Cookie Exchange

My lovely friend, Lauri, invited me to her annual Cookie Exchange party. What an A-Maz-Ing night! I was able to ride over with another friend, Lori. It was not only fun to see Lauri's lovely home, I also got to see her beautiful new baby.

The food! Oh my goodness. And my favorite, honey baked ham. And home made rolls. And desserts! In addition to the cookies.

How about the adorable cookie box she made for all of us?
Thank you Lauri for a fun girls night out!

(For some reason these pictures turned out small! Wish you could see all the food!)

Happy Birthday Nate!

Another reason I love December? My sweetie was born in December. After Nate got home from work, we had presents waiting for him. Megan bought him some Razzles, his favorite candy, Sammy made him a Christmas sign, and I got him a new shirt. And he bought himself some new waders. Haha. Very exciting indeed. But I do believe that his favorite gift was from Diana. She made him her famous cinnamon bread.
And, of course, we headed out for a sushi dinner.

He is a lucky man indeed.

We may, or may not have been, slightly more obnoxious than this Japanese restaurant was used to...I'm just sayin'
At the end of the dinner, the sushi chef mentioned to Nate how fun it was that he could come with all three of his daughters. Hahahahaha! Yeah right!
We love you Nate! Hope you had a great birthday and wish you a wonderful 2010!

School Fun

December is always busy for the girls at school. Megan had an especially fun time, she had what we call the "wax museum". For the last couple of months, the sixth grade has been studying Ancient Greece and to wrap up their studies all the kids get to choose a god or goddess of their choice and dress up and the school comes through their classrooms, or "museum" and they explain about who they are dressed up as. Megan chose Athena.

Later that week she had an orchestra concert. She informed me that we needed to be there early because her teacher had 200 instruments to tune. Okay. If this woman doesn't instantly go to Heaven...I couldn't imagine teaching elementary school orchestra. And she does a fantastic job. They sounded great! And the good news, we had front row seats! WooHoo!

Not to be outdone, Sammy had her 4th grade Christmas play. I think some parents come right after school and camp out, because I've never had a good seat at on of these plays. I LIVE for these plays, I love them so much. So imagine my dismay as Nate and I were sitting there waiting for it to start I had the realization that this was my last one! I realize that we will have concerts and such, but this is the last play like this. Now we are into the big kid stuff. My eyes teared up, I can't believe how fast they have grown up. She did a great job and the play was very cute.

Sammy and her great friend Emelia.

As always, these are the highlight of my December!

December Begins

As a lot of people know, I HATE our Christmas tree. My hatred grows by leaps and bounds every year. I would love to get a new, easy to assemble tree. Nate loves the tree and would love to see our grand kids around it. Same friendly battle every year. This year was different. I balked, of course, and didn't want to help. Nate made me and I put on some Christmas music, and the four of us got to work. Something was different this year. It usually takes a couple of hours to painstakingly put this darn thing together. I don't know if it took that long, but time flew by as we spent that time together, having fun. And it is always so much fun to go through the ornaments. Megan brought up the idea of getting a matching set of ornaments this year, but no way! All of our ornaments are either handmade or have some special meaning. No matching anywhere to be found. We Love IT!

Gilbert Hoodlums acting tough.

So....today. I woke up with a wonderful new feeling inside. I don't know if it was the purging of feelings, the love of friends, or just the new me trying to get out. I woke up ready to start the day. And it has been a good day. Lots of love from the girls this morning and this afternoon we baked and baked and delivered cookies to our neighbors for Christmas. It's been real good.

Since living in Arizona, I have really struggled with the whole Christmas season. As a girl from the north, I literally cannot get into Christmas with the blue skies, palm trees and warm air. Those things are lovely, but they aren't Christmas. Today was gray and rainy and chilly. And it buoyed my spirits so much! I love it!

Lurking beneath the surface

TMI? Perhaps,but enough is enough. You just never know what is truly going on with people, do you? Sometimes I don't know what is going on with myself. I'm testy, discouraged, worn out with indecision's, stressed out and fed up. With what? Life. It sucks at times. Doesn't even have to be big deal stuff. But at times when it just piles on and piles on, and you see people you love get piled on and piled on; it is very draining. And I've had a hard time being truly happy. But here's the kicker. I have every reason to be happy. I've allowed all the crap to just drag me down. We just had Thanksgiving and were lucky enough to have family fly into town. And I found myself struggling all week. Testy, on edge. Nothing at all to do with having visitors, just life. LOVED having them here, but couldn't overcome my weaknesses. I lie in bed at night, unable to sleep, worrying about things that cannot be resolved by me lying awake at night and worrying. I'm not seizing the day, enjoying the little moments. So last night, as I was lying awake and worrying I decided that this needs to stop. And I've made effort all day. Didn't always succeed, but made improvements. And tomorrow, I'll try even harder. And hopefully in a couple of days I won't need to try anymore, it will just flow.

I was talking to Diana tonight about it and she mentioned a church talk to me (can't remember who it was by) where this person was also struggling but made a decision to every day write down something that they realized that the Lord had had a hand in their daily life. I think it is a marvelous idea and one I could really stand to do. Focus more on my blessings and to really see just how much the Lord knows me, understands my struggles and weaknesses and how much He loves me. So here we go....

I am very grateful to have three wonderful people to hug each and every day, whenever I want to. And even more important, they let me.

And really, I am okay. I just can't allow myself to get in a funk. I know this, I've been aware of this for many years, sometimes I just need to give myself a little slap in the face.

Best Day Ever!

(Can you hear Spongebob singing? It's the best daaaay evvveeerrrrrr!) Have to admit, today was pretty great! My work had a family picnic today and we had a blast! Rosie (our office manager) and her hubby hosted and they had the cutest train ever. They call it the Laveen Lightrail. The kids could ride it all day. Even I managed to fold these long legs up and took a ride. I think this is a much better use of water storage containers.

And the kids had a big soccer ball to kick around. Here is Megan kicking it out from under all the boys.
And we took the kids on quad rides. No picture of me, seeing how I was driving a quad, but the girls were happy that I took them on a ride. Here is Dr. Brooks with 3 out of his 4 kids.
And we danced...

And we ate, boy, does this office know how to eat! We always have fabulous food. And on Sunday is Rosie's birthday so we had cake. Happy Birthday Rosie!
Seriously, I had no idea that a work picnic could be this much fun. I had to pry my kids away. But it was for a good cause. We headed home, picked up Diana, and went to see New Moon. It looks like I was really excited to be there!
And not to capitalize on Diana's suffering, (two broken ankles) but we got sweet parking thanks to her handicap pass, and when we got in line outside with our tickets, an usher came up to us and said we could go right in to the theater and pick out our seats because she was in her wheelchair. Yesssss! We had to sit in the theater an hour, but our seats were the best. We all enjoyed the movie. (Now this is the point where I gripe and moan) Okay, so I am wheeling Diana out of the theater and we get to the doors and there is no button for it to automatically open. And NO ONE bothered to hold the door!!! So I flipped her around and backed my bootie through the door while everyone just crowded around us. Whatever. We got out to the car and because the movie is so popular all the handicap is full so someone is waiting for my spot. I'm trying to figure out how to quickly fold up a wheelchair and pick it up to put it in my car, and apparently it only fits in one angle because I had to pull her crutches and wheelchair out and do it again. TWO men walked right by me and didn't offer to help. Whatever. That will not bring me down off my happy high. So if you see someone struggling with a wheelchair, take 2 seconds and help them.

But the highlight of today? Spending all day with my girls, having fun, no worries.

Halloween

Another fun Halloween this year! Once again Sammy switched it up from a princess to a fairy to a ballerina. I had a lot of fun making her tutu. For a short while I was her hero.Megan was an Indian this year. Sorry. Native American. I found her costume on the internet. Ahhhh! I thought they were both very cute.
We did our trick or treating with the Danas.
I thought Diana was a great sport, trick or treating on her jazzy with her two broken ankles. Jack thought it was wonderful, honking the horn wherever we went.
Then we wound our way over to Cara's house where she invited the whole neighborhood over for chili and had a projector set up outside and the kids could watch a movie on the garage door.
And finally...had to dress up for work. HATE dressing up! But we had a fun day of playing up the Disney angle. Don't worry, Dr. Brooks took his wig off to work on the patients.

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A Young Woman

Megan is twelve. Such a fun and important age! One of the best parts is that she can finally join us in Young Womens! Her very wonderful leader, Sister Haltom, came and decorated our house and left a treat for her to wake up too. The note talks of how of how she hopes Meggy has "dots" of fun for her birthday! And today Megan met with the bishop and was presented to the ward. I guess in her interview she mentioned that she is excited to be in YW's with her mom. Ahhhh! So happy I don't embarrass her to death yet!In the house I grew up in we have a tradition. When the boys turned 12, they got their first gun. When my sister and I turned 12, we got our very first pair of diamond earrings. Years ago I told Nate that I would love to continue this tradition. He agreed on one condition. The girls get to choose whether to get the gun or the earrings. Whaaaat?!? NOOOOO! Just kidding. Megan made her choice and you can probably imagine what she picked.

Yeah...that box is waaaay too big for earrings.

Nate had the day off and spent all day making a wonderful dinner of pulled pork sandwiches and this yummylicious cake.

The next morning we headed off to Build a Bear for a fun party.

Everyone had a great time and I hope Megan has all her wishes come true. We love you sweetie and hope your birthday was fabulous!

Dads, Ducks, and Daughters

Part of the reason we head north every October is so Nate and Jeff can do their duck hunting together. This year was extra fun because the girls just completed their Hunters Education course. They couldn't wait to go out on the boat! Jeff let them both have a turn driving the boat.

It's pretty cold that early in the morning!

Nate is in HOG HEAVEN with his girls taking an active interest in hunting.

Unkey Jeff

This was especially exciting because on this trip they were being FILMED for Roughin' It Outdoors on Channel 2! And they were on tv!

I do think the excitement got to Sam. Getting up that early and being on tv is exhausting!

Bless her heart, she fell asleep sitting up in the boat! She had so many warm clothes on that they kept her propped up and she slept through all the hunting!

It was a successful morning! Many ducks and lasting memories!