Christmas Video 2009

Well here it is........many of you have been waiting all year for this! Hahahaha! Just kidding! For those of you that don't know, this is a family tradition that my family does. Every year (click to watch 2007 and 2008) each family (including my parents) puts a video together (usually humorous) and we watch them on Christmas Eve. Well this year we were all in town and together for Thanksgiving so we decided to do them a little early. They were all so dang funny! It amazes me how everyone can still come up with new ideas year after year. So sometimes we have family inside jokes in them and as you will see at the very end of ours there is a picture that doesn't quite make sense....family joke. So sit back and enjoy, then scroll down afterwards and I'll explain a couple of things!



So, during the Doney Dance Party, we were all just dancing around when suddenly I look down and Gavin has pulled his pants down is just dancing like nothing is wrong! I lost it! I almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard. So the footage you see is him running out of the room and in slow motion you can hear the end of the Lindsay saying "our video". She was yelling "Gavin is ruining our video!" Then Gavin turns around and screams at Lindsay for being rude to him, so that is that really ugly, low, scream. Hilarious!

Then the picture at the end is of my mom and Lindsay at one of her soccer games. After my sister Jenny got married last year, my dad added video footage and pictures of her wedding to the end of her wedding video he had made. He had asked me if I had any snapshots that I had taken from her reception, which I did, so he downloaded them to his computer. Later as we were watching what he added to Jenny's wedding video, we started noticing weird pictures. Turns out, my dad just threw all the pictures that were on my camera onto the video without even looking at them. Then the very last picture (remember this is a wedding video, so there was a sappy, love song playing during these pictures) was of my mom and Lindsay at her soccer game, then he faded out. You would have expected a picture of Jenny and Ben on their wedding day! We died laughing! We love you dad! So there's my long explanations!

12 years and counting!

On December 1st, it will be 12 years ago that we all became friends. We celebrated early because Jenny and Heather A.O. (that's what we call her to distinguish between the 2 Heather's) are here this week for Thanksgiving. Who would have thought 12 years ago we'd all be where we are today.....together we all have 14 kids!

Scotland the brave!

Dan came home from his mission in Scotland 10 years ago on September 9th (the day he came home it was 9/9/99). We've had a couple of visitors the past few months from Scotland and last week one of Dan's mission buddies and his wife and baby came to visit from Louisiana.
It is fun to see Dan resort back to being in Scotland and even hearing his accent resort to Scotish!

Back in May, Charles Gibson (on the left) came to visit from . Gordon McVey (on the right) moved here to America and married a woman who lives in Lehi last year. Dan baptised his daughter Charris 11 years ago.

Last month, Charris McVey (Charles' daughter that Dan baptised) came to visit. She brought all the kids some really nice gifts from Scotland.

Shane, Kim and Nathan Porter from Louisiana

Shane has the most hilarious laugh and it was so fun to listen to him and Dan talk and laugh about stories on the mission!

Trevor and Liz's Wedding

On Saturday, November 21st, Dan's brother, Trevor, married Elizabeth (Liz) in the Draper Temple. They dated for a LONG time and we are so glad they finally decided to seal the deal! We LOVE having Liz in the family. She is so sweet and she adores our kids.
So between my family and Dan's family, we've had 5 weddings in the past year and a half. And we both still have one sibling left to get married!

I think they are a pretty dang cute couple!


Ma, Trevor and Pa

She's beautiful!




Most of the Doney family. Sis flew in from Chicago, but Zach and the boys stayed behind.

Evvi (Mike and Brie's baby) and Brooklyn (2 months apart)

Brooklyn

Lindsay

Gavin

Zane

Lindsay caught the bouquet and Zane caught the garter. They were so excited!

Pa and Ma changed into comfy shoes after the reception!

Congratulations Trevor and Liz! We love you!

I got the job!!!

So back in October I applied for a job at JetBlue. The position is a Reservation Crew member. After 6 weeks of training at their office, I get to take phone calls and reservations from home. I found out on Friday, November 20th, that I got the job! I am very excited! I have several friends who work for JetBlue and they LOVE it! The January training was already full, so I won't be starting until March 1st. I found out yesterday that they got me into the night training from 4:00 pm to midnight which is what I wanted. That way Dan will be home (for the most part) with the kids while I train. The only frusterating part is that I won't know my at home schedule until I start training, after we do the shift bid. I'm the type of person that has to plan ahead, like WAYYYYYY ahead! So not know is driving me nuts! But once I know, then we can figure out the details of when Dan will be home with the kids or when I'll need a little help here and there with the kids. Thankfully, this job is VERY flexible and you can trade shifts, give away shifts and pick up shifts as much as you want. I'm anxious to start bringing in a little extra money. Oh and the free flight benefits aren't too shabby either!

Twilight/New Moon (don't read if you don't want to the know the ending of the movie!)

First and foremost I have to say that I am not a Twilight fan. I read the first 2 books over a year ago, started the 3rd book in October of 2008 and haven't picked it up since. I just don't see what the big deal is. A human loving a vampire, then after being dumped by the vampire, she falls for a werewolf (well, actually uses the werewolf) then the second she finds out where the vampire is she dumps the werewolf on his behind and runs back to the vampire. I have many friends who LOVE it and that is fine. I have my things that I love that others don't. To each their own.......So my good friend, Ginger Garn, works for JetBlue and they were doing a private showing on Thursday, November 19th, the day BEFORE the movie came out. Now Ginger had gotten 20 tickets for some of her family and some of us and some of her other friends. Karen, Heidi, Kim Cowdell and I are not Twilight fans, but we thought it would be fun to have a girl's night out and get to see the movie before most of the fanatics. I saw the first movie, and didn't really like it. But didn't want to pass up a girls' night!

I actually liked the movie better than the first because they show a lot more of the werewolf , Jacob, than the creepy, ugly vampire, Edward, that most everyone else is obsessed it. But I didn't like the ending, because Bella chose Edward. I was so annoyed with how whiny and selfish Bella was in the whole movie. I'm not a fan of her character at all! So at the end of the movie when Edward said, "Bella, will you marry me?" and everyone on the audience started cheering and clapping, I took it upon myself to BOO as loud as I could when the theater got quiet. Hahahahahaha! Everyone laughed and I was happy to get that off my chest!

So I guess if I was a fan, one might say I was on "Team Jacob" as opposed to "Team Edward." I like to think of myself as being on "Team Dan."

Karen, Kim Cowdell, Ginger Garn, Michelle Bowman, Me, Heidi and Debbie Brown

We were embarrassed to have our picture being taken by the New Moon poster because we're not Fans so we pretended like we were excited for this random movie coming out in December. I've never even heard of it. :)

"Heather, will you........"

10 years ago today was an interesting day. It was my Oma and Opa's 50th Wedding Anniversary. If they were both still alive, today they would have been celebrating their 60th with us, but I'm glad they are finally together again celebrating it in a much more beautiful place. So for their 50th Anniversary, 10 years ago, we had a big celebration at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building with a nice dinner with family and their German friends and lots of gifts. Dan had been home from his mission for 2 months. We had decided to date exclusively (again) and just the week before we both had received confirmation that we were to get married! It was an exciting time for us. We had a wedding date pretty much picked but we had not started looking for rings yet. I had invited Dan to come to my grandparent's Anniversary party with me. It was a really fun time and thinking back to it today makes me really miss my Oma and Opa.

Towards the end of the night, Dan and I both needed to use the bathroom. So we took the elevators down to the basement of the JSM Building. After that, we both got back into the elevator but instead of pushing the button to return to the main level where the party was, he pushed Level 2. I asked him where we were going and he said he just wanted to walk around. I thought, cool! So when the elevator doors opened, we walked out and walked around some of the empty rooms on the second level. Then he took me into a room where the Salt Lake Temple was right outside the window! It was gorgeous!!!!! We walked over the window to peer out at the temple. The thought quickly came into my head "if Dan was going to propose, this would be the perfect setting." Just as soon as I was done thinking that, I turned to see Dan bending down on one knee!!! Oh my heck!!! He was going to propose! I had dreamt of this day since I was a little girl! And he had done it as a surprise, totally catching me off guard, just how I had pictured it happening! Dan looked up at me and my eyes started to sting with tears! He got kind of a weird look on his face then said, "Heather, will you..................wait for me to tie my shoe?" Wait, WHAT????? What did you just say, Dan? He started to chuckle and stood back up. You mean to tell me this was just a joke? I had waited for 2 LONG years for you on your mission and you pull this on me? I tried to laugh too and play it off like it didn't bother me. We headed back down to the Anniversary party where we ate dessert and the more I kept thinking about what had just happened the madder I got. So by the time Dan and I were driving home, I wasn't speaking to him. Can you blame me?

When we were on speaking terms again, I asked him "exactly what were you thinking?" His response was "I wasn't planning on playing a joke on you. It was just the perfect setting for a proposal, but I wasn't ready to propose. So I thought it would be funny to fake it. But as soon as I bent down and saw the tears in your eyes, I knew I was in trouble and I panicked. So that's the first thing that came into my head!" Hmmm.....hilarious! NOT! And to make the whole proposal thing an even touchier subject, he didn't REALLY propose for almost 2 more months! So yes this day is memoriable. And now, honey, it's documented for everyone to read. But I still LOVE you! So Happy 10 year FAKE Proposal Anniversary!

P.S. Just so you all know how mean I am, I got him back about 3 years later. I pretended my water broke when I was almost due with Lindsay. Yes, I even poured water all over the floor, so when he came home from work, he'd see it and think that my water really had broken. Man, if you could have seen the way he started running around the house trying to gather everything for the hospital. PAYBACK sweety! Love ya!

Reflections 2009

Zane and Lindsay both wanted to enter something in the school Reflections this year. They both decided to paint a picture. The theme was "Beauty is....". Well they both won and are moving on to the next level! They did not get their artistic abilities from me. We are so proud of you Lindsay and Zane!

Lindsay's picture was titled "Beauty is Dancing." She painted two ballerinas on a stage.


Zane's picture was titled "Beauty is Creatures of the Ocean." He painted different sea creatures.

I'm in disguise!

Lindsay had a school project where she had to take a picture of this turkey and put him in disguise so he wouldn't be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. The whole family was supposed to help her. We came up with the idea of dressing him like Santa Clause. We used shredded pieces of cotton for his beard and snow. Those of you that know me well, know that I can't stand the feel of cotton! It makes me cringe having it between my fingers! GAG! So of course I made Lindsay pull the cotton apart and Dan glued it on! I think our Mr. Turkey Clause turned out pretty cute!

Lindsay looses her 3rd tooth!

On November 4th, Lindsay lost her 3rd tooth. It was one of her top middle teeth and had been loose for quite a while but she wanted to wait to pull it until after her school pictures. This one was less traumatic to pull than her first 2. The other tooth next to it is also loose, but she is now waiting until after we have family pictures taken Thanksgiving weekend. She said she thinks it will look weird in pictures if they are both missing! Funny girl, but she thinks just like me!

Dan is playing soccer again

Dan is not much of sports watching kind of guy. He would much rather play the sport than sit and watch someone else play. His favorite sport to play is soccer. He played in a couple of leagues a few years ago before we started having kids. Now he's joined another league with some guys in our ward and stake. He really loves it and has even scored a few goals!

His cheering section!

Brooklyn 5 months

Brooklyn is 5 months old! Time just keeps going faster and faster! She is in my favorite baby stage. I love that she smiles when we walk into the rooom and that we can make her giggle and that she grabs her toes and anything around to look at and explore it! I also like that she's not mobile yet!

She started rolling from her back to her tummy on October 12th. She hasn't figured how to get back to her tummy yet but she's getting close. She used to cry every time she'd roll over because she hated being on her tummy, but now she likes it.



We started baby food and so far she really only likes the rice cereal.


The peas are a different story!

She discovered her toes and her voice about 2 weeks ago. I love hearing her coo. It is one of my favorite sounds!

She started getting Excema at aout 3 months old on her left cheek and on the insides of her elbows and behind her knees. So far we've been able to control it with Auquaphor.

Halloween 2009

Lindsay as Sleeping Beauty

Zane as Batman

Gavin as Black Spiderman

Brooklyn as a Pumpkin. She did not like being in her costume as you can tell, she wouldn't smile...

But I got this adorable picture of her wearing a shirt from Granny Annie that says, "Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun!"

Dan dressed up for work as a Scottish Geek Squad Employee. (notice Gavin in the background stealing candy from Granny Annie's candy jar ~ classic!)

Lindsay's teacher dressed up as the mean substitute teacher, Mrs. Swamp from the book "Miss Nelson is Missing". She had told the class earlier in the week that she was not going to be at school on the day they were celebrating Halloween. So on Friday, she came dressed up and told the kids she was a substitute. Funny thing is, the kids really thought she was a substitute until about 1:30 that day! Too funny!

Dan, me, Karen and Christian went to a couple's party at our freind's the Cowdell's the day before Halloween. We decided to go as "As Seen on TV" products. Dan and Christian were "Snuggies", I went as "Bumpits" (a plastic thing you put in your hair to give it volume, but I wore 4 of them in my hair to make it look as ugly as possible), and Karen was a "PedEgg" (a little cheese grater looking thing you use to scrape the dry skin off your feet). We decided to make Karen's Pedeggs into a PedEgg bra. The party was so much fun!

Riley, Brooklyn and Mary. We didn't realize that we were all having the babies be pumpkins until we all got to mom's for a Halloween party. They looked so cute!