My most embarrassing moment up to this point. . .

Have any of you ever shopped the after-Christmas sales? It's insane! I had to get a new fake Christmas tree and ornaments so I braved the masses the day after Christmas in order to get a good deal. After I found the tree of my dreams, I commenced looking for ornaments. Where else would I go, but Tai Pan Trading? It's new in St. George and everything was 50% off. It was a madhouse in the store. The lines were hours long, but I needed my ornaments! What good is a tree without them? Avree went with me and got in line while I shopped. 45 minutes later, she was still in line and I had my cart chucked full of ornaments. Marin was getting restless. I carried her around with me for quite awhile, but then decided to let her run around on the ground for awhile. She was in heaven, running from one thing to the next, touching but not grabbing! It was a miracle! All I had to do was follow her around, easy, right? WRONG! She started getting faster and faster and I was walking quite fast to keep up with her. Soon I was running, and about 50 people were watching us intently because they were waiting in line. Marin made an abrupt stop, I made an abrupt stop. . . and WIPE OUT!!! I fell down all the way to the ground. It was just like sliding into a base, which I've never actually done, but without the base. One second I was up, the next down. Several people came over to help me and I hurried and got up, laughing hysterically. No one else laughed with me though so it was just silence all around. I quit laughing and said "I'm fine, just embarrassed." I have a huge bruise on my knee and my wrists where I caught my fall onto the concrete floor!

Christmas Day

We spent Christmas at my parents' house in St. George. It was a wonderful break. Santa gave Marin a toy kitchen in hopes that it would keep her away from the real kitchen appliances in our house. She loved it! We couldn't have hoped for a better reaction on Christmas morning. Here are a few pictures of the morning festivities:

Party Time!

This was the annual "Sandberg Family" Christmas party, complete with the talent show. My cousin Andrea's girls were darling and sang karaoke for us. Marin was dancing along to the music here. The excitement for the night happened when Marin let herself out the front door to "look at the lights" outside. We caught her just in time before she got off the front porch!

We had our annual "friends" Christmas party again and the Dimonds from North Carolina were our star guests! Val had the wonderful idea to go to a nearby care center and sing carols to the elderly. We were a little rusty at first and even forgot the words to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," but by the end we were dancing and having a great time. We even came up with our own rousing rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." This is a picture of our girls Annie, Amelia, and Marin (Scott, being the only boy, was intimidated and sat this picture out).

Snow!

It snowed just a little, but I couldn't resist dressing Marin up in her snow suit and letting her play in the snow for the first time! She's very into our neighbors' Christmas lawn decorations. She studied the snowman for quite some time!

She was very interested in the tracks she made in the snow!

She loves playing on our front porch for some reason!

Time to update. . .

It is about time I updated this blog, since I haven't posted anything new since I created it this summer. I thought I might "back-blog" a few pictures from this summer until now, and then I will try and keep it current for those of you who might wish to check on the Moncurs every now and then. (Val, you can stop being disappointed in me now, since I vow to become a better blogger from this day forth!)

Since the end of this year is fast approaching, I will give a bit of an update on what we've be up to this year. Warning: we're not very exciting so if you are bored easily, please skip down to the pictures!
Of course, the highlight and ultimate joy of our lives is little Marin. She has to be mentioned first because our entire life centers around her little red-headed self. She is 20 months old now and she is VERY BUSY all the time. Seriously, she is above-average active, curious, and sometimes mischievous! (I figured this out while helping out in nursery and comparing her to the other children her age.) She is always moving and I am always running after her, averting disaster at the last moment. I will post pictures of a few of her messes below. She is starting to really talk now and her favorite phrase is "No way!" She just learned how to open doors this week, so I'll let you know what adventures befall us in the days to come!

One of our biggest excitements this year by far was that Mitch finally finished his CPA exam! After months of studying he finally has some free time. He organized a flag football team with the guys at work this Fall and had a blast-- those nerdy accountants even won a few games with his expert coaching.

My biggest excitement was definitely finishing my thesis. If you want an exciting read on the world of calcium and weight loss, feel free to check it out from the Utah State University library. I'm very sure you will be the first and last person to ever do so! I am still working at the hospital for a couple of hours a week and my latest adventure is teaching the weight loss class there one night a week. My favorite job by far though, is being Marin's mom.

We are very happy and love living in Logan!

Marin's Messes

Yes, she is wearing my swimming suit top around her neck! We had to put all of her books up high because it was too fun to pull them all down several times a day!


The toilet paper roll is never safe as long as Marin is around!

Dressing up!

Marin loves to dress up in her "pretties" as she calls them.

Bear Lake

We went to Bear Lake with our friends once again this summer and we had lots of fun. Marin loved jumping in the waves but we couldn't stay on the beach too long because she also loved eating mud!

Beautiful Logan Fall

Fall is my favorite season in Logan. The leaves are so pretty!
We went up the canyon and took pictures of Marin in the leaves (thanks Val!)

Halloween

Marin was Piglet for Halloween. We took her trick-or-treating around our cul-de-sac to show off her costume. That's our friend Matt as Zorro, and his daughter Annie as a little dog.

Wyoming

Marin had fun swimming in grandma Moncur's swimming pool!















The highlight of Mitch's trip was definitely wakeboarding again. Looks like he's still got it!
















We went up on the Big Horn mountains and Marin had fun running around and picking flowers!

Kiddie Pool

Marin loved her kiddie pool this summer!















Look at this beautiful bod!

Grass!

We were so excited to get grass in our yard at the beginning of the summer! We went out of town for a week and came back to a field of grass. It was at least 10 inches long. Our neighbors asked it we were going to bale it when we finally mowed it. Marin about got lost in it!