January

I find all sorts of selfies on my phone from the girls.

This one had me stumped because it didn't look "original".

Come to find out they have figured out how to edit  pictures.

 They added lowlights and other things to her face.

I do have to hand it to them, her hair looks really good, ha!

But I am in a heap of trouble when they get a phone someday.

It seemed like the longest Christmas break.

After a week of the dunes and New Years stuff, we still

had a whole week off from school.

We did lots of things like hot tubing at my parents.

Used our pogo passes and GolfLand

We got to meet a celebrity!

Well, a celebrity in our eyes.

David Bowman is a member of our church.

He is a very talented artist and has a website where he makes

videos of the lessons we learn in Come Follow Me each week with his drawings.

It is called Drawn In.

He is so nifty and clever, even I 

love watching them and help me understand the scriptures more.

He has a gift, and I am so happy he shares it with others!

He lives in Snowflake, but came down one weekend to visit a
couple of stakes and one of them happened to be ours!

He taught the kids how to draw a picture of a scripture hero. 

They did pretty good!

I got acquainted with my new Christmas gift from Casey.

We do not give each other gifts for Christmas, but he surprised me this year.

I am a Bosch snob and have been using the one he gave me 20 years ago

as a Christmas gift also!

It still works great, but I saw this Ankarsrum mixer on
 Heather Thompsons instagram page and was intrigued by it.

I mentioned it to Casey one night saying how cool it looked.

 The next thing I know I am opening one on Christmas morning!

I was shocked but SO excited!!

I promised him it is the gift the will give to him every week:)

I was so impressed that I had to post about its amazingness, which

I normally don't do!

It has turned my weekly bread making into a breeze and I 

LOOOVE it so much!!!

Grandma and Grandpa gifted us another
 weekend to Great Wolf Lodge for Christmas!

It was fun having the Utah Lindbloms come in for this.

They ran around in their cousin groups doing all the

activities, having a howling good time together!

While taking the girls to the bus stop, my tire air 

meter starting going crazy one me!

Luckily Gunnels isn't too far away.

  Sure enough

they pulled a screwdriver out of my tire!

Minus the handle.

Good gravy!

I enjoyed the 2 weeks our tress looked like they belonged in a

forest in Virginia during October.

It's like a little treat from Heavenly Father helping me get through the "bitter"

cold month of January.

I hate being cold.

I feel like it's leaves get more fire-y in color each year.

And then they drop and the kids go wild.

This is definitely a novelty for Arizona children!

I'm not too sad it's short lived since leaves get strewn all in my house and car

during this time period.

They sure can watch tv in the strangest positions sometimes.

We had been needing to get the boat on the water to check on some things all winter.

It wasn't an ideal day, cloudy and possibly some sprinkles.

But with the storms Casey couldn't work one morning so we headed on out, just

the 2 of us!

It was a beautiful day with some exceptional scenery all around us.

We shared the lake with a handful of fishermen and that was it!

I have never been on the water with it looking like a glass top surface.

The fog topped mountains almost made it seem like we were in Jurassic Park!

It was so cloudy you couldn't see 4 Peaks at all.

I was wishing so bad I could hop in and wake surf on this 

smooth as silk water!!

Driving on glass was a blast!

Full speed without being tossed and bouncing around.

My passenger princess.

The water didn't seem super cold!

But I bet my body would have tensed up and sunk straight to the bottom

if I jumped in!

I was shocked Casey put on a swimsuit, the thought never

crossed my mind!

The girls had a dance competition.

It was a DAY!

More on that later.

Lane went to WINFO!

More on that later as well.

Softball games for Della!

Mrs. Standage (who is also my cousin) 

came to watch Lindi and Penelope play in their first basketball game!

She is their PE teacher at school.

And is clearly the BEST!!

The leaves getting more sparse, but holy moly

that blue sky!!!

Unreal.

We had all of the youth over to our house after church

so they could watch the worldwide broadcast together.

The girls and I went to pick up the sandwiches from Ned's

Krazy Sub while they were gathered.

Evan, the owner, was SO nice to go down and make this for us to have

fresh for them afterwards.

We really insisted that it was fine to pick up on Saturday.

He insisted back that it was no big deal.

We are blessed to know good, kind people!!

He sure was put to work that day!!

And if he wasn't kind enough, as we were driving away he ran after

us saying he forgot he made extras just in case.

And handed a 3 ft. sub through the window.

Seriously?!

The NICEST guy!

All set up and ready for the hungry teenagers!

Clearly they were a hit!

Every ounce GONE!