Mike & Lee's Family

On Thanksgiving my uncle Mike and aunt Lee had all their kids and grandkids home for the holiday. This is something that rarely happens! So they decided to get a family picture and asked me to take some for them. I've never done anyone else's family pictures before so I was excited! They turned out really nice for just running outside my grandparents' front door to take them. I love their family!

A Bitter-Sweet Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was so nice. It was filled with bitter-sweet memories. It was Brycen's first Thanksgiving and he got to try a few different things, thanks to his Grandma. :) He tried mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes (which he didn't like the texture of), and whipped cream from a pie. Thanksgiving was held at my grandma and grandpa Murri's house this year. Most of the Murri family was there and it was a lot of fun!

(I didn't remember to get my camera out till dessert, so that's where all the pictures start!)

Mom and Grandma

Hannah and Chloe getting ready to dig into pie


Our gracious hosts, Grandma and Grandpa

Tyson and Amber

Getting the pies ready

Grandma was getting after Grandpa and my uncle Mike because of how they were topping the pies. They weren't exactly doing it with any finesse.

Hovering

Because they wanted a taste of what I brought...

This lovely Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. It had red velvet cake with a layer of cream cheese frosting, then vanilla cheesecake. The outside had white chocolate flakes all over it. Whoa! So good. I was excited to bake something, but when I saw this at Sam's Club I had to get it. And it was very popular!

Grandma, Uncle Bob, Aaron and Uncle Blake

Aunt Janell, Uncle Blake and Dad

Mom and Aunt Penney talking about the cheesecake

Grandma and Brycen

Amy and Brycen

Amy didn't come to Thanksgiving dinner in this shirt. Brycen threw up all over her so she had to change into one of Grandma's shirts. Oh, babies.

Mom walked in the door after I did and was wearing the exact same thing I was. We had to take a picture! That's what happens when you hit a Kohl's sale together!

Grandma and Grandpa enjoying their favorite beverages.

They were pretty exhausted by the end of the night!

Brandon and Kristen were there, which meant that little Ethan came too. He is 4 1/2 months now. He and Brycen got a lot of attention! Brycen couldn't handle it all and had a few meltdowns.

And we can't forget Mady in the mix of great-grandchildren! She is the oldest and Coya and John's daughter. She and Ethan are first cousins. Aren't these three just so cute?
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And now to the bitter part of our bitter-sweet day. Our beloved pet, Snoopy, of 14 years passed away on the 26th. She was such a sweet and loving kitty and we will really miss her. She was a really good cat and we all just loved her. She is with her mom now (who died the week before our family moved into the current house), and also her sister who passed away this summer. Interesting how they both passed away this year after so many years have gone by.

Snoopy, we love you and will miss you!

What Happens when Tyson Does the Grocery Shopping...

Tyson went to the store on Monday afternoon to get some things for us. We needed some super glue, scotch tape, etc. Then I told him to pick up some cookies for the snowman cookie jar. When he came home I unpacked the bags and found the glue, scotch tape, the few other things, the cookies, and all of this:

To clarify what you're seeing above, he came home with:

• Chips Ahoy cookies for the cookie jar
• white fudge Oreo cookies
• two bottles of pomegranate 7Up
• Reese's peanut butter cups
• plain holiday M&M's
• peanut holiday M&M's

Apparently we didn't have enough sweets in the house! All I can say is our families can always count on us having sugar around.

I wonder why? :)

I love you, Tyson!

Christmas Giveaway!

Head on over to my recipe blog to enter a Christmas giveaway!

The winner gets a cute apron, a book with some awesome tips for the kitchen, a magnetic holiday notepad, and a Mrs. Claus Christmas tree ornament (she's holding a plate of cookies. Perfect for a recipe blog giveaway!)

Come on by!

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cupcakediariesblog.blogspot.com

Brycen's First Food

It was so fun giving Brycen baby food for the first time! He had baby food for the first time over a month ago, yet I'm just now posting about it. Not sure how I missed that one!

He enjoyed some sweet potatoes at Grandma and Gramps Miller's house while we were in Utah on October 9. But a few days later we gave him some squash that he also seemed to like.

Can you tell? :)

What a face!

My Cousin, The New Miss Hillcrest

Third time's a charm!

My cousin, Chloe, has done the Miss Hillcrest pageant for the last three years. After taking 1st runner-up for two years in a row, she finally won this year!

We were so excited for her. She did a great job and looked gorgeous.

My mom and her brother, Blake (Chloe's dad), and his son Cooper after the pageant

Chloe surrounded by a lot of friends and family after the pageant.
That is her mom taking all the pictures.


Amber, Amy, Britney, and I have gone to see Chloe every year she's done the pageant! And we always get a picture with her afterward. She was pretty popular so we had to wait.
In the mean time, I decided to take a picture of these three. While I was taking it I got bumped into and almost went to the ground. This was the picture I got right after that happened. They thought it was funny, can you tell?


So we tried again!
I love my sisters!


Blake holding all the flowers
Isn't he lovely? :)

Chloe had so many little girls asking for her autograph! It was so cute.

We finally got our turn for a picture with Miss Hillcrest!

And the entertainment during the pageant was also great! We were able to see Ali and Christina Christensen from "America's Got Talent" perform. Then we got a picture afterward! So fun. Tyson's cousin, McKenzie, was there. She is also a friend of Ali's. So we gathered for a group photo.

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A HUGE congratulations to my wonderful cousin, Chloe! We are just so thrilled for her and her title. (And sisters, I'm pretty sure I was the only one with a camera last night so go ahead and snag some pictures!)

Our Rolly Boy

Where Brycen started sitting on his own, we've been able to capture pictures of him a little easier.

And we can't get enough of all those rolls! I don't want him to start crawling too soon so he doesn't lose all of the rolly goodness.

We love our happy little rolly boy!

50 Free Holiday Cards from Shutterfly

For the holidays this year, Shutterfly.com is giving away 50 free holiday cards! Can't beat that! I love Shutterfly. I've used Shutterfly for a lot of different occasions. When Brycen was born I did his birth announcement through Shutterfly. And it turned out great! I loved all the options of designs. And now they're giving away a holiday card design! I love that. And I love the quality that everything is printed. I'm so excited!

Here are a couple of my favorite card designs:

I love the design of this card. We had some family pictures taken in October so it will be so simple to add one of those pictures to make this card. I love it!

I love how classic this card is. For this card I would put our family picture at the top, then probably one of the pictures of Tyson and Brycen. So cute!

You can find these designs and loads of other holiday cards through this link: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery. I also love all the Christmas invitations! Those are perfect for all the upcoming Christmas events. The link for the invitations is http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-invitations. Want a great gift idea? You can make a personalized calendar for 2011 through Shutterfly! I have a friend who made one last year and plans to do them again for her family this year. Her family loves them! Here is the link to make a calendar: http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars.

You can have 50 free cards too!

Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Brycen's First Halloween

Brycen celebrated his first Halloween as a duck.

And he sure looked cute!

The Halloween fun started at Grandma Miller's work for trick-or-treating (Meleleuca) on Friday, October 29th.

Cooper, Kate, and Easton came along too!

Brycen did a great job going through the different departments. It was really fun and well done. He destroyed one prop, right at the beginning. We were walking through the entrance to Willy Wonka's factory and there were a whole bunch of streamers in the doorway. Pretty soon the whole thing was on our heads and latched to Brycen's hands. It was a little embarassing, but everybody laughed. He got called a girl twice and a chicken a few more times during this experience.

And he ended up with all sorts of delicious treats.

On Friday night he went to his first Halloween party. It was at Aaron and Britney's. Those in attendance were Aaron and Britney, Tyson and I (with Brycen), my mom, Amber and Che', and Amy. Here's a look at the festivities:

We enjoyed my witch hat cookies...


my witch's brew spinach dip (I had to get creative with that one)...

some fingers (made by Britney)...

some eyeballs (also made by Britney)...

and all sorts of other scary treats that were oh so delicious!

Brycen & Aunt Britney

After we ate we played a Halloween movie trivia game made by our good friend Brian. He did an awesome job with the DVD! Thanks again, Brian, it was fun!

After the game we carved pumpkins. By this time Brycen went to my parents' house with my mom.

Digging out the insides is always a little gross.

Amy was going to a party the next night as Lady Ga-Ga. So she was sporting one piece of her costume the night of our party.

We had to switch off the carving part. Hurts the hands!

And guess who started sitting up on their own over the weekend!

He's growing up way too fast.

Saturday evening we got all packed up to go trick-or-treating at a few family members' houses.

First stop was Grandma Hill's house. Brycen held his own bag so well!

Then we stopped at Aunt Amber and Uncle Che's house.

By this time he was hungry, can you tell?

We took a family picture before the bottle.

He wasn't too happy with us.

So we stripped off the duck and gave him a break.

Next stop: Bill and Teresa's Halloween party. My mom was there along with a few of their friends. Dad had to work that night. I think everybody liked Brycen's costume!

Brycen & Grandma O'Connor

Our last stop was Tyson's parents' house. We had delicious corn chowder in bread bowls. Sooo good! It hit the spot. Tyson's dad tried to take pictures of Brycen in his costume, but he was so out of it! The pictures are funny. We took him out of the duck costume and he perked right back up. That's all he needed!

Brycen's treats from the evening.

Grandma Hill gave the popcorn ball. Yum!

On Halloween we went to church. I had to get a picture of my handsome boys all ready for the day!

After church we put Brycen in his costume for the third time and went to my parents' house for chili and corn bread-a family Halloween tradition. Dad hadn't seen Brycen in his costume yet. He liked it a lot!

Brycen & Grandpa O'Connor

He was pretty happy to get that duck costume off!

Had to get a picture of those thighs.

Hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween!