*Ahem* Merry Christmas!

Just to demonstrate that I am not a bad mother, shirking my duties of "memory preservation." I present now, my painfully cute children.

Please ignore the slight glossy look in Belle's eyes. She tore her tights at church (don't ask, you don't want to know), and was very upset that I might include her knees in the picture. This one's future husband is going to have the ride of his life, let me tell you!

Doesn't he just look like a GQ, Jr. model? We all agreed that vests are a fabulous look for him. I'm currently in the market for a cryogenic freezer to keep him little. The thought of him growing up makes my heart break, just a little.

Whever I look at this picture, I think of a song from The Sound of Music. I must have done something good somewhere along the line to deserve these beautiful spirits in my life.

Have a fabulous week, everyone, and be sure to appreciate every blessing in your life!

MS Walk 2010 -- And This Time I Mean It!

OK, so I'm not giving myself any excuses this year! My team is all set up and I'm registered. The Salt Lake walk in on April 24th at the Gateway. I hope you'll all come with me.




For even more info., click here: http://walkutu.nationalmssociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=WLK_UTU_homepage

Send me a comment or an e-mail, and I'll respond with our team name. It doesn't cost anything to sign-up and register, but they do give you a suggested fundraising goal. Anything we can do will help, I'm sure. My goal is to have 30 people on our team this first year, whether you walk or not.


So let's all get signed up and get going!

p.s. There is also a bike ride and walks in other areas around the state and nation. No excuses here, people!

A Christmas Copycat

Santa left a message for the Guy!

http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/51cb73f2650cdfa1c5b2dd96527b3214

My sincerest apologies to Meghan, but this was so fun, and my Guy loved it so much, I had to post this.

p.s. Meghan, am I still on your Christmas Card list? ;)

Merry Christmas, everybody. Try to slow down, simplify and really enjoy what this season is all about!

An Apology To All My Faithful Readers And A Glimpse Into The Weirdness That Is Me!

Wow, that's a lot of words for very neglected blog. I have only myself to blame. The tech gods are not smiling and I'm not the best at adapting to such things. But we're up and running and functional, no thanks to Dell and their laptops!

So, to make up for my lack of pictures (still working on that one . . . again, just lazy), here are some really weird things to laugh about me and my family:

1. I cry . . . a lot. I cry when I'm sad, frustrated, angry, tired, scared . . . or happy, excited, or thankful. The only way to keep me from crying is to go for an extremely boring middle ground. Just ask BJ. I cried at choir practice today while watching my oldest sing a Christmas carol. I need serious help here!

2. I hate it when toilet lids are left up. Not the seat, which is a univeral given, but the lid. I've been known to walk into random strangers houses and put their toilet lids down. No joke.

3. Messy, disorganized rooms make me extremely cranky and irritable. Now, you would think this would mean my entire house is extremely neat and organized. Yeah, you'd think that. Let's just say, my kids have learned secret hand signals for "duck and cover." Momzilla is alive and well in Utah!

4. My youngest has a very creepy habit of coming to our bed in the middle of the night and just standing there, staring at us until we wake up. Very creepy.

5. Bug has recently become my theater buddy. We went to a production of "A Christmas Carol" (of movie fame). Very fun mom/daughter time. Middle child, on the other hand, refused to go. Flat out, no thank you. Rather than fight this battle (there are many with my darling, much loved, middle child), we took one of Bug's friends. A great night. As we were leaving, Belle almost sings to me 'I'll go next time.' Sigh.

6. We are arts lovers at our house, all types. We love to read, draw, play music, all that stuff. Math and science are constant struggles. I've been helping Bug with her math every night for over an hour. And she's still getting some of the problems wrong! Me worried? Nah.

7. I love to shovel snow. After it's stopped and warmed up a bit, mind you. I actually prefer to shovel it by hand, over snowblowing. It's a quiet time to be outside during winter and think. I'm also a bit compulsive about it, though. Everything has to be completely clean and dry and track free. It irritates me when people drive on my driveway before I shovel it. Please don't do it.

8. I have a secret crush on the entire Duggar family, of "18 Kids And Counting" fame. Anyone who can literally build a house themselves, homeschool 18 kids and still form a complete sentence, must be very cool. I won't comment on their oddities, I've got enough of my own to worry about!

9. I go to bed very early most nights. Some nights my kids are barely in bed before I'm headed there myself. You want to see me cranky? Tell me about a project that needs to be done for the next day at 8:30 the night before. (Or leave a toilet lid up, or put me in a messy room . . . that will work too.)

10. In an alternate reality, I live on a cattle ranch, have my own horse and extremely cool boots, drive a big truck and listen to country music openly. I blame my pioneer stock.

OK, now you can laugh at me at will.

Please stay tuned for our favorite Christmas traditions and our month-long Holiday Fest-a-palooza!

New Pencils and a Pink Pearl Eraser

My girls ran for the bus on their first day of school this week, hardly even looking back to see their mom bravely trying to hold it together. I'm doing really well, if I do say so myself (after a few days' perspective).

I have grand plans of accomplishing much and doing much good while I have a few relatively quiet hours with just me and The Guy. I'll let you know how I do. I'm trying to think of some activities we can do together to keep both of us engaged and entertained during our quiet day and take advantage of this precious time I have left with him. We've done the park, the library . . . and way too much screentime! I've only got two years until he starts kindergarten, too!

Deep Thoughts . . . While Weeding

We had the amazing opportunity yesterday to sit here yesterday and listen to a Prophet of God. It was, well, amazing. (OK, so I'm not one of the professional writers in our family, I'll admit.)

As I stood on the front steps of this temple, I saw this (which is also where I had just been to drop off #2 and #3 Messmakers, a short ten-minute drive away):

From that same spot, I saw this:

On a clearer day, I most likely could have seen this:

And about a 25 minute drive away, just around the bend in the mountains, I knew this temple stood:

When I walked out of my garage this morning, I looked across the valley and saw this:

Within an hours drive from my home, I can attend one of eight temples. In my state there are 13 operating temples (well, come Monday).

At the temple dedication, BJ's dad spoke about families in Mongolia, who in order to receive the blessings of the temple, sell literally every one of their earthly possessions, and travel by train for three days (and this is no Amtrax, people) to receive their endowments and be sealed as a family for time and all eternity in the Hong Kong temple. Add the three-day train trip home, this family has traveled by train for one full week and sacrificed everything they own to attend the temple. It takes me 10 minutes to drive to the closest temple. And talk about a temple district: the Hong Kong temple serves half the population of the world. Our temple district serves the population of one small county in one small state in the U.S.

As I took a painfully honest look back at my temple attendance over the last 11 years of my life, I was not exactly thrilled. We have not been horrible in our attendance, but it sure wasn't a track record I'd be comfortable presenting to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, given my amazing access to temples here.

How many people do we know who, while living in the shadow of the temple, have chosen to walk away from those covenants? And do you think that family who sacrificed everything they had and spent an entire week just to go to the temple once would ever dream of betraying those covenants after those sacrifices had been made?

IT OCCURS TO ME THAT (wow, this had better be good, I'm using all caps here) the things that matter the most to us in life are the things that we have sacrificed the most for. Maybe when things are just a bit too easy, we end of taking them for granted. Perhaps if we really had to sacrifice for what we believed, it would mean that much more to us. Perhaps.

Maybe if I had to run away from a mob with my three children, leaving my house and everything in it behind, just because I believed in a book; or maybe if my entire family treated me as if I were dead, or even tried to have me killed, because I listened to two white, Christian missionaries from some strange church; or maybe if I poured my own actual blood, sweat and tears into building a temple so that one day my great-great-great grandchildren could pass by six temples in the course of a day . . . maybe I'd make that temple an absolute center point in my life. Maybe.

So, next time you're weeding or scrubbing your house or exercising or any one of those tasks where you distract yourself by letting your mind wander, think about what really means the most to you in your life, and the sacrifices you make every day that make those things so important to you.

11 Years Down, Eternity to Go!

It truly does seem like yesterday, even though this picture screams otherwise.

Happy Anniversary, Honey. I love you!