for the Papas and Grandma's

Hey, I thought I'd better ad a few more pictures for the Grandparents who couldn't be there... How could I resist? They are Soo cute!

I think I am getting vacationed out. Maybe we should go home and see what's happening there. We'll be in Arizona for one more day. Then back to the rat race... Actually, it will be nice to go home too!

thanks to the neighbor and merry Christmas

Guess what? The neighbor at our cabin came home today... and he has a Nikon camera... that means he had the cable I needed to download my pictures! Netty, these are for you so you can look at my photography...

It's not about the pictures of Christmas, it's all about my new camera!! Hopefully you'll see pictures of Christmas too...

Some of my favorites!
(They took FOREVER to download! I think they are huge.)
I know, I know, they need to be photoshopped, but I'll get there.
It starts with the day before Christmas. I didn't put any of Christmas day because this was getting too long. I'll try again later...

The day after Christmas

It's the day after Christmas, cabin fever has set in!!! Must have fountain soda, must have after Christmas sales, must have fresh air! I'm all simplified out! The video games aren't cutting it, the puzzle is done, the weather is 20 something outside and I need Calgon to take me away... Oh wait, does that mean doing dishes? Ok, I take it back. I think it's too frozen outside to drive... I'm going to read up on how to do digital photography...

Oh bummer..

Today's confession is that Scott (and I) got me a camera for Christmas... A good one! And I didn't even let him wrap it. I kept it out so I could use it! I LOVE IT!! I have gotten some awesome pictures in the last couple of days but I didn't bring the cords to put them on the computer!! That's the bummer.

The funny thing about this post is that Stephanie thinks that I am silly for writing again. Lots of people post every day, why can't I? I think it's fun! In fact I really enjoy it.

I wish I could put up some pictures of the cabin, stringing popcorn and cranberrys, our little tree that Carter chopped down today and the snow slide we built. It's been a great day! Now on to making cookies for Santa and Christmas eve PJ's!

Good night everyone and have a great Christmas!

We're here!

We're finally in Williams for Christmas! I thought I would never make it! I got sick right in time to do the packing, and last minute stuff and it was all I could do to get through the day! But we made it! We are in Williams and it is beautiful.

We were worried about the snow because we had heard about winter weather warnings and stories of so much snow, but it wasn't bad at all. There really wasn't much of anything until we got into Williams. When we got to the cabin the county had plowed the street so we (I say we as if I did a lot, but I only did a bit..) had to dig through the burm they piled up in front of the drive way. It was about 4 feet high and 4 feet wide. Scott, Carter and Kendahl worked for a few hours digging and they were my hero!! They got half the driveway dug out, we'll have to finish tomorrow. But at least we have a place to park and the snow plow won't run over any cars in the morning!

Right now I am sitting by the fire in the wood burning stove. (Why do they call it a stove? I would never cook on it, but I guess you could if you had to.) The fire is beautiful! Stephanie and Cory are here with their kids. It is hard for me to imagine how we get along so well, Stephanie and I. We just get each other. It's so great to have that!

Tomorrow we are going to cut down an little "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree and string popcorn and cranberries to put on it. We're going to make snowflakes too. I can't wait! I'll try to get some pictures to put on. Not that anyone but me and some family members care... but Grandma and Papa, you will want to see, right?? Ok, stay tuned!

I'm so glad to be here and just be able to have a simple, relaxed, white Christmas!!

The next great melt down

First, did you know there is still snow in my back yard? Thats how cold it is here... Ive never seen snow last this long here!

Im melting down now. I was glad we were going to AZ for Christmas because it would force me to relax in the days leading up to the big day... But I now am stressing so much to accomplish everything. When it snowed I kinda took a couple days off and didnt do much... dumb idea. Ive got tomorrow and then we leave Tuesday morning. Not so good. I have to go into work to do payroll tomorrow... Not so good. I dont know if I can finish it all and still keep my sanity about me! (lets all say it together now...) Not so good!

K, just a little time to whine... waahh, waahh, waahh.

Have you ever seen the blogs where people do confessions once a week? Cute...
Heres my confession... I didnt go to church today so I could catch up a little. Ta Da, that was it! Do ya all still love me? I still have to put on a dress today for Tithing settlement. :( Tonight I am going to bake, bake, and make toffee. If you are one I bring a plate to, dont worry that it was made on Sunday, it will still taste good!

Ok, this little break from reality has been good! :)
TTML

The great meltdown

The sun is shineing bright, this snow isn't going to last long! But what a beautiful day!!!

No Really!

Seriously, this is no little snowy weather for the desert!! Look at this crazy mess! Here are some cool picts of the weather today!

Before the pictures, just a funny little thing... You know we are desert rats normally and today it was pointed out clearly when Carter, (who was wearing his only warm wear today, a flimsy sweatshirt), looked at me and said, "Mom, I need a winter sweatshirt." I told Scott and we laughed cause do you think our kid would ask for a winter coat? No, a "winter sweatshirt"! Only in the desert!

This is earlier in the snow day, not too much snow...

This was after lots of hours of snow! Clara out for the 3rd time.

This was the quad crew. Scott had the neighbor kids delighted with the fish tail!

Brodric diving into the snow.

After the dive.

Quad crew again!

This is our cultisac, can you believe it? It looks like the mountains!! Nope, our little cultisac in good 'ol So. Cali.!

I guess it's ok to eat the snow... right?

A beautiful lake in our clutisac! No, this is the puddle from all the rain before the snow!

snow relieved

things the snow relieved me of today...
1. long lines at the UPS office.
2. buying christmas gifts for kindergarten class.
3. worrying about teacher gifts for christmas.
4. double booking of kids preformances at school tonight that is now cancled.
(had to choose between two, and now don't have to go to any!)
5. driving kids to early morning seminary tomorrow.
6. going anywhere, or doing anything...
i think i'll snuggle up in a blanket and do whatever i want.
or i'll watch all the kids and neighbor kids mess the house and make lots of noise and bring all kinds of wetness into the house from playing in the snow! Maybe I should bake. What a great day!

The most wonderful time of the year.

It's the season for stressing. Or however you see it... I like getting into the mode of "stress" or "down to the wire" because I become so much more productive. Sometime though, things creep up on me and it's not such a fun situation. The Christmas scene is usually a fun thing for me to stress over. I like it. I like the buying, I like the decorating and the feeling. But just when I think that it's all cool, in comes the end of the year, which I am never ready for! In a business you have to have "stuff" done at the end of the year and that's the part I hate. In my heart, Christmas takes presidence over the year end stuff any day! So I am always running behind or not completeing something having to do with year end! Not so fun when I finally look at it and hit myself over the head and say, "I should have..."

Tonight is our ward Christmas party and I am on the activities committee, this is one of my favorite holidays with the activities of our ward! I just enjoy the feelings of everyone, I enjoy helping, I feel like I can pass the kids off to Scott on this night and actually be helpful to the committee. So I am looking forward to it.

For years now it has been my responsibility to provide the Santa for our ward. I usually ask my friend and he, not always so graceously, accepts... This year he bluntly told me he would do it but I couldn't micro-managing him. So I'm going to do my best... I told him I would hand him the suit and not say another word... Ya right! If he thinks that's really happening, he must be crazy and not know me very well. No really, I am going to try!

Tomorrow may well be the most important day of the holiday season! We have our kids recital (which I am SO looking forward to) and then it's wrap, mail, shop! Wrap and mail first to get the out of town stuff gone! and shop for the final little things on the list. I hope it's a good day and turns out to be productive. There just aren't very many days left...

Well, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a productive weekend too!

My love, we have seen it all...

If we didn't see it all, at least we did it all! And all in one weekend. Sisters Unite! (Title: lyrics from Celine Dion’s new song.)

(Warning, there will be a lot of these!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In here because I love to use them anyway, but because of the great time we had I will be over using them I’m sure!!!!)

What a great weekend! We had the sisters weekend we have been planning for a year and 4 of our sisters were able to hang out together most of the time and really had a great 4 days!

I think the best way to do this is give a quick recap of the weekend highlights…

Wynonna concert began like this…


Looked like this…..



And ended like this….


AWESOME! Right? We waited an hour or so to meet Wynonna because WE WANTED TO. It was sooooo cool. I'm glad we waited!

Then...

We found a project we all loved (it was hanging on Steph's wall) and we decided to make a project out of it and we all were going to make one and have the others be gifts. It began like this… just crafting along... Making Christmas presents...



Looked like this…..

It seemed to skip a few hours, time just flew by, or something!! We spent hours just looking for the paper and ribbon and colors we wanted, and it felt like nothing.



The project ended like this……





(There's nothing there because NO one finished the project! Too much laughing, napping, discussing and not enough work got done... Bummer, but they will be finished! Hopefully!)



Ok and the finally of the weekend began like THIS!...
CELINE!
Don't you wish it was you in that car...goin' to Celine?

Found food in Glendale right by the arena. It was a nice place.

We waited for what seemed like forever for her to start!


During the concert looked something like this.....



She had about 4 more clothes changes! Interesting wardrobe! Great show!
The middle takes up a lot more time if anyone cared, but just know it was a great show!!! Celine had a way of making everyone in a huge arena feel like they are involved in the show and even if you aren’t particularly a fan of Celine, it could not be disputed that she puts on a great show!!! Can I have an “AMEN”?! (Same experience as when we saw her in Vegas, she does a great show!) (how many times have I said, "great show"? I'm so tired...)


The night ended like this………..

FOTO HAS BEEN REMOVED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT

But you can picture this in your minds little eye... Four old laides out on the town, finally hit the pillows late, late! Add a little drool on the pillow, no alarm and the clocks finally striking 10 AM and you got the main idea!

We were all so tired! It was a really long weekend in that we had little sleep! But well worth being tired and anything else that came of it!

So, to end this thing... to all those Arizona people who I love to hang out with I can only apologize that I haven’t had more time for them! I love you all too and I wish I did have more time to spend with you!!! Netty, what the heck? When are we going to spend a weekend just you and I? Laura, you probably want to shoot me right about now! I know I’ve been there twice and not seen or called… What is the matter with me? I bet if you think about it for 2 seconds you will figure it out! Everyone else who reads this blog I can only say, blah, blah, blah… Same old stuff. I’m telling you if heaven isn’t like one big party with all the people you love around you whenever you want them to be, then I am going to totally disappointed because this life time just doesn’t have enough TIME! Especially if you live in Arizona! It’s like a time warp place or something! The minutes, hours and days just fly by! That’s nearly as bad as the heat in the summer. (The two worst things about Arizona.) But I have loved being there the past two weeks and enjoying my family and a friend here and there. Hey, I might be the only person all of you know in Apple Valley, CA so if you aren’t reading this from the high desert in California, COME VISIT US HERE AND WE CAN HAVE A GRAND ‘OL TIME!

I shouldn't be blogging!

I really shouldn't be blogging... It seems like such a harmless thing to do yet it has it's traps! You know it's a trap when it feels good. Isn't everything that feels good bad to do? :) I just want to blog for a minute, if I do it fast enough maybe it won't be too bad. The only reason it is bad is because I really should be cleaning the house, finishing the decorating for Christmas, getting myself ready to go into the office, and I could think of many, many more if I wanted to!

The thing is, is that I need to share about the week just a bit! Thanksgiving really started when we had the Kindergarten feast on Wednesday! It was cute, they did a little show, got to take a journey on the Mayflower and then ate the feast! Bricky was a pilgrim for a while (while on the Mayflower journey) and then for the feast he was a Indian. He had a good time, which is saying something since he is a little stinker sometimes!

Finger lickin' good!

Then the holiday continued in Mesa. We didn't eat on Thursday and so that was a bit strange. We had to wait some family who had other inlaw's and such to go see. But family is always good, right... worth the wait?
So here are a couple of highlights. The pilgrims gathered again... They were a bit silly, but always cute!

I have cousins who brought babies and my kids just thought that was awesome! We don't have babies around much any more, so they couldn't keep their hands off of them. Well, Ba and Carter in particular!


They all did some turkey coloring thanks to Grammy and they played pin the hat on the turkey. This is Kendahl doing a little turkey dance... "woo hoo" I guess she did well at her turn with the turkey!

Here are the kids with Grandma Harris! It was nice to see her again after a couple of months of her being in AZ. She left on Saturday after all the partying... to go back to Cali, so Melanie and I will get to start our visits with her back up! That's always great, I can't complain about that!! I Love this lady!

As you can see the weekend was great. What I don't have any pictures of yet is the little play date we had with the Taylors! The little ones got to go play with a whole neighborhood of kids over at Tom and Tammy's. We had a good time with them and now Scott is officially the little kid wrestling buddy! (He always has been, but I thought I should make if official...) After Charli's x-ray today we'll see if her arm was broken when Scott landed on her during one of the rounds... Hope not, sorry Steph!

As we were about to leave I got a great picture of Steph and I... Not really so great, but I love this gal too and I am so thankful for all she does for us! She is my friend, my comic relief, and my person!

It's amazing we made it back in one piece because the traffic was SO bad coming home! But we did make it and we were extremely tired from the LONG trip home, but today kids are at school and life is moving on!

So now that I have taken this moment out of my day to blog... I better get back to it!!! On with the day!