Thanksgiving

This year we went to my Parents home for Thanksgiving and Chris's family went too. We were in charge of bringing the green bean casserole. Which Chris ended up making cause I was busy making other things.

Brooklyn woke up around seven and got in bed with us. I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and decided to bake an apple pie. Chris had mentioned a few days earlier that he hoped there would be apple pie since its his favorite. Its been a few years since I've made a pie and luckily we had just enough apples. I think the pie turned out pretty good.... Chris had three pieces. Next time I'll have to try making a gluten free pie.

Oh and everyone loved the Turkey cake balls. I can't wait to make some for Christmas :)

Gobble Gobble

My friend Amy from work recently got the neatest book "Cake Pops" by bakerella. Amy showed me the picture of the turkeys and said how she was going to make them.... so I copied her. These took forever and they probably weren't the easiest design to start with. But I had fun making them and am excited to take them with me to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Brooklyn On The Bus

Brooklyn is such a talkative girl. She loves to tell people stories. This video is from when we were on the bus on our way to Mickey's Halloween party.

California and Disneyland

We were so blessed to be able to take a trip to Disneyland over Halloween this year. We left on the Wednesday before Halloween and came back that Sunday. It was so fun to take Brooklyn and it was great to go with my side of the family.

Chris said he had fun going to Disneyland when he went by himself but that it was so much more fun to take Brooklyn. He pointed out that maybe we didn't get to go on all the rides we wanted exactly when we wanted to go on them but it was totally worth it to see Brooklyn get so excited about so many things.

Brooklyn was such a trooper she got up early and went to bed late. She hardly ever got upset about anything and was always so excited about everything.



This was on our way to Disneyland on the bus. We were all super excited.



At the main gates... ready to go in.

In front of the castle.

I had to post this picture... Every time we tell Brooklyn we're going to take a picture of her she has to pose. She is so cute. Most of the time she'll smile and then she'll stick her leg out like this and just about falls over. We have lots of blurry pictures of her because she can't hold very still when she is posing.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Brooklyn was Sleeping Beauty for Halloween. She is such a beautiful Princess. We went to Mickey's Halloween party and there were a lot of other little girls dressed up as princesses. Brooklyn made sure to tell all the the little girls that were princesses that they looked beautiful.

She was so excited about everything she was talking to everyone about everything and even offered to pay for some people on the bus to go to the party. I loved it when one little girl came up to her while we were standing in line to see the princesses and just started talking to Brooklyn and touched her crown and told her it was so pretty, the little girls mom quickly came over and told her to leave Brooklyn alone. I quickly told the mother this girl was so cute and just what we needed because that was what Brooklyn was doing to everyone else.

They load you up with candy at Mickey's party. We didn't even make it to all of the trick-or-treat stations.

We were lucky and ran into Belle as we were walking through the park. Brooklyn just sat down and had a nice little chat with Belle. Belle asked Brooklyn if she was going to be a kitty cat for Halloween because she had a cat on her shirt and Brooklyn said yes. Brookie is so full of it sometimes and I love it :) She also told her how we were going to Jack's house but Jack in the house isn't real they're just dummies. She was big on telling people they're not real they're just dummies, she even told one girl she kills dummies and spiders with her hands. I really don't know where she comes up with this stuff.

This was leaving Disneyland the last day and Brookie was so sad. She was also so tired.

This is what happened when we told her to say "Goodbye Disneyland"... I guess we should have known this would happen.

Before we went home we made a stop at the Beach. Brooklyn loved the beach she was sitting in the sand digging before we had even paid for parking.

Brooklyn asked if we were going to put our hands in the Ocean and I told her that we would put our feet in the water. I didn't think she would like it very much I thought it would be too cold.

Apparently I was wrong...

Brookie loved the water. She wanted to go deeper and kept trying to sit down in the water. Luckily it wasn't too difficult to get to dry clothes for everyone.

Hockey

Chris is playing hockey again! His games are on Monday nights so feel free to come out and support him.

Two Weeks

We've been having fun with Brooklyn the last two weeks. We love getting to spend time with the little munchkin.

We have gone to play at the Tree House in the mall, the park (with Julie and Melanie), Toy Story 3, Enchanted at the park, Grandma Debbie's and Grandpa Mike's, Grandma Josh's, and we even went to the dinosaur museum. We've had popsicles in the tub and gone out for ice cream. Cried over raisins dropped in the parking lot and missed some much needed naps.

Since she has been with us she has gotten so much better at going to bed. She gets a little sad and wants to cuddle with us but after we read a story, sing a song and have a prayer she goes to sleep pretty quick. She also loves to say prayers, she even helped her Aunt Amanda say the prayer at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Sunday. She loves to help with everything, she helped with the laundry and dishes and is really good at picking up her toys. She loves to play like I'm the mom of either the baby doll or baby Cinderella and she is the baby sitter and helps me take care of the babies.

Brookie loves water, oatmeal, raisins, cheese, marshmallows, marshmallow mateys, gram cracker cookies with vanilla frosting, bananas, strawberries and quesadillas just to name a few.

If any of you know me you know I love Cafe Rio. On our way to Toy Story 3 Brooklyn told me she wanted a quesadilla with a strawberry on the plate... otherwise known as a kids quesadilla at Cafe Rio. Its fun that she likes Cafe Rio about as much as I do :)

Our time has been so much fun! We are sad it is almost over and look forward next time.

Happy Birthday Chris!

Yesterday Chris turned 27!

We had a family party for him on Sunday. I tried to make a Batman Cake but the easy Fondant recipe I found didn't turn out to be so easy. I finally got the bat to work but the yellow fondant stuck to the wax paper and ended up in the trash. So we had a Chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate frosting with a black bat on top. I thought it was funny. It was so nice of everyone to come to his party. He has so many people that love him.

Last night... his actual birthday... we went to an Owlz game with Brett and Jenna and Bryce. Who are moving to New York next week. Everyone is moving away for medical school and I really would just rather they not move away lol. We had so much fun at the game even though they lost. I think we are going to have to go again sometime soon.

Chris- I love you so much and I am grateful for what you do for our family. I hope you had a wonderful birthday.

Ahhh Summertime

We've done lots of things that I haven't blogged about. Partially because I want to post pictures but never remember to post when I'm home.

For our anniversary we went to Las Vegas. We stayed with Chris's Aunt and Uncle Alba. Their house was beautiful. It was recently rebuilt because it burned down a few years ago. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose everything in a fire.

While we were in Las Vegas we walked around a lot....a lot a lot. I have a weird bruise on my toenail to prove it (its gross, I know). We went to Madam Tussuad's wax museum, the Cirque show Ka (this was our favorite it was like crouching tiger hidden dragon in person), and to The Kings Tournament dinner show. We had so much fun and enjoyed our little get away together.

For the fourth of July we went to Park City and rode the Coaster and the Alpine Slide. It was busy but not as busy as I thought it would be. I think the fact that there are so many different things to do in Park City now help with the lines not being so long. After Park City we went to Karen and Guenthers for Andrea's birthday and fireworks.

A few weeks ago we went swimming at the Veterans Pool in Provo and took Brookie and Josh. It was fun. It might have been a little more fun had it not decided to rain.

The weekend of the 24th we had a primary party Saturday morning. They had all kinds of fun activities. I'll have to post some pictures later. My favorite game to watch was where they had a couple of buckets filled with water and you would get a can with holes in the bottom and you had to use the can with holes in it and run from bucket to bucket before the water was all gone. Everyone who played that game got soaked. They had pickles and watermelon and bread with fresh made butter. There was fake buffalo poop... Brooklyn looooved it. :)

We also saw Despicable Me. It is so funny and cute. Brooklyn's favorite thing to tell people about the movie was that "The guy shook his butt". She cracks me up.

That night Brooklyn and I went to a BBQ with Becky and Angie and their families and then we went to watch the Fireworks in Spanish Fork. Brooklyn loved playing with McKenna, Audrey, Lauren, Parker, Jared and oh my goodness I forgot his name... Kelly's little boy... don't worry it will come to me later.

Frustrating

The last month or so has been frustrating.

It's frustrating when you don't know who you can trust. People don't do their jobs. They don't return numerous messages. Finding out things happened in the past and you weren't notified. Finding out that things said don't matter for one reason or another.

It's frustrating when you feel like you are doing and have done everything you can but it doesn't change anything.

It's frustrating that despite everything you have done people think it's not enough. People think that somehow there is something else that you can do even though you have been told you can not.

It's frustrating to wait. Its frustrating to lose time. It's frustrating to miss holidays. It's frustrating when you feel like the people being protected are the wrong people to be protected.

Sometimes life is just frustrating....

Carl's Jr

The weekend was great. We had so much fun camping with the fam. I'll post more later and maybe some pictures.

The Story...

My Mom had mentioned us eating before we came up to camp on Friday so we decided to just pick something up on our way.

We stopped at Carl's Jr. They will wrap their hamburgers in lettuce if you ask for it in a wrap and its great; especially when you can't eat wheat. It feels like you're eating a real hamburger not just a hamburger salad which is what it feels like when you eat it with a fork and a knife on a bed of lettuce.... sorry I got side tracked.

Back to the story-

We pull up to order at the drive thru and I tell Chris what I want and he starts to order for me and then from our back seat we hear a little voice say "I want a number three." We had asked Brooklyn if she wanted chicken nuggets or fries and she didn't she just wanted a number three.

Excited for the Weekend!

I am so excited for this long weekend. We have Brooklyn for this holiday weekend and both Chris and I have Monday off. Its going to be fabulous.

We're going camping with my family. My parents decided to go camping up American Fork canyon somewhere because there would be hopefully less snow.

....At least that's what I thought they were doing. I guess they picked a campground that still has snow and the campground hosts (or whatever they're called) have seen bear tracks the last couple of days.

I'm hoping our camping venture isn't too exciting.

Adventures at the Movies

Monday night Chris and I had a date. We went to The Spaghetti Factory and saw Letters to Juliet. Dinner was wonderfully delicious and very fast. I was worried we wouldn't have time to go to a sit down place for dinner before the movie... but we did and we had plenty of time.

After dinner we headed over to the movie. We were probably 30 minutes early which was fine with me. There was only one other couple in the theater when we got there and they were sitting in the very middle of the theater so we decided to sit on the top row in the middle... great seats. Being a Monday night I thought there wouldn't be very many people but I was wrong.

Right before the movie started tons of people came in and most of the seats were filled. The movie starts and guess what happens. This group of ladies comes in and asks Chris if we would mind moving... I really wish I would have thought about this before I moved.

We moved down about three seats next to a girl eating a pickle and closer to the guy with the nasty cologne that permeated the entire theater. Then the ladies that asked us to move were really loud and obnoxious the entire movie, acting like they were at home watching the movie. They laughed at parts that weren't funny and shared their opinions with each other a little too loudly.

At one point the girl with the pickle's cell phone rang. The girl in front of us got out her phone and was texting someone. Chris also said one of the ladies that asked us to move got out her cell phone too.

I don't understand... Why is this okay?

I thought you were being nice...

This past weekend when we had Brooklyn, her mom sent her with some cucumbers which supposedly she loves.... she didn't seem to love them at our house.


Saturday night we asked her if she wanted some cucumbers and she said yes. So, we put some on a plate for her. She was taking forever to eat them and didn't really seem interested in them and kept turning around. She wanted some tortilla chips and I told her she could have some once she finished her cucumbers. I ended up putting them away because she wasn't eating them just playing.

Brooklyn : I want some chips.

Me: Nope, you can't have any chips right now because you didn't finish your cucumbers.

Brooklyn: But.. I will finish them.

Me: We already gave you two chances. You can try again in a little bit.

Brooklyn: (Crying starts) Jessica I thought you were being nice to me.

At this point it was probably good that she ran to her room cause it made both me and Chris laugh.... its hard not to laugh at your kids sometimes.

The Zoo

We went to the Zoo last weekend... it was so busy! I've never been to the zoo when it was that busy. I think maybe it had something to do with it being the opening weekend for the Natures Nightmares (which was not worth the line we stood in).


The zoo no longer has bears, lions, hippos or zebras. I also think they must have moved their penguins to the Aquarium in Sandy because they only had a couple of penguins and they both looked sick.

Getting to watch them train a leopard and feed the giraffes a treat totally made up for all the animals being gone.

Brooklyn told us all of the animals were sad because " They miss their mommy". Brookie had so much fun seeing all of the animals and walking around with her Aunt Amanda and Lauren. It totally wore her out. She didn't get the chance to take a nap before we got to the zoo. When we left she fell asleep before we even got out of the parking lot. Poor little Booger... we sure do love her.

Clogging Shoes!!!

I did it... Today I went out and got some shoes for Brooklyn and they're putting the taps on right now!!! Eeek! I'm so excited :) I think she's going to love them.

I'll have to post some pictures or a video later.

Happy Weekend!

Things on my want list...

Clogging...

First of all Chris and I have been wanting to get Brooklyn some clogging shoes. She always talks about her dancing shoes and we think she would really like it. We're hoping that maybe if we get Brooklyn excited about it maybe she'll talk to her mom enough about it that she'll put her in lessons. It stinks that we don't really get to decide what she is involved in since we only get her every other weekend.

I also want to try to get back into clogging. I clogged for most of my life and actually started when I was around Brooklyn's age. I know there is a clogging studio in Orem so I emailed them and hopefully I'll figure something out. Clogging is also really good exercise and is much more fun then going to the gym (in my opinion anyway).

Family pictures

I really want to get family pictures taken. I feel bad that all the pictures we have hung in our apartment are of me and Chris from our wedding. Its crazy to think it's almost been a year since we were married and we have all changed so much in the past year.... its just time for new pictures.

Our wedding photographer spoiled us... he is one of Chris's mission buddies so we got a really good price and he took lots of amazing pictures. Unfortunately he moved to Colorado (I think) and so it would be a little difficult for him to take our family pictures. Ugh

Vacation

I want to go on a Vacation! We had thought about going somewhere for our anniversary... California or Vegas. I'm hoping maybe we can go somewhere for a couple of days.

We've talked to my parents about the possibility of taking a trip to Disneyland later in the year.... I think a certain little girl I know would really like that.

My Hair.

For a long time I've been having trouble with my hair not turning out the color that I want it. I always say I want a blackbrown color but somehow it always ends up a medium brown color. And I don't know if my hair is growing really fast or if the color is just not sticking to my hair... I have a faint skunk stripe where my part is. Luckily its not grey yet. I'm thinking about just trying to dye it black and maybe when it fades a little it will be the right color. Meh we'll see :)

Long time no post.

I haven't posted in a long time. I have had a few friends who... it wasn't directed at me... but they have complained that people only post about their children and post lots of pictures and it made me feel self consious about posting. I feel like I do post a lot about Brooklyn but the weekends we have her are usually the weekends that we do exciting things.

So.... What's new in the Draudts lives:

Chris:

Chris's work started being open Saturday nights. It pretty much stinks the only nice thing I have found is the extra overtime on his paychecks.

Hockey ended and his team wasn't able to get back together for the summer. They gave him a list of people that wanted to play hockey but didn't have a team and most of the people either couldn't play for the summer or had already found a team. He was a little bummed about it.

Brooklyn:

Brookie is growing so fast. She loves to sing and dance and run around. We've taken her ice skating and she did really well. She enjoys playing with her cousins and Mike and Debbie. We've suggested to her that she call them Grandma and Grandpa but she prefers to call them Mike and Debbie.

It must be confusing to her to have so many people in her life. While she was here last weekend I asked her what I was and she said "My Aunt?" I tried to explain to her that I'm her step mom just like her other Dad is her Step Dad. I'm not quite sure she understood.

Me:

I have been doing weight watchers since about October and let me tell you it really works. I've lost a good amount of weight... I still have a ways to go. Weight watchers has message boards on their website where you can go for support. I read the message boards durring the slow times at work. Just like I am with most things I tend to lurk more then I post. Lately I've feel like a creepy stalker because I know way to much about some of the peoples lives that post lol.

A lot of times when I tell Chris stories he asks if I heard it from the weight watchers boards... many times he's right.

One day a girl on the weight watchers boards posted a link to a blog so I clicked on it and read all about this girl and her giving birth. She is pretty funny and seems to be pretty accident prone. While she was pregnant she pee'd her pants at the grocery store and passed out in a Banana Republic. Here is a link to her blog if you have some spare time http://omgmom.blogspot.com/.

New Years

We didn't make plans for New Years eve but we had so much fun. Let me tell you... everyone should try sing star it is so much fun. I'm getting ahead of myself.


We figured out that Pier 49 (the pizza place) makes gluten free pizza. So we went and got gluten free pizza... mmmm and some Burger King because the pizza was a little smaller then we were planning on. After we ate Chris got out his Madden 2010 game that I got him for Christmas. We played a game and I won. I intercepted the football like five times... I'm amazing :) We then played sing star (a playstation game). Its a karaoke game and you get points according to how well you do.... so funny. My favorite was when we sang Respect Chris told me he had to sing it funny but that he scores really well on the song; which he did. He was pretty good. I think I might get embarrassed playing the game around anyone that really had talent lol.


Friday morning we got up and headed to Layton to go skiing with my family. We went to Wolf Mountain which is just a little ski resort but it was perfect for Chris's first time. He did so well for his first time. He fell a few times but definitely less then I did the first time I went skiing. I'm excited to go skiing with him again.

Christmas

We had Brooklyn for Christmas this year. We only get her for Christmas day every other year. It was so much fun. Christmas is so much better with kids around. Brooklyn was so excited for
Santa to come and eat her cookies. She kept telling us that Santa was going to come wake her up.

It was so fun to wake up on Christmas morning and have her walk out and see all the toys Santa left. We also got her a Cinderella (barbie like) doll and a Snow White doll. She dressed up as Cinderella for Halloween and her cousin dressed up as Snow White. She got so excited when opening the dolls. As soon as she figured out what it was she was shaking and opened the gift so much faster; it was really cute.

After we finished opening gifts we ate breakfast and hurried and got ready and went to Grandma and Grandpa Draudts and to Grandpa Mike and Grandma Debbie's house. It was such a wonderful day!