It's about time...

...and I haven't had enough time to keep up on my blog! I get anxious and overwhelmed when I think about playing 'catch up' with the pictures and memories from the past two months. BUT... I use this blog as a family journal; to celebrate the good and the bad, to document the best and the worst, so here it goes!

The MOST important thing that's happened in the past 2 months is...Brad recieved his mission call! He will be serving in the West Indies - English speaking.

He leaves for the Provo MTC on May 25th. I am SO proud of him and the decision that he's made to go on a mission. For those of you that aren't quite sure where the West Indies are (I didn't either...I had to look it up) here is the map of his mission - the mission home is in Trinidad

We will miss him but I wouldn't want him anywhere else for the next two years!!

On to Christmas...

We had a wonderful Christmas at home this year. We decided against our annual Christmas Trip because of finances and we enjoyed a nice, quiet, relaxing, fun day at home. The kids all lined up on the stairs in their new Christmas jammies, youngest to oldest before coming up to see what Santa brought

The "favorite" gifts this year were Snuggies for the girls

and BYU gear for the boys

We also got a Wii and spent most of the day dancing, playing, racing, bowling, etc...It was a wonderful day!

Right before school got out for Christmas break, we had a MAJOR snow storm. We got so much snow, that the school district had it's first "snow day" in over 20 years!

I decided that if the kids were home for a snow day, we should play in the snow!

We made snow angels and snow forts

I was a good sport and stood under the basketball hoop while Brad whacked the hoop with a broom

We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon tubing at Rock Canyon

It was cold, wet and super FUN! We had a great "snow day"!

Now for more Christmas...

Every Christmas we get together with our Dahl cousins and go bowling at BYU. Grandpa Dahl rents out a few lanes and we get to spend a couple of hours "knocking down pins" and laughing together!

We got to listen to Rylee sing in the MMHS Christmas Concert called "Carols and Confections". Lexi couldn't ever remember the name of the concert and was always saying "Carols and Conceptions" or "Carols and Confessions"! She keeps us laughing!

Speaking of Lexi...I have a procrastinator on my hands! On November 1st at 7:00am, she informed me that her book report was due THAT MORNING! She didn't have to hand in a written report - she had to hand in a "character can". In other words, she had to make a soup can into the person that she read about and put 12-15 facts inside the can that she could read to the class. I hurried and got out the felt, construction paper, hot glue gun and craft bucket and we got to work. About 45 minutes later...this is what we had:

(It's supposed to be Sakagewea)

Well, fast forward to January and Lexi informs me at 8pm on Tuesday night that her "school store" is tomorrow morning and she wants to make homemade kool-aid playdough. Nice! I sent Rylee to the store to pick up some Kool-Aid and we got to work. At about 10:15 - this is what we had:

Her store was a success and she ended up selling out and walking away with $200 "S" bucks to buy things on the next "Student Store" day.

So far, we have done the "night before" project EVERY MONTH since the school year began! I love my Lexi-Loo!!

I'll end this post with a few pictures of my January birthday girls:

Rylee and Lexi celebrate their birthdays 3 days apart so instead of making two cakes this year, we combined the celebration and had one big family party. (I forgot to get a picture of the cupcakes) This is Rylee opening her "mystery" gift.

And this is a picture of my HAPPY daughter holding the "mystery" gift:

She's been dancing in the basement to "Thriller" and "Beat It" for 3 days straight!! She loves it!

And one last picture to top off this super long post....

We tried curlers in Lexi's hair one Saturday night so she could wear it curly to church on Sunday. She was NOT impressed! Needless to say, we put her head under the faucett and started over! She looked MUCH better!