Dan and Amy

It is a sad time here at our place….my camera broke. It’s in the shop and I am so SAD! I take a few pictures if you haven’t noticed and I am not liking have to deal with my pathetic phone camera, the lens is scratched so the photos are super blurry and yuck, but alas we will be happy we can still take pictures.

Erica absolutely LOVES the snow so this weekends snow storm has made her so excited. The kids love the fact that we have the perfect sledding hill in our backyard. They love it, when they get older I’m told it will be a problem because the previous owners had children fly through the fence and drop 10 feet down the retaining wall of the neighbors behind us. For now, it’s just perfect to give them a little rush but not get out of control. They all love it, including Alyssa.

We’ve had fun playing with Aunt Natalie, we’ve played in the yard with friends on the warm days. Annalyce has silly friday and dressed up with a normal top, pajama pants, half curled hair, half straight hair. We watched Grandma Chandler dance with the Golden Girls at the BYU basketball game.

We have settled into some great routines again and things are going so well. I am loving the flow of our lives right now. Young Women’s is keeping me busy. This last weekend we went on an overnighter at a cabin in Oakley. It was so much fun to get to know everyone better.

I’m really torn about this wonderful stretch of weather we are having. It has been simply delightful to spend Christmas break feeding the ducks, going to the park, playing outside with friends, and basking in the sunshine. However, I really think there is something wrong with making Leaf Angels instead of Snow Angels on New Years!? I hope this doesn’t mean that we will be having snow late into the spring…pretty please let’s just stick to the season we are supposed to be in and get the snow here and out of the way as quickly as possible so we have enough water for our spiritual needs yet sunshine for our souls later!

We went to Chuck E Cheese for New Years Eve. So much fun. Some friends shared their Groupon with us and the kiddos HAD A BLAST!! They seriously love this place!

We have been very blessed to have a WONDERFUL Christmas! The kids were of coarse spoiled! It was so wonderful to not have to travel for the holidays. I really think this has been our best holiday yet. Dan has spoiled me being home for 11 days straight and plowing through the honey do list. He has seriously been working hard and I am SO EXCITED about all the things we’ve been able to accomplish.

Here’s our festivities recap–on the 23rd we went to the local Princess Festival. The girls LOVED it! While we were at the princess festival Preston and Daddy rode the train around the mall. All were thrilled with their adventures (except Erica who really wanted to ride the train too). Christmas Eve the Rivers family joined us. It was so much fun to have them around. We made cookies for Santa, decorated gingerbread cookies, acted out the nativity, opened our Christmas Eve tradition presents(a new pair of pajamas and a new book made just for them!) I seriously love that they toss their PJ’s aside and relish in their new book all about them! I LOVE IT!! That night before bed we had a special visitor knock on our door. Santa Claus himself rang out doorbell just to do one last check on the naughty/nice list and make sure that every little boy and girl knew the real meaning of Christmas. He wanted to make sure the kiddos know that his gifts he’d bring later were small in comparison to the real gift of Our Savior so many years ago. LOVED IT!! The kids were so excited to see him and their very own house!

Christmas morning was full of fun surprises from Santa, grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins…and the list seems to go on and on. We only bought the kiddos three presents and they all have a TON. Sometimes it pays to be little and adorable I guess! Who can resist buying you a present. We attended a WONDERFUL sacrament meeting program. It was really a very spiritual uplifting meeting that was just wonderful. Then it was home for a quick nap and then we drove to the Chandlers for the Christmas festivities there. It was so much fun to hang out with the fam, enjoy a delicious meal, reenact the nativity once again (although it never quite seems to go the same , and enjoy a beautiful sleigh ride! We sang carols, and danced around to stay warm. I thought it felt quite nice, but most were a bit cold. Kiddos were once again spoiled and showered with more gifts and we drove home a very worn out and tired bunch. They were so tired and much past bedtime that no one really slept well, but hey isn’t that what holidays are about!

Wednesday it was up to SLC for a party with the Palmer family. We enjoyed another great meal, good company, and more showering of gifts. Thursday it was back to SLC to spend a little time with my parents before they flew out to the beautiful sunny Hawaii…wish we could have fit in their suitcase! My dad had decided he wasn’t done shopping and brought yet another gift. A remote control tractor…this thing is HUGE and boy did they have a lot of fun with it!! So glad that we are having such weird warm temperatures this time of year so we could go and play outside. Although I worry we are going to have a very late and hard winter that will stretch into spring, I am very grateful for the BEAUTIFUL weather we are having right now. It has been so nice to play outside on Christmas break…without a jacket a lot of the time. LOVE IT!

Hope you have all had a TERRIFIC holiday season. I’ll post a recap of ours a bit later. Here’s our Christmas card for those of you who didn’t receive yours in the mail.

Haven’t posted much lately because it’s been a bit crazy. I had three big goals for the month of December. Get Erica potty trained at night, she does great at day but we still had the pullups for night. The second was to take the bottle away from Alyssa. The third was to potty train Preston. So three pretty big ambitions! Two of the three are down. I was all geared up to tackle Erica’s challenge, prepared to do laundry non-stop etc. and once again she totally surprised me! Took the pullup away, and presto chango…she’s trained. That was it, no accidents, not problems, just done! I LOVE THAT GIRL! She celebrated with her well earned reward of choice….daddy/daughter date to Chuck E Cheese. Daddy was thrilled let me tell you, but that is the one reward she asked for when we set the goal charts up for that week. I don’t think it was too much torture for him. Round two was with Alyssa. I’ve tried to get her to use a sippy cup in the past, but she refused to do so with her milk. She’d drink water out of a sippy but not milk. We took the bottle away and it was really quite painless as well. She didn’t fight it, takes the sippy, but she did the same thing Preston did…no more milk. Preston hasn’t had more than probably 2 ounces of milk in the last 2 years as he refused to drink it once the bottle was gone. Alyssa hasn’t had much more than that in the last two weeks as well. But goal number 2 tackled. We’ll be taking the binkie away next month. Her last round of teeth are coming in right now and when they are in, we’ll tackle that major hurdle!! So now it’s on to round 3 with Preston. I am going to potty train him next week when Dan is home all week. Hopefully it won’t be hard. We’ve been gearing up for it and he’s doing ok at it right now, but it’s time to bite the bullet and try to make it happen all the time. So there you have a recap of the last couple of weeks….isn’t the life of a mother so exciting that I am so excited about potty training and sippy cups!

What a December it has been! The first few weeks have been filled with lots of Christmas adventures. Sweet Alyssa tripped and fell against the fireplace and caught herself with her hand on the hot glass. She has 2nd degree burns on her hand and we’ve had to change dressings daily and try to help her not be so annoyed with the lack of usage with that hand. She’s been pretty ambidextrous until now, but with the left hand all bandaged up it might make her more of a righty than a lefty at this point. We’ll just have to see. We saw Santa. It was sure a change from last year. Erica who cried and cried and was terrified of Santa last year, tried to go through the line and sit on his lap three times! Then asked him if she could go home with him to the north pole. Preston screamed last year and wouldn’t even sit on his lap as he was clutching to his bottle. This year he ran right up, sat on his lap and asked for Candy. Alyssa….well she wanted nothing to do with him!

Annalyce had her first piano recital and LOVED IT!! I was so proud of her. She had both pieces memorized and wasn’t nervous at all (well just a little bit she said!)

We’ve been to the Light displays at Thanksgiving Point and Spanish Fork. We visited Temple Square. Made Christmas goodies, sang carols, watched movies. It’s been a wonderful December. Alyssa LOVES LOVES LOVES the lights. At night we drive around for a little bit to see different houses with lights and she is SO EXCITED about it. She can’t get enough of it!

Now we just hope we get a little snow for the holiday.

Hope you are all enjoying your holidays. Travel safe if your travelling! This year we aren’t travelling and it is WONDERFUL!!! I am so excited that it’s the week of Christmas and I don’t have ONE THING on my calendar from now until Saturday. We are just going to BE STILL and enjoy being home for the holidays. I plan on reading lots of Christmas stories, watching the classics, drinking hot chocolate, singing Christmas carols, and just sitting! Oh how divine will that be to just “sit” and absorb my wonderful family!

Happy Holidays to each of you!

November has been so super busy. We started the month with Jessica and Chris’s wedding (pictures to come soon). We took a trip to Idaho for Thanksgiving and had a great time playing in the snow, swimming, and hanging with fam. The kids loved the manicure/pedicure treatment from Aunt Kayleigh and Aunt Bethany. And of coarse the boys wouldn’t be left out of the action.

Here’s a few random pics as well. Girls had bread bowls for the first time and LOVED them. Keep asking for them. Preston loves to “take care of the babies”. Found him the other day with all of the dolls lined up in their beds and he was reading them a story. SO ADORABLE!

Alyssa loves to “cook”. Loves her apron, loves to carry a bowl and spoon and stir all day long. She also loves to clean. Give her a towel and she’ll wipe and wipe and wipe anything she can find. We all spent some time dehydrating apples and making leather.

Annalyce and Erica had a blast with school in the month of November. They dressed as pilgrims, the dressed as indians, they had feasts, made pie and had a blast.

The kids had fun making a snowman. Erica can’t spend enough time in the snow.

Erica loves to read books to her siblings and they love to sit and listen to whatever she has to make up that day!

We finished our Christmas boxes for the Operation Christmas Child project. The kids put so much love into those boxes I hope the children on the other end love them. Annalyce made a special necklace and card for all the girls and they found some special toys just for the boys. What a blessing to help others!

We all went through a round of the flu which wasn’t the best, but are all healthy now. Chris and Jess came to help get the Christmas tree since Dan wasn’t feeling well. We found the perfect tree and LOVE it! Usually get a Nobel Fir but this year went with a pine and can’t beat the smell. SO LOVE THE REAL TREE! The kids have had a blast helping decorate the house all up for Christmas. Annalyce also proved her daredevil abilities as she decorated all the high places for us.

Suzette Anderson Photography did an AWESOME job on the family pictures. It was cold and my kids were not very good at cooperating but we got some keepers thanks to her creativity. My how time flies!

Kayleigh at Kayleigh Searle Photographytried to take Alyssa’s one year pictures. Alyssa would not cooperate. We got hundreds of frowning pictures and crying, but she did work her magic to get a couple of cuties. How can one of my children be camera shy? It’s not really allowed!

It is a month where our hearts are naturally turned to gratitude. A month where we perhaps reflect a little deeper to things we are truly grateful for. Lots of little events today have triggered me deep in the memory pockets back to my time in Jerusalem. There are so many wonderful moments to remember, so many amazing friendships forged, and truly many lives changed. Mine certainly was. I remember expecting it to be one great AH HA moment after another kind of an experience, that I would go there and suddenly know so much more. The reality was that I didn’t have too many of those amazing moments that I expected, but I had SO MANY TINY LITTLE TENDER moments that I will cherish forever. I realized that I already had a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I already knew my Savior was real. I already knew He loved me. I already knew the gift of the Atonement was the most amazing and tender gift I could ever receive. Because I had been blessed to be raised in a home where the Gospel was taught both in word and action, I knew those things. And because I knew those things I was able to strengthen that testimony while studying there.

I miss the sounds of the city. I remember the first night as we collapsed into bed from exhaustion of having traveled for nearly two days straight. I just wanted to sleep forever. The noise was so loud, the sounds of the city anything but relaxing. Then I remember jolting out of bed bright and early as the Call to Prayer sounded. I thought to myself, how am I ever going to sleep around here. It didn’t take long for the noise to drown out and for me to be able to disappear into sleep.

I miss the smells….some of them that is. My friend Amanda posted on Facebook the other day that the things she was grateful for that day was deodorant. If you have traveled to many parts of the world you too will appreciate the beautiful gift of deodorant. I miss the smells of the spices and herbs. If I close my eyes and think hard enough I can almost smell those delicious loaves of bread with their tiny spice packets that were everywhere in the city.

I miss the people…oh the amazing people. I met so many amazing, humble, loving people there. They taught me so much about living, so much about life.

I miss the friends I made. The individuals I got to travel with are some of the most wonderful people I know. I felt as if I was amidst spiritual giants. I was taught by gifted teachers and shared in the testimony of amazing peers. It was so enriching to share something so special, so sacred, so tender with them. I think our hearts will be forever connected through that experience.

I miss the crazy experiences…. the singing on the shores of Galilee, the cycling through the streets of Luxor, the crazy Charut rides, the $1 donkey taxi’s, the marriage proposals, the pushups for a free necklace from Joseph Smith, the Kosher song (and oh so many others…thanks Jonathan!), the dripping wetness of our Kabutz at Galilee, the unforgettable sting of the Dead Sea, the lovely critters in the “Worst Western” Hotel, the broken bus in route to Petra, the “10 cities of the decapolis”, oh I could go on and on!

I miss the moments so tender I can never really share completely…..the evenings spent on the lawns at the Center studying the word of God, the service rendered to the dear children at the Princess Basma hospital, the moments spent pondering in the Bible gardens, the unforgettable priesthood blessing, the strength I received beyond my own, the climb up Mt. Sinai, the moments in the fields of Bethlehem, the promptings in the hills of Bethel, the life defining moment on the shores of Galilee, the tender mercies shown over and over in the quiet simple moments.

I miss the opportunity life gave me to immerse myself in the good word of God for hours daily. I truly cherish the ability I had to read chapter upon chapter of scripture on a daily basis. To not only read, but study and ponder and dissect the word of God. It was a spiritual feast. There are few moments in life where you are given the opportunity to be so completely selfish as to go on a journey such as this. You truly wanted every minute to be captured, every lesson to be engrained into you. I wanted so badly to pick my family up and bring them there with me. I wanted them to experience all I was experiencing. It.was.remarkable!

I am forever grateful I had that experience. I am forever changed because of it. I am grateful that I can pick up my Old and New Testaments and immerse myself in the memories. I love when I am sitting in Sunday School or Sacrament Meeting and a reference is made to a scripture in the Bible and I can take myself back there. When I can trigger those thoughts, feelings, and promptings. I love when I sing a Hymn that reminds me of my journey there that I can escape back to those feelings I had for just a moment.

Overall I am just overwhelmed with gratitude that my Savior would offer the plan He did, that He would come here to this earth and suffer the pains He did to make my life better. I am forever indebted. I grateful that I was able to have that amazing testimony strengthening experience. Thanks for the trip down memory….oh how many memories there are!

Annalyce continued in the birthday festivities with family on Saturday and then more Halloween fun on Monday with trick or treating. The kiddos LOVED their costumes and had a BLAST parading around the neighborhood.