A Christmas gift... from me to you!

This is hilarious! It just gets funnier every time I watch it. 

(All of you Twilight fans will especially love it.)

Merry Christmas!!

Stringtown Polar Express

Remember the fun Nightmare Express Train my brother did for Halloween? Well, each Christmas they turn it into the Polar Express!! The train runs every evening for a week and during the day for school field trips and other groups. You must have an appointment and they already have almost 6,000 reservations for this year. The bad news: they are totally booked. The Good news: I was able to snag a "school field trip" time slot for me and all of my friends. So... come join me on Monday, December 15th from 9:00-10:00 am. The ride takes about 20 minutes and includes a visit to the North Pole with Santa Claus!! And it's free. I can fit 90 people in the hour so please feel free to invite you friends and family to join you. I do need to know for sure who is coming and you can let me know via email, phone call, facebook, or by leaving a comment here. I need to know exactly how many people you are bringing and what time slot you would like: 9:00, 9:08, 9:16, 9:24, 9:32, 9:40, or 9:48 (see below). I'd like to fill the later slots first because we are the first group of the day and then they won't have to start as early. Each train can hold 12-15 riders- depending on how many are "lap babies". I'll confirm with you that I got your message and I will have to say 1st to contact me is first served, as I'm sure the slots will fill up fast. Please be a few minutes early so we can stay on schedule as there is a very large group after us. There is a warm place for you to wait for your ride. Bundle up because it's supposed to be a snowy day... but that will make the ride that much better! If you would like a little more information you can visit their website here.  It explains it in great detail and even has pictures!! Oh yeah... don't forget your camera. Please feel free to pass this info along to anyone!

9:00 open

9:08 open

9:16 open

9:24 open

9:32 Taylor (3), Carrick (3), Peterson (2), Johnston (2+1 baby), Stowe (3+1) Full!

9:40 Parker (5), Johnston friend (2+1), Wilcox (3+1)  can fit 2-3 more

9:48 Ward (2+1 baby), Day (5+1), Browning (5) Full!

How lucky am I?

My sister-in-law turned the big 4-0 last month! Her husband decided to surprise her with a weekend retreat at a lovely bed and breakfast/spa in wine country where the only thing on the agenda was to scrapbook. But, she obviously couldn't do this fun activity alone, right? So I was the very lucky person chosen to benefit from her aging! He flew me out there and I had a wonderful weekend scrapbooking, napping, shopping, eating great food and lots of Icee's and visiting with one of my very favorite people! It was a wonderful break in the middle of my crazy month and I am grateful to Traci for getting so old and Rich for including me in the fun!

Testing...

This will be a post with really cute pictures of Coleman, but for now I'm just making sure that nice young man at apple knew what he was talking about.Yeah... here's the picture so it worked... look for more after bedtime tonight!

Yeah!!

I finally figured out what the problem is. I WAS right... it has something to do with the new software I installed. I got a hold of a very nice young man at apple tech support who told me a bunch of stuff about leopards and tigers that I didn't understand... BUT we fixed the problem (which really wasn't a problem, just me not knowing how to use the new software). I love apple tech support -and visiting the genius bar too- and plan on doing A TON of blogging tonight! (Crossing fingers that the kids will cooperate and go to bed on time)

You are not going to believe this...

Here I sit. The kids are all asleep. It's the first night I'm not too exhausted to stay up and blog. I just edited a whole bunch of pictures. AND MY COMPUTER IS FREAKING OUT! For some reason I can not get the pictures from Iphoto into my blog. I think it has something to do with the new software I put on a couple weeks ago. Whatever it is, my computer fix it guy (aka Chris) is out of town so there is nothing I can do about it. I am so bummed. I was so ready to finally get caught up and do some blogging. ARGHHH!

Whirlwind... and lessons learned

Whirlwind is the only word that can truly describe the last 3 weeks of my life. Here's a brief recap... I'll include the details as I post the events.

Sunday, October 12th Chris leaves town to write in peace and quiet for a few days... has no cell phone service. 

Monday, October 13th I get word that my grandfather is dying.

Wednesday, October 15th I jump on a plane to go be with my grandpa. I take the baby with me but leave my kids with in-laws in the hopes that Chris can come retrieve them soon (remember, no cell phone, he has no idea I'm heading to California!) He gets the message late Wednesday night and is able to get the kids Thursday morning.

October 15-19 I help care for my grandpa in California while Chris take the kids on our already planned Fall Break vacation.

October 20th I fly back to Utah and we go straight to Gardener's Village for FHE with Chris' family. 

After being home less than 48 hours I get back on a plane to Northern California to help my sister-in-law Traci celebrate her 4oth birthday. Chris is home alone with the kids again. While visiting my sister-in-law, my grandfather passes away. Chris cancels his trip for the next week and we start making plans to go to the funeral. I fly home Saturday afternoon and we head out that night to see HSM 3 with all the Higbee's (2 of our nephews were featured dancers in it). 

Monday, October 27th, after being home a mere day and a half,  we jump in the car and drive to California and go straight to my grandma's house. The funeral was Tuesday and we drove home on Wednesday. (more details to come). Thursday my mom and grandmother arrived to stay with me. Friday was Halloween, Saturday we had another service for my grandfather, Sunday we blessed Coleman and had 45 people over for brunch and Chris left early Monday morning for a week in NYC!

Madness! I meant to start catching up on everything (including my blog) first thing Monday morning, but I slept most of the day instead (I guess you could call that catching up... I sure needed it!) and Tuesday I was glued to the election results! So, now I think I really am ready to start catching up! Wednesday's the day... laundry, bills, email, phone calls, cleaning, blogging... it's all gonna get done in the next few days.

So, what were the lessons learned? Here goes...

1. The importance of family. Loved being with so many loved ones while caring for and celebrating my sweet grandpa. 

2. That my husband may be a better homemaker than I am. My house was SO clean and I know they ate better than they do when I'm in charge of cooking!

3. That Halloween will still come even if you don't decorate, buy and carve pumpkins and 3 out of 4 kids are wearing costumes from previous years.

4. That I can have 45 people over without cleaning my house and they will still love me... because they love me.

5. That even though Chris didn't keep my drawers and closets as organized as I would like (how could he... I'm a little anal about it and he doesn't really know my "systems"... because I don't really tell him) my family is still healthy and happy and the house looks great. I'm feeling like I can maybe be a little less anal about things!

So that's it. It's been a month of learning and growth for me and I am so grateful for it. Hopefully now I can really start catching up on things... as you can see I have a lot to blog about! 

On the Road Again

We are heading to California tomorrow morning to attend the funeral of my sweet grandpa. We get back Thursday, Friday is Halloween, Saturday is a memorial service here in Utah, and Sunday we are blessing Coleman at church. I'm looking forward to a week with family and friends and honoring someone I love very much, Halloween is sure to be a blast, and the weekend will be great! Next Monday I'll really start the blog catch-up... after a big long nap. It's been a very interesting month (to say the least) and I can't wait to share pictures and stories with you all. See you then and have a GREAT week!

MIA

Life is crazy right now. I flew in yesterday from Southern California where I spent 5 days helping to care for my terminally ill grandfather. After being home less than 48 hours I fly to Northern California tomorrow to help my sister-in-law (and one of my favorite people) celebrate her 40th birthday. AND there may or may not be a funeral this weekend. In between I'm trying to stay on top of life here at home and do as much as I can to make things smoother for Chris, who will have played "single dad" for almost 2 weeks by the time this is all done. So... no blogging for now. When things calm down next week I'll play catch-up. Check back then for lots of fun stuff!

Calling all Jason Mraz fans!

I love Jason Mraz! In fact, I loved him before he was cool. I'm a long time fan. Well, he's coming to the E Center! Yay for me. Cassidy and I want to go and are inviting any of you to join us. The more the merrier. And, get this, the tickets are only 32.50! What a steal for what's sure to be a great show. Tickets have been on sale for a while though (we're a little slow... new baby... you know) so we have to act fast. If you're in let me know by this Sunday night and we're gonna get tickets first thing Monday morning. Hope you can join us! (In honor of him coming... and hopefully to inspire you to join us... I am playing only Jason Mraz songs on my blog for your listening pleasure!)

Why I love BYU Football...

It gives me time to do what I want... like catching up on my blog, editing pics online, taking a nap, or getting a pedicure... while the rest of the family goes to grandma and grandpa's house to watch the game! Tomorrow my goal is to post some cute new pics of Coleman and all the birthday celebrations we've had the past couple weeks, burn back up CD's of my digital photos, and organize my pile of papers in the office (see previous post). If you don't see a new post tomorrow it's because I took a nap instead =D! GO COUGARS!!!

Just thinking out loud...

Today Coleman is 4 weeks old and I can hardly believe how the time has flown. We have enjoyed him so much and love getting to know his little personality. I loved conference this past weekend. You know how they always seem to focus on 1 thing and sometimes that 1 thing is different for different people depending on what they need to hear? Well, for me the message was to slow down, enjoy each day, live in the moment... I tend to be a list maker, always planning days, weeks, months, even years (yes years!) ahead, I freak out if the house isn't perfectly organized (which it never is... so I'm freaked out A LOT... just ask my husband), and I get extremely down on myself if I don't accomplish what I meant to for that day. Today I looked around my house and noticed how messy it is, you know, new baby and all. My kitchen floor seriously needs to be mopped, my toilets are in desperate need of scrubbing, my office is piled sooo high with papers, and it's taking me 3 days to do the amount of laundry I used to do in one... and it's been sitting folded on my bedroom floor pretty much since Coleman was born! Then I looked at my sweet baby. And I laid down and took a nap with him. Heaven.

Thanks to my sweet, very patient husband for not pointing out the messes and instead pointing out the conference talk that said the piles of laundry and fingerprints on the wall will be gone too soon and to enjoy my children now. For giving me the opportunity to stay at home with my children. For loving me even though I don't always get it all done. For allowing me to live in this moment with this new baby every day and truly enjoy him.

And thanks to my wonderful kids for being who they are, loving me even though I'm still trying to figure out this whole "mom" thing (do we ever really figure it out), and for being so helpful as we adjust to having another person in the family.

I love you all. You are my greatest treasures!

Back in the saddle again

It's been tricky to post lately... we're all still adjusting to having Coleman around. But I'm ready to get caught up. So, below are all the things that have been going on in the last few weeks (It's a lot for one day, sorry) and I hope to post more pictures of Coleman in the next day or so ('cuz we know that's what you all really want to see!). I also plan on being a picture taking fool over the next few days and we have a lot of fun stuff coming up as a family. So, fear not! I am back on track and will have lots of good reads  and pictures for you all in the next little while. 

Playing Catch Up

I'm feeling very behind on my blog. I have a ton of things I want to post... I know, I know, I don't have to post everything I think of, but that's the OCD in me! Besides, this is kind of like my journal so I don't want to miss anything. The plan: post 1 thing everyday until I'm caught up... even if it's something that happened a while ago. So, this will be a good week to check back frequently and you can catch up on my life with me! (I promise no slideshows.)

New Life

For those of you who don't live near us I'll give a little background. We live in a very small town... there is one stoplight. In order to get pretty much anywhere you have to "go into town", which involves at least 20 minutes on winding back roads just to get to the freeway... then add the time to get to your destination. Most people don't like this fact but put up with it to live in a beautiful rural place. I, however, love it! Especially in the spring. It is actually one of my favorite things. Why? You may ask. Especially when anyone who knows me well knows that I hate to drive. Well, this is why: I LOVE the animals. I love it when Spring arrives and I look for all the baby horses, baby cows and baby sheep (I know, they have technical terms for these beautiful little creatures, but I'm from California and didn't grow up around animals and that's what my kids and I like to call them). Anyway, I memorize where they all are, give them names, watch their growth and sometimes stop to take pictures like these:Yesterday as Chris and I were driving along the back roads we noticed this BRAND NEW baby horse. I t was just barely getting up and starting to walk. It was all wobbly and so adorable. Luckily I had my camera so I made Chris pull over so I could snap a few shots of my new favorite creature. I only got one or two okay shots before the little guy started to nurse and then that's all it would do. So sweet!As we were leaving the owners were heading out with some ropes... I'm assuming they take the mother and baby away until the baby is a little older. I'll keep my eyes open and try to get some better pictures when they are back.