Our Newest Tradition

 Kids woke up to a wall of wrapping paper.  8 beady eyes peeking through the cracks, begging to come down.  On the count of three...

And the magic began!

Earlier in the week... 

These were our neighbor gifts.  A pain in the bum.  Russ stirred carmel for an hour and a half.  Doubt I'll do this one again!  But VERY delish.

Sarah goofing off with her chocolate wrapper on teeth trick learned from Gma Linda.

On Christmas Eve...

We played girls against boys pictionary and it was awesome...perfect fun for all ages!  This is Ava's Santa Claus.  The boys won but it was a good fight. 

We sung carols and said 6 times, "This is the last song."  But it's so hard to stop!

Mom was supposed to bring ham and a vegetable...she brought 10 dishes!  It was all delish.

The kids each said it was their best Christmas ever.  I let them ask for just one present, so any more on top of that are all surprises.  They're never disappointed.  Strangely, Sarah asked for nothing!  She had no idea what she wanted, but loved her gifts.  Chad got nerf guns, a Wii game, and a skateboard; Sarah got shirts, a violin, earrings, and a scrapbook kit; Ava got a pillow pet, a motion sensored cat;  Alyssa got Barbie Video Girl and aqua sand.  And what in the heck was I thinking with the Aqua Sand?  That stuff is only a class 10 disaster in the highest degree...but I say only nice moms let their kids play with that stuff.  Even though I've now limited it to 2 days a week!

The kids for weeks had been making each other gifts.  Sarah didn't make mine...but instead wrapped some candy bars, 85 cents, and a note attached that read..."I snuck these onto the conveyor belt at Fred Meyer and here's the money to pay you back for your present!"  I never even noticed.

It was a Merry Christmas.

It Arrived

The $130 pillow I won from Alice Lane Home arrived wrapped in gold paper and smelled so good! I really don't know what's more fun than winning stuff...

I wish it was my full-time job.

Holy Cow...I'm a Winner!!!!!!!!!

No way.  I can't even believe it.  I won a blog contest.  Out of 130 entries...I got picked.  What?  Seriously?  YES!  SERIOUSLY!  My favorite store ever...Alice Lane Home.  Can't afford everything I want there...but it is dreamy.  Here is the announcement...
http://blog.alicelanehome.com/uncategorized/and-the-winner-is-6/

Anyone that lives in Provo must visit the store and send them my love if you do!  Just Southwest of University Mall.

Woot, woot! (Times a thousand!)

A Marathon Post I Only Expect My Kids to Read...

My sledding partner and brotha, Ben

I've sent my family to the Christmas sing-a-long and stayed home to blog.  It seems keeping a family history is a good excuse to play hookie.  And boy am I overdue for an update!

Niece, Jenna, visiting from Cali and Mom

Thanksgiving was amazing.  It always is.  I get to spend it with the people that make my heart leap for joy (major understatement...seriously, my parents and family are Heaven!).  I get nervous because I want the house to be clean and food delicious (hard for me getting both accomplished at the same time), but once you start licking the bowls, have cute eager helpers, and the table is setit really is exciting and fun.  We always decorate  the rims of the glasses with colored sugar and bust up at everyone's tongues stretching into their wine glasses to lick it all off.  It reminds me of goat tongues or giraffes or something.  But my family (and my Dad especially!) are really silly like that.  We got clobbered with snow and I couldn't wait to get out sledding, so after dinner I drove over to a big ravine, hiked some hills, and felt like a kid again! 
Russ dominated the T-day ping pong tourney and has been affectionately nicknamed "Super Jock" by my Dad.  VERY fitting...he's good at everything he does.  I've even had people tell me that their husbands come home and brag about Russ.  You name the sport...he's really good.  Finesse and power.  Yes, that's my man.

Perhaps my most proud mothering moment ever came last month when Sarah was nominated by her teachers to be Student of the Trimester.  Then the kids had to vote to elect the winner out of the 15 nominees.  To be considered the kids had to show respect, responsibility, and caring (the character traits of the last few months).  And out of the 200 6th graders, Sarah and another girl won the Student of the Trimester Award.  She is just absolutely beautiful in every possible way.  And a ton of fun.  My sidekick.  I picture a lifetime of love and friendship with this girl.

The BEST BEST BEST most exciting news ever was my kids' report cards!!!!  Sarah, my super organized competitive perfectionist responsible (and silly) hard worker got straight A's and A pluses...no surprise.  And Chad got all A's and B's!  We rejoiced and jumped up and down and danced.  And they got paid some big bucks.  Chad got a poor mid term report, so for him to pull his grades up took a lot effort at home with parental tutoring, early morning help from teachers, and a change in his behavior.  I couldn't have been more proud!

Sarah got her ears pierced with her friend Paige after waiting her whole life for this moment.

Russ' parents' visit flew by.  We felt very honored that they chose to spend their money and time to come visit us.  They smothered the kids with love, affection, and gifts.  The gifts kept coming and coming.  It was like Marry Poppin's bag of tricks.

Russ' Dad is the original Super Jock! 

No visitors can escape my house without a program!  It's Christmas after all.

Chad's first time skating...and he managed to hold hands on the ice with several different girls!  His favorite thing lately is to tell girls how beautiful they are.  They tell me all the time how it absolutely makes their day.

Now...I'm trying to figure out if I'm baking Christmas goodies for neighbors or not.  I really do hate the process, but I love my neighbors!  And we already have 10 dozen goodies on our counters from friends...so maybe they'd really like some spinach or something.

Month in Review

Could it really be a month?  I haven't made blogging a priority because I am still wondering why I do it other than just getting my photos out of the black hole of my memory card.  And switching my blog to private is always so tempting.  But really, the only people that read my blog are family and close friends and if I switch it to private I doubt some of my family would ever access it.  Private or public???  That is the question.

 Russ turned 40!

 Chad earned his Life Rank in Scouting.  Next step...EAGLE!

I've had to hang up my biking helmet for now. I can't explain the panicky feeling I get when the weather is nice and I am trying to figure out if I can squeeze in a trip to the trail with all my other time constraints. In some ways the weather getting colder is a blessing because I can stop obsessing about the trail! Of course I can wear a face mask, etc., (which I've done!), but I am such a weather wimp. I'm all about the SUN!

Halloween came and went...

 I was in charge of Alyssa's class party which meant I got to assign myself the easiest no prep game of TP Mummies!!!

 I brought Scooby too.

 Chad couldn't have loved being a rock star more.  Being in a rock band at the music school is quite the passion of his right now too.

Sarah felt right at home dressed as a movie star.

 Ahh, the view at Mom and Dad's.  We love spending random Sundays with them.  Mom graciously fed us and taught the girls how to make cute owl cupcakes

 

 Had two tearful events this last month.  The first was rough.  The kind where you sit in your car by yourself and let it all go (until your kids and husband come find you and you have to control yourself again because I hate to let anyone see me cry).  Let's just say autism can knock you off your feet sometimes and people can be horrible, but the next day...your skin is so much thicker.  And the second tearful event...let's just say involves MAJOR surgery for my child.  Major.  I can't even wrap my brain around it.  Getting a second opinion.

Sarah got glasses.  She picked purple ones!  I love her flair.  But Alyssa who got a 20/100 on her exams has an issue that can't be solved with glasses and the optometrist had no answers.  Getting a second opinion on that too.

Alyssa bought a new bird everyone loved.  The kids were smitten.  Sadly it was a sick bird and died after 3 days.

So many ups and downs, and one big up is the January Maui trip with Russ.  Free tickets, some free activities, cheap or free hotel, it is too good to be true.  Still trying to figure out how to make it easier for Mom and Dad with Mom working so much.  Looking for nannies, but they're all booked so far.  I hope it will all come together.  I want to bring the kids because I hate asking someone to take them for a week and I know they'd love it, but Russ wants me all to himself.  I couldn't feel more adored than I already do by him.



Parties Just Because

Russ was thinking that our older kids are at that age where you don't have to have a birthday to have a party.  So we threw two parties for them just because.
First was Sarah's Project Runway party.  We grabbed a couple dozen Goodwill items and invited 5 friends. They cut up, sewed, hot glued, stapled, duct taped, and repurposed their clothes followed by a runway show for the families.  The girls were inspiring and hilarious!  And we only had 3 broken sewing needles.  And a package of 100 straight pins that exploded all over the carpet.

 At first they were going to make one outfit each, then their creative juices took over and they all made 3 outfits!

Don't cut my leg!

 Some were silly

Some were wearable 

 This one was so silly that she was determined to pull off a glamorous look for her 3rd outfit.  And she did.

 Each designer was interviewed so I could narrate the show with the name of their outfit, where they'd wear it, what inspired them, followed by a dedication. 

The Judges

 The GRAND FINALE

Next was Chad's pizza party.  They got out the slip n slide and covered it in dish soap and played a lot of games.

(Yes, that is our garden full of weeds.  Since Russ is always working and the garden is his baby (I do flowers, not veggies), we totally neglected the garden this year!)