We're #1!

Some of you may know that besides my full-time job of being Mom to Scott, Charlotte and Trevor, I work part-time for a company called SAS. The brief description of SAS is that it is data analytic software. Any industry you can imagine uses SAS to work with data, including creating reports, extracting information, and complex analytics. My specific job is that I write and teach classes for SAS. For more details about what I do, look at this post from a few years ago.

Today is a big day for our company because SAS was voted #1 as the best company to work for in Fortune magazine. Click here for the full article. And I would totally agree with this assessment. SAS has been an amazing company to work for during the past 9 years. The benefits are terrific and I do feel like they understand that family comes before work. My manager in particular is wonderful and has been willing to accommodate me and all my major life changes, including marriage, moving and 3 kids. Oh, and I also truly believe in the quality of our product, as do the rest of our employees and customers. I feel pretty lucky to work for SAS!

Christmas Wrap-up, Part 1

We did lots of fun things this year to get ready for Christmas.We went to a couple of Christmas parties and saw Santa TWICE!





We decorated (and quickly ate) the gingerbread house.

We decorated the Christmas tree. With the tree on a table and Scott and Charlotte hanging most of the ornaments, 90% of them were on the very bottom branches. Good thing Trevor can't reach them yet!

We went to see the Christmas lights in Rocklin (great job decorating, Biggs!). We watched lots of Christmas shows, including our new favorite: Disney's Prep and Landing. If you didn't see it this year, definitely look out for it next year! Here's a preview and introduction to two new very important elves in our house named Wayne and Lanny. They are responsible for going into homes ahead of Santa, scoping out the place to make sure it is ready, and then setting up a landing strip on the roof for the reindeer.



Scott and Charlotte were probably more excited this year that Wayne and Lanny were coming than Santa. And even though we had an early Christmas with 13168 Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Michael before we headed to St. George, somehow Wayne, Lanny AND Santa managed to find us! Scott got a green razor scooter and Charlotte got a "purple Sleeping Beauty princess bike" - just what they both wanted! Although for a moment Charlotte was more excited about the bottle that came with the bike... Check out the video to see the reaction.

Stay tuned for the next post about our Christmas in Utah...

Snow in Roseville!

Since we live pretty far down in the foothills of the Sierras, we do not get snow. Growing up, I remember it snowing just a few times, with one HUGE storm in particular that knocked out our power for 3 days. So it was a pretty big deal when we woke up to this:


After our exciting Tahoe trip last February, Scott and Charlotte were especially excited to see snow. We just got a dusting in Roseville, but up the road a bit further and Grandma and Grandpa's house it was a Winter Wonderland! So we bundled up and went up for a visit so Scott and Charlotte could make snowmen, snowgirls and snow angels. Can you tell they loved it? Even Trevor enjoyed it - although all he was interested in was eating the snow.

If we have another child...

...our fourth baby would look like this. Meet Drew's new love:



Yes, that is a Tesla -- a battery-powered sports card. Drew is drooling in the picture.

By the way, I jsut arrived in North Carolina for a week of work. Guess what I did during the long flight? Lots of blog posts! So stay tuned for the next few days for several posts about all our December adventures.

Our litte Wookie

We have been trying for months to get on video Trevor doing his Chewbacca immitation... This is the best we've got so far!

How lucky can a 5-year-old get?

Yesterday poor Scott spent the morning throwing up and the afternoon recovering. Here's what he told me today:

"Mom, I was SO lucky yesterday that I didn't have to eat breakfast, lunch OR dinner! I only drank a tiny bit of water. That was so lucky!"

Lucky?!? Really? Please tell me some day this kid will eat willingly.

While I'm writing about Scott and how silly he is, the other day he was very entertained taking pictures with my camera. Here was my favorite sequence of shots:

Charlotte has a lot to be thankful for...

In case you can't read it, my girl is grateful for:

- Blueberries, grapes and raspberries
- Mom & Dad (I made the thankful turkey this year! On Scott's turkeys he was only grateful for my hair.)
- Scott & Trevor
- Nail polish
- Soccer balls
- Churches

So she is healthy, glamorous, athletic AND spiritual!

Thanksgiving at the beach

This year we headed to the "California beach house" (as Scott and Charlotte call it) to enjoy Thanksgiving on Monterey Bay with my family. We had a wonderful time, as usual! The food was awesome, the weather was beautiful and it was so fun to hang out with family! Scott and Charlotte were more interested in feeding the ducks their Thanksgiving dinner rather than eating their own. They ate rolls and drank Martinelli's, leaving the rest for us. How thoughtful of them! Trevor got LOTS of love, especially from my Aunt Nancy and cousin Lindsey... Why is it that he will fall asleep in other peoples' arms, but not mine?


Black Friday Mom, my cousin Alisa and I hit the road at 8am (not bad for a nursing mother) and were off to Del Monte shopping center in Monterey. I know many of you reading this have been shopping there with me at some point... It really wasn't very crowded and we scored some awesome deals at Macy's, Gymboree and Loft. My favorite purchase was a winter white wool coat -- full price $280, marked down to $120, minus my $100 gift card from credit card points, and the final cost was $20! I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy!

Thanksgiving Feast

Scott had a little preview of Thanksgiving today! In anticipation of the big kindergarten feast, Scott was very nervous about the whole event because he was afraid he would have to eat a bunch of food he hates (or that he hasn't ever tried). I convinced him that it would be fun and all he would have to eat would be a roll. Bread is usually safe... I felt better as I was helping to set up and heard several other parents comment that they didn't expect their children to eat anything except the roll and maybe applesauce. So Scott isn't the only picky child in the universe!

All the cute pilgrims and Indians came into the multi-purpose room and sat down to a beautiful meal! Unfortunately most of the food was thrown away, but the rolls were a hit. Good thing I brought 36 for a class of 21!

So spoiled

My birthday was a month ago, so this post is LONG overdue... We got back from Arizona, and waiting for me on my answering machine were about 13 messages from friends calling to wish me a happy birthday! And then I got on my computer and I couldn't believe all the email and Facebook messages from TONS of people also remembering my birthday. And if that wasn't enough to make me feel loved, my dear Friday lunch friends gave me a Cocoa Latte machine with super yummy hot chocolate!



Today was cold and rainy so it was the perfect time to break out the Cocoa Latte and enjoy candy cane hot chocolate... There was a tiny moment today when I wished it was snowing outside while I was inside enjoying my fabulous birthday gift. So THANK YOU to all my wonderful friends for making my birthday special!

Arizona vacation

Now that Jeff and his family live in Gilbert and Drew's brother Christian and his family live in Chandler, we thought it would be fun to take a vacation and go to Arizona! We got to spend time with both families and enjoy the awesome weather. We had our timeshare to use, so we chose the Scottsdale resort, simply based on the fact that they had a waterslide. That is an essential feature on Scott's list of ammenities. Mom and Dad came along to join the party as well... With 4 adults and 3 children, it made the plane ride pretty easy! Once we got the bags checked in and did the security circus, the rest of the flight wasn't bad at all. We had exciting snacks for Scott and Charlotte, and both had an iPod to play games and watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. I will never travel again without those iPods to provide entertainment. So here is summary of all the fun things we did:

• We saw Jeff and Kelly's adorable new house. Kelly made a couple awesome dinners for us. Thanks, Kel!

• Charlotte became a little more brave in the water. She LOVED playing in her 'tiny pool'. We may get her to enjoy the water after all...

• We were snobby and enoyed having lunch brought to us poolside.

• Christian, Candacy, Sydney, Jill and Leah came to hang out with us and swim at the resort.

• Trevor met his 5 Arizona girl cousins. They all love him!

• We had awesome shaved ice at Bahama Bucks! Almost as good as the real thing in Hawaii.

• Scott and Charlotte had their face painted. Charlotte went with pink and purple hearts, and Scott chose the number 99.

• We played at a great place called Makutu's with Jeff, Kelly, Elle and baby Laney. It was an indoor play place with a HUGE tree house and tons of gigantic slides.

• Scott went down the water slide a few hundred times, played some billards and ping pong.

• Aunt Candacy had the magic touch with Trevor. She was able to get that boy to sleep instantaeously.

We had a wonderful time and were so glad we could spend some time with our family!