Three for Thursdays

      Thanks to the person that I steal my prompts from. :)

Three things that turn my frown upside down: 

• Music that makes me wanna dance. 
• Enoch touching my face with his sweet baby hand.
• Hearing my kids say, "I love you, Mother."

Three books I'm reading right now:

• War and Peace. Really.
• The Book of Mormon.
• Preach My Gospel

Three things I can pat myself on the back for:

• I got dinner for my kids before 6:30. Celebrating the little things. :)
• I have continued to go running even though I have been both sick and tired.
• I have given the service I committed to giving at the service gift exchange with the ward relief society. Go me!

Three things that worry me:

• I've committed to myself to run a marathon this year. A marathon, people!
• The amount of time it's taking for my baby to get over his cold. Poor little guy.
• Making a big decision that may not be good for my family. It may also be really good for my family, but since I can't see into the future, it's kind of hard to know either way. :)

Three things I'm looking forward to in the year 2012:

• Completing a marathon. Yes, it both worries and excites me. :) 
• Christmas. I know, we just finished it but it wasn't as good for me as it should have been and I attribute it to making too many things myself . . . or at least starting on them too late. Don't get me wrong, my Christmas wasn't bad; I'm just looking forward to getting it right this year. 
• Summer! School will be out, David won't be working, Dietrich won't be in school, and I'm in charge of my family reunion this year! That may be a teeny bit stressful, but mostly it'll be really fun. Because I'm in charge. hahaha

Three pictures:
Flashback . . . last year about this time I was getting ready to go to Hawaii. *sigh* I NEED to go again, but with David next time. :)

I don't remember the name of this falls, but the whole walk was full of this lush greenery. It was totally surreal.

Some of us in my family went on a downhill bike tour of some mountain on Hawaii. Again, surreal - I felt like I was in Hobbiton. :) My mom's in the front, my dad is following, and my younger sister and I are behind Dad.

Snapped these gorgeous water lilies with my pathetic camera phone. A teeny bit of editing helped. (see my reflection at the bottom?)

Other things Christmas

This music set has been a hit, and I haven't found it annoying. Win/win! :)

Tent + tunnel from "Santa". And he got a very good deal on it, too.

I thought when I added this picture that it was Dietrich looking at our new Cars 2 movie, but he's looking at his cheap stocking stuffer. It was a cool idea, but it didn't work. Note to self: don't buy stocking stuffers from Target's dollar section. Luckily, the kids weren't upset about it.

Don't be fooled by Enoch's expression - he really does like his firetruck. :) Really!

Ack! Isn't he so cute?! I can hardly stand it. He's got a dedicated fan club here at our house. hahaha

Handmade Christmas

I'll post some more about our Christmas, but this post is solely to showcase the things I made myself as gifts. Not pictured here is an awesome purse that I gave my sister Charity - that's partly b/c I didn't make it, but it was a craft exchange. A friend made the purse for me and I crocheted her a scarf (which fortunately, she loved).

Aren't my kids cute? I sewed Kate's nightshirt, Dietrich's pants and top, and Enoch's wearable blanket. Thanks to the friends that let me use their sewing machines!

I knit this sweater. Kate loves sweaters, and as she saw me making other things she told me that she wanted me to make her a sweater. Purple is her favorite color. The pattern came from lionbrand.com.

Dietrich had been talking about an "Aragorn cape" for some time. So I sewed him one. Thanks to the friend that picked up the fabric for me!

I noticed that my younger brother was a fan of this style of hat, and I felt that he needed a BYU version of it. So I knit him one. The logo actually was cut from a shirt that Dave and I gave him several years ago. The shirt magically came back to me. :) This was a combination of patterns from redheart.com.

New Years' newsletter

Our family's 2011 Top Ten List

1.       David began the year by colliding with a couple of elk on his way to an early morning meeting. Out with the old, in with the new – as in out with our Subaru Outback, in with a new (used) GMC Yukon.

2.     Not too long after the year began Rachael left David and the kids behind while she went with her family to the big island of Hawaii for a week. That was awesome. Next time David needs to go with her.

3.     Kate became potty trained two and a half months before Enoch arrived. We narrowly escaped having two children in diapers again. Rachael fully enjoyed the break from diaper changes.

4.     Dietrich turned five (gasp), was totally satisfied with his birthday, and his mom registered him for kindergarten.

5.     To prepare for an overdue baby Rachael purchased herself a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to look forward to if baby was late. She got to eat it.

6.     Dietrich and Kate both exhibited signs of proper brain washing; Kate requests the BYU Cougar fight song and Dietrich, after viewing a picture of a Ute fan and a BYU fan said, “That guy’s red and white, like he shouldn’t be.”

7.      Rachael purchased and used running shoes. She ran in her first 5K near the end of September, began training for a 10K and pulled her left quad near the end. Recovery and rehabilitation is in full swing.

8.     Dietrich started school. He attends full-day kindergarten every day! That initially worried his mom, but he’s handled it like a champ and in fact loves it.

9.     David and Rachael celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary. They’re both the luckiest.

10.   Enoch arrived 6 July around 9:30 pm after seven hours of labor which was induced by the water being broken. He was two ounces shy of ten pounds. Wow!