WOW! Long time, no post, huh!?!

 I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted on here! Our life has been pretty hectic, to say the least. I worked quite a bit during December. Probably not nearly as much as most people I know, but a lot for me anyway. I have been so happy that Brian has been able to take care of our little Gracie but it makes me so sad to be away from her. Wednesday I helped my friend out with her preschool for 4 hours and then I did my Hallmark job for 2 hours. Brian said that at one point Gracie went to him and said that she was sad because I was gone. I miss just snuggling in the rocking chair in our p.j.'s in the morning while she watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This time is slipping away so quickly and I just hate missing any of it. I've missed being home some days when my boys get off of the bus. Last week I worked 19 hours and this week I'll only work 4 1/2 hours. I guess the hours really calm down during January. I'm glad! It is still a fun little job that I really like and the money really helped us out. I am just so looking forward to a bit of a break and to be able to spend more time at home!

~We had a great Christmas! At my family Christmas party, we were able to visit with  Nathan's cute little family by using Skype. It was so much fun to see them! We all miss them a lot! It was especially fun to see his new little baby boy, Thomas, who was born in October!

~We stayed home for Christmas. Traveling with our kids on Christmas is just not easy, not fun, and really not worth it! We had a nice quiet day. Our friend's, Mysti and Randy, invited us over to their house for dinner. We decided we would all still make our Christmas dinner to share and we would be able to spend time together to help make our day feel less lonely. Mysti made Roast and potatoes and carrots, and a veggie, and dessert. Brian made ham, yummy potatoes (otherwise known as funeral potatoes), and rolls. It was a delicious meal and everything just worked out great! AND, bonus, I got to hold  Mysti's baby boy, Landon, who was born on ll/11/11 at 11:01! I just had to throw in his birth date cuz it's so cool! He is such a cute little guy!

~My Max made our Christmas extra special! He's 5 now, and turns 6 at the end of January. A lot of you will remember the many stories of my Max's craziness since he is definitely my craziest child, so you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when my "crazy" little boy was the one who kept our focus on our Savior, Jesus Christ. At church, they learned the song  "Samuel Tells of the Birth of Jesus" for the Ward Christmas Program during Sacrament Meeting on Christmas Sunday. For weeks we heard this song practiced over, and over, and over again. Even when he played the Wii! That's HUGE! Even on Christmas Eve when most kids are singing about Santa Claus and his reindeer, our Max was singing about Jesus.    Here are the words...

Said Samuel, "Within 5 years, a night will be as day, and Baby Jesus will be born in a land far, far away." Hosanna! Hosanna! Oh let us gladly sing.  How blessed that our Lord was born. Let earth receive her King!
Across the sea, in Bethlehem, Lord Jesus came to earth, as Samuel had prophesied. The angels sang His birth. Hosanna! Hosanna! Oh let us gladly sing. How blessed that our Lord was born. Let earth receive her King!

What a wonderful song to hear over and over again! What a blessing it is to have Primary for our little children. To have wonderful teachers and choristers and Presidency members help us teach our children the principals of the Gospel. Our entire family was blessed to have the words of this song ingrained in our heads. We needed that! And it NEVER got old!

~Some of you will remember the posts I made last year about our Christmas Jar. (each of those 2 words goes to different posts about the Christmas Jar)  Well, on Christmas Eve, Max found a couple of scriptures he wanted to read in addition to the one we would take out of the jar that night. I just thought that was wonderful! He just really surprised me with his focus on our Savior. I can't even express how happy that made me feel!

~I'm trying so hard to potty train Gracie. If we weren't already, for sure, done having more children, THIS would have totally made me decide to stop! I HATE potty training. I seriously think I have A,D.H.D or something. It is so hard for me to just take a whole day and focus my efforts on potty training. She tries so hard to go. She really does. She sits on the toilet and tries and tries but she just can't let it out. I know that if she would just be able to do it once she'd totally be fine but she just can't. Any suggestions would be really great!  Heaven help me! If only there was potty training camp or potty training school that I could send her to....

~I shared this on facebook the other day. I absolutely LOVE her voice! I have also always really liked him and had no idea he could sing too. It's kind of fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcrd5vpUGyk&feature=related

~Oh and one more thing. We played the game called LOGO at my sister's on New Year's Eve. It was so much fun!!! I hope everyone has a wonderful 2012!!

Christmas and ringing in the New Year

We had a wonderful Christmas this year even though I almost totally ruined the whole thing and we had a little change of plans.

How I almost totally ruined Christmas (for Zack anyway): I put Zack's basketball goal he wanted on layaway at Kmart early in November. I was going to get it off layaway December 23rd and it was going to work out perfectly! Well, lots of Dr's appointments, pain, festivities, callings, and craziness in general and apparently somewhere in there I was supposed to remember to make a payment on the thing at the end of November...big OOPS!!! Brian was inspired one day in December to check out the status of the layaway online...it was...CANCELLED!!! WHAT!!! WHAT!!!!!! Total heart attack city for me when I got that lovely phone call! Thank goodness Brian was able to find one on walmart.com that was actually like $40 cheaper anyway. There weren't any left in the stores here in our little town and we weren't planning any trips to the big city anytime soon so we were so LUCKY (blessed!) to find that one online! And it was delivered 2 days later which was awesome!!! Thank goodness Zack has a great dad!!!

Change of plans: We were planning to go to my parent's house for Christmas dinner but my mom and my sister Katie got sick with a stomach virus that morning that they got from my adorable niece, Emily. I feel so bad for them that they were sick because that would be a totally rotten way to spend Christmas. And my brother in law Chris who is married to Katie has his birthday on Christmas day. So he spent his big day watching Katie be sick. Fun stuff! Well, we obviously stayed home and it turned out to be an awesome day!!! I was worried how the kids would react to having a slimmer, but still, very nice Christmas gift getting experience this year compared to last years major over indulgence. They LOVED it! They were so happy with everything they got! They were disappointed to not be going to my mom's and we were too but it was SO awesome to just watch our kids relax and enjoy their gifts and enjoy the day. We haven't traveled for Christmas in several years because it just doesn't work for us anymore but we thought it would be nice to go for Christmas dinner. I'm thinking while our kids are still young enough to really enjoy the magic of Christmas this may just have to be the way we do it from now on. It was a great day! I had a lot of energy that day which is highly unusual for me so I cleaned a lot and accomplished a lot of things I had been wanting to get done so it worked great for me. I kept getting teary thinking about not getting to see my sister Dana and my brother Rob that day. I knew we'd see the rest of my family in a few days anyway but I was really sad to think I couldn't see Rob and Dana! We did enjoy just being alone for the day though and realize sometimes a change of plans isn't such a bad thing after all. We spent New Year's Eve with my family and had our belated wonderful Christmas dinner and exchanged gifts and had a great time!!! It's all good!
Here are some of our pictures from the fun and crazy month of December...

Gracie had so much fun tormenting our poor tree this year. Eventually we had almost all of our ornaments on the top of the tree and only indestructible ones down low. I gave up trying to rearrange them to look halfway decent. I took this picture on Christmas Eve. Poor pathetic tree!!! I didn't want to put the gifts out until Christmas Eve because of our sweet little tornado but Brian talked me into it on the Sunday  before Christmas and sheesh...we should have waited. She unwrapped like 6 gifts. You can see that Brian's exercise bike he got was unwrapped. Silly girl! P.S. I wasn't trying to send Brian a message by giving him that bike or anything! That's what he wanted!!! Just wanted to make it clear that I didn't say here's an exercise bike fat a.. USE IT! He would just have said ditto!!

Brian made us each a hat for Christmas. Love them!!! We usually do Christmas pjs for Christmas Eve but didn't this year. Oh well, we survived! !

Apparently Gracie agrees that being surrounded by presents and chocolate = pure bliss!!!

Cute little Lucy on our way to Spanish Fork. Thank goodness Katie and Chris let her sleep over at their house with Sam and Sia when it's too cold to leave her home!!!

We came to Spanish Fork for our New Year's celebrations a day early on Thursday so we could go on a date while my parents watched all the kids. What I won't do for a date night! Even driving through white out conditions in the canyon couldn't stop me from cashing in on that prize!!!

 So, 2010..not my favorite year I must say!! A lot of trials and bumps in the road! Also many, many blessings!
Great things that have come from this year:
~A stronger testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and a greater feeling of closeness to Him, our loving Father in Heaven, and the precious gift of the Holy Ghost.
~A stronger testimony of the power of prayer.
~A closer family unit seeing as how we are so CLOSE in our tiny house. They say love grows best in little houses and boy are they right!
~The joy we feel in watching our children grow and enjoying the precious gifts of being their parents is truly a blessing!!!
~Our children have been really healthy this year and we are so very grateful to our Heavenly Father for that amazing gift as well!
~Our gratitude to our Heavenly Father for all He has provided us with in our lives has grown tremendously this year!!!
~Brian has a great job with great benefits. We have a roof over our heads. We have food on the table. We have clothes on our backs. We have cars to drive. We have the gospel in our lives. We have friends. We live in Utah in the United States of America. We have people to love. We are blessed!!! And we are grateful!!!

So GOODBYE 2010 and HELLO 2011!!!!!  Please be kind to us!!! :)