Frozen

With six people to buy food for, we have been running out of room in our deep freeze.  Add that to the fact that every time I get stuff from Costco, I have to pretty much empty the whole deep freeze to rotate the food and get the new stuff put on the bottom.  I have been very fed up with the whole process for quite a while. 

But no longer.  As of today. 

We went from this:

To this:

So much better. 

Our little deep freeze served us well for nine years, but it was time for an upgrade.  Oh, and note to self... if you every buy another freezer, do it in the summer when it a thousand degrees outside--and in the house.  Because transferring a freezer full of frozen stuff to another freezer when you are already freezing is about as fun as it sounds.

10 years and counting!

Nate and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on January 2nd!  It was on the same day as Melanie and Tyler's wedding in San Diego, so we were in California for our anniversary.  So here's what we got to do on our anniversary:

 

We got to go to the temple.  I wish we could have done sealings, but it didn't work out time wise. 

 

We got to go to the beach.

We also got to go to dinner without our kids.  We put them to bed at the hotel and left grandma and grandpa in charge.  Then we went to Outback.  There was also a Krispy Kreme next door, so we got donuts afterward too. 

We are hopefully planning an actual trip to celebrate our 10 years of marriage.  In the past 8 1/2 years since we've had kids, we've never spent a night away from them together.  We've been saving up and would like to go to Puerto Rico (where Nate served his mission), but we will see if it works out.

I am so thankful to have this sweet, loving husband who makes my life so much better every day.  Ten great years down, and many more to come!

Trip to San Diego for a wedding

This past Wednesday, we drove to San Diego for Melanie and Tyler's wedding.  I also opened my new camera on the way and read through how to at least make it function, so I took a lot of pictures.  So maybe I will just walk you through our weekend using mostly photos.

On Wednesday night, we had a dinner with both of the families at a nearby church.

Damon and Jade--cute little crazies

Arie loving on daddy

 

Tyler's dad gave Melanie and Tyler a little test to see how well they knew each other.

The next morning, January 2nd, was the wedding in the San Diego Temple.  It was very nice.  I wish we would have had more time to actually be in the temple and look around.  We didn't get to see the spiral staircase or the Celestial Room.  But as soon as the sealing was done, Nate and I rushed out to go get our kids (who were being babysat at the hotel by a local young woman from one of the wards) so we could have them back in time to take pictures.

This next set of pictures cracks me up.  I was trying to get a nice picture of this shot...

...when I was interrupted by Thing 1... (Jade)

...being chased by Thing 2 (Damon)

And being at the temple, taking pictures, was hard work for everyone.

After lunch and a little bit of rest, we headed out to La Jolla Beach.  We got there later than we wanted to.  It was a pretty warm day, but we didn't get to the beach until about an hour before sunset.  So it was a little bit cool.  Mom, Dad, and Jade as well as Rob and Tina were there with us.

We really thought the kids would have fun just playing in the sand and maybe putting their feet in the water.  We were wrong.  Those crazy kids wanted to play in the water.  In the cold, January, Pacific Ocean.  Natalie actually got completely in and went under several times. 

 

Here's all of the "we aren't cold!" pictures.

When we finally got them out of the water for good, we heard nothing but crying about how freezing they were.  Natalie was even yelling about how she was never going to get in the ocean again in January.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the sun were still up in the sky, providing some warmth.  But it was really fun to watch the sun set over the ocean.

I tried to take one of those cute family-feet-in-the-sand pictures.  It didn't work.

Arie loved the beach too.  She spent some time chasing seagulls, but never got very close.

Right before we left, Arie decided she wanted to discover the ocean and just started walking out in the water, apparently not bothered by the temperature either.  I pulled her back and then had Nate walk her out.

Kelton has had his first loose tooth and it got super loose while we were in California. I pulled it out for him the next morning (after the beach) and the Tooth Fairy visited him at Melanie's house.  The Tooth Fairy has visited him twice (for three teeth) and has yet to retrieve teeth from Kelton's own house.  (His front two teeth were pulled out by dentist Uncle Chad and picked up at grandma's.)

The day after the wedding we took our time eating breakfast and playing in the hotel pool.  Then we packed up and headed to Melanie's house in Gilbert.  The next day (Saturday) was the reception.  We went to Costco in the morning and then spent the rest of the day getting food ready.  It wasn't until after I cut up all kinds of fruit and skewered them all day--and then cut up 12 small-ish baguette loaves that I decided to try to cut my finger off. (Okay, not really off)  Good thing Melanie worked as a nurse and had steri strips and my parents had super glue.

We all went and helped set up the reception.  It looked really nice.  And somehow, my kids made it through the set up, the reception, and the clean up afterward, which didn't end until after 10:00 p.m.

Miss Jade.

Cupcakes!

Photo station set up for guests.

Damon got upset for some reason, and wanted his own picture.

 

 

At the end, we all danced (but all my pictures turned out blurry because of the setting I had the camera on), then cleaned up, and headed home.  We didn't arrive until after midnight.  Our new church schedule is 9:00 and we were not on time this morning.  Considering that when I woke up it was almost 8:30, Nate was in the shower, and the kids were still in pajamas and hadn't eaten, and it takes 10 minutes to drive to the church, I'm surprised were only 20 minutes late.  Our kids looked a bit homeless with their hair undone and the boys shirts were dirty from the reception--but we were there!

Updates...

I spent the day updating my out-of-date blog, so there are five new posts!  If you are one of those people who likes things in order, you may want to scroll down to the Thanksgiving post and work your way up from there.  Or, it probably is much easier to start at the top and just read until you fall asleep get through Thanksgiving.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I can't believe that December has come and (almost) gone, along with Christmas!  This month has been crazy, and busy, and fun.  Like last year, we stayed home for Christmas.  The kids were so excited and could hardly wait in those last few days.

Grandma and Grandpa Webb sent a present for Christmas Eve... new pajamas.  The kids were over the top excited about the characters on their pajamas.  Natalie had My Little Pony, Kelton had Sonic the Hedgehog, and Damon had Skylanders (we don't even have Skylanders, but he was thrilled).  I was afraid they might not ever calm down and go to sleep.  Arie got some too, but she is so small and they were so big.  After pajamas were on, we loaded them in the car to go look at Christmas lights while I read Luke 2 to them.

Christmas morning... before letting the kids come down.  And juggling that feeling of "is there enough?  Is there too much?"

And here are some favorite pictures.

Each of the kids earned their own money over the past few months and used it to buy a present for whichever sibling they had this year.  This Optimus Prime was from Kelton and Damon had been asking for it for a while.

Natalie has been endlessly talking about these Equestria Girls dolls (My Little Pony turned into humans) for months and months.  And has been begging for one for just as long.  (They aren't my favorite because they are made to look so much like Monster High dolls, but after much discussion and even making Natalie pray about it :) we decided she could have one.)  Kelton bought her this one and she gave him the biggest hug after she opened it.

I made hats for the kids.  Damon doesn't know what Ninjago is, but when he saw some others I was making he asked, "is that a ninja hat?!"  He was so excited about it and told me that he wanted a black ninja hat.  He was excited to open this.

I made an owl hat for something a few months back and ever since, Kelton has wanted an owl hat.  Plus, he loves blue, his school mascot is an owl, and two of his uniform colors are blue and gray.  So this hat was perfect.  :)  He's already worn it several times since he opened it, including this morning when he was cold after taking a shower.

Natalie also got a hat, but it was my first hat making fail.  I tried to do a Princess Celestia hat.  It was white with a few stripes of her hair colors and then I tried to make her eyes and put them on.  The result was.... um... I have no words.  I should have taken a picture so you could see what I mean.  And because I don't take craft failure very well, I ended up going to JoAnn's to buy a new set of yarn--on Christmas Eve.  I frantically made a whole new hat that ended up being plain with some colored stripes and nothing else on it.  I told Natalie I could try to put Celestia's sun-shaped cutie mark on it, but I'm not real confident in how that might turn out.  I felt bad I didn't have something equally as cute as the boys' hats for her.  She was gracious and told me she loved both hats.  I didn't even consider making one for Arie, who hates to even have her hooded bath towel on her head.  Such a shame because these hats are adorable on babies.

Santa was smart enough this year to assemble the baby toys and then wrap them ready-to-use.  (Actually, I believe it was his super smart wife who gave him the idea.)  Arie got this car, a rocking giraffe, and a dinosaur toy with lots of ABC buttons.  Each kept her plenty occupied (and away from everyone else's stuff) while the rest of us opened presents.  She loved this car.  She kept going back to it and would sit down and play and dance to the music. 

We've been invaded... I think these three Furby's stole the show this Christmas.  (This is one of the items Santa braved sending his poor elves in on Black Friday to retrieve.)  They do all kinds of things, including interacting with each other and you can play/take care of them using your phone or tablet.  Needless to say, my iPhone and Nate's iPad have been hijacked over the past two days.

We didn't go through and make sure the kids had all their stuff assembled, but here is each of them with their presents.  You might notice all the blankets in the pictures... Grandma and Grandpa Webb made each of them a super soft blanket for their bed with their name embroidered on it. 

Kelton had a lot of Legos and building stuff.

Damon got some Trio blocks and Imaginext planes and dragon.

Natalie was mostly dominated by My Little Pony.  (You can see my stack in the background.  Nate got me a new hand mixer to replace mine that died a few months back and has been sorely missed.  There's a cute skirt on top.  And a Nikon digital SLR camera, which I would love to learn how to use but am a little afraid of it.  And while we are on the topic of the parents, I got Nate a Wii U and Disney Infinity.)

Stockings...

We also did FaceTime with my parents so they could see the kids unwrap their presents from them.  They were cute stand alone fabric zipper pouches filled with candy, toys, and $10.  The kids love them and have already found things to put in them.  And since Wal Mart had problems with getting my order to me on time, I had the iPad mini at my house that all of my siblings and I bought for Mom and Dad.  So we had our kids open it for them so they could see it.

We also did FaceTime with Nate's parents while they opened their present from us.  We got them a generic tablet, which I hope holds up for them and I hope they enjoy.  We pre-loaded apps like Gospel Library, Skype, Facebook, and Netflix on there for them--things they will hopefully find useful.

Christmas day went by so quickly.  So quickly in fact that neither Nate or I showered or got out of our pajamas--which actually drives both of us crazy.  But part of why that happened could also be due to the fact that neither one of us was feeling real great.  I've been battling a sinus infection for about week and Nate's cold has morphed into something new too.  We played with new toys with the kids, cleaned up, cleaned up some more, made a nice dinner, which half the family didn't eat (little stinkers), and were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day.  But it was a good, fun day.

Caps, Caps for Sale! 50 Cents a Cap!

I love that book!  Anyway, this has been the November/December of hat making for me.  I made one for a service project, one for a birthday gift, one for Natalie, Kelton, and Damon for Christmas, and also decided to make them for my brother Chad's four kids, who we have for Christmas this year.  I found out their kid's favorite characters and went from there.  I was a bit worried on how they might turn out, because I didn't have a pattern and had to make them up. 

Brayden and Trevor like Ninjago...

 

 

Callie likes white tigers.  This one was tricky and took the most time.  I looked at several pictures of what others had made, and most of them didn't look real great.  That is never very encouraging.  I wanted it to be cute, or at very least, not look dumb.  I think I made three different sets of ears, and two or three sets of eyes before coming to the final result.  At one point, our white tiger was in serious danger of looking like a house cat...  But I was happy with the end result.

 

Kira is a princess lover, and her favorite is Ariel.

 

I had to wait to post this until after Christmas because I couldn't give away the surprise!  Plus I wanted to steal this picture from Erica's blog.  :)

 

I hope they liked them!  I had fun making them.  And in case you are wondering--I would never in a million years sell crocheted hats for 50 cents.  So don't ask.  :)   But apparently I will give them away for free... Hahaha!  Merry Christmas!

You know what they say about "all good things..."

I'm playing catch up here... back in October we received a letter (dated on the 27th) from the Stake Presidency stating that we were to attend a special meeting with them the following Sunday (November 3rd) to discuss some important changes that would affect our family.  I knew almost immediately what this was about--boundary realignment.  Over the next few days, and in talking to a few other people in our ward, we figured out exactly what was happening.

Sahuarita has been steadily growing since we moved here.  When we came, there were two wards, which were bursting at the seams.  Now, eight years later, we have five wards and our own stake (which includes a ward from Tucson and two branches).  But boundaries have been moved a bit here and there, especially when new wards have been formed.  About two years ago, (I think) the newest ward was made--the Madera Ward.  I think it has always been kind of small and has struggled a bit.  The boundaries are actually only in Green Valley, which is for most intents and purposes, a retirement community.  So the Madera Ward is mostly made up of older people.  To my understanding, there are really only two areas in the ward where young families live.

So, as all of us who received the letter figured out, the meeting was to inform us that our neighborhood, and only our neighborhood, was being moved out of 3rd Ward and put in Madera Ward.  There are only about five other active families, in addition to us, in our neighborhood.  I of course, feel like 3rd Ward is the best ward in Sahuarita, and it is full of very good friends and people we have known since we moved here.  When we bought our bigger house a little more than a year and a half ago, we didn't even look at houses in other ward boundaries, even though we knew we might find something better.  That is how much we loved our ward, and how much we hate big changes.  So I probably don't need to tell you how we felt about this boundary change.  And I don't want to go on about it too much, but it was hard.  Two months later it is still hard.  And I suppose it will be hard for a while.  We really don't know anyone and it takes a long time to build friendships.  And the whole dynamic of the ward is different, which is to be expected when you go from a large ward where almost everyone has a bunch of kids to a small ward full of retirees and only one nursery (I don't think we've ever had less than three).  For example, the ward Christmas party was a dinner and a spiritual program with scriptures, speaking parts, musical numbers--similar to what you would expect from a sacrament program.  And there was no Santa.  I get it, I do.  But it was anything but kid-friendly.  I went to play the piano for the musical numbers and actually left the rest of my family at home. 

I was asked (an assignment, not a calling) at the end of November if I could put together the music for the Christmas program, including a choir.  Their ward had never had a choir before.  I said yes, and then got somewhat worried.  I only had four Sundays, including Christmas Sunday to get a choir and then get them ready to sing.  I was the choir director in 3rd Ward, which is why I think they asked me to do this, and last year it took me two and a half months to get the choir ready to sing two songs for Christmas.  Fortunately, a decent amount of people showed up to be in the choir and a friend from 3rd Ward agreed to be our accompanist.  We really only had two good practices, and a 20 minute now-or-never-learn-your-parts crash course before sacrament meeting started.  But somehow, it ended up okay and I think people enjoyed it.  I also played Sally DeFord's piano/organ duet of "Angels We Have Heard On High" with the ward organist.  And I had Natalie and another girl sing the first verse of "Silent Night" before the choir then congregation joined in on verses 2 and 3.  I think it went pretty well.

Nate and I do not have callings yet.  But after being told that they are "musical talent starved" by several different people, I think my 8 year banishment to music callings is not going to end any time soon.  It's not that I mind doing music (however, the choir thing is not my thing), but I would like the chance to do something different.  Who knows, maybe I will be surprised. 

So we will see how the new year goes in our new ward.  :)