Dream Job

Have you heard of Amy Atlas? She's an event planner in NYC. Let me be specific, a high end event planner. Take a look at some of the pictures I copied from her blog/website. I love her stuff. Who wouldn't love one of her parties? I can't think of anyone. I want to be the Amy Atlas of the west coast. But as soon as I say that sentence my head is flooded with all the reasons I can't; rational and irrational. The number one reason that glares at me is that I'm a mom. I don't know how to be both. I know it would take a lot of time, effort, and money (the latter is the second reason that glares at me...I don't have any to spare) to be an Amy Atlas but its the separation between mommy and party planner that I can't figure out. Can you tell I'm going through one of my "self fulfillment phases?" I chose to be a mom. I want to be a mom. But I'm itching to be something else too. Do you ever go through these phases? What do you do about it? I don't know how to satisfy both.

List

1. We survived the storms. Last week it rained 6 out of 7 days. Thats a record for us. Thankfully we have come out of it unscathed. A little wet carpet but not much else...at least that we know of. After the first day I headed out to Home Depot and picked up 7 sandbags. I didn't know I was going to have to fill them myself (not that I couldn't but have you tried doing that lately? harder than you think) but was helped by three strangers. It was such a good lesson that day, kindness does exist out there in the cruel world. 2. I have been craving a Sprinkles cupcake or Krispy Kreme doughnuts for about 3 weeks now. What is my problem? This is not going to help the weight loss venture. I think I need to take Sprinkles off my Facebook page. Every day they have a free cupcake offer to the first however many people they say and every day I want to go but I always talk myself out of it thinking by the time I get there the free ones will have been fulfilled and its not as exciting to have to pay for my own right? I wish I could find a fantastic cupcake recipe. I made one this week and didn't even want to eat any after I tasted them....hideous. Thats how bad they were. I will usually gulp down anything with sugar in it but not these. The trash can got them. 3. I am officially the new 10 & 11 year old Primary teacher. And we are officially at church from 1-4pm...blehck. 4. I chopped my hair off....again. I hear the word sassy a lot these days when people react to my hair, is that a good thing? I hate taking pictures of myself so I don't really have one to show you here. This was my inspiration picture though, minus the bangs.

5. My sister Mae had a little baby boy last week. They named him Ezra. He. is. adorable. I'm so relieved to FINALLY know the gender of her baby. It was torture waiting 9 months. Really, it was. Its so fun to cuddle a little baby. Just a few more weeks and the torture is over for Evelyn's baby. What is it? I'm so impatient.

Sweet dreams

Part of Ethan's prayer two nights ago went like this: "...thank you for the good dreams last night, keep up the good work..."

Christmas in our house

Just some random shots from our morning present opening. We got together afterwards with my family for a brunch and later that night finished off the gift giving at dinner.

Legos for Luke

The boys received the Lego Indian Jones video game. Steve likes the video game as much as the boys do.

At our house Santa leaves one gift, unwrapped - it's usually a "bigger" gift for them to share; the rest are from Mom and Dad or family/friends. Santa left a Lego Star Wars shop all built already.

Stockings

My wall of shelves I got for Christmas. It feels so good to have more organization in our play room.

I know I don't have any pictures of Sadie opening presents. We took video. Its her first Christmas so she wasn't really into it. She did get some play necklaces in her stocking that she loves to put on and take off multiple times a day. I need to get a picture of that.

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." Roy L. Smith

Christmas Eve

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,

little children were acting and I was watching with my spouse.

What a beautiful little manger scene, Joseph and Mary were there.

Baby Jesus was quite compliant, but the donkey had a lot of hair.

When at the front door there arose such a clatter,

I sat in my chair waiting to see what was the matter.

As I drew in my head and was turning around,

Through the front entrance St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

and his clothes were not tarnished with ashes and soot.

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

(adapted from the poem by Clement Moore)

We went to my parents house for Christmas Eve. We had our usual potluck dinner that was delicious (I made the rolls). Then the kids put on a little manger reenactment while my dad read from the scriptures. Zane didn't want to be the donkey so Clay stepped up to the part! Thankgoodness too because carrying Joseph (aka Luke) alone would have been a little much for little Zbo...ha. My mom had arranged for Santa to come. He brought all the gifts that my grandma, aka Bisa (trasnlation=great grandma), had sent for us. Merry Christmas!!!

Does Santa come to your school?

He came to ours this year. One of the cool things about living where I grew up is seeing my boys experience the same things I did. Its actually kind of twilight-zone-ish...in a good way. There were a lot of pictures I took but I was standing so far away that I didn't get as good of angles as I could usually (haha). They had the parent area taped off so we couldn't be with our kids. Each class was brought on to the black top and sat down to watch Santa's helicopter land. He circled the school a few times and you could hear him saying "Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!" from the helicopter up in the air. The helicopter landed out on the field and Santa was escorted in. I thought it was so funny that Santa seemed to have as many bodyguards as Mr. President himself. Then the kids just lined up and were shuffled past Santa, it was pretty quick. I guess he was visiting all the schools that day. That night Luke and Ethan were talking to us about the whole event and Ethan said "but Santa wasn't real, he was fake." Steve and I quickly jumped in with how busy Santa is that sometimes he has his elves dress up and go places for him because he can't go himself. Ethan seemed to believe it...hopefully.

Gingerbread Houses and Boat Parade

We were lucky to be invited to the Sheldon's Gingerbread house decorating party again this year. Ethan, Luke and I had a blast decorating our house and cookies. The cookies didn't even make it home! The theme for our house was see how much candy you can pile on. We have a rule at our house that you can eat anything you want on Christmas Day so the gingerbread house was saved for that day and we ate and ate and ate. Here are the boys after we finished the house.

We also went to the Boat Parade in Balboa this year. Last year we got there too late and caught the very last boat but this year we made it! I was so excited. The boats were gorgeous. We took along some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and nibbled while we watched. Aren't I one of the best photographers you've ever known? The gang - the Willifords (my sister and her family), Sadie, Ethan and Luke. Steve was standing by me out of the picture.

Breakfast with Santa

Another one of our favorite Christmas activities is our ward's Breakfast with Santa. It was even more enjoyable this year because I was released from Primary so I didn't have to be involved in any of the planning or execution of it. I just got to go and hang out. This year they served donuts and hot chocolate. They always have fun little coloring activities or sticker crafts for the kids to do while they wait for their turn to visit with Santa. Santa was a lot of fun this year, as always! Ethan and Luke told them all they wanted and were thrilled to get a candy cane from Santa! Sadie would not sit with Santa. She stood and looked at him gravely, it was hilarious. I should have taken a picture of that!

Christmas at Disneyland

One of our favorite things to do during the Christmas season is go to Disneyland. Its on my top 5 list of places to go to feel the magic of the season. Disneyland gets all decked out and the Small World ride completely changes just for Christmas. The kids and I went this year with my sisters and a friend and all the kids. We had 11 kids between the 4 adults, crazy!! But it was so fun. I snapped this picture of Maxwell, Ethan and Luke on the Small World ride with my phone (sorry its so grainy). Getting out the parking structure was TORTURE and Sadie cried for 45 minutes but other than that it was fantastic. I'm going to miss having passes next year at Christmas time.