Merry Christmas Dad

This year my Dad took a job and is away for Christmas, so I thought I would do a little Christmas post for him.

A BIG thank you to my Mom and Dad for another fun filled 12 days of Christmas. I tried to get a picture for everyday and some days I failed, but I hope you enjoy the ones I did get. We had so much fun opening gifts and feeling your love and kindness. Thank you so much. It has really been great.

Gingerbread House. We have been making them every year for a few years now and we had a lot of fun putting this one together. Claire helped for a minute, but then got upset because she kept getting frosting on her fingers and she hates getting her hands sticky. So Marcella finished it and it turned out pretty well.

This was a big hit. We got a recorded book from Hallmark, Twas the night before Christmas, with my Dad reading it. Super fun.

This year I had a fabulous Birthday. I got to hang out with my friend Cyndi, then Jon and I got to go out Friday night and he surprised me by getting Cyndi and Heather to watch the girls for us over night. It was so fun and relaxing to just hang out together. Especially after a hard semester. On Sunday my actual B-day we had some friends over for cake and ice cream. I sure love Birthdays and this one was super fun.

This was a big hit, if you couldn't tell. It is the Elephant game. Claire LOVED it. The girls would just laugh and laugh. We had lots of fun playing it.

Christmas Eve was a little different this year, being our first one away from family. But we got to spend it with some new friends and we had a fabulous time. These guys have become our family away from family. Love y'all.

When we got home from our party the girls got to open there pj's and a book.

Santa Came. We are so excited. I can't wait to get up in the morning and start all this fun-ness!

Here are a few random pictures form the past couple months that I took off my phone.

Marcella has been having so much fun sliding down the stairs in a sleeping bag lately. Well she was doing this one day and then it got quiet and so I went to check on her and she had fallen asleep in the middles on the floor in the sleeping bag. I guess she wore herself out going up and down the stairs.

We went and saw Tangled to celebrate Jon being done with the semester. When we got to the theater we realized it was only playing in 3d. Claire did pretty well. I was impressed. She was being bribed with popcorn and chocolate, so she stayed seated the whole time.

Yes that is the top of a screw and yes it got burned into my thumb. don't ask, just know that a couple days and a few cuss words later, I finished this bad boy:

I also made a stove and oven. I hope Claire enjoys it.

We went to eat at a Mexican place called Taco Rico. Super good, but my food was so spicy that my lips were burning for a while afterwards.

Well, Dad we hope you have a Merry Christmas and We will try to get some videos up tomorrow. Love you lots and lots.

Today

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I do. This past week I have felt like I have been cast on Groundhogs day and I am Bill Murray. Does it really matter if I make my bed, I have to do it again tomorrow. If I clean the kitchen after each meal that means I have cleaned the kitchen 3 maybe 4 times that day, is it worth it? We tidy bedrooms, living rooms, bathrooms, every day and then have to start over the next day. As I felt myself getting lost in a downward spiral of days in and out filled with the "little things" (yes you have to put your shoes on if you want to go outside) and the "big things" (laundry, does it ever go away?) I slowed down just a minute one morning and I was grateful for my circles.

It was just like every other morning that week. Claire had woken up a minute before I was getting up the gumption to get out of bed. (thank goodness that girl is still in her crib.)

Girls up, check. Girls dressed, check. Girls hair done, check. Beds made, room picked up,check. check.

Breakfast.... That was when it hit me. I was making pancakes and across the counter from me I saw these 2.



I was reminded of a talk given by Elder Ballard a few conferences ago:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. … I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”

Anna Quindlen

I am grateful for the times when I am reminded that I can decide how fast I run in "circles" and slow them down a bit to live in the moment. Love you all.

Our Weekend

Consisted of:

Cereal for dinner,

rootbeer floats and pumpkin pie. I hope your weekend was as good as ours!

Happy Halloween

I really need to start taking more pictures. This is about as good as it gets. You know you are not in Utah any more when Halloween is on a Sunday and people don't go trick or treating on Saturday instead. Either way we had a lot of fun handing out candy. I bet there were a lot of parents that thought we were mean because our kids weren't even in a costume, but oh well. I think they had more fun passing out candy then going trick or treating.

This is Rebekah and Eden.
Marcella is almost always with one or the other or both.
She has had a lot of fun with her new friends.

I will have to dress Claire up again to take some more pictures. She was super cute. I sure love Halloween. I hope you all had a spooky one!

October

I love everything about October. I love the sweater weather, the leaves changing colors, the Harvest moon, the way Fall smells so divine, Halloween, pumpkins. I could go on and on. I also love that Marcella was born in my favorite month. This year for her birthday party we had a Fancy Nancy, Mother/Daughter tea party. We had so much fun decorating a purse, making a necklace and of course eating.

The invitation

Check out these Fancy girls. They are Gorgeous. (That's a Fancy word for Beautiful)

A small peak of the spread. Before everyone came Jon said, you have enough food to feed 40 people. How many are coming? um....4 girls and 4 adults.

The Ordyna's told us about Boo at the Zoo, so we joined them the other night and had a ton of fun. Thanks for the fantastic idea.

I love little kids trying to carry pumpkins. I am so excited for Halloween. What are you going to be?

Utah, we sure had a blast!

After these girls finished letting me take some pictures of them Sunday the 19th we hoped in the car and started our 24 hour drive to Utah. My friend Deidra came with us and seriously made it possible for me to go. Thanks so much! I will admit that I was so surprised at how good the girls were. You two are Amazing! (side note: Marcella told me I say Awesome way to much and I needed to think of a different word. She told me Amazing was much better.... so enjoy my new word. ;))

On our trip we played with and saw a lot of cousins.
(I know that when you get to the end of this post you will think seriously, she took a ton of pictures, but as I was posting this I realized I didn't take as many as I should have. I didn't get any of Rosalee and the boys, which were so nice to make the trek from Provo to come and hang out with us. Thanks guys, it was sure fun to see you. I also didn't get pictures of half of Jon's family. I think next time I come I will just bring someone to take pictures for me.)

I was able to hang out with these wonderful girls. Thank you so much for the good times ladies. I sure love you!

Marcella and Hallie were able to play and I don't think there were two happier girls.


My friend Megan took some pictures of me and the girls. I love them Megan! Thank you so much.

(How many Marshmallows did it take Laurissa before she actually got to eat one?)
Caroline arranged an AMAZING party. It was so fun and yummy! Just thinking about it makes me hungry.

Grandpa came home from working in Wyoming and Marcella spent the day helping in the garden. They had to get on the roof to check to see if the grapes had turned to Raisins.

We had so much fun with the Grandparents. Which is the whole reason we came out. Marcella missed them so bad.

We went to Thanksgiving Point to celebrate Gavin's birthday. Marcella got put in jail.

When we got home I asked Marcella what one of her favorite things we did was and she said swimming at Uncle Nathan's pool. Her and Nathan hung out a lot. They had so much fun together. It reminded me a lot of when my uncle would come in town and just hang out with me and my brothers. Good times.

We made it to our favorite place on earth, the cabin. Thanks to Caroline and Jeff for taking us up there. On Friday we decided to head on up to Yellowstone. We had a lot of fun at Yellowstone Lake. It is my favorite spot in Yellowstone and the upside was it was actually warm enough for the kids to play in it.

Watch out Miriam we might have another rock lover on our hands.

These two look so grown up I just can't believe it.

Our last day in Utah we went to Gardner Village to see the witches. It was so much fun. Thanks to everyone for coming.

Well, I have been home for a week now, and I still have things to unpack. We were very glad to get back, the drive was killing us, but we would do it again to see you wonderful folks. Thanks again everyone we had an AMAZING time!