CHRISTMAS DAY

There is so much anticipation leading up to Christmas Day, that I believe Christmas should be a week long holiday. This was our 3rd Christmas together (4th if you count when we were dating). Clayton and I still have problems sleeping on Christmas Eve. It is pathetic, we are like little kids. Christmas started at 3:00am (yes AM) when we both woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. At 4:00, Clayton begged me go open presents. I felt guilty opening up presents that early so I told him to wait until at least 5:30. That was the longest hour and a half of our lives. Clayton got Guitar Hero III for the Wii. It wasn't much of a surprise since Rachel told him about it at Thanksgiving (thanks Rachel), but he still loved it anyway. I got Dance, Dance Revolution for the Wii, which is awesome! After we packed things up we headed for Jessica and Jared's to see the girls open their presents.

It was fun to see their faces as they opened their presents, especially Chloe's. She didn't know quite what to do with her stuff. Once she figured out that the rocking horse wasn't going to eat her, she had a ball. Later in the afternoon we headed out to my parents.





Brandon got a Wii for Christmas (thanks to Clayton and I getting up at 4:00am the day after Thanksgiving) so Clayton decided to bring Guitar Hero out. I did give it a shot, but was a little upset after I got booed off stage after 10 seconds. I was even more upset when Rachel completed a song on her first attempt. I think she cheated. I don't know how, but I'm sure she rigged it or something. Other than sucking at Guitar Hero, Christmas was great. It really is too short. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Christmas Eve was a busy day! We had two Christmas party's to attend. One for the McMurdie's and the other for my family. Luckily, they weren't at the same time. The McMurdie party was supposed to be at 4:00, but in reality or MST (McMurdie Standard Time) it started at 5:00. We watched a slideshow on the birth of Christ, had a visit by Santa, ate a small dinner and played some games (where Clayton rocked and I rocked not).

Picture of Aubri and Santa. Hadlee, Chloe and Jessica were all sick and had to stay home. At 7:00 Clayton and I had to leave to go eat AGAIN with my family at Rachel and Nate's house. We ate my Christmas bonus (or Clayton's bonus...I can't remember...our places of work are BIG spenders), read the story of Christ's birth in Luke, and gave our gifts to Jesus.




Tydon learned to balance his 28 lb, 11 month body (he is a heavy, heavy kid) on a Christmas present and Nate got to unwrap the tie that Kace made for him.

SPENCER FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY

We had quite the busy weekend. Saturday, we tried to finish up our Christmas shopping. We didn't finish, but we did have some non-Walmart success. Later that night we met up with the Moates's in SLC and went to the Eclipse Christmas Concert. Clayton was a little skeptical about going to see what he calls "N'sync meets the Mormon Tabernacle Choir" or "the Mormon boyband". But, I think he kinda enjoyed it...maybe. After a very sleepless night at Kami's new place, we went to church were we were in the presence of a celebrity. That is right a celebrity by the name of Carole Mikita from Channel 5 (KSL)! Clayton, Kami and I could not keep staring. After we had our dose of spirituality and celebrity, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Spencer's for the annual Christmas Party where we ate a wonderful meal of desserts, taco's and salads. I put desserts first because it would not be a meal at the Spencer's where the desserts did not out number the rest of the food. It is glorious! Later we were visited by Santa. Here are some pics...

I think that Kace gets the "cheesier"gene from his mom. He loves to pose!

This was the first meeting between Santa and Tydon. Tydon didn't know what to think. He just kept staring and staring and staring...

I don't know why Santa felt like he needed to give Clatyon the bunny ears.
I must say that Grandma puts so much work into this party and it always turns out so wonderful. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for everything...We love you!

BRADY JAMES WOODWARD

I did a post a while back about Jessica and Jared's baby known then as Chancho. Well, Chancho was given a name and blessing on Sunday. He will now be refered to as Brady James Woodward. He was really good and didn't cry during the blessing at all. Have I ever mentioned how I like babies that don't cry? They are the best kind. Below is a picture of the cute Woodward family and Grandma Housley.

OH CHRISTMAS TREE

Usually when Clayton and I go Christmas tree shopping it takes us hours to decide on a tree. Not this time. For the last three years we have bought our tree from Merrill's Family Christmas Tree's. This time was no different with the exception that we were there for a total of 8 minutes instead of 80 minutes. It seemed to beckon to us like it wanted to be a part of our lil' duplex living family. Clayton claims that he heard Heavenly Angel's singing Hosannas when he saw it, but then Clayton claims a lot of things. However, this time I believe him because I saw a Heavenly glow surrounding the tree.

We had a hard time driving home because of the size of the tree. The 4 mile trip took us 3 hours and 45 minutes. That is the slowest my "8 speeding tickets on his CURRENT record" husband has EVER driven.
I think Clayton was trying to convince me (and probably himself) that his muscles would be able to carry the tree into the house.
We probably should have removed a wall to get the tree into our house. Trying to get that beast through the door was like trying to flush a microwave down the toilet. But, thanks to my husbands bulging biceps (see picture above) we were able to make it happen. What we didn't realize was that the tree would take up our ENTIRE front room! We pushed it into the corner and cut off branches in the back to give it a Christmas Tree mullet. I still think that it is the best tree ever, mullet and all. And the best part was that Clayton didn't complain ONCE about having to put the lights on. I am so proud of him. Thanks to Shira McMurdie for the ornaments. They have brought us three years of joy...by joy I mean joy in not having to go buy ornaments. Don't think that we are weird for dressing up for out Christmas Tree picture...we were on our way to a baptism and figured that it would look better than if we took the picture in our fat pants and yet to be combed hair.

BYU VS. "Eew-TAH" (UTAH)

I am writing in blue in honor of the COUGARS. Rise and Shout!!! Saturday was the BYU vs Utah football game. What an AWESOME game it was. It was a battle of the field goals for the 1st 3 quarters. Utah scored a touchdown with a few minutes left in the 4th quarter putting them up by one point (BYU 9 UTES 10). BYU took the ball with 1:38 (or something) left in the game. After 3 failed attempts to convert a first down they had no option left but to go for it on 4th and 18. Max Hall threw a beautiful pass to Austin Collie to put BYU in field goal range. After a few penalties by Utah, BYU was all set up for a Harvey Unga touchdown. It was beautiful. The Utes can complain about the last two penalties all they want, but there were missed penalties ALL game. Especially ones that the Utes commited. So that being said...BYU is awesome and the Utes are losers AGAIN. Maybe Kyle Whittingham should have tried an onside kick!!! HaHaHa

Interesting...Rachel and Nate are doing the Clayton and Heidi pose. Hmmm

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Clayton and I were with the Andrew side of the family for Thanksgiving this year. What can I say...I ate A LOT, got sick, let the food digest, felt better, and ate AGAIN. This cycle was repeated numerous times. Why I always do this I will never know. The food was great. Clayton made the best yams (I am not the cook of the family, Clayton is). I must admit I am not a yam fan, but Clayton's are amazing. Most of the family was there, even my uncle Tim and Aunt Tina's family who I have not seen in over 2 years. Food was great, family was great, Thanksgiving was great.

RICHARD SIMMONS

This is the time of year to give thanks. Today, I want to give thanks for cute, curly haired men who look GREAT in spandex shorts! Yes, I am talking about the one and only Richard Simmons. This picture was taken about 5 years ago when Richie came to ICON. At the time I was working in the testing lab and had just got done running on a treadmill. That should explain my awful appearance of no makeup and crazy hair. He is just as crazy in real life as he is on TV. My only wish is that this picture would have shown more of his spandex shorts and white t-shirt with two big eyes on it.

I would also like to give thanks to my friend, Tj who suggested that I post this picture on the blog. It was a great idea. And even though this picture was taken over 5 years ago (pre-Clayton era) it would be unfair of me to not share it so that everyone can appreciate the beauty and energy of the great RICHARD SIMMONS!

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL ON ICE

Friday night Clayton and I took our nieces, Aubri and Hadlee to High School Musical on Ice. I would be lying if I said that I didn't want to go and I knew that the only way I could convince Clayton to go was to invite Aubri and Hadlee. When the show started both girls and I were screaming. I would sing along to all the songs, which I think embarrassed Aubri because she kept hitting me and telling me to stop. I don't know why...I have such a LOVELY voice. Here are some pictures of night.

Believe it or not Clayton really got into it. When we got home that night he went straight to Hollywood video to rent HSM.

WORLD'S LARGEST LEAF PILE

Saturday, Clayton and I raked our leaves. Let it be known to our landlords (if they read this...Rachel and Nate) I believe a deduction off of rent should be taken into consideration for our awesome leaf raking skills. I think that we raked up the largest pile of leaves known to mankind. In case any of you are thinking this is a gross exaggeration we took a picture to prove it.

We didn't want little kids being tempted to jump in our gargantuan pile of leaves and spreading them back into our yard, so Clayton suggested that we slide a bunch of boards with rusty nails under the leaves.

SUBIE 2

Since we sold the escort I figured I should post a picture of our new car (that we bought back in July). We got ANOTHER Subaru Outback Sport. I guess you can say we are a tree hugging, beach loving, Chaco wearing, Subaru family.

Clayton: My wife speaks for herself... I am neither tree hugging nor chaco wearing. However I do love the beach and Subarus... especially this Subaru. It's the best car on the planet...

HALLOWEEN IN THE OFFICE

Since Rachel, Nate and the kids weren't able to come trick-or-treating to us on Halloween they came to see me at the office on Monday.

Kace was the camouflaged Ninja and Tydon is the happy lion. The dragon is named Sammy. He is a friend of Kace's. I think trick-or-treating after Halloween is the best because you score the most candy. You get all the leftovers because people (like me) have eaten too much and don't want any of it in their sights anymore.