Halloween!

We had such a fun & busy Halloween! We were able to visit 4 sets of Grandparents: Nana & Grandpa Bob(Regan's Mom, Grandma Anderson, Grammy & Grampy (Andrea's Parents) and Grandmother & Papa (Andrea's Grandparents from California). The kids did a great job without taking any naps. At 6:00, I took the kids to about 15 houses to go Trick or Treating and Riley loved knocking on the door! Sunny got the hang of it as well, but by the end she was getting a little cold and ready to go home. Riley & Sunny loved running to the door every time the doorbell rang. Regan's favorite part about Halloween is answering the door for the Trick or Treaters. He wore his Pirate Costume and everything. Some kids were a little scared to come to our door because we had Hall of the Mountain King playing on the cd player with a strobe light!

Happy Halloween!

The Witches!

We went to Gardner Village on Friday for our Joy School Field Trip. Riley was totally scared of the witches, even though I kept on telling him they were not real! Here are some cute pictures from the field trip!

Country Dancing

Regan and I went Country Dancing in Provo last week with some friends. I had a ton of fun, but I think that I was holding Regan back from his real potential as a dancer. You know he used to be on the BYU Folk dancing team right? He was trying to swing me around his body and after having 2 kids, I don't think my body works like that anymore! It's a shame too, because if it weren't for that, I probably would have been a terrific dancer! NOT! Anyway, being in the Provo seen made me so glad that I am a happy married woman-not one of those girls who are just hoping someone will ask them to dance. No more blind, wierd, uncomfortable dates ever again. Just me and my man!

Pumpkin Time!

We carved pumpkins together and Riley and Sunny loved it. Sunny actually tried to get the orange, sticky and slimy goop and eat it out of the bowl! Riley was so excited to carve an alien on his pumpkin, I carved a ghost and Regan carved a scary tree. OF course Sunny had to have a happy face on her pumpkin. Riley's favorite part was taking the pumpkins outside and putting candles in them. I love Halloween and Fall time! We also ate our yummy caramel apples!

Halloween Party

Regan and I had a Halloween Party at our house on Saturday night. It was so fun to see what each couple dressed up like. We had everything from Nacho Libre and the Nun to Rednecks and their girlfriends. Regan was Captain Hook and I was Tinkerbell. We played some fun games at the party like Bunko, jello eating contests, white elephant game, and the rootbeer chug. I love dressing up for Halloween!

A Tribute to a Girl's Weekend!

I just got home from a FUN Girl's Weekend in St. George. I feel so rejuvinated and so rested up. I think that all women need some sort of break every once and a while to just have fun and not have to wipe their children's behinds every day! Anyway, a bunch of friends from my ward went to a very nice home in St. George and we did so many fun things. We ate at Pizza Factory, Outback, Jimmy Johns, Cheesecake Factory and Charley's Shakes. We went golfing, lots of shopping, had pedicures, watched fun chick flicks, talked into the early hours of the morning, played bowling and tennis on the Wii, played a few tricks, walked around Vegas, played pool and had a BLAST! It is fun to get to know people better outside of church, and we definently saw a fun side to everyone who was their! I love all of the friends that went and I am so glad that I got a little break and now feel like I can be an even better mom, wife, friend etc. I would highly suggest that everyone go on a fun Girls Trip!

Peter Pan & Tinkerbell

My friend Danielle took these cute Halloween pictures of Riley and Sunny as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell! Riley decided way back in August that our family should be characters from Peter Pan, so of course he wanted to be Peter Pan, Sunny Tinkerbell, Regan as Captain Hook and Andrea as Wendy. I am actually dreading wearing a blue nightgown and blue bow on my head, so as a backup plan, I am making my own Tinkerbell costume. Riley has already vocalized that he is not okay with having 2 Tinkerbell's in our family though! Enjoy our cute little Peter Pan and Tinkerbell!

Roller Hockey!

32 Freezer Meals in 1 day!

WOW-2 of my friends came over yesterday and we made 32 meals for our freezer starting at 9:30 am, and ending at 8 pm! We made:
-Chicken Pillows
-Hawaiian Chicken
-Orange Chicken
-Swedish Meatballs
-Taco Soup
-Creamy White Chili
-Poppy Seed Chicken
-Pork Burritos
-BBQ Beef
-CHicken Enchiladas
-Carnitas
-Alfredo
-Chicken & Rice Casserole
-Lasagna
-Sweet & Sour CHicken
-Sweet & Sour Meatloaf
These meals will probably last us 3 months-so not cooking a dinner for 3 months is pretty much worth all of the aching muscles I experienced yesterday!

Riley's Violin Lesson

Riley got a tiny violin for his birthday in March and we have been having lessons here and there but lately, we have had a lesson every day. Riley is really improving on his violin songs. Right now we are learning the first song in the Suzuki Volume 1 book which is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He is learning different variations which are rhythms. He can play Tucka Tucka Stop Stop, Strawberr Strawberr, and Wish I had a motorcycle all by himself on the A and E Strings. Even though his attention span is about 8 minutes long, he shows a desire to learn the violin and likes to put a sticker on his chart after every practice session! Go Riley!

Sunny watches all of Riley's practice sessions and she is always trying to grab the bow and hit it against the violin! I think we have a wannabe violinist in the making!

Violin Lesson

Riley got a tiny violin for his birthday in March and we have been having lessons here and there but lately, we have had a lesson every day. Riley is really improving on his violin songs. Right now we are learning the first song in the Suzuki Volume 1 book which is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He is learning different variations which are rhythms. He can play Tucka Tucka Stop Stop, Strawberr Strawberr, and Wish I had a motorcycle all by himself on the A and E Strings. Even though his attention span is about 8 minutes long, he shows a desire to learn the violin and likes to put a sticker on his chart after every practice session! Go Riley!

Sunny watches all of Riley's practice sessions and she is always trying to grab the bow and hit it against the violin! I think we have a wannabe violinist in the making!

Our New School Room!

I decided to turn one of our unfinished basement rooms into a school room because Riley is so distracted in the family room (wanting to watch t.v) while we are doing our learning time. So to solve this problem, we went to IKEA and got some cute, bright fabrics and covered up the ugly unfinished walls downstairs and put some school items in as well. We have our art eisle, a desk, an art supply corner and reading corner with pillows. I think that this will help Riley to enjoy his learning time everyday as we are teaching him letter recognition and we will also have his daily Violin Lessons down in our new School Room!

I've been Tagged!

What is being 'tagged' you ask? Well it means that another blogger has asked you to write something about yourself. Well, here it goes:
JOBS I have had:
*Violin Teacher (at my home and at the Crescent School of Music)
*Jamba Juice (BYU)
*Assistant to Biology Professors (BYU)
*1st Grade Teacher at Pony Express Elementary

MOVIES that I could watch over and over:
*How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
*The Music Man
*High School Musical 1 and 2
*Meet the Parents

Favorite T.V Shows:
*The Office
*The Bachelor
*American Idol
*That's So Raven (Disney Channel Show--I know I am 27, but I still like it!)

Favorite Hobbies:
*Scrapbooking
*Reading an Addicting Book (like Twilight!)
*Blogging
*Playing with my Kids

Places I have lived:
*Provo, Utah
*Sandy, Utah
*Bluffdale, Utah
*Draper, Utah
*Herriman, Utah
*Rexburg, Idaho

Favorite Foods:
*Hands down my dad's homemade TACOS
*My dad's homemade scones
*A Really Good Salad Bar
*Ottavio's Italian Food (the one in Provo)

Places I would rather be right now:
*Hawaii (basically anywhere with a beach)
*Lake Powell-being pulled by a boat on the Molecule!
*Playing an electric violin in Shania Twain, or Faith Hill's bands
*Reading a good book on the beach in Oceanside, California with my family!

Websites I check Daily:
*My hotmail email account
*My friends Blog Spots
*Zions bank website
*Disney.com or PBSKids.com to play games with Riley

Who I'm Tagging:
*Emily Jackman
*Jami Peterson
*Natalie Joyner
*Shannon Dahle
*Michelle McMurdie

She is such a Girly Girl

Our little Sunny Girl is such a Girly Girl! She has always loved wearing her bows and bracelts, but now she is into mom's jewlery which is not cool. She has broken one of my favorite necklaces, so I decided to get her own necklaces. Every day she wears a different color of necklace and you can tell that she thinks she is just so pretty-which she is starting to say by the way. I can say this because I am her mom, but she is the pretties little girl I have ever seen! Regan called her a DIVA the other day because she is certainly forming her own opinions about things and she has no problem vocalizing those opinions! What a cute girly girl!

ksl.com - KSL Car Classifieds

ksl.com - KSL Car Classifieds

Fackrell Family Summer 2007

We have had a ton of fun during the summer-despite Andrea's broken Elbow! I am going to Physical Therapy twice a week and it is getting so much better! THese are the things we have done during our summer:
*Went to Thanksgiving Point a lot (Dinosaur Museum, Children's Gardens and Barnyard)
*Went to California with Andrea's family
*Went camping at Flaming Gorge with Regan's family
*Went swimming a lot
*Getting ready to go to Lake Powell with our friends
*Were in 3 parades, 2 town days booths, and 1 open house for Regan's office!
*Went to the Children's Museum in Downtown Salt Lake at the Gateway
*Went to the water park

Photo Contest

Riley and Sunny are in a photo contest and one of the steps is to have online votes. SO--if you would like to help us out, please vote and have your friends and family vote for our cute little kids! We would really appreciate it! Here are the instructions on how to vote:
1. go to www.donpolo.com
2. Click on Children
3. Click on Contests
4. Scroll down and you can either just vote for my kids, or if you want to look at the pictures, and then vote.
5. When you click on vote, my kids numbers are 0168, 0199, and 0172

The deadline is August 31, so please cast your vote before then! Thanks so much for your help!

California Trip!

We just got home from our amazing trip to Southern California. We stayed in a condo right off of the beach in Oceanside, California with Andrea's family for a whole week. We went to the beach which was so much fun to make sand castles, jump waves with boogie boards and watch the kids explore the wonders of the beach (like finding sand crabs!) We also went to Seaworld and Disneyland, but I have to say that if we could do it over again, we would have done 2 days of Disneyland instead of Seaworld because it is such a magical and fun place! Riley loved all of the rides. He was a little scared of Pirates of the Carribean, but after lying on the floor of the ride for half of it, he decided that it wasn't so bad after all. Sunny also loved the Fantacy Land Rides. She just sat on our lap and watched everything that she passed by with huge eyes! We also got a chance to go to the San Diego Temple on my sister's 12th birthday, so that was really cool. This was such an amazing trip and a trip that was well deserved and needed by our family.

Good News!!

So I thought I would have to wear my arm brace for 2 months, but my doctor told me today that I can take it off next week! Just in time for our big trip to Oceanside, California!! I will start physical therapy when we get back from the trip, and in the meantime, Regan will have to help me everynight to straighten the arm out, but other than that, it looks like things are great with the arm--other than my big scar! I guess I can just tell people how cool I am for having a Roller Hockey Scar! Not really! Anyway, we will be in California from July 21 to July 28, so check back to our blog the end of July for some fun California pictures!!

Happy 4th of July

We had a fun 4th of July. We spent the whole day at Andrea's parents cabin and ate snow cones all day, swam in the cold Provo river, and enjoyed being around family. I couldn't do much because of my arm-I get my huge cast taken off on Monday!! We then went over to Regan's moms house and celebrated with fireworks! Sunny loved them so much; after each firework, she would clap her hands and say yeahh! This was a huge difference from last year. She was so colicy that I was inside Regan's moms house with her while she was screaming! WHat a difference a year can make.

Busy June!!

Our family has had so many things go on in June:
-June 2nd-Andrea gets her pink ipod for losing 20 lbs. from the New Year!!
-June 6th-roller hockey injury for Andrea
-June 16th-Parade & booth
-June 23rd-Parade, booth &Andrea's 27th birthday
-June 26th-Elbow surgery for Andrea (out of commission for 3 days. Thanks to my mom & sisters for helping me with my kids & house!!)
-June 29th-Andrea & Regan's 6th Anniversary
-June 30th-Regan's new office open house

Herriman Parade!

June 23, 2007
Today we were in the Herriman Parade with our American Family Insurance Float. A bunch of our friends were riding in the float and truck, and Regan and I were walking on the sidelines handing out Regan's $5 Challenge flyer (if he can't beat your insurance, he will give you $5).
Regan then went to his booth at Herriman Days and is now handing out snow cones along with business cards! What a busy June for us! Next week is his Open House for his new office and the week after that is our last parade! Thanks to all of our friends for supporting and helping us so much!