Catching snowflakes in their mouths. 
Yea!!!! It is snowing!!!!
Paige outside of the rainbow Library on Monday Dec. 15 with snow covering the ground.
Snowing at my house on Wednesday, December 17. More snow pictures to come when I get them from my neighbor. Madison and her friend Cole played out in the snow. I was at Target with Meghan, Paige and Parker so I missed out on taking the pictures. I will get them posted when I get the email. Your Hair Should Be Blonde |
 You are outgoing, light hearted, and a ton of fun. You don't take life too seriously, and you do your best to charm everyone you meet. You are very energetic. People tend to underestimate you, but you can get a lot done. You do tend to be a bit sensitive. If someone has a bad opinion of you, it truly hurts. You are cunning and clever. You are smart, but you aren't "book smart" or academic. Some people may think you're superficial, but they're not seeing the whole picture. |
Tonight was our Stake's Christmas fireside in which Meghan and I were honored to participate in the bell choir. Two and half months ago, we were invited to play in the bell choir. The requirements for the bell choir was to know how to read music, count music, be able to follow music, and be committed 100%. That meant no missing practises if you could help it. "How hard can it be to ring one or two bells when your note popped up," was my thought at first. After the first practise, I had very different thoughts. It was harder than I could imagine. The second practise we were given a solo piece that included mallets, plucking,and marts. My bell choir vocabulary grew over night and I began to play bells in my dreams as well. Meghan did very well being the youngest of the bell choir. She held her own and even had a couple of solos that just included her bells and chimes. Meghan played the C5 bells which was middle C, C# B5 bells which included B and B flat. She played the same notes on the chimes too. I was given C6 bells and D6 bells. These are an octove above middle C. I played
the same in chimes also. The songs that we accompanied the choir and orchestra were "Away in the Manger", "Joy to the World", and "I saw three ships". We also played our bell solo "Steppin' up with Rudolph" which we split between some of the orchestra members. We played on Saturday night while orchestra members played on Sunday night. I am so glad I was able to participate. It was an experience that I will never forget. I hope in the future, I will be able to participate again. It was well worth the hard practise and dedication we had to have to perform in such a short time. Jim was very proud of us as he supported us both nights. The first night he was chasing Parker and trying to keep him in his seat, but on Sunday he was able to listen to the whole preformance since we left Paige home to babysit Parker and Madison. Thanks Paige for your help we appreciated it. 
Decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving has alway been our family tradition. Jim began the process by putting up the lights on the house last Saturday when we were experiencing wonderful weather here in Las Vegas. He added a couple of extras this year, including lights for the bushes and lit-garland around the windows. He was prepared so that the night of Thanksgiving our Christmas lights were ready to go as soon as the sun went down (light sensors -- yea! no more unplugging the lights in our pajamas when we go to bed). Once the excitement has started at our home you just can't stop it. Madsion was so eager to get all the Christmas decorations up that she cleaned my pot shelves in my kitchen and hallways. Paige also helped with this huge task and it was done in no time and ready to get all the decorations down out of the 
attic and in the right spots. Madison was the one who got Dad going on putting up the tree and beginning to place decorations. Parker and Paige also helped with the fun task of getting ALL the ornaments on the tree (finally pre-lit so stringing 10 lines doesn't take all day) in just the right places. Meghan just sat back in her teenage glory and kept saying, "IT ISN'T EVEN DECEMBER YET." She did finally come around when we turned on the radio and they were playing holiday music. Needless to say, it took the better part of Friday, but we got all the Christmas decorations up, the train around the tree, the stockings hung, nativity in place, and the advent calendar ready to count us down to CHRISTMAS. It is only 26 days away. We even went and picked up up a few gifts on Black Friday which we never really do. We have a good start to our holiday season and hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving and a great start to the Christmas season. Thanks to our friends the ALLENS who invited us to Thanksgiving dinner so we would not have to eat alone. We weren't able to go to our family's, so they opened their already busy home to us as well. THANKS. We enjoyed ourselves a lot. 
Well, once the tile came off, I found lots of mold, which required structural demolition. Also, our sinks were breaking and showing rust in the bowls. Of course, the new tile didn't match the tile our counter top was covered with, and the old tub just didn't look right with all the new stuff...you probably have guessed that one thing led to another and when it was all done with, the tile was replaced, the sinks and countertop was replaced, and the tub was replaced. To bring it up to today's designs, we also removed the old '80s looking mirror and bar-light over the vanity and replaced with something more stylish (the light fixture cost only $5). Since more was done than originally planned and because of some poor measuring on my part, we encountered some delays and my 2 week project turned into 3 1/2. I'm very happy with it, however. The shower is bigger and now has a light over it so it doesn't feel like you're in the dark, the tub is deeper with jacuzzi jets, the counter no longer has grout to constantly clean, and everything that was bad before has been repaired. I sure pays to work for a General Contractor some times. Kendra picked out a fantastic looking tile, too.
Madison had her 7th Birthday on Monday and all she wanted to do was invite friends and play with them at a park that had a water feature. The park she choose was smaller and wasn't crowded at all. We actually had the whole park basically to ourselves. They played in the water and played games for about one hour then we went back to the house and made paper crowns, had cake, and opened presents. She had a BLAST! Life is so simple when she is happy with friends.
We picked 25 gallons of apples and that made a lot. I thinks this is the total count of production for the two weeks I was in Durango. We made three pies and one apple crisp. I brought home over 36 jars of jam (raspberry, strawberry and apricot), 12 quart jars of apple juice, 8 round tables of fruit leather (roll-ups), 18 pints of frozen raspberries. My dad's raspberry patch was doing very well this year. By the time we left, we had picked around 120 pints of raspberries. TONS! I also helped my mom freeze raspberries for my siblings in California, and my nephew froze some for his family in Rexburg. We also made jam for my brother. It was a busy two weeks and I think I forgot how much work I used to do in the summer when I was growing up. 
