Thanksgiving Weekend

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Matt's family in Centerville. The night before the big day I stayed up until about midnight making 2 apple pies. I don't think I've made a pie since my Foods class in high school but I didn't end up in tears so I think it was a success.
On Thursday morning we drove to Matt's parents house and the boys played football while the girls cooked the big feast with the kids (fair I know). The meal was very yummy and we had a great time with our family.


The day after Thanksgiving I worked at the hospital so Matt spent the day with Spencer and his family. They went to the Hill Air Force Museum. Spencer is the kid screaming in front.
On Friday night everyone went to see the lights at Temple Square. It was pretty cold but worth it!





We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too!

Matt is Famous

Matt made the cover of the "2009/2010 surface skis catalog". To check it out click on this link:

http://moncurfam.blogspot.com/2009/11/matts-magic.html

Halloween 2009

This first picture does a good job of describing how Spencer felt about being a lamb for Halloween...
These first few pictures are from a Halloween party we had at Matt's parents' about a week before Halloween. The highlight of the night (for me) was the donut eating contest. Matt took 1st place (of course) and I think I came in 2nd or 3rd.
These two (Matt's parents) are leaving on a mission to South Africa in a few months. They're trying to act the part already.
On Halloween we had a party with some friends and family at Cara's house. We ate pizza and the boys took the kids trick-or-treating. Spencer is holding hand sanitizer in the picture below because he is in love with soap bottles these days. He carries around hand sanitizer, dishsoap, shampoo, etc. I'm not really sure why but I think it's kind of funny.
Spencer was a stinker about getting his picture taken with the other kids. He had to have Matt or me hold him.



My sister, Cara, looks a bit psychotic in the picture below but that's just because she's really excited to eat the caramel apples we made. Next year we'll just buy caramels and melt them, the stuff from scratch this year mostly just dripped off the apples but it still tasted good.

Overall it was a great Halloween, even if Spencer hated his costume. Next year I'll get him something a little more manly, like superman or batman.

Sandberg Family Vacation 2009

About a week ago my awesome parents took us all ("all" includes my mom and dad, Cara, Mitch, Marin, Kate, Jaren, Callie, Blake, Matt, Spencer, and me) to California for a family vacation. We woke up early on Thursday morning and flew to Long Beach, California. Spencer did pretty good on his first plane ride, probably because we pretty much just fed him smarties the whole time.

After picking up our rental we went straight to Disneyland. My niece Marin (who the trip was pretty much planned around) was so excited over everything and it was so much fun to see her reaction to things. Spencer had fun but I think he can get the same amount of fun from going to a park or running around a store.
My little brother, Blake.
My niece, Marin, and my brother-in-law Mitch.
Small-World ride.
When we met Mickey Spencer nuzzled his head against him, I think he thought he was just a giant stuffed animal.

My mom kept the kids (and adults) happy by buying them ice-cream.

On Friday we spent the entire day at the beach. Marin and Spencer were in heaven! They had a blast jumping around in the waves and playing in the sand. We rented a few surf-boards and boogie-boards and took turns catching waves. I'm pretty bad at boogie-boarding so I mostly just got slammed by waves all day and swallowed a lot of salt water.


My mom, Spencer, and Marin.




Marin and I had fun "attacking" the waves. Marin would yell, "attack!" and we'd run into the on-coming wave and jump over it. Then she'd yell "run!" and we'd run back to the dry sand.


On Saturday we went to Sea World but sadly our pictures were erased (thanks Matt). Spencer was more interested in the pigeons scavenging food everywhere than he was in the fish but Matt and I thought it was pretty cool. Our pictures from Sunday were also erased (also compliments of Matt). We tried to go to 10 o'clock church but Google Maps led us to a golf course (the boys said it was a sign that they should go golfing instead of to church). Luckily we were able to find a ward in another building that met at 11 o'clock. After church we ate lunch and put the kids down for a much-needed nap and my dad, sister, Matt, and I went to the Nixon Presidential Library. I'm a nerd so I thought it was pretty cool.

On Monday we went to Disneyland again. We spent most of our time at California Adventure Land. I'd never been there before, I thought it was pretty cool.




My mom, Cara, Marin, and I went to the Princess' Luncheon at Ariel's Grotto. Marin got to meet most of the princesses and it was so fun to watch her get excited about them! The food was also pretty yummy too!

At the end of the day when we got back to our van Spencer saw a banana on the dashboard and started yelling "Nanna! Nanna!" so Matt gave him one. There's nothing more to the story but I just thought this picture was funny. He looks like a true Ethington. (Ethington boys are legendary in Centerville for having large mouth capacity which enables them to win eating contests)
About 30 seconds after we pulled out of Disneyland Marin and Spencer were conked. When we got to the airport Matt and Mitch just pulled their car seats out of the van and put them with the luggage. They slept great while people walked around them.
Our flight was delayed two hours so we didn't get home until about 2:00 am. Unfortunately the next day I was filling in for another dietitian at the hospital I work at so I had to wake up at 6:30 am and drive to Ogden (thank goodness for Mountain Dew). Around 11:00 am my babysitter called and told me Spencer was still asleep and wanted to know if she should wake him up. I told her to let him sleep and when I got home she told me he slept until about noon and then woke up and ate lunch and took a bath and then around 2:00 pm he tried to climb into his crib so she fed him a bottle and put him back down to sleep. He slept until about 5:30 pm and then went to bed for the night at 8:30 pm. So I guess our vacation pretty much wore him out!

Recent Happenings...

I'm sure everyone has been very disappointed by the lack of posting lately. Well our camera died in September and by the time we got a new one and I had a few pictures built up there was a big windstorm that messed up our internet for a week. But now we're back in business and with our new camera I can start posting photographic masterpieces such as the photo below...

(This is from the first night we had our new camera, I was trying to do the classic "holding the camera at arm's-length" shot and this is what I got. Don't you love our serious model faces?)

These are just some pictures of us having fun in our backyard. Spencer loves climbing on our rock retaining wall.


I spent a lot of time in September bottling. I bottled pie apples, spaghetti sauce, salsa, whole tomatoes, jalapeño jelly, and peaches. Spencer was a big help.


I just thought this picture was cute, Spencer was way into eating this cookie.


We spent Conference Sunday at Matt's Parents' house. Notice the itty-bitty cantaloupe shots. We planted cantaloupe in our garden and in the end got 1 cantaloupe about the size of a grapefruit. Matt brought it as our contribution to the Sunday dinner. It was small but tasted pretty good.