a blended life

We had a great Christmas holiday-complete with my Washington sister and her girls who spent the week with us. We have a tradition of having an anything-goes-style buffet on Christmas Eve. This year's fine cuisine: Tater tot casserole, 7 layer dip, spinach artichoke dip, fudge, chicken nuggets, olives, and chocolate pie. Santa FINALLY came. It was a long month waiting for him (her)! "I'm so happy I could hug my sister!" "Me too" I love Christmas so much more with kids around to enjoy it...the whole month long experience is so much fun with little kids. We've had a TON of snow this month, so one must make a snow-woman, Frostina. My favorite are the green olive eyes. She's so beautiful.

I don't normally post four times in one night, nor do I usually post things that aren't directly related to me or my kids (only because I know most of you are reading this to keep up with my girls). Someone shared this link with me and I laughed all day, so I wanted to share. I think it's the drawings that make it so funny. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com (there is one instance of an "s" word. Consider yourself warned, but don't be too scared.) Enjoy and Merry Christmas, faithful readers!! We are having a full house here and my kids a shivering with excitement. I'm a bit worn out, but overall it's been a great month.

So, I lived in Cache County for 8 years and got several feet of snow every year while Utah county got little. Now I live in Utah county, got several feet of snow while Cache County got little. Doesn't anyone else notice a disturbing trend? I think it's a message to me, "It's time to learn to ski already." I like this picture because my mom cleared away a little table for the bird seed they put out every winter. There's a whole community of birds that visit the backyard. It's kind of cool and amusing, for a few minutes. You can't really tell, but there's a trampoline back there that got blown across the yard in the middle of the night during the thunderstorm that happened before this business: I spent quite a while digging out the car before someone told me school was canceled. That white car isn't mine, by the way.

Ooh, another bad image. I'm getting good at these. Although very well written, this book is forgettable. Sort of coming of age, like most of the Newberry winners, but I still couldn't tell you much about it. Meh. Read something else.

Wow-that's a bad image. Don't let that scare you away! This short, 130+ page book was so endearing and sweet. I'm not generally a very gushy, corny person, but this book was precious. Lucky is a 10 year old girl whose mother died a few years ago and she's going through a bit of an identity crisis. I loved that I finally read a book that I could recommend to the resource kids that I work with-short, straight forward, and with a great message.

The poetry of the population of men Largely bores me. Reading this book was a chore of eighty pages. When will it be done? It makes you wonder Who chooses these awardings to one undeserving. And why write a poem Especially a haiku When not about nature?

Attention faithful blog readers: This post includes to very short videos of Hannah doing ballet. Unless you are a grandma, favorite aunt or other close family member, please don't feel any obligation to watch them. I recognize how boring these things can get, so I'll see you at the next post! My favorite part of the first one, aside from Hannah dancing (of course!), is when the mom at the left kept "kicking" her daughter back into the dance. In the second one, we get an enormous smile right at the end. Swoon!