Welcome 2011

All Right. All Right. My blog guilt has caught up to me! There will be no pictures. I'll upload those later. If I can remember right ... Here is a summary of December.

1st weekend of Dec. Ran half marathon.
2nd Weekend of Dec. drove to Jackson to have my bridesmaid dress fitted.
3rd weekend of Dec. spent all Saturday with Jed's brother who was leaving to got to school in Utah.
4th weekend of Dec. Christmas Chaos
5th weekend of Dec. Levi and Jenn were married in the Memphis Temple at 11:00 a.m. 1:oo I am at the hotel getting ready with the other bridesmaids for the ring ceremony. No ones dresses fit! One of her friends from Holland who works on runways fixed all of them. 5:00 its picture time. 7:00 its reception/ceremony time! 10:00 its time to take my sweeties home.

Next post will be the pics! :) Love Val

A sampling of What the Wheat is.. Sleeping.......
Being too cute but trying to get in the fireplace with a pretzel in her mouth.
Running the St. Jude half. My Cuz Dani and Uncle and Jed were all running too. But this was the best picture. The race was so much fun and hard! If you asked me right afterwards if I would ever would do it again I would say no... but after having some time to recoup I'm totally up for another one! What a great feeling to accomplish something!

This is us celebrating the night we Jed called on his way home and said he passed the final part of the CPA exam. The kids wanted to throw a surprise party (cause that's logical right?) it was very last minute but we did have his favorite spaghetti and he went and bought the best German choc. brownies! When he gets the official paperwork from the state then I think we will go and have a high class dinner and spend his 401k (Just kidding but a girl can dream).

This holiday is coming up fast and we have my brother Levi's wedding to get ready for on New Years Eve. Life is fun! :)

Lets Get Together and be All Right

All right this about the closet I'll ever get to being political guys. so here goes....

My kids are watching a show on PBS about Hanukkah(don't even know if I spelled this right). They are TOTALLY into it. I actually should be in their watching it too so I can learn something but it just got my thinking about tolerance. We need much more tolerance in this world. We are so quick to judge, so eager to fight each other about issues, not willing to see the other side of things. Yes, there are times when you have to stand up for what is right but there can be way of doing this that doesn't involve anger. I am disgusted with politics because people just bicker at why the other side is wrong. I have no solutions to our nations big problems. However, I believe that our nation is a better one because we have the ability to speak our hearts and minds. So, before you go and call someone a Uptight Republican or Hippie Liberal, realize that some of us are a little of both.
In your personal lives at home, with friends, with your kids are you creating an environment of critical thinking or an environment based on you do what I say because I say. I believe strongly in the power of choice. God gave us choice because He expects us to use it wisely.

With so much to be for grateful for this Holiday Season, you must take away the negative and focus on the positive of life. You will change be doing this. Running this half marathon has taught me about the power of choice, the power of attitude, the power of what is inside. It has literally slowly begun to change the way I see the world. It is a blessing. A strange and wonderful blessing to see so much beauty in all things. I know some of you feel the same way and I know some of you are struggling to find it but you will. Enjoy your decorating today! Love to all!

Val

Blog to Book

I was wondering if any of you bloggers out there know of a way to turn your blog into a book. I just joined Shutterfly and they have a program where you can make a book but I was wondering if anyone has made a book out there using Shutterfly or Heritage Makers?

Let me know please!:) Also, if your daughter tries to put her hat back into the van before going into the zoo try not to crush her hand and give her a small wrist fracture. Thanks!

Finally accomplished some blogging...

Annie Turns 4. Wait, What?! I love this little girl! She is so smart and silly!
Happy Halloween! Jed and I attended an amazing party this year! We even won a game for collecting the most rats! I love to win!
Lucy trying to be a pea in the pod. I assumed she would fit into this and didn't try it on before the festival at church. O well! She's in our third Pea in the Pod.



Annie opening her very cute headband from Oma.

This month went by so fast! I'm running every weekend and that is taking up alot of my free time. I'm up to 8 miles now. Lucy is great but doesn't like to sleep at night which is kinda hard on the rest of us.

Here are the kids stats:

Lucy 8 months 16 pounds 27 in
Annie 31.1 pounds 3912 in
Claire 29.8 pounds 40 in.

Yes. it happened Annie is slowly starting to outgrow Claire. Hope this won't be too traumatic for her! at least she has that 1/2 in height (for now). Busy season coming this year with a wedding at the end of the year for my brother!

October 2010

Annie wearing her birthday outfit she picked out. More pictures of the birthday later. I'm trying to catch up! :)
We celebrated the life of a good friend of ours on Oct. 9. Derrick passed away in December 2005 at the age of the 25. This year would have been his 30th birthday. Jed was a band with Andrew Hyde and Derrick. They are wearing their band t-shirts. Jed had an original t-shirt and we new ones made for his family and some friends.
His sisters and mother in the middle. We love them!
Oma and Opa with the kids

Playing Catch up?

Do you ever catch up? I used to all the time. Lately, I have barely had time to figure out what to do the next hour! But for the last hour today, I have read all of your blogs. Guess you could say I was catching up on you. If I had time I would have commented on all of your blogs but instead I'll just leave a few comments here!

Amanda Boo- I hope your baby comes soon! Your going to handle two little ones like a champ no worries!

Dani-I'll see you soon! Your trips are making me exhausted just looking at them! ;)

Erin- Congrats on the new house!

Sarah-I checked out your husband's new blog. I can only understand half of it. ;)

Its time for me to get my running shoes on now. Catch ya'll later!