Just in case....

In case you didn't already see this on Facebook, Scott got his diploma in the mail this week! WOO HOO!! It means it's definitely official that he's graduated! A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this little piece of paper. Okay, maybe not a lot of blood and sweat, but I would say tears, money, sacrifice, hard work, etc. went into it.





We don't know yet if he'll be walking in April. I guess it just depends on where we are then. So graduation gifts, cards, or hugs will now be accepted by all. :-)

I have a dream....

I thought it was pretty fitting to title this post what I did since it was Martin Luther King Jr. day on Monday. I do have a dream. I've had it for about 7 years now. My dream, however, is a bit more selfish than Martin Luther King's dream.

I want to live in a house!!!

My husband and I have been married for almost 7 years now (WOW- I can't believe it's been that long). In those 7 years, one of us has always been going to school and we've always lived in apartments. Not just any apartments, but apartments that are generally in the basement and are really dark and a little depressing. I want a house with big windows for the sun to shine in, a big backyard for my girls to play in, more than one bathroom, and enough room to fit all of our furniture and toys in. And while I'm naming off things that I want, I wouldn't mind granite counter tops, a jetted tub in my bathroom, and stainless steel appliances.

How disgusting and selfish am I? So many people live in houses the size of tents (especially in places like Africa), and I am dreaming of a huge house with all these extra "things" that I probably don't need. However, now that my husband is done with school, I can almost taste us living in a new house (although I'm sure it won't have many of these things in it.....maybe sometime in the future). It's right there on the tip of my tongue and it tastes delicious--maybe like a piece of hot pizza oozing with cheese, pepperoni, and sausage or a chewy but soft chocolate chip cookie. Or maybe like a juicy steak with A1 and cheesy potatoes, a Cafe Rio pork salad, or banana cream pie with whip cream on it.......or pretty much anything with whip cream on it. Sorry for the food references, but I'm currently on a diet and these things sound delicious to me right now.

Anyway, one of the things I absolutely love to do when my husband gets an interview is look for houses online. I could look for hours and I usually find a house that I love and that I picture my girls running around in.

One of my FAVORITE places to look for a house was in a town in Idaho, called Sandpoint. My husband had an interview there in December. When I first heard the job was in Idaho, my first thought was, "No thanks." I went to BYU Idaho for a couple of semesters and one of my worst memories there was walking to class at 6:30AM, uphill, pitch black, and absolutely freezing with my friend on crutches whose ankle was broken from slipping on the ice. Idaho is COLD. However, Sandpoint is northern Idaho, and from the pictures I googled it looks absolutely breathtaking.....but probably still freezing. It's right on a crystal clear lake with huge houses that each have their own personal boat dock. I didn't even care that there are only 8000 people in the town and that the nearest mall was about an hour and a half away. I found the PERFECT house and I wanted to move there.

Want to see it? Here are some pictures:







It has its own little river in the backyard and a canoeing dock. Seriously, its own river?? And look at how big those windows are in the family room......oh, and that beautiful stone fireplace. Could this house get anymore amazing? I was drooling over it. I could picture us going canoeing everyday and eating dinner and sipping on hot chocolate on that lovely little table on the deck. Okay, so maybe the river would be a bit dangerous for my little ones, but still, it's practically perfect in every way. Unfortunately, the company Scott interviewed with said they were going through a "hiring freeze" and would call him again in February. Scott was very happy about this. He didn't want to move to Idaho. I, on the other hand, was a bit sad. I suppose it could still work out, but we're hoping something else will come up soon.

So yes, maybe I am a bit selfish for wanting my family to live in a nice house, but I can dream, right? Someday......

Christmas

I thought this year for Christmas that we were going to be alone for the first time. I was kind of sad about that, but I'm glad that we ended up having most of our family in town for the holidays, which was so much fun.

Also, the day after Thanksgiving I got to see my friend Maren, who I haven't seen for two years. She and I grew up together and were best friends for the longest time. It was so fun to see her and her sweet family. We also got to see a little bit of the lights at temple square with her. I say "a little bit" because my kids were such monsters the entire time we were there, so we had to leave earlier than expected.

I really wanted to get a good family picture while we were there, but it didn't happen. This one is weird. Brynn wouldn't keep her head straight.

Now let's move forward a bit to Christmas Eve. My girls all got to open up a present, which were PJs. Brynn's face is funny in this picture. This is the crusty look she likes to give these days.

We thought that Santa would want something different than chocolate chip or sugar cookies this year, so we went with these snowman cookies instead. Hannah liked decorating them with Grandma Julia (who was in town with us for Christmas).

I think Santa liked them, even if they were a little big and disgusting after the first three bites.

We also left some carrots for his reindeer.

Christmas morning before all the presents were opened

Bailey and Brynn didn't really care about their presents. They just wanted candy canes.

I made these aprons for my mother-in-law and Hannah.

Such a cute picture of Grandma and Hannah.

Playing with all their sweet new toys

Bailey loves kissing her pet horse. We named it Maximus after the horse in Tangled. By the way, Hannah, Grandma, and I saw that movie on Christmas day. I've always wanted to see a movie before on Christmas but never have. I LOVED that movie. I thought it was the best one Disney has made in awhile (not including Disney/Pixar films).

Hannah got this kitchen

and this dollhouse for Christmas.

Here's Hannah's little Nativity Graham cracker house.

The day after my mother-in-law left, my father-in-law came into town. Hannah loved doing puzzles with him almost the entire time he was here.

I also got to see my mom and all of my sisters for Christmas (but not on Christmas day). I love spending time with family during this season. I'm grateful for all of the Christmas presents we received this year and all the presents we were able to give. I already can't wait for Christmas next year. Here's hoping Scott will have a job by then.

Pictures from the past month

Poor baby fell asleep like this with her throw up bowl. She never falls asleep on the couch.

Hannah loves spinning the girls around in our office chair. I love Brynn's face in this one.

And this one...

Again, poor child falls asleep on the couch because of that dang tummy bug.

Want your kids to help out around the house? Hannah loves sliding on her knees in her swimsuit while washing the kitchen floor (just like I did as a kid). Fun for her, and it gets a little bit of work done for me.

Giving kisses

And more kisses.

It snowed, and Hannah looks cute in this picture.

I love it when Hannah leaves cute things on our pillows, like this drawing of Scott.

Cute pictures of Bailey and Brynn by the window.

Visiting Santa! I knew Bailey would be terrified of him.

And it snowed again....a lot.

Our snowwoman.

There was even enough snow to make a snow slide. I didn't make this...my neighbor did, but Hannah had fun sliding down it.

The Letter K

I was trying to decide if I should make one ginormous post and write about everything we've done or break it up. I think I'll break it up, so we'll start with preschool. Again, feel free to steal any of these ideas if you'd like.

I had the letter K this time, and I was trying to come up with something we could talk about for most of the two hours, but kangaroos and koalas just weren't cutting it for me. I couldn't find a lot of activities to do with those things, so I chose to do kings and kingdoms (and queens for the girls). I read a book about kings, castles, armies, and kingdoms. I bought sand from Home Depot and had the kids find jewels in the sand so they could glue them on their crowns.





They like finding things, so I knew that would be fun for them. After they found jewels and glued them on their crowns, they made sand castles and had little army men and flags to play with so they could build a kingdom.





Then we had kids "pass the king," which they passed the king around in a circle and as soon as the music ended, whoever had the king got to sit in the king's chair with the king's staff and control the music.

I also had them color our kingdom's banner and hang it on top of the castle. We named our kingdom "Kingdom." Such creative kids. ;)

After that, the kids practiced writing Ks and colored a king.

Then I read a story called "Tea For Ruby," about a girl who's supposed to have tea with the queen, but the queen ends up being her grandma, so they have a tea party at her grandma's house. So, we had a tea party.

These cookies aren't the cutest, but the kids liked them. Crowns and castles....delicious!

We also had cheese, turkey, crackers, and chocolate milk. I let them pour their own "tea" into their tea cups. They loved this!

I wish I had gotten pictures of the second day, but we mostly just talked about fire safety and practiced stop, drop, and roll. We also made some really cute Christmas crafts. The end.