I need a hero......

My life has had absolutely no structure, whatsoever, since my husband arrived December 5th. I thrive off of a schedule. I do so much better when my days are planned out and have some meaning. We have stayed up late, gotten up late, eaten whatever we wanted, go where we want when we want and do whatever the heck we want to do!! My kids, however, have LOVED it. I need some type of a routine. I have not been exercising like I should, eating like a wild bear and everything I shouldn't be doing. But today was the end of all that. I went to the gym and ate healthy. Well, the healthy part is all relative! For the most part though! I need to ease myself back into my old routine! We also managed to get to the temple and that felt great!

The upside of all the mayhem is that we have had tons of quality family time. Guitar Hero, Monopoly, cookie baking, front runner to temple square, sledding and more sledding and all manner of fun stuff! I'm pretty much kid stuffed out! School starts back on Monday and I am looking forward to that. Charles leaves again on Saturday for 2 weeks and that may be a little nice too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the man more than words can express. But....the army took him away for nearly 14 months and gave him back to me all at once :| It's a little more than a girl can take. I have been around him 24/7 for the last month. I do love him though! I don't want anyone to misinterpret any of these statements! He's cute and the help has been amazing!

So....there we are last night at temple square trying to be religious and good! We were watching the nativity when my kids start fighting. Normally I would have embarrassed them but I had to pretend to be a good Mormon since we were standing there listening about the birth of Christ. I think a snowball is what started the quarreling. I'm not really sure. Josh, somehow, got the best of Ryan, and he not wanting to be outdone by Josh, went nutso. So Charles had to squeeze the back of Ryan's neck and we were all there acting like pure white trash. Ryan pouted a good while after that and then we went back home :) It was a fun night though. Hope we get to have more of those now that we're a real a family once again. We're in Disneyland mode with Charles not working and all.

Baby, it's cold outside

Merry Christmas! I can't believe it is already here again. I can clearly remember last Christmas when Charles was gone and how much we missed him. It was so nice to have him here today to put everything together and figure all the electronic things out. I know Christmas is only one day of the year but it is so important. It is so special to be with the ones you love most.

We had a great day! The kids were up at about 4:20, a.m. that is! Charles and I did our annual late night wrap session and didn't get to bed until 12:30-1 a.m. We told Charlie to get back to bed but we ended getting up at 5 and started our festivities. We were done with our unwrapping and our big Christmas breakfast meal and all the cleaning up by 8! It was so nice to not have to be anywhere today.

We've had 3 of our kids sick in the last 2 days! That's been fun! I have no idea where it came from but Cody started it all! We were up late Tuesday night watching a movie and Cody came downstairs crying. I thought he was upset because he couldn't find us in our room. To my surprise, when I met him on the staircase, he was covered in sweat and puke. I asked him if he threw up in his bed but he gave me another surprise and told me he puked in MY bed. After giving him a bath and changing our sheets and starting the puked up sheets in the washing machine we were in bed by 2:15 a.m. He continued to throw up every 30-40 minutes until 5:15. Then Josh woke up at 9 and he started! Charles was excited to be able to know how my last year went without him! He's also been shoveling snow like a mad man!! My life was way more exciting than his this last year!

So anyway...today was a great day and I have enjoyed every last minute of it! I love watching my kids enjoy their gifts and watching them get along. They loved having their dad here today and it's almost a distant memory that he was ever even gone in the first place. I'm so glad the year went by so fast and that we are all back together. I love my life and those that are most important to me make it good!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve:)

Man it has been snowing non stop in Utah. At least here in North Ogden. We love it though! I love it especially, since I don't have to shovel this year. That has become Charles' job :) Love that! He's so cute doing it too. We're having some pictures taken this weekend and hopefully the snow will hold off long enough to let that happen. Another hope is that the photographer has the software to shave off some of my holiday poundage! Yikes! Still have all my wrapping to do and a few more things to get. We can't seem to spend enough money this holiday season. :| Cody is dying to get a basketball for Christmas. The 6 that we have in our garage aren't good enough and he has asked Santa 3 different times for a basketball. His hope in Santa will be crushed if he wakes up Christmas morn with no b'ball. So...I gotta get one to add to our massive collection! That's how I do things since I am the perfect mom!! :) Oh and speaking of being a perfect parent, we played Clue with the kids tonight. Just FYI, it is not a small kid game. It kept Cody's attention for about 5 minutes and then he ended up being the cookie server! Charlie won the game and Charles and I are super competitive! We HATE losing, mostly if it's to each other. We're OK if we lose to our kids. It is a fun little game. Oh yeah another perfect parent thing we did tonight...well it's a long story. Charlie was telling us a story today of a time when he was ding dong ditching. (we called it something else growing up) So he rings the doorbell of a younger couple and he got caught by the wife. Apparently she was super pissed that he had done this and went berzerk. She told him that if he did it again she was going to sue his parents. She was pregnant and told him she could go into premature labor and all this ridiculous stuff. For heaven's sake woman! So we were all over that. We loaded everyone up and...you guessed it....we went to ding dong ditch their house again. Ryan was the door bell ringer and we rolled around, dropped him off and waited. He rang and ran!! We never did see if they came to the door so we aren't sure if they were home or not. We'll get 'em though!! We're mature! The kids loved that we took them to do that.

Last night was the downtown Ogden Christmas village. It was freezing and the 2 older boys were fighting! That was a good time. What cracks me up is that Charlie gets so embarrassed about the dumbest stuff but he'll get out in a public setting and put Ryan in a head lock and that's supposed to be ok. It confuses me some. Love those kids!

Laundry has been overwhelming since Charles returned. I don't know what the heck he does to cause so much laundry but I think my load has tripled. This is one thing I forget when he is gone but sure do recall when he gets back. But I'll take laundry over shoveling snow!! Plus, he's so dang good looking out there shoveling!

I'm excited for Christmas and for the eve! It's snowy and Christmasy:)

Season's Greetings

Wanna know what bugs the heck out of me? Complete lack of people skills. I can't stand this characteristic. For instance, when you say to someone..."hello, how are ya?" and all they say is "fine."Just so you folks know, when someone ask you this you need to ask them back . This is the polite thing to do. Another thing that bugs me is when you ask someone if they have heard about a particular story on the news and they tell you how they never watch the news because it is a complete waste of time and all that is ever on it is bad stuff. Well, I know there is a lot of bad news reported but obviously I watch the news or I wouldn't be asking you about it. All people have to do is tell me no they haven't heard of that story. They don't have to go into a story about all the time wasted watching the news and leave you feeling like a complete idiot. Good heavens people. Socially retarded is what I call it. When people just don't know how to not be rude to others. I know quite a few folks like this. Oh well...we all have our weaknesses! Hopefully this isn't one of mine!

Have you ever noticed when you think you're done with Christmas shopping there is always more? I always get the bulk of my shopping done early and always leave the stocking stuffers and small things till the last minute. This is so stressful because you forget about it until a day or 2 before Christmas. I had to get a few more things today and the stores were so crowded and that just overwhelms me to death and then I get in a bad mood. However, I have been domestic lately and baking up a storm. With all the baking comes the eating and the chubby feeling. Not so fun! Everything is just so darn tasty here at the holidays! Plus, you get all the crap everyone else has been baking and you have to eat that too!! I mean, you don't want anyone to get their feelings hurt, do you? Heck no! Unless, of course, you get super dry cookies and nasty, dry fruitcake muffins! Then you just throw them away and say you enjoyed the dickens out of 'em! You don't act like the social retards and tell them how bad they sucked. Just be polite people!

Feliz Navidad!

Green Acres...

is the place for me! Farm living is....Ok, so, we went to California last week and got back Tuesday morning. We visited Sacramento for 2 days to attend a wedding at the Sacramento temple and then headed off to San Francisco. Charles had planned a fun vacation for us all by himself. San Fran was like nothing I have ever seen before. We rode a ferry from Vallejo to the city and I was amazed at the hustle and bustle once we exited the boat. It was so crowded and was like being in another country altogether. We've traveled around and it was like no other city we have visited. It was fun but I am glad to be back in little North Ogden. We did get to see quite a bit. When we exited the ferry we went the wrong direction and walked right through the city. It was neat to see everyday San Francisco life. We went through parts of the city that weren't tourist spots and saw tons of homeless people, lots of weirdos, plenty of gays and Asians galore. My oh my! I could go on and on about all the crap we did and the fabulous things we saw but I'll spare the details. But I do think I came back 10 pounds heavier from all the delicious food we ate! We did have a GREAT time though. Some of the highlights, just in case you care, were going to the Point Reyes lighthouse. You had to walk down 3o2 steps plus 2 long slopes to reach the lighthouse. Only problem..... you had to walk back up those same steps to get back to your car! There was even a warning sign at the top of the steps telling you it was equivalent to walking up a 30 story building. Good gravy...that was a work out. But I made it and that's all that counts.

Doesn't look too bad from the top.... (this was taken about halfway down)

The view looking up from the bottom. You can barely see the last staircase in the center of the picture above the rocks.

The Pacific coast by Point Reyes

We also walked down Lombard Street and back up and I swear that had to be a 30% percent grade. My calves still hurt but it was worth it to see the world's most crooked street!! FUN! Last but not least we had to travel 5 hours out of the way on the way back home to avoid the winter storm that dumped 10-30 inches of snow in Lake Tahoe with zero visibility. On the upside, we were able to see Oakland, Bakersfield and no man's land in California. We also got to drive through Las Vegas and see all the naked women on the billboards. NOW...that was fun! Drove through the night and ended up at home around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. That's a lot of the details I was gonna spare!

On the cable car!

Seeing that city and being in the middle of all that chaos made me so grateful for my simple life. I like being 5 minutes from Wal*Mart and having my kids walk to school. It's ok that I don't have a Juicy Couture down the road and my kids don't look like a Gap advertisement. I'm thankful I get to park in my garage and don't have to walk up 5 flights of stairs to get inside my home. I also don't have to struggle to get my groceries in the door. Life is good for me! Here in North Ogden we all drive normal cars, I have yet to see a Porsche or an Aston Martin but I sure do love this town.

Anyway, I'm home now and it feels so good. Even with all the decorations I have cluttering up my house! It's the most wonderful time of the year! Especially when the kids get out next week for 12 days....can't wait for that. I seriously do love the holidays and will be glad to not have to get up early for a few days!

It's so dadgum cold here!

Tis the season

Do you ever feel like Chevy Chase during the Christmas season? I LOVE Christmas but it always feels like so much work. By the time everything is up and ready you're ready for the season to be over! We FINALLY pulled our decorations out today and got the tree up. I say "we" meaning mostly Charles. He was getting all the lights out when we noticed we're gonna need new ones. Half of the bulbs on most of the strands were out and we didn't want to take the time to figure out which bulb was bad since they only cost about 2 bucks to replace. He got started trying to figure out which ones were bad and about 3 minutes into it he said screw it. I took over thinking I could do it and save us some time and money but it took me more like 30 seconds before I said heck no, we'll buy new ones. So here we sit with our tree in the middle of the living room half way wrapped with lights and no ornaments! Cody is dying to get our tree decorated. He's been begging for days to get it up. I kept telling him as soon as his dad gets home we'll get it up. Well here we are going on a week of him being home and we're still trying. Joy to the world! :| (you must say that using Chevy Chase's voice from Christmas Vacation) That movie still cracks me right up!

We leave for California on Thursday and I'm pretty excited. Traveling is one thing I have enjoyed about moving around so much. Everywhere we move has always brought us to other places that are near. My kids have been able to see lots of stuff they wouldn't have been able to see had we not been in the military. I'm sure Charlie would tell you differently right now, but they have had a good life and lots of great opportunities! Now that Charles is home from Iraq military life ain't so bad!

Tomorrow is the last night of the weight loss challenge class, thank heavens! I'm so tired of my Wednesday night being taken up by that class. The only enjoyment I get out of it is going to Kirt's afterwards to get a shake:) I'm a health nut! It's our treat for either losing OR gaining! No, really it's how we treat ourselves for making it through another one of the boring leassons.

Well...tomorrow's another day!

Happy Birthday to Charles!

33 years old! We lit the candles on his pound cake and the smoke detector went off! I'm not kidding! It was so funny! I love him. Everyone in my family gets to pick what kind of cake they want me to make for their birthday. Charles chose a cream cheese pound cake with strawberries and french vanilla ice cream. He loves my pound cake. I'm more of a chocolate kind of gal so I made a chocolate one too. It was much better than the cream cheese one. Plus we had brownie over load ice cream to go with the chocolate pound cake. YUM! that's all I'm saying. Charles had to grill his own dinner tonight. We had steaks and they were delicious. Grilling is a talent my husband possesses and I sure did miss it while he was away.

We have yet to put up our Christmas tree. We do have lights on the outside of our house but still nothing up on the inside. My sister can't believe we don't have anything up yet cuz she says her house looks like the north pole came and took a dump in it! We gotta get that tree up. I'm not much of a clutter lover and Christmas decorations make me a little nuts every year. Oh well..it'll get done!

So there we are tonight in Charlie's bedroom with both of the older kids. Charles had gotten this used laptop while he was in Iraq. It was broken and the guy that gave it to him told him if he could fix it he was more than welcome to keep it.Of course he was able to fix it and he gave it to the kids. As we were sitting there we were discussing all the clothes Charlie has that he NEVER wears. He proceeds to tell me that the Old Navy jeans, we got for free, would be worn if I had paid money for them! He doesn't like the fact we got them as hand me downs! I couldn't believe my ears. I was super PISSED that those words came out of his mouth. Well, all he managed to do by making that comment was get himself thrift store clothes until I'm not pissed about that comment anymore! So... there!!

That was my day, other than turning our cable boxes back in to Comcast and going to Wal*Mart for a few things! It is so nice to know my husband isn't going back to Iraq! I'm enjoying that thought! He's cute and it's hard to live without him and his grilled steaks :)

Life.....

is interesting. We have had a busy, wonderful weekend! Charles came home Friday night and we got to meet him at the gate, kind of! We got our pass to head back to the gate he was coming out of but his plane landed early and we had to undress to get through security. He called me as we were going through the security gates and told me he had just landed. I had to hurry off the phone so I could get the kids dressed and we booked it to the gate. We were sprinting when we
ran into him. We had almost made it to the gate though!

We arrived home earlier than expected too and our sweet Budge friends had invited all the neighbors over for a get together at 11 p.m. They had some fire pits going and doughnuts and hot chocolate. It was a lot of fun.

The scouts from Trisha's parents' ward came and filled our cul-de-sac with 85 flags and it was an amazing sight.

We also put a welcome home message up on the Kirt's marquee sign.

We had a ward breakfast on Saturday and then we headed to Charlie and Ryan's choir concert at Lee's and then off to the Forgotten Carols with the Budge's. Trisha also got us tickets for that play! Here's a picture of us with Michael Mclean (the playwrite and lead character) and his wife.

Trish, what else can you do for me? Anyway, it was a great time. We had a great weekend. We get to send the kids off to school tomorrow and have time to ourselves! Charles hasn't been around since ALL of our kids have been in school.

It's interesting how life goes. We have to endure the poop to enjoy the chocolate. We need trials to help us better appreciate how great life can be. Now that Charles is home I have reflected on the things I have endured while he was away. It feels so good to have him home and all those trials seem so far away. Our problems are always temporary and there is usually a good ending. I am thankful for my life and all the opportunities I've been given. I'm especially grateful for all the things I've learned in my life. I'm even thankful for my trials and afflictions. These are what have taught me the most. I love my life!

Charlie got ordained today and passed the sacrement for the first time. It was crazy seeing him do that. Charles passed with him and it was a nice sight. I can't believe I'm old enough to have a child that's old enough to be a deacon. But....Charles will always be older. He turns 33 tomorrow but he doesn't care that he's getting older. He always tells me he likes getting older since he gets better looking every day! Love him! He does get better looking every day though.

We leave for California on Thursday. Charles has a good friend that's getting married in Sacramento and he planned a family vacation for us since we would be there anyway. It feels good to be able to go away and enjoy myself doing something I didn't have to plan. He still has to figure out what to do with our dog! :)

So...off to another great week!

The great outdoors

I love nature, I really do! It's better when you aren't babysitting kindergartners! Cody's class had a field trip to the Ogden Nature Center today. It's a nice place but I think I can see just as much nature in my own back yard. That's how the environmental center is too. They are both beautiful places but just not a whole lot to look at. We were standing there listening to our guide ramble on about bugs and animals and all things nature when one little kindergartner pipes up and says "can we go now?" I thought I was gonna burst out in laughter. It was so funny. They were all about as interested as I was. We saw caged eagles and hawks and turkeys that were in the wild. Oh and we also saw some deer running around. The kiddos did enjoy seeing that but all the info that was given went in one ear and out the other. Sometimes I wonder if I have ADD. Oh well...

I had so much to do today and I didn't get one thing done in my house like I was supposed to. Charles gets home tomorrow night and I'm so excited I could throw up! I can't believe it's finally here. He has all of his stuff done so when he goes back to Ft. Campbell all he will have to do is outprocess. I will be so glad to be done with that place. I can't believe that will be over and we'll head back to Arizona. It seems strange to move back to AZ. This will be our 4th time to live there but I think it will be the best. All of our deployments are over and he gets to finish his degree the last year we'll be there. It's only taken about 8 years to get that done. Talk about being glad for something to be done! Good heavens. I have NEVER had a desire to go to college. I know that sounds horrible but I really can't think of anything more BOOORING! I like to learn about different things but only things I'm interested in. I don't understand why you have to take a bunch of nonsense classes that have nothing to do with your degree, therefore I say no thanks to college. :| So I am grateful Charles can set the example for our kids even though it has taken so freakin' long. Things just kept coming up and prevented him from finishing. Man, he's so close! I can't imagine life with Charles' only work responsibility being school, for an entire year!

HUMP DAY

Why is it called hump day anyway? Doesn't that sound a little provocative? I had a good day today! I finally got back into my gym routine and it feels good to be normal again! The kids got out early today and I took them to this little pond to feed the ducks. The sea gulls got most of the bread but it was still a good time. We saw a little otter and tried for a while to get a picture of him. We finally caught sight of him again, right before it was time to go, and snapped a picture!

After the pond, I braved taking all the kids to Ross so Charlie could buy himself a new pair of jeans. He's bugs me all the time about getting jeans. I bought him 2 pairs of jeans at the beginning of the school year and then he got some hand me down jeans, that are in perfect condition, and he refuses to wear them. Therefore, I have refused to purchase him anything new. I will not indulge that. He has gotten so picky about what he wears and it makes me NUTS! He has a closet FULL of stuff that he won't wear. If he's willing to buy it with his own money then I guess he can!

Yesterday I opened my cell phone bill to see that it was almost double what it normally is. I was in a panic thinking I had forgotten to pay the bill last month. I was scanning over the bill to see what the heck was going on and why my bill was so much. To my surprise there was over 337 incoming and outgoing text messages that had been sent and received. We have no texting plan either! So.....at 20 cents per text, we had $67.40 charged to our bill! Yeah...I was super pissed. Ryan had been texting his friends like a mad man. Needless to say, Ryan will no longer be allowed to use the cell phone. This is the 2nd time this has occurred! He'll be my slave until he earns enough to pay me back. Oh...the joy of parenthood :)

Only 2 more days until Charles is in Utah. I'm ecstatic! We have a busy Saturday planned and then his 33rd birthday will be Monday. I can't believe he's that old. I was 16 and he had just turned 18 when we started dating. It is so hard to believe where we are almost 14 years and 4 kids later! I love him. I can't wait to be a family once again. We will be getting ready to move before too long and it seems strange that we will once again start our lives anew somewhere else. The army life....we're used to it. Sad..but true.