My youngest sister Mae gave birth to her second little boy a couple of weeks ago. She took these pictures of him and I couldn't help but share the cuteness with you. They named him Ezra. He is the newest addition to the family....until Evelyn has her baby (she's due this week), wonder what it will be (she never found out the gender). We love you baby Ezra! Welcome to this beautiful world.
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.
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.
Part of Ethan's prayer two nights ago went like this: "...thank you for the good dreams last night, keep up the good work..."
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.
The boys received the Lego Indian Jones video game.
Steve likes the video game as much as the boys do.
Stockings
My wall of shelves I got for Christmas. It feels so good to have more organization in our play room.
When at the front door there arose such a clatter, 
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,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!!!
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.
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.
