Merry Christmas All!!

Merry Christmas to you all!
May your Christmas season be filled with delicious treats from neighbors who keep their kitchens spotlessly clean, and angelic children who clean up after themselves and always tell you what wonderful parents you truly are.

We love you all and wish this Christmas found us all closer together (but not close enough to smell what you're cooking or hear what you're doing late at night).

December VT message AND a little XOXO too

Here's the VT message for December!

(You can find Almond Joy candy bars right now in Christmas colors...I should have told Jon that before I sent him out on my errand. Oops!)

I really wanted to tie the handout into the Christmas season so I dug up the one Christmas-y word in the whole message 'JOY' and went with it. I found cute little ornaments at a fun little decorating store (Scrooge and Marley's in Lehi) for $1 a piece. The label reads, "Share the joy of temple work this season". The back of the label has the following quote and scripture:

"There are personal blessings you receive as a result of participation in temple and family history work. One of these is the joy that you feel as you serve your ancestors. Another is that you are able to qualify for a temple recommend, which signifies your worthiness before the Lord." -Julie B. Beck, Relief Society General President

D&C 128:24 "...Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation."

So here's the thing: I created PDF files of these, and even uploaded them to google docs so I could share with any of you who might want them. The problem is google docs isn't recognizing one of my fonts and I have no idea what is going on! So, if you want the PDF file please leave your email in my comments and I will email it to you personally. We'll see if your computer will recognize the font. I don't know what's up with that. I thought that's what a PDF file was all about, but whatever. We can do it old school. You could also try saving one of these images, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to get them to the right size.

CRAFTY THING NUMBER 2 (can it be??)

I also made this knock-off version of a very cute neighbor gift I scouted out on another website called meckmom.com. I thought her idea was so super cute, but I wanted it for Christmas, not for thank yous so...I made my own. Bare in mind I'm an amatuer so it may be a little rough around the edges, but it gets the job done.

Mine is a fun Christmas-y version of this:

You can download the PDF HERE

Here's some quick instructions to get you on your way to a hopefully cute little gift for your friends around the neighborhood

Step 1: Gather your supplies-
To make these you'll need a 3/4" round paper punch and a 2" round paper punch...or a lot of patience to cut them all out by hand. You'll also need a small canning jar with a 2" wide lid. And last but, but definitely most importantly you'll need bags of Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Hugs.

Step 2: Fill the jar-
Cut the paper into strips and use your punch to crop all the labels. The circles printed are a little larger than 3/4" to make it a little easier. Place the punched labels on the hugs and kisses using glue dots (glue sticks would work just fine, and be more economical if you have a lot of neighbors to give to) and fill the jar. It will take about 30 kisses to fill a small jar.

Step 3: Label and Tag
Crop the 2" round label with a punch or with scissors and affix it to the top of the canning jar. Trim the tag and sign your family's name at the bottom of the note. Tie it to the jar with a fun Christmas ribbon and you're ready to start the rounds.

Let me know what you think! And MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The First Dance Recital (sans pictures)

My sweet little pip-squeak had her first dance recital this week. She was ADORABLE and totally the best dancer (what?) out there. The morning of, I got up and charged the video camera because the battery drains so quickly. I so thought I had it all together. Now six o'clock is fast approaching: I grab the video camera, and pick up my little Nikon. But alas, the battery in my point and shoot is dead! What do I do? We filmed the whole thing but no pics for the blog or the scrapbook. Sigh. You'll have to take my word for it, she was to DIE for! But, sadly, it takes way to many man hours to convert our video to a blogger-approved format. At least that's what Jon says. I don't know anything about it aside from the fact that our video editing program bites. So, here I am telling you I have adorable footage of my sweet baby, who is growing up entirely too quickly for my liking, prancing around in her first-ever dance recital. Remembering all her little steps and shuffle-kicks and keeping her little smile on the entire time. She even remembered her "pose" at the end. I couldn't stop smiling. And my little guy clapped and cheered at the end for her, just as a great big brother should...and I didn't even coach him to do it. I couldn't have been prouder. A big THANK YOU to our Papa George, Grandma Debbie, and Great-Grandma Lewis who all came for the show. We have plenty of camera phone pictures, but let's face it, they suck so I'll let you close your eyes and imagine the innocence and sweetness that envelopes my almost-always angel. Well at least 85% of the time she has a 77% chance of being mostly angelic. And that's a fact.

I'm feeling so digitally crafty...

A few days ago I put together this little VT gift.
Sorry the pictures in this post aren't too great. For some reason I can't get photoshop to open so I couldn't brighten them up at all.

The Ensign for this month didn't have a Visiting Teaching message. It was all about temples. So...I knew what I wanted to give my sisters, but how to connect it to the temple...

The bag is full of tulip bulbs and floral grass. I thought that flower on the front was so cute! It's a magnet, and it's metal. Super, super cute! The bag I love because it has the window, but it's also self closing. It rolls on the top and has a metal strip to fold around the edges. It's kind of like a really cute airsickness bag...with a window. Hopefully I filled it with something a little more attractive. On the front the tag says, "How to grow your temple knowledge" and has three steps that start with Dig, Plant, and Cover. The back of the tag says, "How to grow your Tulips" and has the obvious steps for planting bulbs. These steps also start with Dig, Plant, and Cover. There is a second little card with a quote on temples that I pulled from the Ensign.

Now don't have a brain aneurysm trying to wrap yourself around this concept, but I actually did a November VT gift as well! Maybe I'm starting a trend...or maybe I spent a long day on the couch with a very sick pip-squeak. Either way, I have a November VT gift too.

Voila!

For Nov. there isn't a visiting teaching message either because the Ensign is the conference edition. So I picked a talk by President Monson on Gratitude. The "scrolls" you see are the quotes I pulled from the talk. He told a great story about gratitude so I had to include that and then there were just so many great things to choose from. Really it turned out to be half the talk, but whatever. I took a large can of canned pumpkin and created a new label for it. I wish I would have had legal sized paper so it could fit all the way around. There is like a 1/2" gap in the bag. grr... The new label says, "Gratitude, like appetite, is contagious. So bake up a pumpkin pie and share a little of both." On the back it has a little note that says, "With [heart] from your Visiting Teachers" hmmm...the [heart] is supposed to tell you that there is an actual heart there, did you get it? So it really means with love. Aw, tender.

Is appetite contagious? Probably not for most of you but I can catch it with the right group of people.

So there it is! I'm tootin' my own horn. Woot! Woot! I'm having fun with this and I might just have to keep it up. After all, if my new Visiting Teachees get used to the creativity I'm gonna feel obligated.

ARE YOU READY FOR A BLOG POST?

So, there hasn't been much to talk about over the last month...until now! We just got back from a great family vaca to Disneyland! Hooray for Disneyland! I know I am too old to love it but I do (in a strictly never wear the merchandise 'cause I'm too old kind of way). So for all of you dying to now the play by play here it is!

Waiting to go into the park the first day in their fun

Halloween costumes. It's gonna be a good day! We love coming to Disney when it's not crowded. It looks like there were a lot of people in line but we didn't wait for more than 10 minutes to get on any ride and most of them we walked right on. Someone needs to explain to me why Peter Pan always has a line. Really, it makes no sense to me!













The Little Guy got picked to be a part of the Jedi Training Academy. He was thrilled! If you aren't familiar with the Jedi Training Academy then shame on you. Just kidding, it's just a little show they put on where they teach the kids to fight with light sabers and then let them battle with Darth Vader or Darth Mal. In this case Preston got the spiky-headed, red-faced guy who all of you with little boys know is Darth Mal. He was thrilled! But once he got up there SOOOO serious. I couldn't get him to smile for anything. That little jedi was focused!


After Jedi training my pip-squeak got to meet some princesses. You would think she never wanted to in the first place by the way she acted in front of them. Finally we got her to pose with Cinderella by herself. P.S. my cinderella was totally cuter and even had on the glass (a.k.a. plastic jelly) slippers. This Cinderella had on silver shoes. What??

My pip-squeak LOVED the roller coasters. If she would have been just a half an inch taller then a whole new world of roller coaster fun would have been opened up to her. Oh well, next time. This time we got to ride the gadget go-coaster 12 times. yay...

We got rained on.


But we didn't really care.

This ride made him cry for mercy...
...and her squeal with joy.

We had breakfast...

...with this guy.......... ...and this guy...

... and this one.............................. ...and her.

Lots of fun was had by all and in the 6 days we were gone 231 more picture were taken...

To spare you the agony I've condensed the last two days of our trip into this 50 word blip:

Kids loved Sea World (whales, dolphins, polar bears, otters) parents thought it wasn't worth all the money they charge. San Diego Zoo was awesome as always; saw a hippo smile. Days Inn in San Diego had a bug and sick SICK tub. Complained, left early, got money back. Happy ending.





Want to go back soon.

A New Shade of Green

This last week I decided our door needed a little face lift. The pain on the trim was starting to peel and so a perfect excuse was created. What do you think??

It used to be white, but as I am not in the habit of taking pictures of my front door I couldn't find a great comparison picture. Last Halloween was the best I could do. Don't mind the Jedi and the witch...

...but aren't they the cutest ever?!

I really love it so if you love it too let me know. And if you don't...tell me you love it anyway and make my day!

The Summit and The Princess Party

Jon hiked to the tippy top of Timp last Saturday with the Young Men in our ward. (He's the Teacher's Quorum Advisor.)

He hadn't done it in over 12 years. So how'd he fare? He came home and iced his knee and his shoulder poor old man!

My little Pip-squeak was invited to her first ever birthday party! A Princess Birthday Tea. She could not have been more thrilled! When the invite came she just HAD to bring it to bed with her and the next day it was put in her school bag and displayed at show-and-tel. She came home with some great "presents", a.k.a. party favors, herself! Thanks Darcelle for creating such an adorable party for your little princess and all her guests! It was perfect.

Family Picture Time

It's been almost two whole years since we had our family pictures taken! I loved our last ones so much that I didn't want to take them down and put up knew ones. These turned out great and were taken by an old "village friend" from our U days in student housing. Thank Sarah for trekking down to Saratoga Springs to take these pictures! (If you want to check her out click here) She took them right in our own neighborhood which I love! Tell me what you think.

My two favorite people in the whole wide world!!

Jon's not a fan of this picture but I love that they are all together and looking nice...that doesn't happen very often!

Doesn't he have the BEST eyes!

There's another new post below so keep scrolling...

And Now, To DANCE

My little pip-squeak is the cutest thing on the planet if you ask me. But I was beside myself with giddiness with her all dressed up and ready to go to her first dance class!
Who knew ballet buns and dance shoes could be so much fun!

She absolutely loved it and the best part is she has two little friends in the same class. We have a great neighbor in our ward who has a studio in her house. She was so cute with the kids and my shy little pip-squeak was flitting around like a butterfly, a leaf and whatever else she was supposed to be in no time at all.
I have to admit I'm a little sad that she is getting so big, but it's exciting to get all this fun stuff started! Today while she was at preschool I was getting pretty lonely in such a quiet house. I think that pre-school two days a week is all I can handle for now without going through withdrawals.

The First for the Last

Off to the first day of pre-school! A little shy, as usual, but excited to go to the same school her big brother went to a couple of years ago. Doesn't she look big!?
I've been telling her all week that pre-school will be like nursery at church: She'll go and have fun for a couple of hours and then I'll be right there to pick her up and bring her home. This morning she was ADAMANT that she wear a dress to school today just like she wears one to nursery. We'll see how long this dressing-up-for-school thing lasts.
p.s. the pictures are bad because, being the awesome mother that I am, I let the camera battery die and forgot to charge it before the big day! Thus, the phone pics.

BACK TO SCHOOOOOL!

First day of Second grade! Can you believe it? My little guy (I feel like I need to come up with a new name for him) is at a new school, yet again. He'll now be a Lakeview Lion. I've been trying to get him into this charter school since Kindergarten and was really excited when I got the call late last week to tell me there was a spot for him if we still wanted it. The only problem...school started in less then a week. It took some extraordinary shopping skills to hunt down all the uniform pieces (did I mention he has a uniform) in his size before the start of school. Several stores later I did it. When I dropped him off at school this morning I asked him if I could take his picture. He agreed but ONLY if I stayed in the car to take it...Heaven forbid I cramp his style on the first day! I LOVE this guy and can't wait to pick him up!

On a side note, only relating by the events of the pictures, check out our yard one year later!

First day of First grade....................First day of Second grade

Summer Fun

The last week of summer vacation is here. My little guy will be a second-grader at a new school (yet again). I've been trying to get him into the charter school since Kindergarten. Pretty much I had given up. I signed up to help with student of the month with the PTA at the public school and everything. But Wednesday I got a call saying there was a space for him. So goodbye Saratoga Shores and hello Lake View Academy. As if that's not enough, my sweet little baby girl is off to her first day of Preschool in two weeks. I can't believe it! She is so excited! New shoes are waiting in her closet and she already knows what she wants to wear on her first day. Is she totally a girly-girl or what?

Over the summer I tried to bring the kids to do something educational every week. We went to the library and checked out books about the things we were going to be doing over the next month. Then, after we read about them, we would go and do something fun with what we learned. OK, we slipped in a few non-educational fun things too, but they had a lot of fun and hopefully the little guy kept his brain thinking over the holiday.

I've been super horrible at bringing my camera everywhere we went but we had a lot of fun. Aviary, Zoo, Aquarium, This Is The Place Heritage Park, Seven Peaks Water Park, Hike to Stewart Falls, Hike to Donut Falls, Natural History Museum, Wheeler Farm, Thanksgiving Point Gardens, movies, and other stuff I'm forgetting. Not to mention the, at least, 25 times we been to the swimming pool. This list is mostly so I can use it as reference when the little guy says something like, "We didn't do anything cool this summer."

Here are a few pictures from the cell phone that couldn't command their own blogpost.

The kids had a ton of fun at seen peaks. I haven't been there probably 12 years and was frankly a little sicked out and scared of athlete's foot and pools full of pee. Just kept telling myself, look how much fun the kids are having, look how much fun the kids are having

Is this a chicken or a rooster? I don't know but it didn't like the kids all up in its space!

Did you know that feeding ducks/geese gives Jon the creeps? Good thing he wasn't here.

"Farmers have the coolest cars."