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.