Christmas Presence

What a wonderful day!

Christmas time makes me so grateful to be around my family. I love Christmas anticipation. I love being able to use the Santa Card to convince the kids to behave. I love buying things that I know they will love and making things I hope they will like. They kids were all very gracious this year which is completely heartwarming. No tears on Christmas morning! Yay!! The closest we came is when Mira ate all of the candy out of Jesse's stocking, but even that wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be. It was so much fun watching the

anticipation

joy

excitement

appreciation

love

As I watched the kids unwrap their gifts I felt His presence.

As I sang the hymns by myself on Christmas Eve and thought about doing that with my family growing up I felt His presence.

As I played games with our families I felt His presence.

As I laid in bed crying after talking to my sister on the phone I felt the pain of the last 2 1/2 years overwhelm me. I realized that things will never be the way they were before and felt cheated. I felt angry and depressed. I said a prayer to my Heavenly Father. I didn't know what to ask for so I asked Him what I should do. I didn't receive instructions, the problem wasn't resolved. It may never be resolved....but I did feel His presence. Stronger than I have felt it all year long. My insides were burning and I knew I wasn't alone. My heart and my head relaxed. The negative emotions were swallowed up and I felt love. I felt joy and peace. I didn't want to move. More than anything I wanted to feel that feeling as long as I possibly could.

"Learn of me

Listen to my words

Walk in the meekness of my Spirit

and you shall have

Peace

in me."

D&C 19:23

His presence is my favorite gift and always will be.

Mirabella Circus

My little baby turns 2 today!!

Happy Birthday Mirabella!!

I like to find songs on itunes that have the kiddos names in them. We've made a playlist for the kids and they get so excited to hear "their song". Obviously we weren't taking the playlist into consideration when we named our baby Mirabella. Oddly enough, we did find a song with her name in it. It's called "Mirabella Circus". It's really the lamest song on the planet. One day we were listening to it in the car and Addie said, " I don't like this song...it's soooo boring". Livy feels the need to stand up for her sister's honor," This song is NOT boring!! How would you like it if someone said YOUR song was boring"! Joe and I were cracking up. If you want to hear it you can go HERE.

Even though I don't like the song, living with Mira is like living with a circus. I'm constantly running around finding the next big attraction that she has created. She's such a little busy body firecracker. The other day I was trying to finish up a Christmas gift. I wasn't paying as much attention to the circus as I should have been. She found the nativity that Kathy gave to us last year and decided to play with it. Unfortunately it's a glass nativity. She cut her hands as she beheaded the characters. I found the headless nativity spattered with blood. Pretty gruesome. She didn't even seem to notice or care that her hands were bleeding. Poor little cutie.

I am so grateful to have such a handful in my life. She is strong, determined, and excited for life! She is loving, polite and adventurous. She knows what she wants and she will fight for it. As much as it drives me bonkers now, I want her to be strong enough to fight for what she wants when she is older. I don't want her to be swayed by others opinions. I love watching her grow up. I love hearing her express herself. I want to capture everything about her and stick it in my heart forever.

Happy Birthday beautiful girl!!

Birthday Madness...

Jesse turned 7!! Yay!! He's such a great kid! I love how thoughtful he is and I love that he's pretty easy going. We can definitely use that in a house full of girls. He enjoys life so much and gets really excited about trying new things. He got a magic kit for his b-day and has been LOVING it!!

He took one of his tricks to school with him this morning and lost it in the snow. Sad day. It's in the yard somewhere, so hopefully when the snow melts we'll find it before one of the other neighborhood kids does. We had fettuccine Alfredo for his b-day dinner and bought a few artichokes because he loves them. Last time we had them(about a year ago) none of the other kids would touch them. This time they DEVOURED them. He was nice enough to share with everyone. Happy b-day sweet boy!! We love having you in our family!!

Joe turned 33 on the 3rd! My favorite man is my favorite number! He said that he was all mine this year and he'd do anything I ask him to. Wah ha ha ha!! The POWER!! Actually it's not really any different than any other year. He's always willing to do anything for me. That's just one of the reasons why he's the perfect guy. He's such sweetheart!! We celebrated his b-day by going out for Chinese food because that's his favorite. Happy b-day my love!!!

We celebrated all of their b-days on Sunday along with Mira's. It was so much fun to watch Mira open presents. She got so excited about everything!! I'm really looking forward to watching her open Christmas presents now.

We put up the Christmas tree. One of my favorite things to do as a family. I loved watching the kids get excited about seeing ornaments that they recognize and finding ones with their names on them from my Grandma Jacobson. Taking pictures of the kids I was having a flash forward. I can just imagine the kids all grown up and looking at these pictures and sharing Christmas memories. Hopefully we can create some good memories for them to look back on.

Livy got new glasses!! We went thru Zenni Optical. You order them online and they are really inexpensive! They have lots of cute ones to choose from! She's really excited. I forgot to take a picture of them. I'll have to add one later.

Jesse entered an art contest earlier this month and was selected to have his artwork displayed in the Springville Art Museum for the month of December. We went to an award ceremony last Saturday and it was so neat!! There is a man that has been sponsoring this contest for the last 24 years. He read a Christmas story that has always inspired him and then gave all of the kids a pack of Chiclets and an award. Also tucked inside the envelope was a crisp 10 dollar bill. It was amazing because there must have been 50 kids at the program.

Jesse was of course beside himself. He was so excited.

We've been keeping Redbox in business now that we don't get any T.V. channels. We've also been watching shows on Fancast.com. They have a pretty good selection for us, but not so good for the kids. They don't have anything that's up to date. The kids have been watching the old school cartoons. They've renamed a couple of them which has been cracking me up. They changed "The Smurfs" into "Little Blue People" and "Fat Albert" into " Big Fat Guy".

PHEW!! I think I got thru everything that happened last week. Does life ever slow down??

Happy Turkey Day!!

I've been sooo looking forward to eating this season. I love holiday food! I've been trying to make lots of goodies that I've never made before and I'm realizing that they are super simple and why the heck didn't I ever do it before...things like fudge and chocolate bark. I've decided I find a lot of joy in doing things that I've never done before, even if they are really easy. That actually makes them even better. I guess with the shop tools in storage it's been fun to vent my creativity in the kitchen more than I usually do{still not that much, but more than I used to}. Thanksgiving is just a heavenly holiday. It's all about yummy food and family. What else do you need in life? We had a wonderful day at Ty and Deanne's house. My parents were also able to be there. What a fantastic day full of fantastic food.

Here's what we are most grateful for this season:

Addie: "I don't know what those things were called that had the candy canes on them. What was that called? Oh yeah, bark. That's what I'm most grateful for". {{point for the mom. Sweet!}}

Livy: "Movies, a house, and um...games and the computer, a family and a life".

Addie" I like games too".

Jesse: "My birthday, food and games.".

India: "Hugs".

Mira what makes you happy?: "Bink, gogurt".

Andy: Health, living close to family, personal revelation, disposable diapers, heat, kisses, laughter, repentance, sweet potatoes, motherhood, goofiness, hot chocolate and exercise.

Joe: Joe is out shopping for a T.V. so that's probably something he's happy about this season:)

The Swine Flu

We got hit pretty badly this week. I can't say for sure that is was of the swine variety, but whatever it was it knocked us out for the entire week. Joe and I were both laying in bed and would take turns doing things to take care of the kids. Incase you haven't experienced it yet, here's what you can look forward to:

Someone takes your head and sticks it into a sinus pressure drill dress. Every time you move your head you experience intense pain and feel like you want to pass out.

Fever and chills. You feel like you are being tossed back and forth from the Sahara Desert to the North Pole.

Goopy eyes. Joe would wake up with his eye stuck shut and have to wear glasses. I just had itchy eyes.

Intense body aches. Joe said he felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. I felt like I'd been run over by a steam roller. Hot showers do help while you are in this phase, but only as long as you can stand feeling light headed and nauseous.

Lack of energy. There's nothing that makes me as crazy as doing nothing does. Welcome to being forced into nothingness. You just want to lay there. Thank goodness for Fancast. I got hooked on "Glee". Normally I would not be able to get past the fact that it drives me crazy when people intentionally characterize a spouse with qualities that you can't stand so you are actually hoping that the main character cheats on his wife with the sweet co-worker. Yep, not enough energy to care about stuff like that. It was just fun to watch.

Lack of appetite. Even if you do feel like eating something it tastes weird and then you feel sick afterwards. It's a pretty effective diet, but totally not worth it.

Cough. This happened to half of the victims in our family. I haven't gotten to that stage and I'm hoping that I'll just skip it all together.

Head still in the sinus pressure drill press. That takes a really really long time to go away.

There are definite advantages you and your spouse being sick simultaneously. For one, there's the empathy/sympathy factor. Even after you have had a sickness it's hard to imagine really what someone else is going thru. You think you remember, but you don't. Not exactly. Being sick at the exact same time made me think, "Hey, I should give Joe a head massage because if his head feels anything like mine, he's probably miserable". Another advantage is that you don't have to be worried about avoiding each other or feeling like you can't kiss and as much as I hate it when Joe's sick, I always get excited when he calls in. Even if we're laying there in bed and can't function, it's still great to spend time together. I would have been so incredibly bored if he hadn't been sick with me this week.

The good news is that it didn't hit the kids as hard as it hit us. They had a fever for a few days and didn't have very much energy, but that's about it. I'm hoping that we'll all be in the clear before Thanksgiving!!

Sweet baby Jane

India Jane turns 4 today!! We celebrated with the extended on Sunday evening. Thanks so much to all of you that were able to come and help make her birthday wonderful.

We had so much fun with an evening filled with Russell cheating so he could beat a bunch of little kids at UNO and Sam giving himself a swirly. I think all in all everyone had a great time...especially Emily and Ty.

We took the kids out for FHE to buy her a few presents from us and had another little celebration for her last night.

Here's a few reasons that I am so happy to have Indi in my life:

*Your adorable shy smile with the little dimple on the side. You play that card right and you can have almost anything in this world! You are so adorable.

*Your sweet voice. I love to hear you say, "O.K. Mommy".

*You are so smart!! You love to do homework right along side Addie.

*You are so thoughtful. I always see you sharing and giving with your brother and sisters.

*You are so careful when you color and do such a great job!

*You have a tender heart.

*You get tired and want to lay down. That always makes me smile.

*You love animals and bugs and get so excited when you are around them.

* You love the color pink, you're not a huge fan of food and you like to sing "BINGO" in the car.

Thanks so much for being my daughter. I love you so so so much.

~Mom

~Saturday Evening Post~

Just thoughts...

.....I'm so excited to hear that Ty is the newest member of the Motab!

.....I love that Val sends out b-day cards because it makes my kids so excited.

.....My heart is breaking for Heather.

.....It feels so strange to have other people living in my house....ok, It's theirs, but still weird.

.....I'm hoping all goes well with Sarah and her new babe.

..... Shouldn't I have my Christmas shopping started...or at least thinking about it?

.....I wish Mom wasn't sick anymore.

.....I love my friends...really... a lot.

.....I wish I could do more...or less. I haven't decided.

.....Joe is a sweetheart. I'm lucky

.....3 o'clock comes early