Life Lately According to my cell phone.

My friend Clay posted this key rack on his facebook wall so I made him one.

Husband wanted to clean out the closet in office we share. Naturally we ended up rearranging all the furniture we have in the house. Four trash bags, three bags to goodwill and we have a much better organized space. I pared down all the kid cloths, the toys, everything. Very cathartic. And shout out to my Aunt Chris for watching the kids for 6 hours while we worked.

We realized that we hang out with the Coopers all the time and have very few pictures with them. This picture commemorated the best cinnamon rolls I have ever made.

M thought the frosting was excellent.

I was taking pictures of price tags in Ikea and M kept saying "cheese!" and demanded a selfie

I'm not sure what cute moment I was trying to capture, but this is a pretty good representation of my life.

Not sure what has happening in this one either but I like it.

I surprised Husband with a staycation for his birthday. We did exciting things like get his car washed, then saw a movie, and went to Fogo de Chao for dinner. He had room service cheesecake as a birthday cake. It was seriously fantastic and I love having my parents around to watch the kids for us! And Lil' Sis and Aaron to come with us and tag team watching the kids.

We may have started our own Christmas Eve tradition by lighting a million votive candles, singing Silent Night and letting the kids blow them all out.

J realized we had matching gold shoes on.

Resolutions 2015

I always like to see how I did on last years goals/plans and blogging them makes them easy to find!


1) Buy a minivan.  DONE! Best decision ever.

2) Visit Lil Sis. DONE!

3) Paint a new family portrait. We need one with M in it :) I also need to figure out what to do with the old one.
Nope. I decided to keep the old one as is.

4) Get Lasik. Done! My left eye is still not quite perfect but I only really notice it at night. I might get a touch up

5) Visit 3 new parks. Blew out of the water

6) Bring back the monthly goal list. Husband actually suggested this one. We accomplished more when we had our little monthly check boxes. Nope. I've been rocking a to-do list though and it's been working

7) Go on a little getaway with the Husband. DONE! It was a birthday surprise for Husband and was a blast

8) Do a full family activity every other month. I didn't chart it, but I think we did at least 6 so done!

9) Commit to Sunday night planning sessions. Not really. We have gotten better at communicating the weekly schedule and viewing the budget though

10) Go to sleep earlier! Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Averaging probably about the same number of late nights as last year. 

Unofficial goals

Practice french at least once a week 6 months solid! Then I started teaching spin and yoga and stopped completely

Read the entire Old Testament. fail. I made it to Numbers, but I'm going to keep plugging along.

And on a side note, I kept track of how many books I read in 2014 and hit 49! It was a diverse year full of YA fantasy, memoirs, my first Tom Clancy book, some great nonfiction, and the ridiculous Pulitzer winner, the 800 page behemoth The Goldfinch.



And for this year...

1) Finish 10 of the projects on my project list (this includes the paper crane installation from 2013's resolutions, a jean quilt, cap to the retaining wall, etc)

2) Visit Tucson 4 times. I miss that brother of mine!

3) Go to the temple more than 12 times

4) Index once a month

5) Journal once a month (preferably once a week, but let's not set the bar too high)

6) Invite someone to dinner once a month

7) Go to sleep at the same time as John more nights than not

8) Make a dent in my yarn stash

9) Review the budget once a week

10) Get a complete 72 hour kit, 1 year supply of food, and 3 months of easy pantry meals stored. I"m about half way on each of these, but this will be the year I have zero guilt about this!

How did you guys do one your resolutions? Make any new ones?

Merry Christmas!

And some other contenders for the card that didn't make the cut

"Plie"

J's frozen bday party

We made the invites and I even let J and her friend add glitter to them. I used a clear envelope so at least the openers had fair warning. One little girl loved the invite so much, she insisted that her mom hang it on the Christmas tree, thus validating the time I put into something that would just be thrown away

My favorite pinterest steal was the fleece scarves. Super easy and made a cheap party favor that wasn't more candy or cheap toys to throw away later.

Second favorite was the stained glass candy, even though you could probably shank someone with a sharp peice of it, the kids navigated it just fine without making their gums bleed. Even M mastered it without difficulty.

I bought little sticks on etsy and made rock candy. It was an obnoxious process and now I know the exact consistency of syrup. I'm so happy to have the blue jars off my counters. And the cello bags made for pretzels worked perfectly.

The first activity was making marshmallow snowmen.

I tried not to laugh as a few girls asked for a tenth marshmallow because they had eated the first 9 instead of building a snowman :)

It was fun to meet the Aurelia from preschool I had heard so much about. I can see why J is such friends with her.

We also played pin the nose on Olaf.

J liked being the one to spin her friends.

Then it was time for cake and presents!

SHe received two "Let It Go Wands" and kept them both, which really has helped with M's sharing problem. And there is always one for a little friend who is over to play.

Aunt Marcie made her the coolest mermaid tail sleeping bag that she insists on the sleeping in every night.

"A Giant Barbie!!"

"It's a frozen game!"

And from the daughter of one of my soul sisters, an engineering toy meant to help girls enjoy STEM activities.

Now I just have to wrap my head around having a 4 year old!

Oldemor

On the way back from Utah we stopped in Vegas to visit Husband other grandmother, affectionately known as MorMor, since she was born in Denmark and that' is how you say mother's mother. She is J's oldermor or great-grandmother.

In poor lighting with a 1 year old that had been trapped in a car, this is as good a portrait as you can get.

Three generations :)

The kids much preferred the gardens outside the care facility. MorMor had said that the tires confused the other residents, but the kids knew exactly what do to with them.

Both kids loved this statue.

M thought the babies needed kisses.

J gave her the sweetest hug as we left. J's middle name is after Mormor's so I'm glad they enjoy each other.

We decided to stop for ice cream in Kingman and change best blow out diaper M had produced all year. The sweet ladies running the shop we very accommodating. The kids loved the giant ice cream cone out front and J wanted to take a picture with it.