I am proud to be a UTE!

  We unfortunately were unable to pull together a trip to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl due to the fact that we have 6 kids, it was a week after Christmas,  one of the 6 are still considered newborn and it was just too freaking expensive.  We did however pull together a big Sugar Bowl Party to watch the game.  Everyone was adorned in their red and ready to watch our Utes steam roll the Crimson Tide.  And what a game it was!  It has been such a fun year watching our Utes end with a 13-0 season.  I am such a loser!  In all of the excitement of the big game I completely forgot to get out the camera.  So for the first time I am posting with no photos :(  

Here's to 2009!

2008 what a year!  But I have to say that I am very excited to see what 2009 has in store.  I personally have set several personal goals.  Of course I have a weight loss goal.  What else would I have to obsess about if I didn't always want to lose weight.  I did pretty good right after I had Sophia.  I lost 42 lbs, then came December.  I decided to take some time off because I didn't want to set myself up to fail.  But it's a new year and I'm working on a new me!  So far so good and the scale is finally starting to move again. 

 I also want to get my house completely organized so that life can be less stressful.   Our stake is having a 7 week workshop that focuses on organizing your life.  I'm so excited to learn some things that will make my life easier.  

Another goal that I have is to be more appreciative of the great friendships that I have.  One plan I have is to make sure that none of my friends birthdays goes unnoticed.  I have a horrible time remembering birthdays so - Wish me luck!  

And last I want to be more loving to my beautiful children and my hunky husband.  I think so many of us take life for granted and you never know when your next day may be your last.  So my goal for 2009 is to live everyday like it's my last.   To bring in the new year we had all the fam in town.  David and Vicki and their fam was here but they had to sneak out right before midnight to make a flight.  But the hard core party people including Steve and Julie and there families were all her to kiss and sip some sparkling cider.  Those crazy mormons!

Santa needs a bigger lap!

I know this is kind of a silly picture.  But we did it!  We fulfilled our yearly picture with Santa so that we could be good parents.   We got all of the kids dressed up in the red and cream and made our way down to the mall with anticipation that we would run in and snap a picture.  Well we were wrong.  The line to visit Mr. Claus was worse than the Matterhorn in July.  But we weathered the stormed and after standing in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes we finally got the Santa picture 2008 completed.  We really only planned on having the kids in the picture, but we bought the USB which allowed us 3 pictures with Santa so we jumped in on the last one just for the memory.  One thing for sure Santa needs to get a bigger lap!

The gift of Friendship

Every year the whole neighbor gift thing completely stresses me out.  First of all you have to do something more creative than you did the year before.  You have to make a list of all of the neighbors that you plan on giving a gift.  You spend hours putting together your little creative gift and then you need to tromp through the snow to deliver them all.  And right when you think that you are all done someone delivers a gift to you that you forgot and you find yourself running through the house looking for something to regift pretending the whole time that they were always on your list.  This year we decided that we would bypass the insanity and give the gift of friendship.  We had an open house for all of out friends and neighbors.  I made way too much food as usual but it turned out to be a really nice evening.  We ate alot, played a little pool, played a little Wii and sang alot of Karaoke until 1:30 in the morning.  There's nothing more comforting than good food and good friends.

My favorite part of Christmas

Whitney Performing at her Christmas Show
The Grinch and his girls
Santa at the Preschool Program
Micah performing at his program
Joshua my handsome little poser
One of my favorite parts of Christmas is watching all my babies in their Christmas programs and recitals.  I feel horrible that I forgot to charge my camera the day of Zach's program.  He did such a great job.  The little obedient thing that he is, stood with his hands clasped behind his back and sung every word to every song.  Joshua's program was about a runaway gingerbread man.  Josh was so cute he would practice his line everyday over and over.  "Add the ingredients" and he performed it the day of the program just perfect!  Micah had a singing program and got to sit on Santa's lap.  Every time we go to Micah's school Isaac joins tight in as if he is part of the class.  He is very excited about starting school.  

We were also able to get a sneak peak of Whitney's dance competition routines at a family Christmas Program.  As usual she did awesome!  Whit is such an amazing dancer.  Every time I watch her on the stage I start to cry.  I feel like she is slipping through my fingers if I could only stop time.  If my beautiful babies  had any idea how much I love watching them.  It's what I live for. 

Santa found our house!

Mom sold her soul and bought Micah a DS :(
"oh no not clothes!"
Isaac and his Ironman car
Joshua made dad a "dad and me" book
My girl Christmas morning

Joshua and my favorite gift
My girls
Opening gifts
I love my men

Well apparently Santa was able to over look a few things this year because Christmas morning came and we found way too many gifts under the tree (again!)  Mike and I went to bed at about 4:00 because I waited until the last night to make the kids blankets.  And just because we had a long night, for the first time since they were born, the kids all came to wake us up at 6AM!  Being the mean parents that we are, we made them wait to open any gifts until 9:00 when we finally rolled out of bed.   

Although they didn't seem to get the items on  Santa's list, such as cell phones, itouch, dogs that you can carry in a purse and laptops they did pretty well.  What ever happened to a bike, a barbie or roller skates?  We did have a surprise this year.  Mike's mom "Grandma Hawaii" as the kids know her, decided to pop in for a visit.  It was fun for the kids to get to know her and to spend Christmas with her.   I was a little emotional thinking that I will never again have a baby's first Christmas.  I know I'm so dramatic!  It's just a strange feeling when you know it's your last baby.  Sophia is getting so big so fast.  I am savoring every second with her.  Not only did she get her first Christmas gifts, even got her Christmas Eve PJ's.  

Besides all of the beautiful jewelry that I got from Mike, my very favorite gift had to be from Joshua.  Joshua is such a determined little kid.  He found an old frame in the storage room that Mike had in the throw away pile.  He found some paint (in his sisters room) and painted the frame red with white polka dots.  Then he found a picture in my laundry room of us at Disneyland in Pirate hats and he even tied a ribbon to the frame for me to hang it.  I found it Christmas morning wrapped under the tree.  Never once did he ever ask for anyones help.  Lotions, jewelry and clothes will come and go but that will be a gift that I will always treasure.

Gingerbread and Pizza

Isaac and Anthony decorating cookies
The boys gingerbread house
The girls gingerbread house
Born Engineers!

December was such a fun month.  It was just one party after another.  I never thought that I would ever say "I'm partied out"  but guess what?  "I'm partied out!"  Although I'm ready for a long winters nap we had so much fun!  Our crazy month started out with a Pizza and Gingerbread house building contest with our neighbors and friends.  It was a little dramatic because the girls used all of the sticky frosting to decorate the pieces before putting the house together, so when it came time to put the house together all they had left was the soft frosting and needless to say the girls house fell apart.  So in order to hold the house together they had to wipe frosting over the whole house.   They were all crying and stomping around the house like a bunch of drama queens.  The boys actually did a really great job. I guess because they followed the instructions.  Isaac and his "best buddy" Anthony just had a great time decorating and eating sugar cookies.  Let's just say they did alot more eating than decorating.