A final snow free outing

...before winter hits with a vengeance! My cute boys out at the lake
And my pretty girl (one of them)!

I sure love these guys

Beautiful day

And of course I love

this baby girl!

Having a family truly is heaven on earth!

Header

with some of this year's favorite moments.

Traditions and Thanksgiving

I remember for the first few years of my marriage telling my hubby that I really wanted to start some fun traditions with our family. We often just followed the lead of the older family members and left all the family planning to them. We always had a great time and appreciated the family get-togethers, but I still always felt as if something was missing in our own home. I knew in my heart that my job as a young mother was to create a home with love and happiness every day. I earnestly desired to do this while my children were young so that they would cherish and remember their childhood.

Eleven years later, I am still working on this skill, but I think I’ve come a long way. I feel I have grown - mostly due to so many great role models that have helped me along my path. I have come to love even the word traditions. It induces warm and fuzzy thoughts that certainly increase serotonin in my brain.

I was just reading a friend’s blog who said that for the 25 days before Christmas, she wraps up a Christmas story and her children open one each night and they read it together as a family. Brilliant, I thought! We LOVE reading good stories any time of year, but what a great way to remember the true spirit of Christmas. We have been reading The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck this past week and I highly recommend it as a great family choice. It is heart-wrenching and powerful in teaching the importance of family for Christmas.

Many of you have blessed my life without even knowing it. I have been frequently inspired by your ideas and traditions, and have taken some of those ideas into my own family. Not only does it bless my children, it blesses me with a sense of accomplishment and the fulfillment of a desire that was born when I was just a young wife. Because of this reason, I would like to thank you and also share some ideas that we do as a family that may be of interest to you. Most are simple in nature, but they are smile provoking as they make us happy. As we begin another busy holiday season, I hope we can all remind each other that these are the things our children (and we) will remember, not fancy wrapped gifts. How many of you can remember what you received last Christmas in less than 10 seconds? However, I bet it would only take you 2.2 seconds to remember what you ate, the sounds and smells in your home, visiting family, the smiles on your kids faces, the songs those babes sang through lisps and paci’s, and watching the snow fall together last year.

So, here is a “Cheers” to you all-“To what matters most!” If you so desire, please share your favorite traditions on your blog so we can all share the blessing with others and as a reminder for ourselves what we can do to make each day this holiday season magical and memorable. It thrills me, to say the least!

A Handful of Traditions:
*A slew of homemade soups to warm us on cold nights. Soups are one of my favorite things to cook: Chicken Tortilla, Baked Potato, Corn Chowder, Broccoli Cheese, Chicken Noodle, Chili, and Bean & Ham.
Coming Soon: Thai Coconut.

*Our nightly routine is to read scriptures, a story, and say prayers. This simple activity has helped our family so much!

*We all have our stand-by Thanksgiving foods (turkey, right?). Because of my southern heritage, mine may be a little different than some of yours, and it isn’t Thanksgiving to me without the Cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, homemade rolls and gravy, sweet-potato casserole, beautiful green salad with homemade ranch dressing, pecan pie, banana pudding, and Mama’s fruit salad. MMM… I can’t wait.

*Going to cut our own Christmas tree.

*Homemade Chocolates and Fudge

*We always read The Forgotten Carols and play the songs at the appropriate times. These are some of my favorite carols now too. We hope to extend this activity this year by finding or making our own ornaments that are found in the story and let our children decorate the tree with these ornaments as “Uncle John” tells a beautiful account of the Savior and His birth.

* I always give my children an ornament in their stocking each year-something that reminds me of them and their childhood. One day when they are all grown up (sniff*sniff), they can take their ornaments with them to use with their own families if they so wish.

*We love to see the lighting of the city lights over the pond. There, we freeze and drink hot-chocolate and eat donuts. The kids sing Christmas carols. Beautiful!

*Sledding in the powder snow. And I am promising this year to be more positive and enjoy the winter-time.

*Singing, singing, singing. (Oh, Holy Night is my favorite!)

*Monday Family Home Evenings focused on the Savior. Fun Christmas treats and more music included.

*Making Christmas cookies

*Making a trip to Temple Square to see the lights and feel the Spirit with a thermos of hot chocolate and a warm baby blanket in tow.

* Christmas morning waffles, bacon, and malts. This is a tradition passed on from Wade’s family.

*Making Christmas cards, stockings, and other Christmas crafts.

*And one of my favorites is that Wade always leaves me a beautiful, hand-written love note in my stocking. I look forward to it each year. What a sweetie!

I can’t wait to see what else I can add to the list this year! Thanks again to all of you sweet friends who inspire and enrich my life!

Award Winning Photography

Sommer entered a photography contest with these photos she took. The theme of the contest was "Beauty Is..." She took these photos all by herself (no assistance from me whatsoever) with my very non-professional camera. Needless to say, I was very impressed and proud of her! I think she did a great job and deserved the award and trophy she won! The girl has an eye for photography, I believe!

All of these pics were taken in our front yard and the top pic of the Zinnia was grown from seeds that she and Chaser planted this summer.

Award- Winning Smile! :)

Our Halloween

The Costumes:

Braydon & Sommer chose their own costumes this year, but the rest of us went as the Flintstones. It made for lots of laughs!





Fun Moments from the Evening:

Carving Pumpkins:

The greatest costume of the night was my neice, Ashley. When she and some of my family were in a bad crash last month, she had multiple injuries and because of her broken hip, she is in a wheelchair. So, my other neices made her this Oscar the Grouch costume (with the garbage can to slide over her wheelchair) and pushed her around the neighborhood. Kids around LOVED it and we laughed and laughed over how funny it was!

Gabi had suggested she take foiled plates around and be "Meals on Wheels", which was just hilarious to even think about, but the grouch was the best!

We had such a great time!

Can't wait til next year when we can hopefully dress up as a family again! :)

Funny stuff

Until I can get my Halloween pics posted, I decided to share this email that was forwarded to me by my hubby- who knows I love a good laugh, especially at obvious things! So, enjoy! I laughed and laughed and kept saying, "SO TRUE!"

I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.


I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the crap was going on when I first saw it.

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much; it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.

Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent an idiotfrom cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories


If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? I know my name, I know where I'm from; this shouldn't be a problem....

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists

It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

.
My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the crap do I respond to that

I wonder if cops ever get ticked off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Pardon the crude words... I didn't write it, just passing it along! :)