Morgan is 6!!!

Morgan turned 6 on the 2nd.  She woke-up that morning with lots and lots of smiles and happy to be celebrating her day.  I made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and she soon got a call from Grandma and Grandpa Huff who sang "Happy Birthday" to her (she had been waiting anxiously all week for their call).  She was off track and I took the day off work, so we had the whole day to shop and play.  We ventured over to Toys R Us to shop for her birthday gift.  We walked around for a long time and she really had a hard time deciding what to get, until I directed her attention to a Disney Princess alarm clock and an outfit for her baby doll.  We then went to lunch and I had some shopping to do myself :).  We came home and she played with her neighbor friend and I made her chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  That evening we took her out to dinner to Spaghetti factory and celebrated Morgan's and my Nieces birthdays together.  We then came home and had yummy cake and ice cream.  









On Friday she had another fun-filled day with her best friend S.  We ventured to Wheeler farm and spent a few hours there.  S's mom took lots of pictures of the girls.  We then had lunch at their favorite place, McDonald's.  S wanted to get Morgan an outfit for her build-a-bear, so we went to the mall and picked out a cute outfit.











We LOVE our Morgan SO SO much!  I couldn't imagine my life without her and every day I thank my Heavenly Father for allowing and trusting me to be her mother.  We waited so long for her to be a part of our family.

Some fun facts about Morgan - she is shy around other people, but has a fiery personality at home.  She asks lots and lots of questions all the time about EVERYTHING you can think of.  She loves books, and movies and having girls night out with mom when the boys camp.

My Mom and Dad were called to the Utica, New York mission in February.  I cannot tell you how excited I was for my parents to finally be serving their mission.  Ever since I remember they would always talk about the day they would have the chance to serve a mission.

They spent a few days with me and my oldest sister before heading to the Provo MTC.  Mom and I spent a day getting pedicures going to lunch and doing some shopping.  Dad spent a lot of time playing candyland with Morgan.  She tried to cheat her way to the finish line by placing one of the picture cards that jumped you farther on the board as the second card.  When Dad said, "let's shuffle the cards", she insisted that he didn't and got really mad when he did.  What a stinker, but they had fun despite trying to cheat her way to winning :).  Dad, Jeff and the kids also played a long game of monopoly.  I love watching my parents be grandparents, they are awesome with the kids and I can tell the love that they feel for them.

On Saturday night we went to the Jordan River temple with my parents, sister and brother-in-law and then out to a delicious Indian restuarant that is one of Jeff and I's favorite places to eat these days!

Jeff was also ordained a High Priest the Sunday that they were here with us and Jeff's parents were able to come down for that. On the same day Ian was also ordained as a Teacher.  I feel so blessed and lucky to have 2 worthy priesthood holders in my household, and I'm also very blessed to have a father-in-law and a father who are worthy priesthood holders too.  After church we all came back to our house for lunch.

On Monday Morning, Mom and Dad packed-up their stuff and headed to Provo for the week.  It was bittersweet watching them leave.  They are serving in an area that had a branch at one point, but since the economy tanked it left a lot of people in the area unemployed and a lot of those people moved, which resulted in them having to shut down the branch and those that were left had to drive to another branch.  My dad was called as the branch president and they are now in the process of trying to contact all the members on their list to let them know about the re-opening, they are also waiting for the go ahead from Salt Lake to reopen it and move forward.

I can already feel the blessings that are coming our way with their missionary service.  I know that they will have some amazing missionary experiences and do great work.

Christmas Happenings 2012

I wasn't going to blog about Christmas and one of the main reasons was because of my attitude.  I'm ashamed to say that my attitude was not very Joyful and I felt bothered by the whole season.  Christmas Eve and Christmas day were the worst for my attitude, and no matter how hard I tried to be happy I wasn't feeling "it" at all.  As I look back, I wonder what was so different about this last Christmas versus Christmas in the past when I could hardly stand the anticipation like a child.  I think most of it had to do with working.  I didn't have any time off and I had to work my 6 hours on Christmas Eve AND Christmas day.  Even though I was at home, I felt sorry for myself that I had to work.  Since working it has put a time crunch on EVERYTHING.  I felt rushed to get the Christmas decorations up, to get my Christmas shopping done and all the presents wrapped, and in this rush I forgot the most important thing about Christmas.  CHRIST.   I have since repented and I'm determined to have the spirit in my heart and home throughout this next year.  Despite my attitude, that kids had a very fun Christmas, we don't have any pictures of them opening their presents, though Jeff did get video.

My sister and her family came over for Christmas Eve, so after I was done working that day I scurried around to get some last minute things done.  We had appetizers, and I had prepared most of it ahead of time.  The kids did the Nativity while Ian read in the scriptures.  We sang some songs and had a great time visiting.  All the kids were eager to get to bed and wait for Santa to come.

Christmas morning arrived and the kids aren't allowed to come out of their rooms until we tell them that they can.  We made Ian sleep on Morgan's floor so that he couldn't sneak up from the basement and take a peek.  I got up early to use the bathroom and had heard them in there talking. I went back to bed though hoping that they would go back to sleep.  It wasn't too long before they were ready to start the day.  Jeff headed downstairs with the video camera so he could capture there reactions.

Morgan got a Leap Pad from Santa, she LOVES it and spends most of her free time playing with it.  She is in the process of earning some money to buy some more apps for it.  She also got another book for her Leap Tag.  She got some new shoes (sketchers lights), some funky socks, new mittens and pants

Santa also brought the family an XBOX 360 with kinect.  We have loved playing the games on it.  I think Morgan's favorite it the Dance Central game (mine too).

Ian was super excited to see the XBOX 360.  He has wanted one for a few years now, and we told him that it was just too much money to spend.  We had convinced him that this is something that he probably wouldn't get unless he saved his money for it. He got the latest Halo game and he and Jeff spent most of the day playing together.  I think Jeff was just as excited about the XBOX as Ian was.   Ian also got some new Vans (shoes), glove, socks, boxers and sweat pants.

Since we bought an expensive family gift, I told Jeff that we shouldn't get each other gifts.  I knew he wasn't going to listen and he bought me gifts anyway.  I got some new bowls, pyrex dishes and some fun things to add to my Christmas village.

Earlier in the month Morgan had her Christmas recital for dance.  She danced to an Island Christmas song.  She was a lot more shy on stage this recital than she had been in the past, but she did a fantastic job.  We love watching her blossom in her talent.

Has it really been this long?

I can't believe it was August since I last posted and this year is almost over.  Life got a little crazy for our family when I decided to go back to work in September.  My other work at home job was not longer working out for me and I knew and felt like I needed to make a change.  I had heard that O'Currance in Draper was hiring and that you could be a home agent with this company.  I applied and got hired on. I came home and cried, knowing that things would be a lot different for our family.  They only gave me a couple choices in my schedule, and I decided to do the evening shift Saturday-Wednesday 4-10 PM. With the Holidays it has been very busy so we have been required to put in 40 hours a week.  This has also been very difficult for me.  I feel like I'm running around like a crazy person all the time trying to get everything done that I need to do.  It has made me be a bit more "scheduled" though, I actually find that I am getting more done because my time is much more limited.. What I thought would be a couple weeks working in the office has turned into several months.  I kept getting different answers from everyone as to when I could start working from home.  The desk that I am working on wants you to have a 22% conversion rate on the product that we sell the most.  When I finally got to this rate, I got may paper work signed and then had to wait for a phone, and then also had to wait for IT to call and help me set everything up, by the time I had finally gotten everything set-up my conversion rate had dropped so I was still stuck going in to work.  They are however splitting the desk that I'm on and will be solely selling one product instead of 4 different ones, and should be able to stay at home from then on, this will also give me the chance to change my schedule to work days. Hopefully, this change will give us some sort of normalcy again.  Jeff has been a trooper and helping out a lot.  I couldn't do this without him.

On another note, the kids are doing great!  Morgan started kindergarten (the day I got my job).  I thought I would have a hard time sending her off to kindergarten, but I had more anxiety about Ian being in 8th grade.  I'm so glad that he will still be in middle school next year, I am so not ready to have a kid old enough to be in High School...aye aye aye!!!!

We are enjoying the Christmas season and recently adopted an "Elf" from Santa.  Morgan named her Hart.  She has been very mischievous, we have found a snow angel made out of sugar on our kitchen table,  she got herself a glass of milk and ate a cookie, she has played with Morgan's barbies and her My little Ponies and we've found her hanging on the pull for the ceiling fan.  We are sure having fun finding out where she will be next!

Reaching for Goals

For years and years I've struggled with trying to lose weight.  I always start with good intentions and start strong and then get tired of trying and not seeing results as fast as I think I should.  I realized not too long ago that I always set myself up for failure from the beginning of every weight loss intention.  I would tell myself, I'm going to perfect every single day and exercise hard every single day, but when those sweet cravings came along, and when I didn't feel like exercising, I would beat myself up and stop trying, and then all the weight that I lost would be right back on.

So when I joined Weight Watchers in February, I had those same intentions, to be perfect with my eating and exercising every single day, but something switched in my head this time, and it was during one of the weekly meetings that I feel like I finally "got it".  The leader had passed out a sheet of paper with mantras on them and one of those in particular stuck out so strong with me that day, that I knew for certain that this was going to be the time that I would finally reach the goal that I have longed for for so long.  This was THE mantra, now MY mantra:

"If your driving down the road and get a flat tire, do you get out of your car and slash the other three?  No, you fix it and get back on the road"

So, simple but so true,  We are not expected to be perfect in this life, no matter what we are aiming for, we all stumble and fall, but yet we get back up and try again.  I can't tell you how many times I have faltered, but have remembered my mantra, to get back on the road, and I have this time.  The weight loss hasn't been as fast as I would like, and I've realized that it may take me another year to finally reach my goal, but once I reach that goal, I know that it will be my goal to keep the weight off.

When I reached my 10% goal I got a gold key ring, and when I reached my 25 pounds lost I got a little 25 pound weight that I've attached to my key ring.  This is a constant reminder of the goals that I continue to have.  As of today I've reached 30 pounds lost.  Most of my clothes aren't fitting anymore.  I've cleaned out my closet and given my bigger clothes to D.I.  I don't have a lot of clothes to wear, but I'm more than happy to find my clothes way too baggy than way too tight.  Wal-Mart is my source of clothes for the time being, until I reach my final goal, and then I'll be shopping for a new wardrobe in the regular size clothes section of a department store.

Pre-School Graduation

Morgan finished her 2nd year at Leap Ahead Learning Pre-school.  She had the best teacher Ms. Jennae.  It's always sad for me to see a good chapter end and this was one of those times. She has learned so much, overcome some of her shyness, and really blossomed overall.  My baby will be heading to big school in August for Kindergarten.

Hiking the Y

 A couple of Saturday's ago we decided to hike up to the Y in Provo.  This is my first time and the kids first time too.  Jeff had hiked it before when he was a student at BYU.  After our hike we ate at the  creamery on 9th...YUM