Snow... Not Wind!!

Did I put my request in wrong? The snow has been great. But for the last two days the wind has been absolutely outrageous. So instead of a pretty white blanket over the ground, we have massive snow drifts and areas of frozen ground. Not so pretty. Anyway- It's too cold to take a picture out there, so you'll have to visualize.

I got a call from my neighbor this morning. It's Shelly. "Hey Debi- Ummm....Your trash cans have blown over and they're blowing trash all over the place." Me- "Oh Crap! (realizing Will's not going to be home for hours and it's all up to me.) Thanks Shelly."

So I go outside in my beanie- all prepared for the cold. About 5 seconds later I come back inside. Put on my ski coat, big insulated gloves, sunglasses so I can protect my eyes from the whipping snow, call my dad for help- and head back outside. We're both running around (well, not running because it is icy!) and gathering trash, gross trash, and trying to get it back into the garbage cans. At the same time, trash is continuing to blow out of the cans. Good times!!

About 30 minutes later I come in. My head is throbbing, every limb on my body is frozen, and my face is a new shade of chapped red. I seriously have a renewed compassion for the pioneers. I don't think I've ever felt that cold. Wind chill is cruel.

Baby It's Chilly Outside

I love Quince. He is such a doll and is almost always the sweetest thing ever!! Truly. He uses some of the quirkiest and strangest words sometimes. Like words you'd hear senior citizens say- outdated words. It always makes me smile. For example, this morning while getting ready for preschool I put his coat on him. As I'm putting it on he turns to me and says, "Do I need to wear a coat? Is it chilly outside?" I laughed as I realized he never uses the word cold, he says chilly. He has always had an extensive vocabulary- but the more I think about it- the more I realize he uses words my parents would use. I love it and I hope it sticks.

Give it to Me Like This

As long as it's going to be this cold- could I make a request? Seriously- there isn't any sense in freezing unless you get to enjoy the white stuff with it.

One of a Few

So, on our second attempt at family photos, we got maybe 3 pictures that I actually like. And this is probably my favorite one. Should family pictures be this difficult? Really?

Moab

During November we took a trip to Moab. I have to be honest, I was NOT looking forward to going. Neither was Will, or our kids for that matter. We had driven through Moab just weeks before going to Durango- and we realized what a total dot on a map it was. We weren't looking forward to driving to and staying there. But we tried to be optimistic and went with the best attitudes we could muster up. I think the boys had fun, but they don't like to admit it. We had a good time with Dave and Dana's family. I still feel like Moab isn't my cup of tea- but we did the hikes- and other than Delicate Arches, which we hiked in the dark, with the babies, and it was steep- I enjoyed most of it.

Oh yeah- don't you just love Preston on the top of the rock, trying to get cell service so he could call his friends. Yep. Teenagers. Love em.

Keeping with the Tour

The same day I took pictures of the office, I took some photos of the baby's room because Misty had asked how the tree had turned out. This is their, still unfinished, room. I have everything to make the curtains, but have just been dragging my feet. I also still need to paint the one tall shelf- but it was a beast to paint- so I've been putting it off. Ah- procrastination. Anyway- I have to give credit where credit is due. Amy painted the tree. It took her a good part of two days- but only because she is a perfectionist. :) I was constantly saying it looked fine, and she'd want it to look better. I do think it turned out really fun though. Now if I could just force myself to pull out the sewing machine.

The Office

Awhile back, Abby asked about the color of our office. I took a picture- although I'm not sure the color looks exactly right. It's kind of an olive brown, but more brown. (Same color that Amy used in her guest room.) As I took the pictures of our office, I noticed something Will had on his shelf that I thought was funny.



view of Will's desk area.
A closer view of his shelf. That's Dwight. Will's boss gave that to him when he worked at Dex. Perhaps something about Will reminded her of Mr. Schrute. :)

Arizona Thanksgiving

Will spent half of his day doing this.

My boys spent the majority of their trip doing this. Very manly play.

I always have a hard time getting back into the swing of things when I return home from vacation. I'm really bad about it. We had a nice, wet Thanksgiving. Now the focus is on enjoying the season before it's over. It happens FAR too quickly for me. So much to do, and so little time. I wanted to post some good pictures showing our Thanksgiving experience, but apparently I only took goofy ones. As usual.

I wasn't going to see it, at least I was going to be one of the last to see it. But Will insisted on messing up my plans. We went out Friday night for his birthday. We got Brazilian food at a place we've never eaten at before- and I thought Will was going to fall over when he got the check. V.E.R.Y. expensive!! It's just food, right? We didn't even eat that much either. Such a waste. Anyway- we were planning to go see the new James Bond movie. After we got there, Will saw all the bajillion people who were there to see Twilight, and he was insistent that we see it too. He claims it was because he knew I wanted to see it- even though I kept telling him I wanted to see the James Bond flick as well. So...we had to wait an hour to get a showing that wasn't sold out, but we saw it. It was- okay. I had heard people say they loved it, and then also so many people who thought it was ridiculously lame. I guess I was pleasantly surprised with Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner (Jacob) but some of it was most definitely lame. Oh well. It was better than Eagle Eye, the last movie we saw in the theatre.

Saturday we put out all of our Christmas decorations and got the lights up on the house. What a massive project. We have way too much stuff. We don't have an abundance of decorations- but we have enough ornaments to decorate about 5 different trees!! Then we hosted a BYU/Utes party for the boys and about 15 of their friends. I'm not sure why we keep doing that. It gets pricey to feed that many teen and pre-teen boys. And there were only two Ute fans in the whole group. I had to 'protect' them from the rest of the boys (including my own) several times. "Anyone who hurts the Ute fans gets no more food!" It was a somber mood around here by the fourth quarter. It was pretty bad. Max Hall threw 6 interceptions by the very end of the game. He single-handedly lost it for the Y.

I had to bake cookies for Relief Society on Sunday (the teacher bailed last minute and we agreed the Pres. would wing the lesson if I would bake a treat. good compromise for me.) I was looking all over for Delana's recipe and couldn't find it- so I decided to use the Nestle Tollhouse recipe. (I needed a recipe that made a lot of cookies, otherwise I would've used Danna's ultimate recipe.) Anyway- after the first batch came out it occurred to me that the Nestle recipe calls for butter, and butter makes flat cookies. I was so ticked. About 80 cookies later- I started over with Danna's recipe. And that's what I served to the sisters in the ward. I think I finished baking around 1:00 in the morning. It seems I always make things so much more difficult for myself.

So Sunday...we spent yesterday evening counting labels for the school contest I was in charge of. (Thanks to Dana Smith who suckered me into taking it over for her.) It's the box tops, Campbells labels, that kind of thing. Let me just say- Dave, Dana, their five kids, Will, Preston, Brig and myself counted labels last night for 2 1/2 hours. If I had tried to do that on my own- I would still be counting labels. I'm soooo glad it's over and I don't have to do it again until spring. (I'm also very appreciative that Dana came to help me and brought her whole family.:)

Jarret and Jamie are supposed to be coming over this evening- and I have soooo very much to do before then. We're planning on taking off tomorrow as soon as the boys get out of school and spending the night in Kanab. That way we can arrive in Phx. a lot earlier on Wednesday.

G & G Sharp

So after our little trip to Durango, on the way home, we stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Sharp's house in Paonia, CO. We only spent two days there, but I think that was the boys' favorite part. The older boys spent most of Saturday with Will helping Grandpa chop wood for their 'winter' pile. They used a wood splitter, and got to ride the quad around to haul the logs from one area over to the barn. Suddenly, Spencer didn't mind farm life at all. Quads have never thrilled me much at all, but all of the boys love them!! We spent most of Sunday there as well, and the boys were a big hit at church. But that's easy to do when you have very few youth. They snatched them up as soon as we walked in, to help pass the sacrament. SOOO different than here. Often, Spencer doesn't get to pass because there are so many deacons. Will and the boys may be taking a weekend and heading back up to Paonia to help out with some winter chores in Dec. Don't ask me when- December is always the most insanely busy month, for everyone- I'm sure. Anyway, so here's Paonia.

Lincoln's favorite things there. The kitchen toys, and the tractor.

Clayton spent most of his time in that chair playing video games, and Brig won his very first game of Settlers!!

Bear Mountain Townhomes (in Purgatory)

Over fall break, in October, we took the boys to Durango, CO and spent a week just hanging out. There was very little to do in the town, because it was their off-season. (Which made the condo much more affordable. On peak it rents for $600 per night. Which I would NEVER pay, ever.) But we were a little sad that all the activities we remembered doing on past trips to Durango weren't available. So we just hung out, cooked a lot, played games (including a four hour game of Monopoly) and watched movies. It was actually a lot of fun, and we all had a really good time. Here's a few of the many photos...

the condo

the view from our room

Lunch in Ouray, CO (which they call Little Switzerland, because of the mountains there. Very pretty.)

At a mine, which always fascinates Will. Understandably so.

This Month is Such a Special One

Happy Birthday!!! I'm off to lunch with the world's most wonderful husband. We'll celebrate on Friday, because tonight he gets to spend his birthday evening with the scouts. Every man's dream.

No Time

I don't have enough time to write much, so the photos have to be lame ones. Every Sept. (first day of fall) we take the boys up Butterfield Canyon and take pictures. We also have the tradition of going to Gardner Village and eating soup, but there's no time for details. Anyway- I did get some good ones, but these were my favorites of the older boys being lame. They sometimes think they are male models. It makes me laugh. Well...I'm off to watch Clayton race his car at the much anticipated PINEWOOD DERBY!!!! (cause I haven't seen enough of those for one lifetime!)

So, this week is one of the busiest I've had in a very long time. I had an extremely hard time pulling myself out of bed this morning to face this ridiculously crammed week. But- we had a good (also busy) weekend. We did another attempt at family photos. Hopefully this one will turn out well. (I don't have high expectations. Will and I realized our kids are HORRIBLE about taking photos. They HATE it. It will be a miracle if we even get one with everyone even looking in the right direction, let alone smiling.) Will and I went to the Utah Symphony. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed it, a lot. Will even thought it was pretty enjoyable. And I wasn't even familiar with most, if not all, of the music. We want to try taking the older boys, to see what they would think.

A couple weeks ago, Preston wanted to make an apple pie. So we used the apples from our tree, and made our first completely from scratch apple pie. It's sorry looking, but the boys were proud. And it was good, which made them even happier. A funny thing- the little crust decorations on top that look like twigs or something are actually 'Y's. BYU was playing that day, and the boys had to show their support.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

So, Will has taken my desktop completely apart, so we can finally finish painting the office. It is my computer of choice, and it holds almost every photo I have. Today I have to use the laptop- which only has photos from long ago. Here's a couple of random beauties- one with Lincoln present, and one without. We were in Silverton, CO in the second one. That was the year of the really warm summer camping trip. (It was like 30 degrees the whole time, in July!)

And this one here is from many summers ago. Yep, that's 5 boys in one queen size hide-a-bed. And Quinton was the smart one who made his bed from the chairs. At least he got to sleep without someone rolling on him. :)

Dry Ice

Brig wanted to have a Halloween party. We had agreed to allow all the older boys to have one, and we'd go all out for it. But as the holdiay approached, Brig was the only one who wanted to have one. We kind of threw it together last minute, but it turned out totally good. He was quite upset that we wouldn't allow girls at the party- but we figured since he's only 12, it was best. The coolest part for us was watching Lincoln's reaction to the dry ice. It was awesome. He was freaked out and mesmorized by it at the same time.

By the way: Wendy- that is Tance sitting in the front of the table eating a carrot. (Maybe you already knew that, but I thought I'd point him out.) :)