Merry Christmas One and All.....

This Year instead of "Grandpa Claus" stopping by our Family Christmas Party, we had "Cameron Claus" a close descendant. He did a wonderful job, and brought lots of Christmas Cheer. We look forward to our Family Chrismas Party every year. Due to the snow storm, it was just us this year, but we still had such a fun time eatting, playing games, singing and having a special visitor.Steve sitting on Santa's lap. Look a the resemblance.Courtney discovering who Santa is......oh my

Having fun with Santa. What a crazy bunch of kids!Our exchange student Thomas gave us the present of music on Christmas Eve and played the guitar while we sang. He even sang to us in German, it was a magical wonderful night.
Christmas Eve in new PJ's that Courtney sewed, everyone thought they were the hottest!Chrismas morning unwraping presents, Cameron and Courtney shared opening their new cameras.Courtney and Cameron in their new Christmas coats. Courtney loves her green "Jon and Kate" coat that she requested.
Kandace and Courtney in their new hats, ahh don't they look so cute! We all had a wonderful Christmas and we were so glad to be inside safe and WARM while we got 2-feet of snow outside. That is a whole different story!

A "Hustling Bustling" Week

This is the "Blown Glass" tree at the Festival of trees. One of my favorite traditions to attend each year. I just didn't have time to post my pictures last week, so here is one of the trees.

It's that time of year for all the "Hustle and Bustle". Last week we hosted 3-parties at our home, this week we only had two. Friday night we hosted the "Foreign Exchange Students" Christmas social. We had around 100 people, including the students and host families at our home. We played the "White Elephant" game with them. They played way too nice for us, and didn't even steal from each other too much, only a couple of kids took from someone else. Thomas, our student, was all smiles all night. We think he had a great time.

Thomas and Fabian(another student from Germany) find a quiet spot to visit and eat.

The kitchen was as busy as time square.

The excitement of the "White Elephant" Game

As soon as the party was over, Kandace, Courtney, Cameron and Thomas hopped on a flight to NYC. They spent Saturday checking out the sights of NYC. They took Thomas to see the Statue of Liberty, shopping on Canel Street, on the subway, to Central park, Time Square, (which they didn't stay long because it was too crowded) To ESPN to use the bathrooms, a must in NYC. They had NYC pizza, the best in the world. They met up with their cousin Levi and his family at the Disney Store, then went to Rockefeller Center to see the tree. They didn't even go skating because they were too cold and it was too crowded. Here are a few fun pictures of their quick trip. They slept till noon on Sunday, but are back to school and work today.

Thomas on the ferry to see the Staute of Liberty

"Look Mom....we're in Time Square in our new hats!"Having fun in Central Park, or trying to keep warm???

Kandace and Thomas all smiles in Sunny Central Park! Levi and Charlotte in NYC Disney Store, bundled up staying warm.A tired face only a Mom could love!

The "TREE" at Rockefeller Centter, as beautiful as ever!

JHS Christmas Dance..or Event!

Cameron and his "Groupies" went to the JHS Christmas Dance this weekend. They started the 2-day event by taking their dates camping Friday night. Yes, camping in December! Are they crazy or what! The girls were good sports and went along. They had the girls all home by 10:00 AM Saturday so they could nap and be ready for the dance a 5:30 PM. As you can tell by their attire, this was a "Pajama" dance. They all matched their dates pajama's. More craziness. Cameron's date, Sophie is an exchange student from Norway. She was a good sport to go to her first american dance in her "PJ's"

Here is the whole gang after the dance. They all came to our house for dessert, and to play a couple of Christmas games.

The competition was fierce at the "White Elephant" game. Dash walked away with the most coveted gift, the "Ironman" play figure. Eric was thrilled with his "Pig Pile" game! They then played the "Candy Bar" game. We decided to add a twist to the game to make it go faster. We played "Speed Candy Bar Game" We had three sets of dice going at the same time. There were several times that I was almost taken out by a flying candy bar. Once all the candy bars were gone and hidden in their bags, we set the timer for 10-minutes. Things got crazier and louder as they tried to keep up with who had the "Nerds, Candy baby bottle, DOTS, SNICKERS" We never knew 14-teenagers could be soo crazy about finding their favorite candy bar.

Things quieted down again after they had their dessert, then settled in to watch clips from SNL. They all had a great time, but called it a night at the stoke of midnight.

It's Christmas Time!!!!!!!!

After much work and time spent on getting all the decorations ready, not to mention a mom who got up at 5:00 am just to get me a good deal on a Christmas tree we finally got everything set up for Christmas!!!

We put up the nativity next to the t.v. so we are always looking at it. And we put the tree in front of the window so everyone can see it from the outside.

All of my roommates love that our house is so decorated and we have decided to keep up our decorations through January to try and get rid of some of the gloom.

Well Here are our decorations. I hope that everyone has a merry Christmas, and helps spread the love throughout the world!!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS,
Courtney

We Hit Thanksgiving...Running!

Here we all are, Thanksgiving morning at the "Human Race" 5K. The kids joined me last year and have decided to make this a Thanksgiving tradition. My cousin Sandy and her friend joined us too. This year there were 2000 entries, we got there just as the race was starting and couldn't even move at first from all the people. It was wonderful to see so many families out in the rain walking and running for the Food Bank and LDS Humanitarian fund. We wore our elf hats, and that made it easy to find each other.
This was Thomas's first Thanksgiving, he had never seen a whole turkey cooked. Notice his "Totally Hot" shirt from the race! He liked all the food.

Every year we make a ginger bread house. I gave Casey and Thomas the assignment this year. Thomas wants to be an architect, so this was right up his alley. Courtney and I spent the day decorating the entire house. We now have lights and Christmas trees in every room. We love Christmas!

They worked hard on their house, and I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I will take one for next week of their We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Valley of Fire 10k....We were HOT!

Okay, so about a month and a half ago I got a call from Austin and she wanted to know if I wanted to run the "Valley of Fire 10K" with her. I told her I would think about it and let her know. I decided I needed to challenge my self. I started increasing my distance and got shin splints. So I went and got new running shoes, that helped but then ankle started to bug me. But I stuck with it. The last two weeks I was able to run 4 to 7 miles every time I went out running. We did. We didn't train for the killer hills we had to go up and down, but we made it. I took 3rd place in my age division and got an award. I was very surprised! We loved the rock star awards we got for running the race.

Here we are before the race began freezing to death! Lance and Jake, Austins friends from her Las Vegas ward ran the 1/2 Marathon. We might try running that next year.

Courtney came and supported me at the race, she made this great sign,heck we're both Mom's so it worked for me and Austin. We did it Austin! Thanks for getting me motivated to try something new! Even though my thighs are screaming at me today because of the hills, I would do it again.

Thanks Courtney for coming to the race to give me some moral support and then taking me to St. George to see "Twlight". I love these girl weekends we have had the last couple of weeks. Next week we do the "Human Race" 5K on Thanksgiving morning. Ahhh..just a little 5K with no hills, no sweat!

Girl Trip so......WICKED!

Okay, so last summer at my company party I won a 3-night hotel stay in Burbank,Ca. Courtney was with me when I won it and had immediate plans, she said "Mom, you can take me to WICKED for my birthday". Saturday was Courtneys' 20th Birthday, and yes, we went to WICKED in L.A.

Courtney and Mom at WICKED! Courtney was one happy gal!Happy or WICKED Courtney!
We were able to have Aunt Teresa and Nicole meet us for dinner and join us at the play. Thanks guys for taking time from your busy lives come and play with us! It was great to see both of you.

Pinch me Mom, I can't believe we get to go to Ellen! Courtney tried for over a month to get tickets to a taping of the "Ellen" show before we went to California. Our hotel was only down the street from the Warner Bros. Studio, so we were driving down the street and decided since we couldn't get tickets to just stop by and shop at the store. We pulled into the parking garage and noticed a line and a big sign that said "Ellen". The security guard stopped us and I asked if we could try and get standby passes for the show. He said sure, gave us a parking pass and told us were to go. Long story short, we somehow got to go to a taping of "Ellen" and even won a DVD of WALL E, and danced with the "Thunder Down Under"!

Courtney with Elvis on the Hollywood walk of fame!

Courtney and Mom with our friend MICKEY!

Courtney at Chiness Groman Theather and Arnold Schwarzengger hand prints. Later we went and got a pedicure for only $12.00. We shopped the L.A. Garment District and found a shoe store going out of business. It was the best GIRLS TRIP ever! Who wants to join us next year?????

Courtney's Halloween

My Mom said that I should write something about what I'm doing and post it, so here I go. This year for Halloween my friends and I dressed up and well we didn't do much. We made pizza and watched scary movies and well that's about it.
This is Bridget. She didn't feel like dressing up, so we just made her hair stick up. Amazingly it didn't take very long. Well I hope this makes you proud mom!!!

Super Heroes Save Halloween!

This week we had a couple of "Super Heroes" save us on Halloween. We lost our dryer(after 6 faithful years) and had to replace it. While we were replacing, Steve decided to replace the old, refridgerator too. We called on our "Super Heroes" to use their big strong muscles and move the old out, and the new in. They did a fabulous job! Thomas even hung my Christmas lights up outside, something no one else has done in the past 6-years. We are thankful to have such handsome, strong, helpful "Super Heroes" living amongst us!
Cameron flies off to his next "Super Hero mission" , he was sure there was a damsel in distress!

Pumpkin Carving contest

The long awaited Haupt Family Halloween party and "Pumpkin Carving contest" was held last night and the pressure was intensense. There were nine entries this year for the prestigous panel of non-bias judges to view and award prizes. The top three winners for the Haupt Family in the West Division were- Most creative-Theater Faces-Courtney Leavitt carver, Scarest-Casey Leavitt carver and Best Over-Goblin-Autumn Vaterlaus-Arnett- carver. We had a fabulous time ate great food and then sang "Happy Birthday" to Steve who will celebrate his birthday on Tuesday. Hope you all have as much fun as we did carving your Halloween Pumpkins. Happy Halloween!

Can you see the tension in the air........the pumpkin carvers are hard at work.

The pumpkins are in place for the judges to inspect.

Click the play button below and see a quick video of the entries this year.