17 Months Old

Even when it's cold and gray outside, we have plenty of sunshine whenever Sabrina is around.

Shopping for Christmas presents online with Aunt Sarah. Sarah even let Sabrina play with her credit cards. What a treat for her!

Rediscovering a favorite toy from last Christmas.

Jammies on Parade

I don't think there is anything sweeter than a toddler in footed jammies. And I am a tad bit biased in thinking this particular toddler is the cutest I've ever seen. In these first two pictures you can see Sabrina carrying her soft nativity ornaments that my mom gave her last year. We opened them a few days ago, and they are her new favorite toy. She LOVES them.

Photo Shoot in Natural Light

I was looking for photo albums on ksl.com classifieds and came across an offer for a free natural light photo shoot and CD by Nataly Harris, an up and coming photographer who is trying to build her portfolio. We were happy to help her out. I think she has a promising future. These are some of my favorites. These were taken the week before Thanksgiving, about three weeks ago.

Santa & Sabrina

I knew Sabrina would definitely not go for sitting in Santa's lap at our ward Christmas party, so we didn't even try.

Funny how the gift of chocolate can break down barriers.

What a great Santa!

Christmastime is Here

Sabrina and Mama in the Garden Court at BYU. It was fun to walk around at the BYU Family Christmas Party. It was free and there was lots of entertainment, crafts, games, and free BYU donuts (yummy!) and punch. Plus Santa and Cosmo were there. Most of the things were geared for kids ages 3-11, so we will have a blast in a couple years from now.

Aunt Barbara's Christmas Party

Forget the slinky. The chocolate pop that came on top was the real present in Sabrina's mind. Let's face it. Life will always be sweet...as long as there is chocolate close by.

Exploring the ornaments.

You can barely see the Christmas hair clip that I bought to go with her Christmas dress, but she has now entered the stage where 1 minute after I have put a rubber band in her hair, she pulls it out and brings it to me, thinking it is the funniest thing.

Sabrina with cousin Colt Madsen. Always a fun time with other kids around.

Early Christmas Present

My friend Raya told me about an amazing sale of toys she found in an ad on ksl classifieds. We're talking SCREAMIN' deals. So we headed down to Spanish Fork and I bought the seller's last desk and chair. It was used for display, so I bought it already put together and I didn't have room in my closet or anywhere else to put it without Sabrina seeing it, so Santa made an early delivery. What can I say? She has been a very good girl this year. I am the kind of person who doesn't finish her Christmas shopping until just a few days before the big day because I don't like keeping surprises. I get just as much joy out of seeing Sabrina enjoy her gifts as she does, if not more! So I have to buy them at the last minute, so that she has something under the tree on Christmas. This way it prevents her from being spoiled too much by her parents. See there is logic to my madness!

Introducing...SimplyMyBudget.com

Darren has been hard at work for the past several months on his own budgeting website (built from scratch) and just finished it today. Would you do us a HUGE favor and take 5 minutes and check out www.simplymybudget.com, and then sign up for a FREE 10-day trial? We would love to hear your feedback. And if you like it, please spread the word to your friends and family. Be sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions. I wrote those!

Thanksgiving 2008

The only picture we managed to get from dinner. Sabrina was pretty picky, but she did throughly enjoy the sparkling grape cider we put in her sippy cup!

Sabrina and Maddie Collins, Darren's cousin, on her backyard swing.

I just LOVE Maddie. She is so cute, sweet, vivacious, and smart. She has so much personality. She loved helping me with Sabrina. We were at her house down in Monroe, Utah for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful time. The meal was great. I especially enjoyed the leftovers. Aunt Jan's chunky cranberry sauce went so well on my leftover turkey sandwiches. Darren's cousin Olivia made a very tasty lattice cherry pie (homemade crust--go Olivia!). And of course, my mother in law Elaine's best ever pecan pie.

Homemade Pie Crust!!

Do you have a list of things you want to do before you die--your own "bucket list"? Well, I have one with about 60 things on it and I am slowly but surely making headway on my list. For quite a while I have had "make a pie with a homemade crust" on it and have been procrastinating doing it because I was afraid it would be too hard and I would mess up. I only make pies now when people besides our little family of 3 will be eating it, so I didn't want to waste a bunch of time and money on something that would be a failure. But this Thanksgiving I put aside my fear and had faith in my baking skills. In my opinion, I think my apple pies turned out great. I can't believe how much BETTER homemade crusts are, even if they are definitely more work. If you only make pies at Thanksgiving, like me, it is worth it to make your crusts homemade once a year. I found a very simple, no fail pie crust recipe. I am not saying I will never use a frozen pie crust again, because I know I will, especially if the recipe calls for a single crust. But for apple, cherry, and peach pies, I definitely want to make this crust again. Yum!

My first attempt at pies with homemade crusts definitely won't make the cover of Gourmet magazine, but to me they tasted sooo good.

The Toys Kids Create

It is so funny how kids find everyday things and make them into toys. Sabrina discovered my hot roller set underneath my bathroom sink one day when I was getting ready. She loves dumping and filling her jack-o-lantern and other containers. I thought these pictures were funny. Or maybe you just had to be there...

Train's a Leavin'

Load it up...

...and move it out!

Sabrina loves to put all kinds of stuff in our laundry baskets and move them around the house.