teacher is Mrs. Vega and he is definitely the minority in his classroom. He's learning all sorts of spanish. In fact, the other day he came home and was working on his homework. I told him "you only have five more letters to trace," so he counted them "uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco...si cinco!" I just had to laugh. He pronounces all his friends names with a pretty good spanish accent. It's funny. He seems to like school for the most part, and we're getting use to a quiet house during the day. :) Logan is a good kid with a good heart. We're sure glad he's in our family!