Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time!

(Or in Rocky's words, "Spinning, Happy a Wonderful Christmas Time)

This Christmas Season flew by super duper fast! For each day in December I had a stocking hung up on a line. In each stocking there was something "Christmasy" for us to do. Some days we performed service, some days we did activities as a family, some days we read Christmas books, some days we watched movies, and some days we made Christmas treats. I wish I would have written every day down or at least taken pictures of every day. Oh well. Here's what I did capture on camera....

Trimming the Tree.
The baby of the family gets to put the angel on the tree. This year Rocky was big enough to handle the task. Although he may have been big enough, he definitely still wasn't ready. That poor kid is such a scaredy cat. He couldn't handle being up on Matt's shoulders!

So the torch got handed to Maya. Unfortunately, she wasn't any better than Rocky. Where did I get such scared kids from?

Luke was MIA at the time, so Isaac was able to do the honors this year. He's at the age where he thinks he's too big to do things like this, but I wasn't about to let him get off the hook (plus I was the next in line and there's no way I'm getting up on Matt's shoulders!)

We wrote letters to Santa.

We went to the Ward Christmas Party where the kids got to sit on Santa's lap.

Rocky didn't want anything to do with Santa the last time we saw him, but for some reason he didn't really care about him this time. That kid confuses me.

We attended the Stake Nativity Night. Our kids were asked to participate in the live Nativity. Once again, Isaac thought he was too old for something like that, but he was forced into it by his lovely mother.

As an early Christmas gift, Matt and I gave our kids season tickets to Weber State basketball. The boys were ecstatic!! This was the best present ever!!

We went to the Covieo family Christmas Party where we did the same old, same old. (Not that that's a bad thing, I like traditions). We met at a church, ate dinner, the kids did a Nativity, Santa came (a little bit of a creepy one this year if you ask me), the kids danced the hokey pokey and bunny trot with Santa, Santa gave out treats, Grandma gives out presents, and then your free to mingle with the family.

Luke played Jr. Jazz this month, and his team did awesome. They went the whole season undefeated. Luke tore it up at the tournament. He was one of their leading scorers which helped lead their team to first place!!

Every Wednesday Reese gets to come play with Maya. They made Gingerbread houses one day.

On Christmas Eve we got together with the Merrill side and attempted to do the Nativity for the first time since there's enough cousins to do it now. There's a lot of crying, a lot of fighting, and a lot of aimless wandering by the little ones. It was quite entertaining.

We opened our traditional Christmas Eve Jammies. Matt and Luke were the most excited about theirs. Matt finally got Spongebob PJ's and Luke finally got onesie PJ's!

Christmas Day
Rocky's Loot (Rocky's favorite gift was the chocolate milk in his stocking

Maya's Loot

Luke's Loot

Isaac's Loot

My Loot

Matt's Loot (is it just me, or is the word loot sounding really weird right now?)

Melinda made all the little one's monkey pj's and a matching sock monkey.

Grandpa Poll gave all the kids slippers.

Curt's family gave my dad this framed shirt that Mandy and her kids gave to Nathan when he was diagnosed with cancer. This is the shirt that Travis wore throughout his cancer ordeal.
Post Christmas sleepover with cousins. All the Poll cousins planned a huge sleepover at various houses. Unfortunately, one of Chad's kids got sick so it threw everyone's plans for a loop. Somehow all the older kids (15 of them) ended up at Curt's house to sleep over! I was lucky and only had Reese sleep over.

The boys got Jazz tickets in their stockings so we went to the first home game of the season. Luckily it was a good game and the Jazz actually won.

New Year's Eve we went to the Weber State basketball game. For Christmas all the kids got Weber State gear. They were featured on the Jumbo Tron with their foam wildcat claws and won fans of the game. They won a big duffel bag full of coca cola items. They divided it all up amongst themselves.

A Christmas miracle happened when Waldo the Wildcat came by our seats and Rocky decided that today was the day that he'd give him a chance. At first he gave him a fist pump, and then he took it even a step further and sat on his lap. I was in shock! The first game we went to Rocky was huddled under our seats in fear of Waldo when he was still a few rows away.

It's been a fast paced but very good Christmas season. I was able to slip some spiritual moments in there and we made a lot of fun lasting memories.

Thankful for...

...Book Club
The best group of ladies around!

...My Precious Girl
She turned 5 last month. That's right, FIVE! I couldn't imagine my life without her.

...a little boy that will do anything for a laugh.

...awesome friends that do things like throwing Pinterest Parties. This is what Jaclyn made that I want to copy.

...a little boy that FINALLY had the desire to go pee pee in the potty. It's been a long road, but we're finally there. (Notice once again the tissue in the nose because he thinks it's funny).

...a wonderful mother-in-law that is always so willing to babysit our kids. Sometimes they come back looking like this, but that makes me love her all the more. Her hands don't quite work the best, but she'll do what she can to make her grand-daughter happy by putting in pig tails.

...Thanksgiving

...a large family that we were able to spend time with on Thanksgiving. My grandma, her two sisters and all of their families have met at a church ever since I can remember to celebrate the holiday. Our little family hasn't been in years, so I'm thankful that we were able to go this year. We played Minute to Win it Games.

Autumn, In a Nutshell

Autumn has sadly come and gone. Here's the highlights...

Bull riding at the Gibbs birthday party. Oh how I wish there were pictures/proof of me riding the bull. I proudly stayed on the full 8 seconds!

Field trip to the fire station. (How many more of these do I have to go on?!!)

Date Night at the Desert Star Theater. We lucked out and were able to get our picture taken with Hercules. :)

Apple Party at Grandma Covieo's

A long time tradition of dancing to Here Comes the Bluebird in Through the Window, Tra, La, La, La, La.

The Dirty Dash. I think this was my one and only time doing this. Not my thing.

Date Night at Black Island Farms. Thank you Romneys for choosing the non-haunted maze :)

First missing tooth.

A Super Mario Bros. Halloween

Poll Family Halloween Party

Here lies Old Miss Higgins. If you don't already know about her, I'll tell you later.

Mario

Princess Peach

Michael Jackson Zombie

Michael Jackson Zombie

Pinewood Derby (another reminder of why I dislike scouts)

The boys after performing Thriller for the school talent show.

Overnighter in Park City

Phew, that feels good to get posted!

Antelope Island

For Labor Day we went on a last minute camping trip. Since it was last minute, we ended up on Antelope Island because it was the only available camping spot. It didn't matter where we were though. It was just fun to get away for a couple of days, eat hobo dinners (my kids thought that was hilarious... they asked why on earth someone would name a dinner after homeless people???), and tell campfire stories. Matt graced us all with the legendary story of the Master King Buffalo. It was the most nonsensical story I have ever heard, but somehow the kids were still a little scared that the Master King Buffalo would get them. The two little one's even went straight to bed with no fuss (hallelujah!!) because the Master King Buffalo doesn't like whiny kids. :) Luke's favorite part was the ancient song about him that's been taught generation after generation. It was REALLY hard for me not to laugh as Matt was making the song up as he went. It was even funnier when Maya asked him to sing the song to her again the next day. I couldn't help but laugh as Matt tried to explain his way out of that one because there's no way he could remember it. We all had so much fun that we decided to make it a yearly tradition. Not necessarily the Antelope Island part, but for sure the over night camping on Labor Day weekend.

Season of Change

It's been such a long time since I've done a yoga post. Last year Maya had dance during yoga class and the Friday class was cancelled, so I haven't even been regular to yoga classes for nearly a year. With the new fall schedule I am now able to attend Monday yoga classes!! And let me tell you, it feels good to be back! Today we had a substitute teacher.... a guy. When he walked in I got a little nervous. I wasn't sure how his style of teaching would be, and I was pretty sure that whatever it was, it would be hard. Well, the first thing he said to us was that we are officially into the month of October, which means we are officially into the season of change. With that being said, he wanted us to think about that notion for the rest of our session. And boy did I ever think about it! In terms of our actual yoga class change was all around me. I was going back to yoga for a change. I had a male instructor for a change. His teaching style was definitely a change. I learned several techniques to make a change and better my yoga experience. Change was all around me. And for the most part, all the change was for the better.

At the end of our class, the instructor read a few quotes about change. In my own interpretation he said, often times change happens regardless of whether we want it to or not (don't I know that for sure!). We have the option to accept the change and go forward with our lives or we can choose to linger on what was. When we choose the latter, we can't progress. If we choose to accept the change we can live a rich life full of experiences. When he said that I truly had a light bulb moment! Change has happened to me, period. Have I accepted this change? Sometimes. What really got to me though was his statement of, "if we choose to accept the change, we can live a rich life full of experiences." I do feel like the times that I'm wallowing in my sorrows about life with out my mom and brother, my life is stunted. I'm at a standstill and that's usually when the anxiety and depression hit me. I don't want my trials and the changes that have happened to me hold me back in my progression in this life. I want to be able to use those changes to make my life more rich. I want to be able to look back and say I am a better person because of the way I handled the unwanted change that was thrown my way.

Our instructor also talked about voluntary change. He said that often times we are afraid of change. Why are we afraid? Sometimes it's not because we're afraid to let go of the now, and it's not because we're afraid of what's to come (that's where I thought the fear comes from), but it's because we're afraid of the inbetween. He said we'll be like Linus when it's time for his blanket to be washed... scared because we don't have something to hold onto. That first step is the hardest. That step that leaves us from what we're use to, to the unkown hope of the better that's awaiting us. But as soon as we leave that middle ground and take the second step, it's not so scarry anymore. The inbetween is just for a moment. I have really put some thought into this whole change thing. This is a season of change and I want to change with it. I have been praying for the longest time that I might find physical peace. Mentally I've been on the right path and I can honestly say that I'm happy. But for some reason physically I'm just not there. I'm still tense all the time, my body aches, I'm always tired in the day and then wide awake at night, my breathing patterns are out of wack, and I can't seem to get my eating habits on a healthy track. Well, I think that today's yoga class was a little answer to my prayer. Change needs to happen. Quite shockingly without even having to think about it, I knew exactly the first item of change that needed to happen... my "lists." (I seriously did not see that coming. That's how I knew that it was an answer to my prayers). I have been a slave to my lists and it subconciously has created tension and stress in my life. I stress out if the things on my list aren't getting checked off. I stress out if something that's not on my list needs to get done because it wasn't planned and accounted for so I don't get the satisfaction of checking it off. Plus, there's other things on my list that need to get done and I'm being held back by this unplanned thing. Or sometimes there's something that I want to get done and can't because it's not on my list. And as the months have gone on I have a growing list of things that "have" to be on the list in order to have a smooth running household. My weekly list has gotten so large that I have to get 6-7 things done a day on this ever growing list. And then I have a bad feeling when there's things that I know have to get done like, eat lunch or shower but they're not on my list. So I began to add them to my list and I have begun to feel as though my life is dictated by this list. There's no wiggle room. Plus there's so many things in this life that can't be accounted for and planned, like tantrums and serving others (no, those don't go hand in hand). I guess it's kind of an OCD thing that has been secretly causing me stress. So the first thing I did when I got home was throw away my list. And guess what? Today has been so relaxing. Don't get me wrong, I still had things that needed to be done and I did them all. But to not have that list looming over me felt great!! I always thought I NEEDED a list to keep me on track and help me from getting stressed out. Who knew it was the cause of some of my stress. (Is everyone freaked out now by my wierd List obsession? You all know you have your wierd nonsense things that you do to!) This is a HUGE change for me, so I think I'm just going to stick to this change for the time being and get use to it. It's so true though that the inbetween part is the hardest. That moment right after I threw my list away and wasn't quite sure how to go about the rest of my day was rather scarry. I didn't have my Linus blanket anymore to hold onto. Today went rather well though. I just hope I don't start freaking out come Thursday, lost without my list. Wish me luck!