New year, new crazies

Quick recap from Christmas--I'm not going to bother posting 50 pictures, because no one wants to look at all those! Just follow me on Instagram @younghipstercoolgirl.

Anyway, Christmas. It was a crazy whirlwind month of December, full of fun great activities and lots of family time. My sweet sister Kelsey got married on the 22nd, so my parents were here with us for Christmas. We have not spent Christmas together for I think 7 years! It was so fun to have them spend the night with us on Christmas Eve. We also went to the zoo on Christmas Eve with my brother and his wife and my parents and that might be a new tradition! Then for our dinner that night we had a special candlelit Bethlehem dinner, eating foods that Jesus might have eaten (probably not)--fish, flatbread, cashews, dried figs and dates, rice and couscous. After dinner and reading the Christmas story from the scriptures, the girls opened their new Christmas Eve pajamas and went to bed!

If you're wondering, Helena did love her pajamas but was not happy about taking the picture.

Our kids were up at 4:45 on Christmas morning. Yep. They were all in the same bedroom because my parents were sleeping in Tempe and Helena's, so it was a three ring circus all night trying to get people to go to sleep and stay asleep. Everyone drifted back off around 6:30, so we stayed in bed until almost 8. Christmas morning was a big success--Santa brought Tempe a bike, Helena a super cute fairy doll treehouse and fairy dolls, Juno a basketball hoop, and Pearl some plastic dishes and spoons (we really needed some more, thanks Santa). The rest of us were pretty spoiled too, that morning!
Moving on to New Year's Eve...
We started off with a fondue dinner (cheese and mustard fondue), then had different activities every half hour.

Each activity was in a balloon marked with the time we should open it. We painted nails, read Harry Potter, watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid, ate Butterfinger fondue, played video games, and watched the ball drop at midnight. Here's to 2015!

And just when I got everything finally put away from Christmas and my house back in order... I decided to do this. Cabinets are getting painted!

Welcome 2014!

Tempe and Helena (and Juno, I guess) have been looking forward to celebrating New Year's Eve for weeks!

Staying up til midnight is a big deal when you're a kid.

We started off the day by making a special afternoon snack--snowflake chips! I've seen this a couple times on Pinterest, but the first place I ever saw it was on Our Best Bites. We cut tortillas like snowflakes, brushed them with melted butter, and sprinkled cinnamon sugar all over, then baked them for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Yum!

Then we got to work on our special New Year's Eve dinner. In the past we've had homemade Chinese food (egg rolls and coconut shrimp), and cheese and mustard fondue. This year we decided on latkes, spinach dip and veggies, and egg rolls (from Costco this time). I don't think I'll ever make latkes again! We had them for an FHE treat a few weeks ago and they were so good, but I only made a few. For NYE we made 10 potatoes worth of latkes and it was a lot of work and they weren't that great. BUT the girls had fun helping me peel and grate the potatoes!

I came up with different activities for every half hour or so and put them in golden balloons. We started off with our special dinner, then moved on to....

...making paper plate noisemakers for midnight!

After our noisemakers, we played Apples to Apples, then started "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (don't judge us for letting them watch it, Mom and Dad were the ones who really wanted to!) Halfway through the movie we made ice cream sundaes!

After the movie, we played Monopoly until 10:00, when we watched the ball drop live online.

The girls were so excited to shake their noisemakers and yell "Happy New Year!" (even Juno!) After that, Helena, Juno, and I went to bed, but Tempe stayed up til midnight with Daddy playing Wii games. She came in at midnight to tell me that she stayed up!

Happy 2014! We're excited for another great year as a family and wish you all the best year, too!

bring it on

I'm not a huge New Year's resolution maker. I generally don't sit down at the beginning of the year and make a list of things I want to change or goals I want to meet. There are many things I am working on throughout the year, and those things are always changing and evolving as I improve.
I do, however, have a few things I am planning on focusing this year.
I want to focus more on my kids and enjoying them and less on "projects". 
I feel like over the last few years I have gotten to the point where I only do things if I feel like it will be a good blog post--I don't want to be like that anymore. No more! Along with this, I really want to be better at taking pictures of my kids and actually having them printed and displayed. The pictures in my house are sadly outdated!! 
I want to become a better household manager this year.
That includes a lot of stuff. I feel like I'm pretty good at most of it already, but there's always room for improvement. I want to be better at keeping the house clean (deep cleaned, not just surface clean), managing our budget, and really staying on top of the clutter that comes from three young kids. We have a small house and I don't have the room to be unorganized!
I want to have regular, well-planned, meaningful family home evenings. 
We have FHE every week, but it's almost always Jason or I frantically throwing together a scripture and short spiritual thought after dinner. Last year we made a family goal to read the scriptures every single day (we missed about 15 days). This year I hope to have a meaningful FHE lesson every single week.
I want to be grateful for what I have.
I love my life, I love my house, but everyone feels envious once in a while. Tempe gave me some very astute advice the other day when we were driving past my favorite house (which is currently for sale) and I was wishing we could buy it. She said, "Mom, it is not good to compare. Their house is good for them and our house is good for us."
I want to have more faith in Heavenly Father's plan for me.
Silly human that I am, I have my own idea of what is good or right for my family and I'm always just so sure that my way is the right way. Sometimes it is so hard for me to let go and just trust that Heavenly Father has a plan for me and my family and that His plan is right.
So, 2013. Bring it on. I'm ready for you!

2012

2012?! Where did you go??

I never really thought we'd make it to 2013--truth. I really believed the world would end a few weeks ago on the 21st per Mayan legend, because I just can't really picture living in 2013.

Here's our year in pictures!

January: I made a goal to take more pictures of my kids and less of projects. I started off well, but overall I think I failed.
February: Started my little cooking class, which was a huge success! It has been such a huge blessing to our family and I'm so grateful for all of the support from many friends and neighbors.
March: We celebrated our 7th anniversary with dinner at The Roof.
April:  My dad bought me a jigsaw, which is my new favorite tool ever. I have used it so often this year!
May: Jason bought me a new tree for Mother's Day to replace the one we lost in our December '11 windstorm.
June: We went to Disneyland for the third time in less than three years. No more for a while!!!
July: I got to visit my hometown of Statesville, North Carolina in a very impromptu trip with my mom and little girls. First time I was there in over 10 years!
August: Lots of trips to the cabin to celebrate the end of summer.
September: First day of kindergarten for Tempe and preschool for Helena!
October: Halloween is always a favorite at our house.
November: New family pictures--I love this one because it's a glimpse into "real" family life with us.
December: Helena is following in my footsteps and becoming a list-maker--this is her "getting ready for Christmas" list.
Goodbye 2012! Can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us!!

{My Resolutions}

So, it's that time of year again.

The time of year when everyone makes long lists of the things they want to change about themselves--so basically, a long list of all the things they feel they fall short on.

Wow, that is so depressing.

Well, here's my list for 2012:

1) Do better at doing my girls' hair. I am really, really bad at it. They both have very thin, flyaway hair and Tempe has weird waves on one side of her hair but not the other, and I just don't know how to do it. But I'm tired of them looking like ragamuffins.

2) Run a 5k.

3) Healthy and creative breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners.

4) Organize, declutter, and clean our WHOLE house, starting with the master bedroom and then the garage. After three years in our little house, we've started to accumulate quite a bit of clutter and junk.

5) Finally, be an involved, caring mother. I've really struggled a lot since Juno was born--I used to do so many fun projects and activities with my girls, and we rarely do anything anymore. Juno is 13 months old now, so I really am out of excuses.

What do you want to accomplish this year?