Happy New Year

Happy New Year! We had a wonderful night welcoming in the new year and have about 14 thousand photos to post. Grandpa and Grandma, they will be here super soon, I promise.

I have wanted to really make some meaningful resolutions this year and have been very prayerful in my quest to know where I needed to focus my attention. Some are way to personal to share here, and the others might just be to boring, but while I was having my breakfast (that was actually lunch) this afternoon I had to grab a pen and paper because the list just started pouring out. When you ask you receive I guess. More on that later.

Every year I choose a theme for myself to work on for the year. This year I had decided that I was going to have BE PREPARED as my theme. I prayed about that and suddenly felt inspired to change my mind and a scripture came to my mind. So this years theme is now this scripture...

Doctrine and Covenants 88:119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;


Happy New Year everyone, and may you have success in all your endeavors this year.

Out of the Mouths of Kidlets

Paige said something funny this morning, which is not uncommon, in fact it is the norm around here. I politely laughed and she then said, 'If I am so funny, where in the world did I get it from'?

I stood there with my mouth hanging open and one eyebrow raised clear to the top of my head, I am sure. A little stunned I think.

'I mean, dad isn't funny ALL the time, and you aren't super funny ALL the time'. Which was followed by a tender and loving pat to my arm, meant to reassure me that I was, indeed, still loved.

This was quickly followed by, 'No offense, mom'. She must have seen my face.

Rylie, wanting in on the action, quickly replied, 'I think you got it from Grandpa'.


Likely. Very Likely.

m E.R. ry Christmas

We had a great day today, all the usual morning festivities and then the afternoon lull. Finally a second to make those calls to wish friends and family a wonderful day, and then I hear this thud,tumble,tumble thud, then an ever so brief silence...then the shriek.

Rylie took a pretty good tumble down our stairs landing squarely on her pretty little face. At first (and second, third, and even fourth) look her split lip looked recoverable...but by evening she was fretting more about it and she kept telling me 'I can stick my tongue in my gums (meaning her split lip)'... so I looked again. UGH!

When I had looked before all I could see was the outside of her lip, I could not see the inside very well, and well, it was not pretty.

I called in my second opinion man, he glanced and nodded his head without me even asking a question, We discussed the options, did a little research, and then decided to take her to the E.R.

Christmas night in the E.R. is interesting. We were not the only ones there waiting for a stitch or two lets just say that.

Anyway, turns out they don't like to do stitches (they call them sutures, I love medical people) in the mouth because it heals so quickly on it's own. She gave us a really cool ice pack for her huge fat lip then Rylie did a little jig in her seat and before we knew it we were on our way home.

Everyone is now tucked snugly in their beds settling down for a long nights sleep. Just as it should be on Christmas night.

All's well that ends well, right?

Snow

So, Tori started praying for snow just before Halloween. I asked her to please not pray for snow until AFTER we were done moving. It would be miserable to move in the snow.

She agreed, but the instant we declared ourselves completely done with moving, she started again.

We have had a bit of snow with, at one point, a line up of snow every day on the ten day forecast. We love it!! When we know (or even just THINK) it will snow we run to the window every few minutes to check if it's here yet. When it ends we all sulk and become a little pouty.

We are supposed to get another 3-7 inches today and up here where we are they say up to TEN!!!

If you do not like snow I am sorry. If you love snow thank Tori. She has been very diligent in her requests.

Music to My Ears

The girls had their concert last night. It was OUTSTANDING! I have never heard anything more sweet and beautiful. I think any time that you can hear a child singing about our Savior it is a treat, but last night was something I will never forget. Thanks girls for all your hard work. It was beautiful.

A Christmas song has to be just right!

Hi! We are still here. The last couple years I have chosen a Christmas theme song, if you will, for each of us. This year Rich's song was The Elf's Lament" (because he loves it and he is a darling little elf) Mine is "Still, Still, Still" (Because I dream of a day that is Still still still) Tori's is "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" ( self explanatory, I think) Whitney's was "the Chipmunk Song" (the one where they are singing about all the things they want for Christmas...have I mentioned my day is full of her telling me what she would love to have for Christmas...there is not a long list, but we get to hear it a lot) Paige's is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (because, unfortunately, she had to have "the Santa Talk" this year...) and Rylie's is "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" (because she loves nothing more than to blast the Christmas music and dance around our Christmas tree).


If you noticed, I said Whitney's was the Chipmunk Song. She told me we had to change it to "Where Are You Christmas". Every day Whitney asks me why it doesn't feel like Christmas. I don't know what to tell her. We are doing all the normal things that we always do for Christmas but honestly, I can't argue with her, it just has not felt like Christmas to me either.

Her and I have done a lot of brainstorming to see if we could come up with some reasons and what we decided was this...We are used to being in places that there is on overall grayness to the sky and air. Here, it is so sunny and even though it has recently gotten cold, from inside, it looks like it could be summer outside.

Until today that is....

SNOW!!! That is what we decided was missing. And we got it today! Not tons, but enough that now I think we will start to feel a little bit more Christmasy. I hope she lets us change her song back to "The Chipmunk Song". That's how i'll be able to tell that all is well in her Christmas world.

more Randomness

It is interesting to me that there can be so stinkin' much going on, yet nothing really to post about. I can't make my brain write in a way that would be pleasing to read, but I have to at least document my life in some sort of way so that someday I will be able to remember that it happened...so it gets to be a list.

1. We moved in our new house and boy oh boy...we have a lot of stuff. We had a local moving company help us cause our stuff is heavy (and we are old) and those sweet things worked 'till 5 AM! yes, you read that right it was after five in the morning when the finally left. They didn't start until 4 in the afternoon, but still that is devotion. Nevermind that they get paid hourly and have had very little work lately. We still had a basement full of things like food storage and all our school stuff (that had a beautiful school room to call home in Omaha...sniff sniff...)that Rich and I had to get this past weekend in a U-haul. Will it ever end?


2. We had Thanksgiving in our new house with Rich's sister and her family. IT was great fun and the food was delicious and it was fabulous to be with family once again.

3. We cant' wait for Christmas!

4. The girls are in a choir and they have a concert coming up and we are super excited!

5. We love our new ward!!!!!!!!! That is huge. We are so happy to be here and know that we are not leaving (I say ever, but Rich will not promise me anything...I know he thinks so too, you just never know though, I guess.) and can make some roots and live happily ever after.

6. I guess thats all. I thought there was more. Oh, I thought of another, we had to buy a 12 foot Christmas tree! That thing is huge. We love it, but we only had enough decorations to do the front so if you stand just right you can see the back is bare. If you come to visit, please dont climb behind the tree or you will be really sad.

7. I love this time of year. I am delighted every day to find something fun to do with my kiddos to make it special. I have collected Christmas books for a long time now and the girls are so happy when I get them out. We have a little tradition here, we read our scriptures and then we have this book that we read every night called the 24 days of Christmas (it is actually a binder we made at Enrichment once )that has a song, a scripture and a story. We read that then we open a door on our big advent house thing, and then we read a couple of the books from my collection. We are loving doing that each night.

So I guess that abour wraps it up....What are some of your Christmas Traditions?