Christmas Eve

We had a quick trip down to my parents for Christmas Eve. Coult was on call Christmas day, so we had to head home late Christmas Eve. We had a great time! We were finally able to meet Jodi and Jordan too! Here are some pics from that night:

Tortilla snowflakes

Natalie saw this dessert idea in one of the recent Friend magazines. We decided to give it a try for our FHE refreshment a couple of Mondays ago. We each had fun making our own snowflake and then eating them! They are so easy to do and the girls have wanted to make them several times since that night. You just sprinkle a few drops of water on a tortilla and heat it in the microwave for a few seconds--just long enough to make it pliable. Then you fold it the same way you would to make a paper snowflake. We used our kitchen shears to cut out our designs on the edges, unfolded the tortillas and then cooked them in a little bit of milk free margarine in a skillet. Then we sprinkled some cinnamon and sugar on top. Yummy!

Snow!

We awoke to a wonderful surprise on Wed. It was snowing! It snowed for a while and then stopped. The snow started to melt and then we were surprised again when it started to snow even harder that afternoon! It was snowing pretty hard when I picked Natalie up from school. She was so excited! That time, the snow was able to accumulate quite a bit. It was at least 3 inches deep by the time we went to bed last night. The girls made a small snow man Wed. morning before school and our neighbors were able to build a full size snow man by late Wed. night. The girls really enjoyed the snow! I have a couple of videos of them throwing snowballs at each other that I will try to add later. I still can't get my videos to upload for some reason. Anyway, Lily was so sad this morning when she found out the sun was going to melt the snow and that it wouldn't be snowing any today. She told me she was going to "make the sun go home" so that the snow wouldn't melt. LOL She has really been wanting to see snow! Natalie said the snow brought back memories for her of when we lived in Utah about 9 yrs ago. She loved the snow then and she still loves it now. I love seeing everything looking like a winter wonderland outside. Who knows, maybe we'll get some more snow before winter is over.

Happy 12th B-Day Natalie!

Natalie turned twelve this past Tuesday! It's hard to believe that she is twelve yrs old now! She had her first ever slumber party Friday night. The girls seemed to have lots of fun! She had a Hawaiian Luau themed party. Coult did a great job on her cake (as always)! I tried to upload a video from her party, but it wouldn't work. I'll try again later. Until then, here are some pics from her special day:

Mr. Turkey aka Batman/Thanksgiving

I know this is late. But, better late than never, right? A few weeks ago, Lily brought home a turkey that we were supposed to "disguise" as a family. It was a homework assignment from her kindergarten teacher. The idea was to disguise the turkey so that he wouldn't get eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a lot of fun disguising her turkey as Batman.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with Coult's family. We had lots of yummy food and had a great time visiting his side of the family. I love Thanksgiving because it's always nice to be reminded of all the things I have to be grateful for. Here are just a few of them:

~My wonderful husband, Coult. He is such a loving, supportive person and I'm grateful that he is there for me and our girls. He means more to me than words can say.
~Our two beautiful daughters, Natalie and Lily. Having children has taught me more about love than I can possibly explain. I can't imagine my life without them.
~Our loving and supportive extended family. Coult and I are very blessed to have such wonderful extended family who are always there for us.
~The true gospel of Jesus Christ. Without the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life, I wouldn't have been able to make it through some of the trials I have had. It gives me great peace and happiness.
~My life and the life of several of my family members. After almost dying in the tornado in 1999, I have a true appreciation for how fragile life is and how none of us know when our time on this earth will be over.
~I'm grateful for our home, the food we have to eat every day, and the clothes I have to wear. I know there are many in this world who have no homes and no food or clothes. After losing everything in the tornado, I have a better understanding of how quickly a person can lose everything. I'm very grateful for those who helped us in our time of need. I will never again take having a roof over my head for granted.

I hope that you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

"Twilight"

I went to see "Twilight" with some of my friends late Friday night. We had so much fun! I don't think I've been out that late at night for a long time. I know, I know, I have no life. Anyway, for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, I won't ruin it for you by posting any of my feelings about it. So, Cynthia, you're still out of luck! LOL You'll just have to wait till Tuesday. Then you can give me a call and we'll chat about it!

Our Anniversary

Today was mine and Coult's 15th wedding anniversary! I can't believe we've been married for 15 years! It's flown by so quickly. Coult took the day off from work today and took me out to eat at a yummy Mexican food restaurant while the girls were at school. The restaurant was about 45 minutes from our home. On our way home, we passed through a small town that has several antique shops in their downtown area. We walked through a few of those together. I found out something about Coult that I didn't know for the last 15 years--He actually likes shopping at antique stores! I always thought that when we went to them on rare occasions that he was just humoring me. It turns out that he actually enjoys it! He even pointed out an antique sofa that he said he wouldn't mind having. That just goes to show that no matter how long you've been married, you can still learn new things about each other. I'm so glad that I am married to such a wonderful man. He is patient, thoughtful, loving and such a great father for Natalie and Lily. Happy Anniversary Coult!

Happy Halloween!

This is our first Halloween to live in a neighborhood where lots of kids will go trick-or-treating. So, the girls really wanted to have fun decorating our house for Halloween. We went to our church Trunk-or-Treat first tonight and then went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. The girls really had a fun time! Steven went to a church Halloween party and he let me take a picture of his costume before he left. Mom, it looks like Steven found an excuse to wear that suit that you just love! Ha Ha! ;) He can't wait for you to see the picture! Here's some pics of our Halloween night and of our house decorations. Natalie was such a beautiful Medieval princess. She made her own head piece and choker in her Art class at school. They turned out really pretty! Lily was an adorable Aggie basketball player. Sorry Aaron M., but it's a lot easier to find an Aggie uniform around here than a UT one! One of Coult's patients got a basketball signed by some of the Aggie women's basketball players and their coach and gave it to Coult to give to Lily to go with her costume.

Camping trip

This past weekend, we went camping at Lake Somerville. It's a lake at a state park about 45 minutes from our home. We had never been camping as a family before, so we weren't sure how it was going to go. We were especially worried about how Lily was going to do. She did great! Natalie has never slept all night in a tent before either. She has always chickened out in the past because she was scared. She did great too! Coult even taught her how to build a campfire. We got to see some raccoons while we were in our tent Friday night trying to go to sleep. One of them even unzipped our empty tent bag which I had left out on the picnic table! The girls were really excited to see the raccoons. Just our luck, we ended up being the only campers who weren't Boy Scouts in our whole camping area. Which meant that we were serenaded by "revielle" early Sat. morning. Actually, Lily and I were the only ones still asleep at 6 am because Natalie and Coult were already up trying to start our morning camp fire. Coult got up super early because he woke to something pulling on one of our tent poles at about 5 am. It turned out to be a 30-40 lb raccoon trying to get to the bags of food in our tent! Then, after the raccoon ran away, a skunk walked right across his feet while he was sitting in his chair! He was so scared that it was going to spray him! Coult and the girls went fishing for awhile, but didn't catch anything. It was fun for them anyway. We also waded along the lake shore for a while before we left. We had so much fun! I'm not much of a camper, but since it went so well, I wouldn't mind going again. Here are some pics from our camping trip: