Sunflowers

These were delivered to me this morning by the FTP floral delivery guy. My sweet husband had them delivered just because he misses me. How sweet is that?!

Another Stay Busy Project

Okay, so I was debating whether or not to post these next pictures, because really I don't want you all to see the before pictures, but the truth is if you don't see the before pictures you really cannot appreciate my week-long project. I also wasn't going to post them because Ben may look at this and then I won't get to enjoy the happy face when he sees the results. But here you go anyway, I am sure seeing it in person when he gets home will be almost as good.

So our bedroom is kind of a dumping ground for all of the stuff we don't know what to do with, mostly because nobody ever sees our room. As a result at the end of the day I have to clean off my bed before I can get in it to sleep and then I don't feel very relaxed when I look at the piles of stuff facing me. I decided that I wanted our room to be more of a haven that we can relax in, instead of being faced with all the unfinished stuff from the rest of the day.

The bedroom:

The Closet (Shoe racks are wonderful things):

And finally the bathroom:

My goal now is to maintain the cleanliness of these three rooms and continue on to the rest of the house while I am on a cleaning spree. I figure now that you have seen my bedroom before and after, which I know was pretty bad, then the rest of the house doesn't seem nearly as bad.

When life, or your neighbor, gives you lemons....

So Ben left for India on Saturday and is going to be gone for 4 weeks. In an effort not to miss him too much I have decided to keep myself busy with different projects. This was my first one. My friend Tanya has a lemon tree that was loaded with lemons she was trying to give away so the kids and I went and picked 5 bags full of lemons. Tanya had mentioned that she juiced them and froze the juice in ice cube trays. I figured that fresh lemon juice all year sounded good, so I borrowed my friend Sharon's juicer and after only an hour and a half these were the results.


Thank you Sharon for the electric juicer, I would have given up early on if I hadn't had this.

My first 4 trays of fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

The remaining lemon juice that I am still going to have to freeze in batches of 4 trays at a time.

The garbage can full of lemon rinds, this was the second bag, the first was partially full of other garbage when I started, this is all lemon rinds. Do you even call them lemon rinds? I don't know, but either way there you have my first stay busy project.

Running and running

So every year the kids elementary school has a Turkey Trot the day before Thanksgiving, however, this year they got rained out. As a result they rescheduled to have a Jingle Bell Run in December. Well, this got rained out as well. Usually in Arizona the chances of your race getting rained out are slim, but twice in a row? Any how they finally got to do a Freedom Run in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. All three of them did a great job, and Gwen and I were awesome cheerleaders.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!

11 years

4 children
9 moves
8.5 years of school
2 internships
2 degrees
7 jobs
12 vehicles
3 broken bones
9 hospital visits (not counting childbirths)
3 pets
2 states...

And still going strong....keep on huggin' it!!!

Christmas Vacation

This year we spent Christmas day with just our little family.

Christmas Eve with brand new Christmas pajamas.

Waiting to come downstairs Christmas morning.


Gwen's excitement at finding a Princess hoppy ball under the tree.


Looking through the stockings.


The day after Christmas we left to go to Utah and Idaho. I will never travel the day after Christmas again if I can help it. A lot of Christmas day was spent doing laundry and packing and making sure everything was ready for the trip. But we did have a wonderful trip. We stopped in Utah at Ben's brother and sister-in-law's house, where we had a great Christmas party with a lot of Ben's family.

The grandkids opening presents from Aunt Melissa. She is so good to get presents for all the grandkids every year when she has a party at her house.

The morning after the party Jared spent about three hours running around and playing with his cousin Caleb. When we left around noon to head up to Idaho Jared wanted Caleb to come with us to visit my family and cried when he couldn't come. After getting a picture of the two of them together and Caleb's email address he was finally able to say goodbye.

In Idaho we stayed at my sister Anne's house and spent a week visiting with my five siblings (and their families) that live up in that frozen wasteland. We had so much fun, but I have definitely gotten used to the Arizona weather and find it preferable in the winter months.

One of the days we spent sledding and playing in the snow at my brother Bob's house. Here are some pictures.
Nate didn't do much sledding. He just really enjoyed walking through the snow.

Bonnie on the other hand, found that sitting in a sled and scooting across the snow was much easier than walking through it.


Jared and Gwen loved sledding and would have stayed out for much longer than they did if Mom and Dad hadn't convinced them to finally come inside for soup and hot chocolate. Then they went right back out again until it got too dark and we had to leave.


Ben and I both sledded down once, mostly just to prove that we are not totally pansy Arizonans and that we can handle the snow. Of course I was also the one the pansied out early and tried to convince all the kids that they wanted to go inside where it was warm.


When we left Idaho we spent another night in Utah, where we were able to see my Grandma Sorensen, who just turned 92 yesterday. We didn't get any pictures with her because she was in her pajamas when we got there, but we did get a picture of Ben and I in the snow outside Cove Point where she lives.

Thank you to everyone who let us stay at their homes and who kept us so entertained while we were visiting. We loved seeing you all.