Strengthen

My word for this year is

STRENGTHEN.

I saw a friend do this a few years ago, and I really liked the idea. She picked a "word of the year" and then found ways to apply that word to her life.

I need a little more structure than that, so I pick a word and then apply it to 3 aspects of my life: Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual.

When I write down a list of goals, it is hard for me to keep track of them. When I have a word of the year, I think about the word and then my three goals come easily to mind: 1) Strengthen my body with a regular exercise routine 2) Strengthening my relationship(s) with spending time and better communication 3)strengthen my knowledge of the scriptures.

So the word for 2012 is STRENGTHEN.

What do you do to help you remember your goals throughout the year?

Recap of Christmas

Hi All!

How was your Christmas? I hope it was sah-weet! We had a great time. My Grandma got (re)married on Christmas Eve Saturday. It was really fun to meet her new husbands' family AAANNNDDD... added bonus... My Dad, little sister, and little bro were able to come out for the wedding and spend Christmas day with us!

Christmas morning Santa left stockings for everyone. Taylor was still a little confused about Christmas. She liked ripping the wrapping paper off. Hopefully next year she will "get it." She was probably most excited when she opened her Big Wheels Bike. She has been wanting a bike for a long time; every time we go to a store, she tries to ride them. Sadly, her little midget legs still aren't long enough for this bike, but will be soon. Sorry Tater keep trying kid! That's ok though, she pushes herself around just fine :)

Monday after Christmas we went to the Salt Lake airport to pick up my mom! She had to work Christmas this year or she would have come as well, but we were just excited to have her. We walked around Temple square and saw the lights and then were about to go eat dinner when we realized Taylor was not ok. When we got to dinner and I took off her hat and gloves, her little hands were swollen and hot and she had spots all over her and cried and cried. Her little legs, ankles, feet, stomach, everything was covered in spots and swollen so tight she couldn't move her joints. We got her on some benadryl, ibuprofin, tylenol, and got her to a pediatrician the next morning. He said she might have Henoch-Schönlein Purpura Vasculitises. The May Clinic has a good overview if you're interested. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/henoch-schonlein-purpura/DS00838. Here is a sad picture of her at the doctor's office.

Basically, that is a bad thing and the reaction and pain gets worse when outside in the cold.  We had a long, wakeful, miserable night. My poor girl couldn't sleep and was so uncomfortable. By the next morning the spots had moved to her face, but the continued meds seemed to be helping. She could move her joints.

We talked to Adam's mom and sister who were planning on watching Taylor while we went sledding for a few days to decide what to do. They had lots of fun things planned with Taylor and her cousins, and offered to still take her even though she wasn't feeling her best. They took her to the zoo (bundled up), to the movie, they got ice cream, and just had a blast. I'm so glad we were able to leave her in good hands. Being with her cousins took her mind off the pain and her "itchy" and so we were grateful.

We snowmobiled into Adam's family cabin with my family for a night, took some snowmobile rides, went sledding down some STEEP hills, and just had a blast. We came out the next day, checked on Taylor and played some games. Grandma and Nene were taking good care of her and still wanted to keep her, so the next day Adam and I went shopping with Jed and Adrianne and Kole.

The whole family then went bowling, went to dinner, and just enjoyed being together. We picked up Taylor Friday morning to take her back to a follow up doctor's appt.... her face was so puffy I almost didn't recognize her, but her spots had started to clear up. Woo Hoo! And the good news is she has been doing great ever since!

We stopped in Brigham City on our way home to see Adam's Grandma Vee. She loves Taylor. She loves all of her grandkids. I'm so glad we stopped. She passed away last week and her funeral was Friday. We will miss her.

I am so grateful for our family and friends and I'm excited for the new year. Bring on 2012!

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Hello Friends!

Don't you just looooooove Christmas? I got excited this year and pulled the Christmas stuff out of storage the week after Thanksgiving! And that is a major accomplishment for me! You heard about our tree fiasco... and if you didn't, feel free to read the previous post. :)

Like I said, I got everything out and the lights hung and the (fake) tree in the house and got some neighbor gifts together and then I hit a SLUMP... for about a week. We had a rough experience and I decided I was already officially over Christmas and that it was too hard to be in the Christmas spirit when I had so much shopping to do, so much decorating to finish, and it was just all too much work. Bah Humbug. That was me.

Thankfully, my husband let me be grumpy for a few days and we moved on. We finally got that blasted tree decorated :). I made tags for the neighbor gifts (they are coming soon... promise!). We started playing Christmas music, doing some shopping (I LOVE Christmas shopping!), and I even made sugar cookies yesterday! With Taylor's help, of course. We had lots of fun. I finished a blanket I was sewing for a little Angel Tree boy. And I started working on some more Christmas sewing that needs to be done... in a week?! AAAH!

I think this year more than ever I have been thinking what Christmas is REALLY about. Really about Jesus Christ. The fact that because of Him, families can be together forever. How thankful I am for that gift. Best Christmas gift... EVER. I have felt an increase in love from Heavenly Father these last few weeks and a feeling of peace and tranquility and just the "gut feeling" that everything is going to be okay.

I feel like we have had an outpouring of blessings that we really don't deserve but that I am so grateful for. I feel like I have aged about 10 years in the last few weeks, and I can't say that it's all bad. I feel a deeper sense of maturity or something... like my spirit grew older, but wiser at the same time. Have you ever had that experience? Or do you just think I'm SUPER crazy now? :)

I hope you are all able to enjoy this Christmas season and spend time with family and friends. We are all so blessed.

Erika

The Year of the Fake Tree

We cut down our Christmas tree every year. This year was no different... in the beginning. Saturday afternoon we went for a little drive up the canyon to find the perfect tree. We weren't able to get very far until the snow was so deep we didn't dare go any further. As Adam was backing the truck up I said, "Oh look.... that tree looks good!"So Adam and Neto got out of the truck and started climbing up the mountain to look at the tree. Taylor was sleeping in the truck so I stayed on the road and directed them on where to go. I am very good at this job by the way. :)

Surprisingly, once they got to the tree, Adam said it looked good from up there too! If you get Christmas trees yourself, you know that one side of the tree usually looks good, then the other side is bare, or it is really TWO trees posing as one tree or something and then you have to keep hunting for the perfect, or at least not-so-Charlie-Brownish tree that you really want. So when Adam said the tree looked good from the road AND the hill, I was shocked. I mean, I didn't even get snow on my boots. I didn't even have to decide between tree  x and y. The tree was good. GOAL.

The boys cut the tree down while I watched them... from the snow-packed road. Literally, we were up there for 20 minutes. Literally. This never happens. We were congratulating ourselves on our awesome find, how this was probably one of our best trees ever, and we loaded it up and took it home.

As is our custom, I held the tree in place and Adam adjusted the screws on the tree stand so it would stand exactly where I wanted it. But this year, we couldn't get the *#*(@# thing to stand! No matter what we did, the tree would lean, then fall over. Seriously. We do this EVERY YEAR. We have never had this problem. After about 30 minutes and minimal swearing by the man of the house, we decided the tree wouldn't stand because one of the eye bolts on the tree stand was bent and wouldn't support the tree. So Adam went and got a replacement bolt....meanwhile, the tree fell down AGAIN.

When he got home, we replaced the eyebolt, and I volunteered to get under the tree and adjust the stand, knowing Adam was out of patience and probably doing something wrong....right? Why else wouldn't it work? After another 20 minutes and the same results, Adam left to go "snowblow something" (which ended up taking an hour, by the way) and I stayed in with the dang tree trying to get it to work. I finally gave up on having it stand up straight and just focused on having it stay "up." Leaning against the wall. Because I'm classy like that.

And when I thought I had it, I started putting lights on the top. The tree and stand fell over again. After some quiet swearing from the woman of the house (hey... Taylor was in there with me) I went all out. I got duct tape because it fixes everything, and wrapped it around the trunk. Tree still fell. So I wrapped a towel around the trunk and inside the stand for support and to add thickness to the trunk. Tree still fell.

I yanked the lights off the tree, took the stand off the tree, threw open the front door and CHUCKED the tree stand out the front door into a snowdrift, followed 30 seconds later by that DAMNED #$(*&@#$(*&$ tree!

And we went and bought an artificial tree. Prelit. For $40.00. And I don't even feel that bad about it.And, to show you just how traumatic yesterday was on the whole family, as we were assembling our new little fakie, Taylor kept saying, "Tree, don't fall down!" and the highlight of my whole day: She got on the couch, looked out the window at the snowbank and said, "STUPID TREE!". I'm glad that's all she said. :)

No worries, though. Adam and I have decided to put our mountain tree to good use. We are going to decorate it with lights and stick it in the snowbank by our front door. Because we can. Because we live in Wyoming. And because we think it's funny. And I secretly hope that the tree gives off some scared/regretful pheromones for all of it's little evergreen buddies and they decide that NO MATTER WHAT, they will stand in that tree stand next year and enjoy it! Hope your tree-getting is better than ours this year!

Merry Christmas!

I DID IT!!!

So I made my own laundry soap for real.... and I LOVE IT! I used this recipe:

Powdered Laundry Detergent (My favorite)

1 cup grated Fels Naptha Soap (Look in your laundry aisle, they sell it here, or at Ace or anywhere really. I got mine at Wal-Mart)

1/2 cup Arm & Hammer washing soda

1/2 cup 20 mule team borax

Mix and store in airtight container or bag. For light or small loads, use 1 tablespoon. For normal loads, use 2 tablespoons. For heavy loads, use 3 tablespoons. Cost per load .15.

To make a large batch - grate 6 bars of Fels Naptha Soap and then add 3 cups of Washing Soda and 3 cups of 20 Mule Team Borax.  Mix well and store in covered container.

and I got it finished just in time because we brought these little babies home Friday night!

Is it wrong that I now LOVE doing laundry? :) I think so too, but it's SO. MUCH. FUN!

So.... did you try the soap? DO IT!

Laundry Soap

So I think I am going to do it. I am going to make my own laundry soap. I found a recipe for the powder (not the gel) and I'm really excited about it. I want to see if it saves me money. Now I just have to get through the laundry soap I bought just so I could have the bucket to make my own soap in. So... we are looking at a few weeks, but still, it's exciting... right?

Have any of you made your own laundry soap? Do you like it?

Are you interested in making your own soap now too?

Adrianne, this means you :)

Getting Firewood

We are those people. The ones that invite you up for a weekend and then make you work :) Don't judge me! We have lots of fun, even when we are doing hard things, like getting firewood. Usually we try to bribe people into helping by promising them dinner at Agave (a delicious mexican restaurant here in town) or something equally as enticing... like making popcorn and playing Farkle.

Ok so we are lame.

Our usual comrades in firewood gathering are Jed and Adrianne. They have gotten wood with us a few times. See photo.

This year, because we were working so hard on getting a room done in the basement for our exchange student, we neglected our wood-getting until the end of the year. And suddenly we had a teenage boy that "got" to help us get the last few loads of wood this fall. Lucky kid :)

He said he likes getting wood with us, even though it is the hardest thing he has ever had to do. And I'm not gonna lie, I kinda take pride in that. :)

 Taylor loves it when Daddy lets her drive.