One year older and wiser too!

What is the best birthday activity...well it starts out the night before watching a much anticipated movie with your girlfriends, getting to sleep in two hours longer than normal, followed by opening presents as soon as you get out of bed, breakfast at the Original Pancake House with my handsome husband, shopping with my new birthday money, lots of happy birthday phone calls and texts, and to be finished off by watching only the most exciting football game of the year...BYU vs UTAH with lots of great company!

By far November 22 is the best day every year. My mom called this morning to wish me a happy birthday. Every year since I can remember she would come into my room and wake me up to tell me "the story of my birth". It is one of my favorite memories.

So I got reminiscing today and looking through some old photos...man I am one cute baby, and child. You can see I tried really hard to come to this earth with my dad's amazingly tan skin, and dark features. But then reality set in and I turned pale and freckly like my mom's family. I love my winged out hair, so Farah Fawcett!
I always loved this red coat, I have so many pictures of me in it. My little sister got to wear it when she was young too, we always fought about who looked cuter. I was just learning to hit on the boys in this picture. Check out my winking skills! Watch out fella's.

Ra-Ra-Raquettes!!

Yea for Christmas. After last nights 'Holiday Extravaganza' (more pictures to come) I'm so ready and excited for Christmas. Really I think my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, so I don't usually like how it gets trumped out by being between Halloween and Christmas, those holidays seem to overtake the shopping market well before their times. But I'm really in the decorating and holiday spirit after last night. There were so many amazing parts it would be hard to pick a favorite. As the show progressed I thought my favorite part would be going through a tour of New york at Christmas. They had this large screen behind the Rockettes, who were dancing in the tour bus, and we drove all through the city in all it's holiday glory. Now I really want to go to New York some year around the holidays!

Then I thought, the hundreds or thousands of dancing Santa's could be a tie for my favorite, they were very entertaining, and somehow made my dislike for so many "dressed up/fake Santa's" go away.

But I think the scene that took the cake would have to be when the family sat down to read the First Christmas story and the stage changed into Bethlehem. I did a double take when some shepperd's were holding what looked like fake fluffy sheep, but they were REAL! And as the procession of wise men and their followers came on stage there were two GIANT CAMELS.....Live camels! They were all dressed up like the wise men. I was so impressed! Thanks to the girls who invited me, I had a blast! And it's something that would make a fun family tradition someday!

Check out my Melons!

So before this chilly Wisconsin frost set in, Mike and I harvested the rest of the goods from our garden and dug up the dieing foliage. Aren't these watermelons gorgeous! The were just as delicious as they looked. We were so fortunate this year to have had a plentiful garden. It was so much fun to plant and watch together. Mike would come running in to tell me when he noticed things changing and blossoming. My Grandpa Henderson is an amazing gardener. My mom comes from a big family and I remember going to his house during the planting season and tossing seeds in. Because he lived far away, I never got to experience the excitement of each stage of growth, the first greenery shooting out of the ground, the first blossoms, and then watching the fruit/vegis grown until they were big and ripe enough to eat. next year I'll definitely plant some more watermelon, and I'll look for the seedless variety. I didn't enjoy the careful eating to avoid the seeds, but it was so delicious!