Christmas time

Christmas time is a big deal at our house. We always put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving (after Black Friday shopping of course). Bobby always puts up the tree and he has to fix and straighten every branch on the tree. It really annoys us because we impatiently waiting to put all the ornaments on. I let the kids decorate the whole tree first (usually I take a picture of their version). It is really interesting looking. All the ornaments are on the bottom portion of the tree and all ornaments are squished in one spot. I always redecorate spreading the ornaments around and making good use of the upper portion of the tree. I always decorate my tree different every year and this year I choose blue, silver, brown and white ornaments. Last year after Christmas I made the chipboard ornaments (shown in a previous post), and put blue and silver balls. I made brown and white glass ornaments with ink and glitter. My favorite part about Christmas is the tree. As a child I used to sit with the lights off and just stare at the tree. It is much funner to do that now because I have kids to join me. I also love Christmas music. I listen to FM 100 all during the holidays. It is amazing that old singers who had good Christmas music are still popular. For instance, I love listening to Berl Ives (sp?) and Marie Carpenter's Christmas music. I think it is because we listened to that when I was a child. I love all the days leading up to Christmas more than the actual day. The day goes by so fast and it is all over in a few minutes. This year I am keeping my life simple by not doing elaborate neighbor gifts or trying not to create and make too many things. Sorry neighbors!

My Three boys

My husband

I am aware that I have no pictures of my husband on my website so far. The reason for that is because whenever I try to get a picture of him, he always pulls a funny face or something and I don't want to post that. So, I tried to take some pictures of him when he was just being normal (hard task). I am very thankful for him and all the things he does for me. If I leave a list of things for him to do it always gets done. He is a very hard worker and a great handyman. I think he has been nominated the neighborhood handy man. When something is broken, they always call him. I always tell people that if Bobby can't fix it, it is really broken. I am grateful that he is so patient with me and the kids. He just lets me be upset and get over things without getting upset himself making things worse. Bobby always plays with the kids and likes to just have fun. If my kids were to choose one parent they would choose him because he acts like a kid most of the time. Bobby loves playing sports especially football, basketball and soccer. This weekend was the annual turkey bowl and he played on the high priest group's team. He loves to play but always pays for it later (just a sign of getting old). The top picture is of Bobby at the turkey bowl.

Trevor

Trevor has decided to grow his hair long like some boy on the Disney channel. His sideburns are getting really really long. I personally don't like the way it looks so far but I am trying to be patient about it. I think his hair is too course to be long but we will see how it looks when it grows a little bit longer. For now I think we have him convinced that the sideburns need to go. The other day Trevor came to me and asked if I would trim his eyelashes. I immediately thought I need to write this down and write a note to Trevor's future wife. Here is the note. To Trevor's wife: When Trevor was 9 he wanted to trim his eyelashes because they are really long. I didn't trim them because I think they are beautiful and I was sure you'd like them too! You're welcome!

This is Jacob watching his movie and as you can see he is really into it!

Jacob

Jacob is 2 1/2 and has never had an interest in TV at all until now. Somehow he started watching the movie cars. For the last 2 weeks that is all we do is watch that show. Not only does he watch it, but mommy or daddy usually have to be sitting by his side watching it too. Don't tell him I am reading a book most of the time. He is actually watching it right now on his own and I am wondering how long that will last. He has watched all the little side cartoons (mater and the ghost light etc.) and the actual movies so many times, my other kids are getting really sick of it. Trevor (who doesn't like school very much) was very relieved to go to school today so he didn't have to watch it. Jacob has some socks with Lightning Mcqueen on them and he wore them for three days before we had to pry them off of him just to wash them. When he woke up, he was asking where they were. I guess we will buy him cars stuff for Christmas. That's easy! I just hope we can watch something else sometime soon!

A-Z Fun facts about me!

I copied this survey thing from Elise's blog just for fun. I attached this picture because I like it and doing that photo shoot was fun

A- Attatched or single? Attached for almost 14 years

B- Best Friend? My husband and Zanetter Taney

C- Cake or Pie? Cake

D- Day of Choice? Days my kids have no school

E- Essential Item? Cell phone

F- Favorite Color? Purple

G- Gummy bears or worms? Worms they are funner to play with

H- Hometown? Murray

I- Favorite Indulgance? Dove chocolate

J- January or July? July for the hot weather

K- Kids?4

L- Life isn't complete without? Family

M- Marriage date? April 14, 1995

N- Number of brothers and sisters? 1 brother, 1 stepbrother, 1 stepsister

O- Oranges or apples? Apples

P- Phobia or Fear? Spiders, heights and closed spaces

Q- Quote? "The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people"

R- Reason to smile? Listening to my 2 year old pray

S- Season of Choice? Summer, summer and more hot summers!

T- Tag 3 people: Wendy, Bonnie and Janice

U- Unknown fact about me? I am 40% deaf in my left ear

V- Vegtable? Fried Zuchini

W- Worst habit? Drinking too much Mt. Dew

X- X-ray or Ultrasound? Ultrasound because I have had many!!

Y- Your favorite food? Anything from Olive Garden

Z- Zodiac sign? Aries

In Sept. President Unchtdorf gave a talk called "Happiness, Your Heritage". I loved, loved, loved this talk. It talks about two things women can and should do to emulate Heavenly Father. Those two things are to be creative and compassionate. I feel that I am good at being creative. I love to make cards, scrapbook pages and other projects. Every year I make or buy new ornaments for my christmas tree. This year I made these ornaments in the first picture. These are made of chipboard, stamping ink and glitter. They are much cuter in real life (I will get better at this picture taking stuff). I am making glass ornaments with ink and glitter to go with them but they aren't finished yet. I will add them later. The scrapbook page is a page I made of a picture of me and my friend Zanette Taney. She on of the reasons I miss Hyrum. She was in my ward there and I miss talking to her every-

day but no matter how far apart we live I know we will always be best friends. These cards are cards I made because I needed some more thank you and just a note cards.

After reading the talk by President Uchtdorf, I realized that even though I am creative I need to work on being more compassionate. I am in the Relief Society Presidency and we work with a lot of different women and I am not as sensitive as I could be. This is something I can definitely work on. Here is a quote I liked from the talk. "When we reach out to bless the lives of others, our lives are blessed as well. Service and sacrifice open the windows of heaven, allowing choice blessings to descend upon us. Surely our beloved Heavenly Father smiles upon those who care for the least of His children. As we lifet others, we rise a little higher than ourselves. President Spencer W. Kimball taught, "The more we serve our Fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls." I loved those words and will try to remember them when I need a reminder to serve with the right attitude! I am very grateful for all my blessings and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve others in my calling. That is one reason I like to create things. I like to make things and give them away to women who might need a card or whatever at that time.

I can't believe I actually made this post work. I have been
working on it for a long time today. I agree that facebook is much easier. But I am done now and it was worth it.
P.S. I have to add three more friends to my friends list. Janice Barlow, Dana White and Emily Younker, I'm sorry I forgot you guys! Still love ya!

Friday Oct. 31st
This year we had a chicken, kitty, dog and some form of scary person in our family. I actually got to go trick or treating this year! It is the first time I have gone since we've had kids. I have always stayed home and given our candy but this year my mom was here. She gave out the candy so I got to go. It was fun all except for the part that Jacob got scared. That was at house #3 so from then on he would say "he's not scary" because he was afraid of being scared again.

Thurs. Oct. 30th-our annual family carving actvity. We don't just average pumpkins at our house! No, no we go all out when we carve. The nice thing about it was that it was about 60 degrees outside (not typical for october)

Saturday Oct 25th

This is trunk or treat night! I was in charge so it was a bit crazy but I think everyone had fun. The funniest part of all is that we had a chili cooking contest and I won! I have never made chili in my life. I googled a recipe and I won! Boy was that bee (Julie) mad! P.S. The bishop did not wear this to our party, he only wore it on Halloween!

Friday Oct. 24th

Crazy Hair day is a tradition in our family and this year Abbey won!