I Got Elected!

HOAs, love them or hate them most of us have to deal with them.  Three years ago when we first moved in to our home (and thus into our first HOA neighborhood) I got a letter stating that the HOA was electing new members to the board.  I really wanted to be elected because I wanted to be involved in the HOA and in getting to know my neighbors.  Problem was NOBODY knew who I was because we had only been here a short time.  Well, last week it was time to elect three new people to the HOA board so I thought I would take a chance.  After my last election attempt (I ran for Precinct Chair for the delegates in our area...you'd have thought I was running for President) I had no problem getting up in front of the people in our neighborhood and introducing myself as a candidate for the HOA board even though the majority of them still don't know who I am.  After the votes were counted I was one of the three that won the election.  YEA!!!  Of course it didn't hurt that there were three positions open and only three of the five candidates were at the meeting.  Even still...I am excited and can't wait to start handing out violations...I mean planning neighborhood activities.  : )

My Father's Favorite "Tip"

I'm sure I am not the only one who's father would always ask if you wanted a "tip" and then answered with the famous line, "Don't eat yellow snow."  I heard it so many times growing up not only from my dad but from my brothers as well that I find myself giving my children the same "tip".

Nothing could have prepared me though for the "tip" that Megan gave Alexander last week.  He LOVES snow.  He loves everything about the snow, but of course his most favorite activity is to eat the snow. I was letting the dog out the back door to do his doggie business when Alexander picks up a large handful of snow from the porch and puts it in his mouth.  I remind him to only eat the clean white snow.  That's when Megan pipes in with her snow advice.

"Yah Alex, don't eat yellow snow...it's pee.  I know, because I tried some...just a little...but it was pee, so DON'T eat yellow snow." - Megan

I still crack up to this day when I think about how innocently she passed on her advice to her little brother.  You had to see her little face and how serious she was when she told him.  I guess she had to test the yellow snow theory for herself.  LOL

Hooray for me! I'm 3!!

How fast time flies.  Can it really have been 3 years since this sweet little man came in to our lives?!  What a joy he has been.  We all love him so much.  He is smart and inquisitive.  I wish I had the time because this little man is so smart he is ready to read.  He LOVES to learn an he communicates so well.  His vocabulary is a little smaller than it was a few months back.  About November last year he started to stutter.  I was concerned but was told that sometimes kids will stutter after a traumatic event.  The only thing I can think of was when my van was in an accident he was in the car and he had a hard time understanding what happened and why they took the van away.  It was a few weeks latter that he stuttered.  That lasted about 3 weeks and now he doesn't stutter but he doesn't use as many words as he did before and he is starting to sound more like a 3 year old. He's still fun to talk to though.
He isn't potty trained yet and doesn't seem to be interested in it like he was last year so we'll see how that goes.  He has been throwing more temper tantrums now so I guess he decided to be different and have the terrible 3's instead of the terrible 2's.  He's so funny though especially when you get him talking about one of his two favorite things...Bowling and Golf.  How his love of these two sports came about baffles me.  We NEVER talk about either sport...not one word.  I find golf to be one of the most boring sports ever and bowling isn't too far behind (probably because I am no good at either one.)  Bowling is in my blood though.  My mom and dad bowled when they were younger and all of my older siblings were on bowling leagues when we were growing up.  My oldest brother David was in the news because of the amount of 300 games he used to bowl.  He was on his college's bowling team.  I however suck at bowling so I have never mentioned it but my son thinks that bowling is the greatest game ever played next to golf.  I decided that since I don't know how to bowl or golf the only way for him to learn these sports is by watching Youtube videos.  He has learned so much this way that I am think if he actually played either one of these sports he would be an expert.  He is so content just watching how-to videos for hours.  He constantly talks about them and gets extremely excited when he sees a picture of them or when one of the sports is mentioned on TV.  I wish so much we had the means to get him lessons in both sports.  Unfortunately my family is so far away for him to go play with them.

Anyway, here is my little birthday man.  Happy Birthday Alexander the Great!!!!

Lizzie made his cake and decorated for the party using her new Winnie the Pooh items...that is her favorite character.

Licking his chops for the yummy cake.

I'm 3!!!!

Patiently waiting for his presents.

After such a busy party Alex and Megan just snuggled up for the night.  (One of the rare times these two weren't fighting.)

***Welcome 2013***

Happy New Year!!! What a great and BUSY year 2012 was.  Such a fun, adventurous year, my only complaint was that it went by WAAAAY too quickly.  CJ kept asking me what I was doing with the year that was making it go by so fast. I told him that it wasn't me.  I was doing everything I could to slow it down but all it did was go even faster.  I still can't believe that the year is over.  Oh yeah, surprise, surprise, the world didn't end in December. lol  It was sure fun to joke about the "end of the world" though and think about how crazy some people were going to be the closer December came.

Anyway, I have a lot of catching up to do because this is the time of year that I print my blog as a record for my family and most of it (more than I want to think about *tear*) is still in my head...and on my camera.  I will start with the fun we had on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day...well night really.  New Year's Eve was different this year because Lizzie and Rebecca were old enough to attend the multi-stake youth dance so they were gone when we rang in the new year.  They invited their group of friends that they were going to the dance with to our house for a pre-dance party.  I was a little nervous at the thought of a house full of teenagers getting all pumped up for the dance at our house but I was also excited for the chance to really enjoy the festivities of the night through the eyes of youth again (not that I was going to be in the way or try to be "one of the gang" or anything.)  After the whole family spent many hours together at our store getting things organized and ready to go we came home and the girls got busy getting the house ready for the party.  They had gotten a mini disco ball and some fun light up decorations for Christmas so they set those up in the front room with the Christmas tree so that the room was full of dancing color and totally ready to party.  Sadly only one of Rebecca's friends is old enough to go to the dance so she came over but all of Lizzie's friends...FORGOT!  I was so sad for the girls because they were looking so forward to the party.  It didn't even faze them though.  Rebecca had fun with her friend who is new in the neighborhood so they got to know each other better and Lizzie just spent extra time getting ready for the dance.  They are such sweet girls!!  Lizzie did meet up with her friends at the dance (who were very sorry they had forgotten about the party) and she had a really good time.  Rebecca and her friend played a lot of games and had fun.  Rebecca even won a movie ticket with her Twister game playing skilz.  As for the rest of us, Alexander fell asleep way earlier than expected, and so we just sat and watched a movie while Dakota baked us her first pumpkin pie.  She was really nervous but it came out beautifully.  She did a great job!  Just before midnight Megan accidentally woke up Alexander so he joined us for the traditional pan banging and loud well wishing to the neighbors at midnight.  After that 2 minutes of fun we gathered in a circle with a glass of hot apple cider for the New Year toast lead by Dakota.  Not our usual way to celebrate but it was still very enjoyable.

New Year's Day didn't go quite the way I had planned but it was still a good day.  The one thing I really wanted to do though was take the kids sledding.  Megan hadn't been for a few years and Alexander had never gone so I was disappointed when the sun had gone down and we had yet to even go outside. I was bound and determined however to make sure that the kids got to go sledding on New Year's Day so even though the sun had gone down...along with the temps...we still bundled up the kids and went night sledding.  Yea, it was stinkin' cold (a whopping 12 degrees and dropping) but we had the whole hill all to ourselves and it was a blast!  We have an awesome sledding hill a few blocks from our house so we didn't have to travel far.  It was great because it has little "bunny hills" for Alex and Megan to practice on, then gradually higher hills for them to sled down until we reached the top of the big hill for the real fun.  Because of the frigid temps the hill was nice and slick.  The speeds were so good that the kids went down the hill, all the way across the landing area, and then back up the bunny hills on the other side nearly going off the area all together.  I even ventured down the big hill on a sled not once but twice and loved it both times.  Alexander was so funny.  He loved going down the hills so much that most times he didn't even wait for his turn on the sled.  He would roll down the hill, slide on his tummy, or even just break out in a really fast run down the hill squealing with delight the whole way down and back up again.  He cracked me up!!!  Lizzie was there the whole time, Dakota joined us when she got back from a friend's house and Rebecca stayed home since she had already gone sledding with a friend and she was still cold.  I can't wait to go night sledding again...I will wait until the temps are a little nicer though.

Not so easy to take a picture in the dark...not so easy to have your picture taken either with the blinding flash.

Very cold but still having a good time.

Merry Christmas 2012

Not a lot to say today.  I just wanted to post an album of our wonderful Christmas day.  We began with presents and ended with a delicious Christmas dinner around the table.  We didn't have much money this year but what we did have was a store where the kids would shop for their siblings almost every day and they had fun trying to keep everything hidden.  I love my family so very much!

Kid's got the camera again!

Here are some pretty unusual pics taken by Alex and Dakota.  Again, too funny not to share.

Meg and Xander

Just thought I would share some fun random pictures taken of Alex and Megan (mostly by Alex and Megan.)  I don't take as many pictures as I used to so I love that they are making sure that I don't loose any memories.

I "Mustache" you to have a Merry Christmas!

Megan came home from Kindergarten today with this little gem.  I thought it was too cute not to add.

Decorating the Tree

Here is the photo album of the whole clan decorating this year's tree.  It is a treat to have daddy here with us this time since more often then not we decorate at night and he is usually too tired to join in.  This time he was very happy to join us.

One of Dakota's school made ornaments.

Daddy putting up one of the ornaments from his childhood.

The reindeer is eating Dakota!

Now the reindeer is eating Lizzie.

The kids wouldn't let me take any more pictures of them until I took one of myself.

Rebecca kept hiding so I had to sneak this picture of her.

Group shot (Rebecca is still hiding.)

This is their version of the Garfield Christmas special cartoon when the family sees the tree and says, "oooooo".