Yes, It is Snowy!

This picture was taken before the latest few snowstorms. We're pretty snowed in these days. Some of our latest family quotes:
Madeline: "I can't wait til I turn seven, so I can learn how to drive."
Dallas: "Is New England somewhere in Vermont?"
Raleigh (after coming home from a Primary Party where breakfast was served, and yes, the spelling is correct): "I ate everything except for the shaushage. I don't really like shaushage." And then Madeline said, "That was shaushage? I thought it was a hot dog!"

Briant & Madeline & Their Fun Dads

Our First Visitor of 2008

This picture was taken right outside of our kitchen window. This sweet little deer came around 1:30 this afternoon! Here's some of our New Year's happenings:
Breakfast- Special K with banana
Music- Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Reading- Ether- Chapter One, and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
Football- Sugar Bowl (rooting for UGA), and Cotton Bowl (half for Missouri, half for Louisiana)
Christmas Decorations- still up, but need to come down
House- dirty, but picked up
Children- in bed!!
Blog- finally updated
Teeth- flossed and brushed
Laundry- clean, but not folded (probably wrinkly)
Dishes- done!
Groceries- put away! Thank you, Dallas . . .

Don't You Wish You Could've Been There?!

Dancing in the New Year

At 9:00 pm MST the Matthews' Family was rocking out to the Remember the Titans soundtrack. We jumped and danced to the ENTIRE album NONSTOP. You should've seen our hip moves and booty-shaking. We had to take several bathroom breaks because we were laughing so hard (atleast, Dionne did.) We rang in the new year at Red Robin where we had bottomless french fries and to-die-for chocolate milkshakes, so we had to work some of it off. (Plus, Raleigh and Madeline needed to get their sillies out.) Kensington slept through the whole thing! We had such a good time that we decided to implement this dance-a-thon as an evening ritual to get everyone tired-out for bed.
After brushing, flossing, prayers, and scripture time, we read from the Little House on the Prairie series (the real one) with the girls. They are so into the lives of Laura and Mary that we are crossing our fingers in hopes that they will continue to idolize real heroines other than the latest Disney princesses. Happy New Year!

Orion, You're a Good Dog!

Dallas and Dionne got to enjoy a date night with Nate and April. We had the BEST DINNER: a three course fondue dinner. The first course was a cheese fondue made from Gruyere and some other unpronouncable cheese. We dipped baguette and apple slices- YUM! We ate it all. Then we dipped red bell peppers, mushrooms, little cute baby potatoes, chicken, and steak in a broth-type mixture. That, alone, was tasty, but they also made three sauces for post-dipping- (I guess you could say we double-dipped)- teriyaki, honey mustard, and bleu cheese butter. YUM YUM!! THEN, we dipped bananas, pound cake, and marshmallows in a chocolate fondue sauce from the Melting Pot. YUM YUM YUM!!! Can you tell that we had a great dinner?! Afterwards, we played with Orion and trained him to be around company. He's a cute LARGE puppy. We got to give him different commands and lots of treats. Good dog.

Before the Bath