Christmas Newsletter

I have a love/hate relationship with getting Christmas "letters" from people. On one hand, I enjoy reading what interesting things people have done and what kinds of activities other kids get into, but I hate how they tend to feel braggy. Have you ever gotten one of those letters where everyone is perfect? Then you know what I am talking about! Not everyone is purposely trying to brag, but we all want to focus on the highlights right? Not the lowlights!

A few years ago, I fixed that problem in our family by changing our Christmas Letter to be like a David Letterman Top Ten List. It contained the Top Ten quotes of the year. I found it was a fun way to look back on things and laugh at the funny things our kids did or said... without giving you all a brag fest. I've gone back and forth about it this year. In the end, I'm not going to do the Top Ten List for 2 reasons.

1)I can't remember half the funny things my kids say just 2 hours after they said it. My memory for this kind of thing is total crap. (My dad however can remember most of their funny-isms, so maybe next year, I will hit him up to write my Top Ten List for me!)

2)90% (probably more than 90%) of our funniest sayings revolve around gas. And I don't mean fuel for your car. So, my Top Ten Letter this year might come off a bit crude. Which wouldn't be good at all...

In the spirit of the new trend to "Go Green", I am only sending cards out to the very closest of our family. (Ok, I will confess, it's more motivated by the desire to save money than the desire to save paper. But, this year, going Green sounds much better than going Cheap.)

But, I am going to try not to guilt myself for not doing the letter this year. I do blog after all. Which in itself is like the Christmas Letter that keeps giving all year round. (I will try not to compare it to the "Jelly of the Month Club" from Christmas Vacation, however...) So if you want to know what we are doing in June, you don't have to wait until December to find out... just visit us online! If this is your first visit to us in blogland, feel free to peruse the archives located in the sidebar. You may have to scroll down a bit, but they are there!

Since I will be on the road in less than 48 hours, this may or may not be my last post for the year. I do want to say that we feel very blessed from a loving Father in Heaven. We have a happy, healthy and normal marriage, (yes we do have arguments like normal people.) We have 4 wonderful kids that try our patience to no end (let's just say I also have a love/hate relationship with teenagers, texting and facebook.) We have a home, 2 cars that run, and a job... which are things that I used to take for granted, but my time as RS President this year has dramatically changed that perspective. Above all, we are blessed beyond measure in our Testimonies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Through Him, all things are possible. We are so fortunate to have you all in our lives, and grateful for the technology that makes it possible to stay so intimately connected with family and friends all over the world.

May you all have a wonderful Holiday Season ... Merry Christmas!

Four Decades

Eric turned 40 yesterday... We have a tradition of opening gifts in our house first thing in the morning. Guess we have a hard time waiting....

I got Eric a new bike helmet. He desperately needed one...

I also made a "certificate" that entitled him to buy a new road bike (with my supervision, of course....)

So, yesterday, snuck him out of work early, we went to lunch, and then went bike shopping. No matter what the budget is, the great bike is always one tier higher than you budget. It's maddening! We went to several shops yesterday, but didn't find anything that Eric loved that stayed close to the budget. Hopefully today or tomorrow, he will find something that we can both be happy about!

After eating ourselves sick at Texas Roadhouse, we came home and had dessert. No cake here... I ended up picking out a chocolate mousse pie at Sam's Club that everyone LOVED. I forgot to buy candles too, so we only had about 10. Much easier to blow out than 40!

A special thanks to everyone who made his birthday so memorable... he had a great day!

FAM R FVR

One of the reasons that Mormons do what they do, is because of Temples. We believe that in the temple, using proper Priesthood authority, we can be "Sealed" together for eternity. When we die, we look forward to spending eternity linked to our familiy members. Of course, there are standards of behavior that we must follow to qualify for these blessings, but it's usually the culminating goal that we have: To be "Together Forever". (Click Here for a more comprehensive explanation on the purpose of LDS Temples.)


This weekend, I had the pleasure to fly to Ohio to attend a Temple Sealing for my cousin. They have 3 children of their own. When the OB doc told Heidi she needed to stop having kids (for health reasons), she didn't give up her dream of having a large family. For the last 4 years they have been trying to adopt. After many struggles and heartaches, Jayden was able to join their family. Once the adoption was final, they were able to have him sealed to their family in the Columbus, Ohio Temple. What an amazing experience it was! Worth every butterfly in my stomach to get me on that plane!

Would you ever guess that Heidi didn't give birth to this child? No WAY! He is the cutest thing ever and I absolutely melted everytime he called Rob, "Daddy!"

Here is Jayden already preparing for Boy Scouts!

After a "girls only" shopping trip to Kohls... we had a celebration dinner at Applebees. I wish Megan could have been there to hang out with Cami. They are so much alike!Anutie Carol and Uncle craig corrupted the kids with their iphones....and there was lots of hugging and joking and even playing Dominoes (which I never got a picture of!)

Alec never failed to hit up a visiting adult to play games with him. Guess Who is one of his favorites!On Sunday, during church, my mom looked down and noticed her diamond was missing from her wedding band. Her ring was only about 18 months old, so this was shocking to everyone! We scoured the church (with the help of most of the congregation!) and then came home and scoured Heidi's home.

We had a group prayer, and Cami prayed for us to find the diamond. It was a sweet prayer and left many of the adults in the room teary eyed.

Here is a photo of some of the group doing a "grid search" on the family room carpet. (Can you tell we have a family full of cops?)This photo loaded upside down and I can't rotate it for anything, but my dad went through the trash from the church bathroom once we were back at the house. He said this was nothing compared to searching a home during a "meth raid"...The next day, after not turning up the diamond anywhere (and we tore the house apart), my dad found it sitting on the seat of our rental car. We hadn't looked in there at first because she hadn't been in that car for two days and couldn't imagine the diamond had been gone that long. But, there it was... a prayer was answered!

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend! Lots of good quality family time and lots of love being spread around! Okay, Heidi, now go find Baby #5 so we can do this again soon! ;-)

Note: sorry about the red-eye... my software to fix these things needs to be reloaded on the computer. Also, the title of this post is how I remember Heidi's license plate on her minivan. At one point, we were following her, and wasn't sure if we were behind the correct car, but one look at the license plate confirmed that indeed, we were following Heidi's van. (For those of you not familiar with Mormon catch phrases, it's short for "Families Are Forever".)

A Prayer Answered?

This morning, after I drove Taylor to the High School at 6:15 a.m. in the pitch dark, I came home and prayed. Among other things, I prayed for the ability to be productive today and not be tempted to climb back into my warm bed.

I guess I should have worded my prayer differenly, because I did climb into Ian's bed when it was time to wake him up for school. I snuggled with him for a minute and then poked and prodded him until he got up and headed downstairs to eat. Then I stayed in his bed and dozed for 15-20 minutes... which, ironically enough, has made me very sleepy all day and very UNproductive.

I will have to REword my petition tomorrow morning...

School Photos

In case you are wondering, it was sunny/breezy the day I took Ian and Brayden over to do photos. When I took Megan and Taylor is was overcast. There definately is a noticable difference in the photos! But I am happy with them all and glad to have that chore out of the way!

Christmas Cheer

The first year we lived here, we didn't put lights up on the house. We had lights, but not enough of them, and Eric didn't have time to do the job. He was working full time and going to school almost full time and the lights just weren't a priority.

I thought I would be okay with it. But I really wasn't. I put lights up in every front facing window I could get to, except our shower. I figured that might be crossing the line, and I didn't know how I'd plug them in. There are still a few windows with scotch tape residue on the glass from my exploits way back in 2005. But, despite my efforts, it just wasn't the same.Eric said he would get the lights up today, but work got in the way. I decided to take matters into my own hands and bribe our very capable 15 year old with some cold hard cash if he helped me get the job done.Turns out that Taylor is very afraid of heights. He really had a hard time being up on the roof to get the lights under the eaves, but he did it. (Yeah, only because he knew I would pay him!)He must get that fear from me. There is no way you'd get me to do what I got him to do today!Someday, Santa's elves will fly into the neighborhood and put lights on the upper story as well, but for now, I am very grateful for what I've got. It truly makes me happy to look at.

Merry Christmas!!!

Paradox

Mornings are never a good time for Ian and I. Neither of us likes mornings, and mornings are full of stress and deadlines.

If I wake Ian up early, he is grumpy because he never seems to get enough sleep. If I let him sleep a little longer, then he is grumpy because he doesn't have enough time to get ready for school.

Either way, I lose.

And guess what? I hate mornings too, and now I have to get up at 6:00 every day. And I hate it, so I'm not inclined to feel sorry for Ian when he is grumpy. Which means that two of us are grumpy instead of one.

Not a good combo...

And why is it, that I have to drag that kid out of bed by his toenails every single day, EXCEPT Saturday? On Saturday, he is up at the crack of dawn, ready to watch TV or play video games... what gives?