Family Pics

We did some long overdue family pictures last weekend. These are some of my (Chris's) favorites. I absolutely hate taking pictures, which shows in about every picture I am in. However, the camera likes the rest of the family. We had lots of kissing shots and lots of shots of our butts, which unfortuneately might still be my best side. I was on my best behavior largely because we took the pics on a beautiful golf course.

This one is in there for the golf flag in the background!


Did he just poop? He kinda has that look...

Kindergarten?????

Lizzie was a ice cube by this point.

Double trouble!

We did some "divorce" shots too...you know, without the other spouse. We will call this Wife's Exhibit #1. Kelly's, of course, turned out much better. Luke was choking me in mine.

I like that all you can see of me is a big fat blobby head.

Aren't we all a bit grumpy on the cold, wet tile?

Okay...I will give you some kissing shots...don't worry, nobody wanted to kiss me.

More "divorce" shots:

Husband's Exhibit #1

Husband Exhibit #2 Norton v. Norton:

How many chins are in this picture? Submit your guesses. The winner gets something really fattening and delicious off the grill.

Wife's Exhibit #2:

Kelly, look at how "brown" Elizabeth's eyes are. They could still change, right?

Kelly and I must have had snot running out of our noses on this shot. She even managed to edit our my chins.

Where is Lizzie??? So much for "family" photos


One final butt shot to end this post.

Shout Out to Shauna

Just a little SHOUT OUT to my great sister in law, Shauna. She sent me some links to change our background. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard, and I was able to figure it out with the easy directions. So, THANK YOU SHAUNA!! I am ready to learn something else!

Christmas 2008 with the Nortons

So, pictures will have to be added later. We were lame and didn't pull out the camera very much. My whole family was here over the holidays, thanks to our baby brother, Michael, getting married. My parents traveled from Wyoming to Utah and caravanned down with Spencer, and Alli and Jon. They got here the Sunday before Christmas. There was lots of running around town, finishing up last minute Christmas shopping the days prior to Christmas, but it all got done. Chris surprised me early (the Saturday before Christmas) with a beautiful new dining room table and chairs. He was trying to keep the surprise until Christmas, but they called and told him he needed to pick it up that day, if he wanted it before Christmas. It is a beautiful piece of furniture and is easily the nicest piece of furniture we own. Too bad it currently has to sit on our "silverado" carpet. Hopefully it will be sitting on finer floors soon. He also gave me a beautiful picture of the Logan Temple. We will hang it in our living room. He really did great this Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Chris made the family a delicious prime rib. He cooked it on the routissere on the grill. Oh, it was delightful with its bits of garlic stuffed in. Michael and Elna joined us from Tucson after working on Christmas Eve. We finished out our Christmas Nativity Advent from Grandma Norton, Spencer read us a Christmas story, and my mom shared a family favorite Christmas story. We all then opened a present, "fam jams," as my mom likes to call them (family pajamas) and sent the kiddos to bed in the playroom (since their rooms were occupied by our visitors). The girls got to work wrapping, wrapping, and wrapping (oh, only until about 3:00 AM). Chris and the boys got busy wiiing, wiiing, and more wiiing. He was concerned that it might not work the next morning, so he had to get it set up and try it out.

Thankfully, our kiddos aren't early risers on Chrismas yet, so we were able to sleep in until about 8:00 AM (if I remember correctly--it was a lot of late nights). Camilla was surprised with a new beach bike from Santa. It is very cute, white with pink flowers. Luke got a new geo trax train and Lizzie got a little Bumbo seat. Santa also left the Wii Chris was trying out on Christmas Eve. Since there were 14 of us total, we moved the present opening into the family room where there was more room, instead of the living room where the tree was. It was fun to see what everyone got and how generous everyone was eachother. We were all blessed with a very nice Christmas, with lovely gifts. We had a brunch of eggs, cinnamon rolls, and bacon (it had to be brunch, since there were 14 of us opening gifts). For dinner, we had a ham, funeral potatoes, homemade rolls, and a jello.

After Christmas, there were preprations for the real reason we were all together, Michael's wedding. Lindsay and her family drove down from Northern Idaho and joined us on Monday. We had a day of family photos (you know Chris loved this), lots of Tiger Woods Golf Tournaments, a little Battle of the Sexes game night (Yes, the girls won), and lots of visiting and eating. There seemed to be daily trips to the store, since everyday, someone else came down with a cold.

Michael and sweet Elna were married on Friday, January 2 in the Mesa Temple. They were one of the first sealings in 2009 in the Mesa Temple (there were several at the 9 AM time slot, which was the earliest sealing time) and one of 38 couples getting married that day. Needless to say, the temple was busy that day. The sweet Golightly girls, Jessica and Brooke, came to the temple with us and babysat all of our kiddos and the Coon kids while we were in there. It was a "cold" (for AZ) morning, and they braved the weather until the visitor's center opened. It was a beautiful ceremony and it was so nice to have all of the family in there together. They had their luncheon at Serranos, and then we headed down to Tucson for the reception. Alli and Jon were brave and joined us in our car for the trip down. We had a good visit both ways and I we provided some good birth control on the trip (traveling with three cranky, tired, demanding kiddos). Lindsay, Alli, and I really weren't around much for the reception, we went and helped Michael set up their apartment as a honeymoon suite and our husbands took care of the kiddos and then helped move some furniture in. Our husbands were really good sports.

The plan was that everyone would head home on Saturday, but Saturday morning came and everyone was much too tired and sick, so we had another day of visiting. My dad and Chris planned a little birthday party for me, since everyone was here. We went to dinner at San Tan Flats, a little place in Queen Creek with outdoor seating with bonfires and dancing. We roasted marshmallows and enjoyed a nice Arizona night around the fire. After coming home, Chris surprised me with a cake. It has been along time since I have had a birthday party with my family and I quite enjoyed it.

Sunday morning came and they were headed home for real. My mom and Alli helped get things going in the wash. Jon soon discovered he couldn't find his keys, so after about an hour and a half of searching high and low, they decided they could leave with out them (they were later found in his luggage when he returned home). Mom and Dad left about two hours later, but caught up with the Bills and Spencer after they got a flat tire near Wikiup. We had a good day of visiting with the Coons. I stayed home with Lizzie from church, since she's had a cold. Chris took Camilla and Luke. They were excited to go to their new primary classes. It is hard to believe that Luke is a Sunbeam.

Our Christmas break ended with one last day playing the Coon cousins before they left town and a visit from Uncle Ben who flew in for the Fiesta Bowl. Everyone left us Tuesday morning, including Camilla who headed off to school. Luke and I started to pull down the decorations and get the house back together. Unfortunately, this is an ongoing process. We get distracted with Lizzie learning to roll over, reading books to Luke, and playing games on the Wii. Chris is back to the grindstone working hard. He feels like he has a lot of catching up to do, but I appreciate all the time he sacraficed to help host my family. Hopefully we can do it again soon!

BYU vs. ASU (Basketball)

We got decked out in our "Y" gear for the BYU game against ASU in University of Phoenix Stadium (Cardinal Stadium). Sadly, the attendance was poor. Not many BYU fans. The Dallas/Fort Worth area does much better for BYU games there. However, it was even more embarrasing for ASU fans (or lack thereof) for a ranked program. BYU was the better team and outplayed them the entire game despite some superstar treatment for ASU's star player. The game ended on a controversial last second shot, which unsurprisingly was decided in ASU's favor. I am very hoarse from yelling at the Pac-10 officials. We had fun and I did not embarass Kelly or the kids too badly. However, if there wasn't a railing in front of me, I probably would have gone after the officials.

We got home in time to see the football Cougars blow chunks in Vegas. I am glad that I stayed close to home for the basketball game. Bad day for Cougar fans. Although the basketball team seems pretty solid. Let the hope and hype begin for next year's football team.

Catching Up

We have been looking at all the nice Christmas cards and family pictures of our friends and family and thinking that we have not even sent Christmas cards this year or even updated our blog.

We will give you a quick update on the past few months.

On November 23, 2008, our little Camilla turned 6. She had a friend party before we left for Utah. She had a cooking party that included making pizzas and decorating cookies. The kids seemed to have a good time. The pizza was even good.

Kelly did a great job making the party great...not that she has had much practice. We have largely avoided having big birthday parties until this one. It usually ends up being a barbeque with our friends. I am sure Kelly will find a way to top this one next year.

For Thanksgiving we drove to Utah. Elizabeth did great on the trip (I think Kelly and the kids had a harder time than she did). I put them all in the back and cranked up the Ipod. We drove up the weekend before so that we would forget about the ride up before we had to return again.

At Grandma's, Camilla had a family birthday party with all the Norton cousins.







We had a great Thanksgiving will all my siblings except for Emily. We also had Uncle Paul and Aunt Sharon Norton over. Dad warned us (the boys and brothers-in-law) to be on our best behavior at least while Paul and Sharon were there. Of course, we tried extra hard to make sure the conversation veered of course to make my dad squirm a bit.

We had a great time staying up late talking in the front room with all my brothers and sisters just about every night.






Luke helped Grandpa fix some lights on the giant outdoor Christmas tree in the back yard. We had a tree lighting the night ceremony before everyone left home.



Yes, that tree is in my dad's back yard and it is huge. I think he rented a Genie lift last year to decorate it and the lights stay on the tree all year. The Griswold's have nothing on Big Steve.




The kids caught pink eye from the cousins while we were there. It took us two rounds of eye drops to get rid of that. Other than that, there were no casualties.

We were able to meet up with our good friends from law school--Peays and Michelis--at Temple Square for dinner and to see the lights. It was nice to visit with them and see the lights.

JSB Parking Incident II--I did have a brain-dead moment while looking for parking in downtown Salt Lake. To make room for all our stuff and another kid, we purchased a Thule cargo box for the SUV. I tried to park at the Joseph Smith Building, forgetting (or not knowing) my new heigth, I proceeded into the underground parking structure. I first struck a large metal pole hanging from chains indicating the maximum height. Luckily, it was on chains so it just slowly scraped across the top of the cargo box. However, what I faced next gave me great pause. There is a steep decent with cement beam at the bottom, which appeared as though it would shear my cargo rack right of the car. I stopped briefly right before the overhang to survey the imminent damage. Several other cars had followed me in and were watching with great amusement as I decided whether to proceed or not. Since there was no way I was backing out at this point, I kept going thinking there was no way to get under the ceiling. Somehow I made it under with out further damage. Each turn I made seemed more precarious, so I got out of there. The parking attendant said something like, "I would have stopped you if I would have noticed..." Other than some nice vacation battle scares on our new Thule, we made it out unscathed, which reminds me of another close encounter there.

JSB Parking Incident I--I am thinking I should not park there anymore. The last time I parked there, I was almost taken out by the LDS secret service...Let me explain. I was meeting a friend for lunch while I was in town. I was driving a rental Subaru Outback with a ski rack. I was following a black Lincoln (that how I remember it) into the JSB parking garage. I did not see any parking immediately but I did see a giant door open open with lots of parking on the other side so I followed that black Lincoln (okay so it was probably a Buick knowing the Church) not thinking a thing other than I was fortunate to find all these parking spaces. I found a nice spot and got out of my car, only to receive some strange looks from men in Mr. Mac-two-pant-suits. One man stared at me strangely, but I didn't care and proceeded to find a corridor that looked like it went to the JSB. I was being followed. He followed me like something out of a David Baldacci book. I later found out that the man stalking me was the driver of the black Buick with his VIP Church passengers. At the end of this long hall way, he finally got the stones to ask me what my business was there. I told him I was meeting a friend for lunch in the building. He told me I was in the private parking lot for the Church Offices and that I would have to move my car. At this point, it all started to make sense. The garage door had started to close on my rental car because I was not supposed to be following the car in front of me. The secret service dude was tailing me because he had unintentionally let me in (or failed to close the door before I got in also) and didn't want more than his tithing taken out of his next pay check. We walked together back to the rental car. It was surrounded by 4-5 more LDS secret service operatives with radio earbuds in their ears. I am sure they were puzzled by the Subaru with Colorado plates, which they were running by their superiors as we approached. Then I noticed I was parked on the front row in front of some doors that lead to Church offices, but not the Church office building but rather the office of the First Presidency. I also notice a placard hanging over "my" space indicating it was reserved, I assume, for someone who sits in one of the cushy red chairs a couple times a year. The driver was kind enough to explain to how it was that I had had infiltrated the super secret parking garage of those we revere. I was thankfully freed without even having to show my temple recommend. I don't know if it is the JSB or just the utter lack of parking that saps my brain when I enter, but I think I will try somewhere else to park.

Elizabeth's Blessing

We had both sets of grandparents in town at the same time, so we decided to bless Elizabeth while they were both here. Since the overlap did not occur on a Sunday, we received permission to bless her in our home. We threw together a meal and invited all our family to join us for burgers and a blessing. We missed not having many of our siblings in attendance, but we completely filled our home with our extended family here in Arizona. Courtney Court has never seen so many minivans and SUV's. It was a neat experience to do this in our home surrounded by so many that have taken care of us since we moved to Arizona.

Luke & Camilla cannot get enough of Elizabeth!