What We Did...

I wasn't very good at blogging during the month of December, I would like to say that it was because I was super busy and just didn't have time to...but the real reason was that I just didn't feel like it most of the time.  I didn't feel like doing much of anything I was in a real bad mood for most of the month and it was all I could do to keep going.  But here is a look at what we did manage to get done.

First off, here is Lexie with here Principal's Award, think honor roll, she was one of only SEVEN kids to get a 4.0 first quarter.  Lexie is going to be one busy girl in 2012.  She was transferred from regular math to advanced math because of her grades from last quarter.  She had the highest grade in all of her teachers classes.... 97.8%  She's a bit behind and is having to work double hard to catch up, but it will be good for her in the long run.

 Second she was asked to join the band by her music teacher for first quarter who is also the band teacher.  She decided that she wanted to play the french horn.  I am happy for her because she really like it so far, but once again she is WAY behind the other kids, they have already been playing since the beginning of the year and she is starting from scratch now.  And the fact that she picked one of the hardest instruments to learn how to play isn't helping either but she will get there.  They have their first concert next week and she can't really play any of the songs but she is practicing her heart out and giving it her best, which is all that I can ask of her.  Good thing that she is such a hard worker and is excited to do all of these new things...
Now here are a few things that we did between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We decorated the Christmas tree I tried really hard to just let the kids do it and not go back and fix everything.

 

 

In the end it looked really good.

We made cookies a few times mostly as it got closer to Christmas... we made gingerbread cookies from scratch.  The kids really enjoyed it.

On Christmas Eve we made these candy cane cookies for santa, they were really fun to make, I think that it will become a tradition to make these every year.

They even tasted pretty good.  

We weren't able to go back to Utah for Christmas and I think that everybody would have really like to but Ashton was the most upset.  We skyped with Grandma and Grandpa Taylor on Christmas Eve to open our Christmas jammies and it made Ashton very homesick for Utah.  This was how I found him after we were finished.

But overall we had a GREAT Christmas. 

More Christmas pictures coming soon......

Merry Christmas!

This would have been the Christmas card I sent to friends and family if I had not been in such a funk lately and gotten it ordered.  But since it didn't happen here it is in digital form for all to enjoy.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Friendship

I'm not sure why I am writing about this here, but I just had the feeling that I should so here it goes.  One of my best friends called me yesterday to tell me the good news that she is pregnant.  I was truly happy for her and her family.  She is a great mother and adding one more child to her family is wonderful.  She is due just 10 days after I would have been due so it was a little bitter sweet for me.  She has known for a while that she was pregnant, but they didn't know when she was due so they waited to tell people until they had an ultrasound so that they had a due date. We already have 2 kids that are really close in age so it would have been fun to have another, but it isn't to be.  And I am okay with that, mostly.  I could only see one way to respond to her news and that was to be happy for her.  I realize that how we react to certain situations affects others and I couldn't dim her happiness because of something that I can't change.  I love her too much to harbor bad feelings for something that isn't her fault-or my fault for that matter.  She told me that she was so glad that I wasn't upset because she was really nervous telling me.  Which is understandable because it can be a really touchy subject.  Past experiences that I would never want to repeat (but that I am thankful for now) taught me that friends and friendship are too important to put aside because someone's feeling got hurt by something that can't be changed.