For Mom, 'Cause She Misses the Girls!

Mom, I know you say everything is fine, but I know you miss the girls.....so here you go! We miss you dearly can't wait to see you for my birthday! Hang in there.....Love, Penny

Vegas Baby!!!

Here we are in Vegas with our BFFs Jenn and Rich. We were so excited to go on this trip and get away. I swear we planned this trip 6 months in advance. That's how badly we wanted to get away--SANS KIDS! Here we are in front of the infamous Vegas sign. Okay, here's something weird, while we were waiting in line, this strange guy with long hair and a weird slash in his shirt asked if he could use us in his "movie". We were like, okay, whatever. He said, "When it's your turn to walk up to take a picture, what I want you to do is walk up and when I say freeze, you freeze and exaggerate your arm movements. Then I'm going to push a guy in a wheelchair up in front of you and then back again and then you just continue walking up to the sign." I don't know if that made sense, but that's the jist of it. It was so weird b/c we did everything like he said, but we noticed that the guy in the wheelchair had this weird make up on. Like black all around his eyes and red around his mouth. It was weird; I just hope we don't end up in something questionable! :)

Here we are in front of the "Brooklyn Bridge" Vegas style. We had so much fun walking around looking at all the fun shops and freaky people.

Here we are at the pool at Mandalay Bay, where we were staying. If you haven't stayed here, you must! The rooms are super nice and affordable and they have like 5,000 pools! Okay, not 5,000, but you know what I mean! One could spend days in the pools back there for free.

I was honored that they named a slot machine after me......NOT!

Kickin' it in the hotel room, getting ready for a day of fun! We had such a great time, but wish we could've had One more day! Thanks Nonna and Papa for watching our 3 hooligans for us! Without you, this wouldn't have been possible!

Our Trip to Utah

So, my sister's wedding was in Utah, so we made the trek up. The kids did surprisingly well, considering the long ride! Plenty of movies, puzzles, coloring books, stickers, and snacks kept them happy I guess! Here's the kids at Glen Canyon Dam. Look at Kendal: strike a pose: VOGUE! :)
We finally made it to my hometown: Kanosh, Utah. We hadn't finished dinner for 5 min. before Keaton proceeded to overflow my dad's toilet! So embarrassing. Anyhow, the kids were begging and begging us to ride my dad's horses. They always look forward to this at Grandpa Staples' house! But....I was a little nervous. It was windy outside, and the horses were looking a bit skittish. Well, after Keaton and Kendal made it around the pasture unharmed, I relaxed a little. Karsen wanted to have a ride too, so we coupled her with Keaton. Well, their round started off okay, but then something happened with that horse. It started to gallop, and then it ran and began to crow hop! All of the sudden I hear my dad cry, "Whoooooaaaaa!" And he pulled down on the reigns and dug his boots into the dirt as hard as he could. I mean, he was putting his whole weight on that thing! But the horse was strong. And like a movie in slow-motion, my kids proceeded to topple off of the horse. First Karsen face down into the dirt, then Keaton on top of her. I must say, though, Keaton really held onto her sister with all of her might. But she was no match for that horse. I stood frozen in fear as Brian ran over to the girls. Keaton got right up and started walking, no problem. Brian grabbed Karsen and lifted her up to observe the potential damage. She had literally "bitten the dust". She had mud on her two front teeth, so much so that Brian thought she had lost them. I knew the kids were upset, but I kept remembering what my dad had always told me when I got bucked from a horse, "It's always best to get right back on the horse." I knew if I didn't have the kids get right back on, we'd be leaving with some horse-a-phobias or something along those lines. So I bent down and told Keaton to get back on. She puffed up her chest, balled up her fists, and said, "Okay, mom." I was so proud of her! Not only did Keaton get back on (after grandpa had taught the horse a lesson) but Kendal got back on, and Karsen was willing to sit on the horse, but not ride on it. This was a beaming moment for me! My kids are so tough! My dad said, "These aren't city kids, these are horse people!" :)

The next day was my little sister Christa's wedding. Here she and Tyler are coming out of the Manti Temple. Don't they make such a cute couple? Congrats, guys!

Here's some more of my fam. Dad's up behind Christa, to the right is my Grandma Staples (she makes THE best rhubarb pie EVER! I swear I ate like a whole pie while I was there!) and then just to the right of Christa is my stepmom Paulette. Love you guys!

They look so happy! My girls said they thought Christa was a "Temple Princess"! :)

After the temple, we had lunch with our other grandma, grandma Dutson. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of her, but I do have one of Gracie Jane, my brother's little girl. So cute!

And then, the crash and burn. Looks like Karsen ate a Smurf, a drunken one at that! All in all this was an exhausting but great day!

Karsen's 3!!!

Okay, so I thought I'd come back from the dead to actually blog today!! And Karsen's b-day was actually in April, but I am getting to it in June. Oh well, no big whup! But I'm sure Jenn is happy that I'm actually blogging, especially since it's been since December! But I digress....So--it's official--my baby is not a baby anymore! She's now considered a "preschooler"! How sad is that? But we had a great time! Grandma even came down for the occasion!

Ummmmmm....presents!

More presents! A typical Snyder birthday.

Okay, so the cake kinda has a funny story. Karsen was adamant that she have a Buzz Lightyear/Woody birthday cake since she adores the both of them. I went searching all over town for one to no avail. And had I the talent to create one, I would have, but alas, I do not. My last stop was Fry's (which is weird b/c we always get our cakes from there) and what do we find? But an Over the Hedge cake! For those of you who know Karsen, you know she watches this movie several times in any given week. Heck, she practically potty trained to it! So this movie and it's characters are near and dear to her heart. When she saw the picture of RJ and Vern, she HAD to have it! BTW, it was delicious!

Decorating Gingerbread Houses

Alrighty ladies and gents, it's time for another installment of FHE with Jen and Rich. In this episode: Decorating Gingerbread Houses! The girls had so much fun with this. Every year, it's a tradition that we decorate gingerbread houses for Christmas. The great thing about it this year is that our good friends the Johnsons invited us over for some decorating, brownies and ice cream (thanks Jen, they were so evil and so delicious!) and watching of SNL skits on the old laptop (with segments of So I Married an Axe Murderer thrown in for good measure!). I must say, we always get our kits from Costco, but this year we decided to try something different and try the one at Sam's. I wasn't too impressed with it, so I believe we will stick with the tried and true!


Karsen seems to be contemplating the direction she'll go with her gumdrop, hmmmm.
As you can tell, the guys worked really really hard.

Turkey Day and Decorating the Tree. . .

I'm so behind on my blogging, and I have so much to blog that I figured I'd just lump everything together! Here is our lovely Christmas tree. We had a great time adorning our plastic tree and drinking hot cocoa! And of course, later after the kids were down for the night we "redistributed" the ornaments.
So many decorations, so little time.

Karsen just really took to this snow globe, so I thought I'd capture the moment. I think this is the first year she really realizes it's Christmas and knows who Santa is.

We visited my mom in CA for Thanksgiving this year. It was a total blast. My little bro and his wife and baby Gracie were there. We hardly ever get to see them, and this trip just left me wanting to be closer to them! The weather was beautiful for the most part, except for the rain the morning of Thanksgiving. It cleared up quickly and the kids were able to fathom the joy of gathering real autumn leaves. They are such Arizona kids, they think orange and red leaves are simply fascinating! They collected buckets and buckets of them!

Keaton holding her real blood cousin Gracie (don't laugh, cousins are scarce in our family! Get going on that Seth and Jane! ;) ) She was such a cutie and is growing like a weed. The kids adored her and wanted to hold and kiss her the whole weekend.

The girls with Gracie and Uncle Seth.

Okay, these little kid cars are so much fun! My mom's got a great cul-de-sac for the kids to play in safely. We have a pink jeep like this one ourselves, but check out the tripped out jeep for bigger kids below! We had a couple of minor accidents and whiplashes, but it's all in good fun right?

My stepdad makes the greatest lemon meringue pie you've ever tasted! I think it's the California lemons! He started these Thanksgiving morn, and the girls were intrigued so they jumped in.

The secrets of a great pie crust.