Christmas Letter

Reflecting on 2011


January: Kendra's last semester in pre-school; Mark and Kendra sang at church


February: 9 year anniversary, Yeah!

March: Kristi attended 3 baby showers for sisters in our ward; and she discovered a kidney stone; we built a grow-box, but the garden was a total failure :-(


April: Pics with the Easter bunny; Kristi's Easter feast with our neighbors


May: Disneyland; Mark's birthday


June: Kendra turned 5; Megan turned 2; Mark flew to CA for a buddy's wedding; Kristi went backpacking with the MiaMaids from church; Mark goes camping with Kendra (not over-night)


July: Mark's family reunion, Kristi's family reunion (same trip!)


August: Galloping Grace (free horse riding) for the girls; Kendra began Kindergarten (we love her teacher, Mrs. Clink!)


September: Megan began attending a music class; Mark had a great idea of having bees in our backyard...until he was stung


October: School carnival; Halloween


November: Kristi's birthday; Thanksgiving with Mark's parents in St. George, UT


December: Christmas with Kristi's parents in Oregon

We have so much to be thankful for. It's nice to reflect on the year and remember the experiences. It's especially nice to reflect on the times with friends from this and years past. We are thankful for our family, both immediate and extended. We are especially grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jingle Bells

Megan loves to sing Christmas songs. My favorite is when she does this in the store.

Gingerbread Houses

Mark's family has a tradition of doing graham cracker houses at Christmas time. We invited our neighbors over to do it with us.

She made a train.

This is our neighbor's little boy - he's two.

Megan's squish face and the house she made.


Our neighbor made a manger.

Mark's castle.

Kendra's house.

Mine looks so awesome!

Letter To Santa

I saw a blog where a mom did a "letter to santa" party for her girls. I wanted to do one too! But I did it for my girls and the neighbors. First they wrote a letter to santa, and then they decorated gingerbread cookies and drank hot cocoa.

Megan had a hayday with the candy - I eventually moved it from her grasp.

Table setting - thankyou to all those creative bloggers!

Snow Day

When it snows in Albuquerque it usually melts within a few hours. For that reason we take advantage of it while we can!

This is a ton of snow for us to get - especially in early December. Kendra's school was cancelled so we had loads of fun.

Santa

Why are my children scared of Santa? I told Kendra she could eat her candy cane that Santa handed to each kid if she'd just go up there. Megan began to cry when Santa talked to her so he just focused on Kendra after that.

We found Santa at the festival of trees. The line was super short with only a few kids ahead of us.

I was surprised that Kendra even talked to Santa because she did not want to see him. The awful things I force my children to do!

Now she knows Santa is nice so perhaps next year I'll get a pic of her on his lap.

Smarty Pants

Kendra received an award today for being "proficient". Basically she is passing Kindergarten. She was VERY excited to get an award and ran to me and hugged me tightly after it was done. I was glad I went.

It's official...I hate my camera. It has problems and it wouldn't take a picture on her way up. I took like 10 seconds before it took a picture. Oh well. Her teacher is the one on the very left and next to her is the assistant principal.

Kendra all happy showing her award.


The two girls next to Kendra are the other ones that received the proficient award. They compete with eachother on counting and reading. Kendra is the quiet competitor her teacher told us.

Veterans Day

We spent Veterans Day making sugar cookies. It was very messy, but the girls had fun. When Kendra has a day off of school it's a special day so we do something fun together.

Megan

I tried to secretly videotape Megan as her elephant and dolphin talked to eachother. This is what happened:

Galloping Grace Pumpkin Patch

A lizard ran into our house and Mark was able to catch it. The girls got to pet it. Life is good.

A couple of weeks before Halloween Mark went shooting with his buddies. My friend and I went to a free pumpkin farm while they were gone. It was run by a non-profit organization. The way the make money is if you buy a pumpkin from them.

They got their faces painted like butterflies.
The girls and their friend posing with their pumpkins.

A hay bale maze - like a corn maze - but on a smaller scale.

"mommy push me" said in a whiny voice.

Megan on her tractor.

Kendra and her friend.

Megan playing with the duckies on one end...

Kendra sending them down on the other.

Halloween

Kendra's school had a carnival a couple of weeks before Halloween. The only thing the girls wanted to do was get their hair painted.

Mark's pumpkin that he spent a great deal of time on and was really proud of. Too bad it was moldy in a couple of days!

The girls' costumes. I take pride in making a costume for them each year.

We had a Halloween party at our house this year and invited some friends, neighbors, and people from Kendra's bus stop.
Here are some pics:

That's George our nerdy mummy.


I made a bunch of games for the kids to play but am most proud of this one.

Pumpking Bowling.

Bat theme:

We set up a bunch of tables and chairs in our garage. I just loved how Megan picked her chair and sat there...and waited.

Kitty

We play this game called, "what animal am I?" We take turns being an animal while everyone else tries to guess which animal we are. Megan is hilarious. Everytime she acts like an animal we say, "are you a kitty?" And everytime she begins to meow. It doesn't matter what animal she intends to be, she always ends up being a kitty...until yesterday. She was a horse.

This and That

Kendra made a bear mask at school. I think it was the "brown bear brown bear what do you see?" book.

Megan being the bear.

Our weather has finally dipped to the low 80s/high 70s. On our last hot weekend of the summer the girls played in their sand table. They then ran in the sprinkler to wash off...and then got a bath.

There are so many fun free things to do. I wish I would have taken advantage of them before Kendra went to school. The only thing we pay to attend is a music class on Mondays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays there is story time at our library and on Wednesdays the balloon museum does a story/craft time.

Megan sleeps through the night about every other night. It's amazing what sleep can do for you. Can't wait until she sleeps through the night 2 nights in a row!!

Growth

In July the girls saw our pediatrician for their yearly check-up. It was then that our pediatrician informed me that Kendra had gained weight but hadn't grown in the past year. What? We are to see her in January to see if Kendra grows in the next 6 months.

At first I thought nothing of it, but now her height, or lack thereof, is blatantly obvious. A year ago I bought school clothes for her for winter - thinking she'd be wearing a 5/6. All of the clothes are too large. Tonight for bed she picked out pajamas that she wore last fall - and they fit. The pants fit, the shirt fit, just like they did last year.

When we went to Disneyland in May Kendra was 42 inches tall. We just measured her a couple of nights ago and she's 42 inches tall. How is it that a child stops growing? I now want answers and if it means that she needs a shot for her pituitary gland to work so be it. Growth hormones? Why not. A disorder that nothing can be done? Sure. I want to take her back in and say yep, let's do all the blood work and get an answer and move on.

Long Day

I think school really wore her out!

First Day of School

Today is Kendra's first day of school. Megan wanted to wear a backpack like sissy.

I have an analogy for sending children off to school. I had Kendra with me for five years. During that time I kept her safe and taught her all I could so that when this day came she would be prepared to face the world & the experiences that come with it, good and bad. She couldn't wait to go and probably would have gone last year had she been allowed. Now I hand her over to her teacher and aide and trust they will take care of her for me. Each afternoon I look forward to her running from the bus to tell me all about her day.

In our pre-existence our Father in Heaven taught us all He could before we had to leave to come to earth. We looked forward to this experience, ready to leave and have our own experiences. Each night he wants to hear from us. He put us in families and gave us friends to watch over us while away. And someday, He wants us to come home.

It was a fun day for me. Kendra is ready. And just so you all know, I didn't cry - but I look forward to her coming home, and telling me all about her day.

Karate

We enrolled Kendra in a karate class in June. Here she shows blocking set 1.
I shot this longways and I don't know how to rotate it. Sorry!

Minivan Mom

I vowed never to own a minivan. That is why I drove a Rav4 - a fun sporty car. When I bought the Rav 4 years ago I planned on having it for the rest of its' life. Then we had a 2nd child and were very squished. Megan's rear facing car seat didn't fit unless I pushed the passenger seat all the way forward. I thought for sure that when she went to a forward facing car seat that we wouldn't feel as tight. But we did.

For the past two years I have browsed Toyota Highlanders ( for some reason I only like Toyotas!) I almost bought one but it was sold by the time I called to inquire about it. Our plan was to pay cash and if I bought an older highlander with lots of miles I could trade my Rav in and only owe a few thousand. That I could do. But what I really wanted was a highlander with under 60,000 miles and that I couldn't pay for with cash.

Mark kept asking me to just look at Siennas. And when I finally did I found a 2000 Toyota Sienna ad in the paper and it only had 47,620 miles on it! And we could afford it with cash. So I bought it!! And now Mark gets my fun little Rav4 - so Ravvi gets to stay in the family! The family we bought the Sienna from was so nice - they had two daughters and wanted a family to enjoy the van as much as they had. The dad filled it up with gas for me before I came to pick it up and as I drove away I felt like I was taking someone of their family with me. He just stood outside and waved.

Although I miss my Rav there are some nice things about a minivan. My favorite is the automatic sliding door.

Volcanic Eruption

Earlier today it looked as if a volcano was erupting as the Los Conchas fire became visible in Albuquerque. By the time I took pictures the smoke had already begun to spread and it didn't look as cool.

Here's a link to the cool pics.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A massive smoke plume billowing north of Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/28562932/detail.html#ixzz1SCqc4eUC

Fire

New Mexico is on fire this summer...literally. It's so dry that no one is allowed to start fires - even in a fire ring.

Early in June we had smoke invaid the ABQ metro area. The winds carried it in from the Arizona fires and the fires in NM southwest of ABQ. We can see the Sandia Mountains from our home, but during that week this was our view:

Backpacking Trip

At the end of last year my counselor (1st counselor in YW) and I thought it would be a great idea if we took the Mia Maids on a backpacking trip. This past weekend we took our YW up to a place called San Gregorio Reservoir and spent the night. And here are the highlights.

This is the group at the parking lot before we began our hike.

Daddy/daughter shot. Isn't it so cute? Three of the Priesthood holders were dads to our Mia Maids. It made our trip so fun.

In the morning. And yes, one of our Mia Maids had fractured her wrist the day before we left...and she still came! This picture makes me laugh so I just had to add it to the blog.

Walking across the clearing to do some target practice.

My counselor and I. The trip was really fun because we are such good friends and we just laughed the whole time.

Our Bishop and his daughter. So cute.

Did I do okay?

Burly

The Mia Maid target that is now on our ward bulletin board.

Before we left we had some cleanup duty to do and were the last ones ready to go and we got a hard time for that.

We made it!!