snowmen and life

Children have the natural instinct to find raw materials around them and build creative things. When do we lose this instinct? Mia will never let me throw out an egg carton before she's filled it with collected treasures from the outdoors and covered it with drawings and scraps of paper for decoration. Annie must have all of my empty cardboard boxes to decorate with marker. On our trip to Utah, the girls spent about an hour outside before they called out an adult to put the head on top of their snowman because they were too short. We were shocked at the size of it, and their determination to complete it.
If only we could measure our accomp-lishments by how tall we could build a snowman, we'd know how well (or how poorly) we were doing. For 2009, I'm determined to transform challenges and other raw material I'm given to work with into lovely, memorable experiences that I can look back at fondly. I think this is accomplished with an optimistic attitude and patience. But I'll let you know...

not quite the "silent night" we were hoping for...

In "cliff's notes" form: The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. The kids have been in hyper-excited mode. It began when school let out for the winter break. Unfortunately, Papa's health took a turn for the worst. Jordan and Maci came out with the babies to say goodbye, and ended up staying for the funeral that Monday after Christmas. So, we had our usual Christmas eve here with all of the fam, did the Christmas morning frenzy, then to Tim's parents' later that morning, Uncle Rich's in the afternoon (my mouth is watering remembering the turkey. Yum.).

During all of this, mind you, we were getting no sleep as we were sharing a room with all of the kids in our tiny house. Day after Christmas we had brunch and more presents at my sister Kim's house, then all of the moms took off for our regular trip to Yountville in Napa. THAT was fun! Then Monday was Papa's funeral. Tuesday Tim took Mia for an emergency dental visit while I frantically packed for a trip to Utah (our leaving had been pushed back from Monday). We got on the road as soon as they got home, and stopped in Elko for the night. Got to Provo on Wednesday, stayed up until 12:01 and crashed. Spent the next few days visiting with Maci and Jordan and some other friends and family. Went to the Matilda and Avery's blessings on Sunday, then raced home to beat a storm. (deep breath)

Looking back it all sounds like it was so hectic, and most of it was, although everything was completely necessary to do. I regret not being able to enjoy it all more, and am especially mad that I didn't take more pictures. I guess it's a good new year's resolution.