I suck at this...

Yes, I suck at giving blood. I had to have a blood draw this morning. I knew in advance that I was going to have to do this and so I made sure that I was PLENTY hydrated. You know plump, juicy veins. I do have a problem which is that I have those horrible veins that don't want to stay put. Yep, got those rolly veins. After two attempts at two different veins in my arm, I finally said, "go for the hand". For some reason this always shocks the person trying to draw my blood. They hem and haw and finally they concede. And yes, it works..everytime.

Only Sage could pull this off...

Here she is at @ age 5 being a flower girl in my niece Britnee's wedding...(isn't she adorable?)

And now at 13 yrs old wearing the SAME dress! This dress is a size 4...yes, really.
I found it during the "new year" clean up and Sage just had to try it on. Yes, it even buttoned up the back with minimal pulling. It has now found a home with a true 5 yr old!

One year ago....

we packed up our bags and left the world behind...

to enjoy 3 months of incredible family time by beautiful, blue, warm water

and absolutely delicious sunsets!

Life in our house this week

This is what we saw a lot of this week....grey skies...ugh! It gets old after a while...you know what I mean!

I spent 5 days going through every nook and cranny in my office trying to get rid of clutter and stuff. We've lived in this home for 10 years and after a while, you don't know what you have! I decided to pass along to others things that I no longer needed/wanted in hopes of it finding a good home. My family took bags of "goodies" to church on Sunday to distribute to people that I thought would give these items a good home. What you see in this picture has a future date with D.I.!

And this little gal got a new hairstyle! Well, basically all her hair got cut off! We are still messing around with different ways to style it. Lea is pretty easy going about her hair, so that's nice!

Request Granted

Ty and Sloane

Happy New Year!

We didn't make any plans for New Year's Eve, rather we stayed at home and created our own fun. First off, we watched the torchlight parade (from inside my house...it was rather cold to be outside!) at the Jacksonhole Moutain Resort. People carry torches with flares on both sides and meander down the mountain. It's a cool thing to watch.

Then the ski resort lit some fireworks--I managed about a minute outside to get a few pictures.

Earlier in the day, I was de-cluttering my office and found a whole canister of glow necklaces. These provided several hours of entertainment. From the decorating one's body to all the cool things they could do with them. There are 5 girls in this shot...can you figure out which one is Lea?

We ended up in the theater in the pitch dark to get these cool pictures.

Then it was back upstairs to do more Just Dance 2...Lea really loves to do this...who would have thought?

The ideas kept getting crazier the later the night became...

Happy New Year from our home to yours!
Hope 2011 brings good things to you all!

Dance 2

We got Dance 2 for the Wii for Christmas and it was a BIG hit. We all got in on the action....even Kirk!

Christmas Day 2010

Christmas Day dawned a beautiful day....brilliant blue skies and clear...no snow!

Santa came to these "nice" children.

Ty gave all us girls these pretty silk robes!

the festivities of Christmas time

Christmas is all about family and I am thrilled to have ALL my kids home for 2 whole weeks! Since we've had a butt load of snow, we've had some fun ski days.

Another activity that we indulged in for the holidays was making and decorating gingerbread houses. OK, so I made all the houses, but the kids had a great time decorating them. Some worked individually, and others worked in teams.

Like this team of Ty and his girlfriend Sloane. The kids were REALLY getting into the decorating this year and a lot of thought and detail were being demonstrated. So, we decided to have a contest and Kirk was the judge....I was disqualified as judging because I kept giving people ideas and items to put on the houses!

Three houses made the semi-finals. Interesting enough these were all the houses produced by a team of people. This was Maya and her friend Morgan's log cabin. This won the popular vote....meaning more people voted for this house.

This is Ty and Sloane's house on some major acreage. This house won the best landscaping of them all.

Kara and Sage were the winners picked by Kirk. It's a cute, little skiing chalet!

Christmas Card 2010

Producing a Christmas card every year is not as easy as it looks. Kirk and I have taken a family Christmas picture every year since we've been married...that's 25 years...except one. (and that's the year, we almost lost our Lea...1988) Anyone with a large family knows that first off, it's hard to gather everyone together ( Ty is graduated from college and lives in Provo full-time). Then comes the question..."what will we wear?"...this gets tougher every year too since most of the girls wear the same size...and there's usually only ONE of a certain top or outfit. Thankfully, Kara has taken on this job the past few years and I basically leave it up to her color wise and style....then when the arguments come, I just let Kara take the flack! And the last thing that factors into producing a viable Christmas card is everyone's ATTITUDE. It can be awful trying to get a good photo when someone has been crying or there are hard feelings floating around. It used to be such a production when the kids were little to get them dressed and keep them clean and keep them in the spot where I want them to be....and to look at the camera and SMILE! What used to take a seemingly LONG time to get a good shot now takes us literally minutes. It is true...my kids now know the rules and that if everyone cooperates it only takes a few minutes! Practice makes perfect...well, you know what I mean! Hope your Christmas has been merry and bright and full of the the Savior's light.

Traffic stoppers

This is what we ran into (not literally) the other day as I was taking Lea to work. There was a whole "line" of elk and the car in front of me stopped for them to cross the road. There were about 15 of them and there were several males with antlers a growing.

Around here, these guys have the right of way. There are several places that are considered "wildlife corridors" on my way to town. So, you gotta pay attention!

He's REAL !!!

Yep, I still have a believer!! I love it...keeps Christmas in our home so much fun. And her innocence is so sweet. We just had our ward Christmas party and when Santa walked into the room, I thought she was going to levitate, cuz her arms were flapping so fast and furious cuz she was EXCITED that Santa was there. Maya quickly got her 1st in line to see Santa and she was the happiest camper all night. Looks like this Santa could stand to eat a few more cookies....he's SO skinny!

She visited with this Santa after Kara had a Christmas dance recital.

This looks like a Santa from another ward Christmas party.

Santa even came to Nuskin this year!

But our favorite Santa of all time....had to be this guy...Dave Braithwaite. He was Lea's physical therapist when she was a tiny one and he would come every year to our house to see Lea and bring her what...naturally, a book.

It's beginning to look a lot like ...Christmas!

From all the snow we've gotten...

From the Christmas lights in the town square....(sorry so blurry...)

From this crazy person's Christmas lights...(wonder what their light bill is?)

To wrapping presents...yes, I've already wrapped a bunch and I haven't even done my own family yet!

To this Christmas tree in my family room....
I'd say it's definitely looking a lot like Christmas!!

Thanksgiving-Part 2

Here we are just sitting down to have our Thanksgiving dinner. Yum.

Then we had to play some Wii Fit to help with all the extra calories consumed.

The whole gang...aren't camera timers great?

I told you we had a bunch of moose in the yard, and eating was not all they were trying to do!

Enough is enough, the husband says...time to go and eat someone else's yard! (he looks pretty mean with that dust mop...don't you think?)

Thanksgiving--Part 1

We had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving this year! All the kids were home and even Grandma and Grandpa came! Kara showed all the girls how to make these cute flowers out of fabric.

We played lots of Aggravation!

Kara led the girls in another craft project...folding our dinner napkins in the shape of a lotus flower. They were darling!

Grandpa enjoyed seeing Koa again...and thoroughly spoiled him rotten!

These were our uninvited Thanksgiving guest...yes...all five of them! They enjoyed all the willows and berries around the house and then headed for the pond.

Thanksgiving 1997

As we look forward to Thanksgiving this year, I am reminded of some wonderful memories of Thanksgivings in the past. This one was in 1997...here's the lowdown....we had moved to Wyoming and had been there for 5 months...gave birth to Sage 6 weeks before...my parents had gone on a mission to Nauvoo and had been there for 6 months. We decided to spend Thanksgiving in Nauvoo and to introduce them to Sage. Here's a photo where the girls can't get enough of Grandma...and she's trying to get acquainted with grandchild #27!

Grandpa showing Ty and Kara something about the house they were hosting.

Grandma...why is there a rope there?

Cute family photo...with missionary grandparents!

Thanksgiving dinner with a few of our closest friends...around 200 missionaries!!
How are your Thanksgiving preparations coming? This is what I know...there will be tons of food....Grandma and Grandpa are coming....all my kids will be here...and maybe a few more friends!