The Good, The Bad, and The Hopeful

My dear Year 2012,
        We started out the beginning of you by lining our little town streets in red, white, and blue to honor our fallen hero taken from this world by the actions of another.  Our eyes were wet as we drove around that day.  Then we ended you by lining our little town once again, but only with pink to honor the little one taken from this world by the actions of another.  Our eyes are wet again as we drive around.  And each month in between was filled with some failings and some stress and some hard work and some joys and some lessons learned.  With everything that we experienced this year we have a deeper love for our Savior Jesus Christ and his Atonement, we have hope in Him.  We know the tremendous healing power that fasting, prayer, and priesthood blessings can bring.  We have our family and our home and our gospel and we have hope in these things and are happy because of these things.  You were a trying year and I am glad that you are almost over.  To Year 2013, please be awesome.

Sincerely,
Jewels

These scary things

The area in which we live is also a nice place for these crows to live also.  There are so many of them at times that they darken the skies.  They especially love this time of year where it snows and melts and then snows again.  They scare me. I have never been very fond of birds, they are cute from a distance and I love the songs they sing, but they also give me the chills when they get too close.  But these crows are big and scary and sound awful when they crow, that's why I took a picture of them from inside my house.

Rare Opportunities

Last night my friend called me because she had an extra ticket to the Music and the Spoken Word/Christmas Program at the LDS Conference Center for this morning.  I have watched it on TV before, but have never had tickets to go see it live and in person.  It was absolutely amazing.  Alfie Boe was their guest singer and he sang many songs including Bring Him Home, which sounds WAY better in the center than on this video. Which is still really good. What a beautiful song.  The performance was fantastic.

Feet can barely touch the ground

Our little little Christmas tree.  Cost: $15.00  Setup time: 3 min  Decorating time: 5 min. Truly a very simple Christmas this year.

the bells are ringing out

Obviously I need a little help changing my blog header.  I always forget what I need to do to make the picture smaller and I feel really computer illiterate when I try to read the help columns.  Maybe later I will be able to get it all figured out.  But for now, it will have to do.

I printed off some free printables for my easel.  I love how chalkboard is totally in this year, but was it ever really out?  I have had chalkboards all over my house for years now and I feel like they never go out of style.  So here is my little easel.  Isn't he cute?

Eme came home from school with a new instrument to practice.  The infamous recorder.  I will never forget how awesome it was to bring home a recorder from school and get to "practice at home" every night.  It's so awesome now to see how excited she is to be doing the same thing I did when I was her age.

Stillness

There is just something that I love about how calming and still and dark the nights are at Christmas time.  The house is quiet and the lights give off their glow.  It is magical.

the fun he has with a camera

Ignore the date on the picture, these were actually taken on December 3rd

Just random ramblings

Been decorating for Christmas, realizing I have WAY too much stuff so I asked myself on each thing "do I really love this and if I do, do I have a perfect spot for it?" if no was said just once for that question it went into the donation bag.  I filled the bag!  I am almost done with the decorating, just need to go to the store, again, for replacement lights.  And then we can go and get our tree.  I'm wanting a tree similar to the one we had last year, it was a little shorter and much easier to decorate.  And this year I want to put it in an old metal mop bucket I found at a yard sale.  We'll see how it goes.

My boys turned 13 and 5 years old yesterday and the day before.  I'm in a little bit of shock that I have an official teenager and my youngest is 5.  It's a bit scary, but I like it.  Being a mother is certainly an adventure.

I finally got some of our family photos framed.  I found this music stand, although I didn't realize it was a music stand when I found it also at the same yard sale where I found the mop bucket.  I thought it would make a great picture frame and it does.

Emeline's Christmas Neighborhood homes

My Christmas Neighborhood

And the stockings were hung... Although they belong to Seiyon, Mom, Avrie, Victoria and Kendall.

 Need to search the internet for ideas on what I want to do with this little thing. Oh how I love pinterest. I'll take an after picture when it is all finished.