Christmas, New Years and Karly's Baptism

The Holidays have come and gone. I have noticed that some years I can't wait for life to get back to normal after the Holiday's. This year I was actually a little sad to put everything away. I think it's because we had a really wonderful Christmas Season. Our kids stayed healthy all month long and that is a Christmas miracle in my opinion. It seems like every December someone in our family gets really sick. Last year every single one of us had strep throat right before Christmas. It was awful! I prayed every single night that we would all be healthy for the Holidays and my prayers were answered. Jake was off for two weeks and we had such a great time having him home with us. We relaxed but we also did some major projects around the house. I now have my own craft room downstairs, we de-junked the laundry/storage room, and Jake put in a new bathroom floor upstairs. We also made a huge trip to the dump, took down all of the Christmas decorations, and deep cleaned the whole house. It was awesome. I feel like a new woman! I also have something else newsworthy to report: I am all caught up on my laundry!!!! I have turned a new leaf and laundry is my friend. I used a lot of advice you guys gave me and it has really helped. Thank you!

Here are the girls on Christmas morning in their new Christmas dresses. We went over to my parents and had a delicious breakfast with the whole family before we skyped with Aaron. It was so great to talk to him! His year mark is coming up this month. Hooray! After we talked to Aaron we headed over to church and the meeting was so good. My parents ward has a really talented ward choir. They sang so beautiful and it was a beautiful meeting. I love that we were able to go to church on Christmas Day! The past two or three years we have had Jake's side of the family come over to our house for a New Year's Eve party. It is a tradition that I love and always want to keep. This year was really fun. We ate, played games and just enjoyed laughing and being together.

This is a picture that I will always cherish. We were playing a game called Seven Deadly Sins and this was part of Jamie's dare. I won't go into details but I must admit we all died laughing when she busted out in the splits. So funny! Thanks for the laugh, Jamie. :) And here is Jake with peanut butter on his face. Ah, good times..

Karly was baptized today! It was a really special day. She looked so beautiful and she was so excited to be baptized. They had all of the men that were baptizing their children to say a little something special about their son or daughter and Jake did a great job. He mentioned that Karly is the sweetest girl and once you get past her shy side she is so funny and brings so much joy to everyone. He is so right. We love our Honey's. (That's been her nickname since she was tiny ). She is such a wonderful daughter and we are so blessed to have her in our lives. After the baptism and confirmation we had lunch with everyone and everything went so well. It was a wonderful day!

Now here we are at the beginning of another year. For me 2011 was a really good year. There was some definite ups and downs but more ups so that's definitely what matters. The year started with me being released from my calling in the Young Women's. That was very bittersweet for me. Actually I have missed it more than I ever would have thought. I love working with the Youth. I must admit though that when I was released my stress level went down substantially. I didn't really notice how much time went towards my calling until it was gone. I have enjoyed having a simpler schedule and spending more time with my family.

I've enjoyed becoming more active and making lots of new friends at my Zumba classes. I've enjoyed having new friends come into my life and old friends continue to be a part of my life. I have been so blessed by Heavenly Father and I am so grateful for my blessings. I also accomplished some personal goals that I have been working on and I have many, many more goals for 2012. Here's hoping this year is as good as 2011 was!