TEXAS

for shawn's last break, we dropped the boys off with our parents in utah and then headed to dallas, texas to visit some of our besties, nate and callie. this is what i have to say - i did not know that dallas was ever cold, but it was. everyone said it was abnormally cold, which is typical, shawn and i seem to bring cold weather with us everywhere we go. however, we had a most wonderful time. here's some of the happenings.
one of the highlights was going to the stock yards in fort worth. here we are in front of the signature longhorns. for day-to-day goings-on, pretty cool animals. for your bridal pictures? not so much. true story, at the very moment we were taking these pics, there was a bride 15 feet from us capturing her special moment with these magnificent creatures, wallowing in the mud. only in texas. i said that many times on this trip.

this is the train that comes through the stock yards, and honest to goodness, i felt like i was about to hop on the hogwarts express. geeky? possibly.
have you ever noticed that when you have a group of boys, when one does something, they all HAVE to do it, like their manhood is about it expire if they don't? folks, that continues well into adulthood as manifested here. in all fairness, i THINK shawn is bending his knees to look short. i think.


here we have a diagram of how a stampede takes place, and shawn kindly stopped to enlighten nathan.
our favorite thing to do with these guys is play the beloved game of dirty marbles. it is ritualistic, you might say. shawn and nate are on a team, callie and i are on a team. we did a lot of this, as well as some fantastic card playing. i didn't even have to go to bed at 11 because i didn't have to worry about the kiddos. it was seriously great.
nate and callie...thanks from the bottom of our big hearts. our lives and bellies have been touched and expanded (respectively) and will never be the same after living the texas way. love you.

mr. wiggle worm

because jack is such an ACTIVE little one, i was sure Heavenly Father would send me a calm, contented one for number two, but that is not the case. sam is just as crazy as jack was. so we bought him a johnny-jumper to wiggle and bounce in and the only doorway i have to put it in while we are downstairs is the door to my garage. so here's some lovely pics of that. we started by taking pics of sam (below) but jack cannot stand it when there are pictures being taken and he is not involved so...

still sporting the chub legs. love it.

bath time

this is their first official bath together. until now, i have been bathing sam in the kitchen sink cuz it was way easier. he loved the sink, it was his own personal hot tub. but he's just too darn big so i popped him in the tub with jack. there were a couple of times he looked at me like "what the heck is going on?"

pray for haiti

my sweet husband served his mission in haiti and is going crazy not being able to hop on a plane right this very second and go help his sweet haitian people. missionaries that he served with are already organizing trips to go down and help do whatever they can. if we had ANY spare money, i know shawn would be going with them.

all we can do is pray. please pray with us.

my goal

so i'm not usually the type to establish "new year's resolutions" because it's yet one more thing to feel guilty about when i don't accomplish it. ew, cynical, i know. but i few days ago i read pres. eyring's talk from the last conference entitled "our perfect example" and for some reason a lot of things connected for me. this is why we have to hear things over and over, because all the sudden it connects in a special way, just for you. read on if you will...

two gospel principles have always been a bit vague for me: the push to be perfect like our Savior, and charity. both are like trying to lick your own earlobes, in my opinion. you get the concept, but actually doing it or being it gets a little fuzzy. but pres. eyring quietly pieces it all together. in order to be like our Savior, we must love. we must love our sweet Father in Heaven, which isn't too difficult considering He allows me to breathe each day. a little harder, maybe, is loving those around us deeply and unconditionally. and we can't just love those that are easy to love ie friends, family, etc. we must love strangers and be nice to them in stores even when they ask to go ahead of you in the check-out line cuz they have one item (never mind you have two screaming kids, one of which is trying to steal all the candy sitting right in front of him). also, i must love my boys when they do things like previously mentioned or demand to finally eat their lunch when it's time for their nap.

when we figure out how to love unconditionally, then everything else falls into place. we obey because we love. we take care of our kids because we love them. we give because we love those around us, those that we don't know. and we don't judge because we love. do you see my puzzle fitting together? i know this is elementary for some, but it was my special connection, just for me. go read the talk.

SO....my resolution is to love. and with love comes patience, which i need a lot of for anyone who drives besides me and ESPECIALLY for my children (MOST ESPECIALLY for my eldest). but with my special connection, i have realized my past flaw. in the past, i have prayed for more patience, then you proceed to have the worst day ever and you chuckle at the end of it and say "good one, Heavenly Father, very funny". but now i know to pray for a perfect love. and because i love more deeply, i am calmly patient.

i have prayed every day for help with this, and as always, He has answered. with His gentle help, i think i'm doing better.

jolly holidays

we had some fabulous holidays and i'm proud to say i have a few pictures to document it. although, as i think back on all that we did, i should have much more...we started the festivities with our own little christmas on the 23rd, then left for utah on the 24th. thus, the 22nd was our christmas eve so we all unwrapped one gift and got the traditional christmas pjs. jack was not impressed to say the least, but was polite about it, reassuring himself that there were many more packages waiting to be opened the next morning. but we did get a jammies picture above.
this is jack modeling my christmas present from shawn, and i dare say they look much better on me. i actually bought them myself 2 weeks previous. thanks, babe!
some of the fav presents on "christmas day".

once we packed up and made it to utah the real party began.
with grandpa and his new train.
the gals with our new aprons that cindy gave us...LOVE THEM!!! don't judge, we did not shower before the unwrapping of the gifts.
"sleeping" with cousin court at the gibbs family christmas party.

sadly i have not one picture with my family, but we partied with them a bunch as well. shawn and i were lucky enough to go through the temple with my brother mike for his first time. that was incredibly special. and there were parties, parties, and more parties and wedding receptions and family pictures and movies and hot-tubbing...we didn't want to come home.

the weather outside is frightful

this is how we "bundle up" in vegas. jack and i learned that it is a hard concept to evenly distribute the fingers into the appropriate spaces in your mittens.