IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

I always LOVE the day after Thanksgiving because that means it is Christmas!! Most people can't wait for Black Friday to shop, I have most of my shopping done so I can't wait for the day after because that means it is officially the holiday season. The Christmas music is turned on, the cinnamon candles burns and the Christmas decorations come out. Decorating for Christmas at our house is a major event- the main floor of our house is transformed. Did I mention that I LOVE Christmas. We have been collection Christmas decorations for as long as I can remember. When I was younger I would get Nutcrackers when I would travel to Germany to see my Aunt Linda and have kept up that tradition when we travel there & Joey has added to the tradition by giving the family a new Nutcracker every year on December 1st. We also have collected nativity scenes and add a different one every year to the collection. We also have several snow globes, Santas and little Christmas trees made out of different things like metal and cloth that we like to put out. All of our coffee table books are put away and the Christmas books are pulled out and read by all of us. All of the pictures on the walls come down and Christmas pictures go up. It is a two day even the decorations take a day and then decorating the tree is the second day. In the middle of the decorating we always have time to stop for a nice warm cup of Hot Chocolate with marshmallows that Addie is a pro at making. I can't wait every year for the holiday season and am always sad when they are over. Like I said "It's the most wonderful time of the year."

OUR 1st THANKSGIVING

We had our first Thanksgiving at home this year. We do every other year with my parents and siblings & up until a few years ago had dinner with the Linebaughs, my mom's side of the family on the opposite year. This year since it was the odd year we decided to have our own Thanksgiving dinner. I prepared as much as I could before Thursday so it would be easier. I premade 3 pies, sweet potatoe casserole, gravy & salad dressing as well as toasted the nuts for the salad. This was supposed to make Thanksgiving easier. There is still so much you can't do in advance like rolls, corn, mashed potatoes and the turkey. Everyone was in charge of different parts of dinner- divide and conquer. Addie preset the table and made name plates for everyone. I premade a menu that sat at each persons place setting. On Thanksgiving day everyone had jobs as well. Joey was in charge of the turkey. Luckily Martha Stewart was on the Today Show showing how to make a moist turkey so we followed her step by step. I made the stuffing & mashed potatoes. Addie made Orange Rolls that melted in your mouth- ask Nicholas how much he liked them or how many he ate. Nicholas was in charge of corn and the drink, which was a cranberry spritzer. Maia made the cranberry salad & had also premade a 4th pie - Tollhouse- delicious. The turkey turned out perfect & moist- I think the four (yes four) cubes of butter that Joey basted on the turkey every 30 minutes helped with that. The dinner ended up being delicious and nice to be home where we could enjoy laying around on the couch watching movies and the traditional Thanksgiving Cowboys Game. I was just "Thankful" that our turkey worked & Macy - the puppy- was happy to eat all the scraps of the floor.

NEW YORK CITY

We had more fun in New York City. We saw a few more shows The Adams Family, Billy Elliott and the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show that stars the Rockettes. I secretly have always wanted to see the Rockettes so that was great. We wandered around Central Park and walked up and down 5th Avenue. We ate at lots of restaurants including our favorite Mexican restaurant, Dos Caminos, where we get the best Guacamole. We also meet our friend Cate who moved back to NYC from SLC. We meet Cate at a fun restaurant in the Chelsea area called 202 for brunch and then did a walk along The Highline Trail, a fun walking trail along an old railroad track.

ADAMS FAMILY

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BILLY ELLIOTT

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I LOVE MUSEUMS & BROADWAY

I came in to NYC to meet Joey on the redeye flight- yes that means I am a little tired. Joey had meetings so I went out by myself for the day after I tried & failed at sleeping. I love the Museum of Modern Art so I walked down there from our hotel. Like usual I get so excited to see what the next painting is going to be I have to try & control myself & not run from room to room. They have so many great paintings from Van Gogh to Monet to Warhall. I love it!! I also got a delicious lunch, blue cheese tart with salad, in the restaurant looking over the sculpture garden. After several hours with a huge smile on my face Joey called and was done without his meetings so I headed back to the hotel.

For the evening we had dinner reservations & tickets to a show with Nat- one of Joey's employees. The restaurant we went to was Cuban and was good but the show was awesome. Getting to the show we couldn't get a cab- rush hour- so we had a guy pull us in his rickshaw. If you think taxi drivers are crazy try this at rush hour- I don't know how we lived!! The driver was pulling in-between cars- getting honked at- then he caught the mirror of a parked van. Yes, it did jerk us to a stop - we had to backup and get uncaught- of course it was on my side & the owner of the van was sitting in it. We did make it to the show and loved it. Sean Hayes played the main part with Kristin Chenoweth and then Molly Shannon was In a couple unforgettable scenes. The play was great but with the few parts with Molly Shannon it was very funny .

FUNNY

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I love the MOMA in NYC

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MISSING SCHOOL AGAIN??

Nikko has been home from school for three days now with some sort of stomach thing. I figured after three days it was time to go to the doctor and see if we can get help. He isn't throwing up or having any other stomach issues - you know what I mean. He is eating at meals and isn't sleeping all day so I am not sure what is wrong except that his stomach hurts. We went to see his Dr who really couldn't give us any solid answers. He did suggest that we go have lab work done because it could be his pancreas or some other odd thing or maybe just a pulled muscle in his stomach or maybe even just really bad heartburn. Nicholas has never had blood drawn so it was an experience for him. The "just was a pinch" part was okay, just after the pinch was not. When I asked him if he was okay he said "I feel really dizzy." At that point he was rushed to the room next door so he could lay down and not faint. After a few minutes, okay maybe about 10, he felt like he was able to get up and head home. Now we wait to see if his is going to live...

JUST A LITTLE PINCH

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DIZZY

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1 OF 17

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PARTY ANIMALS

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WE REALLY "FELT" IT THIS WEEKEND

We had the annual Bradley Girls Trip this weekend in St. George at Grandpa's condo. It was AWESOME. We ate, laughed, shopped, laughed, CRAFTED and then laughed some more. I flew down Friday morning because I had book group on Thursday night. Once I got there Barb, Lisa and their girls picked me up we went to the condo where Jill Dorrough was and waited for Judy, Stacy and Jenn to come over. From there the party started.

We started shopping at Taipan where I got a new nativity scene and a couple new angels for Christmas. YEAH!! Then we all meet back at the condo and started the craft- a Happy Birthday Felt banner. This turned into a felt banner marathon, I kid you not. We all have so many creative juices that this turned into a felt banner weekend. Many hands make light work- right? We went from Happy Birthday, to BOO, to Give Thanks and on and on and on through every holiday and of course adding the names of our children and then our favorite person of all- our husbands. I ended up with 17 banners, yes I did just go count them. I love when we were starting a new banner and we would ask "Who's in?" and then you would see 9 hands pop up in the air & the assembly line would start again. The best part was the talking and laughing that went along with making them.

We also had the outing to the craft store to get ribbon for the felt signs. All ten of us there to divide and conquer. Maybe it works better if we are all on the same aisle looking at buttons and ribbons together. Also it is better if all of us are standing in the check out line together, we don't want to loose each other. The only problem checking out was we didn't realize that we had to have the ribbon cut & priced. We had people running back and forth trying to get cuts & prices on the ribbon while the the cashier was ringing up what we had. I just watched as people in the line behind us gradually moved to the next line over.

We had great food all weekend thanks to Jill who loves to cook. She made dinner both nights, delicious blueberry struesel cake, brownies & cookies. Barb made her traditional pumpkin waffles, I was worried about them but were delicious, her families tradition on Thanksgiving morning. There was a pile of treats that everyone brought down that were always available. Needless to say we did not go hungry. I only had to drive down to get a diet coke once each day or bribe someone to get one for me.

We played some new games that I am excited play with the kids and also had a favorites gift exchange. With this exchange you get 3 things that are your favorite that are under $5 and then we draw names and exchange them with everyone else. I got three things of Bubble Bath for my favorite thing and them ended up getting a ouch-less brush from Stacy, a hand knit hat from Jill and a star napkin holder and napkins from Lisa with a cool pan scrapper that I can't wait to use.

There was one rule I think we need to consider changing for the weekend. We all have to go to bed at the same time- these Bradley Girls party all night long. I can barely keep my eyes open to type this trying from fatigue. The amazing thing is when you are crafting until two in the morning you really don't even realize that it is that late until two days later when you are dragging!!

I "felt" I had a great weekend and wish I were still there in the sunny St George weather not looking outside at the snow storm swirling around my house. Can't wait for next year.

VEGAS

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WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS- NEVER MIND WE HAVE KIDS

We went down to Las Vegas for the Great Pumpkin Tennis Tournament over Halloween weekend. I drove down with the kids and Joey flew in from a meeting In CA. The first couple of days we had so many tennis matches I thought I was going to eat, sleep and dream tennis. In one day we had 8 matches at 4 different tennis clubs. Addison & Nikko both won there first rounds- this was a total surprise especially for Addie. I told Addie don't worry about winning down here- these kid are all older than you and better and this is to give you experience for down the road. Needless to say she won quite easily with two aces. Once Nikko got to his match it is even more impressive he won. I gave Joey the wrong address for his sight, I read the instruction sheet wrong and gave him one to another club. Once he got there they sent him to the correct sight- which was wrong. This then happened again. By the time the got to the right sight he was 27 minutes late & 3 minutes short of a deault. Nikko got a 3 game penalty and Joey was upset by the entire situation. Only a little- he throws his cell phone all the time, right? I was on the phone crying at the time had her victory! CRAP!! I guess we should have Nikko arrive late more often because he was on fire and beet the kid quite easily as well!

Between cabs, cars, waiting, shoving our kids in friends cars and even riding with strangers we made it to all the rest of the tennis matches. Okay, not really a stranger, but I meet Addies opponents Mom during their match and she was heading near Nikkos next match where Joey already was so she dropped me and Addie off- very nice.

We were down there for Halloween weekend so I called Favorite Aunt Barb to see what there was to do and she invited us to her ward Trunk-Or-Treat. It was great, we went and had a chili dinner and then the kids got candy. We ended up bring a bunch of tennis families with us so all of those kids felt like they had a Halloween even though they weren't home trick or treating. We closed the place down. There was no one left but our tennis families and those kids just run around and have a great time together.

After we were finished with the tennis we stayed for a few more days since we had the hotel room and just enjoyed. We spent a morning at the outlet mall. We spent a day wandering the strip. We got brunch where we went last time with Emily, our nanny that moved to Vegas. Nikko has been talking about this place since last spring because of the amount & variety of food offered. Maia has been talking about it as well because last time she had a tennis match after we went so she couldn't really enjoy- she only got to eat pasta. Addie has been talking about her unlimited trips to the ice cream bar. Addie seemed to find the ice cream bar again no problem.

My favorite thing we did was go to the Lion King. I loved it. It was amazing to see all the ways the turned people into animals and the way there bodies moved to move like the animals. Of course Nikko feel asleep and Joey said it was painful but Joey said Wicked was painful and actually feel asleep there.

FONDUE PLATE

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Matt's Stupid Gourmet Chef Thing

Okay, so maybe we didn't know all of the rules or expectations but I thought we did a pretty good job. We were told that the requirements were that the day before the cook-off at 5:00 we would be told what the key ingredient from Matt's garden would be and then we had 24 hours to come up with recipes using that ingredient. We would be judged on taste, appearance and the use of other local ingredients & involvement of entire team.

The secret ingredient was revealed- peppers. Joey and I came up with a great idea, fondue. We would do a cheese and a chocolate fondue. Sticking to the stupid rules we went to Pirate O's, a local store that is expensive as hell, and bought all of our ingredients totaling over $100. In the end that didn't matter to the stupid judges, we should of gone to Costco.

The entire family, Team Sepy, helped make the fondue. Addison chopped peppers and then started making the chocolate fondue. She got chocolate on her fingers and then licked it off and realized that her fingers had been chopping the peppers and her mouth was on fire. We gave her bread and tried to calm her mouth down. I then got something in my eye and rubbed it only to realize that I had been chopping peppers as well. Holy @#&*$#! My eyes were on fire. Maia then read online that you should pour milk into your eye to help the pain. Joey got the milk out and I realized that I wasn't going to just pour it over my face. I got a medicine syringe out and put milk in it and pushed it into my eye. After about four shots of it I started to feel better. I hate peppers.

We proceed to go to Luke's house, with strict rules that we had to be ready for judging at 6:30. Where was Matt? Not there at 6:30. We also then realized that this was big time! Many of the people who had done this before had presentation plates with each of their different items to display- like a 5 star restaurant. CRAP! How do you display fondue? Ours tasted really good but how do you display it on a presentation plate where the judges would taste it 30 minutes later. We tried but by the time the cheese and chocolate sauces sat on bread & cookies for 30 minutes their presentation as well as their taste, I'm sure, was not as great as it tasted coming out of the fondue pots hot. Not to mention while we are waiting for judging for 30-40 minutes the fondues were burning and then getting cold waiting for people to actually be able to eat then.

We were robbed!! Ours was really good but we didn't know we were competing against- people who literally spent the entire day preparing gourmet dishes and had presentation plates with fresh flowers on them to help sell the item. If they had actually tasted our delicious cheese & chocolate fondue from the pot with our beautiful arrangement of breads, cookies, fruit, pretzels, marshmallows we would have won.

The cheese sauce was all gone by the time we left. We did have some chocolate fondue left that we put in the fridge to try later. Let me remind you that over time things maybe get more flavorful, especially peppers. Hard to believe that is was to spicy for me to eat the next day- I thought that was impossible.