Goal Setting 2013

We had a really good Family Home Evening lesson at the beginning of the year on setting goals.  We all wrote down some goals and were planning to re-check our status on our goals weekly.  We haven't done that very much, but Aubrey set several goals that were really really hard goals.  I actually thought they were pretty unrealistic goals and tried to convince her to make them a little easier.  With setting goals, they also got to discuss a reward for accomplishing the goal.  Aubrey really wanted to see the movie Epic, which came to theaters at the end of May.  She wanted to go see it so badly and asked if she read the whole Book of Mormon by then, could going to that movie be her reward?  We thought that sounded like a good reward, but really thought she would forget about her goal and that she would realize that this was a very hard goal for a 9 year-old.  Well, every Sunday she would catch up on any Book of Mormon reading that she hadn't gotten done that week so that she would be as far as she needed to be to finish her reading in time.  There was a few Sundays where she didn't catch up on reading and she was quite behind a few times.  She read for over 2 hours a couple of times to catch up on reading.  We were super amazed when she finished a week early!  She and Jon got to go see the movie the first weekend it was out!  Good job Aubrey!!

Date with Dad

 The girls got to go on a Daddy-daughter date for a fundraiser for their elementary school.  They were so excited to get all dressed up!  We even put make-up on!  Jon sqwoze into his old high-school orchestra tux and off they went!  At the dance they had dinner and danced (and of course, had cookies and soda pop). They had a really fun time together! 

  They are all so good lookin'!!

Fun Friday, Conference and Learning some DIY!!

Last friday we had such a fun day with some of our new friends in this area.  They have 3 daughters-pretty much the same ages as my older 3 so it works out great!  The kids had school off for the day and we decided to get together and bake some little goodies and put together a little tea-party for lunch and then go swimming.  Before they came, the kids and I ran to Winco-I am slowly becoming a fan- and grabbed a few things for conference treats-which was super fun!  I let each kids pick any one bulk cereal and get a small bag full to snack on and then I got Jon a huge bag of their granola (which is delicious).  We also got some blue-berry muffin mix and a few other things!  The little bags of the kids cereal were each under $.50!!  A win-win because it was super cheap, super fun, a great fun snack, and the kids thought it was so cool! 

We got home just in time for our friends to come over.  The older girls made the blueberry muffin mix into mini-muffins, the younger two helped me make biscuits and the middle two-they were pretty happy to just run off and play and didn't want to help much in the kitchen, which was probably good because we were on the crowded side, but we are good at that!  We cut up fruit and carrots small and set out the little dishes.  We also cut up some little cheese slices and some peanut butter and jam in small containers.  It looked really cute and it actually all tasted quite delicious!  The kids all had a really fun afternoon together swimming and playing and I really enjoyed visiting with their mom-so it was all-around a nice day.

--pictures will follow soon--

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference-and quite good to listen to.  I didn't hear it all (I have small children and I fell asleep a bit) but I really enjoyed it.  I am so glad I can re-listen to it any time on lds.org and also re-read it any time in the Ensign!  There were many powerful and inspiring talks that I am excited to study more and apply the lessons and guides taught in my own life.  I remember one thing that I really want to do is make a copy of the quote from President Monson's closing remarks on my wall.  They were very meaningful and powerful,

"I invoke the blessings of heaven upon each of you. May your homes be filled with peace, harmony, courtesy, and love. May they be filled with the Spirit of the Lord. May you nurture and nourish your testimonies of the gospel, that they will be a protection to you against the buffetings of Satan."
President Thomas S. Monson, April 7, 2013

His entire closing remarks were awesome and a perfect close to all the good teachings we had just been hearing the past 2 days.

This week I have really been working on focusing on living within our means-a constant struggle for just about everyone, especially for everyone with children and a home to take care of.  There are always "rainy days" it seems, but I know we can get on top of things and get it figured out.  I have also come to learn that Heavenly Father will help us and guide us, but it does take so much patience, effort, hard work, and a lot of time-ie: a lot of patience.  I have come to realize that money means nothing to Him.  It just does not matter if we are rich or poor-and I know that, but I hate having debt and even though it's not a lot, I have a hard time with it because it seems the second we get out of debt we just get right back in-cars and medical are our main Achilles heel.   I have come to the realization that that is not going to change-we are always going to have medical costs and we are always going to have vehicle costs and it's only going to get more as our kids get older and need dental attention and whatnot. 

So it's back to the drawing board of my life goal: be a stay-at-home mom and run my household well and figure out how to do this on less than I already am.  I have done and still do coupons, but I also have changed a lot of our eating habits since we moved to AZ-more healthy-and coupons don't help too much in that area.  They are great for all the other things-household and personal care items and the times that we get things that aren't healthy (cause yes, I still buy junk food at times-we still celebrate parties in many traditional ways because we enjoy it, ie: chips, soda, cake, treats, etc.).  So I am in a transition right now-trying to decide if my newspaper subscription is worth it-is this a way I want to cut back and does it really pay off?  In my efforts in this area this week I have discovered some things that I have heard about but never really looked into. 

At this point I don't have a solid answer, but I am excited about what I have learned and made so far and that is more DIY items for the household and personal care items-and even for a non-healthy item-american cheese-not processed, but you make it yourself (from regular cheese-essentially making the soft velveeta cheese block you can buy) so that it tastes like the processed kind-more fun than anything with the kids and for our toasted cheese sandwiches last night--anyway, I made homemade laundry soap and homemade dishwasher tabs!  I am way excited about how easy this was and how cheap it was!!  I looked on-line at many recipes and they all are very similar so I figured the main two ingredients in every recipe was the super washing soda and the borax.  What was used for the soap was different in many recipes.  I want to try another recipe, but I didn't have the stuff (I will say that I did not have borax and super washing soda, but I knew I wanted to try to make soap and I knew those were in it, so I picked those up while at the store and they cost a total of $7).  In my looking there was one site that I kept going to that had pretty much exactly what I was looking for in many different areas and here is the link for the laundry soap:  Laundry Soap

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap (the light blue liquid in the large arrowhead water container)

 I used the dishwasher tabs recipe from that site as well, only I tweaked mine a bit after reading comments on it and because I was trying to make do with what I had and my soft water.  I only made half a batch and I measured out the 1 TBLS into the ice-cube tray compartments and mini-muffin pan to let it dry (in the link, she filled them full and she did not use real-lemon, she used her essential lemon oil, which I don't have.  I also cut the salt in half because I have soft water and I added 1 TBLS dawn to the mixture rather than adding 3 drops when I start the load.  We will have to see how it works! 

Homemade Dishwasher Tabs (drying in the ice-cube tray and mini-muffin pan)

It has been really fun for me to try these out and find even more ways to spend less money!  I am going to explore soap and shampoo next!  With our swimming-pool we are going through both of those items quite a lot lately and the summer hasn't even really begun!  It is always a rewarding feeling to make something for your home that you regularly buy.  I am very pleased with the laundry soap-it washed my laundry up really well.  I have a batch of dishes washing right now to test out my dishwasher tabs that I made today.  I need to buy a few ingredients before I can make the soap and shampoo, but I am thinking I am liking this homemade stuff which I am also sure is far better for you anyway!

Making a blog post instead of getting the chores done. . .

Little does my family know that I have the super-power to accomplish what is an arduous task of cleaning the house after a week of falling behind due to devotion to an awesome event I was in charge of last night (that turned out great thanks to so many awesome women) in 1/4 of the time I have allotted to accomplish such tasks.  I guess it's really not a super-power, its more like super speeding up as you approach the finish line because you stopped too many times to take a break along the race.  I am supposed to be spending the morning doing dishes, sweeping, mopping, laundry-oh was that the dryer, I better go get the next load in. . . straightening the rooms, bathing the dog, and vacuuming the house, oh, and don't forget, dumping the garbage.
You see I only have 2 more hours before I need to leave to get the kids.  What have I been doing?  Hmmmm, I biked with my kids to school (we have been opting to not take the bus several days a week and biking the 1.5 miles to school instead to get in the needed activity level that kids don't get now days, unless you sign them up for sports, but I can't afford that, and I hate spending time in the car-sorry, it's true, I hate being a soccer mom and can't live my life in my honda oddyssey, no-can-do, and I hate sitting there. . trying to keep the other kids in line in beautiful weather that I want to enjoy myself (or sometimes not so beautiful that I don't want to enjoy), so instead I try to find ways to help my kids be active just in their regular daily life and keeping them in good enough shape so that we can also do some fun adventure type activities together as well, not to mention Gunther, our dog, needs a good brisk walk and he is great at going alongside me on the bike.  So we biked to school.
I had planned to meet a friend to do some strength training with, but she had to cancel, so I did some strength-training in my yard (and discovered ways that I can turn my yard into quite the great place for a great workout), and then I decided that I wanted to get in a really good aerobic workout as well, so I went on a real bike ride without gunther (oh and he was so sad, but he can't run that long, that fast-we went 10 miles on an old bike-which is like going 20 on a new bike and 30 or 40 on one of those amazingly awesome bikes that my brother has that is really expensive that someday I will own-but for now my 30 year-old bike that I bought at a garage sale when I was a teenager still works pretty darn good-retro without the price-right-ha ha).
And it was a GREAT bike-ride-did I mention that I LOVE being outside, I love the wind in my face, I love having Amelia there with me to share this awesomeness with and we discovered a GREAT park with a lake, a pond, fishing, playgrounds, an awesome path, and I am so excited to take the kids there-and I mean bike with the kids there-I wore my watch, so I know that it is 2.75 miles away from our house and they can totally do that.  So then I got home, took care of some yard things, fed Amelia lunch, got some laundry going, cleaned the kids rooms while getting Amelia fed and down for a nap.  Then took a stop here at the computer, checked my email, called and chatted with Jon while he was on his lunch for a bit and I had another letter from my nephew that I keep meaning to write (on his mission) and decided I better sit down and write a quick letter to him.  As a fellow runner, I got telling him about my latest marathon.  And then I realized I had just made a blog post in this letter, so then I decided to just "hurry and post" a bit of what I had just typed to him!  So here I am and I better hurry, because my super-power-to-clean-superly-fast is going to have to really kick in hard and good in just a bit here!  I added in a whole bunch more detail so if parts don't make sense, so sorry, but I have to hurry-such is the life I have at this point!

So my nephew had some really hard challenges in his life and he waited a bit before deciding to go on a mission-which is totally fine-I think it was good for him to figure some things out and go when he was ready to make that choice.  In his letter he talked about how it was hard to make that choice and now he is so glad that he did.  Anyway, this really got me thinking about hard choices and hard things that we do and accomplish. You see, it’s the hard things that help us grow and become a better person and help us discover who we are and what we can become.  Like running-so many people that really could run, think they could never run.  Well if you focus on your weaknesses and how hard it is and therefore, don’t give it a real fair try-you are right!  
I NEVER thought I would run a marathon, let alone 3!  Infact, I just PR’d (personal record) at the Pheonix marathon a few weeks ago!  4 of my siblings ran it with me (and two of them also PR’d) and my dad ran his first race ever-he did the half marathon!  It was so neat to be a part of that with my family!  The cool thing was that all 5 of us siblings came in within 20 minutes of each other!!  I came in at 4:04-which I was very pleased about (I kept under 9 minute miles most of the time).  It was so hard to keep myself going, but I realized at the beginning that I could run it in under 4:10, and possibly under 4 if I really concentrated the whole time and not loose track of my goal. 
Disclaimer:
At this point of my blog, if you don't want lots of detail about my race, I have just summed it up in the previous paragraph and you can stop now.  The last couple of paragraphs of this post are more reflective on life in general if you would like to just enjoy that portion of my post.  Enjoy!

I hadn't trained as hard as I had hoped, so I didn't go into this race with an original thought of doing super awesome.  But my awesome, amazing little sister, Emily and I got talking about how we need to decide what we can run this race in, and then figure out where we should be at certain miles with our time and then if we are on track with our goal, we should come in at the time we want to.
Now this got me thinking.  I had to be realistic.  I had trained good enough-not the best, but really good enough.  I knew I could at least beat my previous times.  So we started the race and I was running with Emily.  She is in way better shape than me and she is faster and trained super super hard.  She gave me some running tips that I had never tried-to take smaller, quicker steps to go faster and that was more easy than longer, big steps.  She said to just watch my arms and if I needed to speed up, move my arms faster and my legs would follow.  I started to do that and I was surprised that I seemed to be doing just fine running just a bit faster than what I had trained.  We ran the first couple of miles together and I knew she had goals to do awesome, so I fell back a bit and let her go on.  But as I did so, I thought, you know, you are doing pretty good, why don't you just keep your eye on EMily and stay up with her as long as you can.  IT was then that I had some serious thinking going on in my mind.  I realized that I could not only beat my other times, but that if I really focused and I really pushed myself, that I could come in at 4:10 and possibly even 4 hours.  I re-thought about how we had discussed setting small goals through the race and so I figured out where I would have to be every hour to come in at 4 hours.  Though I was pretty sure I couldn't do it in under 4 hours, I knew I could come close if I really focused.  Besides, this was my 3rd marathon. Why not go with a different strategy?  What's the worst that could happen?  I have to walk at the end because I pushed myself too hard at the beginning?  But I knew the route, I knew the hills, I had run them many times, and I knew that I could run this.  I had trained-not as hard and as amazing as I had originally hoped, but I had trained hard, and I had trained as good as I could in reality with what else was going on in my life.  I determined that I would regularly check my watch and be sure that I was right around 9 minute miles.  I would only walk through the water stations, and I would not stop at the bathroom unless I REALLY had to go REALLY bad-for longer than a mile.  I also have to mention that my incredibly sweet, loving, and thoughtful husband downloaded several new songs onto my "clip" for me the day before while I was gone with my dad and siblings getting our race packets, checking out the course and whatnot.  I had really wanted some new music, but hadn't had the time to do it.  And without me even knowing until the night before, he did it for me!  I attribute enjoying my race so much greatly to having some really awesome new music to listen to-and I am picky and I love "modern classical"-movie soundtracks, trailer soundtracks, that kind of music just really sings to my soul and that's what really gets me going and he found some great songs that gave me that extra boost at times.  So with these new thoughts and my new running style in mind, and my new music to thoroughly enjoy, I moved forward.  I kept my eye on my watch and any time I was over 9 minute miles, I sped up-I would move my arms faster.  I didn't think about my legs.  PRetty early on my foot starting hurting.  I didn't let it get to me.  It hurt throughout the entire race and I just kept telling myself-you have trained for this, you are just fine, just keep going.  It was very hot-probably one of the hottest days we had had in Mesa at that point.  I was worried about hitting the wall at the classic 18th or 20th mile.  I knew if I kept well fueled, that would be less likely to happen-or at least not happen so intensley.  So at every stop, I took what they offered-gus', drinkage, chomp type things.  I did feel pretty sick to my stomach because I was likely over-fueling, but I just ignored it and kept going.  I focused on my music and enjoying it and my arms-just kept them moving.  At the biggest hill, I knew it well-I had run it many times and I knew I didn't need to slow down too much, so I pushed myself up it.  When I got to the top, I knew this was my only good down hill so I didn't hold back, I flew down it.  At every stop (every 2 miles) I would think, alright, I am there already!  It was really fun to see my sweet little Aubrey along with my sister in laws at mile 10 holding up a sign cheering me on!  I ran right up to Aubrey and gave her a big hug!  I also even saw my old Gilbert workout buddy!  That was really fun to see her along the way!  Anyway, I just kept focused and I only stopped and walked for the drinks (I never even stopped for the bathroom-and I did go-you can take that how you want-but I knew that if I stopped, I wouldn’t make my goal).  About at mile 23 I was feeling pretty wasted.  I wanted to walk, but I knew that if I did, I wouldn't make it under 4:10.  At this point in the race I knew I couldn't make under 4, but I could still make it under 4:10 if I kept running and I knew that I was actually pretty close to making it closer to 4 than to 4:10 if I could keep up my speed.  I did slow down a bit for the last few miles and kept finding myself to be closer to 10 minute miles and making my arms go faster to speed up.  I had to really really focus.  I really wanted to get in as close to 4 as possible.  As I finally reached the end, I was so focused on that finish line that I couldn't even look to the side-lines.  I just knew I had to keep running for that finish line or I might collapse, yet I was so so excited that I had run this race so well and that I had pushed myself so hard!  I ran as fast as I could through that finish line!  It was an incredible feeling to know that I did it and I did it in 4:04!!  I had done a great job, and I knew it! 

It’s super hard to train and do, but if you follow the training schedule and utilize the tools out there, you can totally do it! And no, nobody needs to run a marathon, but life is like this!  There are so many awesome things out there.  But if you never set out to do some of them, it's never going to happen.  I couldn't just run a marathon without a lot of planning and work.  The same is true for any worthwhile accomplishment.  Our world or at least our country is so so so lazy!  We aspire to things, but aren't willing to give the effort it takes to really gain from our aspirations.  Good things take effort!  Great things take work!

The gospel is so similar!  I call running my anti-depressant because it teaches me so much and it makes me feel great!  But I need to expound on that, because I feel great in the long run-after I have gotten up and gotten out and on my way.  Often it takes me a mile or even a few before I feel like I can really get going.  And some days it really sucks to get up and go running, let me re-phrase that-most days it is really really hard to get myself out of bed and on my way-I NEVER feel like getting out of bed, but I am so glad when I do it)-and I seriously mean that because so so so many moms that seem so on top of things take anti-depressants to help them (I am not saying anyone shouldn't be on anti-depressants-I am just stating a fact here). 

Being a mom is super hard.  I have come to the realization that being anything with eternal value is going to be hard and I think we forget that!!!  I think we figure that because it is of eternal value and because it is a wonderful, good thing to be doing, that it will be easy because we know it is what we should be doing.  The truth is, as we all know, that it is super hard to be a mom.  Sticking with it, fixing meals, cleaning house, tireless hours-it’s a lot of work.  We are a lazy lazy society.  We do not stick to things that require too much effort.  I am no different than a billion other moms out there.  I am tired-the work seems endless at times.  Life is hard.  BUT I am coming to learn that the mind has so so so much power.  Perspective-having the gospel is really what it comes down to-knowing the end result-knowing I get to be with Jon forever-knowing that I get to enjoy my family and my sweetheart after this life is over, and knowing that this is only a small portion of my existence is what really keeps me happy.  And with that in mind, I can generally not let the hard times get to me and just keep going, knowing that the end of this hard moment will come, there will be great moments of joy and the more I keep my eye out for them, the more I will see them and I keep going-just like in a race-moments where you are flying and you are feeling on the top of the world, yet in the same race, moments where you are hurting a lot and you think you might puke, and you just wet your pants a little-hopefully nobody will notice because we all stink so bad anyway, but with each long run, those moments bother me less and less, because I know that the great awesome moments aren’t coming along if I don’t have these moments to build and strengthen and help me appreciate and joy in the great moments.

When we take the "hard path" and work at "hard goal" I know that it is where we will find true joy and peace and in all actuality it is not the harder path-it takes more effort, but what you will gain will strengthen you in times of need and help teach you how to push yourself and essentially make you a better, stronger person and you will look back and wonder why you thought it was so hard to do in the first place.  Great accomplishments are the result of hard things, and ultimately these hard things help in discovering our own strengths and capacities and ultimately joy!!

2012-Our First Year in Arizona!

I thought I would post several pictures from 2012 and tell a little about them for our year "finale" to share with family and friends.  Enjoy!

  My kids at the beginning of 2012-it was the first time I bought the girls Christmas dresses and Jonathan a new Sunday outfit!  Living so close to so much family, we had always been so blessed with hand-me-downs that we never needed to buy Sunday clothes!  Thank you so much to all of you that have given us hand-me-downs over the years!  

We love them!

Jon let the kids climb up there when he was taking down the Christmas decs and putting up his movie posters-they were pretty excited!

We went to the Pheonix children's museum for Jonathan's birthday-it was a pretty neat place!  The kids had a really super fun time!

Happy 5th birthday to Jonathan!  He was lucky and got to have Grandma and Grandpa Hansen over for his birthday!  They came and spent several days with us which was really nice.  Here is Jonathan's "Thor Hammer" birthday cake-I should have looked at the picture from the movie rather than just his toy hammer.  I would have realized that the hammer is placed differently in the mound of dirt and would have been much easier to place as a cake that way.  But he loved the cake and we had a fun time making it together!

The kids at the school carnival.  They had a lot of fun doing different activities-one of which was wall climbing.  I failed to get a picture, but they really enjoyed trying that!

Amelia and I on a bike ride-we really enjoyed many bike rides throughout the year.  We even got to go on a few with great-grandpa Robertson!  We would bike to his house, stop in and visit with him and Grandma for a bit and then ride a couple of miles with him.  We don't live as close anymore, but we may decide to go for a long bike ride and try it again soon!

 
 Dying Easter eggs!

Easter morning!

The Pat Tillman run-the kids ran a .44 mile race at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe.   It was amazingly crowded (there was a 4.4 mile race as well and 30,000 people ran it)!  We had no idea how popular of a race this was and expected a nice little race in which we could see the kids at the start and finish.  Nope.  It was so full of people everywhere that we decided we better stay right with the kids while they ran.  We split up and through it all we actually lost Jonathan for a bit and that was so scary!  We were so grateful to find him and held him extra close the rest of the day!  The race was pretty fun though and there was so much fun extra stuff going on along with lots of free food from Jamba Juice, Chik-fil-a, McDonalds, and lots more-it will surely become a tradition, only this time we will know just how crazy and busy it is!

Aubrey and Mariah sewing.  Mariah is working on her stick horse we had to make for a school project.  Aubrey is making a finger puppet.

Mariah with her completed stick horse.  I think it turned out pretty sweet especially since we made it up from the scraps in my fabric scrap drawer!

Amelia helping me cook in the kitchen.  All of my kids love to cook with me!  For a while they each had a weekly turn helping me make dinner.  Now it's more sporadic, but they all love any opportunity to help me cook!

 Jon's birthday!

Mariah's 7th birthday!  We had a fun little food party on the small dishes.  We made a small cake for the party and then had an icecream cake with family later.

 

My birthday-well Jon and the kids celebrated it a day before my birthday.  On my birthday I went to Portland for my little brother's wedding!  We were so happy for Jay to find such an amazing woman!!  So for my birthday, I flew out a couple of days before the wedding, along with several of my siblings.  We had a super awesome time together!  It was a beautiful place to visit and it was so fun to be with my siblings goofing off!

  

4th of July goodies we made!  These were my first cake-pops!  The only problem is they were so yummy and I ate way too many!!  The flag cake was pretty fun to make as well.  The kids helped me and were really confused how it was going to all turn out, but they finally got to see when we cut the cake! We got to enjoy the 4th of July here in Arizona!  We went to Jon's sister, Kathy's home and had a really nice time with them and James and Emily's family.  The funny thing was there was a huge rainstorm and it was the coldest 4th of July we have had!

 

The kids made mickey mouse cookies with Grandpa Robertson while we were in Utah over the summer.  He made enough for all the grandkids that were there to make their own and then showed them how to frost it to look like Mickey.  Then he let them go at it.  It was really cute and the kids had a fun time, of course, who wouldn't want to decorate a sugar cookie with their grandpa!

Our first trip to the ER-not bad since she is our 4th child.

Mariel's wedding!!  It was really neat to be a part of our sweet little nieces wedding while we were in Utah!  We love her dearly!

We heard that it was so hot that you could cook cookies in the car while you were at church.  We gave it a try!  The cookies were cooked through and very yummy!!  It was nice to come out of church and have a treat ready in the car!  We will for sure be doing that again this summer!

First day of school!

Mariah-2nd grade

Aubrey-3rd grade

 Not sure where Jonathan's first day of school pic is, but he started kindergarten this year!  This picture is actually from when grandma Robertson came to take care of me after surgery.  The kids had a lot of fun having them visit and I got a lot of rest as well as good company and good food!

 Amelia being cute!

Amelia has great grandpa Robertson wrapped around her little finger!  He adores her and she also adores him!  She is always sure to get and give a hug and kiss from him when he is around!

Mariah washing Amelia's hair in the tub!

The kids playing legos with dad-he took good care of them while I was healing from surgery!  He got out the totes of legos and dumped them in the living room.  They built and played out there for about a week!

Emily came out to Utah in September, so I took the kids out of school for a few days and we headed up there!  This is us running up beautiful Provo Canyon in the beautiful fall colors all around!

Girls night out-Emily, me, Mom, and Becca.  After going out for a delicious dinner at Costa Vida, we went to Forever 21 and picked out something super ugly for each other to try on.  It was pretty fun!

Hiking Stewart Falls with the kids!  Aubrey, James, Ben, and Grandpa Robertson hiked Timpanogus while we hiked Stewart Falls with the littler kids.  It was a beautiful hike!  I just couldn't get enough of the beautiful mountains!  Aubrey and I hiked Timpanogus early in the summer as well with Jeremy and Grandpa Robertson.  And the kids and I hiked almost to "hamburger rock" with Grandpa Robertson while we were there in July.  That is a ways past 2nd falls on the Aspen Grove trail on the Timpanogus hike.  We didn't realize how close we were until we hiked Timpanogus later!  We were only one switchback away when we had decided it was time to turn around!!  They all did really well!

The kids at Maceys getting a king-kong cone!  We are always sure to hit Maceys and get an icecream when in Utah!  You can't beat their soft-serve 50 cent cones!

Amelia helping make her birthday cake!

The kids made "animal" balloons for Amelia's birthday.  They were super cute!

Amelia loves dogs.  She got tons of dog things for her birthday.  Mariah made these dog ears for her to wear on her birthday-she was so cute!

We made a doggy cake!

Happy 2nd birthday Amelia!  Great-grandma & grandpa Robertson came.  Grandma loved the little dishes-pretty much a birthday tradition at our house!

 Aubrey's 9th birthday!  We made an icecream cake that was pretty much like a giant oreo!  We frosted on "Blue" from the movie "Rio" on there.  She had a fun pajama/movie night birthday party and they watched Rio.  They also got in a cake fight afterward while eating cake-even Jon joined in, which greatly shocked the kids at the party.  It was pretty crazy and fun!

Halloween!  

Aubrey carved her pumpkin all on her own!  Jon helped Jonathan and I helped Mariah.  Amelia was fine just eating cookies and watching while we carved.

Halloween night-Amelia was very upset to be wearing a costume-but after the first door of trick-or-treating, she was very happy to be in a costume!  We had a really fun time trick-or-treating together as a family!

The girls before church-so cute!

Aubrey had a performance at school just before Thanksgiving.  Grandma and Grandpa Robertson were in town to help with our move and for Henry's baptism.  It was really nice to have them visit again!  And it was nice that they were able to come to Aubrey's performance!  It was really cute-she was an alligator (I helped the room-mother make hats for the kids in class).

Thanksgiving at James and Emily's house.  It was so nice and Emily had adorable party favors for the kids and the tables all set so nice.  We had a really nice, relaxing Thanksgiving-it was the first Thanksgiving in which I haven't cooked in probably 15, maybe more, years!  The reason for that was we were busy packing and getting ready to move.  We also got to attend Henry's baptism that Saturday, which was really nice to be a part of too!

Grandpa Robertson was so kind and made his amazing truffle centers and brought them along with amazing, good quality chocolate to dip them in while he was here over Thanksgiving!  We had great grandma & grandpa, and Jay & Em over for dinner (hamburgers and homemade fries-yum, yum) and then we all dipped chocolates together!  The kids had a blast dipping their own and then we also came up with some great fillings-toated coconut, toasted almonds with toffee chips, cashews, and of course the amazing truffle flavors-mint, dark mint, orange, and lemon.  It was all so incredibly delicious!  I think I gained 10 lbs over the holiday!


In the nick of time, we finally were able to sign on our house and get the keys-24 hours before we had to be out of the home we were renting!  It was a close call, and I don't think I have been that stressed in a long time!  I about had a heart-attack!  We kept thinking we were going to be able to sign and get everything through for about 3 weeks before it actually happened and the seller almost backed out!  Thank you so much to family and friends for their prayers and faith because it was seriously a miracle that it actually all went through in time!  So here is our new home as of Dec. 1st.  We hope we will get to enjoy it for many many years!

Jon visited Jonathan's kindergarten class and played the violin.  He really enjoyed doing so and Jonathan loved having him come too!

 The kids making Christmas tree ornaments-we made the dough, rolled it out, cut shapes, waited several days for it to dry and then painted them!  It was really fun and it kept the kids busy while Jon and I unpacked!

Jonathan and Aubrey sewing a present for Mariah for Christmas.  They worked very well together and worked hard on this wall-hanging.

While walking home from school with the kids one day, Aubrey noticed that these two trees made the star-trek symbol!  The kids were super excited to take a picture and send it to Jon!

Our cousins, Henry & Wesley spent a night over the holidays.  Great grandma and grandpa came over and the kids performed a nativity together & we sang songs together.  Then the kids each decorated a section of this giant gingerbread man that my kids and I had made earlier.  That night it ran away!  But the kids found it and ate it for breakfast!  We had a really fun time playing games with James, and Jay & Em.  Fun times!

Emily, Emily, and I (daughters that live in AZ) made mom 3 pillow covers for her Christmas gift.  They really turned out beautiful!  I want to make a set for me!  Maybe I will make some for whomever I have for Christmas next year!

 
We actually got our Christmas tree up only a week after moving in!  It was a live one and it barely lived until Christmas!  I don't know if we will go for a live one again here in Arizona.  It was really pretty and smelled really nice though!

Great Grandmas's 93rd birthday!  She had mentioned when coming to one of kids birthdays that she thought it was really fun that they got as many balloons as they were turning for them to pop and there would be a prize/toy/candy or something in each balloon.  Jokingly, she said she wanted someone to blow up 93 balloons for her birthday.  Well, the kids and I thought that would be really fun.  We put chocolates in each one and blew them all up!  We put them in garbage bags and delivered them to her house!  She was elated!  She just loved popping them and had the kids help her too!

New Years Eve!  We made some yummy food!  White bean dip, guacamole, a bacon cheddar cheese ball (it was so delicious-the taste you hope for when you buy one, but it has that processed flavor-this was homemade, no processes flavor), artichoke, garlic, spinach dip-also amazing!!-little smokies with bacon wrapped around them, apple toffee dip, and the classic onion dip to go with potato chips-only this year I used greek yogurt for 1/2 of the sour cream and it was delicious and far less bad for you!  The kids helped me make most of the food too!  In-fact, Aubrey made muddy-buddies all on her own while I was making the artichoke and bean dips!

 
Jon built a big fire (burned our Christmas tree) while the kids jumped on the tramp and I sat close to the fire freezing cold (Arizona has really made me not tolerate cold at all).  They taped glow-sticks to them so they would glow in the dark and did funny moves on the tramp.  The pictures show the kids well, but in the dark, we could only see the glow sticks.  Jonathan and Aubrey are insects of some type and Mariah is an animal/ninja of some type.

We could pretend we are in the snow, but really this is just a gust of ash that blew in front of the camera right when I took the picture.

Here is Amelia smiling for the camera!  While we were out there, we also did sparklers.  We didn't get any pictures though.  The kids love those things though!

We came in, took hot baths, and got some more snacks and sat down for a fun game of "Word on the Street" (a Christmas present).

I just had to try it and they turned out SO adorable!  Amelias first braids!  And, as you can see, we played some Mario Cart on nintendo 64 as we waited for midnight to come around!  It was a super fun New Years-ending with the traditional singing of "Scumps" with drinks in hand (from Sleeping Beauty-a tradition started by my brother James-not sure when or how or why, but it began and we have carried it on).  Then we linked arms and drank to the new year!

It's been a full year with many memories-some wonderful, some fun, some hard, and some close to the heart.  We look forward to another wonderful year!  Each year we see the blessing of our Heavenly Father in our lives and we are so grateful for our knowledge of the Savior and His sacrifice for us.