Christmas 2009

This Christmas was a fun one. Annie was old enough to understand that it was something to get excited about. Here is a run-down of what we did this year; in October we started using cash for our groceries and fuel so we could take the leftover change and dollar bills and put them into our "Christmas jar". Last year we bought Christmas with credit cards and borrowed money, and we were determined not to use debt for pleasure this year. This Christmas jar gave us about $250 to spend for Christmas. I admit we did go over that when we shopped but we used our misc and extra food money.

James prepared the ward choir for the program, and carried out the plan on the 20th of Dec. It was wonderful. The music he selected was great, and different, but still reflected the spirit of the season. Here is a pic of Annie all dressed up in her Christmas Sunday clothes.

We use a fake tree and Annie was big enough this year to help put it up. She's such a motivated helper. She loves to help with everything. She helped me with my homemade gifts this year too... I love her so much!

Our kitty Maestro took to climbing our tree. It's probably a good thing that we didn't put any ornaments on the tree until late Christmas Eve. The tree fell over a couple times before Christmas, and so the branches are falling apart. I don't know if I will be able to fix them.

Here is a craft we did on Christmas Eve. The polka dot one is Annie's the multi-colored one is mine, and James did the one with the bows.

We opened a few gifts on Christmas eve. We all opened a pair of PJ's and then we let Annie open a toy gift. She got this cute monkey (she named him Simon and took him to bed with her and had him when she woke up in the morning).

Annie took over the camera right before bed and took these next two pictures. She's getting good at taking pictures! I really want to get her one of those Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Cameras. Maybe someday.


Here's our tree all decorated with the gifts underneath.

One of Annie's gifts was the game Cootie. She loves to play this game. Annie even won the first three times we played it!

After we had all our fun at home, we traveled up to Harrisville to hang out with my family for a few hours, and then to Grandpa Shupe's for Christmas Lunch and socializing. Then we went to James' parent's house and opened gifts and played Nintendo for a few hours. When we got home, it wasn't too late in the day, but we were still exhausted.
On Saturday we went out and spent the money we got for Christmas. Then I went down to SLC to see the lights with family that came up from AZ and James took Annie and hung out at the Shupe's for awhile before returning home. Annie was in the middle of a cold so she wouldn't have enjoyed the freezing temps in SLC if I had brought her with me.
Sunday James and Annie stayed home because she was still feeling sick, and I went to church for the first hour and a half. Then later we went to my parent's house for a Christmas dinner thing. The best part about that was the mashed potato soup my dad made with his Vitamix. It chopped those potatoes real good.

Well, that's it for now. Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving 2009

We had plans to travel to Nampa ID for Thanksgiving (which I was really excited about) but the family there got sick and had to cancel at the next-to-last second. My dad and Nana got together and planned a thanksgiving at my parent's house instead. It turned out to be a big success I think. We all had fun.

I brought some craft supplies to make gingerbread men ornaments. We got glitter all over the place, but it was really fun.

Annie was all over the food during and long after dinner.

Nana found some plastic bubble stuff and went to town with it! She truly is the plastic bubble champ.
The next day, a few of us woke up at outrageous times of the day and went to stand in line to get into Shopko. It was fun even though all we did was stand there and shiver. Once we got into the store, we were in and out in 15 minutes. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Photo Greeting Cards

Annie has been doing much better with potty training. She only has an accident when she doesn't want to interrupt her current activity to rush to the toilet. And she only wets the bed when she has something to drink after 6pm.

I am going to advertise my holiday cards now. I own a business called Keepsake Greetings by Leisel. You can find it at www.kgleisel.com. I need help from family and friends to increase my almost non-existent holiday design inventory. If you or anyone you know would like to help me by ordering 30-75 cards for $0.54 each (40% off retail), that would be super awesome. If you live out of reasonable driving range, you'll have to also pay shipping which is $6.00. So if you ordered 30 cards, your total cost would be $22.20. All you need is a photo to email me, and an idea of colors that you would like your card to include. Let me know soon, so we can get the cards ready before too long. Oh, and envelopes are included in the price.

Potty training, day 6

Well well! Yesterday we had ZERO accidents! We even went to the church for 2 hrs and walmart for 1.5 hrs and still no accidents. She has kept her bed dry for the last few nights. The only thing I have to make sure she gets now is telling me when she has to go with words instead of whining. I happy with her progress.

3 day potty training, day 5

Today is day 5 of the potty training, and I've decided to change it up a little. Annie wasn't doing very well yesterday because I was getting upset when she had accident after accident and began to get scared when she had to go. So I had to step back and calm down before we could proceed. I talked to aunt Kara on the phone and she said she used the timing method to train her kids. I decided to look this method up and found an article by someone who melded a few methods together. Me and Annie started that yesterday afternoon by setting the timer for 20 minutes and sitting on the potty until she says she's done and getting a sticker just for trying and 3 stickers for putting something in the potty. Today the time will be extended to 30 minutes and tomorrow will be 45 minutes. Changing to this method has relieved Annie of the fear of going. Last night I woke Annie up an hour after bedtime again and took her to the bathroom, and this morning at 530 she came and got me herself saying she needed to go. I don't expect a dry bed every night, but 2 nights in a row is good! I am confident we aren't going to have any accidents at church tomorrow!

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3 day potty training, day 4

Yesterday was very frustrating because Annie wouldn't pee in the toilet. I talked to Lora from the training website and we figured that what I was doing wrong was that I was taking Annie to the toilet when *I* thought she needed to go, instead of when she thought she needed to go. She wasn't learning her body "cues". This is going to set us back maybe a day and a half at the most.

Last night I took her to the bathroom an hour after she went to bed to help her understand that she can go to the potty when she needs to at night, and again an hour before she usually wakes up. Her bed stayed dry last night as well.

I'm probably going to take tonight off work so I can get this training done.

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3 day potty training, day 3

Yesterday was an overall success. Annie only had 5 accidents in her underwear. We put her to bed, sans baby gate, but she did have an accident in her bed. Today she's been a bit different, and I don't know what to do. Instead of telling me she has to go, or stopping what she's doing to pee, she just pees like its nothing to be bothered about right there where she's standing. I am afraid this is a sort of regression, or that I've been placing too much emphasis on getting stickers after she goes in the potty (like I've been praising the getting of the reward instead of praising the act itself). This training may spill over into tomorrow, and I hope that she's good to leave with James when I have to work tomorrow night, and when we wont have easy access to a bathroom on Saturday for Williams endowment event.

3 day potty training, day 2

Yesterday went pretty well, considering we went through 14 pairs of underwear. Annie started the day hiding from me when she had to go, to telling me while she was going, to finally right before bed actually going to the toilet before she had to go and making it all in! She got two stickers and a prize from the dollar store for that. During the night, she apparantly didn't want to go potty in her bed, because I found a cold pool of pee next to her bedroom door. Her bed was dry! The baby gate is coming down today so she can make it to the potty at night. Even I can't make it all night without having to go, so I can understand why I need to have her feel it's ok to get up to go in the middle of the night.


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3 day potty training, day 1

Today me and Annie are working on potty training. We hid all the diapers and so far there hasn't been a chance to use the potty, but I've been loading her up on fluids so she should be needing to go pretty soon. This process should be finished in 3 days. I'm following the plan to the letter, so we shall see how well it works out.


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Annie's Halloween costume 2009 photo album link

Tons of fun! I love this girl :D

Annie's Halloween costume 2009

General Relief Society Meeting 2009

Alright, so about 2 months ago I was asked by my bishop if I would join a few others from our ward and stake in singing in the choir for the GRSM this year. All in all, there were about 320 ladies from the North Davis, UT area. So after many long practices and much memorizing (which I excelled in, if I do say so myself), we finally came upon the big day and sang our hearts out. Here is a link to the video for the meeting:

http://www.lds.org/move/index.html?type=conference&event=Oct179&lang=english

If you want to see ME... go to the last clip (Guide Us, O Thou Great Jehovah) and fast forward to about 1:25 into the video... there I am in the top left corner standing between two beautiful ladies, one with long blond hair and the other with glasses.

All through the practices and even just before the performance, we had the opportunity to hear from Sis Allred and Sis Thompson from the General Relief Society Presidency, and many from the board, and also from Sis Beck herself on the day of. These ladies aren't aloof like so many ladies in positions of authority... they were very down to earth and they seem to know exactly how everybody feels about things. It's nice to know people like that exist.

A few things I learned from this experience: 1 - Add to the room when you enter, instead of subtracting. 2 - Smile with your eyebrows when you can't with your mouth. 3 - A babbling brook can't sing if there are no rocks in it. 4 - When you sign up for a choir that will sing in any of the big meetings of the church, you are also signing up for a half-hour devotional every Sunday night for two months.

I love case lot sales!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104644&id=552918182&l=e6f28ebda5

Pics from the Lewis Reunion 2009

More from CA

This is Santa Monica beach. Annie's first beach visit! She loved the sand, and the cold water!

California 2009

Right after Annie's birthday, we headed out to "sunny" California (it was overcast most of the time)

We took a trip up to LA to visit the temple. It is a beautiful temple, and I like that it wasn't live-acting but we still got to get up and move around during the session.

The next day, we headed over to Disneyland! Since Annie starts with an A, we got a picture of her on the A in the big CALIFORNIA outside California adventure.

Here are some other pics of us having fun

This was really cool... We got Annie a "I'm celebrating my birthday" pin since it was her birthday just a few days before, and while standing in line to see Alice, she saw Annie and stopped what she was doing and came over to talk to Annie. She and Annie made fast friends! It was awesome how the cast at Disneyland is so friendly.

The Peter Pan ride is in my top 5 favorite rides at Disneyland. It's very laid back and really looks amazing.

Here's the fam. Wayne, Jayne, William, Timothy, James, Annie, and Me :D

Tower of Terror is another one in my top 5 favorite rides. I just love the whole ambiance in the line and the sudden drops in the ride itself. :P

Annie's two years old!

We had a family birthday party for the Annie-Cakes a couple Saturdays ago.

She turned two, so she got two spoons to eat her cereal with!

Here we have Aunt Keely, Grandpa Dean, Uncle Ethan, and Nana (Great Gma)

Cousin Kimberli, Aunt McKenna, and Uncle Jordan

Uncle Oliver, Ama (Grandma Lenore), and Uncle DJ

Uncle William, Grandpa and Grandma Shupe (Great GPs)

Grandma Jayne, Grandpa Wayne, and Uncle Timothy

Annie got a tricycle! She loves it!

and those socks are great too! She spent like 3 minutes just trying to put them on.

Aunt Ashlyn and Uncle Ryan couldn't be here, but they got her a baby doll stroller. One of her favorites also.

Yummy cupcake!

How old are you, Annie? "doo"

Lagoon, Hansen Reunion, my love and my other love

Here are a few pictures from our Lagoon venture for this year.

Annie on the "zeeba"

Annie and Mitchell (family friend)

Annie, DJ, and Mitchell

Me and Kenna on the Samurai. This was Kenna's first time riding this ride. I remember the year it came out I went on this ride like 11 times in a row. It is super fun.

Annie just had to pet the kangaroo, and I think the kangaroo liked it!

Last year at our Hansen Reunion, I stole the show with my bagpipes. This year was Jordan and Kenna's turn with their ballroom dancing. They did very well, even though they say they messed up a couple times. I didn't even notice!

Good children's literature appeals not only to

the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.

~ Anonymous ~