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!!