Happy #14 Birthday McKenzie!

McKenzie is 14! That means she can now go to Stake Dances, Youth Conferences, she can now have a phone. Holy Moly! I don't know if I am ready for this! That means that she can get her learners permit next year- ACK!!
What can I say about McKenzie? She is AMAZING! As I have watched her grow into a beautiful young woman I am in awe of her. She has gone through more hard trials than I did at her age, and yet she stands strong! She knows who she is and will not bend her standards in the least just to fit in. That has led to many times being alone, but she knows what is right and will not compromise. She is so sweet and caring and thoughtful. I remember the first parent teacher conference I went to in kindergarten. Her teacher told me that she could always count on her to be a friend to the one who was struggling, or needed a friend. And funny thing is, I have heard that same thing from all of her other teachers as well. She is a wonderful big sister to Cameron and Abby too. And as far as teenagers go... this one is a piece of cake!! Very rarely do I have to get after her for being sassy, or other typical teenager stuff. I am one lucky momma!

McKenzie, you are beautiful! I love you! I am so happy that I get the privilege of being your mother.

Random Pictures from February

This was the second and last snow storm of the whole winter season!!! Needless to say it has been a very dry and rather warm winter. Which is nice for people, but not so nice for our water situation

Because of the lack of snow this year, I was able to score these wonderful sleds for super cheap!! All three of them cost just less than one at regular price. Now I am just hoping that maybe next winter we will have some snow!

We took the whole family to the University of Utah gymnastics meet. Abby was in heaven the whole time!! We LOVE going to their meets!

Abby went to a Daddy Daughter Ball for Activity Day's. She had so much fun!! And she was beautiful too!!

I got strep throat! BOOOO!! and these are the HUGE pills that I had to swallow. Why do they give out monster sized pills when you can't even swallow water without wanting to die?

For Valentines Day Jeff took me out to breakfast at Kneader. I love their french toast!

February...in a nut shell

It seems that my days are so full and so busy that my few and precious moments of quiet are not spent on updating my blog. Jeff is still very busy traveling for work. And while he really does like what he does, the traveling and being alone starts to get old. I usually am just fine handling the home fort. Getting kids to where they need to be, when they need to be there, is sometimes a challenge, but I have some good friends that help me out when I can't get to two (or sometimes even three!) places at the same time. February was a month full of stuff! Cameron was on two (sometimes 3 if he was needed) soccer teams- two futsal and one indoor. I am so glad that he has soccer to occupy him all year long. He really does so much better when he has something active to do all the time. Mckenzie finish up her all-star cheer this month. In her three competitions they took home 3rd, 2nd, and 7th places. All in all not too bad for only having about a month and a half to learn their routine. She is wanting to take a little break from cheer for now. I will keep her in tumbling (actually I need to sign her up!), and then she wants to try out for Mac's half year team in the fall. Abby has been busy as usual with gymnastics, having practices twice a week for about 2.5 hours each time. Plus you add in all the church obligations- mutual, scouts, activity day- and piano, and there isn't much time to sleep or eat. But we are having fun. We are growing and learning together. I am so proud of all my kiddos. They have worked really hard to get where they are right now.

January

January has been a very busy month. Jeff has been traveling a lot! He was in Tucson one week, Phoenix the next week and Denver then next! Needless to say, I have been a "single mom" for most of the days. It really isn't too bad. The only hard part is we don't get home until almost 9:00 at night on Tuesday's and Thursday's because of McKenzie's cheer. That makes a long night for the younger kids. But they have been real troopers about the whole thing.
Abby and Cameron are sleep walkers, it is usually quite funny to see what they do and say while sleep walking. We don't see Cameron as much as we used to now that he sleeps downstairs. Abby usually only sleepwalks when she has to go to the bathroom. Once, several months ago, Abby unlocked the front door and tried to go outside while sleep walking. We decided that if she ever did that again we would need another lock on our door. Well that time came while Pug was gone. This time she went and unlocked the back sliding glass door. So that weekend we got a lock to put on the top of our front door and a large stick to put in the track of the sliding door. Let's just hope she doesn't figure out how to unlock these while sleeping!

I also thought about getting a new wreath for my door. I saw a lot of cute ones, but I was not about to pay $75 or more just for a wreath! So I checked out some ideas on Pinterest. Then while the girls were at gymnastics and cheer, I ran over to Hobby Lobby to see what I could come up with. And here it is:

It's not exactly perfect, but I like it enough. And the best part is that it cost me less than $20 to make! I think Mom would be proud of me getting my craftiness on! Now just to continue with it....

Christmas

Christmas this year was wonderful. I think this is the first year in i don't know how long, that we have had enough money to buy Christmas presents without having to wait for a Christmas bonus check- which is a good thing because we don't got one at the new job! The kids were so cute, loving everything they received. And before we went down to open presents McKenzie gave a sweet prayer thanking our Heavenly Father for all our many blessings. And we have MANY blessings.

The day went like this:
Open presents (we made them wait until 7:00!), and get ready for the day.
Head over to Grandma McCullough's for lunch, and meet up with the rest of the fam.
Go to the cemetery to visit Mom's grave (I didn't think about a wreath until we were on our way up there, darn it!).
Head up to Bountiful to visit Grandma and Grandpa Skeen.
Go home to a yummy turkey crockpot dinner.

Usually we have dinner at Pug's parents house, but they had Christmas up at their cabin in Bear Lake. So it was a little quieter than usual.

I LOVE Christmas! I love the spirit of the season. I love being able to reflect on our Savior and doing good things for one another. I love the decorations, the excitement, thunder that Christmas brings. This year was much easier to get into that spirit. Last year- because it was the first Christmas without Mom- was a very difficult year. But I would like to think that I have grown a lot in the past year. I still miss her like crazy, but I have been finding different ways to honor her and her memory. Especially at Christmas time- which was her favorite holiday ever.

Family Pictures

I love to take pictures! I not very good at them yet, but hopefully I can take some classes to get better. I love that my family trusts me enough to take pictures of their families. I did the McCullough kids:

And Heather's family:

Thanks for letting me take your pictures guys!

BFF's

McKenzie's best friend in the whole world moved to Las Vegas about a year and a half ago. It was so hard on both of them. I am so grateful for technology! They have been able to text, FaceTime, message, call, each other. Every time they get together it's like there was never any distance at all between them. Anneka's family came up for Thanksgiving so of course the girls got together. Just before Anneka's Dad came to pick her up they decided they wanted to do a photo shoot. Here are a few of the favorites that we took.

I am so glad that they have each other. I just wish we lived closer together.