Just Because I Love This Pic

They make me smile

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Faith's Sixth Birthday

For Faith's 6th Birthday she wanted a "Rock Star" Party. Just to keep things easy I decided to do her party during our turn for playgroup since we'd have a bunch of kids over anyway.

Here are some of them jammin to Taylor Swift's "short skirts". We had two guitars a ukulele a keyboard and a makeshift stage on top of some built in drawers plus lots of fun.

Then because the playgroup was three weeks before her actual birthday we threw together a surprise party on her actual birthday. She's so lucky I feel guilty so easily plus she was begging me for a surprise party...funny huh. The first thing she said after we jumped out and yelled "Surprise!" was "Thank you for my party Mom" so I think two parties was justified.

Happy Halloween!

Beckham's first Halloween as a football player

It's hard to believe he's only 50th percentile for weight...Uncle Scott (Keyes) would be proud of the double chin. I wonder what he'll name it?

Faith as Wonderwoman and Mia as Thumbelina...they decided to play the drums before Trick or Treating

How hot is this?

Have you ever seen the "Porn for Women" email? The one with men doing all kinds of housework?

Yup-that's Tony vacuuming the hardwood with Beckham strapped to his chest. He also makes killer chocolate chip cookies. Sooo perfect.

Pumpkin Bum

Since Beckham was born I have been to the grocery store by myself only once. It was at this moment of weakness I happened upon a pumpkin shaped like a bum....what was I to do, but buy it? I thought it was funny by itself, however Tony saw the potential.

Here he is carving the front side of the pumpkin into a plumber holding a wrench. Comic genius.

Annual Nana Martin Fall Outing

So every year Nana Martin takes out some of her kids with grandkids for a Fall activity. This year we went to Thanksgiving Point. It was a good time with Nana-she was a good sport to stand in line for face painting and pony rides for a combined hour and a half while we did other random things.

Thanks Nana!

Beckham's Baby Blessing

Beckham was blessed on October 11th. Thanks to everyone for coming, it was a good day.

Our little man in his blessing outfit...thanks Nana!

Beckham Anthony

Beckham Anthony 7lbs 14 oz and 21 1/2 inches long

Our first family photo

Faith and Beckham

Mia and Beckham

Finally!!!!

Finally, school has started for Faith and Mia. Faith started kindergarten and Mia is in preschool three days a week. Finally, I am being induced tomorrow at 5 AM. Finally, I am caught up on blogging...at least until 5 AM tomorrow morning. Finally, Finally, Finally! Thanks for hanging in there.

Faith has been so good and so brave riding the bus. We sent her with a little picture book of her family to keep with her and according to one of the older girls that watches out for her, she takes it out and looks at it everyday on the bus. She makes my heart melt.

Oh boy is this kids teacher in for a few lessons of her own. We love our little firecracker Mia!

Camping Near Our Property

Just over a year ago we bought some land in Idaho near the Bear River with some family. We love camping there and tubing down the river. Eventually, we will have a cabin and with a new dam-our own little access point.

The view from our property.

Ready to ride the river

Swimming in the nearby hot springs

My Little Larcenist, I Mean Mia

Faith and Mia had been invited over to play at a friends house one morning and while I got ready to drop them off Mia entered the bathroom...

Mia: "Don't worry Mom, I have a key."

Me: "A key to what?"

Mia holds up a barrette: "A key to their house"

Should I be concerned, or is it normal for a 3-year-old to think she can pick a neighbors lock and walk in without knocking?

Two Family Weddings

I will only have three kids by the time I give birth to this one. Tony only has three sisters. What are the odds that I would be quite pregnant for all three of their weddings? If you thought "not likely" you'd be right, but apparently the odds don't always work in my favor. In addition to his sister's wedding, my youngest brother decided to get married also. If you're keeping track it's 3 for 3 in Tony's family and 1 for 5 in my family. It's a good thing Tony only has three sisters!

Faith and Mia loved being Rachel's flowergirls.

Tony and his pregnant wife at Scott's wedding.

Landscaping

This seems like an unusual post, but this is exactly what I have spent the first half of my summer doing. I love having parties at my house so when my mom suggested Scott have his wedding luncheon here I was excited. However, I'm not a smart pregnant person. I tend to believe I can do anything pregnant that I could do, not pregnant. I can tell you that a pregnant person definitely has difficulties using a wheelbarrow. I'm sending out a big Thank you to everyone for helping us and an especially big Thank you to Tony for working so hard and putting up with all my crap.

We already had our grass in from our first summer in our house, but we have a big lot with flower beds surrounding it that still had to be finished before the luncheon. At the last minute we also decided to put a trampoline and play area in one corner of our backyard. Of course we decided to do it all by ourselves too. Like I said, I'm not a smart pregnant person.

All I have to show of our hard work is this picture that we took because of the double rainbows. I'm not even sure anyone took pics of the actual luncheon. Again, not a smart pregnant person.

Finally, It's A Boy!

In May we found out we were going to have our first boy! Tony has always believed we were going to have a boy someday, he didn't take me very seriously when I kept telling him if he wanted a boy he'd have to find someone else to have it with. Even the doctor told us we were 30% less likely to have a boy after two girls, and if you know our cul-de-sac, having a baby boy just didn't fit. Props to Tony for believing and convincing me to try one last time.

Proof it's a boy:

Baby's profile with an arm and hand:

Disneyland

In April we decided to take a trip to California to see the beach and Disneyland. We had so much fun with our neighbors, the Haslams-who have girls close to our girl's ages.

We spent one afternoon having lunch with the princesses. It was worth it when we were chosen to be the first table, which meant we got to introduce the first princess and then they all came to visit us first. It was so much fun to watch our girls get treated like the princesses they are.

Maybe It Was Something I Ate

My perceptive little Faith one day noticed that my tummy was getting bigger.

She said: "Mom! I can see where the baby is growing in your tummy!.....How did it get in there? Did you eat it?"

Me: "Uhhhh, well............"

Faith: "And how are you going to get it out?....Are you going to throw it up?"

As I started to explain in 5 year-old terms, she got distracted by the idea that the baby would be here in the fall and to my relief she wanted to teach me a song she'd learned in preschool about fall. Then I kept the distractions coming with a jumping jacks challenge and the promises of candy if she ate her lunch.

Mia and my belly at 38 weeks.

"Shannan Got Run Over By The Bandwagon"

Apparently I not only fell off the blogging bandwagon, but it then ran over me. It's been a while, but I am prepared to do some quick recap posts of the last 6 or 7 months.

First let's start with right after the Sugarbowl. Approximately 2 weeks after the game I found out I was pregnant. The perfect souvenir....now if I could only convince Tony to name the baby Sakoda.

This was taken in January, the day of the Ute Parade-the same day I found out I was pregnant. We decided to celebrate both victories by going out to eat after the parade.

The Sugarbowl

To begin, we entered New Orleans to be greeted by this billboard, which we passed multiple times but kept missing it with the camera. We got this shot on our way out of town when we flipped a Uey just to get it.

Here's Tony at the tailgate party wearing an expensive Styrofoam hat. Yes-it's an oxymoron.

I included this pic due to the story it involves during the tailgate. We put our stuff down on this table at the exact same time as another couple sat down at the table. No biggie, there were plenty of seats for them and all the other people for which we had to save seats. The first thing I did was pick up the U, then I decided to steal it. My plan was simple: wait till everyone was distracted and stuff it under my shirt (I already knew it was going to be too big for my purse.) The party went on and at some point the U, which had been resting comfortably near me, ended up back towards the center of the table. The random "I don't know anybody at this table, but I'm going to sit here anyway" lady picked up my U. She eventually put the U back down on the table in front of her. I sighed a sigh of relief and began figuring out a way to get the U back towards me. I think she was an evil mind reader because she then picked it up again and said something to her random "I don't know anybody at this table, but I'm going to sit here anyway" husband and PUT IT IN HER LAP! Can you believe the nerve? I was going to steal it first! If by some chance you are reading this lady, you know what you did. GIVE ME BACK MY U!

Shortly after the evil mind reading thief incident we headed towards the door. It's a good thing we weren't running from the law because I had just stolen a U in my shirt, because due to perfect timing I was in the front row to cheer on the team as they got on the bus. Yes, I saw Louie up close, and not just in my dreams. Too bad my camera was on the wrong setting-this is the best pic I got (except for the back corner of Louie's head.) I only know Matt Asiata and Paul Kruger behind him in the back. It sure was exciting to be there!

Here we are outside the Superdome...surrounded by Bama fans. We actually enjoyed talking with all their fans, in fact one nice Bama couple took this pic for us. It did start to grate on our nerves that anytime Utah started chanting ANYTHING someone would yell "Roll Tide"! If you watched the game you can assume they were silenced pretty quickly.

This was taken during the pregame warm ups from where the majority of the Utah fans had their seats. We were all pretty close to the field.

This was actually taken from our seats. We were five rows up, lower level behind the Utah goalpost. They were great seats except we couldn't see much of the other Utah fans.

Here's my Louie warming up right in front of us. Beautiful.


Here's Matt Asiata taking a direct snap. Man, I love this team! I'm so proud of them. The BCS system is terrible and needs to be modified. As far as we're concerned Utah is the best team in the country. 2 wins agains top 10 opponents. 4 wins against top 25 opponents. No one beat them. That's how BYU won its championship in 1984. The only difference for '08 Utah and '84 BYU is that Utah played a harder schedule and beat a better team in its bowl game. If the only thing Obama does for our country is bring enough heat to have the BCS modified to give smaller conference teams a chance to play and beat the "big boys" his presidency will have been a success - in Tony's humble opinion. The final score...as if you missed the game. I accidentally deleted the ones Tony took with time expired. O0ps. Notice all the empty seats? The 'Bama fans began to bail in mass quantities midway through the fourth quarter. They outnumbered us in this game 6 to 1, but if you watched the game you heard the Utah fans hold their own.

It was such a party after the game. Nobody wanted to leave. I have to say that Tony and I like to travel and are fortunate enough to do it fairly often. Of all the trips we've been on and of all the games we've ever watched THIS was the best and most memorable. I'll never forget how it felt to be there and watch them do what lots of people thought wasn't possible. I don't think the feeling can be beat....until we're given the chance to win a championship! As far as we're concerned, Utah's 2008-09 team is the best in the country. Are we wrong? Prove it.

New Orleans Trip

I've decided to divide this trip into two posts. This post is all about our trip to New Orleans, the next one will be all about the Sugarbowl. We arrived to New Orleans on New Year's Eve-what an incredible way to end the year. The very first thing I did was run to Zoltar to get my fortune-what else is there? He gave me some kind of BS about being happy. Do I look sad to you? Stupid fortune tellers-I wasted a buck.

Then we met up with our friends from the ward for dinner at Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse. Notice the pendants on the wall? New Orleans was all kinds of decked out in Utah stuff.

After dinner we walked to Jackson Square where there was live Jazz (of course) and they dropped their version of a ball. It was the symbol for the Saints football team...I think. By this time I was sloshed so I can't really remember. (You know I'm kidding Mom, but do you see Tony's eyes in this pic? He's questionable.) I am, however, holding some Utah football beads that I earned. Am I kidding this time? You'll never know. What happens in New Orleans....

The next morning we spent time exploring New Iberia. Tony had some work to do there, but we found out that's where most of our sugar comes from. We saw field after field of sugar cane being harvested. It was a really scenic drive with all the swamp and sugar cane fields.

We drove back into New Orleans and stopped for a quick bite in the French Quarter. I can now say that I've eaten alligator (sorry Devon.) It was pretty bland and rubbery, but it was fun and different.

After dinner we took the "Ghost and Vampire Tour." Apparently New Orleans is the most haunted city in America. The history behind the city is facinating...we didn't see any ghosts though. Maybe because we don't believe enough, although we did have an encounter on game day-but that's another story. Here we are at a stop in a bar on the tour. Do you see our Dorky "Hey, I'm a tourist!" tags?

After the tour we walked back to Jackson Square to eat a beignet and have hot chocolate at Cafe Du Monde. The beignets are yummy donut like pastries and if you know Tony at all, he can't visit any place without trying their hot chocolate. He thinks he's a connoisseir.

The next morning-before the game, we were supposed to take a Swamp Tour, but got lost and had to postphone it to the next day. Fortunately, we drove by a cemetary that we stopped to explore and it happened to have a tour group that we joined. Again, it was facinating! This tomb was actually in a movie and apparently I was wasted again because I don't remember which one. Anybody recognize it?

After the tour we ate lunch at Muriels. It's known for a ghost that haunts it so we decided to check it out. This ghost has its own table and is known for making stuff in the restaurant disappear. Nothing unusual happened till Tony had to pay and his wallet had disappeared. I think it was because he was taunting the ghost and didn't believe. Or maybe I shouldn't have hidden his silverware while he was in the bathroom? Anyway, luckily, I had my wallet. The ghost had apparently taken the wallet and put it in our rental car...at least he didn't give it to a theif.

Our last morning in New Orleans we took a swamp tour. This was the biggest alligator we saw; the rest were hybernating. I wonder if he's related to the one we ate? Our tour guide was so back woods it was crazy fun. Did you know there are more alligators in Louisiana than Florida? Our guide claims you always hear about Floridians being attacked on golf courses because the gators know when a golf ball lands in the water-dinner is about to be served.

On the way out of town we picked up some souvenirs...

and explored Baton Rouge...

I know this has been a long post, but thanks for reliving with us the best trip we've ever taken!