San Diego Get Away

I have such a fantastic Husband who allows me to take time away with my friends. My girlfriend Dannie and I did a quick trip to San Diego the first part of May. I had never been and had such a great time. We actually were there only 24 hours, literally. We flew in and picked up our rental car around 11:00 and dropped it off the next morning at the same time. I was amazed at how much we saw and did in that amount of time. When you don't have kids in tow you really can pack the day. The only thing we didn't do was Sea World, but I think it is something I would enjoy more sharing with my girls.

Nature Center

For Skye's birthday gift her Grandma gave her a membership to the Ogden Nature Center. Perfect to add to her bird theme birthday. I am sad to say that we haven't taken enough advantage of it. They have really great classes on Wednesdays for the kids, unfortunately this is when I am at work. The girls had a great time when we went this particular day. They saw rabbits and deer, and plenty of birds.

Skye Turns Six

I think it is so fun to see what my girls choose for their themes when it is their birthday. Well, Skye chose to have a bird theme party, where this idea came from I really don't know, but once she decided she didn't change her mind in the slightest. It turned out to be pretty cute, aside from the fact it was a bit challenging to come up with ideas. Bird theme birthday parties wasn't something I could easily google. The kids decorated little wooden bird houses, and played games like feeding the bird gummy worms. In so many ways it seems just like yesterday, but it has been a full year.

Blog- a-thon

I think this picture pretty well describes Mine and Isaac's two greatest joys. We are soon to add another to the mix and I figure it's about time I catch up on my journaling. I have this problem moving forward if I haven't kept up and I really would hate for another year to fly by that I didn't keep record of.

2009

I seriously cannot believe how fast this year has flown. It makes me sad to think that another year has past in the lives of my fast growing children. I am reminded at how terrible I am at recording our history and realize the importance of recording our lives. It is fun to look back at the memories we have created and the pictures I may or may not have taken and know now how much I have neglected recording these fleeting moments. I downloaded my camera the other day and it was so sad to say that I still had last Christmases pictures on it and everything in between now and then. I have come to the reality that life will not slow down in order for me to catch up, it only seems to get busier and busier, if I am going to get it done, I just have to do it! So here's to starting my new 2010 goal...keeping better record.

In order to feel I have a "fresh" start, I must record the highlights from 2009.

Someday!

Someday I will download pictures from my camera and make a record of our happenings.  Someday.

Thoughts by Charli

We have been trying to take the kids and dogs for a walk every night to "magic" park.  On the way its a wonderful time to visit with the girls.  The other night Charli and I were walking hand in hand and she asks me. "Mom, when I was in your stomach, did I explode it because I was growing so fast?"  She proceeds to tell me what is was like to be inside my stomach, "It felt so right, like I was finally alive and I could feel my heart start beating!"  Charli is a very observant little character, and I was really taken back by her comment. 

 We often find ourselves giggling and at the silly things she says and does.  Often times when we are walking she is talking constantly...so much that I have to tell her to take a breath.  Her personality has changes drastically from when she was an infant.  She was very quiet and easy going, and leery of people she didn't know.  Today, she is much the opposite with bounce and zeal,  she talks openly with people she doesn't know, and is continually teasing her bigger sister.  (Good thing Charli is the younger, not older sister).  

UPDATE ME!

Update me please!  Life is flying,  kids are growing, and I have not taken one moment or one picture to record our Herrera Happenings, and sadly the desire is about as strong as my desire to go to work today.  Urgh.

STARS

Charli was sick with a stomach bug a couple weeks ago, and I went to the store to get a few things that feel "not so bad" on a sick stomach.  I ended up buying a can of "Chicken and Stars" soup.  Well, it has sat in our cupboard with small pleas from Skye, "Can I please have some star soup".   Isaac fed the girls a early dinner, so when I got home from work they were hungry once again.  I caved and gave the girls the soup.  You thought they had died at gone to heaven.  They were so excited and then Charli asked me, "Do they have to kill stars, to make star soup?"  Then she proceeded to look out the window and admire the stars up in the night sky, with the look of  , "How do they do it?"  

New Year Resolutions!

I have yet to even upload pictures from Christmas day, and record the memories which came along with it, the whole purpose of my blogging.  Yet, more often then not I wish to blog about other things.

I don't know if many of you have seen this manuel or not, but it is fabulous in my eyes.  It is the new nursery manuel the church put out and it is amazing.  I secretly wanted to go back into teaching in the nursery, just so I could use it with the kids.  Anyhow, it is so simple to use, it has everything you need, right where you need it, including lesson pictures, art projects, and songs.  

I bought one for our family and wrapped it up, along with some other church related gifts.  On the night of Christmas day, after all the unwrapping and toy playing, I got my girls together and talked with them once again, about what Christmas is really about.  I told them that Jesus had a gift for each of them, and I let them unwrap their gifts.  It was nice after all the chaos of the day, to bring the focus where it should be. 

I often feel like I fall far behind on the numerous things that I would like to be accomplishing.  Well, this New Years I made a resolution, not to pressure myself, not to add to the list of "I didn't do's".  I made one resolution, and that was to have a family home evening lesson every week with my girls.  I decided to use the new manuel "Behold your Little Ones", as our outline.  It has made it so simple and flawless.  I just add to it to make it more age appropriate. 

In just the past few weeks, this one change has allowed for so many other things to fall into place.  This is just another testimony of where our priorities need be.

New Year!

Well, the laundry is finally caught up, and now it's time to catch up on what has been going on around here.  I am just beginning to feel under control from the Christmas after math.  Can you believe it has already been over two weeks?  I still have gifts that are not delivered.  I am grateful that the weather shows no snow removal needed this week, and maybe just maybe I might have time to figure out how to use my new Christmas gift.  It was a Christmas of pictures.  I received several framed pictures along with a digital picture frame.  Now I just have to give myself sometime to get our Holiday pictures downloaded and posted.

The spirit of Christmas.

I have been so busy, it has been difficult for me to get into the spirit of the season. My mother, who I love dearly, decided to start a scrapbook for my father for Christmas. He is 70 years old, and those of you who scrapbook know that trying to do 70 years in a short period of time is asking for trouble. She brought stuff to my house on the 13th of December and it has been madness since. I should be working on it now. Well, among all the madness I did decide to take the girls, with my mothers help to the dollar store. Skye lost a second tooth and had money to buy gifts for her family. It was so fun watching each of my girls pick gifts for their family members. Charli picked a small bowling set for both her Grandpa and Dad, and as we were wrapping them last night she said "These are awesome! They are going to think they are so cool!" I loved seeing how excited they were about their thoughtful gifts. I can't wait to see their reactions when they give them. The funny thing was I took the girls at different times, so they wouldn't see what they got for each other. They both ended up picking the exact same gift for each other, and it wasn't even in the toy area. I thought that was rather interesting. This has been my favorite part of the season, along with the singing of "What Child is this?" in church. How I love that song, and Eva Barnett has such a beautiful voice. I got poor Skye's dress wet from tears.

Cookies

I usually don't mind doing a batch of Christmas sugar cookies, but this year I couldn't find the desire or time. The girls were persistent they needed to make cookies for Santa and I finally caved. They only believe for a short time. It ends up that I am now hosting Christmas for my family because of the bad weather coming. Three big parties within a month, should do me in. So baking found a purpose. I made what I needed and basically let the girls have at it with their baking frenzie, an entire bottle of sprinkles later, we find a plateful of cookies only a magical Santa Claus could eat.

Santa

With Isaac working Graves we literally rarely see him, unless we disturb his sleep. Well, last week we woke him up and headed to see the much anticipated Santa Clause. We took them to the Christmas village in Ogden to see him. It is cute with little village houses filled with holiday delights among an array of Christmas lights. The girls were beside themselves with excitement and could hardly wait to see him. After waiting in line you finally step inside this little house where Santa is. We were going to pay to have their picture taken with him, needless to say they both had complete stage fright. Isaac still placed Charli on his lap against her will. Why? Skye didn't step foot near him until he tried a little charm. Needless to say, no Santa picture this year. They did enjoy some hot cocoa and seeing the Christmas Village. This was our one and only big night out for the holidays.

The busiest time of the year!

I had my mind set well before Thanksgiving that I was going to make this a fun filled Christmas, achieving everything in my hearts desire (which included making a few gifts for my girls). Well, it is the night before Christmas eve, and what was accomplished was minimal. Shopping was done in a timely manner, I hate crowds. I made the mistake of heading to Walmart the Saturday before Thanksgiving, with two children that could be considered a prison sentence. What was I thinking? It took me a week to recover from hosting Thanksgiving dinner for my family. I was all gun ho to get my tree up and start decorating the weekend following Thanksgiving. I do love my home decorated for the holidays, too bad it took me until the 20th to complete. I was hosting Isaac's family Christmas party and figured I should finish what I started.  Well, as you can see my goals were not met, but a lesson has been learned, or should I say relearned, what Christmas is truly about, our Savior, Jesus Christ.