First 16 Days of 2014

Happy New Year, at least isn't that what everyone says?  So far 2014 is off to a rocky start for us.  Thinking back over the years, even numbered years just do not seem to get along with us; and this year is not proving to be any different.  I think I have become accustomed to think that even numbered years will be rough.  Do not get me wrong, I am thankful for the many blessings that we do have in our life, our family, friends, a roof over our head, food to eat, our health, etc. But this month has been a "roller coaster" ride so to speak for us.

The company John works for has been shut down more days this month then they have been open, and while John still has a job, (although he has not worked a full day in over a week), one cannot help but be apprehensive, worried, scared, etc.  Not knowing what is happening, what is going to happen. Wondering what will we do? How will we get through this?   Let's just say it has not been easy....  The company John works for employs thousands of people, people who live and support the local economies around us. This shut down is not just effecting the employees of the company, but all the companies that do business with them as well.  The economic effects are huge! And to have this gut feeling that something is not right, that someone is behind this, for some kind of gain/take-over, makes things that much worse.  

We are living in what I feel to be "very scary times".  When will the madness stop?  We are loosing more and more of our freedoms everyday.   Not only our freedoms, but our personal identities and privacy as well.   When someone can come into your business and shut you down for something that is minute, and probably impossible to fully eradicate.   When your freedom to choose to have health insurance is taken away from you.   When you are loosing your rights as parents to choose what is best for your children; and what and how your children should be taught.   When criminals have more rights than law abiding citizens.   When your Constitutional Rights seem to be diminishing, WHAT IN THE WORLD DO YOU DO?

When we hear stories about the pioneers,  we often wonder how in the world anyone survived through those times.  I cannot help but think, that they are probably looking down upon us right now, wondering how we are surviving this world we are in.  This world in which everything seems to be up for grabs, for someone else to take.   This world in which wrong is right and right is wrong.   This world in which individuals are not competent enough to think or care for themselves,  so it's best to let the government take care of us.  What do we do?  HOW DO WE STOP THE MADNESS?

12 Days of Christmas

Every year for the last several years I have wanted to do the 12 days of Christmas with the girls, but every year I think about it too late.  This year I thought about it a little earlier and was able to pull it off.  But I did not want it to all be about receiving something, so I decided to split the 12 days 50/50 and make it the 12 Days of Christmas Receiving and Giving. I would've liked to have everything in cute wrapping with cute tags, but not everything needed wrapping, and I just did not have time to do it all cutesy, but that really was not the point.  I tried to get a picture of what they received each day so here it is.

Day 1: A little something to wear to show your Christmas Spirit.

Day 2:Give a gift to someone in need- They bought toys for a child and donated them to Toys for Tots.

Day 3: Coupons Good for a Daddy-Daughter Date

Day 4: Coupons Good for a Mommy-Daughter Date

Day 5: Gift Card to Cold Stone Ice Cream

Day 6: Led Pencils

Day 7: $10.00 They had to pay tithing, and buy a gift for someone else, if there was anything left it was theirs to keep.  Both did well.  They paid tithing, and bought gifts for their friends at school, their classmates, and a baby.

Day 8: Books

Day 9: Bake and Take Cookies to Someone-They made sugar cookies while we were at work.  They looked great, but they tasted like wheat.  We are not sure what happened, so we tossed the sugar cookies and they made some M&M and Chocolate Chip cookies instead.

Day 10: Ice Skating-This year for the first time ever, there was an ice skating rink here locally, minutes away from our house so they went ice skating.  Mikayla eventually got the hang of it, Ashlee could do it with buckets, but say's she is never doing it again!  

Day 10: A little Gift Basket

Day 11: Act of Service-They took cookies to two elderly people.

Day 12: A little gift for each of them and something for them to share.

Christmas Eve/Christmas Day 2013

Christmas Eve John and I both had to work, but we both got off at decent times so we took the kids out to deliver cookies to people they chose to make and deliver cookies to.  We went out to dinner, thanks to a co-worker of John's that gave him a gift card, and drove around and looked at Christmas lights.  When we got home we sat around the fireplace and Christmas tree, read Christmas Stories and talked about things that we are thankful for.

Christmas morning we were awakened by Mikayla.  Not too early though, about 6:45am.  I told them the night before that they could not get up any earlier than they do on a school day!  They drag to get out of bed on school days.  6:45am is a late wake up day for them.  Some days they have to be up by 6:20am and out of the house by 7:10am.

We opened gifts and tinkered with our gifts.  John went to take care of the animals and I prepared a salad, jello and a dessert to take to my moms.  Christmas afternoon we went to my moms, and had dinner with my family and exchanged gifts.

Santa brought the girls tablets.  Ashlee got a pink tablet and Mikayla got a purple tablet.

John got a vest and a tablet from the girls and I.

Ashlee bought John these huge Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Mikayla with all her gifts.  A tablet, doll, neon writer crayola board, clothes, crayons, a gift card, books and a wallet.

Ashlee got a tablet, clothes, a curling iron/flat iron set, gift card, tweezers, nail clippers, face soap (all those tween things that she keeps taking from me!)

The girls and John got me a tablet, a sweater, a scarf and some new PJ's.  We had a great day and we hope you all did too.

Ice Skating

This year there is an ice skating rink in our town.  It just happens to be about 2 minutes from our house which is great too!   The girls have been asking and asking to go, so for one of their 12 days of Christmas gifts, we gave them the gift of ice skating.  We went at 6pm to discover that they were sold out and we could purchase tickets for 8pm.  Which is what we did. Being sold out was probably a blessing in disguise, because it gave us a chance to go home, layer on some more clothes and make some hot chocolate to take with us.  The place was packed.  They let 160 people in to skate at a time.  And probably 155 of them have never ice skated in their lives, so it is complete chaos for the first hour or so, until people just give up and call it quits.  Mikayla enjoyed it, she lasted the entire two hours.  She went from hugging the wall, to using 5 gallon buckets to eventually taking off some on her own.  She wants to go back and do it again.  Her poor knees where so bruised the next day from hitting the buckets.

Ashlee hugged the wall, went around a couple of times, ended up falling on her wrist and injuring her wrist.  She took a break and eventually went back in and tried to do it with the buckets, she was a little more successful with the buckets, but she has decided that it is not something she would like to do again. Here are pictures I got with my phone they are not great.  Just ignore the blur and red eyes.

Report Cards

Winter break marked the end of the semester for the girls.  Both are doing very well in school.  Ashlee has all A's and Mikayla has all A's and one B.

Mikayla

Ashlee

Baking Day

I took today off of work to do baking for John's employees at work.  He has 36 of them, and so I baked up some goodies and put together some packages for him to deliver to all of them. I also made 5 batches of brownies.  John was asked by his employees to bring Carmel Brownies to their luncheon.  Here is a little sample of what I made.  I did not have enough room in our kitchen to have it all out for a picture.

This is everything John had to take with him to work.  He had to climb stairs with all of it too!

Soccer-Founders Cup Tournament

This weekend Mikayla's soccer team played 3 games in a tournament called the Founders Cup. The tournament consisted of teams throughout the state of California.  Mikayla's team won two games and tied another game.  The tie was broken based on the number of goals scored during the tournament.  Mikayla's team scored more goals, so they are now advancing on to the finals in January.