I am thankful for. . . . SCRAPBOOK OVERNIGHTERS!

I don’t really remember how we got them started, but I love scrapbook overnighters. Every month Mom, Katie, Tara, Alla, and I would get together and scrapbook the night away—literally! Well it has branched out more so we have more people who join us that night. I love this night of sheer fun and therapy. It is always a joy for me to just spend time with those around me. I especially love spending that time with my mom. She and I seem to always be the last awake and I love our late night talks. She is wonderful. I also have to send a big thanks to all the hubbies who don’t make a fuss about letting us borrow their wives for the evening. Thanks and happy scrapping! These are the layouts i accomplished on Friday and of course no journaling is done haha.

2009

There are many things that I want to do better at especially this year, but with my New Year's resolutions I do not want to make a big list and try to do the impossible. I am pretty good at over estimating time for things. A couple of my resolutions this year involve:

*CHURCH--I have definitely been a slacker in a couple of areas so I hope to improve that. Most of them include personal and spiritual growth so I am working on those. Also Jake and I have set a goal to read the scriptures together every night. We are reading in the Doctrine and Covenants. We haven't been doing too bad. Jake has been such a good sport about it, even when I get off work late (like 2AM etc). He is always willing to read with me. I have noticed a huge difference already in my attitude and it makes me very happy. I look forward to continue reading with him.

*PEAK--I am hoping to join the Peak this next week. I am very excited to do so for a couple of reasons. First of all I need to get into better shape and to develop the habit again of working out. Also I think I want to try yoga, pilates, and do lap swimming. I haven't done them before but they sound fun to me.

*ME--When the boys got in their wreck I took it pretty hard. As weird as it may sound the thing I learned from that experience was that I needed to do more things for me. I am not as fun as I used to be and I am pretty uptight. I need to learn to relax and to take care of me too. this year I want to enjoy life a little bit more and to do more exciting things, and take on opportunities that come my way. I want to smile more this year and to laugh at silly things.

*JOURNAL--THis is like therapy to me. I am able to clear my mind before bed and I sleep better when I journal. I am hoping to take more time to journal and to do it every night. There are so many memories that I would like to remember and I have missed several because I didn't journal because I "would remember it." I don't want to regret not writing anything else down so I hope to journal.

*I also find myself not being very good at letter writing. I do not always send thank you notes like I should or keep in touch like I should. I want this year to focus more and to show more appreciation to those around me. I also want to be able to recognize the wonderful things around me and to also count my blessings. My goal starting tomorrow will be to start a Thankful blog entry everyday. I want to have a year full of things and people I am grateful for. Things that I may take for granted, but am appreciative of. I am sorry if I bore you with my entries, but I want to constantly be looking for the beauty that surrounds me.

I wish you all luck in your resolutions and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Talk about put on the spot

I serve in the primary at the church so I am with the children between the ages of 3-12 years old. I absolutely love it and the children always make me smile. Well as I was leaving church Jake and I were holding hands. We started out the foyer door and little Ethan who is about 5 looked at us holding hands. He then asked Jake very seriously, "Did you marry her?" We both just laughed. It was too cute!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

If anyone has a chance to get out and go to the movies I definitely recommend this movie. Jake and I went to this on Saturday and we both absolutely LOVED it! It was soo good and just a feel good movie that makes you think . I wouldn't say it is a chick flick, it was just really good! Go see it!

Merry and Bright

My Christmas was an excellent one! I was grateful for so many things, especially that we received a white Christmas this year! I have to say that I missed all the snow. In the morning I had to run outside and take a picture of the new fallen snow before anybody made tracks in the snow. Here is our house covered in the snow.
We have many family traditions especially during Christmas time. For one tradition we always go to Jeff and Katie's house and eat Vaughan Enchiladas for dinner. This year we had extra guests as the Roberts, Parkers, Jake, and Holly (Barrett's girlfriend) joined us. The grandkids spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house and we get to watch A Christmas Story. This year the Vaughan girls wore matching candy cane socks to dinner!
Another tradition that I enjoy is that Grandpa always reads us the Christmas story from Luke. I hear it every year, but something always seems to hit me each year. This year I really reflected on what a great man Joseph must have been. I gained a greater respect and understanding, and appreciation for his faithfulness and dedication to Mary and Baby Jesus. What an amazing man! Well before we started with the story we were trying to get everyone gathered in the living room and to get all the little kids to be quiet. All of a sudden we heard this choking noise behind us. It was Dad. He had one of Katie's decorative trees and by the position that we were at it looked like he was swallowing it (if Katie sends me the pic I will post it). He acted like those guys who swallow fire and did it with the tree. However it started showing up behind his head. Katie jokingly screamed, "It is coming out of the back of his head someone call 911!" Jordan who was sitting on the floor grabbed Parker's play phone and pretended to call 911. It was so funny. So much for there being any reverence for the story. Haha.
I went with Jake to his Mom's house and we took pictures. Below is a picture of Jake, Gus (Jake's little brother), and me.
This is Jake's youngest brother Danny.
Jake and me

Christmas Morning was full of fun memories. We had the stockings hung. They are also hung on another window shelf on the other side of the room. However this picture shows you Mom and Dad's GIANT stockings! Talk about high hopes--jk.
Dad was a lot of fun this year. He was pretty funny. Well during this picture he had his stocking as you can see, but he yelled, "I am going in!" and pretended to dive into his stocking to get his gifts and goodies.

Santa was pretty nice to Danika. I swear this dog is truly loved aka. very spoiled. As you can see she has a front row seat to the fire. She also received a stocking full of dog bones, you can see the little bone in front of her.
We had to get her in the Christmas spirit. Last year we tried a rudolph nose and she was not game with that at all. This year she did better with her little hats. Might I add, these are all actually Dad's hats. Every year Dad gets a new santa hat and he definitely finds the coolest ones.
While the family was over and we were opening presents, Danika started to get a little nervous so she crawled onto Mom's lap.
She received her very own GIANT candy cane rawhide bone. She was hilarious as she protected this bone. If somebody tried to get it she would pick it up to walk away with it, but due to the large size she would be lopsided and wouldn't make it very far.
She even received her very own Santa Baby, which she has taken very good care of.

Mom and Dad went to Home Depot this year to get our tree.
and like every year Mom did a beautiful job of decorating our Christmas tree.
Another tradition we have involves the ornaments. We are German and the germans have a pickle tradition. A pickle ornament is hidden in the tree and whoever finds it first gets an extra gift. We always get the pickle gift as our last gift. Jordan found it this year and Jarom opened the gift. Also Mom does her own tradition of always buying a new ornament every year. She buys seven of the ornaments and puts them on the tree. We look and find the new ornament before we open presents. Mom buys so many so that when we get married and set up our own Christmas trees we will already have ornaments for our tree. So we will have a tree full of memories from growing up. These were our ornaments this year.
Dad had this awesome Mistletoe hat so Jake and I decided it would be fun to use for pictures! Geez Jake doesn't look like a happy camper. You would think he would be more excited to get free kisses.
My mistletoe shirt





I hope you all had a Very Merry Christmas and enjoyed your holidays!!!

Prom time again

Well it is prom time again so I had a couple girls who asked if I would do their hair. Poor little Lizer was unable to make it because she was sick and had an injury to her foot. Kylie and Caitlyn came and both seemed to be happy with their hair when they left. Since they were at the house I also did their makeup for them to save them some time. I hope you girls had fun that night!

Two years

I tried to find my file on the computer, but couldn't so this is going to have to work. I think we look so weird in this picture, but anyway. . . THis is Jake and me on our first date two years ago today! I may post more later on today.