Family Pictures . . . . .

We were lucky enough to get our family pictures done this year by the fabulous Marissa Moss.  She did an amazing job of capturing our kid's personalities!  I LOVE LOVE the pictures and am so grateful to have these shots of my beautiful kids and family!

Resolutions . . . .

I know, I know.  It's all about the resolutions right now.  I love New Year's Resolutions and I'm usually pretty good about it.  I think it's a great time of year to reflect and decide what areas of my life I need to work on.  I took a cue from my friend Clarice in order to make my resolution's simple.  She chooses one word to work on throughout the year.  I thought that was a fabulous idea!  The word I have decided on is

TIME

Let me explain.  My goal is to MANAGE my TIME and use it WISELY.  That encompasses so much of my life and rolls all of my resolutions into one.  I am a typical "resolutioner" (probably not a word - but I like it).  My goals include exercise and eating right (I'm actually pretty good about this for the most part, but this is a great time of year to RENEW your goals), spending QUALITY time with my husband and kids, staying clean and organized, and just having more time to relax. 

Well, that is all fine and good, but how do you accomplish all of that?  TIME managed and spent WISELY!  I am going to focus on how I am spending my time this year.  I am going to focus on how my kids are spending their time.  I am going to take one day at a time.  I know that how I feel at the end of the night is directly related to how I spent my time during the day. 

So this year, I am going to do a small amount of cleaning/organizing each morning so that I can focus everything else on my kids and husband in the afternoons and evening.  I will spend my evenings with more scripture study, more sleep, and less pointless tv.  (I am not against tv.  I actually love it, but everything in moderation)  My kids will spend 85% of their time playing outside or playing with their imaginative toys and 15% of their time on the ipad, phone, computer, or tv.  Hopefully with more quality time, we can also throw in a lot of walks, park time, and healthy and fresh food!

Anyway - everything I mentioned are just details, my main goal and thought for 2012 is TIME!  Hopefully, with time spent wisely, we can all get more of this:

Christmas Eve and Day . . . . .

We spent the night at Grandma Annie and Papa's on Christmas Eve, then headed to Richfield for Christmas night and the next day before we headed back home. We just relaxed in Richfield because Randy got pretty sick so we stuck close to home.  The kids opened their jammies on Christmas Eve and not only did they get the cutest jammies ever, they also got kid Snuggies! I about died laughing it cracked me up so much. They really love them, especially Ava. We also all got matching jammies thanks to my Mom and a small "diva incident" involving Alecia the first year she was married. *Ahem - moving on* Anyway, don't we look fabulous and matching? I just love it. Also - Ava got to do her Gingerbread house with Grandma Annie again and couldn't be more thrilled.

The kids on Christmas morning.  Ava woke up around six and I told her she had to wait for a while.  She was super patient and only asked every 15 minutes if it was time yet.  It brought back so many memories because I remember feeling like it was an eternity before we could wake up.  Then when I gave her the go-ahead, they then had to wait for everybody else to get up and be ready for Christmas morning!  It was borderling excruciating, but she did so well!

The kids favorite gifts this year were appliances and food for Ava's kitchen and a train set for Kai.  (Grandma Annie was very intuitive and happened to buy a train rug to match the Thomas trains Santa brought!)

Then we headed off to Church!  Don't mind Kai in this picture, he stayed up ridiculously late and barely made it to noon.  He did fall asleep through all of Sacrament meeting and Ava even got to sing Picture a Christmas with the Primary.  It was a fabulous Christmas season.  We are so grateful for our families, good friends, and especially Jesus Christ.  On to the New Year . . . . .

It's Christmas Time!

Christmas was so much fun this year! We started out with Ava's winter concert.  They sang a few classics like We Wish you a Merry Christmas (by the way - according to Ava, it's not figgy pudding, it's figgy bunny!), and Jingle Bells.  She LOVED performing and had all of the actions down perfectly.  Some of the highlights of December include the kids doing the 12 days of Christmas and being "elves" by leaving gifts for Daddy in his car every night.  They thought it was the funnest thing ever and Daddy just couldn't catch those elves or figure out how they got his treats in the car!  We also got quite a few new Christmas books and we read some every night.  I tried to have most of them be about Christ and my kids took it all in.  I was so proud of them and what they learned this year!  (They've come a long way from last year and what Ava thought the meaning of Christmas was)

We had Grandma and Grandpa Warren's awesome Christmas Party and, as always, it was filled with good food, fun, Luke 2, and presents!  My kids just think the party is the best and I just think my Grandma and Grandpa are the best!  Love our family.

Student of the Month!

Miss Ava was named Student of the Month for her Kindergarten class in November. We are so proud of her! Randy, Kai, and I all got to go to an assembly at the school where they honored the kids who were named Student of the Month. I was seriously holding back tears I was so proud of her! The best part was that her teacher kept it a secret so she didn't even know she was student of the month until they called her name. I was so happy when she went right up to the front and didn't act nervous or shy.

Here is exactly what the Principal read in the assembly that her teacher, Mrs. Mattson, wrote:

Congratulations Ava on receiving the Student of the Month award for November.

Ava is a pleasant and friendly kindergartner and is well liked by her classmates. In her quiet way, Ava is helpful and cooperative in the classroom. She is a motivated learner and gives her best.

Ava always comes to school prepared and ready to learn. She has an admirable attitude at school and enjoys learning. She is eager to please and a willing worker. Keep up the great work Ava! We are so delighted that you are a part of our class.

November Happenings . . . . . .

November started out with a girls trip to St. George for Time Out for Women. It was so much fun to get together with my sisters, my mom, AND my Grandma Warren! I love these girls more than anything in the world and time spent together is time filled with fun, late nights, and lots of food. Especially lots of food. Plus, we all think we're pretty hilarious so that just makes it even better.

Then we celebrated Randy's 30th! He got to fly to Texas to golf with his friends and go to the BYU/TCU game at the Dallas stadium for his birthday. So his actual birthday at home was pretty low-key. Our kids were so excited and were very specific on the kind of cake he should have. White with a blue football - and boy did I deliver. Such a beauty. :) I LOVE the picture of them all blowing out the candles.

I helped with Ava's Thanksgiving party also.  Isn't she the cutest little pilgrim you've ever seen?  They had quite the Thanksgiving feast for these kids!

Thanksgiving was at my parent's house this year.  The kids got to help roll up the dinner rolls and were so proud of themselves.  There was, of course, a lot of eating, sleeping, and football.  Ava spent 99% of the day with my cute cousin Mallory.  Ava LOVES her!

How about this picture of the 2 cutest little girls ever?  My little niece Vienna and my cousin Ashlee's little girl Amelia are only a few months apart.  See Kai sleeping there in that family picture?  Well, let's just say this scenario did not repeat itself on Christmas Eve.  Moving on - the last picture is of the amazing Polar Express party Grandma and Grandpa Cuff threw a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  My camera died right when I took the first picture of the grandkids, so I don't even have a picture of the amazing host and hostess, but trust me, the party was a huge success!

October Fun . . . .

Halloween 2011 - I was able to go to the FABULOUS Witches Tea that my friend Kellie puts on every year and once again, it was amazing. Great food, great friends, and great atmosphere. It always brings out the sassy side of me and Adrienne. See what I mean?

I volunteered to help with Ava's Halloween party because, let's be honest, I will take EVERY opportunity to see what's going on when she's away from me! (I'm still adjusting to her being such a big girl!) She loves school, friends, and parties so she was in heaven. Notice my candy corn cupcakes. I was quite proud of them.  Yes - there is a random picture of my messy Kai.  Do you notice a recurring theme here?

We got to do some pumpkin carving.  Kai was done with it pretty quick, but Ava, being the perfectionist that she is, scooped and scraped out every.last.seed that was in her pumpkin.  She was beyond proud of her Little Mermaid jack-o-lantern.  Papa even got in on the action.

Here we are all dressed up.  It's pretty easy to guess what we are.  Ava is Daphne, Kai is Scooby Doo, I am Velma, and Randy is Fred.  The original plan was to have Randy be Shaggy, but Ava pointed out that Fred is much more handsome so it made a lot more sense to have Randy be Fred.  Such a smart girl.  In case you haven't noticed, Randy has very dark hair, which makes it difficult to get it blonde.  Luckily with a combination of yellow and white hairspray, we were able to get it a beautiful green color.  Whatever.  He still looks like Fred. :)  Oh - the other picture is of Randy dressed up as a cowboy for work.  It's a record.  Randy NEVER dresses up, let alone 2 different times for Halloween.  The kids and I must be rubbing off on him.

I just had to throw in this darling picture of my sister's family as the Wizard of Oz.  Sam is pretty much the scariest scarecrow I've ever seen and Vienna is the LEAST scary witch ever.  Love them!

Grandma and Grandpa Visit!

We had a super fun visit from Grandma and Grandpa Cuff and we definitely kept them busy! We went to the playground, had picnics, painted pumpkins, made sugar cookies, and took a drive up to the mountain! Notice Kai's black pumpkin. He didn't want any other colors. Just straight black and he wouldn't quit until it was completely covered. We took what we thought was a short drive up the mountain, only to find out that it was actually a lot further than we thought. Long drive for a short little picnic, but the kids had a blast. We were also able to go to Cirque du Soleil Elvis and it was so much fun! Once again though, we took the longest, fastest walk to get there, only to find out there was a ridiculously short tunnel that directly connected us from our car to the theatre. Grandma and Grandpa probably wished we would have done a little more research on our travels. I sure wish we had! It was such a blast having them here. It is an understatement when I say how much my kids LOVE their grandparents!

Fallin' Good Times . . . . .

We made a special trip to Utah to see the BYU/Utah game as we always do. We are Cougar fans and we bleed blue! We got to see all of my family, PLUS Grandma and Grandpa Cuff, PLUS Grandma and Grandpa Warren. My kids think they're pretty lucky when they get to see so many grandparents! It was definitely not the best game for BYU, but we survived and had a good time doing it.

We got to do some apple pickin' since Grandpa's house here in P-town has an apple tree in the backyard.  I got really excited to make some homemade applesauce because my kids LOVE applesauce.  Well, apparently they don't like my homemade applesauce.  Lesson learned.  Plus, a picture of Kai after getting into who-knows-what.  Mascara maybe?

It rained and my kids were beyond excited.  Just goes to show you that we seriously live in a desert.

And the BIG 3-0!  Yep, I'm officially past my 20's and my husband got me exactly what I wanted.  Tickets to Donny and Marie.  What?  You think I'm too young for Donny?  Puh-lease.  He even let me take a personal photo with him.  I LOVED the show even if we were the youngest people there.  By far.  I blame my mom.  Anywho - the kids picked out my birthday cake with Randy and the lady at the bakery wrote EXACTLY what Ava told her to:  It's Mommy's Birthday.  Ava also insisted that I wear a crown because it was my birthday and that's what you do.  I love my family. :)