2012 IN REVIEW

2012 really has been a great year!

 

Here are some of my favorite highlights!

 

In August ERAC started recognizing managers and employees who have hit certain goals by celebrating at a monthly dinner with their spouse. Since August Chris has hit EVERY GOAL set before him. He has attended the very nice dinners each month and receives an award and acknowledgement from the management staff. He's the only Branch Manager to hit the TRIPLE CROWN each month.

 

There have been a few moments that weren't quite the highlight of his career, a few missed promotions (who really wants to live in Idaho Falls anyhow?? LOL). But overall Chris is doing GREAT at his job. He's the top of his game and we're looking forward to whatever changes may come for us in 2013.

 

In April we headed down to Moab for the annual Jeep Safari. And of course no safari would be complete without bringing my niece Autumn along. She loves Jeeping as much as we do! We did have trouble on our 2nd trail, our first busted part EVER, but overall we had a great trip.

In August we took a weeklong trip to Yellowstone. Again we invited Autumn to tag along with us. She does so much babysitting for us during the year that we kind of repay her by taking her on our vacations with us. It was such a nice vacation. Great weather, and not too many crowds.

 One of my favorite parts was when we got to go out on Yellowstone Lake and fish. Chris hired a guide for a few hours and she knew exactly where to take us. Autumn caught her FIRST fish (a nice 21" cutthroat) and I caught one just slightly bigger. The girls loved it, although it wasn't really the kind of fishing Anna was used it. It was a great adventure still!

Anna started 1st grade. She LOVES being in the Spanish Immersion program and comes home teaching me new words and phrases almost every day. She LOVES to read and at her last parent-teacher conference she was leading the class in total minutes read for the quarter. In fact she had more than twice the minutes of the next highest reader. WAY TO GO ANNA!! We do her regular homework reading each night, an extra book somewhere throughout the evening and then she goes to bed by reading a book (or two) to herself in bed. I can always tell when she's ready for bed because I see her little Ikea wall lamp on and can hear her sweet little voice. She's an excellent reader!

 

In October I traveled with my Mom and Aunt Judy to Vancouver, Ontario. It was a great "girls trip" filled with LOTS of food, shopping and site seeing. I told Chris that if he ever wanted to move to Vancouver I'd totally be okay with that. I fell in love with the city and the culture.

 

This year my girlfriend Virginia welcomed her first baby. Little Emma was born in September and I have loved watching Virginia post pictures of her cute little family. 

This Thanksgiving brought my sisters and I together after quite a long time apart. Family is family no matter how flawed or stubborn we all may be.

December also gave Anna a chance to see her oldest friends. Again, no matter how flawed or stubborn the parents of the kids are (LOL), they still love playing together no matter how long its been since the last time they hung out.

My sweet friend (and ex-coworker) Denise took our family pictures in May. She is such a great photographer and worked so well with Abby. I'm a little ashamed to say that is our first professional family picture since Abby's been born. I've been wanting to do nice family pictures for quite a while and I think they turned out great!

My niece Jodi got engaged to Larry, her boyfriend since high school. These two are so darn cute together and remind me a lot of me and Chris when we were that young. They are so in love and you can just see how happy they make each other. Larry is such a great guy (my girls just love playing with him) and I cannot wait to see them exchange vows next June!!

 Chris worked a lot on his Jeep and is just one Dana 44 away from having it the exact way he wants it. Well I don't think you are ever finished when it comes to owning a Jeep. But he's pretty happy with it, which makes me happy. And I must say, I think his Jeep is looking pretty bad-ass!

In addition to FINALLY getting the basement finish underway, we also did some work on the main floors. Chris put hardwood in both the family and front rooms. LOVE IT! The carpet was here before us and was so stained (from us!) that it just constantly looked dirty. We also finally got the couch we've always wanted. A leather sectional that fits the WHOLE family!! Love it! It was kind of our big Christmas gift to the family.

This year I have loved watching Abby grow into a sweet little girl. The 2's were terrible to say the least. She's stubborn and hard headed and loves her mama and isn't afraid to let you know. But she also loves to play with Anna, making you laugh and of course, horses!

 

 

This year has been great for me and Perk. We're as close as ever and have worked really hard on reaching goals and setting new ones. We still make each other laugh like crazy and always have each others backs. We definitely balance each other out.

2012 was a great year. We accomplished a lot, had a lot of fun and are looking forward to see what 2013 brings for our family!

Christmas

Oh yes, Santa came this year! And boy did he spoil some kids!

The girls were so fun with Christmas this year.

 

We had some fun with the Elf on the Shelf

He worked out really well in keeping the girls right on track!

 

Waiting in line to see Santa

 

 

Abby loved Santa up until the time she was about to sit on his lap. We ended up doing a family photo just so I could get a picture of the two of them together.

 

 

 

Of course we had to start the tradition of opening ONE present on Christmas Eve. And of course it has to be jammies. But I also made sure the girls got a little something extra. Webkinz. When we went to Gardner Village one night they each found a Webkinz they really liked, but of course mom wouldn't buy. At least not at that time. Anna got a fuzzy owl and Abby of course got a horse.

Getting Santa's milk and cookies ready

Putting Santa's magic key on the door. That's what you do when you don't have a fireplace. You give Santa a key!

Christmas morning brunch at my moms. Most of the grandkids were there at the same time. It's been a while since that has happened!

(Ethan, Haylee, Emily, Abby, Spencer, Ashley, Autumn & Anna)

 We got to Skype with my nephew Andy who is stationed in Hawaii

Overall we had a great Christmas!

Christmas Service Project

I think Anna's old enough now to understand how charity works, so I decided this holiday season would be a good time to teach her about service and giving back to the community and helping those in need.  This time of year you hear a lot about the homeless, heck you see panhandlers on every corner practically. But rather than just giving a dollar here or there to people who you don't really know what intentions they have with the money they collect, I decided we would collect coats and blankets for the Road Home homeless shelter. Last night alone (12/20/12) there were over 1,100 people staying at the shelter. That's 1,100 people who had NO WHERE to go. Very sad.

I sent emails out at work and to women in my ward/neighborhood. We collected 7 bags FULL of items from the neighborhood and another 6 bags from my coworkers. I think for a mom/daughter project, it turned out quite well!!

Donations from the neighbors

Dropping off at the Road Home

 There were 9 different radio stations at the Road Home so we mingled inside to take a look.

(My coworker Deb came along with us)

Look who we found inside! SANTA!!

Since Anna gave so much today to go towards helping others, Santa gave her a teddy bear as a thank you!

I let Anna take the day of from school to come with me to the Road Home to make our donations. It's one thing for her to see the bags sitting in the front room, but it's another to see where the coats are going and get a feel for whole charity experience.

Funny side story...
My boss still has his bear mount in the office so I told Anna to go pose with it. Look at her expression!!  Love this kid!!

Little notes

Last night I was in the basement, cleaning out the cat liter. Yes it's supposed to be Anna's responsibility since it's her cat, but I prefer to do it because when I watch her scoop the poop I'm always afraid she's going to flip the scooper and I have this image playing out in my mind in slow motion of cat turds flying through the air.

Anyhow, so I'm wrists deep in the cat box and she's pretty much hovering over me "Mom! Mom! MOM! MOM!"

I'll admit. I got short with her.
"Anna, quit bugging me and let me finish this first!"

She gives a quiet whimper just loud enough for me to hear her, but not loud enough for me to get after her for whining.

So bath time comes and goes and she's offering me this plastic flower toy. Peace offering I assume!
"Yes Anna, I see, yes, yes it's very nice. ABBY COME GET SOME CLOTHES ON!!"

Next thing I know she's standing in my bedroom next to my dresser. Plastic flower sitting on top next to this hand written note.

This kid, she makes me stop right in my tracks sometimes. Let's just say she ended up saying "Okay mom, you can stop hugging me now" because I felt so bad.

Friends

It amazes me that kids can go months without seeing one another and in just a matter of minutes they are back to being the budds they have always been.

I think adults can learn a lot from our kids.

 

 

12 Thing Happy People Do

30 days of gratitude

Well 30 days of gratitude posting has come to and end. And look! It's December 5th and I'm just now getting around the Day 30 - HAPPY LIFE! But if anything all this posting actually got me interesting in continuing my blog. FB is fun for posting pictures, but you don't really get to post the stories behind those pictures. So for now we'll continue the blog! (I can hear you all cheering!)

I'm grateful for what I have.

I'm grateful for what I've been given.

I'm grateful for people in my life.

 



Day 28-29

Day 28 brings a guest to our house for a few weeks. ELF ON THE SHELF

I've heard a lot about it, watched girlfriends post pics of the mischief their elf gets into, so this year I thought Anna was old enough to really understand and enjoy it. Oh man she loves it!

So far our elf hasn't been too mischievous. She did however find a candy bar in Anna's backpack, open it up and take a big bite!!

Oh and this morning we found her (yes, our elf is a girl according to the box she came in), hanging from our paper towel rack...wearing a barbie skirt!!

Day 29 - Gift
I know it sounds cheesy but my husband is a gift from God. Seriously! I love this man. For the 3rd month in a row, Chris has been recognized as a Triple Crown winner at work. That means that he hit his goals for his branch in all 3 areas (actually he is ABOVE corporate average!!)

When you hit your goals you are invited to a champions dinner with your spouse and all the other winners.  Twice they've had it at Rodizio and most recently at Brio. I love getting dressed up and showing off my husband! This last time they made it known that this is Chris's 3rd time. The recognition program started in August and Perk hasn't missed a beat.

He works damn hard at work for our family and I'm so grateful for him!

Day 27 - Letters

When I saw that one of the last few gratitude posts would be letters, I thought to myself "what on earth can I write about that has to do with being grateful for LETTERS??"

Then one night as I was running around the house after work, doing all the stuff you try to cram into the 2.5 hours before wrestling with bathes and bedtimes and homework and such, I opened my front door to call out to Anna to come in and when I looked down, I saw a plate of cookies with a nice little letter from my visiting teachers.

And there you have it. I'm grateful for little letters left on my doorstep. Even in the hustle and bustle of the busy night, these women always find the time to reach out and check in on me.

Day 26 - Family

Day 26 and I finally get to tell you how thankful I am for my FAMILY!

How cute is this picture? We hadn't moved the couch back into the family room yet after installing the new hardwood and something must have been really good on TV for Chris and Abby to just stop and stand like this to watch!

I'm thankful that my kids enjoy baking and spending time with their dad.

I'm thankful to be married to my bestest friend in the whole wide world and that we have two AMAZING daughters. After 19 years together we still love each other as if it was the first day we met!

I'm thankful to have such a great mom!

She loves people watching as much as I do, which makes us great travelers!

 

Day 24-25

Day 25 is all about FAMILY TIME.

My parents have a HUGE Dickens Village that my dad would normally set up the weekend after Thanksgiving. He would spend all day setting it up, usually by making ME climb up in to the attic to pull boxes. Why did I always get stuck climbing into that attic?  Since he passed, my sister Steph and BIL Will have been setting it up. But this year my mom came up with an idea to keep the tradition of the village alive and to keep the memory of my dad alive in the grandchildren, by having the entire family over the Saturday after Thanksgiving to help set it up and enjoy a nice dinner together.

I can't even begin to tell you how many little pieces are involved. There are houses and people and trees and streams and a train and SNOW, lots and lots of snow, more people, some animals...and you get the point.

The front room/dining room was chaos for a bit. But with a little delegation and a lot of bossiness (usually from ME!) we got the village set up!

Boards are down and snow is forming!

 Boxes are being unpacked!

 Placement of houses and businesses.

 

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

This is the Dickens Village.

I'm pretty sure a good chunk of our inheritance went into creating this village! (I'm kidding mom!!) It looks really neat at night when all the little house and street lights are on. I think however that unless my mom buys a bigger home, this village will not be able to grow anymore!

 

 

Day 24 - Black Friday

 

I didn't shop on Black Friday. Well I did go to the mall on Friday night with Abby, but I wouldn't call that shopping. She makes it hard to shop. I more walked the mall with either pushing her in the stroller or chasing after her with the stroller.

 

Nope, instead on Black Friday I tiled our bathroom floor. Good time. Good times.