So much...

There has been so much going on lately. We had Rob's strings concert (2 hours of pre middle school and middle schoolers playing really squeaky instruments, secret santa, ward christmas parties, Rob's christmas program, PTO and finally school christmas parties. I have this inherited disease called "can't say no syndrome" which makes me a very busy little elf this time of year. Throw in the fact that I try and get all my shopping done before the kids get out of school for the holiday (have you ever tried to christmas shop for them when they are with you?...doesn't work after about age 3.) and Bah Humbug becomes my favorite word.
Today was the greatest day so far of the holiday season, everything is done. Well...I still need to wrap but after wrapping for my parents for I don't know how many years, I am a master. The only things I have left to do is treats for FHE (which after the week from down under, should be a breeze) and caroling with the family on Monday night. Aaah. There is peace on earth. At least at our house.

Mary Did You Know

This video says everything beautiful about this season.


Have a Merry Christmas!!

He's almost 12!!!!

Tonight was Priesthood Preview for the 11 year olds. I know I started having my kids later in life and many of my friends have already been through this, but for me it was so strange. I don't feel like I am old enough to have a child who has graduated from Primary. Granted, Robbie is a late October birthday, so really we have a long time until it officially happens. The way this year has flown by it will be here before we know it. He is really excited and loved the attention that he got from the bishop and the primary presidency at the preview. The bishop talked to them about being future missionaries and preparing every day. Hopefully, this will help with his chores!!!

Backin'Up

We recently had a major computer crash at our house and are trying to recover. Luckily, we have the greatest home teacher ever (Thanks Bill!!) so he saved us. Originally we were just trying to add some memory and fix a broken disk drive, but somewhere in that process the whole hard drive crashed. Needless to say, I was not prepared and had very little in the way of files backed up on disks (partially because of the broken drive). Bill swooped in and saved us as best he could, but he is trying really hard to find another working version of our old hard drive so he can save most of my pictures and documents.
I've learned the hard way that off-site storage and a removable hard drive is the best way to go. Guess what I get for Christmas!! The good to come from all this is that I am now operating Windows 7 (love it) and my computer is light speed compared to what I used to have. I will be very diligent about backup from now on!

Halloween

Halloween was great this year. By great I mean it wasn't raining and it was only slightly cold. The kids wanted to go as characters from NCIS, but after much cajoling and explaining that no one would know who they were, they decided they all wanted to be doctors and nurses. I get the brilliant idea that I can make scrubs for everyone cheaper than I can buy them...yeah right. After making myself completely nuts sewing like a maniac for 4 days, Preston decided he didn't want to be a Dr. but wore his top as a baseball uniform. I told Todd that if I ever decided to sew costumes again to go ahead and punch me. I was insane!! Thank heaven my mom helped by cutting out all the patterns. I didn't get Cassie done so Shawna came through in a pinch and delivered one adorable (and warm) horse costume.

We went Trick or Treating at Evergreen Point again with Jane and Manda and then met up with John and Shawna a little later. Todd stayed home with the bubba (Will) and gave out our candy. The kids were running up and down the streets. I think the east half of the Stake was over there. We got to see tons of people from the other wards and the kids got great full-size candy and pop as treats. All in all I think it was a great time had by all and it took us over 2 hours to get it all done.

First Day of School

Ok. I will now be playing catch-up on all my posts so you will probably see a lot that are long passed. Oh well, better late than never.

This is the first year that 3 kids are in school full-time. Robbie is in 5th grade with Mrs. Hubbard, Preston is in 2nd grade with Mrs. Godfrey and Riley is in 1st grade with Mrs. Winkler.

They were very excited to go back to school and mom was very excited also!! Cassie was very sad because the kids were going to "cool" and she didn't get to go. It was good that she doesn't know how to unbuckle her carseat, or she would have been out the car door when I dropped them off.

This is Riley's first year for school lunch and she promptly came home the first day and informed me that she was not eating school lunch anymore, only sack lunches. Only Riley. The boys would eat school lunch every single day without a complaint, but not the princess!! The kids are getting settled in now and are enjoying school life again, although I forgot how much busier life really is once school is in session again.

Wee little Willy

I know it's been a long time since I posted and I really don't have too much time so I will just post a few quick pictures of Will. He's almost 3 months old and getting very big. He's a very happy baby and a joy in our home.