Life!

Oh, how the weeks fly by. I knew that Christmas would come faster than I wanted it to. My favorite part of holidays is the preparation. I enjoy the decorations, the cooking, and the fun activities. At times I pack too much into one week or sometimes into one day, but I love it when the day is over and you can think about all the things you were able to get done in one day. I find that when life is busy I am able to accomplish so much more simply because I have to use every minute to get things done. I was delighted yesterday when I added the last bow to the last Christmas present. I will be a little more delighted when my house is clean. This month has been very busy.

I singed Hannah and Bonnie up for swim lessons. I really didn't think about how busy that would make our evenings but it was worth it. I loved siting down for 30 minutes and watch my girls turn into little fish. They both are becoming such great swimmers. After seeing the classes Connor decided that it is something he wants to try so he will have a turn soon too.

I love this time of year and the chance it gives me to really think about how blessed I am. At times I do the opposite and realize how unfair life is. Being raised in a large family one thing my mother always did her very best was to make life as fair as possible. As I have grown up I still expect life to be fair, but that simply isn't how things work. Sometimes life is hard, sometimes people that you love get hurt, and sometimes things simply don't go your way. But this is life, and as we go through life the hard things are usually the things that teach us the most.

Blessing in MY life...
Parents who love and want the best for me
Great in-laws
A WONDERFUL husband with rock solid pecks!
Three beautiful healthy children
A warm home
Clean clothes
Food to fill our bellies
Great neighbors (We have received so many fun and tasty treats this year.)
A sister who is my very best friend
Cars to get around with
Great jobs
My rainbow vacuum
A three foot Santa that puts a smile on my face every time I see him
The Gospel
A NEW day to learn something new.

Christmas will be here in just a few days. The presents will opened and decorations put away. I want to hold on to these few days before Christmas. I love the days of anticipation as we look forward to seeing our children with twinkles in their eyes as they open their gifts. I look forward to seeing family, and eating good food. As I try to enjoy the present I look forward to the future. Another year full of wonder,mystery and surely challenges. What a blessing it is to have this time of year simply to reflect and look forward to another year of learning and opportunity.

I am Still Not OLD yet!

Happy Birthday to ME! Today I turned 29! I am really excited for my last year being in my 20's. I have had a WONDERFUL DAY! Lots of phone calls. I found out this week that not one but two of my sister's boyfriend share a birthday with me. My first reaction was to be annoyed. I all ready share my birthday with my Mother in Law, who I love dearly, but I am a very selfish individual and can NOT understand how it is possible that I can not have ONE day of my very own. Then as my sisters called to wish me a Happy Birthday I realized this may be to my advantage. Having boyfriends that look like they may turn into husbands that have the same birthday will help them remember my birthday too. So, I get to share a special day with lots of other special people, and I am very spoiled to have a family that does so much for me to make my day special.



My day started with getting woken up by the phone ringing. My Mom called to be the first to wish me a happy birthday. Seeing that my life started because of my Mother that was a great beginning for today.



I received a email from my Dad. It's nice to know that you are loved. Even if you have to remind them.



Paul, took the day off work! He made a crepes for breakfast. We took Hannah out to school early so that we could all go to lunch at Olive Garden and the spend a couple hours swimming at the Legacy Center. We had dinner at McDonald (Not my favorite restaurant, but the kids love the toys and it was nice to be able to sit and talk with Paul while they played.) My kids have wished me happy birthday about a dozen times during the day, and they are super excited to give me presents. Bonnie is in the other room making something and every time I walk by she yells out "Don't LOOK!"

I love my kids, husband and family, Thanks for such a WONDERFUL day!

October

We had lots of fun together doing family things!We went to a pumpkin patch to find pumpkins, Mom went to get some pictures!

Paul helped the kids find the nice BIG pumpkins.

No matter how fun the activity may be Bonnie finds a way to pull off a great pouty face.

One perfect pumpkin

Two perfect pumpkins

Three perfect pumpkins

My Halloween costume for the gymnastics Halloween party. I only had one kids in tears.

Carving Pumpkins, A yucky job!

The finished Product!

For Halloween this year we had three adorable Chipmunks

Alvin, Simon, and Theodor

And Two scary Vampires!

How do you KILL a black widow?

So, I am just throwing this out there. How do YOU kill a black widow? I was not thrilled when one of my smart little gymnast pointed out that I had two black widows in my window well. Lucky for me there were "outside" but way to close to my house to get to stay alive. The only problem is that I don't like to kill little spiders the size of a pin head and these spiders were about the size of a quarter and black widows. I told Paul that I had two spiders that I really needed him to kill for me when he got home from work.

Well, he got home checked the bug spray that we had and it said that it did NOT work on black widows. So, the spiders lived another day, and I had a very hard time getting to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes all I could see was this spider and I believe in my head they were getting bigger.

Come the next day I finally came up with a solution. We could suck the spider up with my rainbow vacuum. This way we would be able to drown them in the water and once they were caught we could dump the water making sure they were dead.

It worked not only did we get the two spiders, but also a few white sacks that appeared to be holding lots baby black widows. I am sure there is probably a more common way to get rid of black widows, but for now at least our home safe from a couple of bad spider bites!

Hannah's picutres

It only took me three months, but I finally got around to getting Hannah's seven year ole pictures done. She had a fun time, and it is so much fun to see how beautiful my little girl is as she is growing up!

Here we go AGAIN!

I have heard of a lot of people that have been burning calories at Gold gym. As I have been busy:staying up late, sleeping in, and enjoying good treats. I have had the side affects of tight pants. When my husband commented on my tight buns I mentioned that was because I had to squeeze my buns into my pants. So, here we go again. Paul and I are lovers of the program Body for Life. I guess the only problem is that we tend to use the program more like body for three months. I guess it is still for life after all we always fall back on it.

I thought it might be good for me to keep an update on how things are going. For this last week we successfully worked out six day and ate very healthy. I think we are both looking forward to our free day. I froze some cookies so that I can enjoy hot chocolate chip cookies. I think the free day is the reason I love this program so much. One day a week that I can whatever I want and however much I want!

The biggest difference I have noticed this week. Not that my pants are any looser, but that I have a lot more energy. I am getting up earlier, but I am not as tired through out the day. I kept wondering if I was pregnant, which I am NOT. (For me that is a good thing. I realize for others that is not as reliving.) Too think all I needed to do was start working out and stop being so lazy!

I survived!!!

I actually made it three weeks with out my husband. I can honestly say that I had some very very bad days, but there were some good days too. It is crazy to think that when Paul left Connor had only gone to school for two days, and now it is almost a routine.

I am so grateful to have a husband to share responsibilities with. I did end up going three weeks with out mowing the lawn, lucky for me it really isn't growing too fast right now. I did manage to put the trash out all three weeks, but I must say that I did forget to get the mail many days.

I put rice on to cook and remembered to actually turn it to cook, and because strawberries were only a $1.00 I bought the stuff to have strawberry short cake. A favorite of mine this summer!

My kids have been counting down the days until Dad comes home. If there is one thing to be said is that when Dad is gone he is greatly missed! It makes me appreciate that he was only gone for three weeks!

More scrapbook pages

So, I will eventually have something else to share, but this is new and fun and most importantly I have to show my husband what I did all day! Look at all my hard work. I also taught two classes of gymnastics, mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned three bathrooms, vacuumed the living room and stairs, and shampooed a spot in the living room. I did all this plus helped the kids with homework actually got my reading done. Now I am ready to go to bed.

I was so excited to be able to make Bonnie her very first scarp book page. I printed of some of her baby pictures for different things, but because of being so indecisive in regards to what I want to do with scrap booking I have not done any of her pictures. Now I can really get serious about scarp booking again!

I am going digital!!!

I had so much fun at the scrapbook expo. One thing I finally decided was to start digital scrap booking. I bought a couple of started Cd's and I am so excited how cute and easy it is to make pages! I think I just might get caught up. Now the only thing to worry about is how much it is going to cost me to get the pages printed. Maybe I will go a head and have a book made.

Thank YOU!!!

Thanks so much for your votes!!! The page made it to the top 10, so I got free tickets into the expo!!!

THANK YOU!!!

I NEED YOUR VOTE! Today!!!

I entered a little contest with my sister to try to win scrapbook expo tickets. We made a scrapbook page about loving Utah, and now we need VOTES!


Voting IS ONLY for TODAY!!!!



If you would please take a second and vote for page number 19. It is the cute page Rafting in Moab. You can vote twice, so please vote twice for NUMBER 19!!!

Go to http://pebblesinmypocket.blogspot.com/ and Vote!!!


Thank you!

My BIG project!

I know for a fact that sometimes I just like to see how crazy I can make my life! I am not sure why when Paul told me that he was going out of town for three weeks that I didn't think, "Oh, yes this is my chance to sit around and watch movies." NO, not me. I asked Paul if I could go ahead and get some shelves so that I can organize the basement. Well, I am sure that things will get moved around a bit, but at least for now it will be easier to get to things. So, this post is really for Paul to see all the hard work I have been doing in between my phone calls crying to you! Sorry, about getting so upset about the recycling. They just hadn't come yet. Sometimes I jump to conclusion! Ok, so my hard work.

This is the basement before!

And AFTERAnother angle BeforeAnd After!The little space that I really HATE!And AFTER,

so it is still going to be a pain to find things in this tiny space, but you can only do so much with what you have to work with.Cold food storage BeforeAnd After,

I know it doesn't look so different but is was a lot of work moving all those cans onto another shelf.Last picture BEFORE!And AFTER!!!

One thing for sure we can no longer use the excuse that we don't have room for food storage. Now we nee to focus on rebuilding our food storage! Always something to work on. I guess that is life!

Just one of those days!!!!

I have been trying so hard to keep up with everything. I am only on day two with Paul gone and I am all ready done!!!! I worked on cleaning up the basement and then I decided that I had better get the trash out while I still had the light of day to help me see where I was going. Well, the green trash can went fine and then I put out the blue recycle trash can. Paul was so kind to fill up with all the cardboard boxes from the shelves that I asked him to purchase and put together before he left so that I could organize the basement. As I am trying to roll, push the trash can down the small hill our house is on the trash can leans to the side to the point that I can not stop it from tipping over and spilling all over the yard. Lucky for me it was the recycleing bin and NOT the green NASTY trash can.

One task done and know on to dinner. Lucky for me I started the rice for haystacks at 4:45 so it will be well done and I can hurry and feed the kids. I start dishing up three little plates

And then I go to add the rice. Rice is NOT suppose to still be swimming after an hour in the rice cooker!

This little light in the front is very very important! If only the warm light is on the rice is NEVER going to cook.

Just One OF Those DAYS!

School Projects

Hannah got to be the star student! She did a great job filling in all the facts about her self, and she like all the pictures that Mom added!Connor had his first school project. To make a bag about himself and bring some objects to talk about. He did a good job working with Mom. I only found myself working on the project a couple of times when he had left the room. He decided to put a shrek figurine (because he loves shrek), a star wars guy (because he love star wars), and a Lego piece (because he likes to play with Lego's.)