Christmas

So, our camera that Branden bought me when we were dating in 2003 died on Christmas of course. I have a whole bunch of Christmas Eve pics that I can't get off of my old camera. Good thing Santa brought us a new camera. Below are pics of Christmas Day.

We went out to Branden's grandma's for lunch and presents. Blake was a tiny bit grouchy for his first Christmas (he's getting teeth!).

Branden's family openning presents.

Our new camera has a cool panoramic picture setting. You take 3 pictures and it puts them into one. This is what our living room looked like on Christmas Day.

On Christmas Day night, we watched Blake. He and Branden and Little Buddy watched How To Train Your Dragon.

Christmas Time Prep

Before we left for Vegas for Thanksgiving, I watched Blake for a little bit. He loved the familiar sound of Modern Warfare on Braylee's Ipod :)

When in Vegas, you must go to the Strip. Here are some rules: 1) Don't take any flyers, booklets or cards that people hand out on the street 2) Don't look down on the sidewalk 3) Don't go to the "pirate" show Treasure Island, it is dirty and is not about pirates

us @ the Eifel Tower

We went to the top of the Stratosphere to ride rides, we snuck fluffy in too.

My dad, Braylee, Max, Max's friend Sorun, and Scott all went on this crazy chair ride that extends you out over the side of the building and spins you.

Branden went on a teeter-totter-like ride the puts you in a rollercoaster car and then when the track tips, you get suspended over the side of the building about 886 feet above the ground. He is over the edge in this pic.

This is right before the track tipped down. He is the 3rd person back.

Back: Branden, Mel's Dad Kris, Mel's Brother Braylee, Mel's Uncle Scott

Front: Mel, Cousin Max, Max's friend Sorun

This weekend, our pretend kids (The Shreiner Kids), came over to "help us" put out our Christmas decorations. I gave them the Kitchen doors to put some Stickees on.

Then we all headed over to the church for our ward Christmas Party. We had a "Night in Bethlehem". Caesar sent a notice that we have to come to be taxed (one can per person for the Utah Food Bank) and counted. We got some coins to buy food and other things at booths set up inside.

Then we all sat on blankets that we brought in the cultural hall and ate the food we bought with our coins.

The Young Men's booth was fruit and nuts. (Ahhh, isn't Branden a cute shepherd)

After we ate our dinner we played dradles (made by a guy in our ward) and watched the story of Jesus' birth be acted out by members of our ward. Branden built the stable where Baby Jesus was born.

And, we invited my mommy to come with us.

2 Halloween Parties 2010!

Disclosure: These pics posted SO OUT OF ORDER...sorry, too lazy to fix!

5th Annual College-Friend Halloween Party
So, Every year (for 5 years) I have hosted a Halloween Party with my friends from college and their spouses (& now there are kids too!). We had Pumpkin breadbowls and everyone brought some soup to share. (and we had YUMMY stuffed mushrooms). Then, after dinner we always carve pumpkins. Below are some pics from the night (I was bad with the camera and didn't get ANY pics of my friends).

I LOVE this little guy!

My pumpkin is the Owl and Branden's is the scary fire dude.

Chocolate trees for my Halloween Haunted Castle (pic comes later)

Owls pre-hair

LtoR: My cousin Amanda, My Aunt Ann, and my momma helped me start my cupcakes the night before the party!. Always so much fun to be able to the the Jensens

(notice there is no apostrophe in "Jensens"....nothing belongs to the Jensens...there's just more than one of them.......PLEASE notice since it's almost time for people to start handing out Christmas neighbor gifts....please do not write "Merry Christmas from the Wilson's"! (cringe) It drives me freaking crazy!!! THERE IS NO APOSTROPHE (I am reading a punctuation book written by me in my former life. She totally gets me....I'll have to blog about my extreme HATE for the incorrect use of apostrophes later)...Back to the parties........

1st Annual Work-Friend Halloween Party

So, I wanted to spread the Halloween Party love to my new co-workers (the ones that happen to be my friends)...only one problem....they all live in Davis county and some (I'm not naming names) refused to make the long drive to Eagle Mountain....so THANKS to the ECHOLS for leting us crash their house for the party! Same Party M.O. as the College-Friend party....pumpkin breadbowls (Thanks Lehi Bakery!) and then pumpkin carving!

RtoL: Bruce, Carter, Branden, JD, Spencer, Zak, and Erin
carving their pumpkins in Arron's basement

Cookies that Arron's one-armed-wife (that he lovingly has named "The One Armed Bandit") made for the party. She actually has 2 arms....but she had shoulder surgery this week (I know, you are thinking how nice of her to let us have a party at her house just days after shoulder surgery!)

Me in my "I kissed a ghoul and liked it shirt" from Wal-mart with my mini haunted castle (no time for doors and windows this time). I hate almost all things holiday...so the cupcakes and the shirt are all you are getting for me :)

Spencer & Zak (JD's boys) and Carter (Bruce & Mitzi's)

OK, so Carter has more energy than any 2 year old I have ever seen. His mom says that he "was born knowing how to dance." I know...you're thinking what a sterotype, problem is...this time it's true. This kid honestly dances while walking! Mitzi says 3 year-old hip hop classes are in his future. He was running around, dancing, break dancing on the floor, wrestling Zak and Spencer, rolling his arms 70s style, "raising the roof". And everytime the camera gets close to him......he hams it up big time. No one knew he was doing this until the flashes went off on the cameras....and of course....laughter ensued.

us :)

Can I just tell you how much I love Branden?? He is the best person! JD's boys needed help with their pumpkins (and spencer wanted to do 2 of them)...so Branden helped Zak carve his pumpkin while JD carved the coolest pumpkin of the night....a howling wolf on a white pumpkin.

The boys loved the haloween glasses I bought for their treat bags (thanks again to the One Armed Bandit who put the bags together).

One Armed Bandit (Miss Lisa Echols), Giggly Cheeks Gabers (Baby Gabe), and Daddy (Arron)

See, I told you the kids loved the glasses. Carter was convinced he needed to wear them while carving. You can;t tell in this pic, but when I brought the camera over by him, he sawed his knife back and forth as fast as he could while at the same time turning to look at me with extreme cheese smile. SUCH A HAM! Their pumpkin looked like it had a stroke because carter insisted on carving the mouth on one side :)

The whole gang. Carter seriously knows how to pose for a pic.

Gotta Love Conference Weekeknd!!

Branden with Blake a few weeks ago. So glad Blake and Manda are coming over tomorrow for a BBQ after conference!


Branden and Little Buddy during the 2nd Saturday Session of conference :)

Adoption smoption - Need UR Help!

A few days before labor day, we were packing for our trip to Bear Lake with my family for the Labor Day weekend. Branden said he felt like there was something we needed to do at home that weekend but wasn't sure what it was. I got mad at first because I thought he was jsut trying to get out of haning our with my family, but we talked about it and I realized he really felt like there was something we needed to do. So, we decided to continue on with our plans ans just leave a day later and see if anything came up. Things went smoothly for the next few days and we got all of our chores done before we left. As we closed the garage door, our adoption case worker called and said she needed to set up an interview since she was just assigned as our caseworker. She said she could set up an appointment about a month out, & I was in tears because I just felt like this was yet another adoption delay in the LONG PAINFUL process! But she said that she had a last minute openning and if we could be there in 10 minutes, we could meet with her!!! On the way to the agency, Branden and I felt so relieved that "that thing" we needed to do was fianally revealed after we had been worrying about it for days! We went to our meeting (found out they lost a ton of our stuff, of course) and then went to Bear Lake and had a great time.

Since then, I have started working on the million questions we have to answer for our adoption stuff and have been stressing about it. My boss and his wife just started turning in adoption papers for their second adoption about 2 weeks ago (through a different agency), so I was kind-of looking forward to talking to him about my adoption woes at work on Monday. Well, when I got to work, there was an email from my boss saying that unexpectedly his caseworker had called and he and his wife were on a plane to pick up a baby girl. It was so hard to be excited for them since I was having a hard time with our adoption process and it only took them 2 WEEKS from beginning to end! Needless to say, this week has been emotionally draining for me.

So, the past 2 weeks has been filled with Adoption drama. And on top of it all, I can't think of a good adoption blog name. Any suggestions? Here's the criteria:
1. Can't have our names in it because no one will ever spell them right (and therefore, will never get to our blog Brandenandmelaneeadopt won't work :) )
2. Can't use our Last Name
3. I want it to be clear from the name that it is an adoption blog (my friend Lisa suggested some cute ones, but do you think it is clear enough that it's an adoption blog: missingonlymesses and justaddbaby)

SOMEBODY HELP!!

Adam and the Airforce

Branden's brother's (Kevin) wife's (Amanda) brother Adam is going to Afghanistan soon (he's an airforce medic), so we had a surprise BBQ for him last night. So, of course, I took some cupcakes!

My-Work-Friend-Arron's Birthday

Arron's wife brought this poster to our work yesterday. I kept it in my car and put it up this morning before he got in.

I made Arron a littl tripple chocolate fudge cake with chocolate and Oreo filling in the middle, 2 different types of chocolate frosting on top with crushed up oreos in between the frosting on top! YUM!

I just love 'em