It's been a year filled with lots of growth, renovations, changes, and learning. Hopefully (although I secretly doubt) I've grown as much as my girls. I'm looking forward to a new year with new challenges. More refining and growing. More kindness and laughter. More JOY. :)
These past few weeks have been chaotic ones for us. We were planning on spending our first Christmas as just a little Chick family here in Idaho Falls and then traveling to Utah to be with family the following day. However, due to the projected storm, we decided to delay our "growing up" one more year and trekked down to Bountiful Christmas Eve for a wonderful night filled with Moons. We had a wonderful time and were truly spoiled (yet again) by my wonderful parents with fabulous food and generous gifts. The girls got to open their nightgowns and LOVED them! I was so happy that they were excited! Hazel danced all around, nearly squealing to every person (sometimes twice) that she had Hello Kitty pajamas! "I'm so excited!!! I'm so excited!!! Hello Kitty!! Hello Kitty!!" That's my girl! I laughed and laughed at her reaction. I explained to my sister that it's not as if she didn't know what she was getting. She's tried her nightgown on for me at least three times to get the fit right and it had been sitting out on the couch for at least three or four days. Nevertheless, she is such a sweet little girl and made her mommy's heart glow by showing so much happiness over her present.
Christmas morning was so much fun, watching my little ladies open presents. Genny was thankful to have us there, so she (as the baby of a large family, all with families of their own) didn't have a lonely Christmas. (Hopefully next year, she'll have her very own "family" ;) LOL! I'm funny!) Friday we went up to my family's cabin and got to spend the rest of the week snowmobiling, playing games, eating and eating, laughing, and sledding. My only regrets from the weekend were first, Wendie not bringing more sugar cookies :) and never getting to see the completed snow cave that my brothers started! :) Ben spent several hours snowblowing more snow onto the already ENORMOUS pile constructed by Jake! :) Hopefully somebody will get full use out of the monstrosity! LOL!
Never one to miss a party, Sunday I made the impromptu decision to send Nels back to Idaho by himself to work for the next two days, while I high-tailed it down to St. George for more partying, games, and eating. Thank you, thank you, thank you Wendie and Russ for letting us come! It was a lot of driving, but WELL WORTH it! The girls and I had a great time enjoying some sunshine and warmer weather. Hazel and I also had a wonderful time together hiking around the gorgeous red sandstone and later Hazel and Lilie graced me with a performance of "Give Said the Little Stream" at the Tuacan amphitheater. Despite the ants that I got to shake out of all four bags, at least twice, we had a LOT of fun! Thank you, again!
I feel such amazing gratitude to my Heavenly Father for all that he gives to me, especially the sweet family that Nels and I have. The older I get, the more I realize how truly blessed we are with the amazing people that make up our lives, both family and friends! It is one of the most evident blessing that I can see in my life on a daily basis. People who come into our lives, touching and changing who we are and how we see the world. People who love us and teach us. It's truly not by accident and we are all interconnected the way we are. Thank you all for your friendship and love!
Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. Hopefully I will have more Christmas pictures for future postings, but this is it for now. I'll have to get pictures of the girls all together in the new nightgowns as soon as they are all washed and clean.
My one Christmas picture!! Isn't she adorable!?
Hooray for snow!!
Nels' favorite winter chore! :) You can tell by the look on his face, huh? :) Actually, truth to tell, I usually spare him this job. But he did do it this first time, what a swell guy! :) LOL!
Gotta love Idaho winters! :)
Happy New Year! :)
Such fun little ladies! Chee!!!!
This picture is just another evidence of how much the Lord loves us!
One cold morning, before it started snowing, Nels went out to go to work, only to find that his car wouldn't start. Lovely, eh? Well, we couldn't afford to have it fixed immediately, so it sat in front of our house until one lovely day when the city finally decided to plow the streets. (Do you see how much snow is on the roads!? It had been snowing for weeks before the decided to plow the roads ONCE! Which they STILL have only done ONCE even though we have well over a FOOT of snow! You Utahns have no idea how good you've got it!) SO. Anywho, a wonderful friend came and helped us tow it over to the mechanic at that point. The next week, we got an extra check from some of Nels' side jobs. And just the other day we got the car fixed and paid for with said check. And what was wrong with the car, you might ask? Well, the timing belt went out. Right while it was sitting there in front our house - and not when it was going down the road - where it could have caused severe damage to the engine. Strange, huh? Heavenly Father loves my little family. :)
No. She is NOT screaming because I am pulling her hair -- in fact, I'm NOT pulling her hair, just holding it up for inspection. This, my dear friends, is what happens when you tell your (well, I guess - MY) three year old that you might have to cut her hair like a boy. :(
3 comments:
LOL! Ella makes that face (the last one) all the time, but not because of a threat, just because I tell her we need to brush and do pretties in her hair. I threatened to cut her hair like mine (back when it was REALLY short... like a boy) for a long time and she'd say NOOOOO, until one day I threatened and she paused for a minute and said, "OK!". My threat was foiled. Then she started asking me all the time when she was going to get her haircut like me! LOL! The lesson? Only threaten if you mean it!
Sounds like a very Merry Christmas!
What a face! I am guessing she found scissors. I am still waiting for Jenna to do that to her hair. It has never been cut and she'll be 3 in March. I am surprised because of all the crafting/sewing/scrapbooking/etc. that I do there are usually about 4 pairs in reach at almost all times. Oh, that sounds worse than it is. But Tyler loves to cut things to "practice." Oh, it's all dreadful. But I love the face! Did she have the blood-curdling scream to go with it?
Sounds like you had a great time with your family. I am really glad you were able to make it to spend time with all of them. I love that Hazel was so thrilled with her new nightgown. What a sweet girl!
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