Carpenter Cylee

Food storage shelves that I built with my own two hands....AMAZING, isn't it? I didn't know I had it in me. Well, once I did this I couldn't stop there. (I had a little help from Mike with this, but this was my baby.)

Onto CLOSETS! Yes, I need them so desperately here I was finally driven to just go for it. And.. success! This is not the before picture. (Imagine just a shelf and one rod.) I can not describe how good it feels to tackle projects that get me ORGANIZED!

SUCCESS

This is our closet when we pulled everything out of it.

This is the end result, minus a few things to finish up with, but I am so pleased! We did it! Thank you Michael, if you didn't help me with this it would have never happened. We make a great team!

2010 Holiday Highlights!

To kick off the holiday celebrating we wanted to start the month off with going to the temple. What I thought would be this Spirit filled evening quickly turned into an irritating night and we couldn't get home quick enough. The place was packed...so much so that you could hardly walk!
It seems to me when I really want to have a great evening and it heads in the opposite direction I get just as mad as I was excited...strange!

We were able to get a few shots in.

Family movie night and Carson and Morgan all cuddled up together. I love to see peace and love shown!

The kids all dressed up and ready to go to our ward Christmas party.

This little thing is getting to be a handful. She is quickly following in her brother's footsteps with getting into cupboards, climbing, spilling and all other rowdy types of behavior typically reserved for boys. So far all manageable and adorable. We took her out of her crib a few months back and ever since sleeping time has become a bit of an issue.

This was Carson's big night! His preschool class put on a cute little program that consisted of singing and some talking parts. Super cute to watch this little boy, so handsome, behave himself so well at the program.

He is such a great little guy. Doesn't need to be center of attention 24/7 and that is very refreshing!

Cole on Santa's lap at the preschool party. Cole almost did not have Christmas this year. We have threatened it before but he came very close to getting a lump of coal!

This kid is amazing and smart and cute and such a HANDFUL. He still is very interested in the body and how it works. He has a life size skeleton on his wall. (Will have to post that later.) He will make a fine man one day if Mike and I can survive him.

Here is my lovely cousin Shana posing as Mary. She was a willing participant in this years nativity play. Her and her wonderful husband Jon, along with kids and other adults, performed at our family Christmas party. We have not done something like this since I was little so it was Really fun to do it again. I am so mad I don't have a picture to post of them in performance. Next year I will get one!

We stayed the weekend with my parents. This is my mom and Mo exercising together. It was too cute to not post this. My mom is such an example of health. She has exercised since I can remember and is very disciplined in keeping with a routine. MOM, Please Rub Off On Me!!!

My parents got the X-box Kinect and we all had so much fun playing that we had to get one too. (Now I don't have to join the gym I can have a personal trainer here in my living room.)

Now finally to Christmas eve. Here are the kids eagerly ready to open the traditional Christmas eve P.J's.!


Its amazing to me the obedience you get from your children when they know they get to open a present.


Michael did such a great job this year with my pajamas! I am well pleased with his selection. Morgan was too so she gave him a big squeeze.


I really struggle with blending the majic of Santa yet keeping to the reason for the season, Jesus Christ's birth. So after the presents and sprinkling of reindeer food we came in and talked about that special night long ago when the earth was changed forever. Mike told the story again and then we sang some Christmas songs. This holiday season was good. I am so blessed to be close to my family in Idaho and so blessed to have my own little family to teach and celebrate with.

Happy Holidays

We had a great snow storm a few weeks ago and that just dumped on us...we loved it. It feels so good to be back to country that reminds me of my childhood. I love the silence of the snow and how peaceful everything seems when it is covered in white.

I also love the holiday spirit that everyone feels. The music that we play that testifies of Christ's birth, the thoughts of service and the focus of the gift that God gave to us makes it just the most special time of year for me. They kids are infused with excitement because of Santa and are constantly wanting to know how many more days. I really try to be patient because I know I did the exact thing to my parents growing up.

We stayed home for Thanksgiving and just had a fun little day with ourselves. We ate good, minus the few mess-ups, and had a sweet little testimony/thankful session that really made it feel good to be with each other.

The next day we went to Idaho to eat my parents left overs and to get the extended family time in too. It was fun!

Here is my beautiful mom with my adorable little girl.

It is so ironic the full circle of life. I am now going through what I put my mom through growing up and she gets to watch.

We had a little get together with my Aunt, Paul and Shana. Shana hosted it and the party was very fun.

We played games, ate, Shana and my Aunt K tried to show me how to knit and then we got into politics. I loved all of it. I usually will leave a place way before my kids get tired just in case of a melt down. This night we stayed until almost all of them were passed out. It was fun.

Its Good to be me Today!

Why you might ask?

Well, two very exciting things happened the past two days. The first being that Cole went up in Sacrament meeting, on his own accord, and bore his testimony! I was so proud of him. We have testimony times at home to get the kids to understand what it is and what it is not. (My definition of testimony = It is not a travel log, not a time for telling random jokes, no life history please. It is a time for declaring what you know to be true and how your belief has increased because you are applying your faith in Jesus Christ by keeping His commandments.) So you can imagine how happy I was to see him so eager to get up and do it for the first time. You could tell he was nervous.. I think I saw him pick his nose for a minute too, but he did great. He got up there and proclaimed his faith in Christ and said some other things I couldn't make out because he was talking so fast, but I was sure happy with him!

The second exciting thing...I got a job working for the school board out here! I am super excited and it does not take me away from my family. I attend a meeting once a month and then do clerical duties here at home. I am very happy for two reasons with this...the first is that it has a little money with it (and that is always welcome this way) and the second is that I am completely interested in the education system and how it works. The people that I will be rubbing shoulders with are AMAZING women and I look forward to learning a lot of great things.

And to conclude this post I want to update and state publicly that I kicked my caffeine/energy drink addiction. I got off it a few weeks after I posted about it. All I have to say about overcoming and facing obstacles in life.. all you need is a plan and the Lord involved and ANYTHING can happen! (Please remind me I wrote this when I call one of you crying and complaining about a challenge I have.)

Life is good and I am blessed!

PEACE in being PREPARED

For those that know me they know I am a little passionate about being prepared and unfortunately (or fortunately, I am not sure yet) I have gotten even more passionate of late. All indications of a smooth ride into the future are lacking right now...for me I see massive storm fronts taking shape and ready to smash into our calm shores of life. If ever I start to doubt my own internal alarm sounding my mind reminds me of what our prophets have said in the past. Here are a few oldie but goodies that come to mind:

1. "The Lord has warned us of famines, but the righteous will have listened to the prophet and stored at least a year's supply of survival food..."
Ezra Taft Benson

2. "The time will come that gold will hold no comparison in value to a bushel of wheat."
Brigham Young

3. "The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah."
Ezra Taft Benson

4. "We will see the day when we will live on what we produce."
President Marion G. Romney

And a positive one

5. "We believe that seldom do circumstances arise in which men of rigorous FAITH, genuine COURAGE, and unfaltering DETERMINATION, with the LOVE of INDEPENDENCE burning in their hearts, and pride in their own accomplishments, cannot surmount the obstacles that lie in their paths. "
(Conference Report April 1948, pg.5)

I believe with everything in me that the time to prepare is NOW and not just temporal preparedness but Spiritual Preparedness too. What good does it do us to have the "things" and "stuff" to sustain us but not know what the Lord would have us do or know.

For those who are not actively preparing I would implore you to begin without any more delay. If you have to get up early to read your scriptures because there are to many distractions once you get up, then do it! If you haven't started supplying your family with the things that will keep you alive and not on the streets begging then start even if that means cutting into Christmas or whatever else you put above preparing.

There is safety in keeping the commandments and peace that comes to me when I do it and I want that for all I love and care about.

Halloween 2010

This year for our Halloween festivities we went to our new ward's Trunk or Treat. It was pretty fun, even if it was raining on us.

We went to the Zeller's place and the kids had a lot of fun, especially Cole. He is not afraid to go off by himself now. Carson stuck very close to us. I don't think he was sure of some of the costumes we saw.

Morgan was so fun to dress up and watch walk around and say trick or treat.

After we made the rounds we went and got some pizza and movies and finished our celebrations at home. It was fun.

These last two pictures have nothing to do with Halloween but I wanted to add them because they are so sweet of the kids. Carson is just the cutest little sleeper I have ever seen. The dog he is squeezing is Bone his new puppy.

FHE Success Story

Family Home Evening can either go two ways in our house.

Either we (Michael and I) are able to be patient and persever while we try and teach the kids important life lessons and spiritual realites while they poke each other, wiggle around and basically show no interest in what we have prepared OR we are able to present a topic that grabs their attention and they sit and listen.

Not only do they listen but it seems that the information was internalized....at least for the evening.

This was just that sort of night!

The lesson came from a wonderful site that Lindsey sent to me. (Thank you I LOVE it!) It was on being strong and not letting the advesary hit us with his arrows of tempation. The kids really enjoyed and so did I!

The activity at the end was just as fun as the lesson. I don't think there is anything more fun in life than to laugh and feel the Spirit with those that you love more than life!

I love my sweet little family in spite of the many times that I want to strangle them. So when we have moments like these I want to cherish them and remember them.