Has it Really Been a Whole Year?

I can't believe my baby is one already. In between all the festivities we managed to cram a quick birthday party in. Poor December baby.

What's Been Happening

We celebrated David's 33 birthday. He got all kinds of new BYU paraphernalia which he used when he went to the New Mexico Bowl. Go Cougars!



We played "Pretty, Pretty Princess" with Grandpa and he was the prettiest princess of all. We love having them so close.

We had Thanksgiving with a lovely family in our ward.

We went on a marathon car trip.

First visiting our friends in Phoenix. The Mesa temple was so beautiful. We made all the girls pose in the cactus garden. I love the look on Ambrey's face. She was not happy about standing by the cactus. We ended our lovely visit of the temple by swiping a few lemons, oranges and kumquats from the trees on the grounds. (Hell table for 1)

We stayed a night in Las Vegas. As we were driving in Tabitha says "Mom, I've just seen three inappropriate things." Despite the inappropriate things we had fun.


After stopping in Salt Lake for a few days we continued up to Idaho Falls to go to my niece Ashley's wedding. She looked gorgeous and even though it was freezing cold and E.V. was sick, we had a great time.


My nephew Nick and I trained my girls on the finer points of decorating the newlywed's car.


Two days after coming back Tabitha was in her school's spelling bee. She did great tying for 4th place. I swear the words are getting harder than when I was in it. Tabitha went out on the word "Lugubrious". When I was in a spelling bee I went out on the word "Couch".

EV

Here's a couple pictures to make up for the fact that I didn't take any pictures of EV on Halloween.

Halloween

And the costumes for this Halloween are...

A Gypsy

Barbie

And the winner is Fancy Nancy. This was also by far the easiest costume since most days Charlotte is dressed like Fancy Nancy anyway.

There aren't any pictures of the baby or me since I was in charge of the ward Halloween party. We did The Wizard of Oz again so most of you have already seen me as Dorothy. EV made the cutest Toto ever but I didn't have time to photograph her either.

Ellie's Baptism/Richard's Visit

OK I am a little behind, but a while ago we baptized Ellie. My brother Richard and his family came down for it and brought my mom with them. We had such a great time.

We visited Santa Fe and ate at the Shed.

The tres amigos. My brother and his two boys.

Ellie's Baptism




Ellie in her new dress. And no I am not beating her. One of the kids in her gym class mistook her head for a tennis ball and smacked her in the face with a racket.

The favorite toy of the weekend was definitely E.V. I think my nieces would have happily stuffed her in their suitcase and taken her home.

10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today we were in the hospital holding a beautiful new baby girl and talking to the nurses about how cool her 10th birthday would be on 10/10/10. I can hardly believe that ten years have come and gone. But I am so grateful that we have our beautiful girl Tabitha.

Last night we had her fabulous birthday party.




There was a lot of singing and dancing and general silliness.




David made her this fabulous ice cream cake. I added the relighting candles which never cease to make me laugh.

I love that she still gets this excited over a doll. It makes me feel like she might stay a little girl for a few more years.

David and I decorated her room for her birthday. She was so excited. She hasn't wanted to leave her room all day.




E.V. was our very willing clean up crew.

Laundry

I had so much help doing the laundry today.

I would love to say those were clean undies she managed to get around her neck.

No this isn't some new modern art this is what I found in Ellie's pocket. Can someone explain to me why you need 29 Silly Bandz in your pocket? Or why an elastic band shaped like a fish is so exciting?

Charlotte's Antics

The other day we sent Charlotte upstairs to tidy the TV room. Twenty minutes later we went up to check on her. This is what we found.

Does it look like she has picked up one thing? How can you be so exhausted from doing nothing?

This is how she came downstairs dressed for playgroup. Fancy Nancy doesn't have anything on this girl. At least we are never bored.

Happy Birthday Ellie

This past weekend we celebrated Ellie's Birthday in style with a spa party. The girls soaked their feet in my tub then I did glitter toes on them followed by face painting and glittered hair. Sadly there are no pictures of that part of the party since...wait, I don't need to explain why there are no pictures. I think that is pretty self explanatory.




The girls then had quesadillas and pina coladas. Followed by Ellie's favorite German Shepherd cake. (No German Shepherds were harmed in the making of this cake)




She got spoiled with too many presents. The day was perfect.

Well, almost.

I Hate...Hate.

Now most of you know that I would sooner run bare foot over broken glass than discuss politics. And I am the first to admit that my knowledge of politics is very, very limited. I know nothing about the candidates and I know nothing about the issues. I am though trying to educate myself and turn around my ignorance. But the more I seem to learn the less I like. And what I don't like is the hatefulness on both sides. I don't like how each side is determined to demonize the other. I think its unproductive and completely unChristlike.

Like Elder Quentin L. Cook said in his talk entitled We Follow Jesus Christ "I invite each one of us individually to recognize that how we disagree is a real measure of who we are and whether we truly follow the Savior. It is appropriate to disagree, but it is not appropriate to be disagreeable."

I think we all need to take a deep breathe, reevaluate our actions, and consider carefully the things we are going to say or email before we say them or push send.

Jon Stewart from Comedy Central is hosting a rally called Rally to Restore Sanity. And although I disagree with Jon Stewart on many things this I support completely. I love the signs suggested for the rally like -- "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler" or -- "I'm not afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun Owners or Gays ... but I am scared of spiders." but my favorite is -- "Take it Down a Notch For America".

So I challenge all my friends out there to find a happy place. To be politically active but to do it in a respectful manner. Like the columnist John Renesch said in his commentary entitled Ideological Bigotry: Are you part of the problem? "Join me in ending the cycles of incivilities, negativity, disrespect, and insulting sarcasms. Take a stand against engaging in conversations or e-mail exchanges that perpetuate these cycles and take us all down to lower levels of human relationships.

Stop listening to it; stop repeating it; stop encouraging this pattern of divisiveness. Instead of spouting our opinions and preaching to those in our silo, let's reach out to those who have different viewpoints. Nothing will change unless we do."

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

"But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden, and squeezed under the gate! "

Our version of Peter Rabbit goes a little different. In our story Peter, who still is very naughty squeezes under our garage door and not our garden gate. And in our version instead of being trapped by a cat he was trapped by Tabitha, David and I. Of course Peter being very quick and cunning did not go down without a fight. The three of us spent the better part of Sunday morning chasing the cheeky little rabbit around the garage. My favorite part of our story is when Tabitha and I chased him over by David. David, though did not see him. Finally David noticed Peter right on his foot and proceeded to scream like a little girl. At long last we were able to trap Peter in a tall box.

Now no worries our story has a happy ending. No it doesn't end with me baking Peter into a pie like his unfortunate father, or by us making Hasenfeffer (for you Bugs Bunny fans). It ends with David gently placing the box in the back of his car and driving out on the desert and returning Peter to Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and dear Mrs. Rabbit.

Family Reunion Round 2

My family reunion was in Brighton. Mom rented a huge cabin for us and we had a great time. My cousin Ruth-Ann, her husband and two kids were visiting from the Netherlands. Which was wonderful.

Even my Mom's forced family history lesson wasn't that painful.

We hiked to Doughnut Falls. Here is my niece Lexi being true to herself.





These are my two older brothers firing pop bottle rockets David made. This isn't the most flattering photo of them. Just pretend you can't see their bald spots.

The pool table was by far everyone's favorite, everyone except Charlotte. She found it so boring it put her right to sleep.

Family Reunion Round 1

David's family reunion was first. We spent a weekend camping at Cherry Hill. I say we but lets be honest. I'm a funsucking party-pooper who would rather have a root canal without anesthesia than camp. So David and the girls camped and I slept at my Mom's house with the baby. I know I'm a total loser. No need to remind me.

We did have a great time at Cherry Hill (during the day)




One of the evenings we had a Pinewood Derby. David spent like 12 hours making his and the girls cars. I thought only the dad's would have fun but the kids loved it.

Anyone want to venture a guess which car is mine?

We had a great time and it was wonderful to see everyone. And just in case your ever with your family and find yourself thinking "Wow its noisy". I'd like to leave you with this thought to ponder. There were 19 children under the age of 9. 10 of which were under the age of 3. I think my ears are still ringing.