Hiking on MLK Day

We decided to do a little hiking while the kids were out of school!  We packed up a picnic and took off to some red rocks!

Julie found a rock and named it "rocker."  She carried it around all day.

Mikayla was a happy camper and rode around with Merril.  Merril's beard is looking especially fine these days.  He's starting to remind me of a viking.

The kids found lots of little "caves" to hang out in.

The kids picked the routes we took and just meandered all about.

We only had one little mishap when Julie fell and scraped her tummy just a bit but she was fine after we dusted her off and gave her a hug!  The weather was warm and we had a nice day!

Merril's cinnamon toasties...

Merril loves to eat Cinnamon Toasties, the Malt-O-Meal Cinnamon Toast Crunch knock-off.  Even if Mikayla has had breakfast, she'll always migrate to his bowl of cereal.  I think it's cute.

She still has some crazy bedhead though.  :)

A day at the Spa...

Okay, so we really didn't go to the spa but while I was making a salad, Maxine and Juliet wanted to see what it felt like to have cucumbers on their eyes.

They said it felt nice.

And while I was cleaning pictures off my camera, I found this:

 I don't ever remember taking it.  I think Jack or Maxine must have.  Either way, I think it's super cute of my two little girls.  Mikayla will be a 1-year old in a month and I just can't believe it!

Organizational triumph for the day...

I've been de-cluttering some closets and drawers.  Mainly, I've found some stuff to throw away.  My triumph for the day was the food storage container drawer.  I wish I had a before photo!  Everything was just thrown in there together, lids, containers, the occasional straw.  Oh, and the drawer never wanted to close but there was too much stuff in it.

First task was to get rid of anything that didn't have a complete set.  Lids without bottoms and bottoms without lids went in the dumpster.  Then I stacked similar shapes: round, rectangle, and square.  Then I cut a skinny cardboard box into lid holders to help them stack upright instead of in the bottom.  Ahhhhhh!

I hear angels singing in chorus.  :)

Resolutions 2013...

I've heard of older people doing away with resolutions but why?  I'm trying to be a better person continually and making goals is totally a part of that.  To recap, I think 2012 was pretty great!  I finished my Personal Progress again, I completed a human and kept 3 other humans alive.  Boorah.

In 2013 I'd like to try to:

1-Plan ahead better with less procrastination.  If I know that I'm in charge of the Young Women lesson for weeks, I should start the lesson early, not Saturday night.  I started implementing this around November and I've been feeling less frantic.

2-Develop more clean habits.  I can make things clean, but keeping them clean is hard for me.  I tend not to put things away but set them on the first available table space.  And if I'm holding garbage, don't set it down, throw it in the garbage can!  

3-More kindness/more patience.  There is always room for more kindness. 

And for January at least, I need to quit eating so much candy and sweets.  I LOVE sweets and in December they are so easy to come by.  

New Years 2013!

The kids made this sign for our New Year's Eve party!  I think it looked pretty awesome!  

And then they took one of us.  I was having some good hair so wahoo!

And then I set my camera down and didn't take a single picture of the rest of the party.  Guess I lived it instead of took pictures of it.

The next day we headed out to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes for our annual play in the snow and sand day.  We brought the dirtbike and the scout and Merril's F150.  I got stuck in the Ford, the Scout was amazing until it broke a spring, and the dirtbike was a lot of snowy work.

Merril's friend Ryan brought some tubes and 4-wheelers.  

Merril buzzed around in the truck.

Then this perfect little hill was discovered and we spent the rest of the afternoon playing on it.  Jack on a tube.

Maxine on a sled.

Mikayla was an angel with Daddy.

Juliet on a tube.

Mikayla and I headed down on a tube, carefully.

Ryan and Kim's tubes were a hit!  We totally need to get some of those!

After Christmas picture...

Okay, so I didn't take a single picture on Christmas.  Mikayla came down with croup on Christmas day and had that really sad "I'm sick so hold me" face.  But the day after Christmas, she was so much better already and Juliet wanted to show off her footie pajamas with her.

Juliet requested footie pajamas for her Christmas jammies, in part I think, because she's feeling out of place with Mikayla.  Juliet had been the baby for a long time and as much as she loves Mikayla, I think she misses being the baby.

Christmas was awesome for us.  I got a bungee jumping trip to Boise, ID!  I've wanted to bungee jump forever and Merril scheduled it for us!  There aren't any places that do bungee jumping anymore and so he found a company that schedules bungee jumping off bridges at several bridges around the west during the year.  He also scheduled Boise because the kids have been wanting to take a vacation on an airplane.  Tickets to Boise for the whole family, roundtrip was $450.  That's the total for all of us!  I'm so excited!

A white Christmas for us!

Before I talk about the snow, Mikayla has awesome hair and loves to pull up on things.  Yeah!

Normally our part of the country rarely sees snow, maybe once or twice in February or March.  But last night we were fortunate enough to get some snow in time for Christmas!  We hadn't noticed the snow until after the kids were asleep.

I can't even remember a time that we got snow before Christmas!  So this morning the kids got up and wanted to play in it soooo bad!  I thought they might even cancel school but it didn't happen.  So I agreed to let them play and just be a little late for school.   There were snowballs!

There were snow angels!

Lots of fun was had on the trampoline!

Juliet made a "snowman"...or just a pile of snow with some sticks in it.

Mikayla and I watched from the window.

 The kids had fun waving to her.

I really thought they'd last for about 10 minutes but played around outside for an hour.  Brrrr....it's still so cold out there!  Here's to Christmas!

Mikayla's first picture with Santa...

Our ward Christmas party was on Saturday and the Young Women were in charge.  It was a lot of work but turned out so great!  I cut about 100 snowflakes for the decorations and the room looked amazing.  I wish I'd take a picture of the room.  Woops!

My Dad played Santa and so I snapped a few pics.

I love this one of Mikayla!  All my other kids screamed on Santa's lap at this age.  She looks like she couldn't be more excited to be there!

On a side note, our neighbors, Dana and Carson, went through the temple and were sealed with their family earlier in the day.  It was a great experience to see them sealed with their kids!

Holy pastrami Batman!

December is the slow season for our business and so Merril took me to lunch yesterday to a yummy deli.  He ordered a pastrami on rye and I ordered turkey, swiss and bacon on marble rye.  Look at my sandwich fantasticness!

That thing's as big as Mikayla's head!!!  It was kind of pricey for a sandwich but that's only half of it.  There was another half, just as big, and a pickle, and chips.  I ate the whole thing, except for the bites Mikayla took.  :)

Juliet's Peanutcracker Recital...

Juliet was in ballet this Fall and had a blast.  She loved the shoes and the leotards, which she initially called "onesies", and all the girly things that go with it.  Her recital was Friday and Saturday and she did great.

She has some natural grace that goes a long way.

This is Juliet's friend, Naomi, who was in her ballet class too.

She says she might want to try gymnastics in the Spring.  She practices handstands a lot in the afternoons so it doesn't really surprise me.

Ohhhhh we ran out of gas...

I drove into town today and went past the Maverick.  As I passed, I thought to myself, "I should probably stop and get gas."  I ignored it and continued on my errand.  Two miles later, the Tahoe sputtered.  We coasted down big hill towards another gas station and I thought we might make it.  We didn't.  We were very close though!  I pulled out Juliet and Mikayla to walk to the gas station and noticed Mikayla was poopy.  Digging through the bag, I also noticed I was out of diapers.  Luckily, I coasted into the Walgreens parking lot.  Diapers were purchased in minutes, Mikayla was changed and we were on our way across the street to the gas station for a gas can, gas, and Nacho Cheese Doritos.

Mikayla was good and luckily is too young to be bothered by running all over in her pajamas.

And luckily the gas station sold gas cans.  The whole thing set me back about 30 minutes.  But at least everything worked out in the end!

I feel fortunate that even though I was a bonehead, I was still okay.

Temple Nativity...

Yeah!  We went to see the temple lights!  It wasn't even that cold but I bundled up Mikayla anyway.  Merril said she's looking at me like that because she's annoyed by the hat I put on her.

Apparently Julie was annoyed with me too.

Merril still likes me!

Mikayla cheered up in time for hot chocolate.  She really liked playing with the empty hot chocolate container.

Honestly, we had a great time.  I love family home evening at the Temple at Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Christmas things are going up at our house and I did 2 new things this year.  I put my Christmas village on top of my kitchen cabinets and made a stable for the baby Jesus.

Merril drilled holes into the top of the cabinet so lights could be run up there from the microwave plug.

This is my, "How am I going to do that?" face.  Jack makes the same face when he's thinking.

Maxine was on the ready with the glue gun.  The roof would've been pretty impossible without her.

Coming together.

All finished!  Merril joked and said I could make them and sell them on Etsy for $100 a pop.

I cut some weeds by the side of the road for straw.

This part of the stable is for the animals, of course.  It's my favorite part.

I made the nativity pieces the Christmas I met Merril, 13 years ago.  I'm glad there's finally a stable for the baby Jesus!