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!