The GIRL Cousin Sleep Over!

This weekend Tanner went and stayed the night with Kohlton, while Karrah and Kiley got to come stay with us.  They played Rock Band until the middle of the night, made cup cakes, rode on mini racers for hours, and watched movies on Karrah's new 1 inch screen i-pod nano!  So much fun!

Uncle David Called!

And he said that Makena and Sam could sleep over for the second night in a row!! Yeah!!

I am not sure what it is, but cousin sleep overs are the best!  I remember how much I loved them when I was a kid.  You can go months without seeing your cousins, and as soon as you see each other you are instant best friends.  I love it, and I love having the cousins sleep over!

We had Family Home Evening with them tonight, and we talked about the kinds of gifts we can give the Savior for Christmas.  We talked about Having a Humble Heart, Repenting of a Sin or Weakness, Serving Others, Praying with Sincerity, Studying the Scriptures, Making and Keeping Goals, Having Faith during the hard times, Becoming a Lifetime Learner, Gaining a Testimony of a Gospel Principle, and Giving Thanks to Heavenly Father in All Things.  The best gift we could give Jesus Christ would be to change a part of ourselves that needs to be improved.  As we give Christ the gift of ourselves we will be the ones who are blessed.

Update

Well, it wasn't the "Gingerbread House" that made Tanner sick.  He ended up with a fever and upset stomach for 2 days.  He missed his school Christmas Party, the Sing-a-long, and the Pizza lunch that his class collected change for until they had enough $ to buy the pizza.  We are happy that he is now healed, and just hope that no one else gets the "Gingerbread" illness!!

We were planning to go on a snow ski trip with Jason and Regina (my brother, his wife, and their 3 kids) on Wednesday Dec 17 through Sunday Dec 21.  Jason and Regina had their time share reserved at Powder Mountain, Utah for this week.  B.....U......T...  there is NOT enough snow for the ski resort to open.  We are SOOOOOO bummed.  It would have been so fun for the kids to ski with their cousins.  Hopefully we will be able to schedule a trip with them for another time. For now I think our family is going to leave on Dec 31 and go to our usual Homewood Suites Hotel in Sandy, Utah and ski at Alta, Snowbird, and Brighton.  Justin would be a ski bum if was the responsible thing to do!  And now Tanner is following the lead.  He is a great little skier, and talks about skiing all the time!

Hurry Take the Picture!

Every Christmas we make Gingerbread Houses.  As you will notice Addy is holding the roof up on her house.  As soon as we took the picture, the roof slid off!  So Tanner started eating it, and then he threw up all night!  I wonder?  What could have caused that?  Even if it was the cause, it is still one of our favorite traditions!

Merry Christmas, Friends and Family!

I mailed out most of our Christmas cards today, and will mail the rest tomorrow.  I love taking or finding the perfect picture for our Christmas Card each year!  Justin and I have made it our tradition to have cards made every year since we have been married.  It is fun to see how each year everyone changes.  I love getting picture cards from our friends and family also.  I save all of them in a big box and every year when we get out the Christmas decorations I look at all the family pictures I have collected.  Thank you to all of you who have helped build my collection!  I love it!!!!

2 Students of the Month!

Congratulations Addy and Tanner!!!

Today at an assembly, that I didn't read the letter about parents being invited to attend, Addy and Tanner were both recognized.  Luckily Tanner's teacher is a good friend of mine and she called me to find out where I was!  Thank you Linda! The Character Trait they were recognized for is Responsibility.

Addy's teacher said  "She has been observed many times helping others in need both on the playground and in the classroom. Addy thinks things through before acting."

Tanner's teacher said "He makes responsible decisions to say and do the right thing, even when the right thing is difficult to do."

I am so proud of both of them!  Thank you Addy and Tanner for being such great examples!

The Tradition Continues!

Last night we had the annual Young Women Young Men Christmas Party at our house.  It is always a super fun and well attended party!  I'm not sure what they love more the Soup in a Bread Bowl Dinner or the Hayless, Hayride!  Whatever it is, Good Times is what will be remembered!

WHY I AM THANKFUL

Thanksgiving

Because I don't keep a journal, and I am now considering this as my form of journal, I want to express how thankful I am on this Thanksgiving weekend.

I woke up earlier than the rest of my family Thursday morning and during the quietness of the morning I sat and thought about how many things I have to be grateful for.  I thought about my husband, the love he has for me and our children, I thought about our children, Alyssa, Amanda, Addy and Tanner.  I thought about my parents and Justin's parents.  I thought about my brother's and sister and their spouses and Justin's sister.  I thought about my niece's and nephew's.  I thought about the good friends I have been blessed with.  I thought about my testimony, the gospel, the power of fasting and prayer, the feeling I get when my prayers have been answered.  I thought about all of the examples in my life that make me want to be a better person.  I thought about the gifts and talents I have been blessed with, and especially for the gift of obedience that I have been blessed with.  I thought about things that make be laugh.  I thought about things that inspire me.  I thought about my home.  I thought about my toys.  I thought about how lucky I am to live in the USA!  I thought about all the times I have been blessed because we paid our tithing.  I thought about the trials I have overcome.  I thought about the talk I gave in church last week, and how Heavenly Father WILL always be there for us and help us.  Thought about how grateful I was that the talk was over!  AND I thought about my new favorite saying "I CAN DO HARD THINGS"  and thought, life is hard and scary sometimes, but I am grateful for the opportunity I have to prove myself!

I could have gone on all day, but I had to get to work and start cooking the yummy Thanksgiving meal, that we were able to share with some of my family!  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Twilight the Movie

TWILIGHT!

Last Friday the girls left school early so we could go see Twilight.  We bought our tickets about a month ago, but had to get there 2 1/2 hours early so we could get GOOD seats!  We went the Harkins at Park West and found out the no one knows about that theater.  We, along with our friends Linda and Carly were to only people there until about 30 min before the movie started!  No problem getting the best seats in the theater!  We all liked the movie and I even went and saw it again with my friends Jennifer and Becky on Tuesday!

Twins!

Amanda and Kiwi Twins?

I always thought it would be fun to have twins!  This is as close as it's going to get!!

Primary

Addy and Marley

I took this picture last Sunday during sharing time because they looked so cute and happy standing up front while everyone sang Happy Birthday to them!  Their birthdays are 1 day apart, only Addy is a whole year older than Marley, believe it or not!

These Are My Friends!!

The Chocolate Fountain!

Don't worry Toni, Wendy and Alyssa didn't lick the chocolate fountain until after the Golden WHEEL gala was over!

Twilight!!!

Only 2 more days!

On Friday the girls are going to skip school so we can go see Twilight with a group of friends!  We have all read the books and can't wait to see the movie!  Obsessed is what we are!

For the Golden WHEEL gala I was able to get a boxed set of the Twilight series signed by the author Stephenie Meyer for our auction.  They sold for $400.00!!  I have a friend that is in the same ward as Stephenie Meyer and she was willing to ask her for the donation for me!  Super Cool!!

Congratulations Alyssa!

Marshall Ranch Softball team!

Good job Alyssa.  She informed me a couple of weeks ago that she was going to tryout for the softball team at school.  And I said, do you know how to play?  She said, I have played in P.E.  and I need you to go buy me a mitt.  I said, you can use the one I had when I was a kid, and she reminded me that she is left handed.  So Justin took her to get a mitt, and while they were there he also bought her a bat.  He also lined up a kid in our ward to teach her how to bat correctly.  He must have been a great teacher!  She said that almost everyone on the team uses her bat because they really like it.  So now I joke around with her and say she only made the team because of her bat, no Alyssa, no good bat!  And for the picture posted, this is what happens when the ball hits you in the chin!

New Bands on the braces!

Does Service get any better than this?

We were unable to make it to Alyssa's appointment to get the bands of her braces changed, so Dr. Matthews made a house call!!  It's all in who you know!!!

Knife Hand Strike? Jump Kick?

Orange Belt it is!

Monday night my 4 karate kids moved from a white belt to an orange belt!  They each demonstrated knife hand strike, muscle block, low block, jump kick, round kick and side kick, all while yelling Get Back, Leave me Alone!  Should I be Scared??!!??

I have 4 amazing kids!

Way to go!

We just got home from the Peoria School District Cross Country meet. I am so proud of Alyssa, Amanda, Adyson and Tanner!  They all ran their very best and did great!  Alyssa got 24th place, Amanda got 10th place, Adyson got 1st place, and Tanner got 37th place!!  The meets are so much fun because half the kids in our ward run on their schools cross country team.  So we all sit together and cheer on each others kids!  So each of the kids has a full section of parents cheering them on!

They sold shirts tonight that say:  *Math Homework * Cross Country *tightening your braces 

Then underneath that it says PICK YOUR TORTURE

I think that is soooo funny and sooo true!  Running that far is a lot of hard work.

After the meet we all went to Lenny Burger for dinner and ice cream to celebrate!  We filled up the whole place with our family, The Leon Family, The Matthews Family, The Smith Family, The Swartout Family, my parents and Justin's parents!  It is so fun to have so many great friends!

He Did It!!!

Tanner has been working really hard in school this year!  We are so proud of him and his good attitude towards learning.  I had told Tanner that if he ever got 100% on a spelling test he could stay home from school one day and we could hang out together and have fun!  So last week Tanner stayed home from school one day and we read books, baked banana bread and played counting games.  He had no idea that everything we did was a way to learn something!

Happy 10th Birthday Adyson!!!

Adyson will be 10 on Monday November 3rd

Happy Birthday Addy.  We are so lucky to have Addy in our family.  She is very sweet, and a super hard worker.  She works hard at everything she does, including school, piano, running, karate, skiing, wake boarding, and chores.  She likes to do what is right, and we really appreciate her for that!  I can't believe that she is already 10, life goes by toooo fast!!  

Golden Gate Bridge

In January Justin and I went to San Francisco with our good friends Rob and Bethany Matthews.  It rained hard for 2 of the 3 days we were there, but we still had a great time!