Some Highlights to Wrap it Up

It's hard to believe 2009 is almost over. It's been a fun, interesting, and unexpected year. With all of it's roller coaster moments I see that life is fashioned to give the maximum learning experience in the shortest amount of time. All I know is there is more of the wonderful and more of the trials ahead and I am glad I am in it with Nathan. Last night, after a long day of working and a two and a half hour drive home in the snow Nathan arrived home to a messy house, a burned out and ornery wife, and chaos. He helped get the kids to bed, cleaned the kitchen, and otherwise just gave me what I needed despite what he may have been feeling himself. Within an hour of his coming home the house was back to happy.

Anyway, getting off my sentimental soap box. . . here are some of our Christmas Highlights.

The Saturday before Christmas we finally made it to the Christmas village in downtown Ogden. This is one of the great Christmas treasures in Utah. I love it. They have about 30 miniature houses decorating the central park. As you walk around and look in the windows you can gaze upon scenes of winter happening inside. The kids love it and the park is also decorated beautifully with lights. Afterward we went to a nearby burger joint for hot chocolate and french fries. A great night.






Christmas approached way too fast. Lucky for me, my sweet sister in law, Tiffany, took the girls for an entire day and I was able to finish shopping before the Christmas rush began. Thanks Tiff. We headed to Utah County on the 23rd for the festivities with my parents. It was fun. . . and the kids couldn't believe they already got to open some presents. My mom gave Emily a cabbage patch doll. I just love it. It reminds me of my childhood. My cabbage patch dolls were my most prized possessions. When I played with them I was a real mommy.



Christmas Eve was filled with activity with Nathan family. Sledding, dinner, a nativity put on by the kids. . . oh yea, and how could I forget more presents. My kids all got Glo Doodles from Grandma and Grandpa Baxter. I have to say, those things are awesome. My kids are loving them.








By the time we made it home. . . it was about 11pm. My kids went right to sleep. Lucky me. They woke up around 8 am. I enjoyed that. I know that we are getting closer to the 4 am wake up. Bummer. Santa brought Zhu Zhu Pets. . . That was the hot item on all three kids lists. I have to say, Santa got off pretty cheap. Thank you Zhu Zhu pet maker.

Christmas Day was very quiet and relaxing. . . excepting that I had some kind of stomach flu. I slept half the day. The day after Christmas we headed to Salt Lake for Temple Square lights. It was the perfect way to end our celebration. Another successful Christmas.

Now on to The New Year. . . .oh boy, what will it bring.

Christmas Cheer

As soon as Thanksgiving ended Christmas went up in our house. I love the night we put up the tree. . . except this time we bought a new used tree from DI. It was only 5 dollars so I was thinking that even if it was missing a piece of the stand was broken we could make it work. . .and it was way bigger than our current tree. Well, as we prepared to put the thing up, of all the things that could have been missing. . .it was missing the top of the tree. That rendered it completely useless and my dreams of a big beautiful tree were squashed. Back to the tiny tree we have been using for 9 years. Dang. Oh well, it looked cute once we had it up.

Another thing I love about Christmas is crafts. Especially, I like to make ornaments with the kids. This year we went with these cute wooden trains. We painted them and sparkled them and they turned out great. I will treasure those until the day I die. :)

I also made an advent calendar this year. I think it turned out so cute.

A cookie sheet and matchboxes cost me about 6 dollars. The rest was made out of my large assortment of scrap booking supplies I rarely use anymore (I have gone digital). You just cover the matchboxes with brown paper and then decorate them however you like. Inside the boxes you can put candy or fun activities to do that day. The last 12 days we have scriptures about Christ to read and a candy, of course. Unfortunately, my calendar did not survive one mishap. Emily thought it would be a good idea to eat one of the boxes. Don't ask me what she was thinking. I really don't know. :)


Oh, and don't forget letters to Santa. And at the top of every list. . . Zhu Zhu Pets. I sure hope Santa can work miracles.




8 days until Christmas.

This will Be Great Stuff for the Blog

9 Days out of 10 something happens that makes me repeat in my mind "They are only children, they are only children."
For example. .. this week I have been working on a project which has required me to allow some freedom to the crazy people. On their first night of freedom they played so very sweetly. When finally it was time for bed I went down with praise on the tip of my tongue for their good behavior but before I could get it out I saw this

I think an "Oh my gosh" escaped my lips instead. .. then I ran up for the camera. I can't wait until my grandchildren do these kinds of things. I will have so much proof that their parents were every bit as destructive. When I returned I found them all hiding and I made them clean up every last thing. Evil mother! Funny, when I asked them "Why, oh why would you do this?" they replied that they were trying to build a hut. I don't get it either. . . that looks nothing like a hut to me.

I wish I could say that their ways were changed after that. .. but, alas. . . this would be a lie. For the next day as I worked on my project Emily walked into my room like this

Apparently I forgot to put away the Hersey's syrup after we made chocolate milk at dinner. I am willing to take 5% of the blame.

Oh yea, and then there was the day I heard strange bumping noises in the bathroom only to find Ben doing this

He has some major potential to become a rock climber.

Finally tonight, I smelled an unpleasant odor which I recognized immediately as a bad problem since Emily is finally having some success toilet training and is now wearing panties all the time. She has mastered number one, but not so much number 2. However, she is a sweet girl and tries very hard to be grown up so she obviously thought she could take care of the mess herself. . .you can just imagine from there. I won't give you the details.

But, through all of this, I am lucky because I have a blog. I can always say to myself as I calm down. . . this will be great for the blog.

Thanksgiving. . .A Little Late

Thanksgiving came and went like a whirlwind. We had a great weekend though. Thanksgiving day was spent pigging out at my mom's house while watchign football. . . well, some people watched football. I only pigged out. It wasn't even the dinner itself. . .though that was tasty. It was all the goodies and football game appetizers. The best thing was I hardly saw my kids all day. They had more than enough cousin entertainment to keep them happy.

Now, for a few years now I have enjoyed this madness the day after Thanksgiving.

The madness is interesting but it is spending time with my sister that I love. When I was a little girl I used to wish I had a baby sister. Now, I am glad it's just the two of us girls. Sandi is someone I can always count on and she is the best friend possible. So, every Black Friday I wake up way too early in the middle of the night and hit the madness. Every year I think. . . next year I won't wake up so early. . . but, when the next year comes I still do it. This year we topped off our adventure by seeing "New Moon". Much better than the first Twilight. . . only a few laughable moments. It was a great day.

Saturday we were invited to Aaron and Melissa's for lunch. Then Melissa and took the kids to the mall before heading over to Tom and Mary's for dinner.

I know, we were some of the only people in the State of Utah who missed the "big game". I should probably be arrested for such disloyalty to my school. . . but I was excited BYU won. It meant Nathan came home happy. . . instead of having to ride home with a grouch. So, go BYU. HAHAHA. And that concludes this years Thanksgiving weekend. Thanks for watching. . . I mean reading.

Saints and Sinners

I'll just say it right up front. My husband is a Saint. Today was our big Primary Program Practice. . . my husband came to support, help, and pick up pizza for the hungry. Now, while we were there I asked him to do something else and he declined. I was a little annoyed. I shot several eye daggers at him during the next hour until it was finally time for him to go get the pizza. Off he went, even taking Emily with him. We continued to practice for another hour. When we were finished I was surprised to find that Nathan had not returned yet. I ran out to the phone to find out what was going on at the same moment he walked through the door. "What took you so long?" I could see my question irritated him for some reason. He was now throwing daggers at me. "I ran out of gas." Oops! The worst part was he asked me as we were leaving the house "How long has this low gas light been on." I thought about it. . . it didn't seem like it had been on long. "Just since yesterday." I must have estimated poorly. So sorry husband. But I am sure that God has a special place reserved for the patient husbands who put up with sinner wives in heaven. :)

The Ten Minute Kidnapping

Oh the afternoons. They can be so long and boring. Rachel came to me today. . ."Mom, I have nothing to do." Well, I am a quick thinker so I suggested she go see if our neighbor could play. About 20 minutes later the door bell rang. I opened it to find our little neighbor wanting to know if she could play at our house. I was confused. "I thought Rachel was at your house." No. Well, then, she must be here. I yelled throughout the house. In every room. "Please go home and make sure that Rachel isn't at your house." So, the little girl left and returned shortly affirming to me once again that Rachel was not at her house. Now I was starting to panic. My heart racing, I went outside and began to yell Rachel's name. No answer. Emily was in the bathtub, so I pulled her out, quickly dressed her, and said a prayer. Then I told Ben to start looking for his sister. Ben was only worried about his stomach. . . he wanted a sandwich. "She's lost!" I told him with less than kindness.

Now it just happens that the neighbor girls Father is a police officer. I saw his patrol car in the driveway, so I headed over there. I was ready to put in a missing child report. . . Rachel does not wander off around the neighborhood. If she wasn't at he neighbors and she wasn't in our yard then she was kidnapped. I was near tears when I got to my neighbors house. They opened the door and I said "I can't find Rachel."

They looked at me with a confused gaze and said, "She's here." Oh my gosh. I can't tell you the relief I felt. Even after I left and went home I had to sit down. I laughed and cried together. Apparently, Rachel arrived at there house before her friend was home from school so they invited her to come in and wait and watch Tinkerbell. Well, when the friend came home she didn't even go into the house. She just jumped out of the car and headed to our house. That explains why she didn't think Rachel was at her house. Whether not she actually went home to double check when I asked her to is unknown. All I do know is I never want to have that happen again. It was terrible. The worst ten minutes of my life. I gave all three of my kids huge hugs afterward.

This is Halloween!

We had a very busy Halloween this year. We abandoned our own house. I was surprised our pumpkins survived. I thought for sure some snotty teenager would take revenge on our empty house. We decided we wanted to spend Halloween with the family. We did miss the super fun Halloween Party because of the swine flu so we had a lot to make up for. Our first destination on Halloween day was the Pumpkin Patch place on Geneva road.


Way fun. Then we headed off for some trick or treating with the cousins.

I think our kids came home with about 10 pounds of candy this year.. . which was all gone in a week. Amazing.

And the best part of all. The ride home was very quiet.


You can't beat that. Thanks to all who made our Halloween killer. :)

Oh yea, and if you were wondering. The girls were dressed as

and the boys were. . .

Moms and Daughters

I've mentioned how Rachel was having a bit of a tantrum problem. Well, I was really worried about her. So, in the midst of thinking about it, I decided that we needed an outing, just the two of us. I told her about it and we looked forward to it for a week. Color Me Mine just opened in Ogden, so that was our destination. Every part of it was fun. From picking out what we were going to paint, to laughing as we painted together. Rachel loved her finished project which is now displayed in her room (when she is not carrying it around the house). I made Nate a BYU mug which I forced him to take to work and put on his desk. . . really, he loved it.



Food also had to be part of our night, as no night out is complete without it. We went home happy and I will be anxious to do it again. Consequently, spending more time with Rachel has been part of the answer to her tantrums. They have improved a lot. I love my girl.

So You Think You Can Be a Rock Star

Finally, the end of the day had come. The kids were in their jammies and playing nicely. . . but what were they playing.
"Are you guys going on vacation?" I asked.

"NO, we're rock stars!"
Ah. Yes. Now I can see. I don't know how I didn't guess that to begin with. :)

Pumkins, Apples, and A Big Big Mess

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.