We enjoyed thanksgiving!

We sure loved Thanksgiving this year with Mama Sue and the Chandler family. Thank you Jan and Steve for feeding us it was so yummy and the company was good too!We loved the long weekend and now we are getting back to life. We did complete all of our holiday shopping this past weekend and have all of our Christmas decor up! Now we really are in the Christmas spirit! Life is crazy so I apologize for the quick post. All our love this holiday season!

The best Christmas cards ever!

I found the perfect cards for Christmas! I have used Shutterfly for a couple of years now and I am ALWAYs pleased with my finished product! I have made many photo books in the past and they are so beautiful! Anyway, this fall a friend of mine took some family pictures for us which are perfect to use on our Christmas cards this year. Shutterfly has hundreds of different card styles to choose from. I love the one below which is called "Family Wall Red Christmas Card". This specific card is size 5x7 and one sided. If you want a folded card you can do that too. Yet another thing I LOVE about shutterfly! These cards are going to work perfect for us!



Here are some links to their Christmas and Holiday cards so you can choose your own style.
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards


I also think doing a story card for Christmas is a great idea too. It is almost like giving everyone a little photo book for Christmas. I especially love that they will address and mail your card for $1 more per card. I am really considering using their cards for every occasion. Shutterfly is making my Christmas to do list much, much, much easier!

One more thing I love, personalized calendars! These make a great Christmas gift that will be used all year. Link to them here:

http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

I highly suggest using Shutterfly this holiday!

Grateful

I know I have posted a lot today but I really feel that I need to write about my feelings right now! Tis the season to be grateful and I am feeling so blessed! I have a Father in Heaven who loves me and I know he is watching over me and my family. I have been blessed to be surrounded by people who love me and support me. I have a wonderful husband who is more than I ever dreamed of and a beautiful boy! I am grateful for the humbling experience of being a mother. I enjoy every minute, even in the middle of the night! :) I know that lately I have been overwhelmed and a bit of Debbie Downer but that is only because life is life! I realize that it gets hard but today I am really thinking about why it does. It does because that is our purpose here on this earth. It is to make it through the challenging times and learn from them and then move on. We need to do our very best with everything that is handed to us and then our Savior will make up the rest. I know that Christ will do that. I need to be better at remembering that and the holiday season is a great reminder!

Jake and Kiya, together forever!

Congrats to our best adopted brother ever, Jake! He was sealed to his sweetheart on the 13th of November! We are so happy for them! It was a cold day but a beautiful one! We love you Jake and Kiya!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it SNOW!!!!

Today is the first time this year that it has actually snowed and stuck!



So, guess what we did?



Yup, you guessed it! Bundled up and headed out to play! I love my little guy and being Mom! We had tons of fun! Dayton really was not to sure about it at first he just looked around for a long time and then he started grabbing it. He tried to pick it up which is a challenge with mittens and of course he tried to eat it and suceeded!Every kid needs to eat snow, it is just part of being a kid! I especially liked his snow gear, I thought he looked so cute all bundled up. He did smile while playing in the snow although none of the pictures below captured that. Mostly he just kept looking all around him in awww!

Park City

Adam and I had a weekend away last weekend in Park City thanks to Allred Jackson firm. We stayed in a fancy condo with a full kitchen, master bedroom, another bedroom, fireplace in every room, big screen tv's, a washer and dryer and even dishes. I mean you name it this condo had it! It was gorgeous and so so so nice! On Friday Adam had work meetings all day where the managing partner announced Adam would be on full time in the new year! Yeah! We are excited for this next step in his career and are just waiting for the paper work now. That night we had a yummy dinner and Christmas party with the firm. That night we sat in the hot tub together in the snow, :)
Saturday we spent at the outlets. It was awesome! We got some great deals! Many are Christmas gifts! We also "ran into" Sue and Breezy Adam's sister and Mom. They came up not to meet up with us but to shop and of course we ended up meeting up. We loved spending time together!
Sunday morning we packed up and went to church with Sue. Then stopped in SLC to visit with Davee for his birthday today and then a Thanksgiving dinner with my whole family. It was very eventful!




Dayton got to stay with grandma and grandpa Day the picture below just tells you how much fun he had! Thanks a million Mom and Dad! However, I was so missing him by Sunday!

Mother of the Year!

After 3 plus weeks with little sleep, Dayton beginnning to pull on his ears,and shake his head side to side like he was saying No I broke down and had my Mom take him to the doctor today. Result? 2 ear infections! Yup, I should have taken him sooner. Mother of the year, :(
I just figured it was teething. Of course it is hard to tell when your child can't talk. Some symptoms were,
1. He has not been sleeping (up every hour, sometimes every half hour) and sleeps better with tylenol.
2. He sleep better when being held with his head tilted or laying upright on Adam's chest.
3. He is whiny and wants to be held all the time.
4. He will not let the babysiter lay him down for a nap and if he does go down he is up within 30-45 minutes.
5. He has been screaming lately when eating his baby food and sometimes his bottle but not when nursing.
NOW, it all makes sense. It is because his ears hurt! He is probably thinking, "Geez Mom, how many signs do I have to give you? Duh!" The real kicker was that he has been super mellow the past 3 days and just the past 2 days has been playing with his ears. I thought it might be because he just discovered them but when I saw him doing it all the time in the past 2 days I decided to get him checked. So, now we should see a change in 24-48 hours. Hopefully tomorrow night we can all get a full nights sleep.

Thank you anitbiotics, Dr. Firth, and Grandma!

As for me, I hope I can figure it out quicker next time for my sanity and his.

Grumpy

I am grumpy! Dayton has a cough and woke every hour last night sometimes more than every hour. Daylight savings was yesterday and it is throwing us all off, especially Dayton. He is teething too! I keep sucking the boogers out of his nose with the blue snot sucker. Can I just say I love the snot sucker! My sitter has strep and is 36 weeks pregnant. Next week is her last week tending for us but she only comes Monday and Friday. I am currently running on about 2 hours of sleep. I was calling for a substitute at 6am and writing a sub plan at 5am. Then to top it all my internet wasn't working so I couldn't email my sub plan. Don't worry my sub got it 30 minutes into school. Geee! I'm a grumpy girl!

I know I sound grumbly but mostly I just wanted to document this day, this phase of life! Dayton is asleep now so I'm going to lay him down and sleep myself. On the bright side I get to be home with my angel today! I do love being a mother.

Naughty November!

Although the 7 trees did not blow over in November we are having to deal with the mess in November. So we are a bit overwhlemed by it! Don't worry though the YM came over last week and got most of it chopped up. Now all the branches that are too small for fire wood are laying in our garden spot ready to be hauled to the dump or burned. Yesterday Adam and I spent 2 hours loading the truck and trailer with about 1/4 of it. WOW! It was taking forever so we decided to try to burn it, ya, that didn't work! It is too wet! So now it is supposed to snow and we can't possibly leave all of those tree branches in the garden and we have NO TIME to get them taken care of. So, I think we are calling the tree guy to haul them away in his chipper for money. Oh well, you do what you have to do huh? Oh and after many many phone calls we did get the insurance to cover 3 trees and shingles that blew off the roof for about $2400. So minus our deductible we got a good chunk of money we are hoping we can use that to get all the stumps ground and plant at least 1 new tree next spring.

It is so weird to look out my back window and see the mountains and the fields. There are no trees! Kinda sad but we are glad to see the trash Willows go!