San Fran, Shana’s and Museum

Although I go to San Fran all the time, my kids never get to go.  So we hopped in the car for a day trip to visit Shana & fam, as well as experience the California Academy of Sciences museum.  The museum was amazing…and would have been a lot better if half the country wasn’t there with us.  Shana said it was at least 100% busier than usual, due to the holidays. 

Lexi was on day 1 of her 2 days of eye patch/being a pirate and this first picture says it all.  She was less than thrilled about the experience!

 

 

There…got her to smile a bit…and Maren joined the picture.

 

 

Butterfly garden…penguins!

 

 

 

 

I’m not really sure how we got a pic with everyone looking semi-happy, but we did!

 

The we got to spend a few hours at Shana’s hanging out, and had sushi for dinner.  The girls always hear me talk about Maren and Hayden, so they were excited to come over and play.  After dinner, we all took a spin at Shana’s new Just Dance game.  It was so funny!  We even convinced (somehow!) Derek and Tucker to take a turn.  Too funny :-)

 

    

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s Signs!

Although I’ve been doing it for about two years, I “roped” my sister Lindy into my sign making business and we promoted it on Facebook for the Christmas season.  This resulted in around 140 orders in 6 weeks!  Needless to say, we were buuuussssy getting all the orders fulfilled in time for Christmas.  It was fun, challenging and hectic.  My house had sawdust and vinyl floating around non-stop.  I still don’t know how we got it all done, but we did and I’m trying to decide if I want to make another sign ever!

I really do love the creativity and challenge of the signs.  But I’m also feeling the pull between finishing my Master’s program and needing to focus on what that (and the future) entails.  Who knows where the road leads with this, but it’s been a fun ride and I’ve really learned a LOT in the process!  But for now, my vinyl cutter is sitting in the spare room cooling off :-), and I have no interest in touching it for at least another week!

 

Harmony Christmas 2011

Fit for a Magazine! Christmas Attire 2011

My mom has a talent, an eye, an obsession and a heart for coordinating outfits for the Holidays.  I love these dresses.  They are so classy!  Aren’t these pics straight out of a magazine!?

 

Christmas Caroling

This year it was harder for me to feel the Magic of Christmas like I always hope to.  I think part of it was finishing the semester of school (for me) and end of year festivities (for the kids) PLUS the 140 sign orders Lindy and I fulfilled – it just felt so busy and FAST.  So when the mom of one of Lexi’s friends from school (Charlienne Emmerson) called to invite us to go caroling with a group…I had no good reason to say no and decided it would be a good thing for us to do.  I tend to be a home-body and would have preferred staying at home in the warmth and in my comfort zone. But I’ve learned that those are precisely the best times for me to push myself outside of that comfort zone- and it usually pays off.

So we met in a parking lot with a few other random families from Kingsburg – some we knew, some we didn’t (no one from church) and drove to various houses around town (some relatives of people, a principal, and then an Retirement Center) and sang for about an hour and a half.  The kids had a BLAST and it was so fun to bring people some Christmas cheer. 

 

Christmas Morning 2011

Christmas morning this year was on a Sunday – which added an interesting time element to the day.  We were excited that church was only going to be one hour…but it was still feeling like a challenge to enjoy our Christmas morning AND get to church by 10:00.  A challenge…and a blessing because we got an extra dose of the “real” meaning of Christmas with beautiful talks and music.

 

Our Christmas was a great mix of LOTS of blessings…but not overboard.  They seem to genuinely care about all of their things and have had fun playing with them. They also got a karaoke machine from Grandma, which has been a GREAT hit.  And I got a gift certificate for a facial from Lindy – which I can’t wait to use!

 

Anyway, the kids were all up around 7:30 and we headed out to the living room for our magical morning.

(the dresses all ready to go!)

 

 

Santa brought our family a desktop computer – which is great since we’ve been sharing mom and dad’s laptops!

Jordyn’s slip on Jazz shoes she’s been begging for!

 

 

Cute owl pillows from mom (I traded signs for these cute hand made pillows)

 

Peyton was confused when she opened an American Girl Doll outfit…until she opened the doll too!  This is her look-alike doll whom she named “Emmi”!  This is also a cheesy picture of me in the new hat Tucker got me.  It’s reversible!

Lexi got glasses for her AG doll!  And this is Jordyn opening the home-made annual gift of Jammies from Gam!!

Lexi is holding up the Pajama Pillow Gam made to hold those cute pajamas!   Tucker got me lots of Bath & Body Works!

Lately, my girls have had an interest in hot chocolte…and we’ve realized that we don’t have any mugs!  Strange!  So I got everyone their own.  And here is our Elfie on his last day with us.

Jordyn got me a candle from her “Santa’s Secret Shop” at school…and Lexi got me this diamond ring.  They know their mom!

 

Pey with “Emmi”. 

 

This year, our girls were very interesting in electronics and of course mentioned iPod touches on their list of wants.  So we made a compromise…we spiced up their current MP3 players with new songs/videos and then bought them these AWESOME speakers (the white thing below) and new headphones that actually stay on their head… and this gave them a re-newed interest in their old MP3 players!  Jordyn got Tucker’s old iPod Classic – which is 60G so it holds A TON of photos, songs and movies…and she seems quite happy with this recycled gift!  I just felt that this was a great compromise and reminded them that we have iPhones and an iPad they can borrow for games…and don’t “need” their own.  I just really don’t want a family who is 100% buried in electronics if I can help it!

 

And here the girls are in Gam’s Jammies – so cute!  It’s amazing to me that she does this every year for all the grandchildren!  So much sewing and love!

 

Peyton with her cousin gift from Emmi (her 15 year old cousin whom she is obsessed with).  She got a framed picture and a unicorn pillow pet!

 

Oh – and somehow we were only 15 minutes late for church ;-)