Margie's Blog

Santa tried hard this year to scale back a bit since we were spoiled with Disneyland at Thanksgiving.  He did a pretty good job too I thought.  The girls are all still playing with their favorite gifts.  Here are some highlights.  Snowmen doughnuts as part of our breakfast feast.  (Pioneer Woman’s Baked French Toast was awesome and super easy too!) Cinderella Playdoh fun!  She works hard to make beautiful gowns.Princess board books.A doctor kit given to Brooke from Paige.  Every stuffed animal and doll has visited the doctor in the past 24 hours.New glasses for Paigelyn to match Paige.Minnie Mouse ear phones.  Really?!  It just makes me smile.This afternoon we embarked on making epic gingerbread houses.  It was fun for all of us.

It’s been a whirlwind few days.  Monday we both drove down to Salt Lake early in the morning so Shawn could get some things on his new car done at the dealership.  Then we wanted to kill time while the car was being worked on so we headed down to see what Scheels was like.  A giant sporting goods store.  The highlight was the $1 Ferris wheel rides. A nice manager let our girls bowl on the mini bowling alley for free and Shawn played a round of the shooting game.  The taxidermy was entertaining and a bit scary for Morgan.  She wouldn’t come near the giant bear.

We came home and had enough time to make sugar cookies for Santa before getting the girls bathed and in their new jammies which I was crazy enough to sew this year.  I had extra fabric though and even sewed up a pair of pants for myself.  We said goodbye to Ruby our Elf.  The girls were probably glad to see her go though since she decided to hang their undies on the stocking hooks on her last day.  They were not too pleased with her!  Next . . . Christmas!

Morgan had the chance to have her first holiday dance concert this week as well.  She did amazing and I love how adorable she is.

Ready for the show! (In Paige’s first costume.)With her cute class.Showing off her new costume for the spring concert in May.

Paige and Brooke did a great job this year at the holiday dance concert.  They are in a large class of girls and are doing well.

Paige & Brooke’s 2012-2013 dance class.

Cute dancing sisters.

We picked up their new dance costumes for the spring concert.  They are a bit ecstatic that it is cheetah print/hot pink with a fancy sleeve.  Brooke would probably wear it to school if I let her.

Some days as a mom I think I live one small break to the next.  Sometimes I have to make up my own break called blasting swing dance music as I wiggle around the kitchen making dinner and doing dishes.  The kids are not always a fan of that one.  Today I’ve indulged in the fact that I only had one child at home.  When you go from four down to one you kind of wonder how you ever thought being a mother with your first one was hard.  But I also had to remind myself that when Paige was 18 months old I was about 6 months pregnant with number two.

Last night I enjoyed resting watching White Christmas while I cross stitched like a sweet grandma.  It was a bit heavenly.  I’m down to just the shadows on the floor and the drum sticks.  So stinking close!!! This morning I enjoyed quiet time to study the scriptures and read conference talks and then had a babysitter arrive and went on my way to spend several much needed hours at the temple.  I’ve been needing time to focus on my spirit.  It’s been neglected for far too long and I could tell it wasn’t doing well.  Those hours in the temple were exactly what I needed.  Quiet time to focus on my relationship with my savior especially at this Christmas season.  The rest of the day was spent sewing and shopping with Sydney.  Heavenly!

They still need sleeves, decorative bows and the bottom two need pants.  Getting there . . .

The past couple weeks have flown by and I don’t think I have any adorable pictures of adventures to share with you.  We’ve been busy with our daily school routines and activities and that is pretty status quo.  So to spice up this post I’ll let you see more of our family pictures that we took back in October with Mavin Photography.  Now that the Christmas cards are out anyways.

Last weekend Shawn and I had a fun day of escaping to Utah County.  Grandma came in town to watch the kids and we took off for a Christmas party in Provo.  It was for a work client but it was a nice gathering of people I didn’t know.   We spent the night down there and then spent all day Saturday bugging car dealers across the Wasatch Front until we settled on a new car for Shawn.  Even though car buying is stressful it was great to have a day to do it without kids and just get to be together.  We had a nice lunch together and settled on a 2013 White Ford Fusion for Shawn.  I think he is pleased and happy with his new purchase so far.  As they were wrapping up the car paperwork I kept a close eye on my watch and knew I had to get going back home to get the kids off to the ward Christmas party and let Grandma start her trek back to Idaho.  I left Shawn at the dealership in Salt Lake and they promised me he would have a car to return home in that night.  I zoomed off hoping he was only 30 minutes behind me.  I got all the kids to the party just in time for them to sing songs with all the other kids and dressed up as angels (sorry no pictures).  Then after dinner I located a phone (yes, I don’t have a cell phone) and called Shawn.  He was just barely on his way home and still had over an hour left.  So I did the ward party solo this year with four little “angels”.

Other then that I have been working on sorting out my gifts and started sewing pajamas for the girls Christmas.  They are cute but we’ll see how they turn out in the end.  As I hung up the stockings I pulled out my unfinished cross stitch stocking for Shawn.  I’m sooo close to finishing it will be disappointing if I can’t pull it together by Christmas.  Only a couple more outlines and shadows and then it needs to be sewn together.  About seven years working on one project is super productive, right?  I think I’ve been too busy producing other masterpieces in that time.  If you have read any of this then wowzers!  Thanks for being a great friend.  I hope your Christmas preps are coming along smoothly.

If you know me well enough to be following my blog you probably know I grew up not far from Disneyland in Anaheim Hills.  We went about weekly to the park as kids and I think I’ve done rather well living far away from my stomping grounds but still miss it from time to time.  Since we decided to head to California for Thanksgiving I knew I wanted to try to squeeze in a Disneyland day.  It’s been almost 2 years since I’d been and even longer for Shawn I think.  So we checked out the calendar and when I saw my birthday fell on Wednesday before Thanksgiving I pegged that as our family Disneyland day.  And to get the most bang for our buck I squeezed in a part day on Tuesday at California Adventure as well.  So that was the plan.

Monday we drove straight to California with our four bubbly girls.  Sydney got frustrated when the sky turned dark and she was still strapped to her car seat but really did well all things considered.  We decided on Disneyland passes for the girls and I and just having a one day pass for Shawn on Wednesday.  I plan on returning in a few months with the girls when the crowds are lighter and spending several days soaking it all in.

That meant Tuesday we could go to the park but it would just be me and maybe my Mom.  We called my sister up and she gladly took the day off of work and joined us there first thing in the morning.  She waiting in the fast pass lines as I kept the wiggly girls entertained on simpler rides and we had a fun day together.  We lasted long enough to ride Radiator Springs at 1:30pm with our fast passes and then I was wiped and done.  With traveling all day Monday and getting up early to get to the park at opening that was my limit.  I came home and crashed with a migraine the rest of the night.

The next morning I tried to rally as best I could to get going.  After all, it was my birthday and Shawn and Sydney still hadn’t had their day at the park.  So I swung by a drug store and medicated my weak stomach and we were off to the park and had a great day.  The fast passes and Rider swap passes (so parents with small kids can both ride without waiting in lines twice) saved us tons of times in lines.  With the rider swaps Paige and Brooke both got to take turns riding rides twice since the second parent is allowed to take one person back on the ride with them so they don’t have to ride solo.  So nice!!  We didn’t take time to meet characters since my girls have done that in years past and most of them were visible enough that I told the girls to wave to the characters and they were good with that for the time being.  So for being a super busy day at the park I think we did an awesome job totting four little girls around and got on a ton of rides.

Buzz Lightyear, Small World, Tea Cups, Carousel, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, Thunder Mountain, ate giant corndogs, Dumbo, Haunted Mansion, Train to Toontown, Goofy’s Chaotic house, Minnie’s house, Saw the Christmas parade and then headed home after swinging through the shops on Main Street on our way out.  Pretty good huh?  And we were done and home by 4:30pm.

The first day with my sister we did fairly good too but really weren’t trying to cram everything in.  Little Mermaid, Walked around Cars Land, King Tritan’s Carousel, California Screamin’, Mater’s Tractors, Monster’s Inc., met the Incredibles (and saw Ann Romney waiting for her grandkids to meet them in front of us), Playhouse Disney ride, Soarin’ over California, ate at a snack shop near the Grand California Hotel, Radiator Springs Racer, Morgan went to Talking time with Crush with Grandma while the rest of us were on Radiator Springs.  See, pretty good huh?  And we were heading home before 2:00pm.

The rest of our Thanksgiving vacation were filled with eating yummy food, relaxing and catching up with family.  Shawn helped my dad get started on a foundation for a new shed and we rode scooters around a gorgeous park nearby that was practically empty on a Saturday morning.  Crazy!!  Now on to Holiday parties and decking the halls.