Lucky Number 11

Lukas has said that 11 is his lucky number, and so this is going to be his lucky year! So far so good. It started out on the right foot the night before with Dave and Franny taking him out to dinner at the Olive Garden and then taken him shopping for new church clothes (along with age he seems to be on a growing streak). With his birthday being a Saturday and all, and therefore no school, he got to sleep in, and I didn't even make him to any chores (am I rockin' mom or what?!). Lukas did what he wanted to do, which to was play some PS2 and Wii, and watch TV (he is 11 after all), so we let him.
We made him his favorite meal for dinner - Spaghetti - and made his favorite cake - chocolate with white frosting - opened presents, and in good Lukas birthday tradition, had the Rileys come for dinner. A good time was had by all.

This video makes me laugh every time I see it, listening to Isaac sing is about the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. :)

Playing Again, After All These Years

It used to be that I played my violin a lot. I played in orchestra, I played for fun, I played for church, I practiced. I sort of got out of the habit when I went to college, then I let my poor violin get really dusty after getting married and having kids. Every once in a while I would get my violin out, tune it up and play some scales or songs with music that I still had, just to make sure I remembered what I'd learned, oh so long ago. I'm glad I did.

Our stake is in the boundaries for the new Draper Temple, as a result everyone 14 and older has been asked to help at the Open House. My good and talented friend, Michelle Samuelson, was asked to prepare some music to be played in the Stake Center after people had gone through the temple. She decided to put together a violin quartet that she would accompany on the piano. She asked me to participate. I was so nervous, as I haven't played the violin publicly for years, but with a lot of practice (thank you Ruth Ann) I was able to pull it off. What a great experience! It was fun to be there and to see all the people enjoying themselves. It was darling to see all the little children just come up and watch us as we played.
Even though I was happy to be participating, I was even happier with the talented people I was with. I played with another mom Susan, an amazing 13 year Spencer and 14 year of Chrissy. They could have done the whole thing themselves and made it sound amazing. I was glad to be there and know that all those hours of lessons and practicing weren't totally in vain.

While I was busy entertaining, Sage and all the rest of our mutual were busy feeding and cleaning up after the crowd. They were all so cute, and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Sage and I were both in the Stake Center doin' our thing, while Stephen was able to serve in the temple, helping people on the tour who needed a little extra assistance.

Sage and I didn't get home until after 10 and Stephen got home closer to 11, we were all tired, but the good kind of tired. It was great to be able to spend so much time in a wonderful place and meet and serve the people who came there. If you haven't taken the time to go through the temple, I would totally encourage you to do so. It's a great experience.

Draper Temple Open House

For the first time I was able to go to a Temple Open House. I don't know why I haven't been to one before, I'm thinking I was probably pregnant or something, but now I wish that I had taken the opportunity to go. What a great experience. As a family we all got dressed up in our Sunday finest and drove on down to Draper. We were able to watch a little video about temples and Draper and we got to ride in a great, big bus with super comfy seats. The best thing was being able to show the kids all of the different rooms at the temple. The little boys were interested in everything. Sarah's favorite things were the chandeliers. They are beautifull! I would encourage everyone to go and take the family to see the temple.

We are some of the lucky people who are going to be in the new Draper Temple District. This will in no way reduce the love and affection that I have for the Jordan River Temple (seeing as I named my daughter Jordan and I was married there) but it is exciting to be apart of the open house process. Stephen, Sage and I all get to participate in the open house in some way or another on the 4th of February in the evening. Sage gets to help "host" in the Stake Center, Stephen gets to be an usher, and I am going to be playing the violin with others in my ward a stake to help set the mood in the stake center. We are all kind of excited.

Lukas and the Bee

There are a lot of strange and wonderful places in this world, and on Thursday, January 15th, Lukas was able to test his knowledge of some of them. After winning one of two spots from his class, Lukas was able to go to the school geography bee. He did OK too. He made it to the second round. After hearing that the winner was going to have to take a test to see if he could make it to the state geography bee, Lukas was happy with his showing. Plus he got a certificate and a pencil, and of course the "joy" of being in the geography bee in the first place.

39 Years

Now, I know some people say that 39 isn't that old. And in perspective it really isn't. But I have never been married to someone who is almost 40 and to me it seems kinda like it is. But, give me a couple a moments and I'll be OK.
To celebrate this momentous occasion we gave him lots of presents and ate a wonderful meal, that we invited his parents and my mom and sister to - my dad would totally have been there, but he was too far away in France :( - and had cake and ice cream. Who could ask for more? Not Stephen I hope.

"Happy Birthday Dad!"

Beverly, Franny, Birthday Boy and Dave

Max Comes for a Visit

As I may have mentioned, my little brother, Lincoln, got married on New Year's Day. It was beautiful day. Now I have another wonderful sister-in-law/friend, Raelynn. I am so lucky, this puts my sister-in-law number up to 10! I am truly blessed (not to mention the 3 sisters I already had). Anyway onto my newest SIL. Not only is she super fun and darling, she came with an attachment, also know as Max. Max is a darling little 3 year old boy who has one of the most contagious smiles on the planet. He makes me an Aunt 27 times over. Like my dad said, he may not be the youngest but he is newest. Well my brother and his wife wanted to go on a honeymoon (go figure??) and they needed a place for Max to stay. I love to watch my nieces and nephews while their parents go off to do what ever it is they do. So Linc had Max come stay with me. Max loves the Wii, food and his new cousins (maybe not in that order). So he had a great time with us here, and we had a great time with him.

Welcome to the family Rae and Max - we are so happy you're here!!!!

The Holiday Season

I guess it is far enough away at this point that I don't feel overwhelmed by the time of year that is Christmas. Thank heavens! I do love Christmas and all it represents, I loved that it snowed (even though everyone knows how I feel about snow!) I loved that my entire family was all in one place this year for the first time in 4. I loved that my brother got married to a wonderful girl, who I count as one of my friends. I loved that no one was SICK! It really was a good Christmas.

The best thing about the present opening this year was Sage's gift to Sarah. A little back ground.... Sarah love HSM1-3, she is a 13 year old girl, so this is totally natural. Who does she think is just "Hot"? Zac Efron.... on with the story. So Sage wanted to get something Sarah would really like, nothing dorky. I came upon the brilliant idea of having him buy her the life-size cut out of Zac Efron that she could put in her room (BTW 20 bucks at Zurchers). He went for it. Now normally this would just be a great gift and she would love and that would be the end of it. But this was a gift from Sage, so he had to mix it up a bit. He thought it would so funny, if he had HIS face on the cut-out. So we took a ton of close up pics of my oldest child and found one that would work, printed it up at Costco (for less that a dollar, I LOVE C0stco), cut it out and put it on Zac Efron's body. It was too funny. Stephen and I just laughed and laughed. It was perfect!
Christmas morning after we opened the Santa gifts, we went into the Living Room to get the tree presents and who was standing there staring at all of us? Non other that Sagey Efron!

It was great! If not a bit freaky to tell you the truth. So Sarah had to take "Sage's Face" off the cut-out, and then came the question of what to do with it. Well with three of the weirdest boys in the world under one roof this is what they came up with. BTW not to be out done, Sarah has taken this face of Sage's and put it in her locker at school, and gotten some decidedly funny responses from "What is THAT?" to "Is that your boyfriend?" to which Sarah still laughs about to this day.

SAGEY-ISAAC


SAGEY-LUKAS


SPLIT PERSONALITY SAGE


SAGEY-STEVE

Temple Square Lights

I hate the cold. It's not something that "I haven't learned to love yet" (sorry mama), I just hate being cold. From October to May I pretty much have frozen fingers and frozen toes. I wear a hat around the house (while no one is here, don't want to look like a dork in front of people you know), I try my darnedest not to leave the house after dark, so needless to say bedtime comes mighty early in the winter. I really hate being cold.

This is why my kids are seriously deprived. Poor babies.
They don't get to do a lot of Winter, outdoor-type activities, in fact until Sage was old enough to take them, the poor things didn't even get to go sledding. Thank heavens for Sage and his age.

This year though, they have been blessed. I think because we couldn't take them to Disneyland for Thanksgiving (like last year), the good Lord saw fit to keep the weather only mildly chilly so that we could take them to see the lights at Temple Square. With only a sweat shirt and regular shoes, we were ready to go. YEAH!!

We drove down to Stephen's work to take advantage of the free parking and then rode the Trax down to Temple Square. It was twofer. We walked around, took a ton of pictures in a vain attempt to find one worthy of a Christmas card (btw NOTHING). We went into the Tabernacle and saw where Nana used to sit when she sang in that great building. We went into the Assembly Hall, and went to the Christus. It was a lovey, NOT too cold evening. With all the sparkly lights and being together - it was a perfect evening.