Why did I do that?

So, I have trouble sleeping - I never feel quite rested no matter how little or how much sleep I get; I feel the same - TIRED! You learn to deal with it . . . somewhat :) But two things I've learned during my sleeping saga. . .

#1 I may feel just the same regardless of how much sleep I have, but the times I get in a rebellious phase and decide I just won't sleep, it never fails, I'm still just as tired. But then I'm not only tired, I'm SICK and TIRED. But I always seem to give that phase a try every couple of weeks. Why is that?

Lesson #2 for me is never to get on the computer before I go to bed, unless I plan on staying up for a good part of the rest of the night. My brain subconsciously knows it's like a computer, yet infinitely more superb than the instrument placed in front of me, and, as if in an effort to show my laptop up, it begins running nonstop, from subject to subject . . . and I lay there in bed thinking, yet again . . . "why did I do that?"

Like my sleeping habits, there are so many things in life that I find myself asking, "why did I do that?", or "why didn't I do that?"

My new year's resolutions can all be encompassed by this idea . . . to get my focus back on the things I know bring me joy and strength, yet often neglect in my life; the "why didn't I do that"(s) . . . such as more meaningful prayers, scriptural feasting, friends, family, time for myself, excercise, nature, enjoying sunrises and sunsets, eating foods my body likes and so forth. . .

And to stop doing the things that make me think "Why did I do that?!"

There's a mouse in our house!

Okay, so it's a cabin. After Christmas our family all went to the cabin for a few days away. It was great! Well, once we got settled in, that is. We arrived to freezing temperatures, and a mouse in the toilet! Yep, it's real . . . and dead.

I think it was a new experience for Shannon. She's not at all into the reptile skins, animal heads, dead mouse thing yet. We're working on her :)

Sean-Paul ate it up. Had to pose a few times, in fact, for the perfect picture.

The week was a lot of fun, and went by all too fast! We had a great time snowshoeing, sledding, playing games and watching movies.

Oh, and I must mention our infamous game of, what was it called?, I don't remember, and I'm not quite sure we played it right. But here's the jist of how we played it. We split into 3 teams of 3. Each group had a player from each team. One group would get a key word that they were supposed to make their team mates guess. Someone in the group starts, and can only use a single word clue, then their team gets to guess the key word, then the next person in the group says another single word clue, and their team tries to guess, and so forth until someone's group gets it! Make sense? Probably not. But we were entertained. Until it started getting late and we got stuck with one group for ages. . . the first clue given, (from which we were supposed to have been able to guess right off ;) was "quintessential". Have you guessed it? We also got clues like "olympian" and "snob" and other words that completely threw me off of any trail of thought I had been on :) We were baffled! The word was "elite" - difficult, huh. By the end of that round we had had our go at laughing, then puzzling over what it was we weren't getting, then pure annoyment (don't think that's really a word :) and finally exhaustion.

Gotta thank mom/grandma for everything she does each year to make our trip a success! Thanks mom :)!

My adorable nephew :)

I know many will argue this point with me :), but I have the most adorable niece and nephews ever! Here are two short clips of my nephew, Logan, and you can decide for yourself!

The story goes like this. He is the youngest, Cali is the oldest, and Daniel is currently in the middle. When he was born, Daniel was saying Logan's name, but he called him "Ogan". Cali kindly corrected him one day and said, "It's not 'Ogan', it's 'Wogan'!" "Ohhh", says Daniel. And the story was put into legend . . . Now, whenever the line is given, "It's not Ogan, it's Wogan (or Logan, whichever you insert)", Logan will finish the legend for you :)

Oops, it's sideways. . . I'm sure that can be fixed somehow, (quick fix- just tilt your head, or computer sideways, and all is well :)

Providing us with endless entertainment. . .

Don't worry, more to come later on my amazing and adorable family . . .

Can't go only once!

So I had to take advantage of the fact that some of my friends hadn't yet been to temple square this Christmas season. . . and go again! I went with Katie, Liz Capener and Amy Moss, and we had a blast!

We had fun taking pictures. These ones Amy "forgot to concentrate" . . . :)















Don't worry, we caught some of her concentrating too. Lol.















And of course we had to take pictures on the pedestal in front of the temple . . . let's play the, what's missing game. Oh yeah, husbands :)!

Katie was excited about something, it looks like she's angry. That's probably the closest she's ever gotten to the word :)

Holiday Loves

Ha, ha. So, this probably will be a very short-lived blog spot. . . but i thought i'd give it a try.

I absolutely love Christmas, and every year my family makes the trip to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. I love Christmas lights! When I have my own home, mine will be the annoying house that has lights up well before Thanksgiving and keeps them on long after the first of the year! Making the trip this time, were only my parents, my little bro, Jonathan, and I. I always feel like a small child as I view the lights in awe, then excitedly ascend the ramp of the visitors center to view the large Christus. . .

One of my favorite things this year were the displays of nativity scenes representing different nations of the world! I have always loved nativities and I hope to have a large collection someday from all over the world! (Currently my brother is serving a mission in Espana, and hopefully I will be able to convince him to bring home a lladro nativity for me . . . we'll see. . . I'd send him the money, of course :)

We finished our evening off with some spiced cider and the movie A White Christmas. I love Christmas time! I love the lights, the caroling, the joy, the kindness, family, and especially the focus on the Savior, his birth, and the gifts that he has given us . . .

So, as mentioned above, something I love doing around Christmas time is caroling . . . In the Relief Society in my ward I am over enrichment. My amazing committee and I planned a dinner of soup, and some caroling afterward. In the words of my friend Katie, here is a description of our night of caroling . . . (She's an editor, so she has a much better way with words than I do ;) And don't worry, I'm posting this with her permission..."Did you know that if you go caroling to someone's home—someone who is over the age of 65—the chances they will invite you in for a "treat" are pretty much 99.9%? Tonight we went caroling for part of our Relief Society Christmas Party, and we seriously had a blast!

We parked and walked around a neighborhood with a map of the elderly people we knew would love to hear our singing. We did a good job of entertaining ourselves in between houses, too: slipping and falling on ice, talking about how we should invent caroling karaoke, laughing when we caught people in their under-roos, singing to a blind man and not realizing it until Nicole had been holding his card out to him for a good 30 seconds, and imitating the cute Danish woman's voice when she invited us in for a cookie and then wished us the best in finding the right man. One man was in a wheelchair, and his wife and he invited us in to sing some more songs inside their home. It was so amazing to see how happy we made them—just a few minutes of our time changed their entire dispositions. One woman helped her husband to the door, and then he started mumbling along to the Christmas carols. When we finished she said, "You just made him happy for the rest of the week. Now he'll be singing all night.":) "