Waiting for the New Year

It's one of those moments where you pause, realize that tomorrow is a new day, new month, new year and you have the momentary panic attack because you're suddenly being pounded by a million thoughts of "What on EARTH did I DO with a WHOLE YEAR?!?"  Then you laugh and comfort yourself with "Oh, it's not THAT bad, I MUST have done SOMETHING constructive this year, right?  Anyone?  Someone going to agree with me?!?"

But seriously...

What DID I do with this last year?

Madison started Primary.  Finalized Maelee's adoption.  Had her sealed to our family for eternity!  Maelee learned to crawl, walk, run, climb, jump and drive us crazy.  I turned 25.  Madison turned 4.  Madison took swimming lessons.  Maelee turned 1.  We finally got a nice TV.  Clint had a few kayaking adventures.  Madison started pre-school.  Clint turned 29.  We discovered Maelee is double-jointed in both thumbs {and it's truly a freakish thing to behold!}.  Madison split her head open and needed 2 staples.  We played in the snow.

That about sums up 2010 as far as milestones, but what else happened?  Did I lose 10 pounds?  Nope.  Totally fell short of that goal... again.  *sigh*  Did I simplify my life?  I'm not exactly sure.  I think I may have just trained myself to not stress out as easily instead... hmmm.  Maybe I need to think about that one a little more!  Did I achieve any great accomplishment?  Yeah, I think I did.

My kids still love me.  My husband still thinks I'm great.  Our home is pretty clean and comfortable.  I haven't totally scarred my children or husband with any of my crazy ideas or lack thereof.  I feel like we're living a semi-charmed, happy life and that, to me, is quite an achievement.

Do I have any regrets for 2010?  Maybe.  Probably.  Yeah, ok.  Yes.  I wish I had exercised more self-control at times.  I wish I had let more little things slide.  I wish I had been more laid-back when it mattered and more stubborn when it was needed of me.  I wish I had been more committed to doing the little things, and making them count. 

Are we ready for 2011?  You betcha!  I'm SUPER excited for the new year.  I'm excited to recommit myself to my goals and to try a little harder.  I'm excited to watch my girls learn and grow.  Excited for all the projects I have written in my little notebook.  I'm excited to watch my photog business grow.  And I'm really excited to spend another year with Clint.  He's such a kid at heart and I love living our life together. 

But right now?  Right this second I'm excited to chill on the couch and watch Incredibles with my girls until Clint gets home.  What a great way to wait for the new year, eh?

Snow, wonderful snow!!!

I love snow!  I say that if you're going to have the cold, you may as well have the snow to play in! 

Clint says that shows that I've never lived in Chicago {where he served a 2-year mission for our Church}!!  LOL

Granted, it's not snowing enough to really stick and make blankets of fluffy, white stuff - but I'm excited anyway.  We're planning on going up to the mountain tomorrow to play in it and freeze!  Woohoo!  The girls are super stoked to go, and I'm sure will be super stoke to come right back home!  Haha, love it!

Christmas Eve lasts FOREVER!

Why is it that the weeks leading up to Christmas speed by, and then Christmas Eve gets here and draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags on? 

And on?

And on?

And on?

It's only 3 and already I've slept in {thank you girls!}, eaten too much, taken a nap, played lots of games, watched a few movies... And I know that tomorrow will zip by and be over before I know it!  *Sigh*  I don't want the season to end but this day is ridiculously long!  :O)

Merry Christmas everyone!

I agree with the Grinch

It's true.  I honestly do!!  There is one line from that story that keeps running through my mind...

"I MUST stop this Christmas from Coming!  ...But how?"

Christmas is only 4 days away!  I'm SO {get this!} bummed!!!  Most of the magic of Christmas is the anticipation of it.  Next week we'll be surrounded by fun new things, and my girls will be entertained with all their fun gadgets and gizmos... and I'm the goober who doesn't want it to be here yet.  I want to prolong the season.  Once it's over, life goes back to normal.  We find a home for everything, put all the decorations away until next year, throw the tree out on the burn pile, and then it's just cold without anything special to look forward to.  *Sigh*  Maybe the Grinch and I will go on strike!  Ha ha.

We've had a nice December so far.  I've tried really hard to not get stressed out and to not over-do it.  {Thus, I am still undecided as to whether or not I will send out Christmas cards... they would really be more like New Year's cards at this point... LOL}

Madi and I did a fun project a few weeks back, I taught her how to make paper snowflakes. 

It was hard for her little hands to cut through so much paper, but she did a great job

and we made quiiiiiite a mess!

It took about a week to finish up, not because it was hard or anything, but more because it just took me that long to get my iron out! We ironed them so they would be nice and flat,

then we sprayed them with glitter spray and hung them over our bay window in the dining nook. So fun!!

Next came our ward party. It was CRAZY!! There were so many people that we ran out of tables and chairs! They had to pull some out of the classrooms and seat people out in the foyer. The Primary did the Nativity, and as you can see, Madi was VERY interested...

LOL She actually really DID get into it, and was basically sitting backwards in her chair the whole time. It just got a little long for her... Ha ha Evidently it did for Maelee too cuz this is how she watched the performance

Clint is SUCH a trooper! He gets the Super-Dad award! Then the girls saw Santa, and I'm so annoyed at my camera and flash that THIS was the best pic I got. Grrr!

The guy had actually grown out his beard and bleached it so it was white. Very cool! The kids were SO excited, Maelee almost jumped out of my arms to get to him, then they both stroked his belly while Madi told him what she wanted. When I reached for Maelee, she defiantly told me, "NO!!" and turned back to Santa to pet him some more. He thought that was GREAT, and rewarded her with a few tickles - to which she cupped his face and gave him a love. Too cute!

Last week was the last this semester for pre-school, so we had a party during the last hour on Thursday. The girls were SO adorable. {Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Michele for the pictures!} First, we played "Hang the Ornament on the Christmas Tree"

All the girls got a few turns, and even Maelee and Marshall got a turn. :O)

Then we attempted to play the white elephant gift exchange game... Note to self, don't, repeat DO NOT play this game with 4-year-old girls! It's just not fair to the poor girl who gets her present taken! I felt so bad for Bentlee! Whoops!

Next, we had a junk break and decorated cupcakes to look like Rudolph. So cute!

That afternoon, Clint and I cashed in on some hour-massage gift certs he had gotten us for our anniversary back in June. HEAVEN!!! Then we went out to lunch {"This is like a REAL date! Wow!!"}, and got ready to head down to see my family for the weekend. As always, we were spoiled there and came home with heartburn from all the good food, a trunk full of fun toys and goodies, and lots of memories. I didn't bring my big, nice camera and forgot the SD card for my piece-o-crap-but-very-small camera... SO, I didn't get any pics of my family festivities. We also had a visit with Kiki, and I was able to get some from that before my internal memory was full.

Madi and Kapuai ran crazy dressed up like fairies, fun fun!

Maelee may look like she knew what she was doing, but she didn't stay on her feet for too long...

It was a great visit, and we are so happy to see Kiki and her family doing so well.

Merry Christmas too all, know that we love and are thinking of you!  And props if you made it through that!  :O)

I love... winter?

Before I get into all the hoopla for Christmas, I have to pass on the info that Madi had her staples removed this morning and it was quite the traumatic experience {almost more so than getting them IN!!}.  The nurse came rushing in to make sure we weren't killing her, that's about how loud her terrified screams were.  Of course, if you were being pinned to a table by your mom while a doctor came at your head with scissor-looking things, you'd probably be pretty freaked out too!  SO sad!  Trent, our family doctor and friend, did it as fast as he could - one staple actually flew across the room and the other fell and got caught in her curls in the rush.  Blah!! 

You MAY be able to tell in the pic, but rest assured that it's healing well and as a memo to all for future reference - he said that if you or your child ever have a head trauma like Madi's and you're out where you can't get to a doctor quickly, you can grab 2 pieces of hair from either side of the wound and tie them together.  He said that that works really nicely to close the wound back up until you can get medical attention!  Who knew?!

Last week was CRAZY 'round this place!  Aside from Madison's head-splitting adventure, she also had her performances for her FIRST play!!  They did "It's a Small World" and it was adorable!  She was a London Bridge - basically a cute kid in a school uniform who came out and sang the song.  Too cute!  I went to every show {except Friday night, I helped out back stage} and enjoyed all the little moments that the kids brought to the stage that weren't supposed to be there!!  LOL  Madi did great and I'm so proud of her!!!

I also did the HS Wrestling pics and Clint helped out at our local HS's Invitational.  Needless to say that by Sunday we were pretty exhausted and the girls both took a 3 hour nap... at the SAME time!!  LOVED it!

NOW FOR CHRISTMAS!!

The weather has been so screwy around here lately, we had a freezing cold front move in around Thanksgiving and stay for a while, but thankfully it has since passed on.  This week it's been back to flip-flops and short-sleeves!  Crazy.  And yet the mountain is starting to collect drifts of snow!  Gotta love the dessert!  :O)

We finally got our tree up and it's so pretty!  Madi did a great job helping me decorate it this year.  I told her the cardinal rule of tree decorating: You never, ever put 2 things that are alike next to each other.  You need to spread them around so it looks nice and even.  This was her plan of action: Place her princess ornaments all around the bottom of the tree {good}, then place a fairy ornament right next to each princess so that they all would have a friend.  "They're not the same, Mom!  Princesses and fairies are different!"  Well... sigh... yes, that is correct.  Can't fight that logic!  LOL  It's adorable and I love it.

Since our tree was up, Madi insisted that it meant our presents needed to be wrapped, so I made a trip to the devil's store {yes, I mean Wal-Mart.  We SO need a Target!} and knocked out a big chunk of my shopping, then spent a few hours wrapping... the large amount of time was mainly due to the fact that I was half wrapping, half watching a movie.  :O)

We got our house lights up right after Turkey-Day, and our other house decor up before that.  It's been so fun to see it slowly come together, and now we're all decked out, narrowing down those last few purchases and almost ready for the big day.  Of course, Madi keeps insisting that we open the presents right now cuz Santa will bring us more and we need room under the tree for when he does... Oh, she is SO my child when she thinks like that!  Ha ha ha!