Another New Cousin!!

Zach and Nikki finally had their third baby Ned Reuven Hills and I was lucky enough to be visiting my parents when he came. I was double lucky that they came to my parents house two days after he was born. If you can't already tell by the pictures, my kids adore him and I could hardly keep them off of him. I have to say that it made me REALLY baby hungry too. He is very sweet and even cuter in real life. Thanks for sharing him with us Zach and Nikki, he sure is a cute little guy!

The Sweet Calm of January

Most my life I have dreaded January. It has always seemed like such a drab month. I mean think of it. After all the fun, family and parties from October until December. January just seems so sad boring and lonely. Not to mention that it is right in the middle of winter so we are cooped up in our houses. And now living in Salt Lake City we have bad inversions to top it off. BUT for some reason this year I have extremely looked forward to this drab boring time of year. December was SO BUSY and CRAZY that I was longing for the January time when I could finally just relax for a moment and be a little less stressed. Well, once we got through that first Sunday in Primary (my main source of stress) things finally started to let up. But then they called and asked us to speak in church the following Sunday. Oh man, if any of you know me well, you know that talking in front of adults is very stressful for me. Though I do have to say that it was a REALLY neat experience for me. I felt the spirit so strong while preparing my talk and while giving it. It is amazing how stressful things that can be really scary can help you grow and be so much happier if you just buck it up and do it. It was also neat to hear Tim speak, he did a great job. At the end of my talk I wanted to share a Primary song with the congregation. It is the new song that that children are learning for our theme of I Know the Scriptures are True for the year. I had been listening to it a lot during the week, to learn it for Primary and because I really like it. Well little did I know that Emery had memorized it while it was being played throughout the week. So I thought why not have her sing it at the end of my talk. She is only 3 years old so I was really nervous if she would even sing when she got up in front of everyone. 3 year olds are pretty unpredictable. It ended up going pretty good. She got shy for the first line of the song but then got up her nerve and just starting singing. Who knew, we both grew a little bit that day. :) I thought I would share a video of her practicing for it the night before.

We have also been able to do some fun things as a family during the week while Tim was still out of school, on the days he didn't have to work. On one day, we decided to go for a Snow Picnic. Why not? We packed soup in thermoses and warm grilled cheese sandwiches. It actually worked and was pretty fun. Sometimes it is fun to think out of the box a little bit and just do weird things. So I guess you could say that January has gone a little differently than we thought, but it has also been better than I thought as well. Sitting around in a stress free environment doing practically nothing may seem nice but it sure doesn't make me feel as happy in the long run. I don't think it is good to be busy all the time but I do feel it is good to have a balance. So far January has been that perfect balance of work and play/relaxation. Happy New Year Everyone. I hope you have a balanced New Year.

Christmas in a Nutshell

When there is so much going on for one month, it seems best to just sum it all up in one post. We were able to head to Delta to Celebrate the festivities twice with Tim's family. Our first Christmas was with Brett and Jennie since they were having their REAL Christmas with Jennie's family this year. Here are a few pictures of the event.
These Raggedy Ann and Andy Dolls are adorable. Alan and Paula gave them to the girls. They are hand made. You can just see Emery's excitement on her face. She actually wanted to be Raggedy Ann for Halloween along with Goldilocks, if that tells you how much she likes Raggedy Ann. Maybe next year for Halloween. :)
Tim visiting/laughing with his brothers.
Doesn't it seem that the cheapest toys are the ones you have most fun with Christmas Day. Tim and his brothers played with these helicopter fliers almost the whole trip and actually wore them out by the time we left. Well worth every penny.
Of course we can't forget our REAL Christmas morning:

Visiting Grandma Dora after opening presents. The little puppy that Emery is holding was a last minute, after thought, gift we got for her. Go figure, it was her FAVORITE gift she receive. She is still carrying this little dog she name Annalisha everywhere with her. I think she likes that Annalisha came in her own little bag too.
Then there was also the few days After Christmas Party at Jennies families house in Salt Lake:
Kaven asked me to take this picture of him while we were playing catch phrase. You can tell he was really into saying cheese. :)
We had a blast playing Catch Phrase. It was also lots of fun to meet Nicks new girl, T.C. for the first time.
It was hard to say good-bye to everyone when it was time to go. I am just glad that we all live close enough to be all together two times a year. I guess the countdown is on for the 4th of July. :)