Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!









Baby's first Christmas. She loved opening presents!

12 Days of Blessings

We are now in our new house. We moved in the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. But there were a few blessings mixed in. The movers came on Monday and unloaded all our stuff. Nothing was missing or broken beyond repair (Blessing #1). Tuesday our car broke down on a major two lane road. (Blessing #2: if it had broken down the week before "little a" would have been stranded at school, if it had broken down one day later we would have been on our way to Wisconsin for Aunt K wedding which was the Saturday after Thanksgiving.) Blessing #3: within 5 minutes of the breakdown someone stopped to see if we needed help. Blessing #4: the person who stopped just happen to be driving a mini van with no occupants and could take me and my three children back to our house. Blessing #5: This kind person happens to have a sister who lives on the same block as us. Blessing #6: The sister came by to see if we needed anything. As it turns out both sister are members of the church we belong to. Blessing # 7: On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, T was able to get our old car out of police impound and towed to a dealership, trade it in for $1000 credit toward a 2004 Hnda Oddesy. That was pretty impressive since everything seemed to be closing early. Blessing #8:We had enough of our kitchen unpacked that I was able to cook and impromptu Thanksgiving dinner for our family on Thursday made entirely of things I picked up at the grocery store that morning. Blessing #9: After canceling our plans to attend Aunt K's wedding we were able to find someone (my cousin Sh.) to watch all four of our kids at the last minute. Aunt K was beautiful and it was so nice to met Uncle J's family and welcome him into the family. I can still feel the glow as a recall everything now. Blessing #9: Although little J was sick on the way home Sunday he didn't have any incidents south of Chi., which was about an 8 hour stretch. Blessing #10: the US pres. gave T Dec 26th off work.

Maybe I should think of two more and title this my 12 Days of blessings between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That's pretty easy. Blessing #11: T has a much better job than he had this time last year. Blessing #12:
"Little e" has started walking. She is so grown up. I can't believe she is almost one. With all my planning for Christmas I keep thinking in the back of my mind, what should we do for her birthday. Our family tradition is to have a shaped cake ( "little a" had a frog, "little t" had a smile, "little j" had a race car) and take the family to the zoo (hoping the one year old will recognize some of the animals from the baby books.) I think it might be a bit too cold to go to the zoo in January. We'll have to wait and see.

House Pics

I took pictures at our final inspection. We have 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms. The house is still occupied and they are in the process of moving. We will be moving in sometime in the next ten days. Maybe I'll get some good pictures of bedrooms and such later, but here's a few for you to enjoy now.



#1 Front - This style house is called the Charleston, built 1964


#2 Front door

#3 Kitchen
#4 Back yard (you can see the school sign, we're really close to the school.)


#5 Master bathroom

Not everything in the house is updated, but what is done is really nice (ex: kitchen, master bathroom.) We hope to move in by Nov 22nd. Maybe sooner if things work out well.

Halloween Pictures

We finally downloaded our Halloween pictures.

First: Pumpkins created by t, a, a, and j. Little t wanted his to be the scariest ever.


Second: Pumpkins lit.

Third: Little a's class Halloween party. They were so nice and let her little brothers participate. I totally wasn't expecting that.


Fourth: Halloween costumes.

Little A is Sleeping Beauty, E is a Ladybug (this one's been passed through the family a few of you may recognize it.), J is a sports guy (we spent days searching for a sports costume this is the only one we found and it's *way* to big for him, but he loved it, T is Buzz Lightyear (finally! the costume was in storage last year and it was so sad for him.)

Fifth: We made a brownie cake (as if the trunk or treat sugar wasn't enough.) :)

Last: We had a great Indian summer here. It was really warm all the way till last Thursday. We loved the leaves!

Cut through the tape

I feel like I've conquered the labyrinth! "Little a" will start first grade on Monday. When we left her old school the teachers said they recommended moving her to first grade. (Something they don't do there because they have full day kindergarten and prefer augmentation.) Then we moved
here where they do half day kindergarten. I asked when we registered her if we could do an assessment for first grade. They said they don't do that here. I hate being the pushy parent, but I didn't want her to have the stigma or stress of moving classes. I finally resigned myself and put her in kindergarten. After one day the teacher came to me about her abilities. It took her some time. She set up an assessment and talked to the principal and got through all the red tape for us. All the time she was so sweet about not wanting to lose "Little a" in her class. Thanks Mrs. Kindergarten teacher!

I hope she does well in first grade. I hope the work will be more appropriate and challenge her. I want her to get the "Ahh! I learned something new!" feeling.

We will also close on our house next Wednesday. We were ready to close on the 30th, but the seller needed a bit more time to fix a few things. Hopefully we can move in before Thanksgiving.

Happy Belated Birthday

"Little A" had a birthday in September. Since then I've gone to a graduation, moved and gone to a wedding. Her birthday slide show got put on the back burner. I kept telling myself it's okay it's still October. Well, now it's November so I guess it's time to catch up.

Happy Birthday "Little A"! It's been a crazy year. We moved to a new state one week after you turned 5. Then a few weeks after you turned 6 we moved to another state. You said next year when we move you want to move to Indiana. I asked why Indiana? That's were Josh is moving to. (Actually Josh was moving to India.) But it was cute. You've been such a trooper through so many big moves. You are quick to notice patterns. Your birthday party has doubled as a good bye party for the last two years. Next year we hope will be different.

You have many talents. You love to read, cook and draw. You love it when you are told you are a great artist. You are a great artist!!! I noticed you like to arrange your toys and take photos of them. So this year we got you your own camera. I hope it helps you further develop your eye for good composition. We love you and wish you all the best in your next year.

It's a Small World

I went to my brother's wedding this weekend in the Provo area. It was so nice to catch up with so many good old friends. One of my good friends going back to the Marine Corp days recently moved back to Logan again. In her blog I could see her house was close to my cousin's house. I saw my cousin at the wedding so I asked if they were in the same ward. Yes! not only are they in the same ward, but e and Kaylee are in the same class at school!! And they had never made the connection that they both knew me. Later I was reflecting and realized that I had actually tried to introduce these two friends years ago when we all lived in Logan. I thought e and Kaylee would get a kick out of this. Here's a picture from Halloween 2005.