Sorry guys!!!

First of all, I'm sorry that it's been over a month since I've updated my blog. I'm the biggest slacker. Second, I'm sorry for not keeping up with the "blogging times"! I mean look at all your cute wallpapers and scrapbook layouts. I wish I had time for all of that but I don't. It's been great to finally catch up on everyone's lives!

I admit it's been a little crazy emotionally around here. We got news that a birth mom wanted to place her baby with us. It was the best news of my whole life. A baby was coming. It's like when you first get the news you're pregnant you hesitate in telling anyone in fear something may go wrong. Things were going great. It was to be a private adoption and we had our attorney waiting to send the birth mom papers (she lives in Memphis, TN - Sorry Edith we didn't make it, we will). We finally felt confident. We had been to the temple. We knew this was it. We started to make plans for work, finances and colors for a room. For some reason I just couldn't make myself walk through the baby section of the stores for fear I would jinx the situation. We finally felt good about making this known to close family and friends. That's when it happened. We told family and the next few days after we told family we didn't hear anything from our case worker. I remember it was a Tuesday night. I was extremely emotional. I knew something wasn't right. The next day we got a call form our case worker informing us that the birth mom had gone with another family. The birth mom had placed two previous children with a family in Springville. When she found out she was pregnant she called them right away and asked them if they would take her third. They declined stating they only wanted the two. In the end, they decided to go ahead and take her third child. So that's the story. When I got the call and everything was explained I wasn't mad at anyone. No one had done anything wrong. But it was hard to go through the heartache. We're good though and know that if we keep plugging along we'll be just fine. So there you have it.

Work is good, Young Women's is fantastic and in a big way a saving grace, and Scott and I are enjoying having Kelly and Andrew living with us.

Last week was Kelly's birthday. We decided it would be fun to go and stay the night in Eureka, UT (this is where both my parents are from and where my grandparents and grandma live) It had snowed pretty good up there and we knew Granny Franny needed us to get up there and get some snow off her roof. When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised with how much there really was. We played a little and enjoyed visiting the grandparents.

Birthday cake for breakfast is truly the breakfast of champions!

Scott's favorite breakfast beverage!

Grandma and Grandpa Sanderson's home....look at the roof.

Grandma and Grandpa.

Dad and Grandpa in the backyard after shoveling.

Granny Franny's roof...Holy icicles Batman!

Dad with Eureka in the background (See Brett, this town does exist!)

Scott being my HERO! You dare devil

Can you spot the fence.

Got to love the snow, especially after the storm and the sun is shining!

It's been snowing!

From what I remember it's literally been years since we've had this much snowfall in the month of December. Come to think of it, it's been years since it's snowed substantially weekend to weekend like it has here the past two weeks. It's been so great. It's been feeling a lot like Christmas! The first weekend of snow we received we stayed cozy inside and had a lot of hot chocolate with logs constantly on the fire. This last weekend we had to take advantage so, we played a little. We did some shoveling (which I actually enjoy)..... and then we started to play a little more. I mean, look at the size of those flakes.

and then the next morning when we woke up to even more snow, and it was still falling; We knew it was time, time to really take advantage of this great snow and do something we haven't done in years....Go TUBING!!!

So, We did. And all day Saturday too!

Here we are all decked out in our snow gear.

Ready to take on whatever challenge our tubing experience had to offer!

Just waiting for the tubes to inflate.

We had to bring the four wheelers! I mean come on, you don't want to walk up the hill once you've tubed down. It really wouldn't be fun.

Here the sun is breaking through the fog and clouds. The weather was changing every five minutes. It was beautiful.

Mom and Dad getting in on the action.

Andrew pulling me up on the tube. Scott was taking the picture from his tube.

We all decided to link up. We made it down the first hill, through all the level areas on the mountain and then down the steep hill in one shot. It really paid off to have all the weight and we laughed and almost peed coming down. It was AWESOME!!! We all stayed warm and used muscles we didn't remember we had in a very long time. It was all totally worth it, even if a little pee came out!

P.S. I'm thankful it snowed because it gave me an opportunity to make time to finally blog!

5 Things....

I've been tagged by Edith, so here I go.

5 Things I was doing ten years ago.

1. Writing a missionary
2. Spending almost every night at Primary Children's Hospital
3. Working for Zion's Bank
4. Attending SLCC
5. Yes, eating at Scoops with Edith

5 Things on my To-do list today.

1. Be to work by 7:00 a.m.
2. Prepare a route for our Pennies by the inch drive
3. running on the treadmill
4. looking for ideas for my Christmas tree this year
5. depositing money in the bank

5 songs I know the Lyrics to.

1. Best Deception by Dashboard Confessionals
2. Bubbly by Colbie Caillat
3. Starlight by Muse
4. Better Together by Jack Johnson
5. Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog

5 things I would do if I had a million dollars

1. Fly to Russia or Asia and adopt a child today
2. pay off all my bills and my house
3. Take my mom to Hawaii
4. Buy Scott a new truck
5. invest the rest so I could always have millions

5 things I will never wear again

1. Those side shirt clips
2. Knitted hair bows
3. Layered socks
4. the dress I wore to prom
5. panties

5 Favorite toys

1. My sewing machine
2. My ipod
3. My dad's four wheelers
4. "Friends"
5. Scott

SpOoKY SuCKer fUn

It's holidays like these that really make me anxious to be a mom. I think I drive Scott crazy with some of the "family" oriented things I plan to feel the void of no children. He's never said anything, but I'm sure at these times it seems a little weird to plan a trip to the Zoo, just the two of us, or buy a bag full of skeleton bone suckers! That's right, I was at the store looking for Halloween decorations and stumbled upon these bad boys. Unfortunately, Scott had meetings that night and couldn't join in our bone crushing event but we still had a riot eating up our suckers. Each bone connected to make a cool 20" Skeleton!

An arm....

more limbs...

The head....

The rib cage...

and our sucking paid off. In less then a half hour we had him all put together.

He's not hailing anyone, he's just saying hello. HapPY HaLloWeen!

p.s. and Thanks BJ and Kam, we really enjoyed our spooky weekend with you!

Our 8th Anniversary

On August the 18th we celebrated our 8th anniversary. Since Scott and I are in the market to buy some four wheelers (not in the near future, but some day) Scott decided to surprise me with a romantic weekend up in the Uintas. I LOVE the Uinta mountains.
Friday, when I got home from work Scott, along with the bags he packed, whisked me away to our unknow destination. Of course as we were nearing Kamas I had an idea we were heading up Mirror Lake HWY, but still had no idea of our plans.
We arrived at East fork of the Bear River at a little lodge called Bear River Lodge. The next morning we had a homemade breakfast, and then we were on our way forging through miles and miles of ATV terrain. It was awesome!

It was raining in the morning, but it calmed the dust and made the trip more beautiful.

The Yurt

The Ridge

Lily Lake

Labor Day Weekend

I Know, it's almost been a month since we all celebrated Labor Day. With serving in Young Women's, working full time, and feeding a house full I have limited free time. (although I have been reading Stephanie Meyer books lately) But I've been really anxious to read up on everyones' blogs and then I decided to make time to FINALLY add to my own.

Labor Day weekend was great. First of all, it was an extra day off from medical billing and hair. Second, we had great weather and Kelly and Andrew were with us. (They're living with us and we're loving it)

As part of our Labor Day celebrations, we decided to go up Mirror Lake Hwy (up in the Uintas) and visit one of my favorite places, Provo Falls. We made a day of it. Hiking, picnic, and water fun. Here are a few pictures from our excursion.....This picture doesn't do it justice, it's beautiful, and farther down the falls are steeper.

Here we are being DORKS...Well, really Scott

Andrew decided to scale this steep rock wall. As you can see it was very dangerous

Mom, me, and Kelly

Had to play on the fallen tree

We are getting a glimpse of Mom and Dad fighting over the walking stick



Mom decided to just jump in and do some bum sliding (she didn't tell us that she had been prepared and brought a change of clothes)





Kelly was the next to go...

and if you have Sanderson blood in you, you ARE going to do it!!!

As you can see, the full body entry was rather chilly

too Chilly!

Care takers watching over us!!

Of course, as always, we had a great time.

Hopefully I can make a few entries here on this blog again before October. We'll see.

First Annual Harmon Reunion

It's been almost a month but thanks to Scott and Shawna we had a great turn out for our first annual Harmon reunion. ;) Everyone was there, therefore the goal was met! And despite a few major hang ups we had a great time! Like The Woman put it so well in her blog, sorry to those who missed Saturday night. Friday night was great also and it was so fun having everyone huddled around the lanterns for warmth and comfort.Pensu and G "sword fighting"

So Intense was the fighting that Scott put his "be one with the sword" face on.

Grandma Darlin always comes through with the fun things for the kids!

And of course Devil Child was the "devil" for most of the time. (that's what her parents thought anyway)

Smiss Moose Me (my sisters will get this)......when we were kids that is how we used to say Smith's Food King. Smiss Moose Me. I know, random right? anyway, we saw a moose.

Cute little Jo Jo waiting for his Dutch Oven dinner. Yum Yum

Friday Night by Fireli....I mean Lamplight. We weren't allowed to have fires where we were camping. So we all snuggled around the lanterns.

Breakfast Saturday morning, it was very yummy and everyone pitched in.

Ray Ray and her nose with wings. There was a lot of gas being tossed back and forth in that area, you can image the wish to fly away!




T's gonna shoot and Mikey's a little nervous. I guess he picks his nose when he gets nervous.




The Woman is tough, she just shot a GUN!! The girls kicked butt in our shoot off.




Sam needed a hug, it was quite the stressful camp out for her.



The bathroom in the trailer came in handy, and can you believe it, it was handy for Scott too! No Kidding, he barely fit. Man, you're large.



The rough and dirty pack!
Don't mess with em.


Thanks guys, it was awesome to have you all there! Until next year.