A Good Year

2016 was a HARD year.    But to be honest, so was 2015, and the last half of 2014...

My sweet friend Teresa knew it would be, and so she gave us this jar at the beginning of the year.

Happy Things.

Memories - Kind Acts - Fun Times - Things to Remember - Happy Days - Accomplishments

It came with little slips of paper, and some chocolate for motivation, and armed with that, we took the challenge seriously. 

Because there was PLENTY to be grateful for.  Heaps of Happy Things. Mounds of memories.

I've also been keeping a list of all the overwhelming kindnesses shown to us these past couple years.  Ways in which I could see the Lord working through others.  Things that have made me cry with gratitude because I felt so undeserving of such kindness.

Some years are hard.  Very, very hard.  But despite all the crap, all the Happy Things definitely helped us remember it was still a Good Year.

Christmas in pictures 2016

Not really a Christmas picture, but the joy on Nick's face while he sings primary songs is a present to me. 

Nick and his companion Elder Tucker at their Christmas party.

Annual trip to visit the temple lights.

Opening Christmas eve pajamas

Our awesome matching Hufflepuff pajamas.  Even Nick has a pair. 

Nick at the North Pole.  (I'm sure it felt like it most days) 

All dressed up in their Christmas finest.

My tree.  I've literally run out of space or ornaments.  

My new favorite ornament.  I was invited to an ornament exchange, but I didn't have time to make them myself, so my lovely friend Shanna did and tried to give me the credit.  And this just happens to be my favorite Christmas song. 

The boy scouts hung the lights on my house for a service project.  I've never seen any lights more beautifully done. 

Christopher's first ever orchestra concert. 

Maddie, Seth, and Flo before their choir concert. 

Maddie singing in a special number at her choir concert

Maddie performing in concert choir. 

Getting Jingled

During the month of October, it would not be uncommon at some point during the month to find a plate of treats on the doorstep with a note saying that we've been "Boo'd". 

And so just a couple months later, we found ourselves the beneficiaries of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  It was overwhelmingly amazing.

Truth be told, we've found ourselves the beneficiaries of more kindness and charity and love in the past several months than I could begin to express.   Like overwhelmingly so.

Anyways, the generosity we found on our doorstep each night bewildered us, and all I ever found out was that there were many good friends involved.

One example had a bit of a funny story involved.  On the 5th day, we received "5 Golden Ring Things"  - donuts, Cheerios, Funyuns, croissants, and Spaghetti-o's. 

Maddie was particularly excited about the Spaghetti-o's.  "This is my childhood!  I haven't had these in YEARS!"   I had remembered buying them that canned stuff early on, and then I stopped for some reason.    And not necessarily because it's full of chemicals and who knows what else.   As Maddie opened a can and showed Zach excitedly (who actually has never eaten Spaghetti-o's) how "This is the smell of my childhood!"  (Me-  "Really??  THAT is the smell of your childhood?  Not something home baked like chocolate chip cookies?" )

And then it all came back to me.

Here's a closer look.  It's in her hair, on her face, hands, shirt, legs, all over the table....

Thankfully she's (mostly) learned to eat without getting food everywhere.  That sauce is IMPOSSIBLE to get out of clothes.

Winter Formal

Maddie asked Tommy to Winter Formal.

We found a pretty dress, but since the color was a dark gray, we wanted some fun shoes to go with it.  Like hot pink.  Unfortunately being December and all, we had a hard time.  Lots of black, and silver, and sparkly, but nothing she loved.  And they were all fairly uncomfortable.   She happened to be wearing her pink Converse high tops that day, and asked if she could wear those instead, and then spend the money we would have on shoes to go get her nails done.  Deal.  (side note - lots of girls with sore feet came up to her during the dance and told her they were jealous and she was smart. )

Unfortunately Tommy was off winning a wrestling tournament and wasn't able to be there for pictures.

She made do. ( She showed me this picture and I fell off the couch laughing.)

Tommy did finally show up to the dance and they had a great time.

They ended their date with a bang by heading back to one of the girls houses that was in their group and sitting around a fire pit.  They had quite the show when the dad had a hard time lighting the fire, and accidentally set the can of gasoline on fire, and then subsequently his back yard.  No one was hurt, (except the dad's pride).

It definitely was memorable.

describing 17

Oh boy...  These past 17 years have been quite the adventure with this little girl.

I've been struggling for the past couple days with what to say about my baby girl turning 17 and who she is becoming.

She is at the same time sweet and salty, thoughtful and forgetful, bratty and kind, brilliant and ditzy, hardworking and lazy.  We are at once the same exact person, and completely opposite.  She's artistic and creative and passionate and keeps life interesting.  We know how to push each other's buttons and probably take too much joy in doing it often.

With only one year left of her childhood, I can't help but think about what she'll do next.  She wants to do it all.  Go to college, go on a mission, travel the world, get married, be a mom, an artist, a musician, an astronaut, a kindergarten teacher, a special needs worker, work on special effects for movies... She loves to be creative and help people, so I whatever she does end up doing will probably combine the two.

However, one thing remains for certain, I don't have to worry about her REALLY growing up.  Something tells me "mature" may never be a word used to describe her.

Feeling the Blues

When I found out that Blue October, one of Maddie's and mine favorite bands, was coming to town, and the ticket prices were super reasonable, I jumped on it.

It was such a fun concert and such a great first concert experience for Maddie.  It was at a club downtown, and we had to stand in line outside.  It was at a night club and it was general admission, so we made sure to get there plenty early. 

Since it was at a nightclub,  they ID'd us.  I got the wristband saying I was over 21, and Maddie got giant X's on her hands saying she wasn't.

We were so close to the stage.  It was awesome.  I've never been that close in my life.   So close in fact, that when Justin Furstenfeld, the lead singer, flicked his guitar pick into the audience, Maddie caught it.  I made sure to tell Maddie that concerts just don't get better than this, just in case she has high expectations.

Plus as an added bonus, O.A.R. was playing with them, and Maddie found another band she really likes, as well as another guitar pick on the ground with their band logo on it.  Score.

Thanksgiving day 2

We woke up from our cozy little cabin in the woods and decided to check out a cute little town I read about somewhere on the internet.  Solvang.

It's no secret I love Europe.  I'm sure I've annoyed several people by talking about it a little too obsessively, but sorry-not-sorry.   Anyways, things being what they are, it is doubtful I will be getting back there any time soon, so when I heard of a tiny little town that was practically plucked from Europe itself, I was all in.

We loved it.  It was fun.  It was really cute.  The architecture was great.  But it was kind of a super touristy hodge-podge of a few European countries.  Germany, Holland, and Denmark come to mind.

We got Ebelskivers at a little Danish restaurant. 

And found the little statue of the Little Mermaid which is a replica of the one in Denmark.

We posed in front of the giant windmill.

We window shopped in stores full of imported goods like liederhosen and dirndl's and cuckoo clocks and knick-knacks and other various touristy crap items.

And of course we enjoyed some gelato, because what is Europe with gelato?

I have to confess, something was off for me most of the time, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  And then I realized that everything was too straight.  You knew that every building was built to code, and I was honestly missing that feeling that the building could possibly fall over at any given moment. There are so many buildings in Europe that are hundreds of years old.  Many hundreds of years. 

 They've withstood wars and plagues and are still there to tell the tale.   These were only a few decades at the most.

And when we had our fill of Europe, we then headed back to the USA in the grand American way of making gluttons of ourselves in the best way we knew how - at Slaters 50/50 where bacon is the main ingredient on the menu.  Everything has bacon added to it in some way or another whether it's ground into the hamburger meat, or added to a giant brownie.  It's pretty fantastic.  If you like bacon.

Thanksgiving day 1

I love Thanksgiving in theory. I think the idea of getting together with family and eating a fabulous meal, and thinking about and talking about and celebrating a day of thankfulness right before a season of excess and shopping is fantastic.  I love the idea of going to Grandma's house and seeing cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone brings their "famous" dishes and the kids sit at the kid table and all the Norman Rockwell-esque  things that go with the day.

But that was not what Thanksgiving was going to look like in our home this year (however, to be fair, after I made other plans, I got SEVERAL invites from our amazing friends.) This year, it was just going to be the 4 of us, and only 3 of us actually eat anything you might find on a Thanksgiving table.   It was going to be me spending HOURS making everyone's favorite dishes, then roughly 15 minutes of eating, and then me spending HOURS cleaning up and trying to figure out where to stick all the leftovers. 

Several years ago, after just the same scenario, I announced "Never Again! Next time it's just us, we will eat sandwiches! (turkey of course) Someplace exotic, and memorable, like the beach!"  And so the idea was hatched.  It took several years to realize my dream.  I mean, don't get me wrong, that just meant that we were having Thanksgiving with the grandparents and the aunts and uncles and cousins (both sides of the family depending on the year).

And so, this year I got on the internet and found some cheap sleeping accommodations, we picked up our turkey sandwiches from the local deli (minus Christopher of course, we brought along the fixings for a peanut butter sandwich - no jelly, he's weird)

We cruised along the Pacific Coast Highway, rolled down the windows, and listened to good music, like the dorks we are.  I wish oh wish we had a convertible, but alas.

We found a spot on the beach that was away from tourists and enjoyed our meal. 

The kids got their feet wet, and Maddie attempted to do some yoga on a rock.

We played for awhile and then headed off to find our tiny little cabin in the woods. 

And I mean tiny.  It was this tiny little cabin on wheels with 2 sets of bunkbeds, a tv and dvd player to watch movies, a bathroom, and the tiniest little kitchen.

 It was perfect.