Farewell 2009!

I love these kids. I love my Hubs. I love this life.

2009 was a good one.

See you in 2010!

Look who had a birthday

It's hard to believe it's been a year since we first got a dog. In case you don't remember, Santa brought us a puppy last Christmas; a chocolate Lab named Juno. Well, she ended up having some serious health problems and had to be put down when she was only 2 months old (so we only had her for about 3 weeks). We were fortunate to find a new dog within a few days, another chocolate Lab (from a really great breeder) and we named her Juno again. So, the "new" Juno turned a year old on December 17. She is great! Still a little hyper at times but she is much better behaved than she used to be (like over the summer when she was constantly destroying everything) and we love having her around.

Here she is playing with her "cousin" Trigger; Kate's golden retriever who is staying with us for a week. My girls say they look like they're "in love" in this picture.

This picture (below) cracks me up; usually Juno is submissive around other dogs but when playing with Trigger the other day, I snapped this "I Knight Thee Sir Trigger" shot. I think it's hilarious.

Below are two pictures from a hike she took with the dads & kids the day after Christmas. She loves going on hikes and Aaron almost always brings her when he goes hiking, hunting, or camping. These are great shots; thanks Jake!

Juno Blue Blitzkrieg, age one.
(If you want to see how much she's grown, just click on the "Juno" label at the bottom of the post to see all Juno-related posts.)


Happy Birthday Juno!



(In other pet news, the last of our fish finally died... so we are officially out of the fish business for the time being. Also, Noah's tarantula died recently [nobody shed a tear over that] so we now only have one pet... which is fine with me!)

Christmas

We had a great Christmas! Aaron's younger brother and sister and their families came down from Utah to stay with us for a few days. Apparently I was too busy cooking and hostessing to take any pictures. Hopefully somebody else did! Here are a few shots from a hike to South Mountain that all the dads and non-napping kids went on, on Saturday.

Most of the time we stayed at the house, playing with new toys and enjoying each others' company. It was great! MarioKart for the Wii was a big hit, and the grown-ups played Rockband almost every night. I made a big turkey dinner on Christmas Day, and I've posted the recipes here. Also I made cinnamon rolls the morning after Christmas. And for dinner on Christmas Eve I made fish (it was cod this time) along with sauce and rice and glazed carrots. So with all of that plus some snacks that Emily brought down and all the goodies we'd gotten for Christmas from neighbors and friends, we had a pretty good weekend of eating! After New Year's I'm going have to start cutting back again...

We had SUCH a great time with our visitors; thanks you guys for making the long drive down here! You're welcome to come any time!

My favorite present this year

This was a complete surprise to me, this present from Hubs. It's my blog, in book form, for all of 2008. 265 pages of 181 posts. It's awesome!! I was so thrilled when I opened it. I definitely want to get one of these for every year of blogging from here on out! Before I started blogging, my journal-writing was minimal and my scrapbooking on life support at best. So to have this record of my life in writing and pictures not only in digital but now also in book form, is just awesome. I love it!!

Hubs ordered this from Blurb.com. This book is 7"x7" and cost a little over $50 including shipping. Hubs spent HOURS and hours on this, with several different layouts and different page backgrounds. It looks great and it's so much fun for me to read through. Thank you Hubs!

Merry Christmas!

Where we live, the seasons are a little different.

For example, the deciduous trees around here don't know that they're supposed to change colors and lose their leaves in September or October, so they do it in December or even January. Instead of playing in the snow after school like other kids around the country, my kids have recently taken to raking leaves, just because they're there. They have spent hours doing this the past few days!

Before and After, #3 (ha ha)

This kid was long overdue for a trim!

Weekend events

Amazingly, these tiny images are the best pictures I can find online of Ballet Etude's Nutcracker, which we saw on Saturday.

Yay for the Nutcracker! It was so fun to get dressed up and go with all the girls in the family (my mom, grandma, sisters, daughters, and nieces) to see the Nutcracker at the Mesa Arts Center on Saturday afternoon. Predictably, now all the girls want to be ballerinas. The costumes and the dancing were great! My mom even had the great idea to buy each family a Nutcracker book to read ahead of time so that our girls would know what was going on when they watched the ballet. Good thinking, Mom! The girls and I loved it.

Also, something that happened at my house on Saturday morning...

A crew of two men from the LDS video production company came to our house to shoot some video of our family to add to their huge database of video clips for use in Mormon Messages, and lds.org videos such as on the Provident Living site, the Family Finances page, or the Building a Strong Family page.

So, if you ever happen to be watching a Church video in the future and see any of the following clips: Lucy and Noah sweeping the front walkway with Aaron supervising, Zoe and Molly and me reorganizing bikes in the garage, all six of us reading scriptures on the couch, or a close-up of Aaron & I "discussing finances," please let me know so I can check it out. Thanks!

Kate is the winner!

Thank you all for your votes!
Kate, whose gingerbread house was "A," won this one by a long shot!

Honorable mention:

Our mom's: B
Mine: C
Jamie's: D

Gingerbread House Contest - vote!

My kids & I, my two sisters and their kids, and my mom got together Wednesday afternoon for our annual Gingerbread House Day. In the past the kids have decorated gingerbread people; this year some of them also made graham cracker houses, which they LOVED doing.

But now it's time for the serious part: the official online blog judging of the houses made by the grown-ups. Last year only three of us made houses; this year all four of us did so the competition is tough and the stakes are high! And we even had an official festive fabric backdrop for the pictures!

I have included three different angles so that you can get a full appreciation for the incredible skill and artistic ability that went into each house. Just kidding. I felt a little rushed myself and didn't feel like I brought my "A game" this year, but even still it's fun to see what we each came up with.

(click on any photo to enlarge)

In the comments section, please tell which house is your favorite. And, even if you don't like any of them or can't decide on a favorite, any kind words and compliments in general are always appreciated.

Thank you.

2009 Christmas Recital

Woah, that's a lot of kids! (No, I don't teach that little 2-yr-old photo crasher in the front.)

Look how many students compared with two years ago...

I had my Christmas piano recital Monday night and it was a success! I have had each of the Christmas recitals at my house since I started teaching again in 2007, and I enjoy having it here. (We've had the May recitals at our church.) I knew I had a lot more students now than I used to have, but for some reason my brain didn't translate that into the increased number of parents & siblings that would be attending the recital. Last Friday morning I did a mental calculation of my 19 students' families and I estimated that there would be around 75-80 people in my house during the recital! Yikes! I panicked a little but I must be a glutton for punishment because I refused to change venues. A friend of ours has 60 padded folding chairs that we borrowed, and with my own we had a total of about 75 chairs set up. Judging by the number of occupied seats I think there at least 70 people here; one of my students was sick and didn't come so without her family here, my estimation was pretty close. It worked out really well; we moved all the furniture out of the family room and put all the chairs and the piano in there since that's a bigger space than the living room (where the piano usually is). The open floorplan of this house really came in handy for this occasion.

Anyway, the kids all did a great job on their pieces and it was a good night. I sure enjoy teaching.

Before and After, #2

I don't actually have a "before" shot of this; this is only the "after." This playroom reorganization has been in the works for a couple of weeks, which started with some necessary rearranging of TVs, due to the receipt of a new piece of furniture in my bedroom. If it matters to anyone but me, I will describe what the "before" picture would've looked like: desk and couch in different places, a different (smaller) TV between the bookshelves, all the toys were much less organized and the shelves looked, well, disheveled. We went through every single little toy: puzzle pieces, polly pockets, dolls, stuffed animals, lincoln logs, marble run, transformers, books, games... you get the idea, and now everything has a specific HOME: drawer, basket, shelf, etc. It's really quite exciting. A lot was thrown away, a few things given away. And the kids & I just finished it this afternoon. Whew!

'tis the season

Custom shirts courtesy of Pamma (my mom).

Thanks Mom! The girls LOVE them!