I'll be home for Christmas!

For months I have been so excited to go home for Christmas! I have been looking forward to being with my entire family, having a white Christmas, and just being at home!

Since we have been in Colorado at Grandma's house we have been doing some fun activities like making snow angels:

Sending our letter to Santa:And celebrating Mason's Birthday by going to a movie and sledding:As we were playing here the rest of my family was stuck in Washington. There was so much snow in Vancouver that Jon and Morgan could not fly here on schedule. School, work, and even church were cancelled! As Jon kept on giving me updates about the weather in Vancouver I thought that for sure the snow would be gone by the next day but it just kept on snowing! I was getting mad because we didn't have very much snow here in CO, my family couldn't fly out, and I was missing the biggest snow storm to hit WA in 40 years! (Anyone that knows me well knows that I LOVE the snow) I then became worried that they were not going to make it here as I kept on seeing cancelled flights each day! Morgan was bawling and Jon was trying to deal with a bawling 13 year old. So when they called me I just added to Jon's stress and started crying also! But we are all here together now! As Morgan was crying to me on the phone she said something profound and I quote "I don't care about the presents and stockings I just want to be with the family!" And I have to agree it doesn't matter about the gifts, the food, or the fact that there is more snow in WA than in CO! We are all here together safe and sound! Have a very Merry Christmas!

Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful!

This is a picture from yesterday! The kids were very excited to see the snow! They were dying to get their winter gear on (BTW I had it already packed and ready to go to CO but busted it out for the occasion) and be outside! They loved sipping on their hot coco outside until they decided that 24 degrees is COLD! It was not hard to convince Mason to wear all his snow gear this morning as he headed out the door for safety patrol. This is good preparation for Denver because it's not suppose to get above freezing the entire week here in Vancouver! It could even set a record for the longest number of days below freezing! Bring on those cute scarfs and hats!

Checking Off the List #2!

The Hustle and Bustle continue during this time of year! I can now check a few more things off my list.

-Celebrate Mason's Birthday-Sort of! His birthday is not for another two weeks but we did take him out for his special Birthday Date with just Jon and I. He's been dying to go to our new Olive Garden. The food was great but the service was Terrible! We will officially celebrate his bday on his actual birthday December 22 with favorite breakfast, dinner, and presents!

-Ward Christmas Party- Our party theme was "The Polar Express" Stacey outdid herself once again! It was really fun! We all wore our PJ's which I loved! (I gave the kids their xmas jammies early so they could wear them to the party) We each got a ticket when we walked in and got that ticket punched when we were served our Hot Chocolate! (I forgot to take a a pic of the conductor but he looked awesome) Breakfast was served for dinner, the kids made candy trains, we sang Christmas Carols, and then the kids all left with their "Believe Bells."

-Attend the Union High School Football Game!-This was a new event that was not on my original list. I decided to go to the state championship game last Saturday with Mason!

This is a brand new HS in our area and it is only their second year of existence! So this was a HUGE deal for them to already be in the final playoff game for the State Title. Unfortunately we lost making their record 13-1. Many fans, parents, and players were sad but felt grateful to have gotten so far! I went to the game with several friends from our ward! I called it the party bus because it was filled up with lots of fun people having a great time together! We still love the Titans and are proud of their accomplishments!

-Attend a Piano Recital-We enjoyed listening to M&M(and others) play their Christmas piano pieces last night. They both did great and I'm proud of them. I am so grateful to my friend Christy who has taken them as their piano students this year! She has seriously taken a huge stress out of my life by having them. The past two years with their other teacher have been crazy because the only time she could have my kids is on Wednesday! We would go from Dance Team, to Piano, to YW with no breaks! But now Morgan can ride her bike to Christy's home for lessons and she even comes to MY HOUSE early before school to teach Mason! How great is that! The kids have loved their new teacher and are doing well! Thanks again Christy we love you!

Checking Off the List!

With only two weeks left before we leave for Colorado I am feeling the pressure of the holidays. We are VERY excited to see G & G Baldwin for Christmas and hope that Mother Nature will make my kids soooooo happy by delivering some winter wonderness!!! I have been working hard at my "to do" list and have accomplished many things!

-Thanksgiving Holiday

-Decorate for Christmas-CHECK!

-Entertain Kids During Thanksgiving Break-CHECK! Went to the movie Bolt, Swimming, Hot Tubing @ G'mas, Playing Games.

-Finish Christmas Shopping -Working on it Still!

-Attend the Fred Meyer Sock Sale at 5am on Black Friday- Had a great time with Morgan! As we were driving home she said "Mom how much money did we spend today?" I replied, "I'm not sure yet but don't tell your DAD!"

-Watch the Twilight Movie-CHECK! LOVED IT!!!

-Address/Mail Christmas Cards-CHECK! Mailed by December 1.

-Make and Deliver Friend & Neighbor Gifts-CHECK! Jon and I worked really hard on Saturday to make several batches of the famous Whitcomb Carmel Corn. We then had our little elves deliver them to friends and neighbors! Many people were surprised to be getting gifts so early in the season but with Jon leaving for CA, and then us leaving so early for CO it was last weekend or never!

-Host a YM/YW Fireside-CHECK!

-Take Jon to & from the airport for a business trip to CA-Tomorrow morning at 5 AM!

-Make Christmas Jammies-CHECK! I took Christy's advice (Thanks KiKi) and bought really cute jammies at Old Navy on Black Friday!

-Finish buying snow gear for CO-CHECK!

-Figure Out Teacher Gifts-CHECK! Delivered already!

-Attend Two Wedding Receptions-CHECK! Only made it to one!

-Finish a Holiday Craft-CHECK! (x2) I actually made another one for my sister-in-law for her birthday that's tomorrow!(This is the only new item that I will be adding to my Christmas Decorations this year)

-Attend Pie Night-CHECK! One of my favorite nights of the year!

The next two weeks will be a whirlwind of activities. If I can just finish the rest of that list we will have a fun and relaxing Christmas!

Super Mom!

The other day Brinley had to take snack for her Kindergarten class. I saw this cute cupcake idea on Annie's Blog. I debated tackling such a time consuming cupcake just for a "Snack". But I decided that Brinley and Kennedy (who was coming over for a play date) would have fun helping make the Turkey Cupcakes for their classroom.All the girls had fun; even Maddie made her own cupcake. Her teacher and a couple of my friends said "Wow you're super mom!" I told them no!!! I usually just throw some granola bars in for snack time. That same day I made a pie with the help of my friend Ali. When Morgan came home from school and saw that I had baked the pie and the cupcakes she said "Oh mom you finally have become a cook and now you're like other mom's that bake in the kitchen!" That's sad!

One Month!
One month from today I will be getting on a plane with four of my children to visit my family in Colorado for Christmas! It seems hard to believe that it is so close. I realized this last night while trying to turn my mind off so I could fall asleep. I also started to think about all the things that need to happen within this months time frame.

-Thanksgiving Holiday
-Decorate for Christmas
-Entertain Kids During Thanksgiving Break
-Finish Christmas Shopping
-Attend the Fred Meyer Sock Sale at 5am on Black Friday
-Host a Christmas Party
-Celebrate Mason's Birthday
-Attend a Piano Recital
-Attend a Dance Performance
-Watch the Twilight Movie
-Address/Mail Christmas Cards
-Make and Deliver Friend & Neighbor Gifts
-Host a YM/YW Fireside
-Attend a Cookie Exchange
-Take Jon to & from the airport for a business trip to CA
-Ward Christmas Party
-Make Christmas Jammies
-Finish buying snow gear for CO
-Figure Out Teacher Gifts
-Attend Two Wedding Recptions
-Finish a Holiday Craft
-Film & Edit Christmas Lip Sync Video
-Attend Pie Night

This is in addition to volunteering at school, carpooling, helping with homework, laundry, cleaning, teaching, the list goes on and on! I am thrilled to be spending Christmas with all of my family and can't wait for this crazy month to pass! Wish me Luck!

Pleasant Surprise!

After many days of rain we woke up this morning to a pleasant surprise! SUN! It is so beautiful and sunny that we even ate our lunch outside on the trampoline!

Crazy Hair Day!

At Harmony Elementary they have a day each year called Crazy Hair Day. Students and faculty participate in this fun day. Every time this day comes around my kids "chicken out" and don't make their hair look CRAZY. And every year I hear all about the crazy hair at school and how they wished they would have participated. Well this year I had two brave children that were thrilled to make their hair look crazy. Morgan had an idea for Brooklyn last night and after about 20 minutes she came downstairs looking like this:

Morgan used a LOT of hairspray, bobby pins and a bunch of backcombing. Brinley wanted to look like Cindy Lou Who from the Grinch (she got on this Cindy Lou Who kick last weekend and decided she wants to be it for Halloween next year). So with only 30 minutes before leaving for school I figured out how to put that hair straight up.
We tried to get Mason to do something Crazy with his hair but after seeing the girls he said "no way!" Morgan told B & B hopefully you will get your picture taken for the yearbook this year! What a fun day!

Candy, Candy, & more Candy!

We had a fun Halloween week which included lots of CANDY. Morgan had to do a project for Math dealing with geometrical shapes. She decided instead of drawing a picture that included triangles and quadrilaterals she would make a Haunted House! It turned out great and all the kids loved helping her make the house and eat the left over CANDY!

Maddie had a party at her preschool on Thursday. She came home with a bag full of treats. Her and Brinley sat on the kitchen floor to divide up her CANDY and then eat it!

Brinley had ballet on Friday afternoon. She wore her costume and then had a little party. There were cupcakes, cookies and CANDY!

Her costume was the only one that I purchased this year. She was dying to be Strawberry Shortcake! All the other kids wore costumes from either my dress up box or grandmas!

That evening we went to trick-or-treat on Grandmas street. The kids always want to go to her neighborhood because there is a house that gives out big CANDY bars!

We met up with some of the cousins at Grandmas house. Morgan went with Paige and Mckenna to go trick-or-treating, watch a scary movie, and then sleep over. We took the rest of our kids to our neighborhood to finish trick-or-treating. Jon took Maddie and Brinley around for about an hour and a half. He said that people kept on giving Maddie twice as much CANDY because she was a cute little bunny!(She kept on changing her mind on what she wanted to be this year a Frog, Kitty, Bunny or Pumpkin. Luckily I had three out of the four of those costumes. She decided to be a Bunny on Halloween so she would stay warm)

She did end up getting about twice the amount of CANDY as did Morgan! She couldn't get enough of it in her hands when she got home, I just couldn't resist this picture!

For the first time EVER I stayed home to hand out the CANDY. We usually have some type of conflict and are not at home. So in past years we have just turned the lights off and give out nothing. It was really fun to have people come by and to see so many familiar faces. Jon and I finished off our evening by going to Union High School's football game. We had a fun time cheering on the Titians. They won their final game and are on the way to the State Championships with their 9-0 record. It was a fun day overall! The only thing we didn't accomplish was carving our pumpkins. So Brinley said today, "Mom can we still carve our pumpkins?" I told her I'm afraid that won't happen this year!

It's Official!

We are now the proud parents of a Teenager!

Morgan turned 13 yesterday! She's a very responsible and good girl. I can't believe that she's a teenager and that we are old enough to have one. I know that I'm getting old when Monique told me that I was old enough to be Zac Efron's (Troy from HSM 3) MOTHER! I was telling her how cute he was in the new movie.

Halloween FHE

For Family Home Evening we had a fun Halloween Dinner! Morgan has been wanting to use our new Halloween plates and serve this dinner for weeks! With a BUSY week ahead of us (homework projects, Morg's Bday, & the holiday) we decided to have our fun "kid" dinner last night. We served warm soup with cheese shaped into a leaf:

Hot Dogs wrapped in bread stick dough to resemble Mummies:

Witches Fingers and orange jello:

And yummy homemade Root beer!We invited our friends the McKagues over for dinner. I told them that it wouldn't be a gourmet meal but we would have fun! Jon's idea was to serve Fondue for dessert! It turned out soooo good. We all got filled up on chocolate and carmel fondue!Even Madelyn loved the fondue. Her favorite was the chocolate dipped strawberries, pineapple, bananas, and marshmallows!A fun time was had by ALL! (Sorry about the blurry pictures I realized today that some one's little fingers found my camera lens!)

Twilight Fan!

For the past couple of years I have heard much about the Twilight Books but never read them. I've seen the movie trailer, heard about the midnight book releases and read blog posts of people obsessed with Edward! I often thought to myself what's with all this Twilight Madness! WELL...last weekend Morgan brought the book home from her English class. She was reading it and so I thought I would read it also. Monday morning arrived and she took the book back to school. I needed to have my own copy! I was hooked! I quickly got on the phone and called two friends for their copy of the book. I actually stopped by to pick them up that morning! I haven't been able to put it down all week! A few times last week I even climbed into my bed after putting Maddie down for her nap and read the whole time she was sleeping! One afternoon Morgan came home from school and was giving me some attitude! She finally admitted to me that she was jealous that I could read at home while she was busy at school. She was also mad that I was almost finished with the book! I am now into book two New Moon. The best thing about getting on Twilight bandwagon this late in the game is that I can read one right after another! I don't have to wait until another one is released and the movie is opening up next month! Jon said he has never seen me so crazy about reading a book! I never read and my sister even calls me her Non-Reading Sister! It has been fun and now I can say that I too am a Twilight Fan!

Quirks!

I have now been tagged for the second time to list my six quirks! I guess I better finally follow up on these.
1. I have a problem with doing things sometimes. For example, I will begin to wash dishes, then get distracted and begin to fold laundry, before finishing either of those things some child of mine will then ask me to read some school paper, or sign a planner! UGH! I feel like I can never finish the first thing that I started.
2. I have to have my OWN space when I sleep!!! No one can be touching or snuggling me. I don't even like my own hair to be in my face. I'm so glad we have a king sized bed now because I don't even like it when Jon's close to me.
3. I am a claustrophobic person. I think I inherited this from my mother. I don't really like to ride on elevators fearing that one day I will get stuck on one. I don't like small tents to sleep in when camping. And when flying on airplanes I hate it when my ears get plugged up and I can get them to pop! I've decided that it's because of my phobia. So I am constantly chewing gum while trying to pop my ears and freaking out b/c they are not popping!
4. I hate to get ready for bed. I find the whole process long and annoying. Jon can just brush, floss and be done within 3 minutes! I on the other hand have to first take out my contacts, take off the makeup, then put on 3 different moisturizers to help with my aging skin, brush, floss, use the restroom, put on my chap stick, and lotion up my hands (sometimes feet when they're bad in the summer)!!! I then have to get a drink right before I actually fall asleep! By the time I have done all of this there have been several times in our married life that Jon's already asleep!
5. Since I don't own a scale in my home I have to find other ways to gauge if I have gained weight or not. I do frequent Stacey's scale about once a month to keep me in check, but the other days I just try on certain clothes. I have these pair of Silver jeans that now are fraying, and have holes but I keep them around to "try on" to see if I can still fit into them. I know if they are tight in the butt I need to get my butt out of bed to go running!
6. I can't stand all the backpacks, school papers, shoes, jackets, coats being left everywhere! We specifically had built into our house individual cubbies for all the kids! They use them most of the time b/c I make them but often I find all those things strung(is that a word) all over the hallway, kitchen table, kitchen floor and sometimes right in front of their cubbies!

I now want to tag my sister Monique (you might have already done this), my sister-in-law Jalynn, Amy Morgan, Amy Lopez, Stephanie, Christy.

A Week in Review!

Another week has quickly past us by and sometimes I can't even remember what I did yesterday! Here are some of this week's highlights.

Monday I worked in the yard and planted my beautiful mums we purchased at Costco.

Tuesday I went to Brinley's first field trip to the Pumpkin Patch! She had a great time picking out her pumpkin and at the last minute decided on this white one.

Wednesday I was entertaining kids all day since it was an early release day!

Thursday Brinley and I ran errands while Maddie was at school. She helped me pick out this cute "Boo" sign and the candy of course.

Friday evening my friend Jana dropped off her girls for the weekend. So I have been entertaining seven kids all weekend! They actually just played constantly with my children. It was fun to have them and we "almost" made it to church on time today!

Saturday we listened to the BYU Cougar football game. We all wear our BYU attire on football game days. Although Madelyn wears her BYU cheerleader outfit every chance she can get.

Jon and I also started to watch a movie last night in our bedroom. It was awesome because he projected it onto our ceiling. We are finishing the movie tonight but with a few visitors!

Have a great "NEW" week tomorrow!!!

Becoming Self-Reliant

This year we have raised our food storage game. It really started almost a year ago when Jon was asked to give a talk in the adult session of Stake Conference. His topic was, FOOD STORAGE. He didn't want to stand up there and tell people to be prepared with their food storage and not be prepared himself. So we purchased these Emergency Food Supply buckets from Costco that we had been eyeing for quite some time.We then for sure had a three month food supply but wanted to work towards a full year supply.

There were three things we have done this year to help accomplish this goal.

1. We purchased 800 pounds of wheat and a grinder. Jon was very excited about this! Morgan, Mason, Jon and I sealed the wheat in Mylar bags with our own iron in our garage one evening! We now have 17 full buckets of wheat in our pantry!2. Canning has been a fun family activity this summer and fall. We purchased 3 flats of strawberries and picked raspberries from the Reids home. We love homemade jam at the Jackson house and have several bags of berries frozen! B & B happily helped Jon do all the strawberries. I was not so happy to help because we were going on a big road trip the very next day. Just last week I bought 5 boxes of pears so this weekend was spent canning! With one box left we have already have 60 jars of pears. I need to go and buy more jars tomorrow because I have run out!

3. Last weekend we FINALLY set up our Canned Food Rotation System that Jon's parents gave us last year for Christmas. We love it and want to have it filled by the end of the year. We figure once we have this filled we will basically have a year supply of food including the food in our pantry. We're very thrilled to have accomplished so much in a year's time.

Season Premier!
Last night was the season premier of one of my all time favorites:
Yes, I still watch that show and have watched it for 15, FIFTEEN years!!! Most people can't believe that I have stuck with it for all these years. There has been some great years and some years that have not been so great but I don't think I have ever missed an episode! I remember when I was in Utah for Thanksgiving in 1999. We hurried home from my grandma's house on Thanksgiving Day to watch nurse Carol Hathaway have her twins! That's one dedicated fan! I started watching ER when we still lived in Provo, UT and Jon was finishing up his Masters. When you think about THAT, that's a long time to watch a TV show. We moved to Holland, MI for Jon's first job in January. We lived with Jon's brother and sister-in-law for a few months while we were building our first home. Temple and I clicked fast (who doesn't love her) and we soon found out that we both loved ER. We have watched many an episode together most of them were when she would be doing my nails. So yesterday I called her and invited her over for the Season Premier!We laughed but mostly cried during the episode because Dr. Pratt died! Temple said "This can't be happening!" and then she said "none of this is happening because it's just a TV show" which made us both laugh! We have shared many fun ER times together and are looking forward to a great season. Many of the old FAVS are coming back Dr. Carter, Luka, and Dr. Mark Greene (how's that going to happen I'm not sure b/c he died in season 8). I want to see hotty Dr. Ross (George Clooney) make an appearance but the word on the street is he's not interested! It will be a fun year but what will I do with my Thursday night's?