2007

Being the last day of the year, I wanted to write briefly about all the fun and exciting things of the year 2007. Our family has had a good year, with lots of changes and fun.

In January, our new house was finished. We closed on January 6th. It's hard to believe we've almost lived here an entire year. We love our house!



In February, Landon was born on the 19th. Obviously, this brought many changes and much excitement. We are so glad he is part of our family.



March was the month of adjusting to a newborn and new family member.



In April, Landon had thrush. To get rid of it, we had to use some nasty purple herbs that stained his face and clothes. He was our little Easter egg.

In May, we blessed Landon. It was nice to have our house big enough to entertain all the many family and friends we had over. John painted the garage two-tone, just like inside the house, and he added trim, so with space heaters it was a nice dining area. The end of the month was our trip to Indianapolis and the first time we left both kids over night.

In June, we went camping with the Butterfields. The kids both had fun. The previous year, Abby kept saying, "Home. Bath." over and over. This time she had no qualms with being covered from head to toe in dirt.

In July, we celebrated the Fourth and had another camping trip with some friends from college, the Sorensens and McMullins. In the picture, Abby was reading a book to Kimber.

In August, we had our first trip to Lake Powell with kids. We had a house boat, which made it much more comfortable for the kiddos. They both were angels and had lots of fun. Abby was nervous about the water at first, but got more brave throughout the week. She loved the beach.

In September, Abby wrote her first unassisted word (CAT), and both kids continued growing more cute every day.

October was a busy month, with Abby's 3rd birthday, a week-long trip to Snowbird, and Halloween.

November was the month we finally got the front yard done. We loved looking out the doors and windows just to take a peek at the grass, trees, and plants.

December was full of preparations for Christmas and spending time with family.

Time Away

It's amazing how important it is for my emotional state to have a little time away from the kids here and there. Last night, I had a girls' night with my sisters and some friends at my mom's house. We had dinner - we all ate way too much - then played a bunch of games. It was fun to just laugh and play without having to tend to little ones. I also slipped into a store on my way just so I could go by myself. There are times that I need more of this than others for my emotional well-being.

John is so good to watch the kids when I do these kinds of things. Sometimes it seems they all hit about the same time. Last month, there was a girls' night, Enrichment, and one other thing all in the same week. But he got the kids to bed on his own each time, and didn't complain about it. I need to remember how much he does for me, to appreciate him, and to not take him for granted. This picture shows the note he made me when he was painting the garage. Right back at you: I love you, Nun!

First Toothbrush

Landon got his first toothbrush yesterday. He loved having his teeth brushed. He giggled a few times, and then when I stopped brushing, he started crying! If only he could keep this desire throughout his life.

Flashback Friday - Disneyland

When I was almost 2 years old, my family went to Disneyland for the first time. My mom was pregnant with Amanda, so there were 4 kids that went. They had leash on me so I wouldn't wander off and get lost, but my brother Eric is the one who wandered off. Luckily he was found. Obviously, I don't remember anything about it.




The next time I went was when Abby was 4 months old. We flew to California, went to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and Disneyland. We would have loved going to the San Diego Temple, but we didn't have a babysitter. We went on the grounds anyway. Abby was an angel for the entire trip, except for Valentine's Day. We went to dinner at Olive Garden, but she wouldn't stop crying, so we took our food to go so we wouldn't continue spoiling everyone's romantic dinners. We ate at our hotel.




We let Abby have her morning nap in the stroller or front pack. She spent most of the trip in that front pack. Then we made sure to get back to the hotel for her afternoon nap. We appreciated those naps as much as her. One of the days at Disneyland, we ran into a group of teachers from the school I taught at - I was off track at the time. They had lots of Mickey statues all over for the 50 year anniversary. I loved looking at all of them.




We had a good time. I didn't go on any rides that Abby couldn't go on, but there were plenty of those. We intend to go back sometime, and I can ride more of the rides then. I love family vacations!

Christmas Celebrations

Things are calming down enough to write a little about our Christmas now. We had a nice 2 days on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. We spent most of the morning at home on Christmas Eve. After Landon's morning nap, we went to see my Grandpa and Grandma Putnam. Grandma was in the hospital all last week after problems with her pancreas, so I was very glad to be able to visit her at home instead of in the hospital. We had a nice visit.

The Butterfields (John's adopted family) had dinner together that night. After dinner, we read the Christmas story from the Bible and sang hymns at appropriate places in the reading. Tony accompanied us on the guitar. Then we exchanged gifts. They have a tradition of getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve, so Abby and Landon got their new jammies.

When we got home, we got ready for bed, read the Christmas story from Abby's children's scriptures, put our stockings on the couch for Santa to find, and went to bed. Abby was very excited, but she didn't take much longer than normal to calm down.

Christmas morning, Landon woke up at 7:30. I fed him, showered, and was just finishing my makeup when Abby got up at 8:25. This is sleeping in for her. She is usually awake by 7:30, so we got to be lazy for a little longer than normal. Abby had a ball finding everything Santa left. After looking at our stockings and the presents by them, Abby started getting presents out from under the tree. She got very good at reading who the presents were to and from. When asked what she wanted for Christmas, Abby always said, "clothes and toys," which is about what she got.

We ate breakfast - our Christmas cereal. We stopped at the Butterfield's for a few minutes to let Abby open her stocking there, then headed to my parents' house. We exchanged gifts and hung out there most of the day. Abby had lots of fun playing with her cousins. She plays so well with them now, and I hardly heard a peep from her most of the time she played. The kids had short naps there - both were interrupted because of everything going on, but at least they got a little sleep.

My father-in-law flew back from Las Vegas in the afternoon, and John went to pick him up while I stayed at my parents' to talk to my brother, Seth, who is on a mission in Roseville, California. It was nice to talk to him for a few minutes. I'm getting more excited to see him again when he comes home in June. Then we hurried home to start some dinner and straighten the house up a little. John's dad came over for dinner and presents. Then we watched the slide show I made for him. It was a nice way to end the day. By the end, we were all beat and ready to sleep.

Yesterday, I went over to my parents' house again because Abby's cousin Emma stayed the night and would be there for a little while in the morning. Since we don't see them often with them living in Logan, I wanted her to have a little more time to play. Then I stayed during naps again and played games with Charlene, my mom and dad, Joel, and his girlfriend, Ruth Ann. I put off getting the house put back together, but I wasn't able to do that again today.

I wasn't originally planning to put the Christmas decorations away today, but I was going to vacuum, mop and put all the gifts away. Since I make a mess when putting everything away, I decided to just get it done, then clean like crazy. I just finished putting all the boxes downstairs, and I'm taking a little break before starting the cleaning. It will feel good to have that all done.

One of my favorite gifts was digital scrapbooking software. I was excited to find that it also has a program that can make slide shows and burn them on DVDs. I played around with it a little, and it should be easier and faster to make and burn them in the future. I'm going to start doing a slide show for each year of our pictures. I'll just keep them simple, but put most of our pictures for one year on a disc, so we can review them later and reminisce. I'll start one for Oct. '04-'05, one for '06, and one for '07. I'm excited to get those done.

Service Project

My parents decided they don't need anything for Christmas, so they asked us all to do a service project with our families, take pictures, and write a little about what we did. Then my mom wants to scrapbook the projects. She wants it to be a tradition each year. I love the idea! It's always good to help others in some way to get in the Christmas spirit.

When we talked about what we wanted to do, we decided we wanted to help people around us. We called the bishop and asked if there was anything we could do for people in our ward. At first, he said the youth are always jumping on any service project that comes up. We asked if maybe we could get some gifts or food for some families. He said there were some families that could use some Christmas dinner. We decided to put together some Christmas dinner baskets for 2 families. The bishop said we could just take them to his house, he could deliver them, and it would stay anonymous.

We went shopping last week for Family Home Evening. We got ham, potatoes, stuffing, rolls, corn, apple cider, and baskets to put it all in. It ended up being too late by the time we got home to put it together, take it to the bishop, and leave time for the bishop to deliver them. So we stashed everything in our fridge and freezer until Saturday, when the bishop had time to take care of them. Luckily, we have an extra fridge in the garage. Abby was disappointed we weren't doing the baskets right away. She was excited to put everything in the baskets.


After choir practice on Saturday, we put the food together, then took them to the bishop's house. It feels good knowing that it will help 2 families in our ward. It would be hard to not have a nice meal for Christmas. We are truly blessed in our lives, and we enjoyed sharing with others.