Look What Logan Learned

(He just turned 17 months old)

Snowman Snacks

After school snacks are a big deal in our house. Not to me. I rarely actually plan it out or have anything ready for the kids. Nope. It's their thing. There always seems to be one thing or another that I have to get done, so they are usually on their own to find something to eat. I try to give them ideas - string cheese, a sandwich, etc. They really love to make toast.

This week, they decided to make marshmallow snowmen. They "glued" each piece together with a generous dollop of honey.

Preschool

Max got invited to be part of a preschool group. It's really fun. There are 5 moms and we all take turns teaching. Last week, preschool was at our house. Max was so excited. He woke up very early in the morning and watched as every car drove by hoping that it was the preschool kids coming over. It was really cute.

Anyway....as I was teaching, we had an art project that required the kids to cut stars out. Max and Bria do cutting projects all the time. I feel like I'm constantly sweeping up scrap pieces of paper from kitchen floor. It never occurred to me that all of the cutting art projects that were done were only when Bria was home. Apparently, she is always the one who cuts and Max had never actually cut any paper by himself. It's funny the things that I miss sometimes.

I'm happy to report, Max did a fabulous job cutting the stars out by himself. In fact, he was so excited about his new found talent that I have had several "cut out" gifts given to me all week. He's growing up so much!

A present

Yesterday was my birthday. My kids forgot. I guess I can't really blame them, they are really too young to follow that sort of thing.

After I got Bria off to school, I decided that I was still really tired, so I went back to bed. The problem was, Max kept bothering me. A lot. I finally said "Max, today is my birthday. Can you please let me sleep in?"

Max immediately got excited. "It's your birthday. Well....everyone deserves a special breakfast on their birthday, so I'm going to make you one!"

He did. And it was quite possibly my favorite birthday present all day.

Happy New Year!

This is a picture of one of the fireworks we lit off on New Years Eve.  It was below zero and we were all outside freezing our tails off in the middle of the night. Only in Idaho!

Happy New Year!

I am really sad that 2010 is already gone! It was a really interesting year. It was both exciting and exhausting. I learned a lot and I cried a lot. But, overall, it was a good year.

In church on Sunday, our dear Young Women's president gave a really good lesson on Eternal Perspective. It was a great lesson and it's really made me think quite a lot. I love being part of the Young Women program. I had forgotten how much goal setting and spiritual progression is taught at that age. It's funny how growing up sort of changes things. I feel like most of my days are a complete blur and although I know this isn't completely true, it feels a lot like I'm stuck in an endlessly repeating day. Wash the dishes, wash the laundry, pick up the toys, etc. I love being a mom and I wouldn't trade staying home with my kids for anything in the world. I'm exactly where I want to be and I feel incredibly blessed and thankful.

That being said, I also feel like in the midst of all of the laundry and the dishes, I can take time to improve myself and become a better person. So, being that it's the new year, I decided to set some goals and try to make 2011 an even more incredible year. I normally don't really make New Years resolutions - I have a long track record of not keeping them. I really struggle with structure and would rather just live my day the way it goes instead of planning every minute.

So....I have a plan and hopefully having this blog will help me not only be accountable, but motivated. I've set goals in a couple of different areas and I plan to blog at the end of every month reporting on my progress. I apologize in advance if this sounds completely boring and dreadful to read. Please humor me and skip to the end where it says "comments" and tell me that I can reach all my goals. I need all the motivation I can get at this point.

Yesterday morning, according to weather.com, it was -9 outside. I hate it when it's that cold, but it's so beautiful when all the trees get frosted over. This is our willow tree from our backyard.

Home & Family

• Take time to enjoy our kids. Sometimes I feel like I'm so busy that several days at a time feel like one big blur. I want to take time to slow down and be with our kids.
• I want to focus on one room of our house every month and clean/organize that room. (obviously clean the other rooms too, but really focus hard on one room)
• By the end of the year, earn an average of $1000 per month by working from home. This might sound crazy...and it may very well be. But, let me explain a little of my reasoning. We have this neatly organized "get out of debt" plan (and I do realize that posting this to my blog is confessing that to the world - WE HAVE DEBT!) Anyway....we want to get out of debt. Our plan is a really great plan if only we could execute it. But, in order to execute it, we have to have a little something called money. So, I want to help do my part and I'm very grateful because I've been blessed with many talents that have allowed me to work at home and generate income while still being a mom. This goal to me seems a little daunting, but I'm almost 1/2 way there already, so I think if I work hard enough, I can do it.

Spiritual

• Work on my Young Woman award - the Young Women have a schedule this year that has a value associated with every month. My goal is to follow along with the Young Women's program and work on that value each month
• Read the Book of Mormon - which also goes with the goal above....this has to be done in order to get the award.
• Attend the temple once a month - I have a dear friend who is willing to trade babysitting with me so we can both take turns attending the temple, and I have yet to take advantage of that. No more. I'm going!
• Be a better teacher - Per Elder Holland's instruction, I want to read my lessons at least a week early.
• Be a better visiting teacher.

Myself

• Exercise. I'm not necessarily going to set a weight goal or a specific workout schedule. My plan right now is to exercise every nightish before bed. I know the exercising at night thing doesn't work for everyone, but it really wears me out to exercise and it helps me sleep better at night.
• Blog more. Our poor, poor neglected blog. There are so many things that happen that get forgotten because I haven't been taking time to record them. My track record the last couple of months has only been once. No more! My goal is to blog at the very least once a week. I have some ideas of how I'm going to do this, but again....let's just see how it goes.

In order to accomplish my yearly goals, I've decided to set monthly goals. And, to keep me on track with my monthly goals, I decided to start a new blog to help me.  It'll be more like a journal, so if you want to read it you can, but I promise, it'll probably be completely boring and totally not worth reading. This way I won't clog this blog with all my goal setting and progress.

Happy New Year, everone!!!

Christmas

I think we've been so busy with life that it seems to be getting in the way of blogging! Here's what we did before and during Christmas:

Trimming the tree:

We always start out the season by decorating the Christmas tree, so December 1st, we did just that. It was really fun to watch Logan this year. He is just getting old enough that hauling out a big green tree with sparkly lights all over it was almost more excitement than he could take.

Next up was a visit with the big man:

Our ward had a Christmas party and they are always great about remembering to invite Santa. The kids were so excited!!!

 I have no idea what Bria asked for, but Santa must have gotten it right because I never heard any complaints! I always with that I could stand a little closer and listen in, but I think Bria would have been mad at me for intruding anyway.

Max cracks me up! He was so excited about getting on Santa's lap that when he actually got there, he couldn't even remember what he wanted to ask for!

Logan was a completely different story. He didn't want to see Santa at all. He didn't really cry, but he definitely wanted to get away. The only way we could get him to get even a little close was with the help of his big brother. I love this picture! There is such a contradiction between Max and Logan. And, Santa was a really good Santa.

The kids also got to sing on stage. Bria was extremely nervous and talked the whole day before about how she didn't know if she would even be able to get up and sing. They, of course, did a fabulous job!

 (Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Brittany for sharing your pictures with me! I would have been so sad if I missed out on pics!)

Winter

During Christmas, the kids also spent plenty of time enjoying making the best of the cold weather. Dave even helped them build their very first snowman!

Finally after all the waiting and anticipating,


Christmas Morning finally came!

We had balmy 39 degree weather, so the kids headed right outside to try out their new scooters

.

They spent the rest of the afternoon playing with their new toys.

It was a really nice and relaxing day! I do have to say that probably my most favorite gift were the adorable placemats that Bria made for the family. She spent days working very hard to make gifts for everyone and these are some that she made for the whole family.

I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone. We already have our tree down and life is starting to get back to normal. I wish the season lasted much longer!