Weekend camping trip

Over the Holiday weekend, Willie took the kids to St. George, Grand Canyon, Paria, and Bryce. It was 60 Degrees in St. George and below 30 in Bryce.





As always the kids had fun exploring and hiking around. Aspen got the nick name "Pin head Larry" because she always wears her hat funny.



Here, Willie let Sacoya drive for the first time out on a dirt road to no where. Scary, I know.



And of course the famous muddy truck, that is still sitting muddy in our garage.

I wish I was TWO

Need I say more!

Meet Scary!

This is scary. He was given to Ridge by his Aunt Marin and Uncle Chris.




This was Ridges Face when he opened it and turned it on.




He absolutely wanted nothing to do with it. In fact he cried if it was even in the same room. we had to hide it so he could sleep that night.


Fast forward three days, now when he wakes up, he says scary. He eats with it,




Plays with it,




and even shares his bink with it. But his name is still scary, and once in a while he gets that look again, and I remind him that scary is nice.




O the things we do to our kids, no wonder we all need therapy when we grow up!

Happy Birthday Dad

Happy Birthday to my Dad. His birthday was yesterday but I'm a dork and forgot to post. To make up for it I posted a picture of him from 40+ years ago, and he still looks the same. He's even wearing the same colors!! I'm glad I've got his genes. Love you.

I'm Two!

Happy Birthday to our little Ridge! He is two years old today.



Some of his favorites right now:

Mickey Mouse

Trucks

Mom

Bink (pacifier)

night night (thank goodness he loves to go to bed)

Playing in the snow

We are so grateful for our baby Ridge He has added the spice our family needed. We love you.

Keepin it real

This is a scrapbook page I recently finished for my own personal book, and in an attempt to keep things real, i thought i would share it. I'm so thankful for a new year, for a fresh outlook, to be so richly blessed by our loving Heavenly Father.




When you love yourself, you:

get up early and exercise

take a bath

listen to the spirit

paint your fingernails

pray more

drink less caffeine

call your friends

eat more healthy

don’t feel guilty

read your scriptures often

use the crafts you buy

smile more

2008 was a really hard year for me emotionally, and spiritually. i feel run down, i feel sad, and lonely. i’ve lost the sparkle that makes me, well me. for 2009 rather than make New Year’s resolutions that never seem to stick, i want to learn to love myself. right now that’s the best thing i can do for myself and for my family.

Christmas Joy (and messes)

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! What a blessing it is we can celebrate our Savior's birth in such abundance. We are very blessed.

And I love everything about Christmas, except this:




Why does it always look like a tornado went through the house?

Christmas Nativity

Things here at our house usually start to get a little crazy right before Christmas. Kids start to get a little anxious for the upcoming Holiday and I start to wonder if they will ever stop counting the days on the calendar 60 times an hour, or shaking presents in hope of actually figuring out what's inside. So in honor of the true meaning of Christmas, I thought i'd share some of our creativity and the fact that they (our children) really do care that we are celebrating the birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.



Sara's version of the Nativity, it doesn't get any better than this.



Willies version of the Nativity, ok his is better!



Sacoya's version of the Nativity, miss high tech of the family.



Canyon's version of the Nativity, we're still working on him!



Aspen's version of the Nativity, yes, she gets her creative genius from me. (Willie has nothing to do with it, i swear!)

Good friends

Last week I hosted a lunch and gift exchange. It was such good therapy for me as I am really missing all my friends and old ward members. It seems like when someone moves, memories of them slowly fade away and you almost never stay in touch. And I suppose that's the way it's suppose to be, you form new friendships and bonds. But if you know me, I'm a people person and a little resistant to change. I like to keep the things that are important to me. If you didn't make it, I missed you and if you didn't get an invite, I still miss you. We had a great time, and of course I forgot to take pictures until the last second, so some of you had already left. Thank you for coming and filling up my friendship bucket. I truly treasure all of you.

Welcome to Winter

Before we went to bed last night, I talked Willie into turning off the heater on the driveway. It's kinda noisy and channel 4 news said the snow was pretty much done for the night. Well as you can see, they were wrong! We have about 8 new inches and it's still coming down. I couldn't tell were the front walkway was. And guess who gets to shovel the driveway, yep little ol me. Does anyone have a snow plow I can borrow?



It's hard to tell but I would say it's about a foot tall on the mail box. Aspen was afraid we wouldn't have any snow for Christmas, but it looks like it's here to stay.

Oh Deer!

We have lots of deer running through the yard here, it's fun to see them so close. This guy was in the field across the street. The other day there was one walking down our road while we were driving away, and he leaped the fence, I didn't think he was going to make it, but of course he did, and very gracefully too!

Festival of trees

Willies brothers Tom, Treavor and Richard put together this tree for the annual "Festival of Trees" in Salt Lake City that benefits Primary Children's hospital. Needless to say it raised an amazing amount of money and was the hit of the festival. Willie also donated 2 of his photographs with it. This picture hardly does it justice, but you can see the video here: