The 12 Days of Christmas

Tonight Heidi told me there were 27 days until Christmas and at first I didn't believe it was so soon but was shocked when I discovered she was right! This month should be a lot of fun because there is a ton going on. I love when the days are busy because the month goes by much faster and if you had the semester we've had you would be ecstatic to see it end! Here are the upcoming 12 events we have to look forward to:

1. Nov 30th-Ben takes Part 2 of boards...one stress gone! And my brother comes into town

2. Dec 2nd-Relief Society Party. I have two cakes to make for it. I'm going to try a new recipe and make a caramel cake which is a pretty southern thing so I'm excited because I love anything southern. Plus our RS president throws a great party!

3. Dec 3rd-Pre-game Pasta Dinner for the Heroes. Totally excited to go.

4. Dec 4th-Marathon. Totally excited to have it over. Getting very nervous. Feel as nervous as I did when I was being prep for surgery with my first baby.

5. Dec 5th-Than leaves (not exciting but something marked on my calendar) and the Christmas Devotional. The Christmas Devotional is always a great way to start off the season.

6. Dec 11-Ward Christmas Party.

7. Dec 13th-17th-Heidi's Christmas week at school. There is always fun stuff going on at that time. She is excited, the other girls can't wait to see what she brings home and I just love how festive her school is. They could care less if it offends someone who doesn't believe in Christmas they still play it up! I love her school.

8. Dec 17-Ben is done at West Tennessee Eye!!!!! This is more exciting to me than Christmas!! We have been looking forward to this day since before he even started there. Man are we going to party that night!!

9. Dec 20th-Nashville Trip. I just want to go somewhere and do something that half-way resembles a family vacation. Even though it will just be a day trip I am excited to go together as a family.

10. Dec 24th-Christmas Eve. We always have our family dinner that night instead of on Christmas Day so I love spending the day cooking and getting all the last minute things just perfect for the big day

11. Dec 25th-CHRISTMAS!! I love Christmas and can't wait to see my kids open gifts. I know, this has nothing to do with the real reason but it is just fun and exciting for the kids. I can't wait!

12. Dec 27th-The Monday after Christmas when we get to take the girls shopping to pick out something from the Christmas money they received. This is just as fun for me as shopping for them myself. I just love to see what they pick because it is usually something I never would have thought to get them.

So this month is going to be busy, fun and the end of a long, long semester. I can't wait!! And Merry Christmas everybody!

The Christmas Tree is Up!

Each year we put the Christmas Tree up pretty early. I tried to wait until after Thanksgiving but I couldn't. The funny thing is that I put it up so early that once Christmas is over I'm ready to put the tree away immediately (like as soon as presents are done). Still we have started a a little tradition of a picture in front of the tree. Here are 2007 and 2008. We don't have a 2009 because most of December we were in California so we missed the picture that year (Thanks a lot, Becca!)

And here are the 2010 pictures:

The kids LOVE their Christmas dresses. I am having a hard time finding dresses I like for Heidi now. She is in a weird stage of still being a little girl but the stores only have trashy looking dresses for older kids. They look like a Bratz/rocker type look which i absolutely hate. I like my girls to look cute and sweet-not easy.


It was fun getting all dressed for Christmas. There are a few presents out and more came in the mail which was fun. I love getting packages so this is a fun time of year. Merry Christmas!!

Daisy

These are just some cute pictures of Daisy from the other day. She has some boots that she now calls her 'sassy boots' thanks to Sam. She really likes them which was a surprise to me. I figured I would have to fight her to wear them but instead she loves them!

The weather has been wonderful out here. Nice and warm even though it is November. But that has all changed this morning. I'm freezing! My girls are all decked out in winter clothes and I'm dreading the errands I have to run just because that means in and out of the car with three kids in the cold. Yuck. But I shouldn't complain since we were so spoiled up until now.

My kids are just all growing up too quickly. I do love being a mom though. I love everything about it. Even the dirty diapers, the constant cleaning and the endless demands from my kids. I wouldn't trade it for anything and I love that this is how Heavenly Father planned it all. He wanted the men to go out and work while the mother stays home and makes a haven for her family. I was reading an article by President Ezra Taft Benson and in it he said that the woman is the queen of her home. That is so true. It is in the home where the mother is supposed to rule and reign and clean up all day long. The work she puts in for her children entitle her to be respected and loved. The children will recognize that, too. They will see all that their mother does for them and that is why they will revere their mother. Although we'll see if my kids still love and obey me when they are teenagers. Three teenage girls?? Not something I'm looking forward to.

20 miles!!

Today was my longest running day before the marathon-20 MILES!! This was pretty hard. From mile 16 on I was feeling the pain in my legs. They were just tight, sore and wanted to be stretched but we continued on! When I was closing in on the finish I had 400 yards to go so I was going to pick up pace and sprint the end. Right at 200 yards, when I was going to switch to sprinting, a dog comes out of no where right for me!! I'm pretty scared of dogs on the loose since I have been chased twice before in my single days. But the funny thing is that my friend called the dog's attention so that I could keep running and finish so I just took off not even knowing if Marissa was being mauled to death or not! Pretty bad on my part but pretty heroic of her.

The other funny thing was that it was sprinkling steadily at 7 miles and I thought "that's ok. Heavenly Father is just going to send this rain to let me know that I can make the race even in bad conditions" Within three seconds it went from a sprinkle to full-on raining. I couldn't believe it but I was going to just keep going.

By the end I did wonder if I could make it another 6 miles. I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to make it but it was pretty awesome to finish those 20 miles and know I had done that. The marathon is 3 weeks away. There's still a lot to prepare beforehand that has nothing to do with running. We need a babysitter. We'll have to leave around 6 in the morning and we are going to need a babysitter at 6. They will have to get the girls all ready to go in the morning and then drive them down to the race because they, and I, want to cheer me on. Since the race will take over 4 hours the girls are going to need breakfast and lunch. Ben will need something for lunch after his race. And then we are going to need cheerleaders during the run. So any one planning on going to the marathon will need to find a location to set up and cheer us all on. There are so many of us running and it would be awesome to have people rooting us on. Signs. We need to make signs, too. My brother won't really know any of you our friends during the race but I hope they will recognize him and cheer him on as well. He will probably be ahead of me. Look at all this work we still have to do! Only three more weeks!

His best time of day

The other day I knew Blake needed a nap but I wanted to get my shower done quick and the go do something hoping Blake would just sleep in the car. Before I even got into the shower I came back out to get something and he was already asleep with Kaylee singing to him.

He is really handsome in dark blue.

Then the next day he fell asleep watching baseball with Ben. I like that he is starting to just fall asleep with us happily instead of screaming the whole time.

Heidi

I think only my mom will appreciate these photos of Heidi's bed. Heidi is working on making her bed each day before school and this is how she does it.

Then in school she had to make a turkey as a family project. We used leaves, buttons and a little bit of a pomegranate. I was pretty impressed that it turned out so cute. I guess there is a contest and Heidi is hoping to win. I hope she does simply because I'm not sure how she'll take it. Sometimes she is very mature about things and won't let it bother her but other times she will take it personally and cry. Either way I really liked how it turned out!

Family Home Evening

We had a fun family home evening tonight. We went outside in the PERFECT fall weather and played games. For most moms that is probably just your normal day anyway but I'm not the type that plays a lot of games with my kids so for them it was a big deal. I always put Blake on a blanket but he actually prefers the grass. He's so cute crawling around!

We played catch; duck, duck, goose; freeze tag; red light, green, speed demon. My kids are such good girls. Even though they are really frustrating and annoying at times they are still just good over all.

After FHE they got to have their treat of celery and peanut butter. I love that it is considered a treat and Kaylee really did eat all her dinner just so she could have it. Like always these pictures aren't great but with four kids I'm lucky to get these. If you watch Blake in them you see where he stole some raisins off Daisy's celery, ate them and then went back for more. He was cute, she was mad. I love my family and I love family home evening!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

We did it! We raised $1000 for St. Jude! I'm so excited. When my friend told me about the Heroes program and said to raise a thousand dollars I was a bit skeptical that I could pull it off. But St. Jude is something that I am willing to work for. I feel so bad for those kids but even worse for the parents who have to sit by and watch their children suffer. The least we can do for them is help ease the burden financially. Thank you for helping out. If you would still like to donate you can either go to my website (check the previous post) or donate to my brother who is also trying to raise money. He is running in honor of his Mother-in-law who passed away last year from cancer. When it comes to in-laws Than hit the jackpot! (He seems to do that with everything in his life) Linda was great and supportive of them in every way. She was awesome as a grandparent and even though Erica will do her best to teach her children how wonderful Linda was they will still miss out. They will miss the fun baseball games, horse rides, cooking together, playing together, her singing fun hippie songs. They will miss the birthday cards, the phone calls, the holidays. And especially they will miss her at events in their life where Linda would have come out in full support of whatever they were doing; whether it be a school play or their own weddings; Linda would have been there full of love and excitement for them. It's things like this that make you so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel, the sealing power of the temple and for the promise of eternity. But for now she is another casualty of the fight against cancer and only through research we will get closer to a cure. So if you miss out on donating to me you can still donate to my brother who is raising money in Linda's honor. Click here to get to his website. And just for fun here are some cute pictures of Blake playing with Barbies and dress-up dolls. We try to keep him away from all the girly stuff but it is just inevitable that he will find his way into the realm of Barbies. At least he sat there chewing on their heads instead of role playing with them.

Almost time...

So this came in the mail the other day. It's my hero jersey that I will wear while running the marathon. I was excited to see it about also a little scared. Ben and I drove the entire course that Than and I will be running and I was definitely feeling a little apprehensive about it all. I'm still not sure why I decided to do a whole marathon but I did and we have about a month left before the race. Right now my goal is to just finish. I would like to finish under 5 hours and think it would be awesome to finish in 4 1/2 hours. But before the race even starts I have one last goal line to cross. I have currently raise $910 for St. Jude but my goal was $1000 and I have 4 DAYS LEFT to raise the rest. So, using the words of Spanky McFarley on the Little Rascals, "We need your money people!" If you have already donated then Thank you and disregard the rest. If not then I figure if everyone that read my blog would donate $5, JUST $5 DOLLARS, I would have that money raised in no time. And everyone can donate $5. That is something that everyone can find in their budget. So this is my last plea for money. I just need to raise a little more and only have 4 days to get it done. My Website (click here) makes it easy to donate and like I said, I'm only asking for $5. Please help me out. This marathon training has been hard, exciting and LONG. Even if you don't want to donate to help those children with cancer you can at least donate to support me and the hours I've spent running, and running, and running and then a few more miles. Thanks for helping!!