Super Star #2

Micah was the Super Star at preschool the last week in January. He helped me make a poster about him to share with the class.Micah took Butterscotch pudding for his class to make together and eat. His teacher Miss Savanna helped him make a crown with his name on it. When it was time, we talked about all the photos on our poster. Then he took the Star wand and picked one child at a time to ask him a question. Micah's favorite colors are red and orange and green.
His favorite place to eat is McDonalds.
His favorite food is macaroni and cheese with hot dogs.
He likes playing with cars.
He is really good at putting puzzles together.
He enjoys camping and playing with his brothers.
Micah has an awesome smile and is very smart and has a great memory.

Super Star #1

Jonah was the SuperStar for a week at preschool last month. He helped me make a poster about him to share with the class.

He took chocolate pudding for the kids in his class to make together and eat! His teacher Miss Darla helped him make a crown with his name on it. When it was time to talk about the poster, we shared with everyone what the photos were about. Then Jonah used a star wand to choose one child at a time to ask him a question.

Jonah's favorite colors are blue and black and green.

His favorite place to eat is McDonalds.

His favorite foods are lasagna and pizza.

He likes to play with cars.

He is very good at playing Nintendo.

He enjoys camping and playing with his brothers.

Jonah has a terrific laugh and he has a good sense of humor and is great at telling stories.

I hope...

that I never forget the joy I feel while watching my children play.

and one more makes four

Jonah has been giving the Tooth Fairy job security with four teeth now in the last four months!

9-9-9

Ammon turned 9 this month. He celebrated with his friends at his first ever sleepover party on the 9th. He invited 3 boys over, so the total number of people in the house was 9.

He got to choose what he wanted to eat for dinner, and he chose mashed potatoes and gravy, refried beans, broccoli, and pickles. Strange combination, you say? Well, I finally got him talked into a slightly different menu of mashed potatoes and gravy and chicken dumplings.

He wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

We were going to have a big sledding party, but due to the warm weather the 2 days prior to the party, there was no snow left. Luckily, there was plenty of ice on our driveway, so they used that for a little bit of sledding fun. They played BINGO and won whoopi cushions as prizes. Ammon opened his gifts. They played nintendo and played guns and watched movies and ate popcorn and laughed and laughed.

At the age of 9, these are Ammon's favorites: color-green, food-mashed potatoes and gravy, drink-Tiger Woods gatorade, friends-Garrett and Ethan, game-monopoly, book-Diary of a Wimpy Kid, school subject-reading, toy-Nintendo DS, sport-football, NFL team-Patriots.

Happy Birthday to you Ammon! We love you and we are so proud of you for the boy that you are!

{wishful thinking}

The cold, gloomy, cloudy, icy "inversion" that's been happening for the last week makes me dream, wish, and long for days like this:

Ten Lessons of 2008

2008 was a difficult year for me. I'm determined to grow from my experiences. This is what I learned:
10. A relationship that takes years to develop can end in one day. (july)
9. Betrayal hurts the most when it's from someone that you trust. (october)
8. Vodka burns and is never the answer.
7. Everyone has gifts, everyone has talents meant to be used.
6. 29 is not THAT old.
5. Doing the right thing can be very difficult, and still is.
4. My husband really does care about me.
3. Best friends are hard to come by.
2. Honeymoons should never be postponed for 10 years.
1. I am blessed.

G is for Goals, 6 is the Total

When I was growing up, my family would get together at the beginning of each new year and individually make New Year's goals in 5 different categories. So for tradition's sake, here's my goals for 2009:

SPIRITUAL:
1. Go to the temple at least 5 times.
I only went once last year, and it wasn't really a great year for me. I'm going to go more this year, and I know my year will be better!

PHYSICAL:
2. Swim past the Rock Island in Williams Lake I swam to it last year, and absolutely loved it! I can't wait to do it again...eventually I'd like to swim across the entire lake!

EDUCATIONAL:
3. Read the Book of Mormon.
Thanks to my friend Hailey for the challenge!

PERSONAL:
4. Grow a successful Garden and Pumpkin Patch, and eat or preserve ALL the crops.
Due to the late frost in May, our garden didn't turn out very well last year.

FUN:
5. Finish the England Vacation scrapbook.
It's been almost a year since we went, and I'm not even half done with it.

FINANCIAL: (a new category-not from my childhood)
6. Pay off my new laptop
I'm surprisingly over halfway to completing this already!

I thought about adding categories for home, motherhood, wifehood and so forth, but I really wanted to create personal goals rather than a to-do type of list. I want to focus on just improving myself first! There is room for much improvement there!!!

Christmas Pleasures

This was the first year since Josh and I have been married that we had Christmas morning at our OWN house. We've always either opened gifts at my parents' or his parents' home. Josh loved the quietness of it, I missed the commotion.
After we inspected all of Santa's gifts, the present-opening began. But with a rotation of only 6 people, 1 of which who wasn't interested in opening gifts (Kanyon), and 2 of which didn't have many presents under the tree (Josh & I), all the gifts were opened super fast!
We ate Christmas dinner that afternoon at Josh's parents home with them and his two brothers. Overall, it was a pretty uneventful day as far as Christmases go!!!


When I was a little girl, I used to arrange all my new presents and take a photo to remember them. I like my tradition, and now I make my boys do it too (although they are less than thrilled to participate in it on Christmas Day!!!).

Ammon's favorite gift this year was the Guitar Hero game that Santa brought him for his Nintendo DS. But he also loved his new sled from Santa, and the GameCube games he got from mom & dad and uncle Mick.


Jonah's favorite item was the sled that Santa gave him. He used it the entire Christmas afternoon in all the new snow, but hasn't been able to use it since due to the warm spring-like weather that occurs within 24 hours of each snowfall.


Micah's favorite item was the bike from Santa, even though he said for weeks before that the only thing he wanted was a snow shovel. He did, however, use the snow shovel a LOT on Christmas day to help make a sled run, but hasn't been able to use it since either.


Kanyon wasn't really interested in opening anything, and he wasn't as overly excited as his brothers about what Santa brought him. His favorite gift was actually the little matchbox car Aunt Katrina gave him. She gave a car to each boy, and Kanyon snatched up all four as his own and played with them the whole day. Ahhh, simple treasures sometimes bring the greatest pleasures!

Simple Requests

Jonah and Micah's requests to Santa this year were very simple.

The requests were expressed to him at the mall, and repeated again in their letters to him on Christmas Eve.

This was Jonah's pile of gifts from Santa. He got a bike, a sled, a stocking full of goodies, and (can you see the smallest thing on the bottom of the photo) a measuring tape.

This was Micah's pile of gifts from Santa. He also got a bike, a sled, a stocking full of goodies, and A SNOW SHOVEL--the only thing he insisted over and over that he wanted!!!