yummy

When I was a little girl my dad would make the best fudge in the world. I've never found another recipe that I like as much as his. All I would have to do is say, "Daddy, will you please make some fudge?" And he would. It didn't matter the time of day, he would make me fudge. When he was diagnosed with diabetes when I was a teenager he stopped making fudge so much. I missed it a lot. Then I got married and Josh doesn't like fudge or anything with a similar texture. So when I made fudge it would sit unless I made myself sick trying to eat it all. Now that my kids are older, they like fudge better, so I make it more often. I think I have finally perfected it to the point that I like it as much as I like a batch of my dad's fudge. I've made it twice this week. And really, my kids don't eat as much as I'd like to think they do, so I eat most of it. But boy is it yummy.

oops!

I must be very tired today. I used a word in my last post that is not a word at all. When I typed it I thought it sounded wrong, but used it anyway. Then I remembered what the word really is. Josh said I shouldn't worry about it because "70% of the readers won't even know it's wrong." I said, "Laura, Jacob, Justin, Tarra, Megan, Kathryn. They are probably 70% of my readers, and they are either editors or children of editors." Josh laughed and said, "good point." So, the word is hesitantly, not hesitatingly.

Emma's creativity

Emma has quite an artistic eye. She loves to draw beautiful scenes, and she also takes very creative pictures. Recently she has taken several pictures of our Christmas decorations. There are so many that I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't want to make her feel bad by telling her they were really cool, but I was going to erase them. When we were working on my digital scrapbook together I decided I would use a couple just to make her happy. She was watching me, then said hesitatingly, "um, Mom? I kind-of thought we could use some of these pictures as the background for our page. Do you think that would work?" It did, and was really cool. Above is some of her work. Add some photo boxes and a title and you've got yourself a pretty cute page.

Christmas

Well, we had a fun and tiring day. Everyone was hyper and happy. When we were opening presents on Christmas morning there were several comments like, "We were not expecting all this!" Anna said, "I only nasked Santa for one thing and he brought me all this!" I was a little surprised because they really didn't get that much stuff. There is one thing that Anna has been asking for since September. There was only the one thing, and she never waivered or forgot. So we got it for her. She was so excited when she opened it and said to me, "Mom! I was bad and I still got it!" We laughed and laughed. When Emma saw the swing set we got for the family she said, "This is the bast Christmas ever! I thought it would only be second best until I saw this!" Ryan had a hard time opening gifts because he wouldn't put down anything he had already found. He opened his stocking first and filled his hands with the treats he found in there. When he got his first gift, He kicked it toward Josh and said, "open it, Daddy!" Tyler was thrilled with his dinosaurs and hasn't put them down since. With his new songs, like "the gingerbread man ran away on Christmas," he also keeps us laughing. Today the kids have made good use of their time with all the new snow we got. I was busy with Sophie and didn't get any pictures. Hopefully we will get some fun ones to post soon.

Anna

Anna is always the topic of much conversation. Today we were making cookies to prepare for Santa. Anna likes to help, with spoon in hand, waiting for us to allow her a taste. She just told Josh, "You better put the chocolate chips away or I'll keep getting into them. That's what I do." She's funny.

Temple Square

We just got back from Temple Square to see the lights. We had a great time. It was a beautiful evening. Ryan fell asleep on the way down and stayed asleep through the cold walk and half the visitor's center. We must have dressed him pretty warm for him to stay asleep in 30*F weather. I know I would have woken up as soon as the wind hit my face. One of our last stops was at the reflecting pond. They have Mary and Joseph statues floating on the water this year. It is really beautiful. Anna is obsessed with water, and had to put her hands in it, despite our warnings about the temperature. Needless to say, it was a pretty cold walk back to the car for her. When we were buckling her up she informed us, "I never want to see the lights when it's cold again. I will only come here when it is warm." We just laughed and didn't try to explain that this isn't the way it works.

I take it back!

Well, if I had you all thinking that I have perfect children by the cookie experience, I take it back. Yesterday we had another perfect Christmas day. We drove two hours to Spring City for a family party. The kids either slept or watched the scenery the whole way. The snow storm on Friday made parts of the drive a little treacherous, but also very beautiful. The clouds were hugging the tops of the mountains and the lonely little towns were like Christmas cards. Everyone at the party was happy, stayed clean, sat on Santa's lap, went on a horse-drawn wagon ride, ate good food and had a great time overall. When we got in the car to go home, there was a little sadness, but then everyone fell asleep. We had a nice, beautiful, dry drive home. We got back just in time to go to our ward party. Once again, the kids stayed clean, ate good food, sat on Santa's lap and had a good time. I believe this is where things started falling apart. We got home from the party at 9:00, but brought home one of our nieces to babysit. The rest of her family went with Lisa. This made it well past 10:00 before getting the kids in bed. Welcome Sunday morning. Church starts at 1:00 which gives us plenty of time for chaos. Around lunch Tyler became upset about something and threw a fit. We took away privileges. Somehow Tyler thinks that screaming at us that he will stop screaming will reinstate his privileges. The more we try to explain that he has to be good in order to get things, the more he screams that he will be good if we give back his things. Sigh. We don't give in, and neither does he. He makes us late to church. We go in and sit down. Ryan cries because the blanket we used for Sophie used to be his. Anna cries because Ryan is sitting in her seat. I ask Anna to be quiet, and she shouts "I am being quiet." Trying to quiet her down is mostly futile. I start to take her out, and she resists. I am still holding Sophie, so I have to drag Anna out kicking and screaming. I was just hoping I didn't pull her arm out of the socket. Out in the hall Anna screams to me that she is being good, and to go back in. I explain to her that she must stop screaming and fighting with me to go back in. She stops for 10 seconds and then starts screaming again that she stopped screaming and that it was time to go in. Luckily by thisk point some nice people in our ward take little Sophie so I can deal just with Anna. She was making such a racket that Josh came out, leaving the other three kids alone, to see if he could help. Anna wouldn't have it. She wanted only me. During the sacrament song she calmed down enough to go back in. That didn't last long. Something else happened and I had to take her back out. With Anna yelling at me in the hallway, again, that she hasn't done anything wrong and she was being quiet, we take the sacrament. I tell her that she has been too naughty and won't be able to sing with the primary kids. I have to take her back in because I have to lead the primary kids in their special musical number. Anna screams to be left with Josh. Ryan screams to be displaced so Josh can take care of Anna. Sophie happily went to another ward member while Josh took Ryan and another ward member took Anna. I led the music and immediately went to get Anna. Josh and I stayed in the hall with Anna and Ryan until some members of the Spanish branch asked Anna to come with them. They had collected clothing and other items for children in their branch. They asked Anna if she would like to go shopping in the church. She was very excited about that and found a purple ceramic watering can to take home. She was finally happy enough to go sit down and not make noise. She has never had a quiet voice, and I honestly think that she wasn't aware of how loud she was being at first. Of course with the screaming there could be no question. Ryan was calm now that Josh could give him all his attention. Anna was calm and stayed calm because I was able to give her all my attention. Sophie was calm sitting with Johanna. Emma and Tyler were calm because they are usually very good and reverent in church. In talking to Lisa (since she was in the hall with her noisy Jared) we decided this is one of those moments that we vowed would never happen to us. But this was before we actually had kids. I guess the moral of the story is: for every perfect moment there has to be a moment that reminds us that nobody's perfect.

Really I'm just playing around trying to get used to all the things I can do with this new toy I have. I sit in this chair by my computer often when I'm feeding the baby, and I've run out of other things to do on the computer. I have digital scrapbooks waiting for pictures to be taken. I have Ensigns that still need to be printed before I can read them. So having this blog is giving me something to do while I feed the baby and wait for these other things to happen. Figuring out all that I can do with this is helping me pass the time. This is just a picture that I uploaded from our trip to Spring City to see Brynn's puppies. Now I know how to upload pictures right onto the blog. I'll get it all figured out soon.

Cookies

It turns out that I have more to write about than I thought.
We just had a picture perfect morning making Christmas cookies. I just finished rolling out and cutting cookies with my kids. Emma waited patiently for her turn to use the cookie cutters, then would cut a perfect cookie on the side of the dough so there would be plenty of room for other cookies. Anna was making sure there was plenty of flour for the sticky dough. Then she would sift her fingers through the bag of flour feeling the soft stuff move through her hands. Tyler had a blast getting flour all over his pants as he sang songs he made up, like "On the burping day of Christmas my burp friend gave to me, " along with other variations. Ryan would periodically come over to take his turn cutting a cookie, then he would go off to play somewhere. Sophie sat in her swing laughing as we all listened to Christmas music. I know it sounds too good to be true, and I thought so as we were doing it. But that's really how it happened. We still have a huge mess of flour to clean up, and I did get a little frustrated with the throwing of flour and the eating of dough that was supposed to be a cookie, but overall it was a fun experience. It was one of those experiences you see in cheesy movies and imagine that's the way it should be all the time. As a mom, you have to be grateful for these experiences that turn out the way you imagined before you actually had children.

Eight

Now I can respond to this tag from Megan.

8 T.V. shows I watch

1. er
2. Designed to Sell
3. Deserving Design
4. Murder She Wrote
5. MASH
6. The Cosby Show
7. Biggest Loser
8. Numb3rs

8 Things I did yesterday

1. Went to Sam's Club
2. Babysat three nephews
3. Ate cookies
4. Read Christmas Cards
5. Talked to two crying sisters
6. Attempted solving the crises of four, no maybe 5, different people
7. Fed Sophie, several times
8. Held 5 different children, not all at different times

8 Things I look forward to

1. Christmas pudding
2. Christmas parties
3. The girls' dance recital
4. Telling people I have a blog
5. The crises of 4, no maybe 5, people being solved
6. Disneyland Vacation
7. Watching the kids unwrap presents
8. Josh's days off next week

8 Places I like to eat

1. Leatherby's
2. Applebee's
3. A couple other "bee's"
4. Mom's house
5. SuAnn's house
6. My house
7. Papa Murphy's
8. T.G.I. Friday's

8 Things I wish for

1. No more temper tantrums
2. No more laundry
3. More Disneyland vacations
4. More Yellowstone vacations
5. Ooh, my own Yellowstone cabin
6. My kids to stay young and cuddly a little longer
7. Losing 40 pounds
8. No more messes

8 people I tag

1. Hmmm
2. Megan Z.
3. Hmmmm
4. Hmmmm
5. Obviously, since I'm new at this I don't know who to tag

New blog

I can't believe I started a new blog. Just as my blog site describes, I am not known for my verbal creativity. Hopefully I don't bore you all with my ramblings.

Last night I was thinking of things I need to do. One of these things was to catch up in the journals of my children. Yes, I keep journals for my kids. It all started when I got a baby's first year calendar as a gift for Emma. I kept up in it faithfully. When she turned one it seemed dumb to just quit remembering her life, so I bought her another journal and kept going. I have kept up pretty well until the last three years or so. I still have journals for all the kids, and there is something written in all of them, except Sophie's. Anyway, as I was thinking of this huge undertaking of catching up, I thought how much easier it would be to type all the entries, print them out and tape them in the journals. But somehow that takes the personality out of it. That's when I had a brilliant brainstorm. What if some computer person created a program in which we could give a sample of our handwriting and have it saved in the program. Then, when we wanted to type something, we could select that font and use our very own handwriting as we type! I know it can be done. I am just not the one to do it. I do, however, claim the royalties.