Merry Christmas (props to Sarah!)

Sarah goes to the Christmas Dance

Recycled the Christmas sweatshirts from last year. 

Love it when I can do that!

Dylan asked Sarah with a stocking stuffed with many wrapped boxes. 

 Sarah's idea for the answer was to swipe a picture of Dylan off Facebook and Photoshop their faces onto these sweet dancing reindeer. I found it very creative and quite funny.

Aaron & Will

  Having Aaron here has been crazy awesome. Pray that he finds a hot Utah girl to marry who never wants to leave her beloved state.

Christmas minus one

The kids wondered why I put up Nathaniel's stocking. I told them I'd always put up every stocking no matter who was home.

Every year I buy an ornament for the kids to add to their collection that they will hang on their own trees as they get older:

This year I bought these photo ornaments for everyone.

I also got one of these for everyone

 Putting up the all Nathaniel's ornaments was a little hard:(

Baking with my monkey

Sunday after we got back from California Will and I worked on a batch of cookies. As you can see he turned on the machine just after I added flour. I was covered in flour for our tithing settlement appointment but the bishop didn't seem to mind when we presented he and the clerks (one of which is Peter) with warm cookies.

One thing I can do with Will when I cook is pull up the stool--he's always game for that. I hand him all the ingredients and he dumps them in and then cranks on the machine. Saturday I peeled and chopped potatoes for the Ward Christmas Party and he threw worked his over with the butter knife and helped me throw everything in the pot. I know that even though it makes a mess these are the things I know I'll never regret doing with him.

Sometimes I think we were a little nuts to have a baby eight years after our last. It can be a juggling act with teens and a toddler but he reminds us of what is important in our lives and how our other kids were at this age. It keeps us grounded. We are just blessed to have him. Brings the whole family joy to have a little one around.

Thanksgiving in Tehachapi

 

Connor is 12

 Natalie will be three in March

 Andrew will be one in January

 Ultra fun Uncle Paul and the buggy. And Megan wonders why all his kids think dad's the best thing since sliced bread as soon as he walks through the door . . .

 The fam on Thanksgiving

Claire and Megan 

Rebecca and Daniel

Claire Sarah and Hannah

 Poor Daniel and John express the sentiments of everyone waiting for the turkey to be done. With Will keeping me up half the night I didn't get it in until later than I should have and everyone was waiting around ready to eat. 
I felt bad but at least it turned out good. 
(My main concern is always that it gets done enough so that we all don't get sick! I'd feel a lot worse about that then keeping everyone waiting--as I think everyone would concur.)

 

I'm afraid this is once again the only picture of me. Somehow I always forget to get on the other side of the camera when we travel there.

We all had a really nice time. With our trip to Bryce Canyon fresh in my mind I have vowed not to do the motel thing with Will for at least the next few months so we drove straight through there and back. The drive there was a little brutal with the traffic and frequent stops for him, not to mention he had just had four teeth taken out a couple of days before we left. He was on round the clock Motrin for the first three days we were there (and we were only there four days) and was a nightmare to sleep with. I just don't like traveling with him right now. Coming home went better. Bottom line was though we were exhausted it was worth it.

Rebecca's 14th

(Sarah took this picture and Rebecca added the quote. I love it.)

Happy Birthday to my imaginative, movie-crazy, artistic, witty and drama-loving girl.

Brought flowers and muffins into her drama class.

 She had a party with friends. At this age the great thing is I don't have to do anything except provide the food because they come up with all their own entertainment. They played Twister (because what teenage girls don't want an excuse to do that with the boys?) They went outside in the below freezing weather to do night games, played truth or dare (just great) wherein the boys ended up being given "a make-over" with make-up. I still can't believe they subjected them to that, or that the boys even allowed it. 

All these things I am hearing mostly second hand because after the party started and I took these pictures I went upstairs to my room and did math and largely ignored what was going on downstairs. What stellar adult supervision:/

Stuck

What Will is doing when he is whining for a while and I'm waiting to see if he stops and then finally come in to see what the problem is.

It's official. I miss him.

My homage to Nathaniel in my living room. 

Note you can see my reflection in the picture.

The first week he was gone it was really, really tough. Then things got better. I was getting along quite well. I never got chocked up when they talked about missionary work in meetings. I even got a little cocky and thought of how much better I was handling it than all these other missionary moms. (When, when, WHEN will I learn not to get all cocky and judgmental about things?)

Fast forward two months. Going along fine. Few little moments here and there but no feeling overly blue or tears or anything. All and all I was handling the whole thing beautifully.

Then came the birthday. 

Totally blindsided me. And Peter for that matter. That was November 2nd and I still haven't really recovered. It's only been two and a half months and I think in my mind he was on some extended vacation and suddenly now I'm done with this and am ready for him to come home. I dream about him all the time and when I'm not dreaming about him I'm worrying about him and when I'm not worrying about him I'm missing him and having crazy thoughts about a spontaneous trip to Peru where I just happen to bump into my son. (Like I said, not rational). In my dreams  he suddenly shows up because he forgot something and I'm like, "You flew all the way here for that? Why didn't you just have me send it?" Just weird stuff.

It isn't that I want him somewhere else. It isn't like I don't think this is an incredible experience for him and is going to help him grow in so many ways and share the gospel to boot. It isn't like I don't know we're incredibly blessed to have a missionary. I'm not crying everyday or anything. Just very mixed feelings. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining and I feel guilty for even feeling this way. Just telling the truth and learning some lessons about life I thought I already knew but apparently didn't and probably will forget soon and have to learn them again (dang it.)

John's last pinewood derby

Could NOT seem to keep Will off the track. 
Did not go over well with the owners of it.

 

 

 Got to the derby and realized pennies were glued too close to the wheels to clear the track so I had to peel them off and add them to the back.

 2nd place!