Snow Day

*A little note before my post.  One of my goals for this coming year is to use my camera more.  My actual camera.  Not one attached to some sort of amazing device.  I love that I can use my phone to capture fun, important moments that I may have otherwise missed, but I miss the quality of my camera photos.  So. If I am going to the trouble of lugging my little camera around I may as well go to the extra trouble of posting about it. ;)

This winter has been fabulous.  Warm and green.  Until Christmas.  It got cold and snowy.  I am learning I am not a huge fan of the snow.  This morning I got up early to meet Cami at the gym and the heavens were dumping little fluffy flakes all over.  Ugh.

Farewell warm weather and green grass.  I will miss you.  See you in a few months! Sniff...

The Week of Christmas

Christmas came crazy fast this year.  Maybe it had something to do with working 20 hours a week now.  Maybe it's that the kids are growing up too quickly and are all involved in their own activities.  We dropped a lot of things that we liked to do and went into what (at least to me) felt like Christmas survival mode.  We did good, though.  There was an abundance of Christmas spirit and we squeezed in Christmas activities where we could.  I will admit that it was really hard to let go of decorating my "nice" tree exactly how I wanted to.  I don't think I even hung an ornament on that tree until about a week before Christmas.  I managed to get a few things on there but it was in no way decked out the way I wanted it to be. Eventually I made myself remove the decoration box from the living room.  It helped remove a lot of the stress and disappointment.

We took off to Price on the Saturday before Christmas to spend time with Jeff's family.  I got to love on this sweet nephew of mine.  Aren't his rolls perfect?!

Chloe and Sophie had so much fun being with cousins.  We enjoyed the 2nd annual white elephant-style gift exchange.  Nothing compared to the moment we were surprised by someone receiving a box of Grandma Maynes clothes.  No one was more surprised than Grandma, though, who wanted to know why Grandpa was giving her clothes away.  It was hilarious and we all had a good laugh.

I had to work Christmas Eve.  Thankfully it was in the morning so I could spend the day with the family.  My friend, Emily, and I decided last minute to wear ugly Christmas sweaters.  I really hate this picture of me, but my BFF says that it is all the sweater's fault and I have to believe her.

My favorite thing about Christmas is the love between siblings.  They seem to set aside their differences and are lovey.  It melts my mother heart.  We started a gifted exchange between the kids years ago and it is so fun to watch them really try to pick out the perfect gift for their assigned sibling.  Also PJ's are a big tradition.  I nearly had McKay and Sophie convinced that I did not remember ever doing this.  (Mostly because I was tired and annoyed that they expected it) They were happy to see I was only pulling their leg.

Each year we do a Mary and Joseph dinner on Christmas Eve.  This year we decided to add to it a bit.  Jeff and I dressed up as Mary and Joseph and taught the kids from the scriptures about the life of Jesus as we served them.  We eat by candle light and use paper plates and only our fingers for utensils.  It's always a special event.

Christmas morning we had so much fun opening gifts.  I think we did a great job and Santa came through on his end as well.

Chloe, Jeff and I all snuck in a much needed Christmas nap before heading out to the Marchant party.  In the snow. Ugh.  White Christmas's are only beautiful if you stay home.  We met at a church and enjoyed visiting and food and more presents.

The 26th is my family's Christmas celebrations.  The hit gift this year was the bean bag chairs for the kids.  I can't wait for family movie nights now!  I can finally sit on the couch again!!

Jeff and I ditched the kids today in favor of a movie and dinner.  Unbroken was inspiring. A little long but still good.  And have you tried Pie in Five??? Yum!  Pizza in 5 minutes.  They all come in personal sizes so you get the pizza you want.  :) We topped it off with a cupcake from One Sweet Slice.

It's been a great week.  I must be getting old though because instead of feeling let down I feel more refreshed and ready to take on the new year, new challenges, and hopefully reach some new successes.

Four Years

This kid. She is sunshine and spunk and a little stubborn all rolled into one. Mostly she makes us laugh and melts our hearts with her perfect snuggles.

She was so excited to celebrate her birthday. We invited her friends over for a Frozen themed birthday party. (Can I say I'm so happy this is the last 4 yr old party I will throw?) we painted snowflake ornaments, played freeze dance, threw "snowballs" at a tower toilet paper, and had a blast playing Don't Eat Olaf. 

We had a little family party on Sunday. We ate Chloe's favorite- chicken nuggets and fries for dinner with a gorgeous Frozen cake and ice cream for dessert. After presents we watched Maleficent. 

Little Miss was in heaven. 

First Day

Ok.  We are well past the time that is acceptable to post your kids first day of school photos.  But.  I'm going to do it anyway.

Lyndsi-
7th Grade (not sure how or when this happened)

McKay-
5th Grade (Gets asked all the time if he is the oldest)

Sophie-
3rd Grade (Finally baptized! More on that later)

Chloe-
Preschool (We have finally grown out of the Joy School stage!!)

Here's to a fantastic school year filled with hard work, good grades and lots of learning!!!

Family Weekend

In rare alignment of all the right planets and stars, Jeff's entire family got together over the 24th of July weekend.  7 kids in 4 different states (one coming clear from Buffalo, NY) is no easy feat.  It was so great to see everyone.  We played, participated in a bike parade, attended a children's fair, swam, did makeup (I think girls are always 12 years old at heart :), learned crochet, made bracelets for the children's hospital, played some more, ate lots of yummy food, laughed a lot, and made so many great memories.  I'm so grateful we got to be together for a few days!

We may not have the cabin anymore, but we still have the cannon.  BOOM!!

Cousins really do make the best friends.  Wish Bry lived a bit closer.  At least it's really easy to keep in touch with so many fun devices. :)

Sisters-in-law also make the best of friends

See?  Who else could convince me to do rub on tattoos? Ha!

Bottle rockets with Grandpa

The lineup.  Love these kids.  You would not believe the mess these little angels can make. 

Birthday bubbles!  Grandma wanted to celebrate everyone's birthdays at once.  What better way than with bubbles and cookies? 

Spring Piano Recital

**This is an older post that's been sitting in my drafts for almost 2 months.  I thought it would be fun to share still. :)**

It's been a rough piano year for us.  (Three different teachers in less than 6 months.  'Nuff said.) But.  We have found a fantastic piano teacher we are ALL loving.  She is kind and patient and easy to work with. McKay and Sophie adore her and Lyndsi doesn't complain.  Definitely a winning situation.

Friday the kids had their first recital with this new teacher.  McKay missed out, opting to go to the Father's and Sons campout with his dad and Grandpa Ard. The girls did great.  Here are their performances:

Sophie-

Lyndsi:

Girls Camp 2014

It's done.  It's over.  Hallelujah.  It's not my favorite thing to talk about right now, but such a huge part of my life merits a little post at least.

In January I was called to be the Assistant Camp Director.  A few weeks later they called me back in and switched me to the official Camp Director and the previous one would be my assistant.  Great.  Then the next 6 months ensued.  We worked hard.  We made rules.  We tried to plan.  Camp came.  The girls had fun.  We had awesome Star Wars themed t-shirts.  Darth Vader came to camp several times, each with an envelope relating parts of the movies to the gospel (think board game action cards).  The girls thought this was hilarious and very "Bachelor" like and started calling them date cards.  We had rain.  We trained to be Jedi's. We crafted.  We kayaked.  We roasted (literally and figuratively). We prayed.  We sang.  The stake visited.  We ate.  A lot.  We slept.  Not much.  No bears.  (Thankfully.) No major incidents.  No pranks (much to the dismay of a loud few.) We had fun.

I still feel overwhelmed when I think about it.  If you ask me about it, I will probably only say the girls had a lot of fun.  They did.  They loved each other.  They laughed.  They played. I didn't see anyone being excluded.  The older girls took these cute new Beehives and absorbed them into their groups and loved them. That was honestly my favorite part.  I am biased having my own daughter be there for the first time.  I could not have asked for a better experience for her.

Rhodes Rolls.  Totally worked.  Took some practice, but they were yummy!

I was reminded often at camp how much Heavenly Father loves me.  How often he watches out for me and how he uses others as his angels.  I was reminded once again that my no pranking rule was very important. One small prank was allowed- the snipe hunt.  I, however, was quite worried about it because of the extremes it has been taken to in the past years.  Every evening that we tried to do it, it rained.  I am positive it was not a coincidence and the Lord was sustaining me and the decision I had made.  I felt love for these beautiful girls like I love my own kids.  I hugged a few of them and had to keep myself from handing out kisses and "I love you's." :)

There have been a lot of compliments on camp.  Some criticisms.  My assistant assures me the critics are nit-picking.  Yesterday, though, I got a letter from the Stake Young Women presidency.  It warmed my heart and gave me what I needed so that I could know I did do a good job and that I reached my goals even if others thought that my rules and ideas were a little (lot?) silly.

See?!  How do you not say "I love you" to these cute girls?!!

Next year is Stake girls camp.  As a teen, I would have groaned.  As the camp director all I can say is, "WAHOO!"