Adam's 12th birthday!

I don't think it is even possible that you are already 12.  It seems like yesterday that you were running around the front yard with your Superman cape, socks for gloves and your shades on ready to save the world.

This year for your birthday you wanted a Nintendo 3DS with mario kart, a day of snowboarding with your dad, new church clothes with a pink and purple tie, and money.  You keep saying your saving up but what your saving up for keeps changing.... a new skateboard, no a new bike, an Ipod Touch, no a (fill in the blank)!  I think you got everything on your list.  What a fun birthday week!

And, on Sunday, you got the best gift of all.... the gift of the priesthood.  It was a special day to see you ordained to the office of the Deacon.  And then to watch you pass the sacrament... I was so proud of you!  I remember 12 years ago, on your blessing day, thinking how great it is that my son will someday hold the power of the priesthood.  I hope you realize what the blessing of the priesthood is.

Adam, you are such a cool kid!  I love that you still hug me and want me to tuck you in bed at night.  I especially love that you will still hug me in front of your friends.  We are so proud of you and love the young man you are becoming.  We love you so much!

Love, Mom and Dad

This Is Me - #2. Choices

The Challenge: What are some choices in your life that affected where you are now?

We are faced with so many choices every day.  What to eat, what to wear, where should we go, what should we do.  Not every choice we make is going to be life changing or make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things, but some are life altering, life changing, and crucial to our existence.  I have made millions of choices throughout my 33 years on this earth.  Some good, some bad, but all have made me who I am and where I am today.

I would say one of the biggest choices I made in my life was to marry my best friend, Aaron Marshall in the Salt Lake Temple.  I knew I wanted to marry him fairly early into our relationship and even though we had some ups and downs getting to that point I knew it was the right one.  I remember one time after we were engaged, we were having a "discussion" and I was about to hand him back the ring.  Suddenly, a thought came to my mind that that is what Satan would want to have happen.  Satan didn't want us to be married in the temple and to have an eternal family.  It was a strange sensation and after I shared that with Aaron, the feeling in the room changed and we were at peace with our decision.  I'm grateful for the promptings of the Holy Ghost!

The choice to have children was another big choice that has shaped my life to where I am now.  Having children is probably the biggest life changer I will ever experience.  I went from being a wife and money maker to a mother, chef, nurse, taxi driver, kisser of boo boos, cleaner, comforter, and "the best mom in the whole world".  To say that this choice has been easy would not be the truth.  There are many nights I have gone to sleep with huge amounts of guilt that I should have done things differently during the day.  Did I spend enough time with them?...  I shouldn't have yelled like that....  Do they know I love them?...  Am I teaching them the correct principles of the Gospel?....  Am I being the best mother I can be?...  Yet, even with all that guilt and wavering on my role of mother, when they come to me and wrap their arms around me and tell me "You are the best mom in the whole world", I know I must be doing something right.  I love my role of motherhood.  As challenging as it is at times and even when I feel so unappreciated, I wouldn't give it up for anything.

"There is no role in life more essential and more eternal than that of motherhood."

-Elder M. Russell Ballard

This is Me - #1. 10 Modern Conveniences

I have been reading about "This is Me" Challenge for a while now and have finally decided to dive in and take the challenge.  My first Challenge: 

If you were forced to go back in time to the olden days, but were allowed to take 10 modern conveniences with you, what would you take?

Wow!  I can only choose 10.  That is kind of a hard one.  There are so many conveniences that we are blessed to have these days.  I mean, even when I go camping, we bring along the "condo on wheels" that has everything: a shower, heater, bed, stove, microwave, fridge, and even a tv.  So, if I went back to the olden days and could only take 10 modern conveniences......  I think they would be:

1. My car
2. My computer (how could I survive without blogs, Pinterest or Facebook?)
3. Contact Lenses
4. My bed
5. Indoor plumbing
6. Target
7. Microwave
8. Refrigerator
9. Washer and Dryer
10. Dishwasher

There is also modern medicine, the telephone, electricity, a heated home, accessible clothing, "girl" products (if you know what I mean), fast food, Diet Coke, the list goes on and on.  Yet, with all the modern conveniences that we enjoy and have that is supposed to make our lives easier, why does it seem like there is never enough time in the day to get everything done.  I wonder if the people that lived in the "olden" times felt that same way.  Was it truly a more relaxed, peaceful time or did they feel some of the same pressures that we do today? 

January Date Night

This year for Christmas, I wanted to give Aaron something meaningful and something he wouldn't expect.  I love spending time alone with him and wanted to incorporate that fact into the gift.  I thought about planning a trip.  We love vacationing together, but I wanted something a little bit more personal that would last the entire year.  I finally came up with the idea of pre-planning 12 dates nights (one a month) for an entire year.  I searched the internet and found lots of great ideas.  I narrowed it down to the twelve I liked and set about putting each date together.  I bought gift cards, made instructions sheets, created individual envelopes, scheduled the date nights on the calendar, and put everything together so all we had to do was pull the month's envelope and enjoy our time together.  This was definitely a labor of love and Aaron was actually surprised when he opened this present on Christmas day.

When Aaron opened up January's envelope this is what was inside:

We called up our friends, the Graham's and the Collotzi's, and invited them to go with us.  After all, bowling is much more fun with friends.  

We had a great dinner at Italian Village.  But then again, what's not to love about pizza benders and garlic bread?

And then headed to the bowling alley where we had fun bowling with the M&M's rules.  These rules included bowling backwards, bowling with an opposite hand, kicking the ball, granny style, and date bowl for you.  We had a lot of fun but our scores were very sad!  About halfway through, we threw out the M&M's rules and bowled normally.

Jeremy and Randi Graham

Chad and Celena Collotzi

Who won the 15 minute massage?  No one, we had to quit early to make it home by curfew.  We all had a great evening.  Can't wait until February to see what's planned next.

Behind the Myths Tour

Adam is a fanatic when it comes to Mythbusters.  He LOVES the show!  He recordes every episode and enjoys watching them as the bust myths.  So, when I got an email early in December letting me know they were coming to Utah in "concert" I knew it would be the perfect Christmas gift for Adam.  He was so excited when he opened up the present containing the tickets.  He had no idea!

Adam and I went together to the show.  It was a great date!  We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then made our way up to the show.  It was a lot of fun!  They did several experiments and even called some of the audience members up on stage.

 They demonstrated how you can lie on a bed of nails without being stuck.  It had something to do with surface area.  They even cracked the cinder block on Adam Hyneman.

Using two ordinary phone books, with pages interlaced, they were able to lift Adam.  That was impressive!

Here are their Mini-me's.  This was hilarious!  They had audience members come up and do an obstacle course using the peephole out of a door.  They had to end up delivering a tray of milk to Adam and Jamie.  In the end, they quickly brought out these two to replace them.

This was Adam's favorite.  They brought out an audience member dressed in a suit of armor and proceeded to blast him with paint balls.

Snow Day at Wolf Mountain

Since the kids were out of school in January this year, Aaron and I decided to book the condo in Eden, UT and take our kids skiing at Wolf Mountain.  Aaron is great skier and Adam has gone snowboarding a few times last year, but, Abbi, Alex, and I had never been.  I know, you grow up in Utah and you are expected to ski "The Greatest Snow On earth."  But, I had never been, except the time before we were married and Aaron took me up to Park City.  I went down twice and called it good.  Anyway, we took the kids to Wolf Mountain and signed them all up for ski lessons;  even me!

Adam was a natural, before I knew it, the instructor had him up the lift and going down the bunny hill.  He is pretty impressive!

What a stud!

Alex and Abbi did a great job also.  After two days of lessons, they too were heading up the lift and cruising down the bunny hill.  They couldn't get enough of it.  It was so fun to watch them ski down the hill.  I, on the other hand, did not take to skiing as well.  After my lesson, Aaron convinced me to go down the bunny hill.  It freaked me out.  I basically came down the hill on my butt.  After that, I took off my skis and sat in the lodge for the rest of the afternoon.  Aaron still has hopes of getting me to be a ski bunny, but honestly, I enjoyed sitting in the lodge reading my book.  Maybe some day, but today was not that day!

This little getaway was so much fun!  It was so relaxing and we all enjoyed spending time together.  The kids didn't fight and they loved skiing!  They can't wait to go again!  

Ornaments for 2011 Travel

Decorating the Christmas tree is so much fun.  So much more so because of our ornament tradition.  Every trip we go on for the year we always bring back an ornament.  It is fun to unwrap each ornament and say "Remember when we went _________ and did ________?"  It is fun to be reminded of the great memories we have shared.  This year we picked up these:

We got this cute M&M Elvis ornament from when Aaron took me to Vegas for my birthday in April and we saw Phantom of the Opera and the Lion King. 

We got this Mardi Gras mask ornament from New Orleans when we went in November to participate in the Great Urban Race.

This popcorn ornament was given to us by Grandma and Grandpa McGee because of our love of popcorn and the fact that we have a popcorn machine.

These last two we picked up in March when we went to Disneyland.  We got wedding Minnie and Mickey because Aaron and I went to Disneyland on our honeymoon.

And the kids and I fell in love with this Mr and Mrs. Potato Head ornament.

Our December Activities

Every year as Christmas rolls around, I have BIG plans.  Plans that include: going to Temple Square to see the lights, reading a Christmas story with the kids every night until Christmas, cuddling on the couch while watching Christmas movies, relaxing and enjoying the Christmas season with the family, filling up our advent calendar with different activities to enjoy together... among many others.  Well, I didn't do any of it!  Okay, I did one or two things on my plan, but, like usual, Christmas came and went in a fast whirlwind.  It seemed like we had just put up the tree and the next day we were taking it down.  In actuality, it had been up since Thanksgiving.

This year was a little different from years past.  The kids were on A track in school instead of B which means they were in school for December.  I thought this was going to be great!  I can shop for presents while they are in school, but with Alex in morning Kindergarten and my lack of motivation to get ready before 10:00, I found that plan backfired.  At least when I knew the kids were going to be home in the month of December, I worked hard to have all presents bought by the end of November.  At any rate, this year I did most of my shopping online which I actually really liked.  A few clicks of the mouse and the UPS man delivers it right to my front door.  No crowds, no dragging the kids to 50 different stores, just easy peasy!  Guess it didn't matter that I wasn't ready for the day before 10:00.  Don't get me wrong, I still fought the crowds and went from store to store looking for certain items.

But, in the midst of the chaos that was December, we did do some fun things.  Abbi had her very first piano recital and she did an awesome job!  We are so proud of her.  She is doing great with the piano and her teacher told she wished she had more students like her.

We also took the kids to the Angel Tree where we chose two kids.  They were the same ages as Adam and Abbi.  The kids had a lot of fun shopping at Target for these two kids and were able to pick out an outfit and a toy for each of them.  

Aaron and I went to La Quaille for the very first time with Aaron's Entrepreneur group.  It was fun to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner.  Even better because we didn't have to pay for it!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the cute chocolate covered strawberry.  So stinkin' cute!

With the help of Grandpa and Grandma McGee, we made our annual gingerbread house.  There may or may not have been a frosting fight somewhere in there too.

 

And, of course, we made cookies for Santa.  Can I just say I love cake mix cookies?  So quick and easy and you don't have to roll out dough 10 times to cut out the cookies.  The kids had a lot of fun decorating them for Santa.  Alex even got out some carrots for the reindeer.

All in all, I think it was a great December.  We were able to do some fun things and hopefully the kids will have some fun memories to look back on even if we didn't do all the things on my "perfect Christmas" list.  At least we were all together.

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas!  This year was a little different because Christmas fell on a Sunday.  It ended up being really nice.  Since we had church at 9:00, we told the kids they could get up and open their stockings and the present Santa brought them.  The others would have to wait until after church.  So, at 7:00 Christmas morning, the kids burst into our room yelling "Merry Christmas! Let's go open presents!"  

Abbi got just what she wanted, an All-American Girl doll.  She had designed her on the website and was so excited Santa knew exactly what she wanted!  She named her Audrey.  (It had to be an "A" name to be in our family).

Alex got a new set of tools and some projects to put together with the tools.  He loves fixing things around the house and is always the first one to grab a screwdriver to help.  He even knows the difference between a phillips and a flathead.  Smart!

Aaron and Alex using his tools to put together a car.

Adam got the one thing he wanted for Christmas... a brand new BMX bike.  Needless to say, he was extremely excited and couldn't wait to put it together and try it out.  Luckily for him, there was no snow and he was able to ride it.

Because I have such a hard time surprising Aaron (he's like a little kid and will do everything he can to find out what he is getting!), I found these awesome gift boxes at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  They are prank boxes but look absolutely real.  You simply put the real gift inside.  So, the real gift of a heart rate monitor watch went in the box and I wrapped it up.  

Aaron unwrapped his "iArm."  I started laughing so hard as he looked at the box and turned it over and over in his hands.  The look on his face was priceless.  I'm sure he was thinking "What the heck?"  By this time I was laughing so hard, I was crying.  He put the box to the side and went to grab another gift.  I, of course, said, "No, you have to open it."  To which Aaron replied, "No, I'm taking it back."  This only made me laugh/cry harder.  He finally got that it was a joke and ended up opening his real present.  I got him good this year!  I am so funny!

My favorite is the girl using her iArm to hold the bucket of water to wash the car!

We had a great Christmas!  I loved having church in the middle of our Christmas morning.  It really made the day special.  I loved being able to spend Christmas eve with the Marshall's and Christmas night with the McGee's.  Ali and Ben were in town this year and it was fun to see them too.  I am so grateful for our loving families and for my sweet kids and husband.  I am one lucky girl!  

Merry Christmas!