It's Christmas already??

Oh boy, I really need a boost of Christmas Spirit. I used to really love Christmas, but it seems like every year I dread it more and more. What's wrong with me? My kids are the one of the only parts that makes it all worth it. We put up our tree the other day and it was so fun to watch Abby. She still doesn't get what is going on, but she LOVES the Christmas tree and all our decorations. As soon as she wakes up in the morning the first thing she wants to do is see the tree. Then she spends about 30 minutes rearranging ornaments on the lower branches. So cute! Abby and I went to the Festival of Trees a couple of days ago to watch my sister Amy sing. At first Abby loved all of the hundreds of "Christmas stars" as she calls them. But it got boring rather quickly for her (and I have to admit, for me too). So we ditched the festival and went out to lunch with "Amy Aunt" and cousins. That was the best part! Watching Amy's group perform was awesome too, though. They did a fabulous job and I really miss singing with them. But there is a time and season to all things, right? Someday I will be in another choir!

If I get a dose of Christmas spirit soon, I can tell you where it's going to come from! Every year my family does a Christmas project in place of exchanging gifts. We have done many wonderful things over the years including humanitarian kits, emergency kits, sub for santa and food bank donations. This year we decided to make quilts to donate and also purchase items on the wish list for the Christmas Box House. For those who don't know, the CBH is an organization ran by Salt Lake County that shelters children who are removed from their homes because of abuse, neglect or abandonment before they are placed in foster homes. Instead of having to spend several nights in less comfortable circumstances, they have immediate access to a full staff of trained individuals who can offer comfort and someone to talk to about this very difficult time in their lives. Some of these kids come to the house with absolutely nothing....sometimes not even shoes! So the CBH has a huge "wish list" of items that they need to help the kids just have the basic necessities of life, plus have things to do and learn while they are staying there. I am excited about doing this! I love this part of Christmas and I am so grateful for the lessons that my kids learn about gratitude, humility and charity from doing these special projects. Most of all I am grateful for my amazing family who are so inspiring and such a good example of unconditional love!

If anyone wants to learn more about the Christmas Box House and what they can do to help, here is their website: www.thechristmasboxhouse.org

So cool!

Nate came home from school yesterday with some great news! His photo of Abby won a trophy in the Reflections contest and his entry moves on to the next round. I am especially excited about this because Nate's self confidence could always use a good boost. It's hard to be the 2nd oldest I think. He is forever living in Alex's shadow, but I really try to make sure he knows how unique and amazing he is. I am so happy for Nate's accomplishment!! He is such an awesome kid!

Nate the photographer

This year at school, Nate's teacher required them to do a Reflections entry. He has really been into photography for a few years now, so he decided to give it a try. He took this picture all by himself! Well, ok, I was helping Abby smile, but that's it! I thought he did a great job. The theme was:

Beauty Is...

Isn't that sweet? :)

More camping adventures!

Camping is a lot of work. As I am spending the countless hours preparing for this annual tradition or as I listen to Shawn get frustrated at the kids (and sometimes me) as we are loading up our van and tent trailer to full capacity, I wonder: why do we do this to ourselves? Shouldn't we just go get a hotel somewhere and order room service? Why do we think this is fun? I ask these questions again as I am shivering in my sleeping bag, scratching my numerous mosquito bites or as I am holding my breath by the hole in the ground that is cleverly disguising itself as a bathroom. But year after year, we do it all over again. Here's why:

Abby LOVES camping! She loves the bugs, she loves the freedom of running around outside all day long, but she especially loves the dirt judging by the huge amount that she collected on her person throughout the trip.

The kids LOVE playing games! Here they are playing a new one, "Munchkin Booty". I think it was almost as entertaining to watch them play it.

Nate and Grant LOVE fire! Here they are hanging out by the fire, putting their fire sticks in it and scaring me just a little.

I LOVE seeing my husband happy! Being with his family in the beautiful mountains makes him happy.

We took Kaiser with us this trip and he LOVES squirrels! The squirrels, however, do not love him.

Kade and Seth LOVE going to the river. They throw rocks, they play with fish. Good times.

I LOVE seeing my kids get along and have fun together!

I LOVE this little girl! (p.s. I stole a few of these pictures from Briana. This is one of them. Soooo cute.)

Abby LOVES the river too! She cried every time we left.

I LOVE watching these crazy, talented, creative and awesome kids perform their annual skits and songs that they work together to make up for us. I don't think they realize just how amazing and unique they are.

But most of all, I LOVE my whole family and my family LOVES to camp. So every year I will plan, prepare, shiver, scratch, cook, clean and do anything I need to so my kids can have these awesome memories together!

The Great Outdoors

After weeks of preparing we finally got to go on our yearly Crockett family camping extravaganza! We headed up to the Tetons this year to Green River Lakes campground. The scenery was SO beautiful, this picture does not even do it justice. We had a good time, even though the bugs were insanely bad and camping is always a little bit hard with a toddler.

(in case you were wondering why Seth looks strange, it's because his aunt Erin painted his face with the face paints. He was going for a skeleton look. lol!)

Abby just loves to wander and I was pretty worried the whole time that we would lose her in the woods somewhere. But we tied a bell to her shoe so we could hear her wherever she went. It also had the added bonus of scaring away bears. :)

Shawn got to take some fly fishing lessons from the master, my Dad, and even had a couple of bites. But no fish were actually caught, much to my disappointment since I love fresh cooked trout in the mountains. ***sigh*** Oh well, maybe in a few weeks since we have another trip planned with the Shipleys.

Here's some more pictures of the beautiful scenery:

There is something about the mountains that just takes my breath away! I think it feels like a little piece of heaven (except I'm hoping that in heaven, there aren't any angry bears or pesky mosquitoes.)

Peek-a-boo!

Oh, Abby just cracks me up sometimes! Here she is playing a fun game with herself. She hides under the blanket, then walks around until she falls over or runs into me, then laughs hysterically. She is such a little nut!

The reason why she is not looking at me in these pictures is because she is too busy checking herself out in the full length mirrors that are her closet doors. She loves to watch herself and I frequently find her talking or singing to herself in the mirror. Should I be worried about that? :)

She definitely earns her nickname of "Princess Abby".

Late night jabbering

It's close to midnight and I really should be sleeping! But I can't sleep because I am a worrier. I worry about lots of things that I have no control over. Most of the time I can deal with it, but sometimes it interferes. So here I sit. I won't bore you with all the details of my worries, so instead I will talk about my weekend.

We went on a fabulous fun-filled trip to St. George with our friends this weekend! It seriously was the best time I have had in a while. I feel so blessed to have such great friends that are in my life. We saw a play, lounged at the pool, swam, shopped, ate great food, played cards, watched t.v., joked around and talked, talked, talked about nothing and everything. It seems like just a few years ago that we all met, were newlyweds with babies on the way and our whole lives ahead of us. Now fourteen years later we are raising teenagers, have thirteen kids between us all and can see middle age in the not too distant future. Where does the time go? The older I get the faster it seems to slip away. But with friends like these I think I can take whatever comes my way. Thanks guys for being so awesome and for making life fun!!

Insanity!!

That's my life in a nutshell.

Not only does that word describe the current state of my calendar, it could also be used to describe various other aspects my life. Like my house, my kids, my husband, my brain. I just need to ramble here for a bit and get it all out of my system....

First off, June is the busiest time of the whole year for us. Every year I expect that, but I am never quite prepared for how hard it slams me up against the wall. Seriously. It started off with a huge joint birthday party for me, my mommy, my sweet granny, my youngest boy and in memory of my deeply missed brother. It was a great way to start the month, except Abby took a hard fall on the floor and put her two front teeth through her lip. Bummer.

The next day was spent trying to juggle babysitters while Shawn and I worked as ushers at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. This was a fun assignment, but a little difficult to schedule with work and everything else. It's a beautiful temple and I am excited to be in that district. Shawn is signed up to work four more times, but that was the only time I will get to be there in that capacity.

Thursday came and since we had been eating cold cereal for dinner the past three nights I decided I better take a trip to Costco. I pushed my huge cart all around the store for an hour, so proud that I was getting something accomplished when......blahhhhh.....Abby throws up all over the floor, the cart, the diaper bag and oh ya...me. So much for grocery shopping. I grab Abby, hightail it out of the store sans groceries (telling one of the employees on my way out that there was a major cleanup on aisle 7) and spend the rest of the day cleaning up after her at home. Oh well, I guess we can have cereal one more night, right?

The next day was my birthday which I spent taking my parents to the airport for their 8 day Alaskan cruise, teaching piano lessons and working at the pharmacy. My sweet hubby and kids came to visit me though and brought me a piece of my birthday cake that they had made for me. Awwwww.

Saturday was then our 14th wedding anniversary. I went to work in the morning, but came home ever so excited because Shawn and I were going to get to spend a whole 24 hours together without the kids! Yay! We packed our bags for our little overnighter and dropped the kiddies at Uncle Craig's. We checked into the Little America tower suite, did a little shopping, eating, and well, you know how those things go. We fell asleep around midnight after I told Shawn "I'm not feeling so well....no....really....I'm not." An hour later I was barfing my guts out (thanks Abby) and continued to do so the rest of the night. The good news is that puking at the Little America isn't so bad because their toilets are VERY clean! About 5 a.m. Shawn decided we better check out and go home. That was a good idea, but my poor little tummy didn't like the elevator ride down 15 flights. You guessed it, I puked again, but luckily my hubby was thinking ahead and had a plastic bag waiting just for me. The next day was spent nursing me back to health amid much whining and complaining (by me, not Shawn) and a four hour power outage that night due to lightning.

Yesterday I was starting to feel better, but knew I had lots to catch up on. I tried to get things done but ended up taking a two hour nap with Abby because I was just so darn exhausted. I taught piano again that afternoon and when Shawn got home I went to my parent's house to take dinner to and "granny sit" my Grandma while my parents are gone. She is such a funny lady. It's awesome to spend some one on one time with her!

Today I had an appointment for my first ever "physical". My cholesterol is insanely high and I've known for a while that I need to get it checked out. The appointment wasn't so bad except I didn't have my insurance card with me because I forgot I had to wash everything in my wallet from when Abby puked in it. So my card was in a tidy little plastic bag sitting on my counter. They were going to make me reschedule, but I begged them to please call the insurance company for the information. Anyway, it all worked out.

Tonight I am going to Grandma's again, work tomorrow, Grandma's again on Thursday and then our good friends the Hymas' will be in town! Woo hoo! Somewhere in there I need to write the talk I'm supposed to give in sacrament meeting on Sunday and figure out a way to get Alex to his week long scout camp that he's missing because they scheduled it even though the 6th graders are still in school. I can't forget that it's Seth's birthday on Saturday which I haven't planned one eensy weensy bit of it and I also need to pick up my parent's from the airport that night and find a way to attend a pool party. Maybe I can figure out all of that tomorrow morning while I'm at the dentist's office with Abby because I just looked in her mouth this morning and I think she knocked her front tooth loose when she fell on her face a week ago! Hopefully Shawn will have enough time to fix the brakes tonight on the van, since they just started making this horrid, awful, grinding noise last night. This is especially important because we are supposed to drive it down to St. George next weekend for a fabulous getaway, which I need to plan and pack for plus figure out Father's day stuff and how am I going to work at night when Shawn leaves the next day for his week long "manager's retreat" at Lake Powell? And like the gullible person that I am I agreed to be the PTA Treasurer again this year and that means that the end of our year is June 30th! Can you say "reports up the wazoo and hours and hours of reconciling"? ***sigh***

Yes, my life feels like it's too much for me to handle sometimes, but really I wouldn't trade my life for anybody else's. (well, maybe I could think of a few people) I have to remember to count my blessings every day and be ever so grateful for my amazing family, friends and neighbors. They make all of this chaos worth it!

(Uh oh...I better hurry and post this since I left my power cord to my laptop at my Grandma's last night and my battery is going to die any second now...)

:)

How artistic!

I know I'm not the best photographer and I probably own the world's crappiest digital camera, but I took this cute picture the other day of Abby and I just wanted to share the cuteness. I learned how to do this neat little trick in Photoshop (I totally LOVE that program) and I think it's adorable.

Happy Easter!

Easter is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it and it doesn't stress me out like Christmas does. Plus, it's also the only day out of the year that I can get my family to pose for a picture in their nice clothes.