CHRISTMAS HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS

Christmas Eve was A LOT of fun. After dinner, we watched home movies from when the kids were babies. It was fun to see them as babies and sad to realize how much they have grown.

After the kids and Daren went to bed, I couldn't sleep. I was so excited for Christmas. I started watching a movie and then I started thinking about my friend Sachiko in Japan. I decided to call and surprise her since it was 4pm in Japan and midnight in Utah. It was so much fun to talk to her. I sure wish they lived closer and I miss them SO much! We also got a Christmas card from our last Japanese student. It was fun to hear from hm. (Kazuya...I promise I will send you the pictures you took after the first of the year.)

Christmas morning finally came and the kids were VERY excited to open presents!

Even Jack was excited to get his presents.

Abby loved her soccer goal.

Camille loved her American Girl doll.

And, Tanner loved his new lacrosse stick even though I don't have a picture.

Everything was going great on Christmas Day. I even had a nice nap before dinner.

Then...everything went downhill!

Jack bit the nose of my 6-year old neighbor girl. Talk about guilt!! I felt HORRIBLE!!! It was sort of a freak thing that happened but I still felt awful! Luckily she is okay and her parents said they would still be our friends. WHEW!!

Shortly after that, Jack puked and then the kids told me that they had been keeping a secret. Apparently, the kids and Daren all made a pack not to tell me that Jack has had several potty accidents in the house. They have all cleaned them up and decided not to inform me because they knew I would freak out. Well, I freaked alright and seriously thought about sending Jack away. But the kids were all crying and then I had guilt about sending the dog away.

So, the dog is still here...BARELY and other than our dog issues, Christmas was AWESOME!!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Twas the night before Christmas...
Even Jack has a stocking. It has his initial 'J' embroidered on it.

One of the few perks of living in Utah during the winter is using the elements as an extra refrigerator. Usually we have a backyard full of snow that we put all the drink into. This year, all of the snow has melted away. See you Arizona people can't do this with your drinks!!

Every year we buy the "Soda Collection" of rootbeer, grape soda, strawberry soda and orange soda. It's great that all the drinks stay cold outside!

We had a BIG Christmas Eve dinner. This is only the appetizers and dessert. The main dishes are on the kitchen table.

We had to have Sushi. I always think of our Japanese friends everytime we eat this.

But at the end of the night, I am most grateful for 2 dishwashers! That was the BEST thing we built in our house. I feel like I have washed the same dishes like 100 times during the past week.

Abby has spent most of her day tracking Santa Clause on Google.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

LUCKY LOTTERY

About a month ago, I went out to the mailbox and there were 4 tickets to see 2 of my favorites in concert...The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and David Archuleta performing together for a Christmas concert at The Conference Center in Salt Lake City. I had entered "The Lottery" (I think it's funny everyone refers to it as A LOTTERY since members of our church don't play the lottery, but whatever) back in October. I forgot about the tickets until I saw them in the mail.

It wasn't until about a week ago that my friend told me that she hadn't heard of anyone winning THE LOTTERY for the concert. I pulled out the tickets again and realized that not only did we get tickets but they were in the lower level...not even in the balcony. She was freaking out because she knew I had 4 tickets to the hottest concert in town! I felt so happy and grateful to have these tickets. I put the tickets in a SAFE PLACE until the concert. Then on Friday, I went to find the tickets and COULD NOT remember where I had put them. I tore the house apart looking for them.

After 12 hours of searching I found them in a folder that I had put them in. See, this is why it's better to be messy and unorganized, and leave stuff of the counter. That way I always know where stuff is.
Last night we went to the concert and it was one of the best things I have ever seen. The music was amazing, David Archuleta was amazing, Michael York was amazing and the crowds....WOW! I have never seen anything like that. I've been to the Conference Center many times but I have never seen so many people trying to get in.

David Archuleta has a voice that is unbelievable. The girls were so excited to see him in concert.

Afterwards Abby said, "That was the 3rd best thing I have ever seen in my entire life. The first was The Rockettes-which we saw earlier this month when they were in Salt Lake. (Camille by the way saw the North Korea army marching on TV yesterday and said, Is that the Rockettes? Totally made us laugh!) The second best thing she had ever seen was Disney on Ice last year and this concert was #3."

I feel so grateful and extremely lucky that we had the opportunity to attend the concert. I love living in Utah to be able to attend events like last night. It put me in the Christmas spirit and I love this time of year. I love feeling the spirit of Christmas and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

P.S. I was even happier to come home after being gone for almost 6 hours and the dog didn't have an accident! He hasn't had one yet. YEAH for Jack!!!

CAVED

IT'S OFFICIAL...HELL actually froze over today and I am now an owner of a DOG! Yep, that's right... a
D-O-G!!

I hate dogs, cats, and pretty much any animal that eats or poops. This is NO secret. However, my husband and kids have wanted a dog for YEARS. And for YEARS my answer has always been the same...Dog moves in, mom moves out. I used to tell the kids I was allergic to dogs and that's why we couldn't have one. After a few years, they wised up and realized that may not be exactly true.

I haven't wanted a dog for several reasons. Some of them include:

1. Empty Promises-The kids have said, "We will take care of it. You won't have to do a thing. We will bathe it, feed it, walk it, clean up its poop." This coming from 3 people who can't hardly do the above mentioned for themselves. And I am sure in about a month I will be the one stuck doing the above.

2. They are messy. The dog is going to poop in the yard. Kids are going to step in it and track it throughout the house.

3. What do we do with it when we are vacation?

4. The dog gets sick or dies and everyone is sad.

5. It's a pain and hassle that I don't want to deal with.

It took Daren a nano-second to get the dog a BYU tag

But over the past few months, my heart has softened EVER SO SLIGHTLY. Then about a month ago, Camille said that she told Santa that is all she wanted for Christmas. And if she didn't get a dog for Christmas, then she wasn't going to believe that Santa was real anymore. She had been a good girl all year and there should be no reason why he wouldn't bring her the one and only thing she wanted for Christmas.

SO I CAVED. We went to our ward Christmas party tonight and I think half of my ward thinks I have totally lost my mind because they all know that I am definitely not an animal lover.I keep asking Daren what I get in return for the dog joining our family. A trip to Hawaii?? Mother of the Year?? Perhaps, and endless shopping spree (and not to PetSmart).I am worried I will wake up tomorrow with major buyer's remorse.

So here's the deal with the dog. Everyone keeps asking me what kind of dog he is. I don't know how to say it...he's just a brown dog. Actually he is a Llasa Apso. He is 1 1/2 years old and is FULLY potty trained. If he wasn't, he'd still be back at the pound. He does not shed, again another requirement to leave the pound. He is crate trained, which is very nice. He is VERY MELLOW. His brown-ness matches the wood and tile in the house. He actually looks good walking around. Oh, and his name is Jack. His name was Stanley but Stanley is a grandpa name or a name of a guy from The Office...not a dog name. So, Jack it is.
He is ever so slightly growing on me and most important, these 3 are OUT OF THEIR MIND excited!
Tanner kept saying, "This feels like a dream!"
Yeah, it 's a dream alright..my worst nightmare coming true!

ROO

Within the first few weeks of Abby's life, Daren gave her a nickname.
One day he was holding her just like this and he said she is so sweet, like a little Roo. (From Winnie The Pooh) And it has stuck. We still call her Abby Roo. One time she was visiting a cousin in Arizona and he thought her name was Abby Roof. So he called her Abby Roof for the entire week. Too cute!So imagine our excitement when we were in Hilton Head a few weeks ago and saw this drink at the store. It is called Roo Juice. I had to buy it for our Abby Roo. She loved it and it even came in her favorite color!

NOT A GOOD IDEA

It's not a good idea to drink 3 Diet Coke's at 7:30pm during dinner. Tonight, or should I now say, last night Daren took me on a date. While at dinner a Diet Coke with a lime sounded SO good. I knew it was a mistake drinking 3 of them so late but I gave into the craving. It is now 3 am and I am totally paying the price of that little craving.

After laying in bed for the past 4 hours wide awake thinking of everything from Christmas, baking, new recipes, taxes, my upcoming Relief Society lesson at church, trying to remember where I have hidden all of the Christmas presents, family, friends, the kids, things I needed to do this week, what would happen if I die, Christmas cards, defrosting the freezer, Tanner's foot (he had surgery this past week and is recovering well), laundry and even wondering what time it currently is in Japan (Hello Iinuma's)....I decided to get up and Blog.

Thanks Jami for taking our family pictures. I love ya!

I love my family. I love these kids and I love being their mom. I love being married to Daren.

I love Diet Coke and I would really love to be able to go to sleep!

FUTURE MISSIONARIES

When we were in Idaho over Thanksgiving, the girls found this old missionary badge from Daren's sister. She served as a missionary for our church several years ago in Canada. The girls were really excited when they saw it because it said their name SISTER BLOXHAM.

They wondered about all of the different places in the world they could serve a mission to. They had a lot of fun wearing it. Don't worry Julene, I gave it back to your dad so it is safe and sound!

WARMS MY HEART

I wasn't really excited about waking up on a cold, snowy day until I saw a note that this cutie left for me.

I love how she hyphenated 'Mom' and made the 'Y' in the 'You' look like

the 'Y' from BYU. She even wrote BYU at the base of the 'Y'

I love you too Abby! She is such a sweetheart!

RIVALRY GAME

It's that time of year again. The Friday night after Thanksgiving, the night before the big BYU/UTAH football game. All of the Cougar elf's and Ute elf's are out and about decorating the neighborhood.

This year we enlisted the help of Barack and Michelle Obama. They are BIG Ute fans, ya know! We had the neighbors yard decorated perfectly. We went to color a Ute house blue and were gone for 5 minutes. When we came back, Barack had been kidnapped. This is the only picture I have of him before he was stolen.
The next morning, here's how my neighbors yard looked:

We were really sad that someone took Barack. We set up a hotline where people could call with tips. Even a reward of cinnamon rolls were offered. We had several tips come in. My neighbor next door saw a strange car pull up and put Barack in the back of the car and then sped away. Then my neighbors across the street, who had their yard decorated with The Obama's went to the football game. Knowing that Barack was missing, they were really surprised to arrive at the football game and see our Barack cutout at a tailgate party. They asked the guy where he got the Barack cut out and he said, "Uh, Uh, Uh...it's my friends." Well he is now a person of interest in our case and I hope he feels guilty about stealing.

During all of this commotion of Barack's cutout kidnapping, I made the CARDINAL mistake. I broke RULE #1...I left the garage door open while I was searching for Barack. BIG MISTAKE!!! We came home to this confetti in our garage and our car had some new paint.

But it is all in good fun.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the neighborhood. I love when the BYU houses turn red and the Ute houses turn blue.

This picture totally cracks me up. A cute little 8 year-old boy in our neighborhood was decorating this Ute house. I died laughing as he took a blue table cloth and put it over this Christmas sign that says JOY. However. he decided to leave the 'Y' uncovered. TOO CUTE!!

The funniest of them all was this morning, the day after BYU's 1-point loss. Some neighbors put this in our yard. We laughed and laughed. True football fans know this is play on Max Hall's famous speech from last years game with Utah.

Thanks for the fun memories and tradition.

And, whoever has Barack...we will find you and bring you to Cougar justice!!!

CHARLESTON

Daren's brother and sister-in-law live in North Carolina and they LOVE Charleston, SC. They have been there several times. So while we were "in the neighborhood", we met them in Charleston for the day. They were awesome tour guides and we had a great time seeing the city with them.
We started our day with a carriage ride tour of Charleston. I'm a total city girl and when our tour guide got on the carriage to start the tour, I leaned over to Daren and said, "Isn't she supposed to get on the back of the horse? Why is she on the carriage with us?" Well apparently I said this question a little too loud and it was stupid thing to say since everyone laughed because there was no saddle on the horse. Oops!

The tour guide stands in the carriage as we stroll through the town. I'd never seen anything like it!

Charleston is such an old town. It was amazing to see the beautiful homes and churches.

After our carriage tour, Ryan and Melissa took us to a Southern restaurant. We had fried green tomatoes. I had never tasted them before and they are REALLY good. After that amazing appetizer, which I'm sure is only like a 1000+ calorie appetizer, we had fried chicken and this sandwich called a Hot Brown. I have never had a Hot Brown before but let me tell you...it is SO yummy! It is a deep fried thick piece of bread, turkey, bacon, a tomato (the only healthy thing on it) and melted cheese over a cream sauce. I think it was like a million calories. But anything with enough bacon, cream, butter and cheese is delicious!

Since we didn't consume enough calories at lunch, Ryan and Melissa took us to this bakery called Jestine's. I have never been to a more delicious bakery! I couldn't decide what to buy because all of it looked amazing. So...when in Rome...I bought $23 worth of bakery goods AND a Diet Coke. At this point, does a Diet Coke really matter? Anyway, they have the BEST cookies I have EVER had in my entire life there. They also have Coke Cake, which is to die for, and the best coconut cream pie in the world.

With our bellies now totally full, we took a harbor boat 3 miles to Fort Sumter, which was the site of the beginning of the Civil War. It was incredible being there and thinking about the events that took place there.

On the boat back to Charleston, this bridge sits in the bay. It was so beautiful. We also watched dolphins throughout the bay as we sailed back into the harbor.

And saw this really cool barge. I had never seen such a large barge before. I wondered where it came from and what was in those carriers.

I am SO mad that we didn't take a picture of the 4 of us together. We took like a million pictures the entire day but not one of the 4 of us.

Thanks Ryan and Melissa for the fun day. We had a lot of fun seeing you and spending the day together. I just love Ryan and Melissa. When Daren and I first started dating, they were the first members of Daren's family that I met. They both were so kind and I instantly felt loved and accepted into the family because of them. Ryan is more than my husband's brother to me. He is like a brother I never had. Hugs to both of you. We are dying to come back and see you soon!

And a special thanks to this guy for an AWESOME week:

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! I love spending my life with him. He is the PERFECT person for me and I am so blessed to be his wife!