Girls and Dolls

Sophie and Audrey were excited to get American Girl Dolls for Christmas. Sophie wanted Molly and Audrey wanted Rebecca. My generous and talented sister-in-law Pennie helped me sew these matching pajama pants. She also sewed beautiful coats and rompers for the dolls. I will have to add more pictures later. They have had a lot of fun with these dolls. We have some big plans. We want to make them wooden beds and quilts and pillows and more clothes. Fun! Fun!

Holidays 2012

We had a great holiday season! It was nice to be in our own home for Christmas. We were able to be more consistent with our holiday traditions and have more of the Christmas Spirit. I meant to take pictures of some of the different things that we do, lighting candles each Sunday before Christmas, our Danish advent calendar, our jar that we fill with beans as we serve others. But I procrastinated and now Vince has put it all away. So hopefully next year, I will take some pictures of all of the festivities. We have had so much fun with family parties and games, gifts and decorations. But our biggest event this season was Uncle Spencer's wedding. Spencer and Ann were married on December 21, 2012. It was a beautiful day! They make a beautiful couple. We had a dinner at our house the night before and enjoyed getting to know Ann's wonderful family. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple and Vince's parents were there with all nine of their children. What a great blessing! I didn't take a lot of pictures but here are a few from the temple grounds.

First, here is the lovely couple about to share a kiss.


This is me, my sister-in-law Nikki, and Sophie Rose. There are also a lot of other family members in the background.


Here is Aud with her coat on her head. She is never cold and didn't want to keep it on.


I love this one of Landon and Will. Landon is sporting his candy cane cast. He broke his arm the day before Thanksgiving, just a couple of weeks after Will got his boot off from his broken foot. First broken bone for each of them.


Here is Vince, Sophie, and Grandma Peggy (Vince's amazing mother).

Halloween

I haven't blogged much lately and this will be short. Audrey wants to play a game on the computer. We had a fun Halloween. Landon dressed up as a hippie for his band concert. He plays percussion and he did great. He played a different instrument in every song. He played with both the eighth grade band and the ninth grade band. He really enjoys it. Audrey dressed as Rapunzel this year. I made her a long yarn wig. Sophie was Gothel, Rapunzel's evil "mother". William was a mailman. I didn't get a picture of him but I am going to try to find the family picture that they took at our Ward Harvest Party. We went trick-or-treating in Toni's neighborhood this year. We had a little birthday party for William and Carson first. We had dinner and broke a spider pinata that Will made. It was a lot of fun.

Tummy Ache & Lots of Bamboo

Well, I weighed in this morning and I am down 7 pounds from when I started keeping track three weeks ago. This sounds like a reasonable, maintainable weight loss. But I don't know. The girls and I have been sick the last few days with a stomach virus. The only symptom is a tummy ache, and less appetite. As long as that appetite doesn't come back with a vengeance, I should be good.

Audrey's birthday party was a lot of fun. It was great to have so much family over. This last weekend, we stayed at my mom's one night. She was watching Toni's boys and Carson and Drew had football games at the same time, miles apart on Saturday. So, I went to take Carson to his game while my mom took Drew to his. It was a fun time. My mom took us all to see Hotel Transylvania on Friday night. The kids loved it.

It ended up that they wouldn't let Will participate in soccer games while in a boot. So he has had to sit out the last few games. Now they are finished until Spring. But the good news it that he should get his boot off this afternoon, when we go in for a doctor's visit. Basketball sign ups are in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, he will be good to go for basketball.

I got accepted in to the Mater's of Education Program at Weber State. I hope that I am up to the challenge. I will start taking classes in January. Our orientation meeting is next week.

Here is a picture of Will in his boot. Notice the lovely bamboo wallpaper. Hopefully, it will be replaced with some nice neutral paint soon.

Sophie and Vince enjoyed an activity day, daddy-daughter, cowboy and cowgirl themed dinner a week or so ago. She was really excited about it. Our costumes weren't the best. I can't believe that we don't own a real cowboy hat. But they were cute, nonetheless. Here is Vince and Sophie and then Sophie and Audrey. Audrey didn't get to go, but she still looked cute in the dollar store hat that Sophie decided not to wear.



And last, a shot of our lovely autumn view from the living room. It was this view that enabled us to look past the bamboo wallpaper and the blue carpet when buying the house.

Audrey is Five!

Well, it has been a week. There are now only 84 days until the big 4-0. I realize that I am doing good things with my life. The kids are all basically happy. They are doing great in school. Vince and I have a good marriage. Our bills are all getting paid. I have a great network of supportive friends and family. I am blessed. I know this. So blessed. But I am not where I want to be in my personal life. I want more energy. I want to get more things done. I have been in that magical place before, where I feel confident, full of life, "on-fire". I feel far from there right now, so I am going to keep working on it. In the mean time, some highlights from the past week.

On Friday, I met Shea and Karen in Salt Lake for shopping and dinner. I am so glad that we have kept in touch over the years, even though we are no longer neighbors. I miss those days of meeting in Shea's basement to workout, and camping, and shopping. Good times. Shea and Karen are a lot of fun and oh so stylish. They were so patient with me as I bought a scarf at Nordstoms. And they will be happy to know that I wore it to church on Sunday. I can't promise that the way I tied it didn't look dorky. But I wore it. No picture, darn it. Maybe next time. We stayed with my mom that night. The girls had a lot of fun playing freeze dance with Grandma.

Saturday morning, we went out to the farm to visit Uncle Jim and pick tomatoes. The kids were good workers. We picked a few bushel. Then we came home and made salsa. We made over 40 bottles and it seems extra yummy this year.

On Monday, we went to Penny's house to pick apples and grapes. My mom and Penny have been friends for years. She is just down the road in Bountiful. We picked several boxes of beautiful apples. They are still sitting in the garage. Yesterday, I made grape jam. Hopefully, I will make applesauce and apple butter tomorrow.

My Tuesday morning weigh-in was not so good. I was up a pound. I will keep trying. I know that better planning is what I am missing. But I am going for three days in a row with the exercise. Not giving up.

The highlight of the week was Audrey's birthday on Monday. She turned five years old. She opened presents from us that morning. She got a couple of board games and a new book. Vince took her to lunch at Dairy Queen and they shared a shake. We are having a big family party for her this Sunday. She is excited. She's never been able to have family over for her birthday before, because we have lived too far away. She is cute. I have been a little troubled that my baby is five and getting too big, so she assures me that five is still little and I don't need to worry. Here she is today. I sure love this girl.

Baby & Barnes and Noble

Aud and I spent the day visiting Kellie and Charlotte again. We all ran to Barnes and Noble so she could pick up a book for her book club. They had some great clearance deals, so I got Audrey her birthday present while she was distracted with the lego table. Back at Kellie's, I held and rocked that baby for hours. When we returned home this afternoon it was busy, busy. We had to hustle with dinner, run to Will's Pack Night and Landon and Vince's Young Men Meetings. The kids needed help with all kinds of homework. But it was a great day. Cuddling a new baby and a trip to Barnes and Nobles. It doesn't get much better than that.

Tuesday Morning

Last week, I weighed myself for the first time in months. It was difficult. I knew my weight was up because of the way my clothes fit (or didn't fit). But I decided to weigh once a week on Tuesday Mornings. Today I was pleased to see that I weighed 2.4 pounds less. Off to a good start.