Steven & Ashlee Simons

Oh, was it Christmas; really? I never knew it; it never felt like it. I was never relaxed and sat by the fire and drank hot coco. I never leisurely shopped and enjoyed the spirit of the holidays. I didn't enjoy any parties, sorry, but I just didn't. I didn't feel like I went out of my way to be extra kind to anyone and other then buy gifts for EVERYONE that I didn't feel like I put any extra thought behind any of them. Oh, wait except the one I returned Christmas Eve, because Steven and I didn't want to put it together and haul it back to Colorado. I didn't bake, wrap, or decorate the tree without keeping close watch of a near by clock. I had a conference call on the morning of all of my children's' class parties, because the school decided to have Christmas brunch instead of an end of the day program and I decided to schedule my conference calls on Fridays at 9:30 for the entire month of December, which SUCKED! There was just nothing Merry about it. I don't think I have had a more stressful Christmas in my life and I am sorry to say I am so happy it is over! I don't want to be a Scrooge, I really don't, I love Christmas, but if i was to give a title to this year it would really be called, "Ashlee Goes Insane," not "Ashlee has a Merry Christmas." I don't even want to go over the endless hours I spent in my kitchen, at the stores, driving in my car, nor worry about what I got for who! Not to mention the 40 sticks of butter, 35 lbs. of sugar, 5 lbs. of almonds, 50 lbs. of chocolate, 50 lbs. of flour, and every other ingredient that made its' way through my kitchen and out my door only to clean up. Right now I am sitting in my parents living room 500 miles away from my home in a room filled with toys from Christmas Day that on Thursday I have to pack up and haul back to Colorado and then unpack and put away. I am just tried of it and I am not even sure what "it" is. Was is the baking that did me in? Was it the parties that put me over the edge? Was is it building a pool in the middle of winter that stressed me out? One thing is for sure none of them helped put me in the Christmas mood. So in light of this I am making some resolutions that I plan on keeping next year . . .

1. My children will get four presents each. That is it, no one cares about more then four away!
2. I am making three batches of sugar cookie dough in Oct. and I am going to freeze it, once they are gone, I am vowing not to make anymore!
3. We are staying home for Christmas, we can go out to Utah on the 26th I don't care, but presents are staying in my home and I want to wake up in my house on Christmas morning.
4. I am not Christmas shopping until Thanksgiving is over!
5. I will make all of my toffee in Nov.
6. I am not putting up five Christmas trees, those alone brought me to the brink! All I did was pick the ornaments off the floor anyway!
7. I don't ever want to build a pool on such a tight deadline during the holidays again, ever. I guess I don't know if I can keep this one, as we have to take work when we can, but I really don't want to! And that has to count for something!
8. I am doing a picture for my card, no cuties writing, just a picture and it has to be done by Nov. 1st
9.We are going to eat prime rib at least twice before Christmas, just because we all like it. No other reason.
And 10. I am not going to host a party at my house. Not because they are not fun, but I can't seem to make them very fun for me, I just stress about them.

Well, I think that is it. I hope next year will be better and far less crazy! I really just want to enjoy the holidays. Really, I do!!

So busy doesn't even begin to explain this holiday season! I have been so busy with Christmas shopping, cooking, parties, candy, and yes more shopping. Not to mention that someone wanted a pool done before Christmas and we started it Thanksgiving week! I have been out of my mind and a little stressed this Christmas and am really sad to say that I will be a little happy when everything calms down!! Here are some fun pictures of the past few weeks!!

I had two parties at my house! A cookie exchange and a Relief Society party. It was so much fun. Not to mention that last Saturday I had a friend over with her kids and we made ginger bread houses and went sledding!

We got dumped on the second week of December and had -16 degree temperatures and Marin had a snow day which she thought was great! I wouldn't have mind at all except for the fact we were trying to build a swimming pool in the worst storm and temperatures I can even remember!

Everyone has those stories in the news that haunt them. I remember as a little girl the two year old Jessica who was stuck in the well for two days until they finally got her out. I was always terrified as a child that I would someday find my way into one. Silly, I know. Well, for me the story of Somer Thompson down in Florida last month for whatever reason made me cry in the middle of the night and truly haunt me, made me so mad and sad at the same time. I don't know why this story in particular stuck in my mind, maybe because I have a daughter in first grade and I cannot imagine the pain and guilt you would feel as a mother. Because let's face it, as a mother you always feel it is your fault no matter what the circumstance. I vividly remember being in a class at BYU and have a professor state, "Sympathy is sometimes the only gift we can give one another. To ignore one another's troubles is completely narcissistic." I have found that statement to be so true and try not to ignore things that go on around me, even as unpleasant as they may be. So instead of being complacent about the problem that was giving me insomnia, I sent the mother flowers and spent a little time on my knees for her mother and really as funny as it sounds, it made me feel a lot better. At the same time last month in the Ensign was an article about safe blogging and I felt the spirit nudging me to go private. Finally, I should not have named my blog after our business, that was just not being "social web" savvy at the time, but too late now and hence just another reason to go private.

So something on the news lately has really upset me. Upset me enough that I feel like doing something more with that emotion then just being upset. So I have decided to do a few things that maybe I would have not done without this event happening. So in light of trying to make my family safer and be the most over protective mother I can passable be . . . I am going to go private. I have disable my comments so I will be the only one able to read your comments and therefore your email address. I love you all and don't want to miss out on anyone so I will leave this up for a few weeks and not post anyting for awhile. I hope you all have a Happy Halloween and wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Ben was running around tonight naked after being in the hot tub. I asked him to please put cloths on and to this I get this reply. . .

As if getting influenza during the summer wasn't enough. Now we have pneumonia, well, our dog anyway. Our poor Nifty is extremely sick. I am not a fan of animals in my house, but I welcomed Nifty in after his visit to the vet on Monday . . . after Steven had given him a bath. We knew he was sick. He wasn't eating his food and for being such a happy go lucky dog, Nifty wouldn't even wag his tail all last week. We knew something was the mater. He got in a brawl with a porky-pin the other week and Steven thought that maybe he had swallowed a quill and he probably did because the vet is pretty sure one of his lungs was punctured. But the quill was no where to be found thank goodness. I do draw the line at operating on animals!! Nonetheless he did have a bad case of pneumonia, which is why the vet suggested we needed to keep him inside . . . with a humidifier . . . and well drugged with an industrail size bottle of anti-biotics.

Ben's birthday was actually today, Sunday. Last night Marin and I stayed up and wrapped his presents and set out this train set for him. I bought it on craigs list, so it didn't actually come together as a set and we had to figure out how to make it all connect! It took us and good hour. Marin had a great idea to make a Helipad for Harold the helicopter. We made one on top of the round house with some left over black pool cover (Good thinking Marin!!)

And to follow in last year's foot steps the five sentences that sum up Ben!!

5. Ben please put your cloths back on!

4. No more ketchup Ben.

3. Mommy, where are my shoes??????

2. Oh, sorry mommy, I didn't mean to. (While lifting his hand, shaking his head and having no idea what this sentence means.)

1. Ben please put your trains away!

Tonight we were at the mall and Marin asked me how did Cleopatra died? I told her I didn't know and that I would have to look it up. Well, later I learned she killed herself by placing two aps in her fig basket. I will just tell Marin she died of a snake bite.

Marin came home from school a few weeks ago and told us there was going to me a new girl in her class tomorrow. She told us to guess her name and after many rounds of not guessing correctly Marin pronounced, "Pumpkin!" I said that I didn't think her name was pumpkin and began to rattle off every name that could possibly have something to do with pumpkin. Cinnamon? Sugar? Was her last name Pumpkin? Well, the girl wasn't there for a few days and everyday when Marin would climb in the car I would ask her, was she there today? What is her name? "It's Pumpkin mom! But she wasn't there today." Well on the last day of the week JACK-LIN showed.

A few weeks ago Samantha asked me what I liked to do when I was 35? (I just looked at her.)

The other day in the car Samantha asked me what the last name of her shoe was? I said that shoes don't have last names. She said, "Moooooom, I think they dooooooo, their last names is Tooooooe."

Ben placed our gray cat in the extra fridge in the garage last week. We were having the missionaries for dinner so I went out to the fridge to get some drinks. Imagine my surprise when Grayers jumped out as I opened up the fridge!!

When I was little I hated school. I really do mean hate. I can honestly say without a doubt that I would happily relive my husband being laid off when I was five months pregnant and consequently our housing being taken away because the company owned the house THEN EVER, EVER have to repeat those years at Rock Courageous Elementary School. Swine Flue? Natural child birth? Bring it on. Just please, please don't ever send me back to grade school!

Why? Oh, I could go on and on about being dyslexic, being segregated from my class mates for hours on end because I was so far behind, doing work I knew only I was doing, getting special presents from my teachers because they knew I was an idiot, being called dummy on the play ground and having people tell me to my face all the time I couldn't read, not having help after school with all these issues, but I don't want to give those of you who have children in school nightmares. Let me just tell you that it gets a little old when people baby you for the same "illness" for years and years and years and I do mean many more years of "treatment." Oh good memories. I am sure I have illuminated these feelings of good will toward school as my children now prepare to enter the golden gates of academia that will probably taken them to Hell and back a few times over the next six years.

However, today, hopefully being older and a little wiser I see in retrospective how my life of learning unfolded and I do say I would like to help my children take a less traitorous path then my own; if that being the only lesson I take from those years then so be it. But as God as my witness, I will never let my children fumble around in school as I did. But oh how ironic is the world, or cruel is more like it, when consequently to my horror once again as I drop my young children off at Cactus Valley Elementary School I get to vicariously live my childhood again through their eyes.

Maybe it is just an outward expression of something I have always know deep down inside; that my children might have the same struggles as I did those first few years of school. As horrible as it sounds, or maybe a analogy of own story, but "when I hears that that there child can already read at 5, I just gosh darn" WANT TO THROW UP! No, I am truly happy for those who excel so early (take what you want from those last eleven words) it just brings me back to my own inadequacies of learning written Chines, because it might as well have been Japanese at the time. I laugh because yesterday Marin brought me home a book from the library to read . . . and it's in Spanish. We laughed together.

I realize I should take the higher road on this subject and say in the words of Victor Frankle, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." Then again I really don't think that Victor had to go to elementary school in Nazi Germany.

So after a few more trips back to Dr. McDremit, the allergist/immunologist we have discovered . . . nothing. I did an allergy test that showed I was only allergic to the control substance which was histamine, which by the way EVERYONE is allergic to! But he was very nice and we sat down and talked about how I could go 30 years and not know I was that allergic to something. Which he then asked me to describe the weeks before it happened and I told him my family was suffering from influenza and it was quite a bad bout of it. He just looked at me and said that was probably it. He said a few things could have happened. I probably for sure had the virus and a. used something I was mildly allergic too and because my immune system was already down it had full rain to attack me or b. I was really and truly allergic to the virus. Either way he and the ER doctor had talked that I was in serious medical peril when I came into the ER. But my Doctor was like influenza is a serious illness and kills people all the time. And while it is not common it is not uncommon either for someone to have a viral antaphylatic reaction. He said all an antaphylatic reaction is is your immune-system attacking itself and that can happen when someone is very sick. Honestly I know some people just looked at me when I told them the diagnosis that Dr. McDermit gave me, but I agree with him fully. I felt comfortable when I left his office and he still wanted me to keep an Epi-pen around just incase until it expires. So I am going to chalk this one up to influenza. So that would make Marin the first to go to the hospital with influenza, Samantha the second and this time around it was mommy!

And what's a four wheeler ride without packing a little heat and throwing the lead around with your Glock right? Hey what else are red necks do?!




Well I guess the fact that Ben stripped down naked to take a dip in the mountain lake isn't helping any either with our image, but I will said I do have some standards because I did make him put his diaper back on.

Trish didn't bring any riding appropriate clothing so I got to play dress up with her. Hey twiners! Ummm everyone started to laugh when we walked outside. I don't know what this says about my style that everyone was calling her Ashlee. We were so happy to have visitors. Please feel free to come out and see us, we know how to entertain Colorado style!!

I now have all my full year supply numbers completed! It does feel good. But to be honest it then created another problem of learning to cook with it all and mainly the half ton of red and white wheat I have in my house. But since I like to cook and especially bake, it has lead to a house full of cookies, rolls, pies, bread and dumplings! Here are my rolls, I made them the Sunday night when my good friend Becca was drving through and happen to be there right at dinner time. I think they look a little better then they tastes so I am still working on them . . .

Yummy our finished project.

This is not unlike the day before when I turned 20 lb of tomato's into spaghetti sauce and ended up with 5 ready to frezze lasagnas, 2 gallons of sauce and 6 loafs of french bread. (Hey I figured my kitchen was a mess I might as well make bread to go along with it!)

So needless to say I can now add canning and making my own spaghetti sause to my list of favorite things to do in the kitchen!! (Hey it's more productive then my second favorite hobby . . . shopping.) Also, I can safely say there are two ways in which I would not like to die, being burn at the stake or by starvation. So since I can control the later here is the extreme I feel necessary in order to make sure my last wishes are well known.

So yesterday I woke-up and approached my husband about a new fridge, something I have only been talking to him about for two years. Why a new fridge you ask? Isn't her house new? When we moved into our house someone up valley (e.g. Aspen, where all the rich people live) was renovating their kitchen and sold us all of our appliances for $600.00. It was awesome. At the time we had no one money in our construction loan and it was such a blessing. We figured even if one of the appliances was good it was worth it. Well that ONE appliance ended up being the stove. It's awesome! It's GREAT! (Mr. dishwasher clunked out around Christmas 2007 ) The problem with the fridge was it was as I liked to call it "the bachelor" fridge. 18 cubic square feet of smallness. As if this wasn't annoying it was a side by side, so fitting anything large didn't happen, and to top it all the ice maker and water have never worked. So for whatever reason yesterday was the day I made my move.

and ready to harvest! So we planted alfalfa and oats in our field this year! It was a lot of work, well for Steven anyway. We had to have the field dug up last fall . . . then it had to be disked under . . . then we had to put in the corrugation rows to allow the water to flow properly . . . then we planted and irrigated it all summer. . . and on Monday it was cut . . . on Friday it will be baled and our first hay bales we will have harvested!!!

It's so nice to see that something has finaily turned green!!! In case you can't see there are rows of cut alfalfa!!