2009 Year In Review

For those of you who are interested, here is the long version of my year end "christmas-letter-type" pages. I made these for our family scrap book. Click on the image to enlarge so it's readable. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year's Holiday!

Snow Fun

Kids are home for Christmas break and today was a good day to go out and play in the snow. Addie made the cutest dog. She is so creative.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We are busily getting ready for Christmas and just want to wish you some Christmas cheer! It seems that I continually try and plan to do way more in a day than there is possibly time for. Why do we do that? There are just so many things I want to make and do for everyone. Well, I am going to try and not stress myself over holiday doings and just try and enjoy this time of year and do what I can day by day. Well, I just gave myself a little pep talk and now I feel better. TTFN

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving was good. We spent the rest of the weekend painting our basement rooms and hallway. It's almost finished. We are getting carpet in this Friday, horrah! I am so excited to have my downstairs finished.

More Pages Done

More Pumpkin Fun

Got at least one more scrapbook page done. (Still need to work on Lake Powell pages)

Do things Ever Settle Down?

With all the modern conveniences we have it seems we cram more and more into every single day. Every week I think, "oh this is just an extra hectic week. Next week it will settle down." Then next week comes and gets filled right up...almost to a bursting point. Last week I had or got to help with Addie's class party, help with a funeral lunch, do Activity Day Girls, help the kids get to scouts and ballett, help Levi do his American Hero report, help Addie finish her stuff for the Economics Sale, attend the 3rd grade Economics Sale, go visiting teaching, (had to make something extra cute for that...just because) and keep up with the usual housework and weekly homework and work part time for Palmer Wholesale. Don't forget Bre's Dr. visit in there somewhere and the shopping and Halloween festivities like the ward party, pumpkin carving etc.. My husband says I try to do too much. Well, now I am anxious about a whole new thing I have been called to. I was put in the Stake Young Women's Presidency last Sunday. Eeek! How did that happen? This is a whole new thing. I have never served in young women's before. I don't know, but sometimes I wonder if it is Ellen on the other side making things happen. I bet she is the one who helped me to find out about Asperger's Syndrome so I could understand my son Levi better. It was through visiting teaching that I discovered that. Yeah for Visiting Teaching! Well, lets all just take a breath and try and take things one day at a time I guess.

Happy Halloween!

What Beauty Is...

"Beauty is Love Between Two People"


This year Levi, Addie and Bre entered some art for the Reflections contest. The theme being: What Beauty Is. I thought Addie's was quite good! I have to brag 'cause I'm her mom. I thought she might just do flowers or scenery or a pretty girl, but no, she came up with this all on her own. Love between two people...very thoughtful.

Bre's Special Dream

Last night Bre came into my room because she had a bad dream. Her bad dream was that she fell off the houseboat. I thought that was funny. I am glad that no one really did fall off the houseboat with so many little kids and all. However, here comes the special part; this morning Bre told me that she had a dream about Grandma Palmer. She said that Grandma came and gave her a special locket with a picture of the family in it. I asked for more details. She said that we were all over at Grandpa's house when Grandma came and we were so happy. Bre said Grandma asked her about her broken arm and Grandpa told her what happened and that Grandpa took some pictures of them. Bre was only 4 when Grandma Ellen died. I think Grandma wants us and the grandkids to know how much she still loves them and how important family is. We miss her so much! Here is a picture of baby Bre with her Grandma.


Here is our special little Bre with mom earlier this year.

Lake Powell

We had our last Indian Summer vaction at Lake Powell. We rented a houseboat (off season winter rates started after the 13th). It was kind of a last minute trip we put together because the weather was going to be so nice that weekend of Fall Break. We are so glad we did. There was hiking, finding lizards and sea shells, fishing, boating and swimming for those who wanted to brave the chilly water. There were 7 adults and 7 children. It was a full house. I've got a great Arizona Summer scrapbook kit that should work perfect for these pics. I only took 145 pictures. There's so much to do and so little time!

Girls & Curls

Card Class Fun

Above is a cute little owl treat that I made for my gals I visit teach. On the back it says "Guess whooo loves you? Your Visiting Teachers!" And for below:
Just thought I'd post some pictures from my last card class for those of you who missed it. I am still looking for at least 2 more people to to join my card club. We will be meeting on Tuesday the 20th of October for some cute Halloween stuff! Over conference I made a bunch of Christmas tags. I am going to do an additional Christmas tag class. Tallie saw some of them and said they were super cute!

12 Years Today!

Happy Anniversary honey! Thanks for fixing our router for our internet connection so I could post this tonight. (See how handy he is :) Since this year's anniversary fell on a Sunday and we didn't do anything out of the ordinary to remember it I thought I would put this little page together for us to have something to remember. (click on the page to view it bigger)

When We're Working We're Happy and We Sing As We Go...

This weekend we worked on getting the basement ready to build two new bedrooms. Yes this is the long unfinished room where I had my craft/stamping stuff. Now that my new room is all finished we were able to clean out and start on this room. It's so nice to have a handy, smart, hardworking husband. Hopefully, soon Levi will be able to have a real bedroom as opposed to the basement playroom which has been his room. And I realized I never posted any pictures of my new stamp room.



We put in french doors where the borded up old sliding glass door was, new window, tore out paneling, finished the walls, put in carpet etc.. I love it.

Howdy

Howdy y'all! Last Thursday was the Daddy Daughter Activity. Since I was one of the moms in charge of it I got to go. We did a cute western themed activity in the McInctyre's back yard. The weather was supposed to be good that night. However, a huge thunderstorm rolled in and it blew and then poured on us. We scrambled to get some canopies up and continue on through it. Our fire survived the down pour and we were still able to roast marshmellows at the end. I wish I had pictures of the game, but being in charge of it I didn't get a chance to take any. Anyhow, the girls got to put shaving cream all over their dad's faces and then there was a contest where they got to toss cheetos at their faces and see who could get the most stuck to their dad. Then they got to "shave" their dads. (with safe razors with the covers still on them). Because of all the rain and delays we didn't finish the second part where the dads get to do the girls hair. That would have been fun to see but it was getting too late.

"My Juice is Coming"

Ok so I've got one more post today. This is the potty update. Hopefully we are making some headway with Leia. It was the funniest thing. I was here at the computer and she was near by me on the ground watching TV and she says, "Mom, my juice is coming!" It took me a moment to think about what she was saying and then I realized I need to rush her to the potty. I remembered that the other day I told her when she drank her juice it went down down and then she would need to pee pee it out. So, I guess "my juice is coming" translates to I need to go potty. That was the first time she actually told me and I got her to the potty and she stayed dry. Horray! She is getting more conscious of it.

Card Heaven

I got to go to St George this weekend for a big Stampin' Up get together. I was in card heaven. I went with my good friend Monica and her friend Hollie. We drove down Friday evening and stayed the night...stayed up too late chatting as girls do. Then we spent all day at the Dixie center making tons of cute stuff and learning new things from the demonstrations they had. It was a nice break from the kids and a good time. I'm so excited to start a new card club.

Bre Got a Broken Arm

Last Wednesday's soccer game had a sad ending. However, it wasn't even Bre that was playing soccer. We were at Addie's game. Levi and Bre were playing at the playground area. There was a little boy there being quite the bully to everyone. He was spitting on Bre and chasing her. Well, he chased her as she was leaving the playground onto the grass to come and tell us, and shoved her onto the ground so she fell on her arm in a bad way and the radius bone was clearly broke. Her poor little arm was so bent. Levi saw it and tried to help her. She wouldn't get up so he ran and got us. Fortunately my husband met up with us at the game so we had two cars there. My husband tried to talk to the boy but he wouldn't cooperate. He wriggled away. So we never found out who he was or who his parents were, but he was so out of control. It was very upsetting. But we were torn between causing a big scene and taking care of our daughter right away. So Dustin and Bre didn't get back from the hospital until after 11pm that night. That was on the 9th. They do a temporary cast and have you wait for 5 days for any swelling to go down before doing the more permanent cast. So today she got her hard cast put on and is doing much better. She got to choose the pink and purple. She was happy about that. Hopefully it will be off before halloween.

Back to School

This is actually my desktop page. I get free pages from the shabbyprincess blog and add my own pics. The kids are really growing up.

Potty Training Blues

I have the potty training blues. What will it take for this little girl to volunteer to actually use the potty on her own? We have worked on it off and on through out the year. Now that school is in we are in full swing potty training. After two and a half weeks of mom making her go every half hour to an hour for most of the day you would think she would just once say, mom I have to go potty. But no. It's so frustrating. We use bribes, candy, cheers, you name it, but it's not clicking. I just hate the potty training thing. I can only hope that she is not as stubborn as Addie was.

Aug California Trip

We went to California to visit my family while Dustin went to San Francisco to the Gourmet Show. We were exhibiting our VICTORIO KITCHEN PRODUCTS there. We were there from the 6th to the 11th. So Dustin spent 3 of those nights in San Francisco. Everything went well, but we are glad to be home.

Family Reunion Pages

Here are my scrapped pages of our family reunion...nearly a month later. It was a good time. I love the slide show video that Jaris did for us. Thanks so much! That's a good tradition to start. You can click on the pages to make them bigger so you can read the text and see the pics up close. Kids are back in school today, hooray, so I was able to finish these up. Oh, and I used our new canner for the first time today and we processed 10 8oz jars of black berry jam from Hollie and Rod's berries. Thanks guys. I also got two containers of fresh freezer jam. Yummm!

Bear Lake Pages

Hey, I got a chance to do a scrapbook page today. We had a good time at Bear Lake on the 1st of August. I will work on Reunion pics next and then our California trip. California was great but we are done taking any trips for a while...for a long while. The kids were such a mess on the way home that it will be fine if we don't go anywhere for another year or so..or at least until we forget how hard it was. Today is actually Leia's 3rd birthday. We will probably take the kids out to eat and to a park then home for presents and cake. I am making a strawberry jello cake. For those of you who don't know what that is; it's when you make jello water and pour it on top of your cake. Let it set in the fridge and put a cool whip type frosting on top. I am mixing some vanilla pudding in with the cool whip. I think I will color it pink too and add some sprinkles to make it festive. Yumm! Hey, I love it when people leave a comment. Then I know that a few people actually look at my pictures. Thanks so much!

One more thing from July: Dustin went to Taiwan on a business trip just before our reunion. It was a neat experience but the time difference being opposite of ours was very difficult so he felt sick and exhausted most of the time. He met with the broker that we've been dealing with over there and made sure they got some of the changes taken care of with our grainmill. He got to visit two of the main factories and learn more of the processes that go on in making our products.

Time to Catch Up

Ok, to catch up. In July was Breanna's birthday. She also took a crash course in Ballet for 3 weeks. We will start again in the fall. We went to the Discovery Museum in Salt Lake. We also had the Palmer Family Reunion which I will do pics of next. And finally we spent a day up at Bear Lake. We are getting ready to leave for California in two days for our last big summer activity. Time has really flown by.