Samson

A few weeks ago, during Sacrament meeting, Daphne asked me to tell her the story of Samson. I tried, but during that part of Church, it's a little tricky to get through something like that. So, I promised her we could learn about Samson at Family Home Evening the next day.

That particular Monday happened to be our first day back to school from Christmas Break. The first day of a semester is always a little crazy for us. This particular day, I woke up with a burning, red eye. ick! I was planning on dropping off my new contact prescription that day, but that wouldn't help me much ( I'm kind of weird so I have a freaky special prescription that always takes a few weeks to come in...) I thought I could tough it out, but threw some contact solution and an old pair of contacts into my purse, got the kids breakfast and headed off to meet my new student teacher. About 10 am, my eye was on fire! I put in the old contacts, which calmed things down for a few hours and made life manageable.

I left school, drove to Bountiful, went to Costco and made it back in time to take out my contacts before my eye exploded. By this point, my eye was red swollen and felt as if it had been lit on fire!! After taking out my contact, I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes to get a little relief. Well, thirty minutes later, the phone rings and I jump- realizing that my kids should have come home from school about ten minutes before that. (YIKES!!!) Thankfully, it was my amazing neighbor, Toni, who had graciously welcomed my kids in when they couldn't get into our house. And the Mother of the Year award goes to..... Toni Johnson and NOT me. Thanks. This was only January 5th, people, so hold onto your seats. I have 11 more months of parenting mistakes to live through in 2011. Sigh.

Anyway, that was a really long way of saying that since my eye was swollen and on fire, Matt helped me out and took care of FHE for me, which would explain the tech-savvy approach. He pulled up a power point presentation on the PS3, which worked beautifully! Thanks, Babe! You're awesome!

Anyway, we had a good discussion of spiritual strength and spiritual nourishment and physical strength. They seemed to really understand the meaning of the story- the idea that our spiritual nourishment is even more important than having strong bodies. They loved it, and we had fun watching them flex their muscles! So, you know what is the most amazing thing about this picture? Isaac, my baby, is getting man arms. Look at that!!!

We have had an amazing year. I keep saying to Matt that I wish I could just freeze time so that we could keep them at these ages for longer. I know that in 2 seconds Isaac will be driving and I won't have little girls playing dress up and leaving plastic high heels on the stairs for me to trip over. I know that as soon as our life is calm enough for me to finish a blog post in one sitting, I will wish one of them would come interrupt me. I know that these are some of the best moments of our lives and I just wish I could hold them here a little longer.

I feel utterly and completely and thoroughly blessed. I have everything I really need and He has given me not only contentment, but joy. Everlasting Joy. The kind of joy that comes from knowing that my perfect, spotless Savior paid the price for my sins so that I can have this family forever and live with Him again.

It's seems easy to praise His name in the good times, I know. But the truth is, the natural man in us could easily manifest in pride; allowing us to think that our "good fortune" or current status is due to some measure of obedience or something that WE did. We are no strangers to hard times. We know, and we pray that you know, that Jesus Christ is our Savior at all times- He is encouraging us through the good times and supporting us through the sorrows. Matt and I both wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge His hand in all things. A little for you... but mostly for our children. While it is fun to have our friends and relatives read this blog, it is intended as a record for them. When they look back and read about this stage of life for our family, I want them to know that our faith is in Him; that our strength comes from Him, and not ourselves.

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him?...

For THOU hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

O Lord, Our Lord, How excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!"

Psalm 8:3, 4, 5, 9

Wordless Wednesday

The Littlest Pet Shop

For one of Matt and Daphne's recent Daddy- Daughter Dates, Matt took Daphne to the Pet Shop. She loved it. That's an understatement. Ever since that date, Daphne had been begging for all of us to go see the Pet Shop together. So, for her next Daddy- Daughter date, we all went to the Pet Shop and Matt took her to eat after...

Since we have no pets and will never have pets (at least not furry ones) this is an extremely exciting event. You'd think we were headed to the zoo. Poor Kids. They had a blast and the girls in particular were giggling and running back and forth between the cages.

We are a little sheletered, I know.

Fish: Turtles:

I think the ferrets are in this cage:

Birds:

Bunnies:

We're easily amused, I know. But whatever works, right?

Matt and Daphne went to Sill's and had fantastic scones (yum!) afterward. I took Isaac and Tori to Sonic and let them get their first ever chili-cheese coney. (ick!) Isaac declared that he has a new favorite food. Great.

The Goods

Is it totally inappropriate to write a post about everyone enjoying their Christmas gifts?

Well, if so, then just call me inappropriate.

In defense of my completely inappropriate behavior,

I started out taking pictures as a way to show my family in Texas and it just sort of spiraled out of control...
Here are Daphne and Tori listening to music on Daphne's awesome media player. (Check out Daphne's singing face- she'sgot such a great little voice!)

And Daphne using her Easy Bake Oven from my Mom!

By the way, she LOVES this thing. She is so proud of it. But don't get too excited- we are literally baking cookies with a light bulb. See that cookie right there? It took thirty minutes to bake that ONE cookie. No kidding. But we are having lots of fun in the kitchen... she's such a great girl. Thanks, Mom!! She loves it!

Tori was a big fan of the Easy Bake Oven as well....

Daphne with Molly, her American Girl Doll (who sat and dutifully watched Daphne use a lightbulb to bake 6 cookies one at a time!)

Daphne taking pics with her media player/ camera! (Are you starting to get the idea that Daphne wanted me to take pictures of her using all her Christmas stuff?)

Tori playing with 3 Christmas gifts at the same time... she's reading her new Cinderella book to her Doctor Barbie (from GiGi) and her new dress up doll:


Isaac and his plethora of Lego creations. He got a kit to make the castle on the right, and then he designed the castle on the left himself (I think his is better- there are really cool spirally stairs inside, too!)

My handsome boys:

So... I kept thinking I would get a picture of us enjoying bread fresh out of my new breadmaker from Matt. But, apparently, once we get the bread out, we are incapable of anything other than smothering it with butter and shoving it into our faces as quickly as possible. I just can't remember to take a picture 'cause the bread is too darn good! Thanks, Babe!

I don't think I mentioned before, but I gave Matt a little Christmas overnight getaway to the Anniversary Inn. We had such a great time in July that we didn't want to wait another 10 years. There is definitely something to be said for uninterrupted couple time-- it's so nice to make it through a conversation! (Thanks to Marsha for watching our kiddos for the night!)

Here we are in front of the fireplace- Matt took the pic with his super-long arms!)

No Christmas gifts in this pic... just Tori being adorable!

I realize I'm ridiculously behind posting this... but I hope you have all had a fantastic New Year!

Christmas Day 2010

My kids are awesome! Or maybe we are just terrible parents for letting them stay up so late on Christmas Eve. Either way, we had a great Christmas morning. I spent the first 6 years of my life as a parent waking up between 6 and 6:30 (sometimes earlier) with my kiddos. Isaac and Daphne were just early risers. It never mattered if they went to bed at 8 pm or midnight, they woke up at the same time. Sigh.
To be completely fair (both of them took nice, long afternoon naps until they were 5).
So, to have our sweet, little Victoria take after her dad and be a sleep-in kind of kid has been quite a change of pace! Of course, she's only been sleeping through the night since July, so it's not as if I've been lounging around in bed for the past 2 1/2 years, but it's definitely made a noticeable difference in my patience level! Isaac and Daphne learned how to sleep past 7 this year as well, which made Christmas morning delightful, if I do say so myself!

The kids woke up at 8, and I hopped out of bed and asked for 5 minutes to put in my contacts and ready the cameras, as they huddled at the top of the stairs excitedly exclaiming over how many more presents sat under the tree. Matt and I got all ready for our photo -ops and let them down the stairs. Isaac and Daphne ran straight to the tree, but Tori wanted only "my pretty chair and my liptstick block". If you read my last post, you know that she was using a wooden block for pretend make-up! Too cute.
She could not be lured away with shiny packages.
(Have I mentioned tha tI hate how my computer's "fix red-eye" feature sometimes gives us alien eyes? I guess that's better than red eyes, but it looks a little crazy.) Seriously. This is her face when we tried to get her to leave her "pretty chair" to open the first gift of the morning:

Since she was less-than-enthusiastic about new gifts, we let the other kids give it a go. Here is Isaac opening his entire set of books from the Diary of A Wimpy Kid series. If you have a school-aged boy, this is a great series to get them interested in reading for pleasure. As much humor as Junie B. Jones but with less obnoxious potty talk than Captain Underpants.
Pretty good balance and he has been asking for it since September. Actually, he finally got the third book from the school library the week before Christmas and I actually hid it from him! That's probably a terrible Mommy confession. I wanted him to still want the series when he opened it Christmas morning instead of being like, "Oh Yeah, I read that last week." I know. I'm a terrible person. But it worked!

My Mom bought Daphne an Easy-Bake oven, which was so. sweet. Daphne has been begging for one since her birthday this summer.

Once she saw the other kids getting new stuff, we were able to lure Tori away from her vanity to open this set of wooden paper dolls. She loved it!

Have I mentioned how much my son likes Legos? Probably one of the best toys ever invented. If he's not playing video games, he's playing with his legos and he got a ton! You remember the huge set he received from Nanny and Papa the night before, right? Well he also got some Star Wars Legos from my grandmother: and some Pirate legos from my sister, Aunt Shelli:

Then Daphne opened her big gift from Dad. I do most of the Christmas shopping, but Matt found this one for Daphne way back in September.

She's been asking for a camera for months. (Have you noticed a pattern of Daphne asking for things???) Matt found and awesome deal on this totally kid- appropriate media player. It plays music, video games, takes pictures, plays movies. Just perfect for our little soloist. She is almost always singing something, and she has a pretty great voice, if you ask her completely un-biased Mother. This is her face when she realized what it was:

We also got all of the kids their own fleecy blankets. This was two-fold in purpose. First of all, to eliminate fighting over the one soft blanket on the couch when it's time for Saturday morning cartoons. Secondly, Isaac has decided that he does not like to sleep under sheets, or a comforter or even the fuzzy velour blanket on his bed. He wants only a small, fleece camoflauge throw draped over him. We thought we would get him another one and hope that he would cover up!!! Here is Tori with her kitty blanky:

My mom got Isaac this really cool ammo holder and extra ammo for all of his crazy nurf guns.

One of our traditions is buying an engraved ornament for the children every year. Last year we got them beautifully carved wooden ornaments from Germany, and this year we went back to silver, engraved ornaments. I forgot to get pics of the actual ornaments, but here they are hanging them:

After all that, it was time for the parents to open their gifts! First, Matt opened his present from Isaac. Isaac worked so hard at scouts and built him this tool box with wood and nails! Then, he and Daphne spent about 3 hours one afternoon painting it for him. (Daphne also painted him a super cute wooden butterfly, but I didn't get a good pic.):

Then, I got to open my present from Matt. There is a sort of sad story that goes along with this gift.... Back around Thanksgiving, Matt and I both purchased Christmas gifts for eachother. This is relatively monumental since we haven't bought Christmas gifts for one another in like, I don't know... 8 years or something? Anyway, independently of one another, we each bought gifts. I mentioned to him that I was super excited about his gift and he mentioned that he had gotten me something as well. 3 or 4 days later, one of Daphne's friends knocked on the door. I was busy talking to her and her mother, who pointed out that we had received a package. THIS package:

Unfortunately, it was shipped in this box, so when I bent down to pick it up and set it inside out of the snow... the first thing I saw was the huge print: SUNBEAM Bread Maker. AAAAHHHH!! It only took me about 2 seconds to figure out that this was my Christmas present. I felt terrible. (but a little bit excited , too!)

I knew that if this happened to me (as the gift-giver) I would be irate and completely and utterly disappointed. (I'm kinda famous for over-reacting)

Sooooo. I decided to play it cool. Here's what happened when Matt came home:

Chit-Chat. "How was your day?" and kisses and all that jazz.

Then, I casually say:

"You got a package today."

"I did?" he said (equally as casually). Then he finished telling me a story and said, " Oh, yeah. Don't open that package." And with a wink, he darted into the front room.

After about 30 seconds I heard, " Oh NO!"

Matt: "Laura?"

Me: "Mmm.hmmm?"

Matt: " Did you look at it?""

I thought for a sec...

Me: " Ummm. NO. I just brought it in from the porch." (completely innocently)

Matt: " You SAW IT!"

Me: "I'm sorry, honey!! I just brought it in from the porch and it's printed so big right there on the box!"

He walked around the corner with a sheepish expression and red cheeks. :(

I felt awful.

Matt: "You were going to lie to me?"

Me: " Oh. Honey. I just didn't want to ruin your surprise."

The expected exlamations ensued. He couldn't believe that they would ship it in the labeled box and I was trying to console him and thank him at the same time.

Definitely a bummer.

So, I decided to just pretend like that didn't happen. That's healthy, right?

I tried not to even mention it. I swrapped it and put it under the tree and then I opened it and acted as excited as a kidon Christmas morning! Alright, so it's all a little contrived, but I didn't want him to feel completely cheated and I was really excited!!

(I've already made several loaves of bread and I love it!!! I put all the ingredients in the night before and we wake up to fresh, healthy warm bread in the morning! SO. AWESOME! Thanks, Matt!)

After opening the gifts from eachother, we moved on to stockings. I think it is a bad sign that we often forget about the stockings. My children are probably incredibly spoiled. Anyway, Tori had a hard time putting down the candy she found on top to move on to any of the other goodies inside!

Daphne, took the approach more closely aligned to the philosophy of instant gratification:

I would like to give a little shout-out to Matt's Auntie Val, who cross-stiched all of my children's stockings by hand. They are absolutely gorgeous and I LOVE them!!!!)

After the present-opening extravaganza, we had some deliciously yummy cinnamon rolls together. I wish I had taken pictures of that scene. My kids couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces and as we sat down to the table, Daphne was exclaiming over her loot and then stopped to look at me very seriously. "You know, Mom, it's not about what you get, it's about what Jesus gave to you!" Isaac chimed in talking about how we give gifts to eachother to remember what an amazing gift Jesus was to us.

And after that, I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face! What more could a Mom ask for on Christmas morning?

Isaac went straight up to his room and began putting together all 3, 000 of his new lego pieces.

Matt was on-call for work that weekend, so he had to go into the office for a few hours.

Daphne, Tori and I all took a nap.

Perfect.

Later that afternoon, we headed back over to the Hunters for round 2 of Christmas celebrations!

We had a second round of Christmas dinner, pie, and lots of fun games! Here are Matt and his parents:

We hope that your holiday season was a blessed and happy as ours. We had a wonderful time celebrating His birth and echo the words of Paul:

"Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift."

2 Corinthians 9:15