Goodbye for now

Its strange having a missionary leave to serve a mission. Our daughter will be gone for 18 months and we will get to email each other and write letters and Skype for mothers day and Christmas. 

Its strange in a way that you want them to desire to serve God and get out there in the world but then when its time for them to go its very hard to let them go. 

Im so incredibly happy for Julia and I love that she made this choice. I do miss my best friend and shopping buddy. 

She made me laugh everyday and she still does in her letters. I love that! 

 Going to the Los Angeles Temple with Julia was so wonderful

That is such a special time and I will always remember the special moments we shared

Grandma Holbrook came out to share this special time

All the family that came to church to listen to Julia's farewell talk. This was a great day surrounded by love and excitement. 

A couple days later it was 4:00 am and we headed to the airport. Mike and I actually were allowed to go back to her gate to wait with her. When several other missionaries showed up to wait on the same flight Julia looked at us and said "ok if you want to go you can" So I knew that it was time.

I gave her the biggest hug ever and walked away to cry. 

6 months later...............

How did 6 months go by so fast! Wow so much has happened in that amount of time. So much for keeping up on my blog. But being a busy momma it happens. 

Our daughter turned in her mission papers and when she received them in the mail she was to report in 5 weeks. 

We took a trip to Utah to get her everything she would need for Idaho Falls. 

I love Utah and I didn't want to leave. Its beautiful there especially the mountains and there is so much to do. 

 This pizza place by Dixie college was AMAZING it was seriously so good and there bread sticks were huge and delicious.

 Yummy!

 Going to Temple Square and seeing Salt Lake Temple was beautiful and the weather was perfect. 

We were on our way home and we were at the 8 hour point when Isabelle just about had enough and entertained herself. She finally fell asleep with only a hour left of the trip. 

This trip with my girls was so fun and we got to see friends that we haven't seen in a few years. I will miss this precious time with my kids. 

Christmas Day!

 Christmas Morning!

Excuse our crazy messy house while we enjoy the morning festivities

that include me telling my kids to clean up the aftermath

but.....they are to distracted with all the nerf guns and start a war!

I'm trying to remember who started the nerf war and I think it was Logan

He was hilarious with his sneak attacks and pretty soon everyone joined while I watched and took pictures because you know who still feels sick.

 Mikey took one to the eye but it still continued on for awhile.

I loved it!

So fun

 Ok when Mikey and the kids got home from his sisters house for Christmas dinner Mikey showed me a gift that his sister Donna and her hubby Jeff made us.

This is so freaking cool and I was blown away with the amount of work Jeff put into this piece.

The American Flag!

 I could hardly wait for Mikey to hang it up

These pictures don't do it justice

the texture and feel of the wood it is incredible

I'm so excited and grateful for this and I will treasure it.

Thank you Jeff and Donna!

Christmas and Blah!

I love when the kids start winter break from school. Oh its so wonderful to not have a scheduled morning and we can set our own schedule. Yippee!!! The kids got out of school to start winter break on the 23rd the school year so it was a little strange to jump right in to winter break. I felt like ready or not Christmas is here!
Well I woke up Christmas Eve morning feeling like a I've been hit with something hard. I was so sick and I knew it was the flu! Oh my goodness I always have such a nice Christmas Eve planned just for our family and I was really worried how was I going to accomplish this task. Well I ignored all my symptoms somehow and carried on. I started making homemade rolls, and homemade apple pie. I still wanted badly for my family to enjoy our traditions. I had to take many many many breaks every little bit because the little jobs would take me out. I asked Julia to make the pumpkin roll and I started the glazed ham and mashed potatoes and asparagus and baby carrots.

We enjoyed our dinner together well I just watched and tried to be there with them. After dinner we all talked about the true meaning of Christmas and I read The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke. I love that story and I love to remind the kids of service and to not gloat.

I usually buy the family PJs for Christmas Eve but I wanted to do something different this year. So I wrapped 5 different recent movies on DVD. Then I wrapped a box of popcorn, a can of hot chocolate, and some apple cider. Everybody opened  and we had a movie night. When the older kids were really little they use to argue over what movie to watch so I came up with the "movie game"
I had the movies they picked out behind my back and I would think of a number and which ever kid got closest to the number picked which hand and the movie that was in the hand was what they watched. So no fighting and I tried to make it fun.

Anyways I brought back the movie game for Christmas Eve then I crashed hard because I pretty much thought I was going to die at this point.
Goodnight and hopefully I can feel better for Christmas Day!

That's what friends are for

My wonderful best friend came out this past week and it was so needed

Julia had her wisdom teeth taken out and by the way she was hilarious coming out of sedation.

My friend Julie and her daughter Hayden came out to lend support.

Julie helped me in more ways than she could ever imagine. She always does and I always feel this rejuvenation after she leaves.

Julie lives in Arizona and we've  known each other for over 30 years now.

Every time we get together after not seeing each other for a while its like we pick up right where we left off. Its wonderful and I think everyone needs a friend like that.

 Can you tell Julia and I are tired

Poor Julia is swollen from her surgery

Julie and Hayden

they are the cutest!

So while Julie was here the song by Dionne Warwick "that's what friends are for" kept coming to my mind. I love that song and I would sing it growing up.

keep smiling

keep shining

and know you can always count on me

for sure

that's what friends are for

I love when Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight all performed it.

Great stuff!

Anyways.....

Julie bought all four of us the cutest Brighton necklaces

Its dainty and small and that's just how I love jewelry

I also made her a Christmas gift which took me FOREVER to figure out what to make for Christmas this year

I wanted something outdoors and I knew I wanted to make the same for Julie

and then I did a painting for her but I am defiantly cutting out new words because its crooked and its bugging me bad!!

I just love my friend and I'm so grateful for her and her sweet family.

She always knows just what I need.

The story about the ornaments....

It's the Holidays!

I'm really trying to get in the holiday spirit. Its a little hard for me for many reasons.

I try not to be a Grinch especially for the younger kids.

One of the reasons which is probably silly to some but to me its hard for me to accept.

We use to have a neighbor that lived alone and she was in her 90's. She was so sweet and she would randomly show up to our house and unload a car load of stuff she wanted to get rid of.

It was stuff like toys, bedding, kitchen items, ect.

I then would say "thank you but we don't need it" and she would just ignore me.

I think she just needed someone to take it off her hands and she wanted to give the kids toys.

I would then load my car up and donate the items.

About 3 years ago......

One time she came to my house while I wasn't home and dropped a ton of stuff off at our back door.

It was a bunch of Holiday items

Lots and Lots and Lots of Christmas stuff!

I had my boys put it in the garage until I had time to go thru it.

So....

In one of my lets get organized moods

I had my boys go to the garage and get all the Goodwill items and load up the car.
Then I said get the items our neighbor dropped off also.

Well I didn't pay attention and my sweet boys loaded up one of my Christmas buckets into the car.

Off I left to Goodwill and happily donated

I love getting rid of stuff we don't need

This was summer time and how my bucket got mixed in I still cant figure out.

When December rolled around I had my kids go get all my Holiday buckets from the garage.

We get ready to decorate the tree and I tell my boys to go find the ornament bucket from the garage.

I must of sent them out 3 or 4 times before I went to look myself.

No bucket in sight!

I even had Mikey go look for it

I then realized what had happened

My bucket was donated!

All 5 of my kids ornaments for 20 years are gone!

I go down to the Goodwill and nothing

This is horrible!

I was hoping to give my kids their ornaments when they started their own families.

I was devastated and wanted to kick myself.

So since then when its time to decorate our tree, I really have a hard time.

Some friends of ours recently gave us Disney ornaments and it made me so happy.

 So here is our tree

All the kids have good attitudes about it

Thank goodness the kids made some cute stuff at school for our tree

So what did I learn?

Go thru everything before donating

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was interesting this year.

We always go to Mikey's sisters house here in Acton and that's always great.

Its so nice to enjoy time with family and catch up with everyone's lives.

I want to get family pics since our hair is brushed and we look clean...lol

So the kids actually cooperated for me this year and it was wonderful

 The older ones were so patient with me it was awesome

 Isabelle doing her own thing

Lowell thinks this is ok

 We are getting there

just warming up

ok almost ready

Good enough!

This one will do....

I love it!

It's wonderful to capture pics of these kiddos no matter how they turn out.

I'm grateful for my family and all the blessings I have received since becoming a mother.

I'm grateful for cooperation and the smiles on their faces. I'm grateful for great weather!

I'm grateful that we have our good health and a home to celebrate our blessings.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.