12 Days of Christmas!

"Is this lady losing it??" - YES!

We have FOREVER until Christmas but I realized that you only see the best ideas for Christmas usually AFTER you need them! So I thought I'd post 12 days worth of fun ideas!

Don't you love this advent calendar?? Click here to see better photos!

Talk about cute little treats for your kids class! The instructions are by Nicole Anderson:
*Royal Biscuits - couple of packets
*melting chocolate
*pretzals (broken)
*glazed Cherries (chopped in half)
*dried blue berries - you could use your currents if you wanted to.

Melt chocolate, dunk the royal in it - attach glazed cherry as nose, blue berrys for eyes, pretzal as antlers. put in firdge to set!!

Halloween Letters

I've been holding down the fort for the last week and a half while my parents were off playing in Europe and decided to finally finish my Halloween letters while I was stuck here at the house!

Kya, of course, did not want to be left out during crafts so she painted this lovely haunted house. Her carebear now sleeps in it and she wakes up every morning yelling "BOO!" into it to "wake him up." ha!

Quick Rewind

It's been forever since I've posted and even really read anyone's blog! Maybe I'm still in my funk?! Who knows... meanwhile, I doubt anyone is even reading anymore!

We loved having my nephew, Austen, out for a weekend to check out Stanford. Hopefully he loves the Bay Area as much as we do!!

Spent the weekend cruising the city and I love this shot of Hal running around with Kya.

We took a quick trip back to Utah for Ben's wedding (I'll have to get photos up) and had an incredible time catching up with some great, great old friends.
We really needed that trip. I got to spend some quality time with my sisters-in-law who I love. I needed the talks, laughs, and just time to feel sane again. We really miss you guys!
I was driving around and had to snap these shots to remember how I felt. It was so rejuvinating to visit family and see the bigger picture in life again! Sometimes I feel swept up in the day-to-day out here along with everyone else (and I vowed to try not to when we moved out here!!!). Why in the world should I care if my purse or hair color isn't right??? I actually LOVE my silver strands! (ok, ask me in 5 years, though)

So I loved these scenes. Something simpler, something more to life...It reminded me of all the things I truly value.

Cutting Edge!

HUGE VICTORY TODAY!

Over the last two years, it's been interesting to see the effects of her surgeries and her confidence in her fine motor skills is slightly hindered.

Kya has been refusing to cut or use scissors -- EVER. Today was the first day she willingly tried it with her new little left-handed ones.

I can't even begin to tell you how proud I was of her and how excited I was to see this! I absolutely fell in love with her little chop job!! Is this not hilarious?!

I was SO proud of her. Here is her commentary:

"Mom! I am great! I thought in my heart I was worser!"

And here is the little artist proud of her work.
Here are some other Kya-flip-flop-isms that always bust me up:

"Candy-cotton" = cotton candy

"print paws" = paw prints

"Headfore" = forehead

The last one was HILARIOUS because she fell asleep at her desk watching a video and literally zonked, fell over, knocking her head on her table making a nice goose-egg. Poor kid. Then I heard "my headfore" hurts all day long...

Powerful Moment

WSJ - August 22, 2008

Fell in love with this photo. I've looked at it several times since I read the article.

But the opening paragraph said it all:

"In stifling heat, she finished first against opponents clad in bikini-like uniforms."

I've thought a lot about the symbolism of this shot. Not only the increase in presence of women in the olympics, but also of her ability to hold to her values and race shoulder to shoulder. She stands out and I absolutely love that. I won't even go into my thoughts - you can form your own just by looking at the photo.

I believe that in some regard, we can each see a portion of ourself in her. Or even a hope of what we can become...

Major Blogging Funk

Ok all, I am in a MAJOR blogging funk this month. Even I'm annoyed when I log onto my site!! AGHhhh! So here is a random fact I liked as I was sitting on my butt watching Hal workout and listening to Influencer...

Daniel Gilbert:

"...most research subjects strongly belive that another $30K a year in income would make them much happier.

And they feel equally strongly that adding a 30-minute walk to their daily routine would be of trivial import.

And yet Dr. Gilbert's research suggests that the added income is far less likely to produce an increase in happiness than the addition of a regular walk."