Lately

I've been reluctant to blog because that meant uploading pictures from our new camera, and that meant risking losing pictures like last time. Turns out, it's not too hard. I should have been blogging sooner!

On Saturdays, Richie works in the morning at his side job. We do our house cleaning on Saturday morning, so the kids have been my helpers while dad is at work. When they have finished their chores and I've handed out the money, they occupy themselves while I finish (or start) the cleaning. :) Dress up is big at our house lately. I don't know what they are pretending to be, but it involved a couch cushion fort. I love the way Gwen is looking at her brother with such admiration. They are best friends and that makes my heart happy.



We spend A LOT of time on this run down couch reading books. It's some of my favorite time spent with the kids. We got a large compilation of Beatrix Potter stories for Christmas (Peter Rabbit) and we've slowly been working our way through the book. I don't know who loves it more, me or the kids.


My mom came up a bit ago to take an art class here in SLC. Although she was busy with class and mission preparations, we got to see her at nights and sometimes during the days. It was fantastic! While she was here she present the kids with trophies for working so hard on keeping their pants dry during the day/night. They are really proud of those trophies! Thanks Grandma! She also helped me in a major way with a major project; recovering our kitchen chairs! I have yet to take pictures of the finished product, so I'll save those for another post.


34 weeks Ya'll! I'm 35 weeks now, but this was taken last week. Baby seems to be doing great. I can tell it's getting harder for her to move around in there, so hopefully that means she's fattening up and comes out with some cute chubby cheeks to kiss on! Generally I feel pretty good, just really big. :)

2013 Book Review

I've done this post for a couple of years now, and I do it mostly just for my memory. I tend to read something, think it's wonderful and fantastic, and then a few months later find it hard to recall why I liked/disliked the book so much. I'm also a list keeper/checker-offer and I like keeping track of things like this. However, maybe you might find something you'd like to read as well. Hope it helps!

1. Biography of Mary Ashcroft Crosby
I'm so grateful for the history my Grandma Crosby and her Dad kept. I LOVED reading it and was so sad when it ended about 30 premature. I've been nagging her ever since to keep writing her history.

2. Tess of The Durbevilles- Thomas Hardy
Loved it! It's a bit of a darker book, which I oddly tend to like. A girl's life is pretty much ruined by her parents and being raped. She struggles to raise herself out of her circumstances the entire book, and almost succeeds when she falls in love with a man on the farm where she works. I'll leave it there in case you're planning on reading it.

3. A Heart Like His- Virginia H. Pearce
It's nice to have a quick, uplifting, religious read here and there throughout the year. I enjoyed her honesty and openness.

4. Screwtape Letters- C.S. Lewis
What a great read! It wasn't necessarily quick read, I had to keep re-reading things to try and get the full impact of what was being said, but it was powerful! It's a fictional set of letters written between 2 agents of the adversary who are trying to corrupt a young man. Sometimes it was scary to "peak into their minds" and find yourself in the same traps being set for the young man. Powerful.

5. Unbroken- Laura Hildebrand
Long book, but I read this one the fastest. Holy cow, what an amazing story! It's the biography of a WW2 vet whose plane gets shot down by the Japanese. It's the story of his survival and one of the most riveting stories I've ever read. There are some graphic things that happen in the book, but it's not blown up in great detail or anything, it's just the nature of what was happening. Just FYI.

6. Miseducation- David Elkind
I had to read this book while I was getting my degree, and every now and again I'll pull it out to refresh my memory. I tend to get caught up in the idea that I have to push my children, and they're falling behind because of me, and if I don't get them into certain programs they're at a disadvantage! AHHH! So then I pull this book out and remind myself to be a sane person and calm down. He goes into detail about the type of culture we live in, as far as raising super-kids goes, and documents why it probably does more harm than good.

7. SOS Parenting
Yup, I've already forgotten most of this book.

8. Sing and Sign with your Baby
I mostly just skimmed through this book because it's formatted in a series of lesson plans, for the most part. It will come in handy when I actually put it into practice when this baby gets here. I really loved signing with Miles, but dropped the ball with Gwen. It's so helpful, I totally recommend it.

9.The Hurried Child- David Elkind
Same author as "Miseducation", same idea as "Miseducation."

10. Daughters In My Kingdom
How ridiculous is it that it's taken me this long to read this book? The church put it out, what, like 5 years ago? I'd read parts, but not from front to back in it's entirety. This needs to be on your reading list if you haven't already read it. Really good information.

11. Letters- Marjorie Pay Hinckley
Who would have thought that a bunch of "meaningless" letters about daily life could be so entertaining! I loved reading about the prophet's wife as a person, and a mother. What a tender and real woman.


12. Les Miserables- Victor Hugo
I was intimidated by the idea of reading this book. I mean, it's like a million pages right? I actually got through it a lot faster than I thought I would have. It was fantastic! Yes, I read the unabridged, but I don't feel I can claim bragging rights because when it got to those long, filler parts about the war and about the sewer, I totally skipped them. The thing I'm going to remember most about reading this book is how much I disliked Marius! In the plays and movies he's portrayed so differently (I feel), and in the book he just seemed like a love-sick wimp. I loved learning the back stories of all the characters, and even the back stories of all the "lesser" characters. So fantastic!


13. Becoming Jane Austen
I was anticipating this book to read like a fictional book, so I got slowed down when it read like the biography it is. It took me a while to finish, but nonetheless, it was a good read. I'm amazed at how many Jane Austen books I've never read (or heard of). It was fascinating to watch her life progress and how that played into her own writing.

14. Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
Technically I finished this book a day or two ago, but I'm counting it for 2013 because I read most of it last year. Wow, what a fantastic book! This is also a whopper of a book, but I read it much faster than Le Miz. Even the parts where I felt like Tolstoy was just filling up space were interesting to me because of the way he wrote. A brief synopsis is that it follows the progression of 3 couples. 1 married couple has issues with infidelity but tries to make it work, at the expense of their overall happiness. 1 couple develops a wonderful relationship and it is full of everything that a healthy relationship should have. And the last is between Anna Karenina and her husband, and her lover. It never went into juicy details of the affairs, but it showed you in detail how those choices affected everything else and essentially ruined people's lives. It ends on a happy note, however, and I really enjoyed reading it.

I'd like to out-read myself this upcoming year, but let's be realistic, I'll be happy with a few good books here and there. What are some of your favorites that I should put on my list for 2014?

The Christmas Post

You know the awesome thing about getting a new camera? You get a new camera that you've wanted for years that takes amazing quality pictures, that you don't have to hold the batteries in as you take pictures. You know the bad thing about a new camera? Sometimes you don't know how it works and you accidentally delete all the pictures you took of Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and your sledding adventures. Yup. We did that. I'm still feeling that loss. We had some real keepers of Miles and Gwen being the most solemn Mary and Joseph for the family nativity, opening presents and smiles on sledding hills. I guess it will be ok because with the new camera, we took SO many pictures over the past couple of weeks. We wouldn't want to over-do it now would we?

I should have done better at posting regularly through the month because now I feel like I need to document every single detail from December, and I can't possibly remember them all. The kids are at such a fantastic age. They loved helping me pass out neighbor gifts and decorate Christmas cookies. They cautiously loved seeing Santa both at the ward party and at our joy school party. That's about the time Miles told Santa that for Christmas he wanted a magic white car that flies, then turns into another car, then turns into a light saber, and then back into a car. (We told him the elves probably couldn't make it, but, thankfully, he ended up being ok with that.)

Christmas eve, we spent with the Garners eating the traditional broccoli and cheese soup with rolls, singing Christmas songs together and reenacting the Nativity for the first time. When we came home, we found that the Elves had left us cute new Christmas pj's, complete with slippers, and they both got their keepsake book for the year. We left a cinnamon roll out for Santa and called it good.

We decided on a new Christmas tradition this year. Dad gets up and makes a fire and breakfast! What a great tradition, right? We had our traditional German pancakes and grapefruit and made the kids wait until we were all done eating before we could go and see what Santa brought. (A torturous tradition from my side. :) Miles' favorite gifts were a mini etch-a-sketch and Buzz Lightyear! Gwen's favorite gifts were her princess tea set and her dress ups, her favorite pastime these days. Then we went and opened presents at Grandma and Grandpa Garners, and later that night, we went and opened presents at Scottie and Lisa's house! We have some pretty fantastic neighbors who pretty much out-did Santa this year. They had a whole pile of presents just for Miles and Gwen. They were spoiled with art supplies and customized, homemade blankets, and then they gave Miles and bike. Yep, a bike. They gave Gwen a baby doll with bottles and diapers and she sewed the baby and Gwen matching outfits. Pretty unbelievable. We gave them some cookie dough. *Grimace* The Garners came over to watch a movie that night and the next day we enjoyed some sledding. Pretty picture perfect if you ask me.

Speaking of pictures, now you'll actually get some. And just so we're clear, no, Gwen did not have a booger hanging out of her nose the entire trip. She fell out of bed and got a nice owie right underneath her nose. Moving on. We headed down to SG the next day to spend New Year's with the Crosby side! We all get so spoiled every time we head down there. Rich and I slept in almost every day and the kids got eggos for breakfast almost every day. All of their cousins are so willing to be play-mates and my kids pretty much worship their cousins, so they were in heaven.


We spent a good chunk of time in SG. We had plenty of time to actually relax and do lots of fun things. We spent the better part of one day playing at a park and eating pizza.



We had a big family dinner for Christmas/New Years, complete with a fishing pond. Thanks Mom!


We spent a morning at the Children's Museum in SG. What a cool place, and all for free! Too bad it was SO busy. Afterwards we went and said hi to Great Grandma Crosby.



On New Year's we spent some time trying out Miles' new bike before heading over to Chris and A's for some festivities. I was loving that we could have so much outdoor time at this time of year! I only managed to snap a few pictures of the fam playing games. I couldn't believe our kids stayed up till midnight. They just kept going! By 11:45, Miles was a zombie and told us it was time to go home, "right now". So we skipped banging pots and pans and tucked the kids in.


Here's the last few pictures. Note to self: Try and be in some pictures the next time so your kids actually believe that you were there! Pictures aren't at the top of my list (obviously) at this point in the pregnancy. I'm big. Today a lady at church saw me walking in, looked at my belly and said, "HOLY COW!" Yep.
It was hard coming back to reality. It always is. Now it's back to the grind stone, which I love and hate. What a fantastic way to send off 2013. We spent so much time with loved ones on both sides of the family and are feeling mostly ready to get into 2014, thanks to all the TLC we receive from our families and those around us. Life is pretty good.