Christmas?

I finally found the camera cord so I could download pics. Here's a few from Christmas time that I thought were cute:


We got a trampoline for Christmas. The kids have enjoyed it, but they would enjoy it even more if it was a little warmer:



Here's Maggie looking cute in our new sheep/shoe bin/ottoman. Her name is Baaaa-ertha. Is that the worst sheep name ever, or what?



This is the first time ever my girls have had matching dresses. They love them. They are sweater dresses with hoods in case you can't tell.



Here's Israel looking cute. He asked for a vest for Christmas. It was a good plan. He looks good in vests.

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!

The Girls

Blast from the past: This is Cecelia. I can't believe how much Marguerite looks like Cecelia did at about the same age. It seems like every time we look at old pictures, she looks like someone different. (It also reminds me that I need to get out this sweater. I love it, and it should fit Maggie now.)

Francesca loves pistachios. Seems weird for a little girl, but she does. Unfortunately, she can't open them by herself and has to have me do it.

Little Buddha baby Marguerite. I love when they are so cute and chubby. She is really happy and fun right now except for at night when she wakes up every 2 hours or less. Poor kid, it seems to be my children's typical stomach issues.

Steve, Elijah, and Israel went skiiing yesterday since it was Boy Scout day and there were discount tickets. They had a great time, although apparently Elijah just likes to lie in the snow and not get up. Israel loved it. I'm not sure if Eli wants to ever go again, but I hope so....

The boys

This is my blast from the past. Isn't my little bitty Israel a sweetheart? I can't believe he used to be so tiny.

Here's Elijah how we usually see him. Computer in hand. He looks so happy, doesn't he? He has adopted Steve's laptop, I think he thinks it's his now. It's better than a dog. (But not as good as a bunny.)

And Levi....all my boys are Star Trek geeks. I started them watching Star Trek Next Generation when I realized that they had never watched a TV series before. I thought it would be fun for them to have something with a continuing storyline. After they finished with that they wanted to watch Voyager, then Deep Space Nine, and now that they are almost through with that they've starting watching the original series that streams on Netflix...I think that things might have gone too far.


Christmas time has been good so far this year. We got our tree, we put up decorations, we watched the Christmas devotional, and we've been listening to Christmas music. Although one word of warning. We have apparently had 2 different things from Amazon stolen from off our front porch. One just never seemed to show up, and the other we found the empty packaging just lying around.

So watch out. (Luckily Amazon is being very good about replacing the things that we did not receive.)

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!!!!!!

Some of my kids, well...

On the way home from school this week Israel asked me if I wanted a friend. I said sure, wondering all the time where this was going. He then presented me with a small flat fuzzy brownish-rust colored object about the size of a silver dollar. Luckily I was smart enough not to touch it because when I asked him about it he said, "Oh, I got it off the floor in the bathroom at school. It was just growing there so I thought someone should take it home as a friend."

The good news is that he didn't touch it either (apparently he used a pencil to pick it up). The bad news is that my son think he should collect fuzzy things he finds in bathrooms.

Blech!



The girls.


She's getting big too fast.


Israel, posing instead of hiding...yea!



Cute Marguerite in her daddy's arms.

Epic Fail...Fall

Elijah edited his first video. I think he did a pretty good job for his first time....there's music and everything. (Don't worry, it's not too long.)

Although this video may look staged, let me assure you, it was not.

We are doing great here. We are over the swine flu and we are all healthy. I got a new camera, and as soon as I figure out how to hook it up and download pics, I'll post some new ones, especially since Maggie thinks she's about to crawl. (Stop growing up, babygirl!)

the Oink Oink

So, our family has been having the never ending experience with the swine flu. Never. Ending. Really. It has now been 6 weeks of nonstop fun.

It's like a merry-go-round. One person gets off, and another gets on and we go around and around and around. Today Elijah has the dubious distinction of being the first one in our family to get it for the 4th time. I was hoping there was no 4th time. Steve, Francesca, Cecelia, and I have had it twice, Israel has had it 3 times, and Levi twice, although once was his stint in the hospital so I feel like it should count double, and Maggie has had it once.

The Oink Oink needs to go away, and never come back.

We hateses it.

12

Today is Israel's birthday. He's 12 this year.

So the other day he's talking to Levi:

Israel: It's really gross when you barf, I remember one time, I barfed and there were beans in it.

Levi: Ewww.

Israel: The wierd thing was that I hadn't eaten any beans.

Me: Israel, if you barfed beans then you must have been eating beans.

Israel: But I hadn't...maybe they were the children of my kidneys.

Me: **What??**




...Anyway. Here are some pictures that I took for Grandma Bentley's wall. They aren't that great, but Grandma Morgan wanted to see them, so here they are.

New Job!

Eli and Maggie.


Eli sleeping with Maggie



Grandma Morgan doing the grandma bounce

Grandpa Morgan with a terrified Francesca

Peek!

Steve started his new job today. Did I tell you, Steve got a new job??

Yea! He did!

He is now employed at Spectranectics. They develop and manufacture medical devices like laser catheters that go in and clean out blocked arteries. It is here in Colorado Springs, so we get to stay here. (The kids are pretty excited about that part.....me too actually.) We feel very blessed, this job situation has worked out better than we could have even imagined.

It is really nice to know what our plans are. I feel like it has been a long time since we've had an idea of what was coming next. It is good to feel settled again.

And time flies...

Maggie is already getting bigger. Hardly seems fair after how long it took to get her here.

After a rocky c-section (for me, not her) things are going better. I got my bionic bladder (catheter) removed this week. I had it in as my bladder was healing from a suture that was put through it while they were sewing me up. I am thrilled, it has made life MUCH easier getting that taken care of. I am starting to get some strength back and things are good here.

Steve is still on the job hunt. No success yet, but he keeps turning in resumes and something will turn up eventually.