Christmas Par-tays

This year our family (as in my parents and us) were in charge of both Christmas parties (as in my mom’s side and my dad’s side). So, we put together Christmas Minute to Win It and made my relative take turns doing silly things while the rest laughed. They ended up being a lot of fun.

On the A side, we always have the great grandkids enact a nativity. For the second time, E was the youngest boy and therefore got to be baby Jesus. A very squirmy, tennis-shoed baby Jesus. J

If you ask R, my family has a get-together every weekend. We do have quite a few, but I think they’re fun and I enjoy getting to see my cousins at least once a year. The parties were really fun! Thanks Mom for all the work you put into them!

Thanksgiving with the Lustys

Nummy Nummy Nummy!

The food was so good we almost couldn’t wait to eat it.

E enjoy the “gobblegobblegobblegobble” (turkey) and LOVED the ham.

And because he’s growing up so fast, he kept climbing into this chair with his little Leapfrog cell phone. After all, everyone else was just sitting around playing on their cell phones, so why not?

It was a fun weekend with good food and great company. 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Twas’ the freaking month before Christmas

And all through the Lusty house,

Only one creature was stirring…

It was Evan! Who wore his parents OUT!!

From drawing on the walls

To screaming down the halls

From falling down the stairs

To his parents pulling out their hairs!

Now don’t get me wrong this kid is no Jack*

But when he does a somersault down the stairs
He’ll give you a heart attack!

Kendra’s the lucky one she hangs with Ev all day

She only gets things done
When Evan is at rest from all that play

Kendra still enjoys her job it is true,

But why does Access have to give
SO MANY DIRECTORIES TO DO!!!!!

Ryan is still a killer for hire

Skeeters can run but
They can’t hide from his ire!!!

Evan is growing at a very rapid rate

He’s learned his colors, some words
And he already knows his alphabAte.

So as the New Year comes

And you enjoy this Christmas time
Remember the Lusty’s
Or just send us a dime! **

Merry Christmas to all

As it is the season
To remember the Savior
His love is our reason.

*Jack is Kendra’s sister Kathryn’s son.  Dude is a terror.

** Feel free to send more than a dime.  Cash, check, money order, Pay Pal, American Express…  we aren’t picky. 

Bye Bye Beardie

Ryan grew himself a pretty impressive beard. At first, it was because he didn’t want to shave as long as his St. Louis Cardinals remained in the baseball playoffs. Then after they won the World Series (yay, Cardinals!) he kept it because my mom hates beards. Beckie: “What is that thing on your face?!” and “Wash your face before you come over to my house.” Exactly the response Ryan was looking for. He laughed for days.

When he finally did shave, he did it in stages. I wouldn’t have dated any of these men had they shown up at my door 5 1/2 years ago:

Mountain Man

Redneck

Crazy Motorcycle Man

Bad Cop/Good Cop

Ummm… No

Ah, there’s the husband that I know and love

The Spooky and Not-So-Spooky of October

October was relatively uneventful. We enjoyed conference. Evan enjoyed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Every single time they started singing, Evan would drop whatever he was playing with and come out to watch. He’d stay for the entire song and then wander off again. It was really cute.

Right after conference, we headed to Park City for Ryan’s final conference as UMAA President where he got a big fancy plaque. Yay, plaque!

And then there was Halloween. We invited Ryan’s family to join us on Halloween night because they don’t get trick-or-treaters at their house and we were hoping we could make them answer our door for us (we couldn’t). We played games and ate caramel apples (not pictured because they were UGLY. Yummy, but ugly.) Here they are playing some game with Evan’s blocks that I still don’t understand the rules to, but evidently requires lots of yelling.

Evan was Superman. Doesn’t he look getting ready to take off? We took him trick or treating to exactly 2 houses and he was shaking with excitement over the pack of M&Ms he got. He would have eaten them all in one bite had I let him.

The last couple years, we’ve been carving pumpkins. And, of course, we try for increasingly complicated designs each year. Maybe in a few one of us will work up the will to try one of those don’t-cut-all-the-way-through designs.

Here’s Evan’s (a mama and dada collaboration)

Here’s Kendra’s:

And here’s Ryan’s:

You should all comment and vote for your favorite (hint: Kendra’s is your favorite)

Sept 2011

And here is a blog post about the happenings that happened to happen in September.

 We started off the month by invading my sister’s home yet again (they MUST be sick of us visiting by now. Ryan did manly things like Fantasy Football drafting and big mouth bass fishing. I did girly things like baby shower going and adorable new niece holding. We both had our own brand of fun. :)

I’m glad I got to see my neice while she was still itty bitty (or at least as itty bitty as a roly poly chunk can be). Either way, I just want to pinch her sweet chubby cheeks!

And, of course, there’s no visiting Kathryn without getting railroaded by this little pantsless whirlwind.

The next week, we celebrated the return of the BYU football season with an exciting win. We promptly proclaimed ourselves number one. E gave his own version of a one fingered solute.

 

E actually points with his middle finger about 90% of the time. Recently, he’s become fascinated with the sky. He points at it enthusiastically and yells “SKY!” all the time which is endlessly amusing to us and random people around us. We’ve tried to teach him to “point with his other finger” but for some reason he interprets that as “wave your middle finger back and forth.” 

E is hilarious. We laugh at something he does almost every day.

His new favorite game is throwing stuff over the baby gate and watching it roll down the stairs. As fast as I can gather his toys back up, five minutes later it just looks like this again. This is just one form of his favorite game that I call “Distributing Things.” I give him his box of blocks and he runs them throughout the house, distributing a few in his window sill, a few on the bookshelf, a few down the stairs, a few in our shoes, etc.

Another variation of this is “Tapping Things.” A few months ago E stumbled upon a stash of Mardi Gras beads we happened to have in our closet, and they have provided hours of entertainment ever since. He just walks around with a strand in his hand and tapping it to the floor, lowering it into holes, setting it into a pile, dunking it into the toilet, etc. His newest accomplishment is to drape the strand over a bar and when he can get it to stay, he gets SOOOO excited. He runs over to us chanting “Wow. Wow. Wow.” And drags us over to see.

I’ve talked about his splashing before, but it truly is getting far out of control. Maybe it’s time to start saying no.

When he doesn’t want to eat, this is what happens. Notice how when he actually lands a bite in his mouth on accident, he spits it right back out again.

Little stinker.

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