How you know

your four year old got hold of your camera....

the hard evidence

Play by play of Charlie in about 1 minute

This is one that I took earlier in the day, the reason the four year old got his sticky fingers on the camera........so cute.

New Years Resolution

After being inspired by a friend, instead of making a llllloooonnnnggg list of resolutions that I may or may not (mostly likely not) accomplish I wanted to choose a one word representation of what I would like to overall aspire to work on in 2010.

The word I chose is

I chose Simplify because I want to simplify my life all around. Go back and start with the basics.

*Teach my children the basics in life, simplify my time, spending it more teaching and being with my kids and husband. They are growing up SO fast and in a moment it will all be gone and they will be grown up. My goal is to do things together that we've never done, relax and let things go that aren't important, to remember what IS important.
*I am a Relief Society teacher and our new book this year is Gospel Principles and it is straight up the basics of the gospel. I hope to learn and relearn so much this year.
*I am going to find some basic haircutting/coloring classes to refresh and maybe learn something new.
*I would love to take some cooking classes, something that will teach me to use simple things to make yummy meals.

I 'm going to live my life in the now and soak everything up, remember everything and regret nothing.

Christmas 2009

We had a fabulous Christmas this year. Last minute we decided to head up to St. George and have Christmas with the family. Christmas Eve the kids decorated pizza's with Taylor and Boston while the adults had my mother-in-law's yummy potato soup. Jake really had a better time than he is showing on his face, he's not a huge fan when I pull out the camera and make him say "cheese!"

They also decorated cookies for Santa. It was funny to see each of them have their own little way of decorating. Boston won the prize for the most decorations on one cookie! He kept grabbing handfuls of sprinkles at a time.

Alex

Jake

Taylor

Boston (he was mad because dad shut him down on putting mounds of sprinkles on his cookies :(

Christmas morning the kids slept in until 8:00 and the ONE morning Charlie slept in until 8:45. We started without her thinking she would be up any minute and she just kept sleeping and missed most of the action. Mine and Cam's present this year was a video camera, hence the lack of pictures.

We headed up to Spanish Fork for Katie and Benny's little Millie's baby blessing and the kids were SO SO excited to see snow. It was all we could do to keep the from rolling all over in it.

Jake got a baseball bat and tee ball stand so we took it out to the park and broke them in.

The game only lasted so long when there was a playground 10 feet from them.

Even though we all got sick at one point and passed it along to some others we had a great time with family. We had a good year and hope to make 2010 even better!

Christmas Festivities

We have been keeping ourselves pretty darn busy around here for the Christmas holiday season. The kids couldn't wait any longer and we put the tree up Thanksgiving night. We got the Christmas lights up soon after. Cameron got brave this year and put some up on the upper level, per the kids request of course.

The kids have LOVED being outside this time of year. They will be out there for hours at a time. It's perfect weather.
Charlie watching her dad put up the lights.

Our little Snowman friend...

Just a random pic of Charlie in front of the tree.

We had to do the annual Gingerbread House.....less messy with the box kind all set up for ya to put together.

Finished product!

I usually give the kids their Christmas jammies Christmas Eve but this year I just couldn't wait!

Alex had a Christmas school program where they sang some Christmas carols. She had been practicing for weeks and knew EVERY word! We have it on video for you Grandmas and Grandpas.

Jake's birthday was the 16th. We went with some of his friends in the morning to McDonalds for some ice cream and let them run around for a couple of hours. He said it was the BEST birthday party EVER. Still easily pleased. When dad got home we took him to a special birthday dinner and then headed home for presents and cake.

Last weekend Cam's work gave us tickets to the Zoo Lights. We met up with our good friends who live in Mesa. The crowds were horrendous, but we had a good time just letting the kids run wild and chatting with friends.

Talia and Charlie

The very silly kids!

Not sure why I'm cheesin it up!?

The Sunday Christmas outfit picture was kind of a bust....couldn't get any of them to hold still. They are still too cute anyways.

Grateful to be movin around....

Our Thanksgiving this year was pretty low key. We had my sister Cris with us, her and I cooked the whole meal together. Great bonding time let me tell ya. I have to admit I was a little nervous to cook my first turkey but it was a success! I'm still trying to recooperate from all the eating we did, ALOT of turkey between the three of us and three pies later takes a while to feel normal again. Me and Cris attempted Black Friday, or should I say 10pm of Thanksgiving night at the outlet mall. We vow NEVER EVER to do that again. People are crazy when it comes to sale signs, deals weren't even that great but we can say we did it even though we only lasted 3 stores.

I'm SO very grateful for the life I live and the people I get to share it with. This year has been a crazy one but I have learned not to take anything for granted and to be grateful for what you have and the people that you love.

Rest assure Cameron is not sweating because of the hard work (or lack of) he did, the lighting must have hit him just right :)

I had to take a picture of our success, I know it's not that great looking but we had a fun time preparing it and it tasted heavenly! Yes, those are paper plates and plastic cups, Grandma Jane and Tami weren't around to pull out the china.

Oh my what can I say about this little mover and shaker? She hit seven months and decided to become mobile. She is army crawling pretty well and is trying to pull herself up on things. I found her in one of her most recent favorite places. Jake said, "Mom, isn't she supposed to be on top of the toy?"

Twins?

This is my sweet new niece Millie Sue who we all think looks just like Charlie Kate. They were meant to be twins. What do you think?

What we have been up to...

It feels like we have been moving non-stop for the past month but nothing really great to talk about. Just normal life stuff I guess. Alex had spirit week last week and we did her hair crazy for crazy hair day. She said her head hurt by the time she got home. I should have taken a after we took her hair out shot because she looked like Shirley Temple. Alex is doing amazing in school, we had parent teacher a couple of weeks ago and her teacher said Alex is a child that every teacher would love having, she's smart, easy to like and picks things up really fast. She has started to read and reads things everywhere we go. Soccer ended a couple of weeks ago and it was so much fun to see Alex get more confident from last year. We might have a future Mia Hamm in the house.

Jake got his first official Transformer this last week for being super duper good during family pictures. He has been asking for one for a long time and now that he has one he won't let go of it, church might get tricky tomorrow. Jake is loving preschool and is learning the funniest songs and can count to ten in Spanish.

Now this little stinker is teething and has nothing to show for it but grouchy, no nap, drooling days. She has been on a strike from sleeping for the last week and we can't seem to keep her excited about anything for too long. She is still the angel baby but just with a little attitude.

Look at our grass Grandpa!! It's green!!

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving this year, we will be on our own plus my sister Cris. We hope to not burn or under cook the turkey. We have SO SO much to be grateful for this year and can't wait to celebrate our thankfulness.