Katy's Christmas Poem

Came across this cute poem Katy wrote today.  I'm going to use her spelling exactly.


titelle Santa
athor Katy

Santa doent you undestand,
 I'v been waiting all year long and not a sigle present for me.
  I guess I've preety notey this year.
 But still I don't caer chirstmas is all about Chirst.

Christmas Saturday

I woke up with a long list of things to get done this day.  But.... as I lay in bed, checking facebook, the first thing that pops up on my feed is that my good friend Alicen had her twin babies!  What??  She was fine a few days ago.  But there they were, cute and wrinkled, laying on Alicen.  I put aside my plans to decorate my tree to get to the hospital and squeeze those little cuties.  I took Melanie and Cherai with me.  We got flowers and drove to the hospital.  Had a nice visit with Alicen, didn't get to see the twins, Chase and Luke, because they were in the nursery being tended to.  In talking with her, we found out she didn't even have her tree yet!  Unheard of!  So, of course, I volunteered to spend our evening doing that for her.  The best part, they get a real tree!

I was supposed to be at the theater to help with auditions at 11, but couldn't get through due to a parade.  She told me it was a slow day so not to worry about it.  Katy and I then hit a few stores to return some things and then lunch.  I was home by noon and had plenty of time to decorate my tree.  Yeah!!  Decorating is done, lights are done, clean up is done!  I mentioned the date night tree activity to Glade but he didn't think that was such a great idea.  In letting the  Rapiers know, Clint was a little disappointed.  We finished cleaning up just in time to get the little ones to their piano recital.  They both did great!  I love hearing them practice, especially when it's Christmas songs while I decorate my tree. ♥




After the recital Glade stayed to practice his song for the party on Saturday.  Ya know, sometimes people just become extremely attractive doing certain things.  Watching him sing that beautiful song just put me in full melt mode.  We made it back home to find a text from Clint wondering about my tree idea and if we were still up to it.  YES!!  The Kettrings, Clint and us (we?) all grabbed a quick bite to eat at Panda Express.  While there, Jenny called so they came and joined us.  Then we headed out to find a tree.  After coming up empty at Home Depot, a nearby nursery was mentioned.  Made. My. Christmas.




The nursery had tons of trees of all sizes, Christmas lights and music, a fire pit and hot chocolate.  And it was COLD outside.  The smell, the atmosphere, the amorous feelings towards my husband, good friends...It was like a perfect storm of Christmas loveliness. This lot names all of their trees and we found a good one with a tag that read "Alice".  Perfect, add an "n" and now you have "Alicen".  Sold!  We told the teenage boys we wanted that one and were rattling on about how his wife just had twin baby boys when they suggested they make two more tags with the babies names on them.  Teen age boys!  It was perfect.  We took the tree to the Rapiers where we put lights and ornaments on, had soft music in the background and good friends everywhere.  Just an awesome night!  Eventually the Bryants joined us as well and we all just sat around talking till we were too tired.  Love love loved this day.

Still Breathing!!

Look, it's Sunday and I'm still alive.  I guess this breathing thing really works!  Wednesday I stayed home in my jammies.  It was a cold rainy day and I loved it.  I got lots accomplished and even worked in a hair cut, which I haven't had in a while.  Since it was rainy, I made cookies for the kids (tradition).  It was a seriously great day... until... the kids came home. Dun Da Dun Da!  I wanted to finish the outside lights before I had to leave for scouts, but every time I asked for help I got a nice dose of WHINE.  I wanted things tidy and chores done before we all left for the evening.  WHINE.  I was totally late and cranky by the time I had to go to scouts and then my scouts were bouncing off the wall.  Luckily our activity involved a lot of movement.

Rushed home to make dinner before we had to leave for the school concert.  Bear  Creek Potato Soup, my favorite!  I had even made rolls (Rhodes, of course).  I was so excited. Well, while making dinner, I had kids showering and getting ready to leave.  Both Bo and Katy cried about their clothes, their hair, their dinner.  At one point, they were both crying in their room and we were supposed to leave in 8 minutes.  I'm about to join them on the floor.  I ask sincerely "why are we going?"  No one here is happy or wants to be there.  This is craziness!  Well the thought of not going put them in high gear to finish getting ready.  We arrived 2 minutes later than we were supposed to.  I dropped them off at the front door and left to find a parking space.  When I walked through the door, there was Bo with his little angel face singing Christmas songs.  Where was that 30 min ago?  Grandma and  Chelsey were already there and Glade walked in the same time I did.  The concert was sweet, as always, and the kids did great.  Tried to take them to McDonalds after (tradition), but after waiting in line for 15 min, they informed us they were out of ice cream.  Awesome.

Thursday I spent the day running to different Good Will stores with Jenny.  Dollar day!  Once done there, I went to Kohl's, picked up kids and headed to wal mart for some necessities.  I took Brooklyn and Rhett with me and we had a good time shopping.  Didn't get home till almost 6:30 though, so dinner was now a fend for yourself.  This was also the day we got the news that Ford accepted our offer on the land!  Yeah, building is now in our future. Ü

Friday I spent a lot of wasted time goofing around with music on my computer.  Got my nails done and had a good nap.  Did I mention wasted?  That night we had a date night planned with the Garrs and Bryants, so I left early to get a few things at Costco.  I love going to Costco with no other commitments or no list.  I walked around, tried a few samples and ended up with a few Christmas presents I didn't even know I wanted to get.  After, we met at Red Robin, then headed to Barnes and Noble.  A quick stop at Charming  Charlies and we were ready to call it a night.  The best part of all of it was that it was COLD outside.  I love it.  It feels so much more like Christmas when you say Brrrr as you walk outside. ♥

Doing Nothing Must not Be My Thing

Straight from Grease to Thanksgiving to busy busy busy.  I think I just need to breath.  I keep saying "as soon as this is over...."  Well apparently there is always something else!  But I think the THOUGHT of doing nothing is what keeps me going.  I keep scheduling a "do nothing" day and then stuff happens.  It's all good stuff so I'm not complaining really, but a whole day on the couch sounds really awesome right now!

This week I've decorated my Mom's house for Christmas, addressed Christmas cards, done laundry, cleaned Bo and Katy's room (no small task), fixed the chicken coop, helped paint stuff for Christmas Party, Ran around with my hair all crazy cuz I just don't want to do it and all with a killer headache from allergies.  BUT, much of this was done in my jammies.  You have to know that always makes things more do-able.

I'm totally PMS (tmi, I know) and cannot stop eating!  I want to run, but that's  not that easy to do in my jammies.  Christmas feels like it's right around the corner so I'm having a little anxiety that my stuff isn't up yet and yet the thought of it is a little overwhelming.  I'm getting stuff up little by little.  I get little bursts of energy where I FEEL like I really want to get it done so that good.  I'm thinking that for sanity's sake I may have to scale down all the activities I want to accomplish this Christmas and take the advice of a sign that hangs in my house - SIMPLIFY.  That's actually a good thing.  Once my brain can let it go, then I can just enjoy the things that actually come to pass.  School programs start tomorrow night and I get my hair cut tomorrow too.  That will be so awesome!  Next week I head home to see my family for a few days and then it's practically Christmas.  So for now, it's just about  BREATH.... maybe I can schedule that for Thursday....

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving Day started early as usual, Turkey Trot Time!  I almost canceled it because I was not prepared, but decided that was selfish.  So I went into with no intent of getting a good time, just finishing.  We saw lots of friends there, as well as both Chelsey and Whitley came out and ran the short distances with Bo and Katy.  Grandma couldn't walk this time due to her hip, so she was the designated finish line girl.

 Brooklyn was there, but she had run off with some friends and didn't end up in the picture, woops.



Katy took off and left Chels and Spencer in the dust.  I was so proud of her for giving it her all.  Bo raced Whitley and she took him right at the finish line.  They ran 8 1/2 minute miles!  Glade beat the time he was shooting for as well.  Rhett finished in 42 min which is his PR and beat our good friend Jake.  He came in 6th in his age group.  Dalin finished in  51 min which is so awesome for him!  Brooklyn, Stephen and I pulled up the rear.  After about 2 1/2 miles, I knew Stephen was not prepared to go the full 6.2 so I sent him back to the park (a short walk from where we were).  That left me and Brooklyn.  I pulled a Jillian on her and pushed her the next 4 miles.  We had tears and whining and she even sat down at one point.  This is where a police officer asked her if she needed a cart to come get her.  I assured him she was fine and we got moving.  We finished 7 minutes faster than her best time.  She wasn't super happy...yet, but I was so glad to be done!  Later she thanked me for pushing her and was excited about what she had accomplished.  We always go to Circle K after and get drinks, tradition.

After showers and some cleaning up, we got to work on dinner.  Mom and two of her friends, Yen and Daniel, joined us for dinner.  Everything turned out delicious and we were stuffed.  We sat around and talked for quite some time before they left and the ominous decision of shopping loomed near.

This year all the Black Friday Door Buster things started at 5pm on Thanksgiving.  I swore I would not shop!  But here I was all done with dinner, guests gone and nothing to do!  Mom was my hero and stopped on her way home to get the one thing that was really going to save me money.  Chelsey and I ventured out about 8 to get a few things at Kohl's and walmart.  I was home by 10.  The next morning, Mom, Chelsey, Whitley, Jenny, Melanie, Tracie and I all met for breakfast and then headed out for a full day of shopping.  I got almost everything done and, of course, love spending time with some of my favorite people. ♥

Because we had family in town, Glade took all the kids to Amazing Jake's to spend time with them.  I met them later and was like a zombie the whole time I was there.  So. Tired.  But the kids had a great time and we weren't just sitting at home.  Great day!

The next day, Saturday I think, days tend to get mixed up when you are doing so much... We had a baptism in the morning and then spent a couple of hours getting out Christmas stuff.  Mom came to help and she and Brooklyn made a yummy dessert while Katy and I sorted through Christmas decorations.  I always think it will be fun to do it with the kids, but it ends up stressing me out instead.  I HAVE to remember next year to get it all done while they are at school and then let them decorate the tree later.  We still don't have it all up, but hopefully we'll get it finished today.

That afternoon we were crazy enough to venture out to the movies with friends to go see the new Disney movie, Frozen.  We got there an hour early and were at the end of the line for that showing so we traded in for the next showing and got fairly close to the front of the line.  The kids all did great and even Glade came and made it through without too much grumbling.  We went with the Kettrings, Garrs, Mom and Chelsey.  We had a pretty large group!  We all really liked it and came away with lots of fun quotes.  

After the movie, we took kids home, picked up pizzas and went to the Kettrings for a little adult time.  The Johnson's came over too so it was a nice night of chilling and recovering from all the activity this weekend.  I'm so blessed to have so many great friends and the seriously best family ever!!

News On Nick

Unfortunately we still do not have details on what actually happened, but I was able to talk to the guy he was staying with after he left here.  He didn't know a lot but was able to fill in a few blanks for us.  We now know that the girl was his 12 year old cousin and that Nick was drinking at the time.  Though both of those things are really bad, I'm only slightly relieved that the girl wasn't 8 and I just knew he had to be under the influence to do something like this.  Doesn't make any of it better, but for me there's a little comfort.  He was supposed to have an arraignment on Tuesday but according to our friends who have connections with the jail, they fast tracked him to a pretrial instead.  Which, according to him, means it must be bad and that they feel like they are confident with the case and ready to prosecute.

We hear all sorts of other stories and Glade's cousin is a Sex Crimes officer in Utah and gave us some scenarios, and it's all really not good.  His next court date is January 13, so we won't really know anything until then.  For now, I just need to put it in a box and not spend too much time worrying and being sad about it.  There's just  nothing we can do for him and according to our friends, AZ is really tough on these kinds of offenses.  

Post Grease, Pre Holiday

Having Grease end the same week as Thanksgiving was a little tricky.  I had a lot to get ready for and yet I just wanted to stay in my jammies for a day or so with no where to go.  I spent one whole day out shopping and getting everything for dinner and another whole day cleaning and doing laundry.  Wednesday we do Glade's family at the Inner Stake center.  There were tons of family there this time.  The kids always have a blast and don't want to leave.  We even got to see some of the Utah cousins we stayed with when we went to conference.

We are still trying to buy land to build on, but there keeps being little snags.  The day I stayed in jammies, we had another meeting (yes I went in jammies!) to figure out if we wanted to move forward.  Still no decision.

We took family pics for our Christmas card and that's always fun, lol.  They actually turned out really cute and now I just have to get them addressed and mailed.  But hey, I got the hard part done before Thanksgiving!

Katy lost both her front teeth in a matter of a couple of days.  She is cute as heck and is excited to sing THE song.