The South Pole Elves

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1633205156
Wow, those Allison elves can sure dance!
Make your own and link to it from here!

Traveling Queen

Ellie enjoyed visiting her 9th state, and playing in the beach once again. She was so spoiled staying at the Ritz Carleton on Key Biscayne for Ian's conference, she says she is never going to allow cheap hotels again. She loved the swimming pools, but wasn't as big of a fan of the ocean.

Right outside the Ritz


Playing with Cousin Brooke on the beach

Buried in the sand!

Having fun in the pool!

Christmas Part 1

Christmas Part 1(2)

Christmas Part 1

Haley, Logan & Funny Bunny (Hurley)

Twilight

I am supposed to be cleaning and packing and getting ready to leave, but I decided I needed a little bit of a break from all that, so I'm posting instead.
Both book clubs I'm involved with decided to see what all the hype was about and read Stephanie Meyer's first book of the vampire series, Twilight. I only had a chance to go to one of the discussions and it was a fun girls night. There were mixed reviews about the book. Well...actually everyone liked it, but most felt guilty for liking it. There was discussion on the conference talk about Good, Better, Best and if this book fell into the best category.
Also, those women in the group with teens were especially concerned about this book being targeted to that age group mainly because of the authors vivid descriptions.
I have to admit, I may not have learned anything from this book, but It was an engaging story and a fun, fast read. So...I guess decide for yourself if you have time for a guilty pleasure book.

White Coat Ceremony

James didn't want to post about his own ceremony. He said it would be "tooting his own horn". I think it is an amazing accomplishment though. I am just copying Margaret's post from the Finlay website in case you haven't looked over there...so here are some great pictures of our fun family weekend in cold Michigan.



Here are James, Ster and Rooter right after James received his White Coat in veterinary school. Now it's no more classes and onto the clinic work for a year and a half.



The Christensens, Finlays from Akron and Margaret and Ian all came to help celebrate with James at the White Coat Ceremony.



We took a short trip up to Frankenmuth to see the World's Largest Christmas store and to visit the Silent Night Chapel.



Rooter with her Mom, two Grandmas and even a Great Grandma.

This is part of my FHE group. We were having a lot of fun with straws and jelly-beans...I don't know what the point of the game was, really. The guy next to me reminds me of Scotty. Only his name is Mark instead.

Ohio Thanksgiving

We enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at Gram and Gramp's place in Ohio. We were sad that they couldn't be there, but it was nice to have a spot were the Eastern Finlays could get together. We ate way too much but that was nice for left overs the next day.



While traveling to Amish Country we stopped by the Smuckers factory. They now own Pilsbury so Roots had her picture taken with the ultimate dough boy.



In Amish Country we put Roots in a little kettle to keep her out of trouble. She had a great time as did we!



Just before the BYU vs. Utah game started we visited Kirtland Ohio. This is the city of much of the history of the LDS Church. We had a great time there, although it was pretty chilly.

It's Tough to be this Beautiful

Uncle Scott to the rescue

Scott stopped by Wednesday with a box of legos. Star Wars legos. The boys were in heaven.

Thanks, Scott, for indulging our little lego maniacs!

Silver Bells

For reasons not known to us Lansing has its kick off to the Christmas season over a week before Thanksgiving. So we went out to enjoy the party streets near the Capitol with some neighbor friends of ours (Joyce, Deb and Paiton) to enjoy fireworks and an electrical light parade. Roots stayed bundled up in her mom's coat to stay warm.



This picture has been altered a little to drown out the effects of having a flash. I would have trashed this picture, Root's face really shows how much she was enjoying being out and about with friends.



This is us in front of the tree that was lit up in by the capitol building.



Here is a cute pic of Roots helping make the bed. Where does she get those faces???

Playing Dressup

I don't really understand what Halloween is. Mom borrowed some funny clothes and kept getting me dressed and laughing at me. (You can tell by looking at my face in the pictures that I didn't think it was funny at all). Daddy kept giving me brightly colored wrappers to chew on while he ate the boring brown stuff that was inside the wrappers. So, I'm pretty sure I got the good end of the deal on that one.
Mom said I was too young to go trick-or-treating, but maybe next year.

Book of the Week

The Chosen, but Chaim Potok was this months book for our ward's book group. It is a good and interesting book, however it is a bit melancholy. I really liked learning more about the Jewish faith, as I feel very ignorant regarding other religions. I also liked the examples of parenting styles. We had a good discussion about how you would parent a child that is born without empathy or how to take care of children that are too smart.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween in Rexburg! I don't actually know who the baby is or where he came from...it was kind of wierd.

I went with some people in my ward up to the top of Y Mount. I was a tougher hike than I expected, but it was a lot of fun.

Messy Days

Roots got to help carve her first pumpkin yesterday. This was one time when procrastination really paid off, we got all of our pumpkins half-off at the garden since it was so close to Halloween. We got two big ones and a Rooter size one as well.



Here is Roots with her pumpkin. Her dad helped her with it. She liked to play with the seeds and pulp in the bottom of the pumpkin. I guess she liked the feel of it in her fingers. We had to make sure that she kept it out of her mouth though.



Here are the finished products. Although when I got home today I noticed that some squirrel or rabbit took apart part of the pumpkin that says "Root". Grrrrrr. Megan and Brielle have been enjoying the cool Fall days, but only Megster knows the winter that is about to come upon us.



Roots ate her first solid foods about 2 weeks ago. Here she is with her food pacifier (you put soft food in a little mesh thing and she gums it out little by little) and looking a little messy.



How can you not love that face. That is a little bit of sweet potato. It is her first solid food and she likes it. She attacks her spoon when it is in front of her face, but then again she does that with her stuffed penguin's beak as well.

Latest Read

I know I have a lot more time at this time in my life to read than most of you. (I try to make Brielle take as long as possible to nurse when we are at home so I can justify the relaxing book-reading time)
So here was the book we read for my book group tonight. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. I would recommend it, although it was hard to read in separate chunks. It is written using Ebonics, so it would take a few pages to get used to the flow of the language. But the character development is excellent.

A little camera-crazy!

Just thought you all may want to take a peek at our most recent apartment-picture-frenzy. The top picture is with my roommate Kristen, the second is with Liesel. And don't worry, I don't usually have that snobby look on my face, I prefer smiling. The next two pictures feature all six lovely residents of Greenbrier, Apt. #18. Right to Left: Liesel, Lindsey, Sarah, Janelle, Kristin, and me. What great girls, we're having so much fun!