Drawing at church

Cecelia drew this at church today. It's our family. Can you tell who everyone is? They are all actually pretty clear except for Eli and Israel. I like me the best.

:)

This is a result I have to admit that I did not anticipate.


Cecelia had her Christmas concert at school and her class sang and did a dance to "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." Levi and Israel had a piano recital. The boys and Steve went to a youth temple trip. And, we made it through the ward party last night. This week we have tithing settlement, Israel's Christmas concert, Steve's work party, and scout ski day...ahhhh, December.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...Aaaaagh!

If I get everyone but me 7 presents each...that's still 49 presents I have to think of, plan, buy, get home, store, and wrap.

Then all my kids will be like, "What?? I only got 7 presents and 1 is underwear?????"

I'm trying not to think about it.

Stacey convinced me to come down to Phoenix at the end of January and run a 1/2 marathon with her. I've been training. Yea me! I figure the more people I tell that I'm doing it, the more I actually HAVE to do it. I ran 6.5 miles on Saturday. That's the farthest I've ever run. I was tired, but not near my limit. No jelly legs or anything. That is encouraging.

On Saturday we did our annual Christmas tree cutting trip. It went well. No one chopped off their fingers. Only one person peed their pants, and no one cried about not getting the tree that they wanted.





So, I decided to do ridiculous things to my hair. Here's the blond incarnation:



Here's the blue incarnation:



I'm still deciding what color to do next. Probably pink. (This really shouldn't be as fun as it is...can you say mid-life crisis?? Ha.)

It's November?? How did that happen.

Here's some pics of the kids.

Nothing exciting to report, just doing normal stuff here. School. School. Piano and cello lessons. More school. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. How does a house get so dirty so quickly.???

Pike's Peak or bust!

This is Pike's Peak as seen from my house.



This is the Barr trail that goes from the town of Manitou Springs to the top of Pike's Peak.



This is me and my SIL after climbing to the top of the mountain.




That's right. 12+ miles. 7800 feet up in elevation (that's almost one and a half miles straight up people.)

And there were 3 cute little girls and a husband to meet me at the top.

Yea me!

Maggie Speaks! She's 1 today!

Laud (Eli's friend) always comes in the house, and if he doesn't immediately see Maggie, asks, "Where's Uh-Oh?" Wonder why??

Some pics

Every once in a while, I manage to get a picture of Israel.


Levi is trying to grow the front of his hair out to look like the young Indiana Jones of the 3rd movie.


This picture is just to make Charity jealous.


Oh no. Marguerite decided to play with her carrots instead of eating them.



The cleaner version.

The Republican Party Locally

I've gotten involved in politics. At the lowest level. In March, Colorado held caucuses, and Steve and I attended ours. I was prepared to "run" for precinct leader in our area. AND I WON. Okay, okay. So, four of us showed up at our caucus meeting. Only two of us wanted the position, and...there are actually two precinct leaders in each precinct. So I felt pretty good about my chances even before we voted.

At this same meeting, I also became one of 2 delegates to the county convention. That worked pretty much the same way. Then I got invited to the meeting where we picked our state assembly delegates. This meeting taught me that we need more sane/intelligent people going to Republican meetings.

After opening the meeting, we immediately began the nomination process. People could nominate themselves or others. After about 5 people had been nominated I decided to ask...so where is the state assembly, when is the state assembly, how long does it last, what is done there? And, no, there hadn't been a memo sent out that I missed.

After the nominating process was over, we were told to pick 5 of the nine people to attend the state assembly. So, everyone begins feverishly writing on a peice of paper. After about 30 seconds I decided to ask...how am I supposed to decide who to vote for when I don't know any of you, and I don't know which candidates you are supporting? The leader of the meeting looked a little embarrassed and then asked everyone to speak for 1-2 minutes about why they wanted to go to the state assembly. The first woman gave me a life summary, grandchild count, and how many times she'd gone to the assembly before. The second woman told me about how she and her husband always go and how it's a great weekend getaway. The third...no I won't go on telling you. Each of them spoke directly to me, not the whole room, and most of them had to be prompted to tell me about which candidates they were supporting. And, no, these people did not all just know each other except me...I asked later.

Then we voted. There were lots of ties, so we voted again. Then we voted again. Very exciting.

Then lather. Rinse. Repeat. We got to do it for the state assembly alternates. This time I threw my name into the mix. No one asked me who I was, who I supported, why I wanted to go to the assembly. I could have easily been a democratic infiltrator! So I became a state assembly alternate. And no one even asked how many grandkids I had. Go figure.

And on and on it went.

Possible confusion??

So, I realized that my last post may have lead some people to believe that I am actually the proud owner of a new goat.

Don't I wish.

Actually, the goat belongs to a coworker of Steve. We went over and visited her goats, horsies, and pigs.

In my excitment, I may have made it sound like the goat was mine. ALL MINE.

Oops.

Mea culpa.

Me and My Goat!!!!!!!

You'd think I'd get pictures of my children playing with the goat....but no. Just me. Only me. MY GOAT!