Christmas Letter 2011

Happy Holiday

2011

This year we write in gratitude for:

Our Family. Deric is now working as an Assistant Manager at Little Cesars pizza while he continues to go to school full time at Snow College. He is doing very well in his studies! Muria has been busy with many school events and the PTA, church activities, teaching lactation classes and the overall busyness that six children bring!

We have been so blessed to have a house full of energy filled loving children. Each has grown and changed so much in the past year. Jessica is now eleven and in 6^th grade at the middle school. She is enjoying band and playing the baritone. Samantha, almost 10 is in fourth grade. She is very social and is always having fun with her friends and siblings. Sarah, who is seven and a half, is very focused on her next birthday and getting baptized in April! She is in second grade and her passion this year is books! Carrie, six next month, will be asking Santa for her two front teeth this year! She is LOVING being in kindergarten. Nelson, four on New Years, is full of fun and energy. He is turning out to be quite the artist this year as he colors and cuts and pastes picture after picture! Wally is indeed TWO and we will just say he lives up to what they say about two year olds!!! He is full of energy and mischief, but he also loves to snuggle and play with his siblings. Last is Roy… due to make his arrival on January 5^th. We can’t wait to meet him and enjoy his sweet spirit!!!

Our Home. After being in Ephraim, Utah for a year now and moving 5 times we are soooo grateful for our new home. We bought it and moved in September 1^st. It is cozy with plenty of room for us.

You. Our friends and family that light up our lives and support us in all that we do. Our lives are so much richer because you are a part of them. Near or far, if we see you often or not, we love you and are grateful for you.

Our Faith. This time of year we reflect on what really means the most. We are grateful for our savior and what his birth and death mean for us. We are grateful to be able to learn of his teachings all year long.

We pray this letter finds you well. There are so many blessings to reflect on, these are just a few. May you reflect on the blessings in your life and find many things to be grateful for this holiday season!

Love, Deric, Muria, Jessica, Samantha, Sarah, Carrie, Nelson, and Wally

All I want for Christmas!...

Yeah, she did it. Now Carrie can sing "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." She will have to do a duet with her cousin Evan who has a very similar smile right now!! She is very excited to be sporting this new look.

34 Weeks!

I lost my camera battery and couldn't put this picture up right away. I was about 34 weeks when it was taken but I was measuring almost 42!!! Little Roy is definitely not so little! I am now almost 36 weeks and if you can believe it I am quite a bit bigger!!

One tooth..

I am hoping that this is the first of two teeth to be lost this month by our cute Carrie (lost on Tuesday 11/29). She worked very hard to get this one out today. Now I have her working on the other. I'd love for her to be able to sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!!" The other tooth is quite loose so it is a possibility!!
























One tooth down, one to go!!

Water Stop

Jessica's middle school had another fun run just before Thanksgiving. I was excited to be able to help out with this one. Nelson, Carrie, Wally and I were the half way "water stop" helpers. It was a very cool morning (it is just 8am in this picture), but we had fun watching the runners come through. Most of the kids really liked Wally's penguin hat (which used to be Jessica's!).
It was a lot of fun for us, and Jess too. Here she is, coming to get her water. Good job Jess!! By the way, Jessica's goal was to do better than the first time. She was able to shave almost seven minutes off of her time!!!
PS they got hot chocolate at the finish line (witch we made it to before Jess!)

Thanksgiving

I LOVE Thanksgiving! I love the food, family, fun,... (it goes right along with my love of Fall!!) This year we celebrated the holiday at Deric's brother Ben's house. We had to bring some of the meal. This year Sam and Jess helped me by making their own deserts. It was fun to watch them do it all by themselves.

Sammy made this... a Maple Pumpkin Torte. It was OK but we agreed we'd make it differently or not at all next year.
Here are the kids at their own table!!
Younger kids table. I love the look on Chewy's face!! He did just get staples in his head!!
This is Jessica's desert. White chocolate strawberry tart. It was OK too, again not a keeper.
This desert was super fun and a keeper!! Sarah found it in a book at the library and Jess put it all together! It was a huge hit with the kids. The cheese went so fast, who would have thought!!
Gobble Gobble! Hope you had a Happy Day too!

School Pictures 2011

We always do fall family pictures so I don't worry about the "school pictures" as much. I do like to have them done so that I can get a class picture for the kids though. Here are the girls pictures for this year. I allowed them to pick out their own outfits and how they wanted their hair.

Baby Roy, 30 Weeks

I have neglected to post any pictures of our new little one (or really not so little one). Our soon to be third terror!! I have to say that the ultrasound machine is one of the most barbaric ones I have ever seen. The pictures aren't great but you can make out the profile on the top two, his feet on the bottom left and his hand bottom right. We are so excited to welcome this guy into our family. Even Wally now points to my belly and says "Roy" ? Then he looks through my belly button to see him!!

Fun in the Snow!

When you wake up on a Saturday morning and the ground is just more than dusted with snow you...

Eat some warm yummy homemade apple spice pancakes!
Go through all the winter clothes and make a huge mess in the living room.

Then you help your brother with his boots...
Sit and enjoy the yummy taste of the snow...
Build a snowman...
Pretend you helped build a snowman...
Really work together and build a baby snowman...
And just enjoy the time in the cold with your siblings!
Ta Da!
Then of course you must go inside and enjoy some of this...
And make a wet crazy mess like this...
That is a way to enjoy the snow that barley lasts one day!!

Addicted

I haven't posted in three days! Something is wrong with my computer (that has all of my pictures!). I keep trying but I keep having issues. I am going to have Deric look at it for me soon, but he has been sick for a few days. So please stay tuned... there will be more posts in the near future. I am writing this now because I became slightly addicted and I feel I just need to post before I go to bed! (I feel a little better now!!)

Carrie's Joke!

Carrie has a really fun personality. She is really evolving into quite the little jokester! She is a lot like her big sister Sam, and like her Dad!! Tonight she couldn't wait to share a joke/poem with us. Everyone laughed... I hope you enjoy it too!

I am a big fat turkey.
You can't have my head.
I'll sit with you for dinner!
(We'll have duck instead!)

Fall Band Concert

Tonight Jessica had her first Band concert of the year. It was short and sweet and to the point, I love her band teacher!! Jess plays the baritone and every time I tell some one they ask what it is. So, here you go...

The baritone horn is a member of the brass instrument family.^[2] The baritone horn has a predominantly cylindrical bore as do the trumpet and trombone.^[3] A baritone horn uses a large mouthpiece much like those of a trombone or euphonium, although it is a bit smaller.

Here she is waiting to play...

She did a great job (she is the only baritone player in the 6th grade band). Her dad was even able to leave work for a little bit so that he could see her play. We are proud of you Jess, and all your hard work!

Blogging Spree!

Well folks, I have been on a blogging spree. I felt like I needed to catch up a little this year so I have forced myself to sit down every night and blog something! This post will be my 30th post in a row, 29 days in a row (I did two on one day!) But I have to be honest. I am so tired today that this is all you are getting! Maybe I will have something better tomorrow... so please check back! I am literally going to bed and hope to be asleep by 10pm, lately it is closer to 1am!! Good night!!

Apples!

Hmmm... did I mention previously that I love Fall. The air, the smells, the TREATS! One of my favorite things about fall is the yummy food. I love apple or pumpkin anything! I absolutely adore apple cider. Since I left NH I haven't had any REAL cider until this season. (Well actually it is almost real, I can still only get the pasteurized version!!) So I have been enjoying it A LOT!


I have also been enjoying yummy treats like this one that Sammy made. Tonight was her dinner night and she wanted to make a desert too... apple pie was her request but we found these and decided to make them instead. These Apple Bundles were super easy and very yummy. This picture shows a double batch!
Recipe:

2 granny smith apples
1 11oz pkg of bread stick dough
1 orange
1 Tbs butter melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Peel, cut and slice the apples into fairly thin pieces. Lay out the dough and roll 3-4 slices of apple in the dough. Arrange apple bundles in a baking dish. Zest orange to measure 1 tsp and set it aside. Juice orange to 1/3 cup and pour into pan, but not over the bundles. Spread melted butter over bundles. Mix zest, cinnamon, and sugar then sprinkle over bundles. Bake for 25-30 minutes. ENJOY

We enjoyed ours with a bit of vanilla ice cream and a slice of orange...

This last picture has nothing to do with apples or fall but I figured that I had better put a picture of the kids in this post or I might hear complaining from the grandparents!! The kids are painting projects for the Reflections program... I will blog about that more later!

Moving Walls!!

First, I have to apologize for the mess you will see in these pictures. Moving walls while living in a space really creates a disaster! It will all be worth it though!! We, Deric and I, spent most of today moving walls, dry-walling, adding outlets, and over all just trying to get some rooms on their way to being finished. I am too tired right now to post much more about it. I do now have an office between the family room and the soon to be older girls bedroom (there was not a room there before!) I am loving the feel of the changes, all good things for our family. I am also sooooo grateful for my husband and the knowledge that he has. I NEVER could have done all of this without him! I also know he is doing it for US (me and the kids) so that we will have a nicer home, thanks so much honey!

This picture is the new office wall that just went up.

The "closets" that you see in this picture are now gone to create a bigger toy area for the kids. (I am not crazy, there is a huge storage area with shelves and closets just to the right of where these closets were!!)
Check back for updates later... it already looks so much better than it does in these pictures, I am just too tired to take the pictures!!

"You need shoes on to go outside!"

If you know me at all you know I usually don't wear shoes unless I have to. My children and I go barefoot as often as possible. (We do have a no bike riding without shoes rule though!) And if we are wearing shoes they are sandals of some sort!

The problem now is that it is getting a lot colder. Now we need to wear shoes when we go outside (I do miss So. Cal. and wearing flip flops all year!) So the other day when Wally was headed out the door barefoot I called to him "you need shoes on to go outside!" Reluctantly he came back in the house. It wasn't much later that I went to help him and couldn't find him anywhere inside. Then Jess pointed him out in the back yard. What could I say... he was wearing shoes and he had a jacket!! Too bad the jacket wasn't ON him, and the shoes look suspiciously like MINE. Amazingly he could walk just fine in them!

Ninja Swords

After Halloween I took the little kids to Walmart to get a few things. Of course everything Halloween was reduced 75% off. Included in the bins was a sword set that Nelson had drooled over when we were trick or treating just a few days before. Luckily for me 75% off meant that they were just under TWO dollars. I was able to sneak them under the cart and buy them without him knowing. Then I told him if her was willing to do a big chore I would get the swords for him. The next day I let him know that he would have to wash all of the fingerprints off of the walls. He spent the next few hours with a rag wiping EVERYTHING down!!! I was proud of his hard work, and he was so excited to earn his Swords!! Here is a not so great picture of him with them.
Carrie felt like Nebo would make a good Ninja sidekick for Nelson!

"Child Proof"

Wally loves to get into the refrigerator. More than once he has dumped something very messy on the floor. I got smart and put a lock back on the door to make it child proof. All the other children know how to open it. For the last few weeks I have been chastising everyone for leaving the door unlocked, "not me" was always the one to blame. Then, two days ago I found out "not me" really meant "Wally"... check out what he can do. This picture is actually of him locking the door after unlocking it and getting the juice out of the fridge. So much for a child safety lock (and for me being so smart!!)
PS... pretend you don't notice the sticky spots where the old locks were!! Thanks!

I want candy!

We really enjoy the fun of Halloween in our house, including trick or treating. I do not, however, enjoy all of the candy that we end up with (6 bags of trick or treat candy is a lot!) So for a few days the kids get to eat some here and there, then we have them pick a few of their favorites and the rest is put in bowl (all together). Here is a picture of SOME of the candy. We (meaning Deric and I) will enjoy this bowl for a few days and then what.... this year we are going to donate it. To whom we are not sure, but I know my waistline can't afford to keep it around too long (not that I have a waistline right now!!) Any how, what do you do with all of your candy?

Brr... it is getting colder!

As many of you know we have always had our wonderful dog Maggie. She is a great companion and from the beginning had been little trouble. This year, to appease my pleading husband, I finally relented and we got a new puppy. Her name is Nebo (after the huge mountain we can see from our house.) She is a miniature dachshund, and she has been a little trouble, but if you know anything about her breed only a little trouble is a good thing!

I snapped this shot today of her snuggling with Maggie. She is so little and has no real fur so she gets cold very easily! I love that Maggie has finally accepted her, she was not too happy when we brought Nebo home.
This is one of Nebo's favorite places to be. Now that it is getting colder she is always shivering! This spot blows warm air and it has a nice little mat to lay on!! (Her favorite place to lay is next to a human, any human that wont torture her.)

Flowers

At the parade on Saturday our local Drug Store handed out roses to all of the ladies standing on the route. It was really no big deal, but it meant a great deal to me. You see, I love fresh flowers. I know that they aren't practical, that they are expensive and die quickly, but I really love them anyway. Look at how beautiful this rose is. It adds a warm sunny glow in my kitchen while the weather outside is cold and gray.

In-N-Out

I added these pictures a LONG time ago. Not long after we visited California in April of this year!! They have been sitting here for a while but the message is still the same. In-N-Out rocks! We love their never frozen, made fresh to order menu. While we were there Deric's brother Clark treated our family to the yummy goodness...

We had a picnic outside, and to add to the fun the kids put on a puppet show... Dinner and A Show!







Mmm... yummy goodness.