Merry Christmas!!

Wow! All that waiting and now its all over! We had a great Christmas this year with know major illness! Last year we all had the flu. We would open a present, run to the bathroom, open another present, run to the bathroom. Aubree woke up Christmas Eve morning with a huge grin on her face. I had the whole day planned so it would keep them busy. We made a Gingerbread House, made & decorated cookies, and then they made their Christmas presents for each other. We had a yummy dinner and then it was time to open Christmas Eve Pj's from Grandma Jensen. We then watched The Polar Express which I think is the ultimate Christmas Eve movie. I won't let my kids watch it until Christmas Eve. Finally it was time for bed. We put them to bed right at 8pm but they were so worked up they didn't fall asleep until 10pm! Dave and I laid presents out (put that darn kitchen together!) and went to bed around midnight. Then the girls squealed into our room at 12:50am. They didn't fall asleep until 2:30 and then were up again at 7:15 which was much better. We called G/Grandpa Cheney and they rushed over to tape the event. The girls got a jewelry box, a puppy in a purse (they're favorite), a kitchen set, a cooking set, a tea set, barbie clothes, each got a Barbie, a Lil pet Shop set, and a dress up trunk. Austin got a Rocking Horse, a race car set , and a train set. (He doesn't have any toys of his own otherwise this would be a lot for a 20 month old who has no clue what is going on!) I got Dave a signed John Beck & Ty Detmer football card and I told him to count our yard plan for mine (which was probably a huge relief to him!) I made Cinnamon rolls and peppermint hot chocolate for breakfast and its now 4pm and I am still in my pj's! I've been playing with toys! Also it snowed on Christmas Eve! I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas as much as we did! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Summary of Pictures

The slide show blocked out my captions so I'll do a quick recap: The pictures are from Aubree's 1st grade Christmas Party, Addie's preschool party, treats for the neighbors, the kids before church, and the Nutcracker Ballet at Capital Theatre (everytime a new dancer would come out on the stage, you would hear a big gasp from Addie,"I want that dress!"

Merry Christmas!

CHRISTMAS CARD 2007

~ Cheney 2007 Newsletter ~

I didn't send out a newsletter with my Christmas cards this year so I'll just post one.

Nothing to exciting with us this year other than the move. Since David worked an hour & 15 minutes away the commute was driving him nuts so in February we put some money down to reserve a lot. In April we sold our house (in 3 days!) thats really the only thing I can brag about because David had it listed for the lowest price possible because he didn't want to risk paying 2 house payments so we broke even. But the new owners let us rent it back and stay in our house until our new one was done which was HUGE for me. On April 29 they started digging the hole and on July 30th we closed. Someone broke into our house the night we closed and damaged some walls, but our builder had it fixed within days. We were the 2nd ones to move into the neighborhood and now we're surrounded by neighbors with lots of kids.

Dave has been at American Express for 18 months and is doing very well there. He says he will never leave the company. His old boss from Disney also works there and his wife reports to David. Also in the last couple of days one of Davids good friends from BYU was just hired on and will be working right next to Dave. David & 2 of his friends have started their own accounting firm. I've kept quiet about this one cuz I thought it was all talk for awhile and you never know when you go into business on your own, but now they have an ad in the yellow pages and have 2 clients already. He's also very busy with school and has class once a week at Westminister College.

Aubree loves her friends at school but hates to do schoolwork. She actually does very well in school considering its so hard to get her to do her homework. This past year she has enjoyed soccer and dance. Sadly she doesn't want to sign up for soccer anymore because she wants the ball the whole entire time and wants to score all of the goals. So we're still looking for her sport.

Addie is in preschool and LOVES it and adores her teacher. Addie is my challenge right now. She is so different from Aubree. She is extremely shy and likes things done her way. The other night she woke up screaming at 3am (this is her usual routine. Theirs always something bugging her) she didn't want to sleep in her bed because she said it was "poo-poo" but I couldn't get her to sleep in the trundle because it didn't have pink sheets. Or she gets upset if Aubree doesn't sleep on her pillow. Or she has to have 3 bowls of cereal in 3 separate bowls and she assigns certain cereals to certain bowls and heaven help me if I put the cereal in the wrong bowl she assigned it to!!!!

Austin is your typical 20 month old: into everything and throws everything-mostly food. He loves playing with Aubree and adores his blanket. All 3 of my kids have been attached to their blankies but nothing like Austin's. He's probably been one of my best babies and is more like Addison socially. He is definitely a mama's boy and will sit on my lap for a very long time (for his age) and watch TV clutching his blanket and sucking his index finger (also a new one with my kids!) His favorite thing to do is to shoot hoops with his BYU hoop in his room.

As for me- my new hobby is a hot bath with a pint of Ben & Jerry's. I try to keep up with my scrapbooks (Aubree has 9, Addie has 3, Austin has 2 and the family has 10) I think I'm going to start doing a digital family album. The latest family album looks pretty boring cuz I"m kind of sick of scrapbooking by that point. I'm excited to start planting flowers and working on our yard plan and thats about it!

Merry Christmas to me! Thou shalt not covet Pottery Barn! I have been waiting months for this quilt to go on sale! So with some help from Ebay my bedroom is a little less boring. Aubree & Addie's room was clean so I took some pictures.

So we finally got the yard in. We had a landscape architect come out and draw us up a plan so we weren't throwing sod everywhere. So all the rest is going to be gardens, playground, and basketball court. It was fun walking around the yard with her, telling her all the things we wanted to do with our yard. I'm sure it will look great on paper! Actually being able to do it all is another story! Now if we can keep the grass alive until we get sprinklers in..........

My B/F from high school Dawn (Knudsen) dropped by with her family. They were visiting her brother in law who lives 10 minutes from my house. They stopped by last year but it was more of a drive for them. So it was great to see her again. I've known her since 5th grade and she was in my wedding. Boy have we've been through a lot! ( I changed the pic to b/w cuz I didn't like the way I looked!)

So I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! We had it at the inlaws. I was supposed to bring a veg. dish so I made sweet potatoes and made 2 batches so I wouldn't look bad if we ran out. Come to find out my mother in law made sweet potatoes too! So thats what we have been eating for the last couple of days!

Look what I did all by myself!! David's sister had leftover sod so we bribed the sod guy to drop it off at my house! So we have been scrambling to get the yard ready. Yesterday we had some top soil dumped and found someone to spread it. Some family members are coming over tommorow but I got a little anxious. I laid 2 palets by myself and then crashed in the hot tub. Then my 2 neighbors came over (who are girls) and we laid 2 more palets! At the end of the day their were only 3 palets left and we started with 9! So tommorow I'm going to sit on the porch and cheer everyone on cuz I've done my part! We also decorated the house for Christmas. I let the girls decorate the tree that was in the den.

California on Fire

For those of you who came to visit us while we lived in California might remember where this picture was taken. This was our favorite place to take a walk and was walking distance from our apartment and look at it now! My friend who still lives there took this picture & had it on her blog.

Jazz Game

David & I had lower bowl seats to the Jazz game last night. David had fun. I made sure I clapped at the right times. A couple of weeks ago we went to a charity banquet that American Express had been invited to. We were 2 tables away from Pres. Monson's table and some other General Authoritys. It was pretty neat. And the food was fantastic. David kept on saying he was going to go shake Pres. Monson's hand but I told him we weren't worthy so to sit his rear end down!

Aubree's Birthday

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY AUBREE!

We took Aubree to Build-A-Bear for her birthday. For those of you who don't know about it ,it's a "bear factory" where they pick their own bear, take it to the stuffing machine to get it stuffed, then give it a bath, and then pick out an outfit. They had tons of clothes and accesories. Aubree had a ton of fun and loved picking out an outfit for her bear and stuck to my rules. Addie on the other hand wanted everything and threw a huge fit because we were trying just to stick to one outfit. At first she couldn't decide on even one then narrowed it down to 2 and thats where the fit began. Finally David just threw up his hands and gave in (I'll blame it on him). This is defintely a once a year activity! I made Aubree a princess castle cake that took 2 hours to decorate and then I was up every couple of hours because I was worried it was going to fall apart! Tommorow I'm having a couple of her friends over to eat it.
We had Aubree's parent teacher conference a couple of days ago and the first thing her teacher said was "Aubree is a pill! I can't get her to stop talking!" That's our Aubree! She's doing really well in school even though she hates it. She loves playing with her neighbor friends who are also in her class. She loves pink and purple and loves to make crafts and hang them all over the playroom. She loves playing with Austin and going to the football games with her dad. We love our little girl and we can't believe that she's 7! Next year she will be baptized! Crazy!

BEWARE!..........Lots of Photos!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

After all the carnivals, trunk-or-treating, and school parties, I'm usually all Halloweened out by the time its actually Halloween day. Aubree & Addison had a blast at their school parties (me & my neighbor did Aubree's class) and on Halloween they were so hyper from all the candy I thought I was going to loose my mind! After we went trick-or-treating I let them pick out 5 pieces of candy and I threw the rest away & today we will take them to the toy store. As usual after every holiday when we are tucking Aubree in bed she always asks,"Mom whats the next holiday?" Let me breath for a minute......

Playing in the leaves at Sugar House Park

This Weekend

Its been gorgeous weather lately so we went to Sugar House Park to feed the ducks and play in the leaves. I also hung out with my sister and her kids

HALLOWEEN PHOTO SHOOT

THIS PAST WEEK........ (updated 10/22)

Gardner Village

We went to Gardner Village on Friday with my sister and her kids. The kids call it the Pumpkin Patch and we kind of make it a tradition to go every October. We see the animals, go to the candy shop, and I let the girls pick out something from the Just Girls Store. Of course Addie broke hers, threw her usual fit and I decided it wasn't worth the fight and took her back to pick something else out.

My Little Man

Austin is finally 18 months!! Can we say nursery?! Here's a few little things on Austin (sorry guys this is entry is for grandparents cuz nobody else could give a hoot!)
* loves to take all the tupperware out of cupboards so my floors constantly look messy cuz theirs no point in cleaning it up.
* loves to suck on toothbrushes. He'll walk around the house one in each hand & one in his mouth
* adores his blanket. I have to sneak it in the wash but if I"m caught he'll just stand at the washer bawling until its done. (I'll post a picture of that later)
* loves to play with Aubree & tease Addison
* loves to turn off the TV and break the DVD player
* loves bugs. He is not afraid of picking them up and popping them into his mouth. Its really gross when its a stink bug cuz then it smells soooooo bad!
* loves to dance. As soon as you turn the music on he just turns around and around!
* loves to be outside
* will always have a smile for you

Addison: So we're a little OCD:
*She will not eat at the table if I have just wiped it. She makes me dry it with a towel
*She is very clean. I never have to tell her to wash her hands or brush her teeth. (She will even wipe her tears with a tissue!)
*She will ask for something to eat & when we are done making it she will immediatly ask for something else
*She will only wear dress (sometimes I can get her to wear pants if they are the ones with a pink belt
*She changes her clothes at least 3 times before preschool (she never wears the outfit she picked out the night before)
*As soon as she gets a stain on her outfit she will immediatly take it off (One time she started bawling & I asked her what was wrong & through the tears she said "I stained my favorite dress!"
*She hates having her hair wet. We have to blow dry it immediatly after the bath. Sometimes I hairspray her bangs back but then she makes me blow dry it so its not wet.
* When I try to get her to wear something besides one of her favorite she'll tell me it doesn't match
*She must have waffles every morning and heaven forbid that she finds a spot that doesn't have any butter!

Seriously I could keep going! But we love our 3 year old Drama Queen!

Park City Getaway (NO KIDS!)

Check out my Slide Show!

This is my first time doing this so bear with me!!! David & I just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary!! Are you kidding me!!! We have 3 kids: Aubree 6, Addison 3, & Austin 17m. (For you BYU fans, Dave got the name from Austin Collie. We were having a hard time coming up with a boy A name) Dave went to BYU & got his degree in accounting (nerd). We have moved 9 times in the last 9 years living in Utah, California, Arizona, & now back to Utah. David works for American Express and we just moved to Stansbury Park 2 months ago. Now David is attending Westminister College to get his MBA. It never ends!