19 Years

Yesterday Mike and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. We went out together Saturday night but spent yesterday celebrating with the kids. Throughout the day we were asked quite frequently "what were you doing at his time 19 years ago." Over the day we shared with them a lot of the happenings of our wedding day. It was fun to think back. Mollie loved that we had the fancy dishes to celebrate and the "appling cider" made the celebration complete. I love having a best friend to share life with and am excited for the many years to come. Happy Anniversary Mike, I love you.

Hope You Had a Wonderful Christmas

On Christmas Eve we had a wonderful dinner with family and then had a great program listening to the story of the birth of Christ, singing carols, playing with wind up toys and of course eating. I absolutely loved our cast who acted out the Christmas story for us as it was read.

The Three "little" Wisemen

Mary with baby Jesus. Yes, there is a real baby in there.
Ava, 2 weeks old, played the part beautifully.

The Angel and the Shephards

Megan, Sam, and Mollie hanging out in their new pajamas getting ready to head to bed and eagerly awaiting Santa's visit.



Christmas day was nice. Very quiet and enjoyable. Everyone loved their gifts and we had fun playing games and working on a jigsaw puzzle at Bob and Lucy's house.



We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

One last picture. After the igloo the next project was a couch. Right in the middle of our front yard. It has started raining so the snow is quickly melting.

Happy Birthday Megan

Yesterday Megan celebrated her 15th Birthday. Although Mike and I are amazed that we have a 15 year old we are more amazed by Megan. She is a great kid and a wonderful example in our family. I am continually impressed by the many things she does and accomplishes. We went to lunch at La Palmera and then to see Bolt the movie. We had a fun day together. Happy Birthday! WE LOVE YOU!

A New Home

What started as building a snow wall with an old laundry soap bucket turned into a five hour project and one great igloo. The kids spent the better part of the day in the back yard creating their masterpiece. It was great to see them work together and have them out of the house for so long. They hauled snow from the side yard, front yard, and neighbors yard. After they were finished it seemed the perfect place to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.

YES, we live in SEATTLE!

What a crazy week. More and more snow. The kids are loving it. Lots of fun things to do. I have enjoyed being hunkered down at home. Pretty much everything has been cancelled since last Tuesday. However, I'm not sure that I enjoy the extremely lived in house with all of the dirty/wet snow clothes.

For FHE on Monday night the kids decorated gingerbread houses. It is one of their favorite traditions. Every year Grandma Lucy makes the houses from scratch (THANK YOU). I get the easier part of glueing them together. Megan, Sam, and Mollie love picking out the candy, decorating, eating the candy, and hanging out with their cousins. We already have talked about delaying gingerbread houses next year one week so that the older BYU cousins can come after school is out. Very fun memories.

WOW!

After the Santa photos we walked over to the Sheraton to look at the gingerbread house competition. The theme was "Super Heroes." the houses were amazing. Our favorite two were the Nintendo DS with a cool rainbow road and Batman's house. It was a very fun few minutes that I would highly recommend.

Sitting with Santa

On Wednesday afternoon after school we took off and headed downtown. We were hoping to beat the crowd because it was early dismissal. Unfortunately a lot of other families had the same idea. The line was long but Mike and I took turns standing in line while the others window shopped and rode the carousel. Sam was being somewhat of a bah-hum-bug and I kept getting after him to change his attitude. I found it funny that we finally got a real smile out of him when he was joking with his Dad about his "pink horse of awesomeness." Mollie loved visiting with Santa and Sam and Megan did a good job of accommodating their Mom's wishes. HO, HO, HO.

Little Brothers

Last Monday and Tuesday we had the opportunity to have Nate and Ben stay with us while my cousin Jorelle was at the hospital having baby #3. A little girl named Ava who is adorabe. I have to admit that Nate and Ben melted our hearts and wore us out. It was very fun to have little ones in the house and the kids loved it. Megan, Sam and Mollie had a great time playing with them. Mollie was a huge help. At one point Sam even said, "wow, Mollie will be a great Mom." On Tuesday night after we dropped them off at the hospital Mollie was so sad. She missed them terribly and just "really, really, really, wanted to be a big sister." Obviously that is not a realistic option but we are looking forward to spending more time with Nate, Ben, and Ava.

OK, so it has been a long time since I posted so I decided I needed to write something. We enjoyed a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving with family. It was good for me to take a minute a think about the many blessings that I have in my life.

Thanksgiving was great but I really, REALLY, enjoyed the Friday after Thanksgiving. I stayed home ALL day long. Yes, I "putzed" around all day. I didn't brave the crowds for shopping and almost felt a sense of relief. I must admit I got a little nervous a few days ago when the realization hit that I hadn't purchased a single gift for Christmas. However, I did manage to pick up a few things this week so I think it will come together.

Last Monday for FHE we finished setting up our tree and were getting ready to place the ornaments on the tree. We have an artificial tree and I kept insisting that everyone needed to help me "fluff" the branches. I guess my insisting became too much because Sam proceded to tell me that I needed to be more "insouciant." I was surprised, almost shocked, to hear Sam use this word. I said what does that mean. He said, it is one of my vocab words and it means "carefree." A few minutes later when I was insisting that we keep repositioning the tree until it was perfectly straight Megan informed me that I was "CDO" Apparantly this is her extreme definition of OCD because it puts the letters in alphabetical order. I really don't think they minded fluffing the tree or making it straight but all of them loved the opportunity to raz me. When we finally got the tree finished it was beautiful and we had some great laughs.

Other than that not much to report, we had a quiet week. Just for fun I thought I would share a few things I enjoyed this week...

• Mollie describing her gooey messy burger (sloppy joes) as "yummalicious"
• Having a 2nd christmas tree in our family room for all of the great homemade ornaments
• Watching Mollie play indoor soccer
• Hearing Megan playing Christmas carols on the piano
• Seeing Sam's excitement when he brought home his Honor Roll Certificate
• Listening to Christmas Music
• Taking time to go to the movies w/ Mike (it's been a while)
• Setting up my favorite two nativities, hand made by Megan and Mollie
• Not working any extra hours
• Having great friends who helped us solve our computer problems, picked up my kids when I couldn't, and dropped off some heartfelt gifts
• Listening to Mike sing carols
• Receiving christmas cards
• Having a chance to visit with so many of my cousins via email
• and finally being able to talk with my sister, brothers and parents.

I am sure I could go on but I won't. Like I said it has been good for me to recognize all of my blessings, big and small. Thank you everyone for being a part of our lives.

?????????????????????????

Yesterday after a busy day at work I frantically pulled into the school parking lot to pick up Mollie. I asked her "what was the best thing today?" She quickly answered and then asked me a question. Little did I know that it was to be a day of questions. Mike was gone late so he was not around to field some of the questions here is an outline of what I remember:

• Are we going to Walmart? (Mollie)
• Can Jaime Come? (Mollie)
• Are we ordering me new glasses? (Mollie)
• Are we still going to Walmart to get my glasses? (Megan)
• Can I get some make-up? (Megan)
• How far is Kennelly Keys from Walmart? (Megan)
• My clarinet broke, can we drop it off? (Megan)
• Can I go to the basketball game tomorrow? (Sam)
• Can you pick me up? (Sam)
• Can I paint my face blue? (Sam)
• What's for Dinner (Mollie)
• When is Dad going to be home? (Mollie)
• How long will you be gone? (Sam)
• When is Dad going to be home? (Sam)
• Have you seen my shoes? (Mollie)
• Is my jacket clean? (Megan)
• What's for dinner (Megan)
• Why won't the insurance buy the glasses? (Mollie)
• How long is this going take? (Mollie)
• How much does this cost ? (Mollie)
• Can I play select soccer? (Mollie)
• Why not? (Mollie)
• What's for dinner? (Sam)
• Mom, can you help me with this? (Mollie)
• What does this word mean? (Sam)
• How to you do this? (Mollie)
• Can you quiz me for my test? (Megan)
• Can I play Wii right now? (Mollie)
• Can I watch 24 when it starts? (Sam)
• Can I call Lydia? (Mollie)
• Can she come over tomorrow? (Mollie)
• Can we get a gym membership? (Sam? Megan? can't remember)
• When is Dad going to be home? (Megan)
• Is the orange bottle Motrin? (Sam)
• Can you braid my hair? (Megan)

Yes, we finally ate dinner and Dad finally got home. OK, so now the final question after a very long afternoon/evening. The kids, after being asked five times, and yelled at a little bit, are finally in bed. It is 9:48 pm and I am saying good night to Sam and he asks "Mom, we were just messing around while we brushed, WHY ARE YOU OVER-REACTING??????????

Happy Birthday!

I can't go to bed tonight with out officially saying Happy Birthday to my best friend. Thanks for being a great husband, friend, and dad! I love you!

Yesterday was Mike's birthday but we celebrated for two days. His idea of the perfect birthday present was loading up in the van and driving to Cabela's in Lacey. I rented some movies for the car ride and we headed out. The store was awesome and we had a great time. Unfortunately we couldn't eat lunch there because we ran out of time and the line was way too long so we had to settle for Wendy's on the way home. The conversation on the way home was pretty much the what if game... If you had $1000 dollars what would you have bought today?

Last night Mollie's gift to Mike was a wrestling match. After confirming that Sam and Megan would not be participating the match began. I'm pretty sure that Mike was still able to take her. Today, Sunday, we had family over to officially have dinner, cake and sing. It was a fun day and a fun visit with everyone.

Nineteen years ago when I went shopping for Mike's birthday for the first time I had no idea what to get for him. So I decided to be funny and bought him an outfit from Goodwill complete with a pocket protector. I thought it was hilarious. If I remember right he didn't think it was too funny. Since that Birthday I still have a similar problem. What to get for him that is "in the budget." I would have loved to have come home with a stand up jet ski, a new pair of snow skiies, a flat screen TV, a new lap top, etc... Well, I actually came home with a couple of books and an arm-band for his ipod. He also bought a few things at Cabela's. He thought it was a great birthday weekend.

Sam's Football Season

He is number 66 in the above picture.

On the line he was usually matched up against someone bigger than him. I love this picture of him getting to be the bigger kid.

Ok, so I should have posted this a week or two ago but it never quite happened. As many of you know the debate at our house over whether Sam would play football this year for the first time ever got very heated at times. I obviously lost and Sam played on the 8th grade team. He absolutely loved it. When football first started I worried about him everyday after school (yes, I am just a little protective of my boy). After a little bit of time I relaxed. I started looking forward to picking him up because he was always all smiles. There must be something about being a guy and being able to shove people around and knock them down. For never having played before he got a lot of time playing defensive tackle along with being on both kick off teams. He played offense a handful of times with the highlight being in on a few plays as full back.

The very first game was just starting as I was walking up. The night before Sam had told me he was not on the kick off receiving team. But as I was walking up I saw him on the field and thought I must have his number wrong because he shouldn't be on the field. A few seconds later he received a short kick and ran back about 12-15 yards and then got pummelled. I was cringing the whole time and hoping that it was not him on the bottom of the pile. A few seconds later he ran off the field and pulled his helmet off. It was indeed him and he was all smiles. Well by half time I was very relieved when Mike showed up and I left to get the girls. I was literally sick to my stomach from watching him play.

By the end of the season I had definitely calmed down and could watch the game without feeling ill. By the last game I only slightly cringed when he was hit hard or ended up on the bottom of the pile. It was pure joy watching him have such a great time. Not sure that I am ready for next year but we'll see how it goes.

Girls Night Out?

Last night after dinner, which was at Arby's, Megan informed me that I am somewhat "lame" or maybe it was "pathetic" because I was so excited about the price of dinner. Thanks to some great coupons the entire family ate dinner out for $12.88. It was pretty exciting, the price was right and I didn't have to cook or do dishes.

I am hoping that I have now changed her opinion. I just purchased movie tickes via the internet for the 21st to go see Twilight. She and her friends have planned a mother/daughter girls night out. I can't imagine the number of girl's night out parties that are taking place on Friday the 21st. I am sure we will all have lots to say after the movie.

District Swim Meet

Other than the fact that the District JV meet was 4 1/2 hours long it was fun. I picked up Mollie early from school and headed to Marysville. We watched her first two events then went shopping to Fred Meyers and to dinner at Ivars. Mollie and I then went back over to the Pool and watched Megan's last two events. She did a great job. Over 100 kids swam the 50 free. She took first in her heat and finished somewhere in the top 25. The exciting part of the night was watching her win her heat in the back stroke. She shaved over 4 seconds off of her best time. I couldn't take it. I had to put the camera down so I could watch and cheer the remaining three lengths of the pool. She credits her increased speed to the fact that her coach was following her along the edge of the pool yelling at her the whole time. It was very exciting. She is done with swimming for this year and is trying to figure out how to occupy her time after school.

HALLOWEEN HOOPLA

For the ward halloween party Sam decided to return to his roots and be a pumpkin again. I couldn't resist including pictures from his first and second halloween.



After the ward party his pumpkin costume was pretty much a goner so he decided to go for a different bag on halloween night. He was just a bag of garbage. He didn't trick or treat just headed over to a friends house. Megan was at the highschool football game on halloween night so no dressing up and no pictures.

For the ward halloween party Mollie was a vampire. I think she has been a vampire five or six times. She loves it. I also had to do a flashback to the first time she was a vampire at age 3. Mollie and her friend Lydia always coordinate costumes for the ward party. The vampire and the vampire cat. They looked great!

Mollie decided to switch costumes on Halloween night. She was a beat up soccer player. She loved having a black eye and a bloody nose. Jorelle and Andrew brought Nate and Ben over to go trick or treating. Mollie loved spending time with them and I loved having little ones in the house. It was a fun night!

TO DO LIST

Quite frequently I get teased by my family for all my lists. I could possibly have five to ten lists going at any one time. I have grocery lists, project lists, work lists, church lists, christmas lists, errand lists, etc...I even have a lists right now of appointments that need to be scheduled. Anyhow, last night Mollie and I were talking about our busy day today and where she needed to be when, what she would wear to her field trip, and what time I would pick her up. This morning about 7 am I was helping Sam get ready for crazy hair day at school. I could hear Mollie upstairs and wondered why she was up so early and what she was doing up there. About ten minutes later she came down with her to do list and my to do list in sequential order. I don't think I had made a list before of my morning routine but Mollie did. Complete with showering, hair, make up, breakfast, brush teeth, pack lunch, etc. It also included me going to work and the afternoon/evening activities. She missed a few things but did a pretty good job. I have enjoyed crossing things off the list as I do them. Yes, it is true, I love my lists!

FHE at the Corn Maze

Yesterday things fell into place and a small miracle may have occurred. It was only 5 pm and everyone was home, the sun was shining, the homework was light and we had no other committments. So, we grabbed a quick dinner of leftovers, our canned food donation, and headed to the corn maze. On the way there both Mike and I commented that neither one of us had ever been to a corn maze before. The weather made for a beautiful evening and the crowds were extremely light. We had a great time exploring together and splitting up to play hide and go seek. After dusk Mike and I bowed out and let the kids spend a little more time roaming the maze in the dark. It was a fun evening and great to spend a little bit of time all together. Next step, a haunted house (maybe next year).

Carving Pumpkins

On Sunday afternoon we spent a little family time carving pumpkins. Time definitely goes by too fast. Mike and I were saying how different it was to sit back and let them do it all by themselves. They didn't need us at all. It is great that they are older and more independent but also a little sad. Luckily I had dinner to make and Pat and Colleen to visit with so it wasn't too bad staying out of it. I guess if I want to carve my ideas I will have to buy my own pumpkin next year. Grandma Lucy and Papa stopped by and the kids lit their pumpkins and showed off their hard work. They look great!