The Reason...

This Christmas season our family has been trying to make a conscious effort to remember Christ every single day. It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle of Christmas and so I've been trying so far this month to help my little crazy child to know why we celebrate at this time of year. It all started with the Wal-Mart toy catalog and little stickies. Brody brought his Christmas "listus" to me in the form of a catalog with I would approximate 100 little sticky tabs marking all the wishes of his heart. Every commercial we saw, every new catalog that came, he wanted to add it to his "listus." We have been doing some "self-projects" this year to try to undo some of the ways that I as a parent have made Christmas about things.

So....one of Brody's challenges is to participate in 10 service projects of his own doing by Christmas Eve. He has done two so far. We were at the grocery store and one of the little coupon dispensers had broken and all of the coupons were all over the aisle. He stopped and wanted to pick every single one up, perfectly stack them and see if we could repair the dispenser. Although we weren't successful with the repair, he very neatly picked them up and stacked them. I told him that could be his first service and he was so excited. His next act of service was a couple days later. He put the little bit of change he had (that his dad had given him) into the bucket being collected outside at another store. We are making strides and if you have any ideas that a little four year old can do for service, I would love to hear them.

Rick and I are big collectors of children's books. We both love to read and as a result have collected many children's books, including many about Christmas. We have been reading a Christmas story every single night as a family to remember what the true meaning of Christmas is about and really trying to make this season about Christ.

We are so grateful for all of you and feel very blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Utah and are looking forward to a new year and hopefully a new baby or babies....whatever the Lord sends us.

Rick celebrated his 40th birthday with tickets to see Dave Matthews in Vegas with the Brooks brothers. I can't believe he's 40! Sheesh!

We love you all and Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This is my favorite time of year. This year we picked pumpkins in our own garden. We haven't been so lucky with pumpkins in the past, but this year we had nine grow! It was fabulous! Grandpa was here for two weeks and he and Brody worked so hard on this fun "haunted" gingerbread house.

Our Party was a success. By my count we had 97 people here and I'm sure I missed some. It was a blast. It was fun to see Brody help decorate and get ready. He kept saying "I'm so sited everyone's coming to Dad's party. **cough** I wonder how it all of the sudden became Dad's party!!! Brody was a little bugged at my costume. He chose the theme this year..... Transformers. He was disgusted at the fact that I was a pink robot. He said there is no such thing. I told him there sure was. Her name is "mama-tron" He didn't like it.

We ended the season with "trunk or treat" last night and then it all gets cleaned up tomorrow. It's all worth it to hear a little boy call me Awesome! Even if the party is Daddy's!!

Too little time in the day.....

My little Scout!!


My working boys!

Old friends!

Even older friends!

Some of my best friends!

First ride on an airplane!

Little swimmer!!

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My sister is in Afghanistan right now and the latest email I got from her asked me if I was really only going to post one entry to my blog for the year 2010. So........ here I am, guilt-ridden by family. I know I am really not the best blogger, but only one post so far for 2010 is pretty pathetic, especially when you see the previous post and their are pumpkins being carved in it and that is exactly the time of year we are in right now.

Life has been extremely crazy this year and the purpose of this post is not to try to catch you up on every little thing that has been going on. We are busy, but I promise to be a little better with my blog. This year has been full of so many ups and downs. I believe we are now feeling like we are right in the middle of an "up." We are very blessed. Rick is teaching full time for an expeditionary learning school as well as continuing to teach at the college. I'm staying busy with my job and love being Brody's mom. This summer was tough for us, as we had planned to add another child to our family. It was not a fun experience, but we've been through it a lot of times, and we have grown from the experience. You think it would get easier, but it doesn't. Especially when you have a little boy who wants a baby brother AND a sister. We are now in the middle of exploring other infertility options and feel very blessed by those around us who listen to the promptings of the spirit. We know the Lord is aware of us and our desires. We look forward to what's ahead of us and will keep you all posted......no promises ;)

I Love My Life

We have had so much fun over the last couple of months spending time with family. Life has been so busy, but I love my life. My dad came down from Utah for a few weeks around Halloween and it was so fun to have him here. Rick participated in his very first triathlon and I'm so proud of him. We had our annual Halloween party which is a tradition that I love. Alisha, Jeremy and the kids came down to help install the electricity into our garage and they were here for 10 days over the Thanksgiving Holiday. We rode on the "Polar Express" with them and it was so much fun. Brody had one wish to relay to Santa and that was his very own blue rope. Amber came up from Mesa and went with us. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house and it was fun to have Alisha, Amber and Andrea and their families. Rick always smokes a turkey and it was delicious. We got up early the next morning and hit all the Black Friday sales. It was fun to have everyone here. We missed Amie, Amanda and Anjalee, but we had a fun time. We jumped in the car the next week and headed to Disneyland for Rick's birthday and Brody was in heaven. He loves trains and cars and airplanes and, of course, Mickey, so Disneyland was truly his playground. We had a great time. Amie came and visited us for a few days from Japan and I love to have her around. I really miss not being able to be around her regularly. The holidays came and went so quickly. I always promise myself I will slow down and I never do. Maybe next year!! We had the hope of a new baby coming at the first of the year, but our birth mother chose to parent. We know we will be blessed to have another baby soon, we just have to be patient. Our lives are truly blessed and I hope that the holidays were wonderful for all of you as they were for our little family. Here is our life in pictures from the last few months.