My Favorite Day

Call me crazy, but my birthday is one of my most FAVORITE days of the year. I certainly don't mind turning a year older and I certainly don't mind the attention. It's fun to have a day that is all about me, so I try to do everything I can to enjoy my day. The day of my 35th birthday started out with some of my FAVORITE people. These are my gym buddies. Sherry, Tracy, Jim, Kelly (our instructor), Me, and Claire. These are the people I look forward to seeing at 5:30 each morning. They are my support and why I keep going. We all look like crap that early in the morning, but we all work our butts off and it is fun to start each day with them.
Next I got to spend the breakfast hour with my most FAVORITE people of all, my boys. Before heading out the door to school that morning, the boys each gave me a handmade card telling me how much they loved me and wishing me happy birthday. I also opened a few gifts that I had purchased for myself, some new hiking shoes and the Just Dance 3 for our Xbox! The boys were very excited about that one.

Before heading to work myself, my friend Sherry invited us to breakfast to celebrate my birthday. McDonalds is one of my FAVORITE places for breakfast because they have my FAVORITE hot chocolate and I love the fruit and yogurt parfait.

Next, I got to go to my FAVORITE job and hang out with my FAVORITE 5th graders...

And 4th graders!

I love teaching Math and going to school each day is so much fun for me. These kids are great and they made my birthday extra special. We had a little party in class and some of the kids even brought me in little gifts. They were just as excited about my birthday as I was.

That evening it was time to spend some time with my other FAVORITE people, my family. I chose to eat at Chuck-A-Rama for my birthday dinner, not because it is my favorite, but because it is Mitchel's FAVORITE. I also had coupons for free kids meals, and free is also one of my FAVORITE things . We were joined by my parents, my sister, and my brother.

We did do one of my FAVORITE things...EAT!

Then I was spoiled again with a few more gifts from my family, and being spoiled is my FAVORITE! So it was a great day. I feel very blessed to have the life I have and I love celebrating it with the people I love the most.

Beating the January Blahs

I usually hate January. I hate the cold and the snow and the non excitement of the whole month. But for some reason this year, it didn't bother me at all. Probably because we have been having unseasonably warm temperatures and hardly any snow at all. We've also managed to do some fun family things this month that has made it not such a drag.

We did get enough snow the first week of January for the boys to break out their sleds and go down our front yard a bit. I think this might be the first time they have used all their snow gear all season.

The next weekend, the weather was warm and beautiful. For Mitchel's birthday months ago, he got these rockets. Mike decided it was finally time to build them and shoot them off at a field next to our house.

We had a big countdown and then with much excitement, Mitchel pushed the ignition button....nothing happened. So Mike adjusted something and we tried again....nothing! We were getting pretty disappointed by then. Mike and Mitchel adjusted one more time before throwing in the towel. We counted down one more time and ....BLASTOFF! It was awesome. It shot about 40 feet in the air and came down nice and softly with the parachute.

We had three engines, so we were able to do it a few more times. Very cool!

Another fun activity was going to the Jazz game using the boys' Jr. Jazz tickets.

Of course our seats were way up in the nose bleeds, but the kids didn't care. The Jazz killed the other team (I can't remember who it was). The best part was that all the kids were really into it. Now that they have been playing for a while and understand all the rules, they are starting to love basketball as much as their Dad! (It also helped that there were free drinks involved!)

One Saturday, after all our Jr. Jazz games, we took the kids, along with G&G Harker to the train show at Thanksgiving point. I don't know what it is about boys and trains, but they love them. There were lots of cool layouts to look at. Our favorite was the Lego layout.

They boys even got to drive a few trains.

This past weekend, Mike got tickets from his boss to attend the play at Hale Center theater. We took everyone except Miles, and brought Mitchel's friend with us. I wasn't sure if the boys would like the play, (it was a murder mystery/comedy) but they all really did. After we went out for some pizza. Good times!

So January wasn't all that bad. In fact it was pretty great. Plenty of good time spent as a family!

My favorite people

Oh, how I love my family! Whatever I did to deserve this much happiness I'll never know, but I am so grateful!

This picture truly reflects what my life is like on a day to day basis. I am "smashed" between all these boys...but I'm loving it!

It is an honor and a privilege to be the wife of Mike and the mom to Mitchel, Max, Mason, and Miles. I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Looking Back at 2011

This past week has been wonderful! It has been so nice to be out of school and have the kids home and be able to catch up on some things. One of the projects I worked on was getting all my pictures from 2011 printed into books by Snafish.com. They came a few days latter and I LOVE them! Another thing I did was burn all the video I took last year onto DVDs. So by doing all of this, I was really able to look back at 2011 and reflect on the things that happened. The conclusion I came to was that 2011 was a GREAT year for our family! Of course there were some downs, but mostly it was filled with lots of ups and some great memories. Here is my list of some of the things I will remember about this year:
Downs
1) Our roof started leaking and we had to pay big bucks to get a new one. Luckily, we found some really great roofers who did an excellent job and our insurance payed for about a fourth of it.
2) Our water heater leaked all over our basement and we had to get a new one of those too. In the meantime, we went about 3 days with no hot water and did a lot of boiling of water to take showers etc.
3) Really, that is all I can think of.
Now for the Ups (and there are a lot of those!)
1) I got my braces off and I love my teeth
2) Traveling/Camping
Zions
Goblin Valley
American Fork Canyon/Timponogos
Las Vegas
Yellowstone
Canyonlands
SeaWorld/Legoland
3) Being a Ma and Pa on Trek
4) Not one visit to instacare or the pediatrician for sickness or injury
5) Getting a part time teaching job that I love and having Mike still be employed
6) Meeting new people in our new ward (I guess a down was leaving all the people in my old ward)
7) My last Girls Camp as YW president
8) Seeing my kids do well in school
9) Watching my kids play sports, enjoy them, and improve
10) Spending lots of time with our families
11) Being healthy and continuing to go to the gym every morning
12) Celebrating birthdays and holidays
13) Having movie nights with my kids every weekend while snuggling on the couch
14) Max's Baptism
15) Miles learning to talk (a lot!)
16) Mason graduating from preschool
17) Mitchel reading the Harry Potter series and loving it as much as I did
18) Realizing that everyday is a blessing
I am looking forward to 2012. We already have a few camping trips planned and I know I will continue to enjoy watching my boys grow and learn. My goal this year is to let go of guilt. There were many times this last year when I just didn't feel like I was measuring up and it hindered my progress to move forward. So this year, my goal is to just do the best I can and not worry about how the world is judging me. All that matters is doing what I know is right and letting Heavenly Father be the judge. If I feel all right with him, then I know I am doing okay. Our other goal as a family is to read from the Book of Mormon every night. If I expect my boys to be missionaries someday, then they better understand the book that our whole religion is based upon. I hope they gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon and I hope my testimony and understanding increases as well. We've been giving the promise that if we read daily, the Spirit in our homes will increase, conflict will lesson, there will be more obedience, more joy, and more peace. So we are going to put that promise to the test. Here's hoping for a great 2012!

Christmas

I loved getting ready for Christmas this year. I did almost all of my shopping on line and used the Freebies2Deals web site to find some of the most amazing deals on things my kids really wanted. It felt like Christmas day all month when the UPS man came to my house to deliver another package. So when it was finally time for the actual day, I was ready.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at Jeff and Suzie's house. Since is was on a Saturday, we started early at 2:00 p.m. which I loved so I didn't have to entertain the kids all day. We had yummy food, sang songs, and played with their pool and fooze ball tables, but the best part is spending time with family.

I also love the acting out of the nativity. I thought Miles would jump in this year, but he still wouldn't have anything to do with dressing up of being a part of the show. He did watch it all intently though. The other kids seemed to take it more seriously this year, especially Mason and Allie who were Joseph and Mary. Allie held on to baby Jesus so lovingly and sweetly. It was really cute.

Christmas Morning

I was surprised that my kids slept as late as they did. It was 7:00 a.m. before I finally heard Mitchel get up. We got the rest up and went downstairs to see what Santa had brought.

A new bike for Mason. (He wanted a dark green one, but Santa must have run out of green paint or something)

A Hot Wheels wall track for Max. He also got three other sets that connect to this one.

Miles got Chuck the Truck. He talks and races around the room.

Mitchel's picture just got deleted from this blog and I can't seem to get it back, but he got a Kinex for his Xbox.

I made a delicious Christmas breakfast of muffins, bacon, eggs, and chocolate milk. Then it was time to get ready for church. Luckily, I had planned ahead and made sure that all the clothes were ironed, layed out, and ready to go. I had joined the ward choir this year and we had practiced for months to get ready for our Christmas day performance. It was beautiful and really brought the Christmas spirit. I am glad I got to be a part of it.

After church we opened the presents from Mom and Dad. I got just what I wanted from Mike, a Kindle Touch! I love to read but I hate going to the library and I always seem to wrack up too many fines (I think we owe over $30 right now). The kids got more games for the Xbox, some movies, and LOTS and LOTS of LEGOS!! I think everyone was happy. Mike bought his own gift this year, a blue ray player. Another gift was that I wasn't sick this year. All my boys had a little cough, and Mike had a bit of a cold, but all of that didn't touch me, which I am very grateful for.

After our presents we went to G&G Millers for lunch and opening presents with the Miller cousins. A wonderful afternoon. Then back home for the evening to play with our new stuff and just chill out. It was a perfect day.

The day after Christmas was actually my favorite though. The morning was spent watching the kids build all their amazing Lego creatures. That afternoon, Mike and I went to see "Mission Impossible." Awesome movie!! That night we went to Missy and Jeff's for the Harker family party. We found out that Aunt Kari is expecting another baby, so that was good news. I was able to give Matt and Holly their wedding video (finally) and gave everyone a copy of the movie I had made for Pat's life, including the awesome surprise birthday party we held for her this summer.

I am so lucky to belong to two such amazing families. I am so glad we all live close enough to get together and enjoy being together. It was a great Christmas and I feel very blessed!

Christmas Tree Photos

I decorated my tree this year with all new decorations that I bought last year on clearance at Target. I like how it turned out. It reminds me of a "Who" tree from the Grinch that Stole Christmas. Mitchel actually did most of the decorating and I think he did a great job. We still haven't had the chance to take a "real" family photo, hence the reason I didn't send out Christmas cards this year. But one Sunday before church I did manage to get some cute ones of the boys in front of the tree.

We are all so excited for Christmas this year and for the chance we have to be together. I personally feel very blessed and grateful this Christmas season for the many blessings I have in my life. I know that Heavenly Father is watching over us and helping us through all the ups and downs. I am so grateful for our Savior and the sacrifice and love he gives to us every day. I am grateful to be teaching my children the gospel and I am even more grateful for their tender hearts. They really do want to choose the right and follow Christ. I am so blessed to be a mom to these amazing young men. Merry Christmas everyone!

Gingerbread Houses with Grandma

What would we ever do without Grandma Miller? Last Christmas she bought these awesome gingerbread house kits on clearance and gave them to me to save for this year. They were in perfect shape and so for a Friday afternoon activity we thought we would but them together. The best part was that Grandma Miller showed up at our door at the very minute we were getting them out, so she stayed to help us put them together! So much fun!
We have learned in past years to NOT try to use frosting to stick the walls and roof together. Instead we use hot glue and everything stays together perfectly. Then we have tons of frosting to put on all the candy.

It's fun to have all my boys at an age where they all can participate and they all think it is fun, even Miles. He was very proud of the buttons and eyeballs he put on his gingerbread man.

Here are our finished products. We couldn't have done it without Grandma's help, so we are so glad she stopped by.It made the afternoon much more fun (and much less stressful for me!)

Good job Harker boys!