Vacation update........

So this is a fun thing we got for Christmas a s'more maker. You put water in the back thing and the little arms hold the gramcracker on the top while the marshmallow rises. This is after, it's not as good as a toasted marshmallow, but it is yummy!

Steven had the funnest "game" it was a karaoke type game. You sing with videos and there are bars that show you how well your doing. I kicked Erin's "trash" on Piano Man by Billie Joel, but Steven kicked my "trash" on a bunch of newer songs. It was so fun!

Then Mike and I headed out to other Targets on Monday morning. He wanted more trees and our target was out of them the day after Christmas.

Well we hit the "mother lode"! We hit a Target that put all of there Christmas stuff 75% off. Mike found tons of trees. Mike got 11 trees. He filled 2 carts with his trees.

Then I had shopped around and found a few things for the inside, and Mike got more things for the outside. We had 4 baskets full of Christmas stuff. I told Mike there was no way we could get it all in. I thought I would just wait there and let him take a load then come and get me. but he was determined to get it all in.

He did get it all in. I don't know how, but we looked "white trash" with stuff crammed in every available spot:-)

Next year Mike will have his forrest!




Then this afternoon the boys had helped Mike clear the driveway and front curb of snow and ice, so we took them out to lunch. We tried to get away with buying them "happy meals", but they had other ideas!

Christmas.....

We had a great Christmas. All of our kids where here, they all came and spent the night with us. We woke up later in the morning and opened our gifts around 9:00AM. It was pretty fun to have the princess here and watch her. she never touched a single present this year, or even messed with the tree or decorations. But after the first present she opened when she figured out there was cool stuff under the paper she went to town!

We got tons of snow over Christmas. We got it on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and the day after. It was a lot of fun! We watched this avalanche ledge on our house for days!

The princess has an addiction already. She is addicted to Wall-e. She says "Wawy." Her grandpa and I got her a Wall-e table and chairs, and her parents got her a Wall-e and Eve plush dolls. She even got a plate set. So she can sit on Wall-e, with Wall-e, out of Wall-e. She was a very happy princess!

She also got a little vacuum and helped her grandpa vacuum up Christmas night.

Mike home teaches a family with 4 young boys. They want him to come and have a Connect 4 tournament with them. So I grabbed him the game so he could brush up on it. The kids were playing it.

This is our neighbor. He is a hunter and he got a super cool snow machine. He came down on Christmas and visited while Mike and Jon where trying to dig us all out from the snow.

This picture will offend a few people. but Nathan is so funny. the boys got out all of their air soft guns. We were all standing around talking and Issy picked up one of the guns and was talking about it. Nathan threw up his hands and started saying.... " hang on ...we can talk about this.... don't be so rash!" It was just funny because Issy didn't have a clue

Then last night after all of the snow, Mike had to go out to dig his deer decorations out of the snow so he could turn them on. He laughed at me because I was outside a few days ago and I said "oh no, somebody stole our deers body and just left the head." Mike laughed and said that is the deer that is laying on the ground he was just covered in snow. Well as you can see he is barely hanging on, a little more snow and we may only see his ears. The poor deer beside him

who moves his head up and down like he is eating, just has his head buried.


Then we turned the lights on and it was so pretty, the snow was glowing pretty colors.

We have had a happy cold and very White Christmas!

Winter wonderland snow day......

Chris flew in last night for Christmas. We had a good evening with all 3 boys. Then we woke up this morning to SNOW!

There was lot's and lot's of SNOW!

We went out and played in it. And cleared the driveway.

Nathan fell into it and it was as deep as he is.

Then we all came in and showered and headed into town. There were so many people out in this crazy snow storm, ourselves included!

There was so much snow I thought it made the tree so pretty.

When we came out of Target this crazy guy was making faces at us. You will probably have to blow this picture up to see it.

When we got home the neighbors where out having fun. Pulling Their kids on sleds.

Just for Beatrice to go potty she had to brave deep snow!

The Bishop was out dragging his kids around and they picked up Nathan and took him for a ride.

Beatrice wanted to be out with everybody. Some of our neighbors came down and helped us shovel out again. By the time we got home our driveway looked like we never touched it! They said we got about 11 inches of snow today. And even as I post it is still snowing!

Then Mike took the boys around the block with the lawn mower Nathan went standing up.

And Chris went around on his knees. It was a good day. But a very cold, wet, snowy, Christmas time day! Merry Christmas!

Sisters, Sundays, and Neighbor gifts!

So the one thing I have always wanted in life, is a sister. I wanted a sister to grow up with, to share clothes with, to roll our eyes at our parents together, somebody who had the same upbringing as I did with lot's of stories and inside jokes, somebody that has to love me and my craziness my entire life. I did get brothers, and some pretty fun sis-in-laws. So when I was grown and married I wanted to have all girls. I did have 1 girl and then 3 boys. I love my boys, but I always had a real feeling of guilt that I never gave Erin a sister. All of Erin's closest friends have sisters and she wishes she had a sister of her own. Well guess what? My little princess is having a sister!
Here is the princess kissing her sister. Erin and Jon have broken the sister less chain and Mike and I will have 2 princesses to love and adore!
This is the princess watching the snowstorm that blew in. With grandpa and mom.

This is before her grandpa couldn't help himself and picked her up and tweaked his sciatic nerve again! Who could resist such a sweet little girl!

So yesterday was a really great day of church. It was the Sunday before Christmas so Sacrament meeting was done by the choir. It was a beautiful program that they really worked hard on. Then our bishop had us do a service project instead of going to classes. After Sacrament meeting we went into the back rooms and made Christmas cards. the n we drove over in groups to "homes" nursing homes, and sang to the residence and gave them the cards and an orange. We went to a very nice home, Mike and I found where we want to retire to:-) They were having their Sacrament meeting when we got there. They were so cute. There was a little couple sitting next to each other, they were dressed in their nice Sunday clothes. Holding hands and singing along with us. Quite a few of the little ladies were singing with us. They all looked so cute in their Sunday best with their hair all done up. The old men were sleeping:-) I got so touched that I couldn't sing the last song, I had a lump in my throat and a leaky eye:-) Then we went to our Bishops house for a doughnut and hot chocolate and to just visit with our ward members. It was a really great experience.

On to the neighbor gifts. We have received plates of cookies, candies, nuts, loaves of bread, jars of jam, Christmas Cd's, gift wrap with a really cute saying, and even a box of butter saying you "butter" not shout etc... I took out 20 bags of soup mix. And still have more people to give to. I have ordered some fresh tortilla chips from a local Mexican restaurant and I'm going to make salsa. Plus I have got to make fudge and other treats. I have really enjoyed the neighbor gifts this year. They have been fun to give and to receive. I'm at a point in my life that it is fun for me to think of what to do and spend the time making it up. It makes me happy to know that I am making things for people I care about. And we feel very loved to receive so many little treat from our friends. We do have a pretty small ward, and we are all becoming very good friends. I wish everybody reading this a Christmas full of friends, family and love!

Movie scenes in my life......

So we woke up this morning, after going to bed at 2:30AM, to snow. The 2:30 AM thing came from a big project due today at school and a son who procrastinated and needed a little help. So we woke up this morning and we had snow again. As I mentioned in the post before this one Mike is out of commission. So this would be me out on the riding lawn mower/plow this morning. Mike also had to go to the Doctor, he kept telling me he should be out there, and I told him he needed to heal, and that would just hurt him. I ended up being out in the snow for 2 hours this morning. I have to admit it was pretty fun. That was my first time on any riding lawn mower. We had a car parked out in the street, I wanted it moved to the driveway. Big dump trucks drive down our streets after a snow and shoot all of the snow off the street as they go. Unfortunately they spray it up in our driveways and on our sidewalks it shoots at least 12 feet. So I was out in front of the car, trying to clear a spot when one of those trucks came driving toward me. The mower doesn't move fast enough for me to get out of the way. So all I could do was "duck and cover!" He let up a little when he saw me but I got hit with a shower of snow. Just like in the movies. It made me smile, because it just struck me funny. So I kept riding and scrapping and the big truck had turned around and come back down the other side of the street. He stopped and rolled his window down and apologized. I had a thing on that covered my face only my eyes where showing. So I yelled "it's OK" and waved and nodded. Hopefully he knew I didn't care.

So then I had been out in the cold for just about 2 hours. It was kinda fun because the snow was so powdery and easy to move. But my toes and knees and thighs were freezing. I cleared the spot for the car and had to scrape the car windshield off it had about 4 or 5 inches of powdery snow. As the snow fell away, there hanging on the rear view mirror, was a Hawaiian Lei. I instantly flashed to a warm sandy beach, with a palm tree and warm sunshine. It was just like in a scene movie. But I came back to reality to my cold powdery snow. I have to admit I enjoyed the entire thing. Including the hot bath to defrost my body!

Then I just took a picture of our forest so you can see it in the dark:-)

We finally got snow!!!!!

First off I was without the Internet for 2 days! That was a bummer no e-mail or anything. But as you can see I'm up and running again.

Finally we got some snow that stuck. We were supposed to have a "huge" snow storm over the weekend, but it fizzled out. Then Monday morning we woke up and everything was white! Mike put a small forest of Christmas trees up in our yard, and they look so pretty with the snow under them. Chris is coming in on Sunday he has been hoping for snow. It looks like he will see some because we are supposed to get more snow this week. Mike is on vacation and relaxing. When it snowed he was so happy. He bundled up and headed outside.

Then he fired up the lawn mower/snowplow and took off down the street. He cleared all of the sidewalks in our neighborhood. He loves to do it, it makes him happy to do nice things for the neighbors. But you know the saying, no good deed goes unpunished. He was pushing the lawn mower and got his sciatic nerve. So he has been stuck in the recliner for 2 days.

I had some older stuff I forgot about. It was around the a week after Thanksgiving and we had a visitor. I suppose he felt like it was safe to come out. (It's a turkey if you can't tell.)

Then these pictures got reversed. We had a huge wind storm a few week ago. I was up in Salt Lake shopping and missed all of the excitement. But my house got attacked by tumbleweeds during the storm. I got up the next morning and headed out to clear them away. There were so many. The picture makes it look like just a few, but there were at least 150 all different sizes. It looked like 400 to me. I just got busy moving them out of the yard, very tedious work. My very sweet and pregnant neighbor brought her little boys out and helped me clean out my yard. It is great to have kind neighbors! Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that her house looks out over my yard, and it improved her view:-)

There were so many different kinds of tumble weeds. I contemplated making a tumble weed Christmas tree. I always used to see those in Arizona they were fun to look at. I wish I would have taken the picture from a different angle, you can't get the full impact of how many were out there. I was actually sore that night.

My Nativities......

So the tree is finally up. I don't have a picture of it yet. My camera battery is dead. Erin and Jon took the princess to Disneyland this week, and couldn't find their charger. so I let them take mine. They better take some good pictures of my little princess in the "happiest place on earth!"


I decided I could show you my nativities. I love nativity scenes. I remember when I was in Merry Miss A or B in primary, they gave us a beautiful paper nativity set. Then my mom had one of those old fashioned sets, when I was growing up. About 10 years ago I was on a trip and saw the cutest nativity set. It was little black kids dressed in bath robes and things over their jeans and tennis shoes. It was so darling. I loved it, but I thought I shouldn't spend the $15 in case I needed the money for something else. I regret it to this day. I have looked for it all of these years since and never found it. So if I see one I like now, I get it! I like all different kinds. I have a few I haven't found since the move. I'm sure they will turn up some day, I would be so sad if they were gone.


This is my "grandma Nativity." Every time the princess leaves I have to track down, Baby Jesus, or Joseph, or a wise man. But that is what it is there for:-)
Here is one that just caught my eye last year.

One I made in Relief Society.

This one I love the colors and kept it hanging on my wall all year.

This is a way cute one, it just makes me happy to look at it.

This one is just Baby Jesus, I got it this year and really like it.

This is on my mantel. I have a Santa shelf. But I like the Nativity to be the focus of my fireplace.

No Christmas Tree yet!

So this is the first time in 25 years that we haven't had our tree up on Thanksgiving weekend. We still don't have it up. It's weird.... but I will get into that later.

So the princess got my granny reading glasses one night and I had to take a picture of her.

Mikes Dad was here for a visit last week. Mike was on vacation that week and was able to spend some quality time with him. On Sat. we went to Erin & Jon's house had lunch watched a movie in their super cool theater room.

The princess with her great Granddad.

We really enjoyed his visit. We had a good family week. We had the Sis-in-law and her family over Sunday night, for one last dinner, before he left. I made turkey tortilla soup and used up all of my left over turkey. (I hate the taste of left over turkey) The soup ended up being pretty tasty. We had a great visit and my Father-in-law spoke sweet words that made us all cry.

Now I have been meaning to show my Christmas decorations for a while minus the tree of course. So I finally got the pictures posted.

My entry plant shelf.

My big used to be empty cage, now full of shiny Christmas balls.

My fun garland that Ana and I put together last year. All of these things look much better in person:-)

My little gold tree and wooden shoes from Holland.

One unlit shelf of my entertainment center.

The other unlit shelf in my entertainment center.

My shiny jar of Christmas balls, and cute standing snowman.

My shiny silver tree.

My lit up entertainment center. Again things are much prettier when you are here.

My kitchen lights over my cabinets, and my son texting.

And finally my fireplace. I really enjoy all of the lights, that may be why I haven't got my tree up yet. I still have happy Christmas lights to look at:-)