Merry Christmas!

A Family Tradition

In my house growing up, we always made gingerbread houses every Christmas Holiday Season. I've slacked on continuing that tradition with my own kids a bit. But this year, my parents are living in Salt Lake as they serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (serving in the Church's welfare department). So they had all of their kids and grandkids living here in Utah come to their apartment for dinner and to build gingerbread houses. The apartment was full of 12 grandkids (not even half of the grandkids they actually have) and adults, and love, and laughter. Thanks, Grannie and Papa!

Her First Nutcracker Ballet

I took our youngest to her first Nutcracker Ballet. She knew the music well and a bit of the story from watching the Barbie Nutcracker movie. But I wanted her to see the real thing. She loves music and dancing so I knew this would be right up her alley. We had a wonderful time together and she even lasted until it ended at 10pm. She's proud of her Nutcracker ornament we bought there. She wants her daddy to take her next year so he can enjoy it too. Hopefully he can enjoy it simply because he's there with her. You've got a year to prepare, daddy.

A Long Post of Pre-Holidays

We missed posting some of the pre-holiday photos. So here are some from Thanksgiving until Christmas. So this'll be a long post.
My boys got to go to author of Fablehaven, Brandon Mull's house to get some books signed for cousins and their own books signed. Brandon is an acquaintance of mine through my author network here. It was nice of him to allow the picture in his flour covered grubbies. He was helping his wife with pies and rolls that morning (the day before Thanksgiving).

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house as usual. A day full of food, puzzles with Great Grandpa, dice games, guitar hero, and video games.








And we had a wonderful Family Home Evening visit to Temple Square to see the lights. It was beautiful and it really helped us all focus on Christ a little more this season and how blessed we are.

Gallery Debut

My hubby had his first Gallery show opening on Friday night for a juried photography show. All the pictures had to be taken with a Holga camera. He got 3 pictures in (the 3 on the bottom row). Some of his professional photographer friends only got 1 in. He's awesome! We went to dinner first with a few other of his photo pals and then went to the Gallery.

Invention Convention 2nd Grade

Our middle son had to make an invention for school...he came up with this all on his own and his daddy helped him build it. It's a moving/rolling teeter totter. It worked really well actually (until the cheap particle board seat got slammed onto the ground and split off). His favorite part of making it was screwing on the wheels. Good Job buddy!

Our Jack-o-lanterns

Now that Christmas is almost here, I'm finally posting pics of our Halloween pumpkins (one even has braces). It was fun. The little ones of course don't glow but they are actually the only ones still on our kitchen table. We'll say goodbye to them after Thanksgiving. Wow! Time Flies!!!

New Things

Well, these past few months have brought on some new things in my life...

1. Youngest child in pre-school 3 days a week and music class one day (means time at home is a bit quiet)

2. My 2 oldest boys are in school all day and are getting more and more responsible and reliable.

3. I signed with an agent in New York to rep me in the illustration world.

4. Since signing with said agent, I've contracted 4 jobs and have the possibility of another big one.

5. And...just today I was put in as the new Young Women's President in our ward at church.

Life is definitely going to be busy but I have been so blessed. I admit I am a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of taking over the YW reigns at church...but they are a great bunch of girls and I have good counselors to help out. Now hopefully, I can just keep everything balanced.

Juggle those balls. Juggle. Juggle. Juggle.

Date Night Surprise!

My hubby and I were out last night and spotted my latest book on a main display table in the mall at a bookstore. It's called Christmas Love and it's a really wonderful story. Makes a great gift. Anyway, it was fun to see one of my books actually out on display and not tucked on a shelf.

Holga Photography show

Well, my talented hubby made it into a juried photography show exhibiting only photos taken with a Holga camera. The show starts November 21st with an artists reception and goes through December 17th in the SAANS Gallery in Salt Lake City on 173 East Broadway.The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 10am ‘til 6pm (sometimes closed for lunch from 1 to 2). They are sometimes open Saturday afternoons, and they are available anytime by appointment. Reach them by phone at 801.328.8827. Just one of his images is on this picture of the advertising postcard. Can anyone guess which is his? Come to the show to find out. He'll be there for the opening reception on Friday the 21st of this month.

Storytime

Just a little announcement...I'm doing storytime tomorrow November 8th at 11am for all the kiddies in the Children's Book Illustrator Exhibit at the Springville Art Museum. Come on down...

http://sma.nebo.edu/calendar/events.html

Happy Halloween!

Ginger SNAP

Sunday my little girl and I made gingersnap cookies and Pumpkin Cream Cheese dip. Yummy Yummy! Except when she licked the beater coated with only shortening. Eeeww! But the end result was delicious.

Waking Up

Most mornings things go like this at our house...I get up early and go to the gym to exercise. Around 6:30 am our oldest wakes up, makes his bed, gets dressed and goes downstairs to make his breakfast. Usually he's already practicing the piano by the time I come home from working out around 7am. He's a very responsible kid. He's not particularly happy in the morning, but knows what's expected of him and does it. I'm very grateful he's so good.

Then around 7:15 or 7:30, down rolls our 2nd child. Still in his jammies, usually groggy, not happy. He runs to the couch, jumps on and buries his head under the back cushion. I coax him out and remind him that he has school and needs to get moving. He'll slowly get his breakfast (or proudly make himself oatmeal) and then slowly eats it. Then comes the hard part...getting dressed. It takes him a while to get up the stamina to go back upstairs, get dressed and make his bed. I've told him many times, just get dressed and make your bed before you come down and then you don't have to go up again. I nearly always have to send him up another time after that to put on socks and brush his teeth. He's not a morning person. He gets that from his daddy. It almost makes you feel sorry for him because he looks so sad to be awake.

Then, around 8, our little girl wakes up. She's usually quite happy and snuggly and cheerful in the morning. Most of the time, she'll just knock on the wall by her bed above her head (which connects to our bathroom wall), to let us know she's waking up. Often, I'll knock the same rhythm back to her from my side where I'm getting ready for the day. Then finally she'll come in our room laughing...hair all a mess. I love her cheerful morning face.

So, the other day, she did something out of the routine. We were actually all upstairs...she in bed, us in our room getting dressed, the boys in their room picking up dirty clothes. All of the sudden we hear...

"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO! COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!"

The rest of us converge on her room and peek in, slowly opening the door. There we found her, covered in her blankets, hiding, waiting for us to discover her. We could all hear her giggling under the covers. Even our little groggy guy couldn't help but laugh along. As we quietly walked in, she threw back the covers and said "BOO!" All of us had a great laugh together. She made our day.


So after having family prayer right there in her room that morning, we were off to school, work, etc. and were all happy. Thank you, little Rooster!

Changes Changes

So, this week we've had a few changes around here...

1. My hubby sold his motorcycle (I'm not too sad about that b/c it means he's more safe and we have more money in the bank). He did it to finance a new camera for his photography passion...the EOS 5D Mark II

2. My son moved up to yellow belt. After only 4 months in martial arts, he's moved up 2 belts.


3. My office is finally refurbished, refinished, USABLE!!!