Merry Christmas 2010

I did start the season feeling a little Grinchish. Really, it's hard to think of buying your kids more stuff when they already have so much! But by Christmas Eve, I was pretty excited to see their faces the next morning.

Our Christmas Eve tradition is pizza for dinner. This started years ago when I was little and my family was in Cedar City for Christmas. We were out doing last minute shopping and realized it was dinner time. The only thing open was Pizza Hut so that's where we ate. Thus, the pizza for dinner on Christmas Eve tradition was born. After the pizza, we opened the traditional Christmas Eve pajamas and got the kids ready for bed. Then, the best part was reading the Christmas story out of the Bible and singing Christmas songs. Of course we did have the traditional tiff over who was going to be Mary. But in the end, we remembered what Christmas is all about. After the Bible story, we spent more time reading Christmas stories (I seriously cry at the end of Polar Express every time and Dan has to finish reading the last page!) By then, it was late and the kids went to bed pretty well.

Our angel didn't participate much but the girls did talk her into saying "Shazam!"
Christmas pajamas.

Christmas morning Sophia LOVED her new kitchen (I love Craigslist!)

Kassie got a new iPod already loaded with the new Taylor Swift CD.

The whole family got a foosball table, which they used so much the first two days that the little soccer ball broke! So meanwhile, they covered up the soccer players with plastic bin lids to use as a table for their restaurant. Girls.

Sydney and Caroline got electric Razor scooters. They are REALLY fun! Sydney raced Grandma Claudia in her electric chair and Sydney's scooter was way faster.

Christmas just kept giving because the next day my family came from Las Vegas to spend some time. We had fun going to Ikea, Joe's Farm Grill, and they ate at Chick-Fil-A THREE times!! It wasn't that there was no food here, but there isn't a Chick-Fil-A in Vegas so they had to take advantage. The weather was really nice for a few days so we were able to play at the park a lot. But today is really cold and we think we're freezing to death so we're staying inside (the high is supposed to be 47:)

Dan took Kassie to see Tron this morning - she got up early, made her bed, got dressed, fed Sophia and then came in to wake us up. She's learning the finer points of getting what you want. Sydney and Caroline and I are writing thank you notes and watching Phineas and Ferb. Then we are going to go look at pianos! I had to sell mine because b, a, and g below middle C would not stay tuned since the sound board was damaged. My dad gave me some money for Christmas so hopefully I can find a nice used piano somewhere. It's a great end to 2010! We've had a much better year this year than last year so here's to hoping 2011 is even better! Happy New Year!

It's for Posterity

One of the ideas of blogging was not only to keep grandparents up-to-date on what was happening in our lives, but to have it as a record to help the kids to remember things. That is obviously not the purpose of everyone's blog and for a while, I got caught up in the idea that I should blog tutorials and how-to's of all the projects that I did around the house. (Some of my friends are very good at that, Katy) Don't get me wrong, they are cool. But I spent so much time taking the pictures at different phases and thinking about how I would cleverly word things, that I A) never blogged and B) it wasn't about chronicling our lives. It was like that "You know you're addicted to Facebook when you have a normal life and you try to think of a clever way to word your status update to make your friends think your life is amazing." My life IS amazing - to me. So here is my fresh start at blogging.

Our lives have been full of school (I finished my psychology class with an A, yeah me) and concerts and such beautiful weather that we have spent a lot of time outside. Thanksgiving dinner was good but Pie Night the Tuesday before was even better! I had heard the idea from another friend and decided to invite a bunch of people over to enjoy pie properly, instead on an overly full stomach on Thanksgiving Day. It was a success and I think we will do it every year.

We are in California this week with the Hardy's, as in Jared and Nichol - yes old friends, he did forgive me for marrying another and he married a girl that is perfect for him (we have become good friends). It is raining cats and dogs here! Worst rain fall in a decade and here we are. We went to Disneyland yesterday but left by 4:30 everyone was so cold and wet. Those of you who have been with us before know that we are usually hard core midnight people. But we just couldn't do it! Today, it stopped raining for a minute so we ran over to the beach, just in time for it to start raining again! But the kids LOVED it so we stayed for about an hour and a half. Kassie said it was the most fun she has had on the vacation, building sand castles in the rain. The forecast for tomorrow is no better but we are going to try for a few rides before we head home. I have to get my house clean before my company comes the day after Christmas!

So here is a little picture of a Christmas tree at the beach to say Merry Christmas from our family to yours and here's to more frequent posts for posterity!

What I'm Supposed to be Doing...

is posting stuff for sale on Craigslist. But when I uploaded the pictures from my camera, I could not resist posting a few. So here they are, in no particular order, a few snapshots from October.
Halloween - Hogwarts student (Sydney), Pocahontas (Caroline), Tinker Bell (Sophia), Tonks (Kassie - this is a character only you hardcore Harry Potter fans will appreciate from the last three books in the series. Her shirt says Weird Sisters.)

My mom came home from her mission!! We had a big to do and saw so many fun friends that we haven't seen in forever. Thank you to all of you who came to welcome her home. This morning it felt good to be able to call her on the phone at 9AM, dialing a US number and not worrying about the time zone!

This is everyone waiting for her at the Las Vegas airport - I think it surprised some tourists to see regular people living a life here:)

Dan trimmed the palm trees and the kids have had a great time playing Cleopatra and building forts. They get to keep them until large trash pickup next week. It has provided HOURS of outside fun in the beautiful 85 degree weather!

And yes, we did go to Disneyland AGAIN, for fall break. The kids talked me into going on Screamin' - a really not-so-scary roller coaster. Sophia got her first Mickey Mouse hat. But the best thing of all was knowing that the millions of times we had run through the "what if you get lost" scenario actually paid off. Sydney and Caroline got separated from us in the crowd of people getting on the tram to go to the parking garage. I was terrified! I didn't know if they were together or split up! I start looking for them with cell phone in hand. Not five minutes later, I get a call from a Disneyland employee on his personal cell phone telling me the girls are by his cart. Relief. They were together, realized they had lost us and immediately looked for an employee. Sydney said the first girl they came to was too busy to help them so they went to the next cart. What did we do before cell phones?

Hopefully November will be much more calm and I can get my life back on track - which means posting on my blog and not just reading all of yours.

Happy 15th Anniversary!

I'm not going to lie. Marriage is hard. For you old married couples, you know what I write is true. But for those of you out there who have never been married or for those of you who haven't been married too long, don't fret. If I can do it, so can you.

BUT... There are days when you go to bed and you think "What did I get myself into?" Those days are hopefully few and far between. Most days you go to bed and don't even think anything at all because you took that day for granted. Then there are THE days. On THE days you recognize what a gift you have been given to share your life with someone who loves you - faults and all. On THE days you see the hand of God in your life. On THE days your life cannot be more perfect and your heart cannot be more full because of the love you have. Those are the days that make marriage worth all the work it takes. Those are the days you keep in your heart to get you through the hard times. Those are the days when you are SO glad you didn't give up.

Over the last 15 years, we have had so many of THE days that when the hard times come, they don't seem so hard. We make a great team and I am so glad that when I told him I thought we should get married, he said yes.

YESTERDAY TODAY
FOREVER

First Day of School 2010

I know, I know, school actually started last Wednesday so this is old news. But it is news none the less. So Tuesday, August 10th, we went to Meet the Teacher night at the school. Since we have only been here a year, we still don't know who is good to get and who is not. Caroline has several friends in her class and her teacher seems really nice. Sydney is having a really hard time making friends - she wants to be friends with Kassie and Amelia but they are in 6th grade so they don't want to be friends with her:( Anyway, Sydney got Mr. H who says Aloha all the time and has been a P.E. teacher. He seems like he'll be a good fit for Sydney. Kassie was really upset when she found out who her teacher was. Mr. R. has a reputation for being really strict and that is going to be interesting for Kassie. However, Mr. R. is in charge of the 6th grade science campe, which is a 3 day/ 2 night event at a camp in the mountains. And, he is in charge of teh 6th grade musical. This year it's either going to be Jungle Book or Alice in Wonderland. I vote Jungle Book. We'll see. That first morning had some rough patches - Sydney's new shoes were too big for her and she COULD NOT stand them. So she wore her old ones, which really embarrassed Kassie. Whatever. Caroline was just tired so she did a lot of yelling. Those of you not acquainted with Caroline's yelling are not missing out. It is amazing that such a small child can yell the way she does. But at least they all put on thier happy faces for this picture!

Caroline chose light up Sketchers for her shoes and got one of them wet the first day so now only one shoe lights up:( She's very dissappointed. I was hoping both shoes would break so I guess it's a compromise.

Sydney was in trouble the night we went shopping for backpacks at Old Navy and had to stay home. We chose her one we thought she would like but it turns out she was put off by the skull and cross bones on it and we had to find another one. This one from Target had a little froggie stuffed animal attached to it.

Kassie went French. French braid. French beret. French earrings. Even the shirt is reminiscent of a mime (which, by the way, why do we associate mimes with Paris? I didn't see any while I was there.)

Oh, also, last year we had some trouble with teasing on the bus so I thought we could start off on the right foot and bring donuts to the bus stop. Maybe the kids were too nervous to eat. Maybe it was too hot (101 degrees at 8:30AM). Maybe kids in Arizona don't appreciate donuts the way the kids in Texas would (strike against Arizona). Whatever the reason, only a few kids took a donuts and only ONE of them was the cause of our grief last year. The rest of the trouble makers didn't take one. So are we in for more trouble this year?

It's a lot of stress. Add in that my mother-in-law is moving in with us next week (we love you, Claudia!) and that we are in the middle of trying to lay wood floors in her part of the house so the downstairs is a wreck and has been for two weeks and will be for a few more, then you'll be happy to see us come out of this unscathed. But we'll make it! I'll post pictures of the floors after they are done.

This is the Best Stuff

I know, it's silly for a post, but... the other night I made this really yummy baked chicken recipe that my sister-in-law gave me (it didn't turn out as good as hers but it was still good). Anyway, I was left with two disgustingly filthy pans that had stuff baked on and burnt on. Did I despair? NO! I went right for the big guns. Dawn Power Dissolver. Spray it on at the beginning of doing dishes and by the time you get to the yucky pans, they wash right off! I use it on my crock pot, too. AND I even use it on my clothes to get grease out of them. Seriously, if you splashed grease or dropped butter, whatever, this stuff gets it out. I can't live without it. What can't you live without? PS - I know the girls started school last week and if I were a good mom I would post those pictures before this, but I will get to them soon:)

Treasures

As a kid, the lure of the beach is not just the beauty of the ocean but all the shells and starfish and treasures you will find. When we went to California a couple of weeks ago, we stopped at the beach first. It was cold! July 26th and it was only in the 60's! Seriously, no wonder so many people live there! First thing the kids did was start looking for shells. They made quite a pile of them and then started adding seaweed and stuff because they were going to decorate their sand castle with it. As they searched for treasures...

I marveled at life and watched my treasures right before my eyes. (Now imagine Louis Armstrong singing "It's a Wonderful World" before you look at the rest of the pictures.)