Life as of Late

The past few weeks we've tried to do some more fun stuff as a family We headed to Central West End for their Ice Festival where Isabel got to go on an ice slide, play miniature golf outside... well a couple of holes, and eat her first s'mores, she loved it!




I also spent a lot of time making these brooches for a meeting Mike went too. There were 20 all together but these were my favorite 9.


Then lastly today our city also had an ice festival so we went down there today and saw all the ice sculptures. Isabel loved the angel, she said it looks just like Brooklyn's angel in my room ( a friend gave me a beautiful angel snow globe)! The 2nd favorite was the LIghtening McQueen one.







Lastly, the cute girl has had fun playing with my old make-up... and look how grown up she looks! I've lost my little girl! and just for Leslie... a cute picture of Isabel eating... what else... parasean cheese popcorn in her Izzy Sized bowl Leslie made her for Christmas!

Another angel up in Heaven

This morning a wonderful family from church said goodbye to their 7 yr old daughter. Where I feel for them, and for the times they will not have with her here on the earth, I can't help but feel some relief also. The little girl has battled a rare form brain cancer that was only in her spine last year, then was cancer free after spending 8 months at St Jude's in Memphis. Her cancer returned and her little body was ready to run and play in a another realm. For their family the pain and struggle of watching her be so sick and weak is over. I wish I was like so many of my friends that are much more eloquent with words then I am. I could write something more fitting for this beautiful, wonderful, sweet daughter of God. My heart goes out to their family, but I know they too will have their strength in the Lord and have no worries about her next estate.

Ice Skating... Ducks

Saturday night. Mike scored some free tickets for ice skating to an outdoor rink. We thought it would be so much fun in 10 degree weather to be outside skating as a family so we went at 6:30. (yup, good parents we are!)
Isabel LOVED it. She held on to our hands and had a hard time with her balance but was squealing most of the time with a big silly grin on her face. She was sad to get off when the zamboni had to re surface it but waiting, almost patiently, for the return. Her favorite time was when Mike would grab her under her arms and take her skating fast in in circles. This girl loves the ice and kept saying "mom are you so proud of me?!" yes Isabel I am.












For the sake of not posting 4 times in a day I"ll just piggy back on this one. I also have lots of pictures of Isabel's new favorite past-time...


And for my sister.... Since Oregon and Alabama won't be playing each other anytime soon and they were in the Rose Bowl and Leslie bought her a new Ducks shirt I let her say "go ducks" and cheer... of course she wouldn't say go ducks, I think she was still afraid that she'd get in trouble. But here are the pictures of her running around the house shaking her shakers anyway.

Christmas!!!!

We were very fortunate here and had a wonderful Christmas. If there was ever going to be a contest in our house for presents.... Isabel would win hands down. It was almost ridiculous.. but she loved everything she got and well so did we!




Again we were fortunate to not have to buy her anything. Everyone else in her life does. Mike's family bought him a new suit... it looks so good on him!


I realize the yellow wall isn't the best background and Isabel in her new dress is blocking all the suit but it's really awesome. By the way Isabel's dress that she has on, came with a matching dress for her doll. She loves it! Thanks Grandma Cindy and Aunt Katie!

We did our traditional progressive dinner with Mike's family for Christmas Eve. Again is was so much fun. It's my favorite thing we do with his family every year. At his Aunt's house she had these amazing salads, one with a cilantro lime dressing that is from Cafe Rio in UT, I've never been there but the dressing was great so I got the recipe for it. And for all you concerned, there may be hope for me yet to be a good mormon. I had a jello salad that I loved! The 1st on ever and the only reason I tried it was because I've never had anything bad from Jill's house so I thought I'd give it a shot. It tasted like those yummy orange/vanilla ice cream cups that you had to eat with the wooden spoon when you were little.

The dessert portion was at our house unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.. but it was great. My cakes were wonderful but a tiny bit dry.... the vanilla was. We had Vanilla bean 4 layer cake, Boston Creme Pie, German Chocolate brownies, and gingerbread cookies. yeah it was good. The chocolate frosting on the Vanilla Bean... OH MY GOODNESS so good!


The day after Christmas is Jameson's Birthday (Mike's brother) so we just were by ourselves for Christmas and go back together with family the day after to celebrate his birthday. It was a good time and Isabel wanted help open presents.

(that wasn't the picture I wanted but saved the wrong one... oh well it's cute!)

After they left we ran errands then I worked 2 hockey games and froze at the 1st rink I was at. Isabel went home with Mike's parents so we could run our errands alone. I have to admit it was nice.

I was so thankful for Christmas this year. Amid all the chaos of life it still is my favorite time of the year to reflect and give thanks to my Heavenly Father for the gift of His miraculous Son. Isabel spent most of the week before Christmas coming up to me and hugging may saying "this is the best Christmas ever" and she loved holding baby Jesus from our nativities. I'm so glad that she was old enough this year to really get into the wonder of it all. She was constantly praying for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. I love this little girl!

(she also watch ELF a few times with us and when ever she saw pictures of elves or the elves at the mall santas would exclaim MOM LOOK it's lots of Buddy's!!)
I hope you all had an amazing Christmas this year!

Where to start.... why with Leslie of course!

This December marks the fourth year (or maybe 3, but I think 4) that my sister has made her annual visit down here in December after she has been finished with finals. She was here for 9 days... well sort of she left over a weekend to fly to Cleveland to visit a friend for 2 days. I had a blast. The night she came in Mike took me to go see White Christmas at the Fox Theater, it was so good but different from my most favorite beloved Christmas movie! And too bad we never really got good pictures from it we looked so HOT. Oh and you may notice I got my hair colored..I'm now auburn and LOVE IT ( please no reference to the school, I'd never fly that way).
So Leslie and Isabel to got play with a 'Barrel of Monkeys', I hope everyone had that toy growing up, it's awesome. For the rest of the trip we baked and baked and baked. Most of you don't know but my sister in an awesome baker. She had brought be over to the good side of taking the few extra minutes and extra dishes to create totally from scratch GOOD chocolate cake, cookies, etc. I have a friend in town who does it this way and I've always enjoyed her cooking when she invites us over and I saw her at church and gushed to her how much I love food this way. So our first day of baking was chocolate cupcakes, 2 batches, on with chili powder to give it an extra kick, chocolate, chocolate chunk and cranberry cookies. We even ended her trip by making the cakes for Boston Creme Pie, Vanilla Bean cake (not many store actually sell Vanilla beans...) and ginger bread cookies. There was supposed to be a lemon coconut cake in there but, well I had a cheap spring form pan that when filled didn't quite make it to the oven and it it's falling took out the molasses on my counter,,,, both were all over the kitchen floor.

As usual we spend so much time driving everywhere we didn't get out to do a whole lot more, I've decided I want to leave suburbia and move to the city. Mike has been waiting for this for 5 years and is stoked. We would just have to figure out when to move... might be years. But I see the light.

So Leslie also helped me build this awesome doll house for Isabel.



We decided that we didn't want a pitched roof on it so Leslie said it could be a condo with a roof top garden. I took that one step further and decided we need to really make it a garden/lawn and we purchased putting green grass to place on top of it all. The new horse lives there now! We got it all together without any real hassles and then 'wallpapered' it with excess scrapbook paper. We are very proud of it and Isabel LOVES it. So THANK YOU LESLIE! I also need to bet some pictures (please Les) of the gift I made for Leslie, it turned out really great and I'm very proud of it. I had a few set backs so it didn't get to be the surprise I had hoped for, she ended up helping me with the fabric and idea for the shape but nonetheless, I love it! It was my favorite gift I gave this year.

So here are a couple of pics from when Leslie came to town. Leslie I picked only the good ones!

Christmas

So my awesome sister gave me her old computer for Christmas this year. She brought it down with her and when she left on Christmas Eve.... she took my power cord and left hers. So once again I'm computer-less but I will be trying to post pics from our great Christmas soon.... when Mike's not creating new presentations he has to give.