Blog Book Retraction

I guess Blurb no longer supports Blogger. Sorry about that. I have the older version and it still works, but I guess if you were to download it right now you can't get your blog. If you by chance have the older version, do NOT upgrade when they prompt you to. You will no longer have access to your blogger blog.

Blog Book

Definition - your blog made into a book! This is the website Blurb . It takes your entire blog and "slurps" it into book form. Each entry on a page including any pictures that you posted. Then you can delete entries, combine short ones onto the same pages, add colors, change fonts, add more text or more pictures, etc. Takes a little while to get all the functions down. Even this time I'm still finding new things I didn't know I could do. In the end, they print you either a soft cover or hard cover book. Professionally bound and copywrited! My first one was 80 pages and cost me about $35. Fabulous!! My kids love to look at it, see themselves in it and read what I wrote about them. It has even taken the pressure of scrapbooking off. Now I just post more pictures so when it's all said and done, I have a full color, professional journal and scrapbook. I highly recommend it.

One day at a time

One day of success is worth counting. Today I have accomplished several little things that will ultimately help me achieve my bigger goals. I got my calendar caught up, my menu done and made 9 loaves of bread with my new KitchenAid mixer. That should last me for about 2 weeks. Later I will go to the bank and pick up a little white board to keep close by with a list of things I NEED to do and things I WANT to get done. There is a difference!

Today I woke up with a yucky cough and chest congestion. It never fails. 2 days of sneezing then comes the congestion. It stinks too cuz I really need to get running for the London's Run in 3 weeks. I ran yesterday and didn't do too bad, but it's hard when deep breathing causes you to cough.

Last night I was happily folding laundry and watching the Biggest Loser when Katy walked up to me and puked right on my lap. Luckily I had laundry on my lap so I just kind of scooped it up and put it back in the washer, but she backed up and did it 2 more times on the floor. Of course Glade was at mutual so I had to clean it up myself. I spent the next half hour swallowing hard and trying to not think about it. She isn't even sick. She started putting all 4 fingers in her mouth and I guess this time it gagged her. Back to the Biggest Loser. I'm hoping everyone stays nice this season, but I thought it was really stinky to send them all home. What the heck? Weird. Anyway, looking forward to a better one than last time.

I got set up on Facebook yesterday. I'm not sure why, peer pressure I guess. I still don't really get it. I asked Glade "so....now what?" You don't really get to read much about people like you do on a blog and they write random stuff for what they are doing. I don't know, we'll see how it goes. I did find some old friends, but again, not that much info about people, just some pictures. I can keep a little closer eye on my girls though.

I'm almost finished with my second blog book. This one is quite a bit bigger. I'm keeping it very simple this time. It's not super user friendly and a little time consuming, but I love having it.

Aha moment

A new year, new reflections. These past few months I have been feeling really unsettled and not sure why. As I have been putting away Christmas and trying to catch up on normal life, it hit me. In case anyone isn't aware, I'm a little bit of a control freak. When I'm not controlling things I get a little agitated. In taking a small inventory of my life I realized this: My kids are controlling me, my house is controlling me, my finances are controlling me and basically that is why I feel so unsettled. I need to take control of my life again. When school started, I had a menu planned, my house was mostly cleaned by midday, I was going to the gym on a regular schedule, etc. All of that has gone down the toilet. Not sure what happened or why, but I really want to get it back. So my New Year's Resolutions are these:

Stick to a budget
Stay home more
Declutter
Stay on top of my kids homework
Practice self control
Be a better Visiting Teacher

Not very original, I know. But I think the basic things in life like order and discipline make for easier everything else. So now I should get off this stinkin computer and make a menu and get my calendar caught up on all my upcoming commitments. Wish me luck!

Happy Anniversary!

It was only 18 short years ago that I married a super-de-duper, fantabulous hottie! We were tagged as "young and stupid" but we knew better, hence the reason for our song "Still the One". Obviously we have had our ups and downs, but with each down, we come back further up. I still love to just look at him. Makes him uncomfortable, but makes me all squishy inside. My heart jumps just a little when his ringtone fills my ears. The best part of all is knowing that he loves me just the same. We are very blessed to have an enduring love and a great friendship. I love you Glade! Happy Anniversary.

Snow!

What a day! The morning was rough. Last minute search for snowpants for Katy. We were going to leave her behind with Chelsey, but Chelsey got called into work so we took her with us. Thanks Gena for saving me! Then Glade was trying to even out the road in front of our house and hit the water meter so we had no water for a day and a half. We finally got on the road and it went well after that. We went with friends and family. Well, the family showed up as we were leaving...woops. We went to the gravel pits and it was sooo busy! The kids didn't seem to mind. Although, we had injuries all around. Brooklyn scraped her chin on her first trip down. Stephen spent most of the day in tears (turns out he was kind of sick anyway) but everything was making him cry. Rhett crashed into someone's sled and cut his cheek. I think they all had a great time anyway, well maybe not Stephen. Since we didn't have any water, I couldn't make any hot chocolate so Joe got a cooler of hot water and we mixed some powder up there. Everyone was grateful for a little warmth. I love snow pictures. All the colors are so bright against the white snow. After playing for a few hours, we drove back to Payson and had some nice hot pizza. The ride home was very quiet. The worst, no showers or flushing. The water got fixed today after a lot of shoveling. The big girls and I went to mom's to shower and bathe the babies. Nice! But back to the snow....

Whitley is getting a little big to have too much fun. She stayed with the babies quite a bit.


Stephen spent most of his time launching snowballs which ended him up with pants full of snow courtesy of Glade, another reason for tears.


Talon and Hailey on their first trip down. Joe thought it might also be their last, but they had many more.


Julia and Lainy, Julia brought all sorts of fun things to ride on. They had a blast!

Nick was so sweet to pull Katy up the hill then take her back down. Here she was crying "mommy, mommy!"

This is her with a big smile loving the trip down. Nick is so great with the little ones. They all adore him.

Bo having a "snack". He was really happy to just sit and eat the snow.

Dalin, what else can one say. These sleds we got really pretty much stunk, but he kept trying anyway.

Katy, queen of the hill. She liked just hiking up and down this little hill. She kept trying to slide down on her bum. Then she would flip over and push herself down on her belly.

What an arm. He held his own in the snowball fight.

Sisters. Whitley and Brooklyn just hanging out.

Dalin finally got the good sled.

Even Katy got into the snowball throwing.

Nick got Talon to go up the bigger part of the hill. Again, Joe thought he would freak, but he did great. Nick was a great protector. When they were about to spill, Nick held him tight and saved the day!

Take a picture! Over here!

This is one of the only pictures I got of Rhett. He spent most of his time up on the biggest hill. We didn't see him much until he got hurt.

Love this little guy! He insisted on taking his gloves off to make better snowballs. His fingers were freezing. He was the last to head to the car. Just like last year, begging to stay.

Daddy getting in on the fun.

What a cutie! Future snowbunny right there.

Stephen trying to be inconspicuous launching snowballs at us.

Katy had one glove that wouldn't stay on. Eventually she stopped letting me put it back on her. She found a tissue in my camera bag and was using it to pick up snow and throw it at me.

Nick's strategic spot for the snowball fight. He too got it from his dad. He took it much better than Stephen did.

The Dairman family. We love having them around. Even baby Lacy did really well, all things considered.

Katy insisted on being the "puller". Whitley was nice enough to help her out by pushing herself along. No way was Katy getting in!

Brooklyn posing. As you can tell it wasn't very cold. We weren't there 20 minutes before everyone was asking to take off their coats.

Bo decided he didn't need a sled and pushed himself down on his tummy. He was happy the whole day. Maybe even the only kid that didn't cry!

New Year's Eve

Well, what started out as a little party turned into a kind of big party! Without getting myself all wound up again, our Stake planned this big night of activities for the kids age 12 - 18. This required me to be in my car 4 different times between 6:30 and midnight. Totally sucky. So we invited 2 friends over to hang out with us and our kids since we had to be hanging around our house and driving back and forth. We kind of left it as an open invitation to anyone who didn't have anything else to do. We ended up with 7 couples and a bunch of kids.

It was actually very nice and the kids did soooo well! It was noisy and chaotic, but they were all good, no crying or arguing. That makes such a difference. We didn't get to do much games wise with all the kids, but it was fun to just hang out and talk and get to know some of the couples we hadn't spent much time with. As always, I made way too much food. We have been snacking all day today. Once some of the big kids got home, we took all the little ones to Julia's house and things settled down a lot after that. We tried some games, but it was a kind of big group to do too much. At midnight, we watched the ball drop, toasted our friends and kissed our spouses. Julia had brought some poppers and stuff so we went outside to do that. Glade lit off a bottle rocket which took a wrong turn and headed straight into the house between Shelli's legs and actually burned Janelle a little on her foot. Didn't scared little Jared one bit. It really was a fun night and we were in bed by 1. Crazy part, when Julia brought my little ones home, they had stayed awake the whole time! AND, they were still up by 8 am. Go figure.

Today we went to my mom's to get some sewing done. Came home and thought I would lay down for an hour then go running. About 2 and a half hours later Stephen came in and asked me when we were leaving. Woops, no running today. Tonight some family is coming over to finish off the rest of our food and celebrate our 2 nieces birthdays. Tomorrow, headed to the snow! I'm gonna need a vacation from this winter break!