Seven Years of Luck

On the 27th Chad and I celebrated our seventh anniversary. When I think of everything that has happened in the last seven years, it sure feels like a long longer. We got a babysitter and were off to dinner. We actually went to the same place as last year, Firebirds, but this year we had to pay. Last year it was the Aflac end of year party so Chad's boss paid for our Anniversary dinner which was nice. We had a very enjoyable dinner and Chad gave me my anniversary gift. Chad had given me a pair of diamond earrings the day we got engaged. Later I found out they were 'regifted'. :) He had given them to another girl then she gave them back to him when they broke up. I was okay with it for the most part. I had taken them out a while back to put pearls in and not had them in. Well Chad took them and traded them up for my own pair. I have no idea how big the first ones were, but he upgraded them to 1 carat princess cut studs. I was totally surprised. He said after all we had been through that I deserved to have my own pair. (Plus being after Christmas and end of year they gave him a killer deal). I LOVE them, of course. I gave him his card at dinner and also 8 pennies. 2001-2008 (2001 was only the year we got married though) and I little something to remember each of those years that we celebrated together. THe 7th anniversary is wool/copper as gifts. We try to stick with the tradition of things. After dinner it was a bit early still and we knew that Savannah would probably still be awake so we decided to go to Dave & Busters to play a few games so that the kids would be asleep when we got home. Hey if we are going to pay for a babysitter we want them to be in bed sleeping when we get home.

Anyway, when we got home Chad brought the babysitter home so I could get 'into' is gift. I also gave him a new laptop bag for his new computer. I think he really enjoyed it. I can't believe we made it to year seven. Wow. I am so grateful for Chad and all that he has done for me. He has helped my testimony in the gospel to grow, and we have had many tears of joy and also sorrow. I wouldn't change anything that has happened and am glad that we are forever for all eternity. Love you babe!

December Family Pictures

Christmas

So you will all have to wait a bit for pictures since I don't want to load them to Chad's laptop to bog it up with excess stuff.

Anyway, the girls were oh so nice to us and didn't get up until 9:30am! We were so excited. I went downstairs to grab our scriptures and the grape juice. We read from Luke 2 and drank our grape juice. We then had our family prayer before heading downstairs. After which Charlotte learned a new word "Amen."

The girls came down stairs and were so excited to see that Santa had come. Charlotte got some of the Play Hut tubes to climb through and the Fisher Price Barn (looks very familiar to when Savannah had it hummm). Savannah got a real tea set and a digital camera. They were so excited. The girls climbed through all the tubes throughout the day and Savannah took pictures of everything you can think of in the house.

We had a great Christmas morning. Later in the afternoon we took the girls to go see Bedtime Stories with a few other families in the ward and also Todd and Anna's family. It was a really cute show. I was so excited that Charlotte slept through most of it. Todd and family came over after to have dinner just hang out a bit.

It was a wonderful day and I'm glad we were able to help a few other families out of only a little bit this holiday season.

Family Pics

So a friend in the ward took these AWESOME pics of us mid December, but since my computer is still on the fritz I have yet to load them. It is almost 1 am and I am getting over the achy flu and I slept most of the day so I thought I would try to load them on. Since I have them all on a disk I don't have to actually load them on Chad's laptop.

We had these taken at the Sahuaro Ranch park. It was lots of fun. Charlotte was just getting over an ear infection and it was a bit windy and it was a cold wind. So we had to keep her happy. I think I am going to go broke ordering all the pictures because I love them all so much. Even though there were signs all over the place saying don't pick the roses, We had to. They were great at helping to keep the girls entertained and happy.

Here are a few of my favorites. I have lots of them ... :)

okay so it would not let me load them ... Arghhh. So I will put it at a slide show. But you can see some of them on her blog. http://www.sixofonefamily.blogspot.com/

Lots of new posts playing catch up

So I really need to keep up on this a bit more so I am not ALWAYS playing catch up. We are hoping to get our computer fixed soon so this will not be a problem. I hate getting half way through then it freezes and I have to reboot. Anyway ... without further delay, a little of what has been happening at the Wright's ....

Field Trip to the Tramonto Fire Station

Savannah and her preschool class had their first field trip to the fire station. They were so excited. They got a tour of the fire house, (kitchen/bedrooms) but were excited about seeing the big fire truck. They all got a turn to climb up into the truck and try on a firehat. I think they all had a great time. Parents were welcome to tag along too. I almost think their were more parents/grandparents than kids. Oh well, the more the merrier right? I didn't get too many pictures because as luck would have it my battery was almost dead on the camera. I had to take a picture then turn it off. Guess I should have listened to myself when I said I probably need to charge the battery the night before.

Happy First Birthday Charlotte

I can't believe my baby is already one. Man it went by so fast. I would post back pictures of her making her grand entrance into the world but others don't find those pics as cool as I do. They are below in the slide show if you want to see them. Charlotte is so much fun to have around. We can't imagine life without her. She is such a joy. I think she is one of the happiest babies ever, (unless we are having pics taken by someone else, then of course she is grumpy). She is even smiley and happy when she has nasty ear infections. Its a good thing they come up a fever or I would have no idea. She loves her big Sister Savannah and also loves to push her buttons. She loves daddy and loves to say it all day long. I love hearing her talk but wish 'mama' would come out a little more often then it does. She is not quite walking yet, but I'm sure over the next couple of weeks she will have it down. We had a few of our good friends over and of course Uncle Todd and the girls to come celebrate with us. I think her favorite gift was the xylophone. (Thanks Pretti!) She plays with it everyday and is so excited when she actually hits it to make a sound. I think all the kids enjoyed her legos that she got. And she enjoyed knocking down all the creations they made. Thanks to Preeti for taking all the pics for us during her little party.

The Polar Express

We headed up to Williams, AZ to go on the Grand Canyon Railway's Polar Express. Savannah was so excited. Since the weather here in Phoenix isn't all that cold I actually had to buy her a new coat. The 3T one just wasn't working anymore. So her size 6 will work for the next 2-3 years and will probably only be worn about 5 times. We had the 8pm train and when we arrived around 7:15p it was 36 degrees out. We are such whimps now and freezing. On the train we enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies. Savannah even remembers that the elf gave the cookies and the chef gave her the hot chocolate. Charlotte was a little mad we were not giving her pieces of cookie quick enough. While heading 'north' we read the polar express. I should have brought our book along but I forgot. After going through the 'magic time warp' we arrived at the North Pole to see Santa with his reindeer outside waving. The train came to a stop and Santa climbing on board while the train reversed its engines. He came and talked to every child and gave them a bell. Savannah was a bit bashful and spoke very quietly to him and told him she wanted a digital camera. Charlotte was excited about the bell and became the town cryer and rang it wildly most of the ride back. To enjoy the rest of the journey back to the station we sang Christmas carols and Charlotte must have enjoyed all of our singing because she was soon fast asleep. When we got off the train we raced to the van since we are whimps, and it was now only 26 degrees. Thank heavens for seat warmers. We were hoping, especially Savannah, for a little snow up there like last year but it felt like winter with the weather. Next year we hope to go on Charlottes birthday and stay over night.

Chad was teasing Charlotte with a pretzel. He would pretend to eat it and instead of her grabbing it back with her hands she thought she needed to grab it with her teeth too. It quickly became a game as we waited to board the train.

I'm the Happiest Christmas Tree

Savannah was in a little dance class for the past couple of weeks. She loved going and it was great since her dance teachers house was just around the corner from Safeway. So I could drop her off and head to do grocery shopping while she danced, then I could come back and get her. She had her little dance recital the other Saturday and was so excited. She loves to dance and also sing. She had two classes and one danced to 'I want a Hippopotamos for Christmas' and she got to dance to 'I'm the Happiest Christmas Tree'. In between the dances they all sang Jingle Bells. Even though we practiced the words Savannah still made up her own and she sang it loud for all to hear. Thats okay though. Good job Savannah, we are so proud of you!

Savannah and her teacher Miss Tara

Tried to add video but it wouldn't load. I will try again later.

Meanwhile, in the back of the gym Charlotte was planting a couple of kisses on the bishops son. Or more so she was at the recieving end of things. It was really cute. I believe he about 16 months or so.

Twilight

So I braved all the teenage girls and went with some friends to see the midnight showing of Twilight. Coming from someone who did not read the books, I thought it was pretty good. Man all the vamps were hot. Wish I was a vamp man! j/k. I even wore my red contacts so I could fit the part. (too bad I didn't get any pics of them in) We went to dinner at the Olive Garden before hand. It was a good time and I'm glad I went. Thanks ladies for thinking of me and giving me the invite.

Thanks so much to my sweetheart for letting me go. He is so supportive of me going out with friends, he even bought my ticket to make sure I went. I love you Babe!

I had lunch with a snowman, because I'm NOT crazy

A little laughter and fun for your Thursday today. Make funny sentences for everyone in your family, just follow the instructions.
Mine: I had lunch with a snowman, because I'm NOT crazy
Chad: I danced with a banana, because that's how I roll.
Savannah: I jumped on a goat, because I'm not crazy
Charlotte: I ran over a fork, because someone offered me a million bucks!!
Funny thing is Charlotte 'ran' (crawls) over play forks all the time~ :)

Make sure to leave a comment telling us what your sentence for the day is!

Pick the month you were born:
January-------I kicked
February------I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May----------I jumped on
June----------I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August--------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October-------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1-------a bird bath
2----- --a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7---- ---my mobile phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19------ - a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an iPod
29-------a surfer
30-------a homeless guy
31-------a llama

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White----because I'm cool like that
Black-----because that's how I roll.
Pink-----because I'm NOT crazy.
Red------because the voices told me to.
Blue-----because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green----because I think I need some serious help.
Purple----because I'm AWESOME!
Gray-----because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow---because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange---because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown----because I can.
Other-----because I'm a Ninja!
None------because I can't control myself!

I had fun with this today. Hope you do too. What sentences did you come up with?

Extra SeaWorld Pics

Halloween Fun Pics

Major Blogging Drought!

So sorry that I have not posted in FOREVER! Our computer is having issues. I am hoping I can get through these postes without that computer freezing. So there will be many posts on here to get us all caught up to date. So lets go back in time to Mid October, the 15-19th to be precise.

AFLAC National Convention in San Diego.

So again, Chad has been kicking butt in Aflac this year and we got to go on our first National Convention. It is a trip to just congratulate everyone for doing a bit above and beyond. It changes every year and next year it is in New York City. We really want to go to that one since neither Chad nor I have been there. They literally just wined and dined us. It was so much fun! Again another added bonus was that we had no kiddos. Although I think Grandma Carter needed a vacation from her vacation when she got done watching the girls for 5 days. We are sure thankful that she was able to come, and the girls had a lot of fun.

Out of our Hotel window.

So our first day at San Diego, we had a great lunch buffet and got to just hang out until dinner. Aflac rented out the entire USS Midway for the night. We had a great dinner with a live band. They had all the planes out on deck and we were able to do all the flight simulators for free. I felt like I was inside one of Chad's video games. One of the agents from AZ was actually stationed on the Midway for 3 months before he was put on the sister ship. He said he was actually blown off the ship once. He was standing on the wrong side of the plane and when it spun on the platform the jet engines blew him off. Luckily he was able to be picked up by the helicopter hook. Normally they don't come back after being blown off. They had several 'shells' of planes that you were able to sit in.

USS Midway

Group from AZ-West


Our next morning we had the Prayer Breakfast. One of the things I love about Aflac is that they are a very religious company. At every meal there is always a prayer. Someone is asked to say it and they are all from different religions, even here at the local level when we get together there is a prayer. I love that. Anyway, at our prayer breakfast Kurt Cameron spoke to us. At first I thought (very sarcastically), 'Oh goody Kurt Cameron, yawn.' But he was great. He spoke a lot about keeping the Lord in your life and the importance of marriage. He spoke a little about his new movie which sounds Awesome by the way. He also told us he vowed to only kiss his wife when they got married. That also applied to movies. So (sorry to spoil a bit) but in the movie towards the end apparently there is a kiss between his on screen wife and himself. So that he could keep his promise, his wife flew in put on a wig and the dress so he could still be kissing her. I thought that was so sweet.




We then had a day at Sea World. Chad and I had a lot of fun. We felt a little guilty about being at Sea World without the girls. We went on the water rapids ride (like Rattlesnake Rapids at Lagoon) and you go under a waterfall! We were sure it was going to shut off when we got close. NOPE! We were soaked through. My cell phone got soaked so it did not work. I had to blow dry it at the hotel when we got back. The park was all decorated for Halloween and the Otter show was so cute for the holiday. Clyde was dressed as a rapper with a chain around his neck. They also did a little skit about Scooby-Doo and Micheal Jacksons Thriller.

Little Thriller Video. Pretty funny!!

They also had an formal awards night. It was interested to see peoples version of formal. Some of the gals there looked like they should be on a street corner. Oh well.



We also had a concert the last night, by Earth Wind and Fire. It was a little older for us and not in our generation of things but they were good. There are a few songs they have that I know but they didn't play ANY of them. We danced around a bit then headed for the hot tub. All in all it was a great vacation.

Debbie my pretend Mom. We had a lot of people think we were mother/daughter.

BOO AT THE ZOO

For Halloween the zoo does Boo at the Zoo. Since we have a zoo pass we went. I tried to get a few pictures of the girls in their costumes before we left but Charlotte wanted nothing to do with it. We had fun running around the zoo in their costumes.

DYED HAIR

So on Sunday the 26th of October I got some weird crazy idea to dye my hair. I had oodles of dye at my house that I had got for free. So I dyed it brown. Oooooo .... I hated it. It did not go with my complexation and my eyebrows just seemed to stick out. Only one person said anything about it, and I ran into lots of people I know. So either they counldn't tell ( I thought it was drastically different; refer to pics from San Diego) or it was so bad they thought better of saying anything. The pics are not as bad as it really was. Some of the pieces of my hair would not dye. So I had random chunks of blonde. Not pretty. So after buying a $20 bottle of shampoo to make sure I get all the metallic residue out I bleached it back to blonde after 4 days. Yes my hair is offically fried! It did look a lot better when I actually DID my hair. But still not to my liking.

TRUNK OR TREAT

We had our Trunk or Treat this year on the 28th. Since I was frantically trying to finish carving pumpkins for our decorations I did not get into costume this year. I was pretty bummed about it because I love to dress up. But since Chad does not, I feel like I am an annoyance to him when I dress up, and I feel stupid cause he thinks it is stupid to dress up (so what does that make me?) so I think I'm about done. I did wear my red contacts and funky eyelashes though. People thought I was just being a vampire with the upcoming Twlight movie opening. The girls had fun and we gave out little squeaky ducks for the little spooks and mini beach balls to everyone else. Who really needs that extra candy?

Halloween

We had a great time going trick or treating this year. I think Savannah was especially excited because her friend Karianna and her family came with us. One of our neighbors projects the Scooby Doo Cartoons onto their garage on Halloween. The kids got their candy from them and plopped down on the driveway to watch. Too bad it was at the other end of the street and they had lots more to walk. Our little witch and tinkerbell enjoyed themselves. Tinkerbell was especially fond of her glow stick.

Kitchen Play Time

The girls got a play kitchen from Santa last year. Charlotte is now really enjoying it. She crawls into the playroom and pulls herself up to the little kitchen. She loves to pull all the food out and put it into the sink. When I saw her in there I had to take a picture because she has her foot in a pot while standing there. Too funny.