The Charons

Tonight I rocked little Madilyn to sleep. The curtains were open and as I rocked her I watched outside as the lights from the city bounced off the snow. It looked majestic and almost magical. It was bright, not like the sun but light, like a general all over light. It's how I imagined the world looked when Christ was born and the Star of David lit up the sky. Peaceful, calm, quiet. I then saw this little girl in my arms and had a whole new perspective of Mary. We talk about the stress of the holidays, or of life in general, but lets take a moment to think about this amazing women.

Talk about stress, at 9 months pregnant she leaves her home, not in a Cadillac, but on a donkey. Now for those of us who have been 9 months pregnant, we don't like to go anywhere in a car, let alone on the back of an animal. They have to go pay taxes, which means then money was probably tight, we all know that stress, but they journey to Bethlehem anyways to find that there is no place to stay but a manger, a manger that has no heat, no blankets, no doors. I have to tell you it's a little hard to complain about anything when you remember Mary and her diligence. Makes me think a little more about what I have, and less on what I don't.

I also think about those in my life who hurt. I think about those who want a child who can't have one, I think about those who have illness. I think of my friend Heather who is fighting cancer. I think about my children, I think about my heart. I just want for everyone what Mary knew she had. Here is a video that just has made me so teary these last few days. It doesn't matter what religion you practice or believe, there is a peace about Christmas that will never be taken away. They may call them "holiday tree's" at the White House, but in those hearts of those who have a Savior because of Mary's love we know, and THAT will never be lost.

Watch this video. You won't regret it.

Just like that it is the end of 2009. Where did this year go? Seems like I was just blogging about loving the "ber" months: September, October, November, December, and now they are almost over.

With 2010 just around the corner my family and I have come up with ideas, New Year's resolutions if you will. The first is Family home evening. My kids truly love to do this when I am organized enough to have a lesson, so instead of Mom doing it all the time we have developed a system (which I think has a shot at working) Here it is:

1st Monday- Mom prepares lesson
2nd Monday- Do a service project or a "ding dong ditch of goodies"
3rd Monday- Kid lesson. One of the kids will be in charge of the lesson. The nights that it is Riley's turn I am sure we will be playing race cars of jumping on beds :)
4th Monday- A project. Some sort of project we will work on as a family. Whether it be making something, cleaning something or building, we will do it as a family

The next resolution that we have made is "Needs/wants" This applies more to David and I, but I think if we can communicate our Needs and/or our wants we will be happier. For example:

I NEED some Mom time. I just do. I think every mom does, so if I can communicate that to David before I blow my top than that will help. He WANTS to watch the Suns game at night, so I compromise by watching it with him, instead of making a deal about it. Give and take I guess you would call it.

This year may end up being another stressful one... we still await Dental school application decisions and it is a stressful time. So one of my goals this year is to find "Joy in the Journey" I first heard the phrase from President Monson and I really like it. So to do that, to find "Joy in the Journey" I need to better organize my time and my life.

So with that today I cleaned out linen closets, re-figured bed times and drawers and menu's.

Being a Mom is a full-time job, but another thing I AM going to accomplish this year is to get my pre-nursing requirements completed. A lot of my schooling transfers into requirements which is nice, so my goal is to finish that up and do my CNA course, so that I can at least work if I need to.

This year will bring it's challenges, we can always count on those, but I am going in with a better, more prepared frame of mind, and I think in the end WE will succeed!

Hope all of you have a wonderful year! Cheers!

P.S. I have a cooking blog, duh right! Is anyone intrested in doing a "guest" post. You would make something, give me the recipe and a picture of you and the item then I will post it. Thought it would be kind of fun to hear some of your favorite recipes. PLEASE?!?!?!?

It's the day after Christmas and the decorations are packed up until next year. Something about having a "non-cluttered" house makes me happy. Don't get me wrong I love Christmas but I also love having things back into their place. I will post pics soon but here is a run down of the last few days.

Thursday:

David got off work early at 1pm, we packed up and headed down the hill to my brother Matt's house in Cave Creek.
That night we went and saw the Temple lights on the Mesa Temple. It was CRAZY. Too many people to really enjoy it, but it was fun.

Friday:

Went to the park and had lunch with my dad, Rocco. The kids ran and played and I loved eating In-n-out. It had been too long since my last big, yummy, juicy burger. And as a bonus they gave us a Christmas card. I love companies that recognize Christmas.
Friday night we had yummy appetizers. On the menu:

shrimp cocktail and sauce
Tamales
Guac and chips
Hot spinach and artichoke dip
yummy mint truffles
Punch
Stuffed mushrooms
and cheeses

You can get most of these recipes on barbbakes

Then we watched the most amazing video of Christ's life. I don't know the name, but I will find out. I think it may be called the "Reflections of Christ"

Saturday:

up at the crack of dawn. Actually... truth be told my kids slept in until 6:45, I thought they would have been up MUCH earlier.
We had a yummy Christmas dinner with Ham, Potatoes and the BEST sweet potatoes EVER. and homemade gingerbread cake with glaze.
After we snapped some family pictures we headed back on the road and up to the snow. The cold was waiting for us, we got home and it was a balmy 12 degrees...brrrr.

This morning I went to the grocery store, target and took down Christmas. Done. Now I am ready for a nap!

I did however get the privilege of vacuuming out soda crystals out of my hubby's trunk. I never knew that EVERY can would explode when frozen. Note to self: don't leave soda in the trunk when the temp at night drops to 7. :)

This past weekend we headed to Vegas to be with one of David's former 'young men' who was going through the Temple. Brian asked David to be his escort, and I think my husband was so touched by that, so we dropped the kids in Kingman with David's mom and headed to the Temple.

For those of you who are not familiar with the area we have to pass over the Hoover Dam to get to Vegas, well, about 3 or 4 years ago they started building an overpass to take traffic off the Dam. I never thought that it would be as amazing as it was, and it was, they are not quite done with the over pass, but have the arch connected. Talk about an architectural wonder.



I wish I had some pictures from the day at the Temple, but I forgot to bring my camera in, so hopefully I can track down the pictures with us and Brian.

Yes, December is a VERY busy month for our family. Keagan and Maddys birthday's are only 1 week apart. I almost just saved Keagan's cake, but then thought it wasn't much fun for Maddy to have week-old cake. Plus the green stuff that started to grow on the princess cake had a funky smell (JUST KIDDING) So we got Maddy her very own cake, and she LOVED it. and I mean LOVE. The girl went right for the frosting, that's my girl!

Keagan had her very first birthday party this year, she was VERY excited to have 6 of her closest friends over for a PJ birthday party. WE played Christmas Bingo and other fun games. We ate Pizza and had cake (a Princess cake) and ice cream. All and all it was a success.


(and the funniest part about the whole day: When these little 6 and 7 year olds were talking about their "boyfriends" and almost kissing those said boys, so cute!)

Well, we will use that term in a sarcastic setting, happy. The day started off great, both me and he hubby had TOTALLY forgotten the fact that on that day (Dec.1st) we had been married for 8 wonderful years. fun? yes, funny that we both forgot and lucky, can you imagined if one of us actually remembered. whew!

So I shuffled around phone calls and deals until I found a friend and a babysitter, both were on board for taking the kids, my friend had the first segment of one hour. Which we thought would be perfect, until Riley had started up with a stomach ache (we didn't know until later that night) Then the pass of to the sitter went down while we were enjoying the movie "New Moon" yes, twilight fans. both of us are actually.

We started getting "texts" on David's phone talking about cranky baby, where's the bottle? Riley says his tummy hurts. Riley has a blown-out diaper, etc, etc. So once the movie was over we cancelled plans and headed home. We find Riley with poop completely down BOTH legs and feet standing on paper towels and the babysitter trying her best not to cover herself in it. Wonderful.... but wait. It gets better.

So I draw the straw that leaves me to take the sitter home, and to grab dinner. So I do just that, but after I order a Big-Mac meal for David and a chicken wrap for myself at McDonald's drive Thru I then realized that I don't have my purse. Yes friends, in all the poop commotion I had managed to drive off without my purse. So I have to get to the window, cancel the order and head home to get some $$. I then head back to McD's and get the food and head back home. finally.

By then it was 8 o'clock and I was beat, we put all the kids to bed, sat down to eat and that was it. I was out for the count.

On a lighter note, David:

I love you. Thank you for 8 wonderful years, here's to 8 more. Let's just hope those 8 years don't have as much poop :)

This picture was taken at the end of the evening.

Gosh... I can't even remember back to Thanksgiving to write about it. I will do my best. We went to K-town to be with David's family for Thanksgiving (like every year, right!) We especially not only enjoy the Thanksgiving turkey made by his Dad, Scott, but we also love to see the variety's of people gathered at the local Super Walmart for black Friday deals. It's a tradition really, just as important as turkey is hitting the Super W for toys.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, slipped my mind. But I can remember everything we ate, 1. because it was good, and 2. because it was the first day in awhile that I ate cooked foods. yum. I missed them. So, sorry no pictures but here is a list of yum.

Turkey (Of course, dark meat for me!)
Mashed potatoes, I like my creamy and wonderful.
Stuffing, yes please.
Sweet potato casserole with dried apricots and apples (PASS :)
Sweet potato soup (pass again, not a fan of sweet potatoes, and really, If I am going to break the rules, I am going to do it with foods I love)
My family's holiday salad (the recipe is on barbbakes.blogspot.com)
Homemade wheat rolls, yum, yum, yum. though I was good and only had 1 :)
and for dessert:

Pumpkin Pie
Gingerbread Trifle (on barbbakes.blogspot.com)
Cherry Cheese cake

and that's a wrap!

i know. i am behind on the posings... and yes, i am sorry. look for more maybe tomorrow? but for today *Keagan's birthday* and my 1 year anniversary of PPCM i have had enough, and am tired, like always. so tomorrow friends... or the next day. maybe. :)