My Little Sis Got Married!!

This lovely little lady--my younger sister, Elise--got married just before Christmas '09:

This is Ben Bowen, my little sister's new man--and my new brother!:

This is how cute Tanner looked while waiting for his Auntie Elise and new Uncle Ben to finish with their marriage ceremony inside the Draper, UT LDS Temple:

This is how cool the entryway to their reception hall looked after all the decorating:

(my creative little sis drew and designed those cool aspen trees--they were on her wedding announcement--and my brother printed them on vinyl stickers to put on the glass entryway doors. It looked soo cool.)

This is the delicious soup and bread they served:

This is the cake they fed to eachother:

These are some of the gorgeous pictures they had hanging all over the reception hall:

This is what Elise really wanted at her wedding:

So my Dad built it for them

These are the proud Parents, Steve and Tresa:

These are the Happy Siblings (+ our BFF, KLowe):

This is the new Chamberlain Family:

This is how happy Tanner was wandering around in between everyone's legs at the reception:

This is a very unhappy Tanner at the end of the night...getting taken care of by Dad:

(we forgot his blankie...a BIG no-no)

And this is the happy couple:

Congratulations Ben and Elise! We love you and are so happy for you!

THANKSGIVING 2009

Thanksgiving was full of good ol' fashioned sportin' fun, starting with the Turkey Bowl.

Immediately following Turkey Bowl, we all played a little Volleyball, then the boys jumped right into a game of Melon Ball.

The next activity: Nap Time. Tanner must have been worn out after watching all the sports and playing in the pool because he napped for over 3 hours.

Thanksgiving Dinner was delicious of course, and it was fun to spend it with friends.

Hope you all had a wonderful Turkey Day!

HAPPY GROWWWLOWEEN!

Tanner is a man who knows what he wants . . .

we were shopping together at Costco and as I was pushing the cart around a corner, it got stuck on something. I checked the wheels to make sure I hadn't run into anything then I looked up to see Tanner latched onto this furry little lion costume.

He was quite adamant about what he wanted me to buy for him that day. The lion costume was only $10 - and the cute bird puppets were 4 for $7. At least he's a bargain shopper.

So, I'm a pretty big fan of Halloween . . . because I really like dressing up. I love doing the fun hair and make-up, and wearing a cool costume. And I love seeing everyone's creative costume ideas - and how adorable the little kids look all dressed up. And of course, getting a bunch of free candy isn't so bad either.

Luckily, the week of Halloween was full of fun Halloween activities. Tanner and I went to a Mommy/Baby Halloween party at our friend Christina's. The kids were so cute crawling around together in all their costumes. And we made carameled apples...my favorite!

A few days later, I hosted a pumpkin carving/Chinese food party at our house.

(My girlfriends and I were all just craving Chinese, so we thought it would be fun to order in).

Everyone's pumpkin turned out really cool. Our friend Sharlene brought over some fun stencils that allowed us all to create these fine orange glowing masterpieces.

(For all you Skyliners out there . . . recognize anybody in one of the previous 4 photos??)

Sadly, my Chamberlain artistic ability decided to escape me that night . . .

my poor pumpkin just looked really . . . well, creepy.

And not in a good Halloween way.

Tanner had a total blast crawling around on the plastic carpet covering, trying to help in the carving process, and eating slimy pieces of pumpkin. Yum Yum.

The night before Halloween, our church hosted a Trunk-or-Treat party. It was a lot of fun.

We went as the classic trio, The Firefighter, The Flapper Girl, and the Lion . . . Come on now, don't tell me your parents never read that story to you as a child?!

All the kids looked so cute dressed up in their costumes. They loved playing with our little lion.

And Tanner just couldn't get over how cool/crazy that balloon was! No matter how hard he tried to hang onto it, it just kept slipping out of his grip and bouncing lightly away.

A new, slightly modified, tricky version of the ball, his favorite toy.

HAPPY GROWWLOWEEEN!

Love, Tanner the Little Lion Man

FREE DAYS ARE THE BEST DAYS!

Los Angeles has some pretty cool places for kids . . . and it seems that most, if not all of these places, have free days. So, thanks to my fabulous Mommy friends here in LA, Tanner and I have been hittin' up the free days like they're goin' outta style.

We have had so much fun.

Tanner loves exploring the Museums and Gardens,

and has a blast hanging out with all his little buddies.

And it's nice for me to get together with such a fun group of mommies!

LA COSTA

The first weekend in October, we met up with Matt's practice group

for a retreat at the La Costa Resort in San Diego.

Tanner was a total party animal on Friday night. He stayed up until midnight, crawling around the Firm's "hangout suite." He found a table decoration - a styrofoam ball covered in seashells - and spent the whole night rolling it under chairs and tables, and through everybody's legs. He was quite the entertainment. Everyone was so impressed with how happy he was for being up so late . . . good thing he saved his meltdown for later, behind closed paper-thin walls and doors. We may have cleared out the Resort that night with all the screaming Tanner did. He was BEYOND tired but just would not fall asleep. After literally 2 hours of screaming, Matt finally was able to get our little party animal to fall asleep in his arms. He woke up one more time that night for another 45 minutes. It was a very long night.

Saturday was a brand new day for our sleep deprived little man. We spent the whole day at the pool. It was fabulous. Tanner was so happy and had a blast going down the slides with Dad, crawling through the water fountain area, playing in the sand, and toddling through the shallow water of the kiddie pool. He played so hard that he fell asleep in his stroller for 2 whole hours while Mom and Dad enjoyed the sun, food, and Conference talks on the iPhone.

When we were in Utah in August, Matt's older brother introduced him to the game of Melon-Ball. What is Melon-Ball you ask? It's the same thing as Watermelon Rugby . . . still confused? Yeah, it's one of those underground sports that not many people know of. Kind of like fight club. Actually, more like fight club than I care to discuss. I'm telling you, this game is DAN-GER-OUS! Basically, the only rule is for each team to get the melon from one side of the pool to the other. (And yes, you do use a real melon - usually duck-taped in order to prevent the cumbersome fruit from breaking open). So, you can basically gouge out your opponent's eyes, carve your name in their back with your nails, and rip the hair out of their armpits, and you wouldn't be breaking any rules.

Of course, Matt decided that Melon-Ball would be a fabulous game to play with all his attorney co-workers. If you think I'm joking about how dangerous this game is, let me just tell you what happened to those who dared to play: one attorney was out for 3 days with an infection caused by a cut she got on her leg (yes, despite all my warnings, a GIRL actually got into the pool to play Melon Ball), another attorney ruptured his eardrum, and another guy had Matt's nail marks all over his back and a giant rug burn down his side from the pool wall. Matt, of course, walked away uninjured.

We had so much fun with Matt's coworkers. We're very blessed that he works with such a great group of people (especially since they could have probably held Matt liable for all the injuries incurred while engaging in the ultra-hazardous game of Melon-Ball).

LA's Annual Redbull SoapBox Races '09

The last weekend in September, we joined 110,000 of these people:

To watch daredevil parachuters do this:

And creative Los Angelenenos race these:

Down this track:

for RedBull's famous Annual Soapbox Races - right in the heart of downtown LA.

It was quite fun - until we realized we hadn't eaten anything all morning and I decided to order a smoothie - along with all the other 110,000 spectators . . . it took the ONE guy who was working a good 45 minutes to mix my smoothie, but boy was it worth it.