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.