Taking a break

This weekend we took a break from all the moving stuff to focus on doing some fun Christmas activities. On Friday night Taber and I went to the holiday party for his division at work. It was held at the Mills City Museum in downtown Minneapolis. There was fabulous food, private museum tours, and my personal favorite, a live band! It's not often that I get to put on my dancing shoes so I definitely let lose a little and boogied on the dance floor. Taber was a good sport to join me and let me tell you, the guy still has some serious moves!

On Saturday we decided to head back into Minneapolis with the girls to see Santa and check out the " A Day in the Life of an Elf" display at Macy's. It was pretty packed and when we saw the line winding all the way around the 8th floor I got a little nervous. Luckily it moved quickly and before long the girls were giddily touring elf land and watching all the animated little elves at school, in the kitchen, making toys, conducting reindeer flight school and sorting letters to Santa. I was too absorbed in the display to take many pictures but here's a couple.

at the entrance ready to go in

Taber and Brinley with a Christmas tree choir in the background.

At the end of the elf land tour we got to go see Santa. It was nice because he was in a private room so we had him all to ourselves without any distractions. Teya had a lovely chat with him and told him she wanted Ariel the Little Mermaid and some Polly pockets.

Brinley was not quite as excited to visit with Santa.

I love this picture, on one side Teya is as pleased as punch knowing that she has personally dictated her wish list to Santa, on the other side Brinley is melting down from stranger danger anxiety. So classic : )

After visiting with Santa we grabbed some cookies from Mrs. Claus's bakery and then we went up to the 12th floor for lunch and some great views of the city.

Tomorrow it's back to business with some Realtors touring the house, relocation paperwork, and baby steps on sorting before the movers come. With everything on our plate I'm glad we had such a nice break this weekend and really got to enjoy some fun holiday festivities!

Friday Foto: Tough Times for the T-Wolves

This picture illustrates the pathetic state of the Timberwolves right now. If you look around at all the empty seats you would think the game was over. Nope. This shot was taken in the middle of the game. Guess it's hard to sell tickets when you're the second worst team in the NBA. Taber got a Celtics hat for Christmas. Sorry T-wolves, we're moving on.

We still had a great night at the game though. Since the T-wolves are so bad we decided to just bring the kids and make it a fun family outing.

Highlight of the game for Teya was the cotton candy. She was trying to wave the cotton candy man down when he was all the way across the stadium. When he finally got to us she was one happy little girl.
Brinley had a blast too. She was entralled by the game and couldn't keep her eyes of the megatron. She would dance and boogie to all the music and clapped like a true fan when the T-wolves made a basket.

It ended up being a bit of a late night but it was so much fun going downtown with the girls and getting one last game in at the Target Center.

Bad Mom Day

Yesterday I had a bad mom day.
I could blame it on a million things.
Moving stress, holiday stress, getting our house on the market stress, etc...
I'm not going to use those excuses though because I know I can be better.

All the things I've been stressing about don't even compare in importance to the two little people who call me mom. They don't need a perfectly clean house to show the realtor. They don't care if our Christmas cards are late. They won't mind if we bring all the boxes of "things I need to sort and get rid of" to our next house. What they need is their Mommy.

They need me to sit down and eat a meal with them. They need me to help them with their drawings and to compliment their fine artistic skills. They need me to read to them and teach them about the pictures they see in their books. They need me to be patient when they are cranky. They need help dressing their Polly pockets and fitting shapes into the sorter. They need me to be calm when they spill things and make messes because people are more important than things and houses were made to be lived in.

At the end of my bad mom day I found myself in Teya's room, kneeling by her bed and watching her sleep. I stroked her hair and whispered an apology for wasting one of our days together being a grumpy mom. I thought of a Michael McLean song I heard called a Lullaby for Me. One of the lines in the song says, "Today I couldn't be the mom you needed me to be, and tonight I wish that you could sing, a lullaby for me." Everyone has bad mom days, but I'm going to do my best to make sure I don't have another one for a long long time.

Easy and Delicious

The other day I had some extra bread stick dough and I remembered a great little recipe we used to make when we were kids. I don't know what we called them, Sticky buns maybe? Gooey yum yums? Cinnamon tasties? Something along those lines. Anyway, I made them again and they were as easy and as scrumptious as I remembered. I thought I'd share the recipe since it is the season for sweet indulgences. Plus, this is a great one to make with kids : )


Ingredients:
10-12 large marshmallows (one marshmallow for each bun, so just depends on how many you want to make)
1/2 stick of butter, melted
3/4 cup of sugar
1 T cinnamon (you can use more or less, just depends on how you like your cinnamon and sugar topping)
1 package of Pillsbury dough ( I used bread stick dough this time but I've used crescent roll dough too and they came out great)
Muffin pan
Cooking spray

Directions:
1) Spray muffin pan with cooking spray
2) Combine cinnamon and sugar
3) Take a strip of dough and wrap it completely around a marshmallow. Pull it over the top and bottom so it's closed up to make a marshmallow dough ball.
4) Dip entire dough ball in butter
5) Roll dough ball in cinnamon sugar mix till it's completely covered
6) Place dough ball in muffin pan

Cook at 375 for 10-12 minutes and Wah Lah!!! Gooey, delicious, cinnamon heaven!

A Rigg Ranch Thanksgiving

We were very fortunate to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Taber's family at their ranch near Grand Junction Colorado. Their property is just off the Colorado river and they have a little lake stocked with trout right in their back yard. Behind them stands the Colorado National Monument, a beautiful backdrop of plateaus and canyons. It is one of the most breathtaking and serene places to be. Before this trip we hadn't been back there in two years. It was so nice going back and introducing Teya and Brinley to such a beautiful part of the country.

For weeks before we went out all Teya talked about was riding Grandma's horsey Ben. It didn't take long before she was up in the saddle.

Brinley got to sit in Big Ben's saddle too and even took a brief little ride with Grandma. Her favorite thing though was just petting the horses and feeding them grass. She called the horse "buddy" because that's what she calls Monty and I guess horses and dogs are the same to her. Anyway, it was cute to hear her say, "Er-go Buddy," every time she fed him a bite.

Here are some more horse shots from a different day. You can see the monument in the background. Gorgeous. Teya and her cousin Sklya got to ride with Grandma this time.

Taber's brother Brett and his wife CJ came in from Arizona to be with us. They have 4 cute kids and Teya and Brinley loved being around their cousins. Here are some shots with Aunt CJ and River on Ben, and the 3 boys, Landon, Paker and River on Mindy.


Besides riding horses the other main attraction was fishing. I think I saw Taber out in that fishing boat more than anywhere else the entire trip. First thing in the morning and the last thing before the sun went down was fishing. He helped Teya catch her first fish and she was pretty proud of herself.

Here's Taber with the girls and his parents on one of their many fishing excursions.

Teya and Skyla getting ready to go out in the boat.

Some of our fine catches.
I even caught one once Taber let me use the lucky fishing pole.

And Brett and his boys on a walk down to the Colorado river.

At night we stayed busy too. One night we built a fire and sang songs and roasted s'mores. Another night we set off a pretty impressive display of fireworks. And one night we just jumped around and took funny airborne pictures. It doesn't really take much to keep us entertained : )

On Thanksgiving morning Taber and I went into town to run a Turkey Trot 5K. He beat me by 9 seconds but I set a new PR and finished 10th out of 77 in my age division so I was happy : ). It was a nice way to prepare for the feasting ahead!

For the big Thanksgiving dinner we went to Taber's older brother Jeff and Kathy's house. Kathy made an amazing meal and in true Thanksgiving fashion, we all ate way more than we should. My camera actually died at this point so here are some pics from Mama Rigg's camera of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins!

The rest of the vacation was filled with black Friday shopping, visit to the dinosaur museum, birthday celebration for Papa Rigg, game nights, tractor rides, and of course more fishing. On Thanksgiving there are so many things I am thankful for, but most of all I'm thankful for family. I only wish we lived closer so we could see them more! Here are a few more of my favorites with Teya's cousins.

Teya and Skyla. 4 years apart but total best buddies just the same.

Parker and Landon. Both as sweet as they are good looking.

All the Grandkids on Papa's tractor. We sure will miss seeing these cute faces!

Wolf Girls...and Dad

Why do I love Twilight? Same reason I like junk food. It's good, it's addictive, and it's fun to enjoy with other people. Nothing wrong with a little junk food every now and then. Moderation in all things right?

While I was in Utah last week I indulged in a little New Moon brain candy with my mom, two of my sisters and our friend Kristen. We all wore Wolf Girl shirts, even my mom because she's awesome like that.

Somehow my Dad ended up joining our girls night out. He made some excuse about how he never sees Mom and something about date nights and blah blah blah... We all know he's big time team Jacob. Just own it Dad. Own it.

We got to the theater an hour early so we could have the perfect seats. It was actually great that Dad was there because then he could take pictures for us. And since I am me, I made him take a lot of pictures. I guess everyone was making weirdo faces in the other ones though so here's one with everyone normal (except for me, but I was pretty excited that night I guess this one works.)

So I have to say, I totally loved the movie. I thought it was TONS better than the first one, and I loved that one too. So yeah, I was pretty happy. Acting, script, makeup, all of it was better. Yes there were some laugh out loud cheesy moments (flash forward of Bella and Edward the bohemian vampires running through the forest, hilarious!) But I thought the Wolves were awesome and the Volturi were exactly how I imagined them. The Facepunch movie scene was SO funny and the Edward, Jacob, Bella love triangle was well played. Great movie, great night, and everyone had fun (especially my Dad : )

Happy Birthday Papa Rigg!

It's no wonder I have such an amazing husband, he comes from some pretty amazing parents. Today is Taber's Dad's 79th birthday and I just wanted to wish him a happy birthday and list some of the reasons why I love him.

1) We share a love an affection for Mama Rigg's fudge. She must make him a batch of it every week because he always has a tupperware full of it in the car and in the fridge. I like it as much as he does and once I ate his supply dangerously low. Now I think he tells Mama Rigg to make extra when I'm around : )

2) He eats adventurous foods like frog legs. When we lived in Tennessee he would order them every time.

3) He loves his grandchildren. I'll never forget his reaction when we told him we were pregnant with Teya. He stood up, clapped his hands and got all teary eyed. It really touched me to see how happy he was. He now has 26 grandchildren but he still regularly hints to me that he'd like some more ; )
4) He is no stranger to the outdoors and can gut a fish faster than anyone I know. He also drives a mean tractor ride.


5) He is one of the most generous people I know. He gives and gives and never expects anything in return. It seems like one of the things that makes him the happiest is to be able to give to other people.

6) He's a good father to Taber and taught him some very important things like to always do the dishes after dinner.
7) I've never seen him go to bed without his regular bowl of ice cream. When he comes in town to visit if the freezer isn't stocked with his particular favorite (Dreyer's vanilla) then you better believe there will be a midnight run to make sure he gets it! We really are two of a kind. : )

8) He has always made me feel like a part of the family since the day I first met him.

9) He is a multi-talented Renaissance man who can claim the titles of legendary river runner, doctor, surgeon, pilot, poet, father, grandfather, and great grandfather.

10) He supports us in everything we do. When we were in Living Legends he would fly out from Alaska for all our shows. When we were moving to Tennessee he came out and helped us drive across the country. No matter where we live he makes an effort to visit. We are so blessed to have him as a part of our lives and I hope he has a very very happy birthday!

BIG EXCITING NEWS!!

A week and a half ago when Taber and I flew out to Boston, it wasn't entirely a birthday surprise. We found out last minute that he was actually being considered as a top candidate for an HR manager position at a General Mills plant in Methuen Massachusetts. We flew out to make sure it would be a good fit for Taber and our family. The visit went very well and he was offered the job, which means we'll be moving to New England in just 7 weeks!!
Boston is over 1400 miles away from where we live in Minnesota. It's going to be a long and snowy ride in the middle of January!

Taber will be at a Yoplait plant where they make Gogurts, Parfaits, Yoplait lights and a few other things. It's always fun to tell the girls that Daddy's going to work to make some Gogurts!

We're excited for this promotion and for the opportunity to live in a part of the country that is new to us.While we were there we were able to find a great house in a beautiful neighborhood in Nashua, New Hampshire. We will have plenty of room for visitors so if you've been wanting to get out so Boston, now you have an excuse!!

Friday Foto: Decisions decisions....

This picture is a flashback to 2005 when Taber was applying to MBA schools. He had been accepted to Notre Dame so we flew out there to check out the campus. Here he is standing in front of the famous Grotto

We loved the campus and decided that's where we wanted to go. We told everyone, they even published it in the school newspaper where I worked, "Mrs. Rigg moving to South Bend!"

But the BYU option kept coming back to us. We'd already been there for undergrad and it just didn't sound that exciting or adventurous to go back. But he was accepted there and they offered him a scholarship, hard to turn down. I finally agreed to fly out to Utah and check out the program with him. We went on a great tour and at the end it just felt so right. Looking back I can see why that was the best option. I ended up getting pregnant and don't know what I would've done without my family nearby to help with the baby after I had to go back to work. My sister also got cancer and I was so glad we were in Utah and close by to help out and support her through that. So many wonderful experiences came from choosing to go to BYU. It's funny how clear it is looking at it all in hindsight, but I remember at the time how agonizing making that decision was. Thank goodness for prayer and the spirit to comfort us when we're stepping out into the unknown.