San Diego

The most beautiful temple in the world!!! (At least in my opinion!)

I could sit on the dock all day and just enjoy the scenery!

The picture above was from the airplane window as we were flying out of San Diego.  It was sunny and warm... we didn't even need a jacket!

The picture below is from the airplane window as we were flying into Salt Lake.  Needless to say, my little jacket was not enough to keep me warm.

I'm already missing Point Loma... we spend a good portion of our San Diego vacations at this wonderful little place!

So much snow!

These kids can't get enough of the snow!  Snowball fights, snow towers, and lots of sledding!  I'm glad they love the snow but I'm ready for spring (it's going to be a long couple of months I think).

Christmas Cheer

Isn't it great that they make feet-y jammies in big kid sizes?  I found these at Target and my kids think they're awesome!  I don't think they've worn feet-y jammies since they were four years old!

I loved waking up Sunday morning and seeing Jackson cozied up in a blanket, with his feet-y jammies, messed-up bed head playing Mario Kart!  He's practicing A LOT so he can beat his dad (Jared is the KING of Mario Kart).

Watching ELF in feet-y jammies, next to the Christmas tree with a big cozy blanket and hot chocolate... what a PERFECT night!  Chase, however, was just being annoying.  He kept trying to dig us out from under the blanket-- he couldn't understand that we were there on purpose.

Welcome Home Keith!

My good friend Kerrilyn has been without a husband for almost a year (and I thought I had it bad when Jared was gone 4 months...).  Her hubby is in the Navy and has been serving our country in Iraq for several months.  Last night he got to come back home!    Their streets were lined up and down with flags, they had banners, balloons, and decorations all over!  I can only imagine the feeling at the airport last night!

WELCOME HOME KEITH! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you for serving our country! 

My Cousin Jason

This is a hard subject to blog about.  My aunt Lynnie did it perfectly on her blog so I just copied her post to my blog.  

Links:  

Lynnie's blog

Jason's Obituary

Precious child, beautiful man, beloved soul. . .

Nothing is so strong as gentleness

and

nothing is so gentle as real strength.

There are no goodbyes, wherever you'll be,

you'll be in my heart.

-Gandhi

In Case You Wanted to Know

I liked Twilight a lot.  I want to see it again but I'm having a hard time convincing Jared to see it.  I love the soundtrack to the movie-- it's my new running music.  I also learned that I'm too old for a midnight movie... it took me 4 days to recover from it!  Anyway... in case you wanted to know.

Happy Birthday Jackson!

How is it even possible that I am the mother of not just one 9-year old... but two 9-year olds? Time flies SO fast! This is Jackson's FAVORITE part of having a birthday... picking out of Grandma's money jar (there are NO pennies in the money jar-- just silver coins). They get one try and there's no scooping allowed... just reach in and pull out as much as you can. Jackson's at a good point right now because his hand is big enough to get quite a haul but not too big that it gets stuck on the way out.

The grown-ups (yes, I AM considered one of the grown-ups) don't get to do the money jar. Except one year my mom had a contest on Thanksgiving with all the grown-ups and the person who pulled out the most money got to keep their haul. Of course I won! I pulled a whopping $26 or something like that! Awesome. (Note to mom: Let's try that again this year.)

Jackson had the BEST idea for a birthday party. He wanted to go bowling and he only wanted to invite one friend and his cousins. It was SUPER fun for the kids and SUPER easy for mom and dad! Jackson even got a bowling pin for all of his party guests to sign! We brought in pizza, Sprite and cupcakes and the kids had so much fun!