Key West

 Nate and I took a trip to Key West a couple of weeks before Christmas. So beautiful!

 This is the view while laying in a hammock on the beach. Can there be anything more perfect in a vacation?

 Key West has roosters just roaming the streets. Kind of funny.

 Nate at the marina. My Uncle Bill lived in Key West for a while, and this picture reminds me of pictures from him. He lived on a boat and ran one of the marinas there. We wished you were still there, Uncle Bill!

Sunset on Sunset Pier. If I ever live in Key West I'll have to have a different hairstyle. I already look windblown without the wind, so when you add in some real wind -- whoa!

It was such a relaxing stay. We sat on the beach, ate some great food, went snorkeling, walked around the island, ate some more, walked some more, and rested on the beach some more. Perfect! We had people telling us all the fun exciting water activities we could do, but we just wanted to be still. One afternoon we rented bikes to ride around the island, and it was a disaster for me! Even with the seat all the way down, I still couldn't reach the pedals good enough. Starting and stopping were so scary because I was about to fall every time. At one stoplight we came to, I was turning right and was so grateful the light was green that I took the curve too quickly. I came within about 5 inches of hitting the car in the other lane. The driver gave me the most awful glare like I was trying to hit him on purpose! There was a whole line of cars sitting there watching me scream and make a fool of myself. Oh, I was so happy to get off of that thing. Next time, if they don't have children's sized bikes, I think I'll rent one of those bikes all the grandparents were riding that were glorified tricycles. Maybe I'll be able to handle that. We did end up laughing about it for the rest of the day, but at the time it was pretty traumatic for me.


Maybe the best thing that happened was that my sister-in-law potty trained Ryan while we were gone! I was planning on doing it when we got back, but she took care of it for me. Amazing! The funny thing is that we went on a week-long vacation just after we had started potty training Nikki, so they got to train her, too. I'm sure they are grateful we don't have any more kids! :) Thanks so much, Sherrie! He's doing great!

We can't wait for our next Caribbean getaway -- whenever that may be!

Gymnastics meet

Click here if you can't see the video.

Nikki's last gymnastics meet was a week before Thanksgiving. Clearly, I'm not blogging in any kind of order today -- my mind doesn't work like that. I LOVE watching her. She looks so grown up to me! This was her first sanctioned meet, which someone else probably knows what that means better than I do, but she did such a great job.

Nikki, Lily, & Emma

Christmas tree

We got a fake pre-lit Christmas tree the first year we were married and have had that tree ever since. For the past two years, more and more lights have been going out on it. This year, I spent a couple of hours checking each lightbulb to find which ones were not working. After replacing about 10 of them and still the tree only had splotchy sections of working lights, I was done! When Nate saw how frustrated I was, he very lovingly decided it was okay to get a real tree this year and wait for after-Christmas sales to look for a replacement fake tree. We LOVE our new tree! We have never had such a nice tree. My decorations are a bit sparse, but I plan on slowly adding a little more each year.

It ended up that after putting on the new lights we bought for the real tree, that we had gotten one too many strands. I took that and strung it around the old tree, and it looks just as good as it ever did when the lights were working. So, we see that making decisions while extremely frustrated is probably not the best idea. We could have solved the problem with a $5 string of lights, but I'm okay with having two trees. The real one is so much more beautiful than the fake one, and the kids love having their own tree for all of their ornaments.

With two trees, I needed to also get another tree skirt. I couldn't believe that a cheap-looking one at Target cost $40. So, I found an idea on Pinterest and made my own that I love! Have I mentioned how much I love my hot glue gun?

Speaking of real Christmas trees reminds me of the year growing up that Mom got a tree before we were ready to decorate it. It seems like everybody was so busy that the tree stayed on the front porch in a bucket of water for a couple of weeks before we had a night at home together to bring it in and decorate it. Anybody remember this? Has my mind exaggerated it? When we finally brought it into the house, hundreds of mosquitoes started pouring out of the branches. Oh my goodness! I just remember chaos! Everyone was yelling to shut the doors to the rest of the house and block them into the living room. Dad got out the vacuum and started sucking them up while everyone else was using their hands and flyswatters to smack them on the walls or out of the air. They were everywhere!!

Reindeer Romp -- Hannah's 5K

 The first weekend of December Hannah and Nate ran together in a 5K called the Reindeer Romp. It was really cold that morning! At least to me it was, I guess it was actually perfect for running. She had a great time. The kids got red noses painted on and spray hair color for fun.

 Ryan wasn't really into pictures that morning, but I did get this one with Hannah's reindeer antlers without him knowing.

 This is her Girls on the Run group. I didn't actually mean to upload the picture with their mouths all open from yelling their chant! Coach GG and Coach Shoshana did a really great job working with the girls. I think it is such a great program teaching girls good values and self-acceptance, as well as giving them the opportunity to feel successful as they complete the season with a 5K that everyone can participate in.

 This is Nate and Hannah as they were coming up on the finish line. She did such a great job keeping up with his long legs!

My friend got this cool shot of the clock as Nate was crossing the line. I ran with her in a 5K in April, and our time was about 46 minutes. This time with Nate running with her, you can see she shaved off quite a bit of time. It would help my pride to think that she has really improved over the year, and I know she has, but I'm afraid a lot of that time got knocked off because of her running buddy! Looks like I need to train some more. :)

We are so proud of her. She has done such a great job. She is getting too old for Girls on the Run, so I want to look into a track club around here. But, she decided first she wants to try out softball this spring. So, that will be a new adventure for us.

David

 David Mark Robbins

Last week while we were on vacation, Nate's dad called to let us know that Nate's brother had died. We live 2000 miles away, David was 17 years older than Nate, and we only got to see David at family reunions if we were lucky enough to be in Utah at a time when the family was all getting together. And yet despite the small amount of time we spent with David, his death has impacted our hearts so heavily. Our great family is such a wonderful gift in our lives. We feel so sad about the distance between us and so much of our family. Some of that is more than physical distance. Nate was able to spend the weekend with his family, and we are so grateful he was able to be there. If we think of things with eternity in view, knowing that we will associate in families in the life after this one, our relationships here are just the beginning. Rather than thinking that we have gone our whole lives without creating the strong relationships we want, it is helpful for me to think that we are just on the bottom rung of the ladder. We are just getting to know each other now, and we have the rest of our lives on this earth and all of eternity to climb the ladder together, to draw closer to each other, to learn how to really show our love for each other. So, Dave, we love you. We miss you. We look forward to associating with you again in a more perfect place. I am happy that you are now free from the cares of this world, and I am happy to know that our Savior descended below all things in order to succor us through all of our pain, including yours.

This talk by Elder Ballard is wonderful. As David is the second person I have personally known who has ended their own life, I find it incredibly comforting. I am so grateful that our Judge is not only perfect and all-knowing, but He loves us with an infinite love as well.

Oops!

Wow, it's been so long since I've paid attention to the blog that I had to log in again. Usually, it just keeps me logged in. Well, when I really sit down to blog again I'll have a long post, but for now ... we're still truckin' along. Looking forward to vacation, my birthday, Christmas!! What a great month December is! Hope everyone else is having a great one, too.

Everything is Better with Butter!

When I got home from choir practice this afternoon, my family had just about eaten everything in the kitchen available for lunch. After the last few bites of leftover soup and some tortilla chips, I was in the mood to bake something. I didn't quite expect to use a whole box of butter, but yes, I did indeed blow through FOUR sticks of butter. That's what I added to my thankful list today. I started out making a recipe from my Grandma White for Apple Dumplings, but they weren't coming together very well, so I just made the biscuits after awkwardly trying to fill two of them with the apple filling. I must not be as coordinated as Grandma. There went one stick of butter, and I still had to do something with all of the apples I had chopped up and rolled in cinnamon sugar. I knew exactly what I wanted to make.

I have been eying these Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars for a while. OH MY! They were worth every single stick of butter it called for. Just yesterday I was telling Nate about how my clothes are getting tight and I have to get up to work out in the mornings. After today, I think I just need some elastic pants. :) Just kidding. Now that my butter is gone, I guess I'll have to find something healthier to eat!

Good Read

Okay, I just got this book from the library yesterday, and I finished it already. It's a great young adult read that has some great messages in it. It's nothing like any other Richard Paul Evans book I've read. I didn't know that Richard Paul Evans has Tourette's syndrome. He did an interview on Glenn Beck's TV program. If you wonder if you would like it, watch the video. It made me really want to request it from the library. Funny that I listed electricity as the first thing I was thankful for in my list in my last post!

What are you Thankful for?

In years past we have tried the idea of coming up with something we are grateful for each day in November leading up to Thanksgiving. It's always a great tradition, but today I saw the idea of trying to come up with 1000 things we are grateful for by Thanksgiving. Really?! I think we can do it. We certainly have more blessings in our lives than we can count, so why can't we come up with a list of 1000? Talk about having an attitude of gratitude! I'm going to put up a list on the wall and as a family we'll keep adding to it all month. I thought about doing it on the blog, but I don't want to be on the computer that much. Maybe I'll put some of my list up here. At least I'll start it right now.

1. electricity

Last of October

This should probably be spread out to a few posts, but I'm just going to finish up with October here and move on.

 We made candy apples. Funny how the caramel always gets eaten and the apples thrown in the trash.

Here's a picture of my ghost cake. I was happy with it, but now looking at the pictures I wish I had made more ghosts on it. That's alright, it tasted really good.

 These are pictures from our trip to the pumpkin patch. It was a fun afternoon.

 

We took a nature walk one afternoon where the girls took pictures of the signs of fall. I'll only share a few of the MANY they took. :)

Our trip to the zoo. This elephant was putting on a show giving himself a mud bath.

 The otters were a lot of fun, too. I love how playful they are. Ryan was completely worn out by the end of the day! It was a fun trip.

This is our coolest Halloween decoration this year. I saw the idea to paint this on your storm glass door, which we don't have, so Nate drew and cut this out. We were going to put it on the front of the door for trick-or-treaters, but it ended up raining Halloween night.

Carving pumpkins

 This is what Ryan thought of this activity.

And our costumes... All I can say is, Hooray for hot glue and duck tape!!

 What do you think of the Easter bucket to collect the trick-or-treating candy in? Ha Ha! My poor kids!

Thomas may look a little beat up, but hey, he cost me $4.00 for blue duck tape, and that's just because the blue paint was peeling off of the silver duck tape. Did you know that tempera paint peels off of duck tape? Yeah, that's probably why the lady who blogged about this online said to use a non-water based paint. Ryan had been begging to be Rosie, the pink train from the Thomas movies. I was so relieved when he was excited about this box!

 I think Hannah should have won one of the costume prizes, but that may just be because it was my idea and I made it. :)

And I made Nikki's veil and bouquet of origami lilies, too. We decided her baptism dress needed to be used at least one more time.

It was raining last night, so we suckered the kids into turning the lights out, watching a movie (Annie) and eating popcorn and the candy we had been planning on handing out to trick-or-treaters. Surprisingly, they went for it. And we certainly did not miss out on the candy train, since we had a trunk-or-treat at church last Saturday.

So, October was a fun and very busy month. Now I'm ready to move forward to November!