So Long, 2010

You were a good year.  Sure, you could have been better, but you most definitely could have been worse.

These three are definitely the highlight of every year for me:

But 2010 has had its specific ups and downs.  Thankfully, they've mostly been ups.

Despite pay cuts, we've managed to (sometimes barely) stay on top of bills and we've always had enough food to eat.

Because of my babysitting, we've managed to enroll the girls in Girl Scouts, gymnastics, dance classes, and piano lessons.  They've had a blast, and we've had fun watching them do it.

I've been able to volunteer more at the girls' school and get to know the community there.  We have a good school.

Thanks to some wonderful friends who were willing to watch our girls for several days in a row and my wonderful in-laws, who provided a place to stay, Chris and I were able to take a vacation by ourselves.

Thanks to our Netflix account, we've watched some great movies.  And some not-so-great ones (I don't recommend Pi: Life in Chaos, although Chris does).

I've read some wonderful books, and I'm excited to read more now that I'm part of a book group.

Most importantly, I feel like I've taken more steps in my personal spiritual journey this year than I have in the past.  I have a stronger understanding of who I am and where I fit in in the grand scheme of life, and a deeper sense of gratitude to my Father in Heaven for the blessings I enjoy, and to His Son, Jesus Christ, for paving the way for me.

I'm so glad I took so many pictures in 2010.  I may never do anything with the majority of them, but I will never forget the year.  I can't wait to take more next year.

So, here's to what I hope will be a happy, fun, photo-filled 2011!

Bring it on, New Year!

Random Thoughts Thursday

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Two people in foreign countries did random posts today (or, I suppose, yesterday, which was Thursday for them).  I feel so cool to have fans in Australia and Japan.  I don't have to mention the fact that I know both of them, and am related to one of them, do I?

I love being on vacation.

I especially love being on vacation at Grandma's house, because the kids would rather talk to her than me.  And the grandparents see our kids rarely enough that they adore them regardless of how big of a mess they make.  Also, the kids clean up for Grandma better than they do for Mom.

I have read three books since we left our house a week and a half ago: Picking Cotton, which was for my book group and was both heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time; Everything is Illuminated, which I think only made sense because I'd seen the movie; and The Lost Symbol, which was pretty much what you'd expect if you've read any of Dan Brown's other books.  But it kept me entertained.

Now I'm reading...wait for it...The Hunger Games.  Yes, I finally caved.  Aaaaand...I'm enjoying it.

My children can't believe the amount of snow we've gotten here in the past 24 hours.  We went from nothing on the ground at all to probably 8 inches.  Lexi was in snowpants and out the front door before 10:00 this morning.

The other day, Grandma told the girls that she and Grandpa wanted to have a slumber party with them.  She said, "We're sending your parents away so it can just be Grandma and Grandpa and the girls."  Ellie said, "How about we send Grandma and Grandpa away, too, so the kids can do whatever we want."

Chris and I have discovered that when we play games with a group of people, it doesn't matter where we stand at the end as long as we beat each other.  We're not competitive or anything.

Santa brought us a Wii.  I haven't had a complete conversation with Vicki in four days.

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Merry Christmas!

From all of us to all of you!

Random Thoughts Thursday (evening edition)

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We survived our drive down from Oregon.  The car did great, and the kids slept pretty much the whole way.  That's the advantage to driving through the night.  The disadvantage is when both people capable of driving are fighting sleep for the last two hours of the drive.  But we made it!

I love seeing old friends.  And it's even better when my husband likes seeing my old friends, too.

Visiting Utah is crazy.  We have a lot of people to see and not enough time to do it.

Two days until Christmas!  I'm very excited for a particular present that I'm hoping Santa will bring us.

Tomorrow, we ski!

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

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Project 365 - Get Ready!

Remember this post?

I promise I haven't forgotten!

Life has been busy, but I've finally set up a new blog for everyone who's interested in participating.

If you click the image above, it should (if I did everything right) take you to Project 365 Central, which I have set up and organized to be a jumping-off point for everyone who wants to join me in taking lots and lots of pictures!

Instructions are waiting there, along with a linky list, just like the linky for Random Thoughts Thursday, so that we can all have a quick and easy way to snoop around in each other's lives look at each other's pictures.

I don't consider myself a blogging expert, by any means, but I've been doing it for a few years now, so if you have any questions, particularly about setting up a blog if you've never done it before, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help!

I'm so excited for this joint project!  I can't wait to see what kind of pictures everyone else takes!  I like exclamation marks!

If you haven't decided yet whether you want to join me in this project, there's still time!  The more the merrier!

Random Thoughts Thursday

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So much to do, so much to do, so much to do…

It seems like all I’m having lately are random thoughts, but I can’t hang onto them long enough to write them down.

I need a vacation.

I think I’m going to be getting a new email address soon. We’re upgrading our internet, and changing service providers. So now I have to figure out how to let everyone know. This should be interesting.

It seems like everyone is late with Christmas cards this year. Either that, or everyone took me off their list. I haven’t done mine yet, but I get 50 free ones, so I might as well – they’ll just be New Year cards, since there’s no way I’m going to get them sent, let alone ordered, before Christmas.

Valentine’s cards are good, too.

Girl Scout cookies go on sale in less than a month. I’m not sure I’m organized enough this year to be ready for that.

Why is it that when I was a kid and we went on road trips, there never seemed to be that much stress leading up to the departure? My mom hid it well, I guess. Me, I’m going crazy.

Ellie does not want to be a vegetarian.  Her reason?  "Vegetarians have to eat toe food.  And that's just gross."

Aaaaand…back to work.

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Sunday Bribery Encouragement

Last Sunday was not a good day in church.

If you're my friend on Facebook, you're aware of that.  Seeing as how my status that afternoon was me wondering whether I'd qualified for extra points in the next life by not killing my children in church.

See, a couple of months ago, Chris was called to be a counselor in our Bishopric, which, for all you non-Mormon readers, means he's an assistant to the leader of our congregation, who is called the Bishop.  Our church has a lay ministry, and all leadership positions are filled by members of the congregation.

What this means for Chris is more responsibilities and more meetings.  What this means for the rest of us is Sunday services without Daddy, since the Bishopric sit together on the stand where they can keep an eye on the congregation be visible to the congregation.

The girls are old enough that they're not too much trouble in church.  They can control their wiggles (for the most part) and don't need snacks or emergency walks to keep them sane.  I usually bring a bag with notebooks, crayons and pencils to keep them busy, but they should be fully capable of sitting through an hour-long service without too much trouble, especially when they've been attending that hour-long service every single week for their entire lives.

Which is why I thought I was going to completely lose it on Sunday.

No, strike that.  I did lose it.  Completely.

I won't name names, but the experience culminated in all the coloring materials being confiscated (apparently the "dirty crayons" are unpopular.  Who knew?) and one daughter being marched out of the chapel and into an empty classroom, where she was placed on a chair in a corner and instructed to remain there alone until she was ready to be in church.

She contemplated the ramifications of this punishment and asked what would happen if she wasn't ready by the time church was over.

Suffice it to say, there wasn't a lot of meaningful worship going on in our pew that day.  And my daughters all spent the majority of Sunday afternoon in their bedroom, contemplating, in theory, where they had gone astray and what they could do to put themselves back in Mother's good graces.

I've been thinking about this ever since then, wondering where I've gone wrong and why it is that my children look on Sunday services as something they're being dragged to, rather than something they're attending willingly.  They love their Sunday school classes, but the worship service itself is clearly, in their eyes, something to be tolerated, but not enjoyed.

The one thing I'd decided by Sunday afternoon is that we are no longer bringing crayons to church.  Vicki is 10 and only colors because the materials are there anyway.  I'm pretty sure she can handle the meeting without a problem.  Lexi is 8 and should be capable of sitting quietly for an hour.  Even if she has no interest in the speakers, she has a vivid imagination and could easily lose herself in daydreams and simply appear to be listening.  I don't care, as long as she's not disruptive.  And Ellie...well, at 5 she may need a little distraction still, but I'm sure she could make it through one talk.  Maybe I'll still bring crayons for her.  I haven't decided yet.

But this morning I read this post by one of my favorite bloggers, Daring Young Mom.  It's comforting to know I'm not the only one out there dealing with this.    My favorite part? 

"Technically I know they’re not old enough to sit and worship for an hour and have a meaningful experience but I do think they should be capable of faking it so people around us can enjoy being there."

Exactly.

She has a great plan for encouraging this kind of faking it in her children.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of bribing my children to make it through church, but at the same time, not bribing them is clearly not working.  And I'm definitely not above bribery.  What parent is, truly?  And bribing with dedicated one-on-one Mom or Dad time?  Priceless.  At least in this house.

We'll be on vacation for the next few Sundays, and therefore going to church with grandmas, who seem to encourage good Sunday behavior without even trying, but you can expect a full report sometime after the New Year, when we've had a chance to test it out a few times.  If it works, I'll be able to enjoy meaningful worship and people at church will think my children are little angels.

If it doesn't, well, there are a lot of empty classrooms.

The One-Upper

You know those people whose stories can always top yours? The people whose labor is always just a little longer and more painful than yours, or whose crazy relatives are always just a little crazier than yours?

Apparently they start young.

Yesterday Ellie decided to get a snack of cheese for herself and her friend. This involved slicing it with the extra-sharp slicer, the one that once caused me to lose a small piece of my thumb.

I was upstairs wasting time Christmas shopping online when I heard the scream. It was the kind of scream that tells me something is truly wrong, not the kind of scream that tells me someone’s sisters are "out to get them".

I found Ellie sobbing halfway up the stairs, cradling her left pinkie finger in the other hand, trying valiantly through her pain and fear to keep the blood from dripping onto the carpet. Her friend was behind her, full of concern.

I led her into the bathroom, where we rinsed off the blood so I could assess the damage (not too much, thankfully, despite all the blood). As Ellie hyperventilated at the sight of so much red washing down the drain, her friend calmly offered a few sympathetic words of comfort:

“It’s not so bad, Ellie. One time I had a paper cut, and it was so much worse than that.”

Random Thoughts Thursday

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I really need to post between Thursdays, too.

I’m really paranoid that we’re going to get another round of the stomach flu this Christmas. You’d think children puking on Christmas would only happen once to a family, but we had it two years ago (all three girls), and two years before that (all three girls, plus Chris, my dad, and quite possibly various other family members). I’m begging for mercy this year; let the curse will broken! Keep your fingers crossed.

Why can’t I ever think of anything when people ask what I want for Christmas?

Usually by now I’m really dreading the drive to Utah, but I can’t wait to try out the new ride. Expect a full report.

I need to figure out how I'm going to post my last several pictures for Project 365, since I won't be on my own computer. And how I'm going to post the first few of 2011.

What, exactly, do my children have against coats?

I’m almost finished with my Christmas shopping. I just need to buy the girls’ present for Chris and figure out what to get my brother and Chris’s sister, and that’s it!

Lexi and Ellie, when presented with the opportunity, actually decided not to get their sister a Snuggie for Christmas. I’m shocked, but pleased.

Did you know goats can faint? Me neither, but apparently they can.

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Random Thoughts Thursday

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Vicki, Chris, and Lexi were all disappointed that I didn’t do the linky last week. I don’t know why; it’s not like they write random thoughts. But it’s good to know they support my blog!

Sometimes I forget my hair is short. I’ll feel something on my neck (usually it’s the blankets when I’m in bed at night, or the hood of my sweatshirt or coat) and I’ll think it’s my hair and go to brush it off my neck. It’s been this way for over three years now, but I guess when you consider it was long for 30 years, it’s still a new thing. Give me 27 more years to get used to it.

Thanks to Lexi’s friend, we girls have pretty much memorized the entire Wicked soundtrack. Now we just need to see the show.

I’m getting excited to start a new year of pictures. Are you?

I should be cleaning my house, since my book group is coming over tonight, but what I really want to do is curl up with a cup of cocoa and a good book. They’re a book group; they’d understand, right?

Just a few more weeks until we give the Swagger Wagon its true test: the Christmas trip to Utah.  Will it handle the yucky weather?  Will we be able to cram everything in the smaller cargo space?  And, most importantly, will we maintain our sanity better than we did in the Outback?  Stay tuned to find out!

Just in case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s something I’d love to participate in, but would be thrilled out of my mind to just witness:



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Your turn!

A bit of advice for the linky tool: please link directly to your Random Thoughts Thursday post, and not to your entire blog. To do this, simply click on the title of your post. This will take you to that post's page, and you can then copy and paste that url into the linky. This way people linking from my blog won’t have to scroll through any other posts you might put up to find your randomness. Thanks!