Let's Go To the Movies!

During the Christmas season the girls went to their very first movie in a theater. They saw the new Disney movie "Princess and the Frog." The show was delightful and Alyssa and Holly really loved sitting in the dark, eating popcorn and candy. They also thought it was cool that there were "Christmas lights" that went up and down the stairs. Their second movie was with David on Christmas day, Alvin and the Chipmunks (the squeakquel).

Christmas photos

Holly riding her new Smart Cycle.


In front of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.


Alyssa at the Treehouse Museum on Christmas Eve.

The long awaited "baby monkey" from Santa.

Alyssa with her daddy and her new dolly Julia.

Holly sporting her new helmet and scooter.


Alyssa posing atop her baby monkey's hammock.

Holiday Cheer

Kids bring such an excitement to the Holidays! It's thrilling to look into their little faces and to feel and share in their enthusiasm! This year the holiday cheer started for the three of us as we decked the halls of grandma's house. The girls had a fun time putting the ornaments on the tree and arranging all of the Christmas bears and snowmen. The house became a Christmas wonderland as usual. Alyssa and Holly seemed especially interested in the little nativity and holding the baby Jesus.


A few days after we decorated the house the question started, "when is it going to be Christmas?" In an attempt to demonstrate how many days there were until Christmas, I tried my luck again making a chain (we didn't have much success with it for Halloween.) This time, however, I made them each a Christmas chain and successfully monitored the removal of the links each day. It worked perfectly! Alyssa especially looked forward to removing her link every day.


Taking the girls to pick out a gift for their daddy was especially fun this year! Before we actually got to picking out his present the girls wanted to visit with Santa. They were extremely patient as we waited in the long line. Finally it was their turn. They were a little timid at first, but soon warmed up to him (I don't blame them, he seemed a little creepy to me.) I overpaid to get a picture of the three of them...but the girls got to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas and I got to listen in to make sure I was going to get it right. Then we headed to Macy's for the gifts. We got daddy the usual...a tie and some socks. He had said that he needed a yellow tie, so I picked out 4 or 5 that might work and then let the girls pick one from those...I hope he liked it. I also let them pick the socks all by themselves. I think the highlight for the girls was wrapping the presents. They enjoy cutting the paper and applying the tape.


On the 17th the girls were in a Christmas program with their preschool class. They learned some Christmas songs, (rudolph and jingle bells) and had some speaking parts. They told a joke together. Holly said, "why wasn't the turkey hungry at Christmas time?" then Alyssa answered, "because he was stuffed!" We practiced their lines nearly every day and they knew them perfectly! They performed for a nice group of older men and women at a care center and did a good job. Although she doesn't admit it, I think Alyssa was a little nervous. Holly was just the opposite...she seemed very confident. It was a cute program.

My favorite activity this year was our visit to Temple Square. I loved seeing all the lights and taking a few minutes to think about the birth of the Savior and to focus on the greatest gift ever given to mankind. The girls seemed to enjoy seeing the sheep the most, but they also liked walking up into "heaven" to see the Christus. There is always such a peaceful feeling in the visitor center and on the Temple grounds. We also watched the short movie "Luke 2". I hope Alyssa and Holly were able to start to understand that Christmas is more about worshipping our Savior, than about Santa, decorations, and presents.

God Does Notice Us!

I had an opportunity to attend a Relief Society dinner during the month of December. As i walked in, I noticed that all of the tables were beautifully adorned with Christmas decorations and elegant china. Around the room dozens of nativity scenes were on exibit enhanced with gorgeous linens, twinkling lights and ribbons. In the front of the room was a humble manger scene. It was truly a magnificent display. I began to feel a twinge of sadness as i did an inventory in my mind of the Christmas decorations I posess. I realized that I didn't personally have any...not one. After David and I divorced I left him with all of our decorations, and last year we were living with Grandpa, so we just used his. It was hard to believe that I don't personally own a single Christmas decoration. I didn't dwell on the thought for long, it was quickly forgotten as I enjoyed a good conversation with the women at my table, I ate my dinner and watched a beautiful program. I believe however, that my loving Father in Heaven took note of the small amount of regret that I felt in my heart for my lack of Christmas Decorations. Just 2 days later there was a knock at the door. The girls and I raced upstairs to see who it was. Barb Harmon, a dear, sweet woman in our ward was standing at the door with a box in her hand. She handed it to me and I asked her what it was...she just said it was something she wanted me to have. We took the box downstairs and as we opened it a tear came to my eye. It was a beautiful Nativity set just for me. "God does notice us, and he watches over us, but it is usually through another person that he meets our needs!" -Spencer W. Kimball

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout i'm telling you why....Santa Claus is coming to town." Since becoming a mom I have come to appreciate the brilliance of this holiday classic! This year we implemented another strategy to try to persuade good behavior from the girls during the holiday season. We now have an "Elf on the Shelf." Our elf's name is Spizbee. She came in early December to keep an eye on the girls. She watches Alyssa and Holly during the day and then magically visits Santa each night to report on whether they've been naughty or nice. Another stroke of genious! The girls have had so much fun with Spizbee. They look forward each morning to seeing where Spizbee might be watching from that day. When it was time to say goodbye on Christmas Eve, Holly got very upset, she had built a strong attachment to her little elf. Spizbee will be missed throughout the year, but we look forward to seeing her again next Christmas.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

It seems to happen every year...expectations of a glorious Christmas overflowing with love, happiness, and generous giving always seem to fall flat. That Christmas "magic" so abundant in my heart when I was a little girl seems to have disappeared forever. How do I get it back? How do I make Christmas time the most wonderful time of the year?

A Touch of the Christmas Spirit

Things have been tough the past few days! My relationship with James has come to an end, (once again) and while trying to work through all the emotions involved with that loss, I've been watching my friend's 5 kids so she can take a vacation. It's been a struggle! However, this morning I woke up and had a touch of the Christmas spirit in my heart. Even though I may never see or hear from him again, I wanted James to know how much I love and appreciate him, and an idea came to mind. I spent the next several hours preparing the gift. Since he doesn't have a Christmas tree I decided that he could use a little holiday cheer in his home, so I purchased a small tree and decorated it with lights, a star, garland and with 9 ornaments that represent 12 of the reasons I love him so much. I wrote 12 cards so that he'll open one card a day for the next 12 days and read about each of the decorations on the tree. For example: a snowflake, because he always makes me feel uniquely special and beautiful like each tiny snowflake. I also bought 3 gifts for him to open on Christmas day. I took it to his house and left it on his porch. I don't know if he even got it, but I hope it will make him feel loved!

When I returned home, I sat down on the couch and started to cry, because I realized, that may be the last gift I ever give to James. It breaks my heart! I decided to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and was really hoping to gain some peace and comfort and feel some love. It was a beautiful meeting, and it did warm my heart. A little while later, I noticed that there was an envelope addressed to me on the counter. I couldn't tell who it was from, the return address was bogus, and I opened it up to find a wonderful surprise. There was a beautiful Christmas card with the word Believe printed on the front. It instantly made me think that I need to have faith and believe that all will be well for the girls and I. I opened up the card and inside were three gift cards. The inscription told the girls and I to have a Merry Christmas and to use the gift cards to add some holiday cheer to our lives. Obviously someone else had felt a touch of the Christmas spirit as well, and to whomever that was, I am so grateful! It touched my heart!

A future career in photography?

Holly has been obsessed with the camera lately! She takes pictures of everything. We have a birdfeeder and I saw her waiting by the window the other day trying to take pictures of the birds as they came to eat. She sometimes turns the camera around and takes pictures of her eye. She often poses her stuffed animals and has a little photoshoot with them. Today she said she wanted to take a picture of Alyssa and I. Wow, maybe the practice is paying off. We were actually centered and we weren't cut off at the eyes or anything. I was impressed...good job Holly!

Turkey Day Pictures

One little Indian



Loving the Olives



David stayed for dinner

Life is Good

I have so many reasons to be thankful this year!! I have two beautiful little girls who are healthy, fun, beautiful, and loving! I have good health, a running vehicle, a roof over my head, and everything I really need. I have a wonderful family who generously loves and supports me! I have great friends who provide me with laughs and who are always there for me through the good and the bad. I live in a wonderful country that provides so much opportunity. I'm so blessed to have a knowledge of a loving Father in heaven who loves me tremendously, and a Savior who stands with open arms to offer me comfort, support, and mercy. Life is good! Happy Thanksgiving!

Birthday Surprise...

Grandma Wenk turned 71 this year and David decided to plan a big surprise for her. He knew that grandma would love a visit from Alyssa and Holly, so they boarded a plane and flew off to Louisana for a few days. The girls were bouncing off the walls the night before their flight. They had been on a plane a couple times before, but they didn't remember it, so they felt like this was their very first flight. David sent me a text when they took off and I could see the plane as it flew by. They took turns sitting by the window and were little angels almost the entire flight (so I'm told).



The girls had a wonderful time in Louisiana!! They got to see grandma and great grandma, uncle John, Joseph, and Jason (in timeout), and Elizabeth and her family drove over from the Dallas area too. She brought a big blowup toy for the girls to bounce in and they had fun putting on fake tatoos, playing with grandma's dog, going to feed the ducks at the park, and playing with their cousins. I got a much needed break too, so it was a win/win for everyone!!!

Green Eggs and Ham

The other day we read the book "Green Eggs and Ham," and we decided it would be fun to make some green eggs. The girls loved it! Over the next few days and weeks all the girls wanted for breakfast were colored eggs. One day we made green, red, orange, and blue eggs, and Alyssa and Holly ate them all up. After Alyssa finished hers, she got down off her stool, came over to me, and said she wanted to give me a hug. I knelt down and she gave me the most wonderful squeezy hug ever. I asked what the hug was for and she said, "you made me all the eggs I wanted, thank you!" She was showing me true appreciation for the colored eggs I had made her, it was super sweet!

Halloween...finally!

October was a lot of fun! The girls had been excited about Halloween for a long time. We started the process of choosing their costumes months ago. I let them look online and pick what they wanted to be. Their excitement was such, that they were asking me every day, "When is Halloween going to be here?" I decided to make a black and orange chain to help us count down the days. It didn't work so well! They both wanted to take off a link every day, and some days they would sneak the scissors and cut off multiple links, so our chain got shorter and shorter and Halloween was still a month away.

Alyssa and Holly made lots of fun Halloween projects in preschool throughout the month; bats, ghosts, and pumkin sugar cookies. Grandpa invited us to join him at his work Halloween party. We went with him to a pumkin patch and corn maze. Each of the girls got to pick a pumkin to carve. They enjoyed the hayride, walking through the rows of corn, the small train ride, the slides, and the hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls.

A few days later, James came over to help us carve the pumkins. He helped Holly make a frowny face on her small pumkin, and I helped Alyssa make a really happy pumkin face on her larger pumkin. They really liked putting candles inside the pumkins and turning off the lights to see them all lit up!

We had a special morning planned on Halloween day. We took the Frontrunner to the Discovery Gateway and met up with Holly's birthparents and other family members. It was fun to see Holly interact with them. She really enjoyed learning to climb the rock wall with Luke. She was bragging later, to grandma and grandpa, about what a good climber she is. During the afternoon the girls got their faces painted, made halloween masks, and we went to Costa Vida (their favorite restaurant) for lunch. We made it home in time for the tail end of our family halloween party.

Finally, it was time for trick or treating! We put on their costumes and drove out to David's house. The weather was surprisingly nice. I wanted to be able to get some good video footage, so we went out just before dark. The girls were a little timid when we got to the first door. We had talked about what they were supposed to say, but it took a few doors before they really got the hang of it. Uncle John was in town from Dallas, so he and a date came along too. I think the girls actually enjoy giving out candy to other kids more than they like trick or treating themselves, and they don't even eat the candy...I ended up eating all of it myself!

It was a very fun Halloween!!

Skydiving!

I've had a really hard time lately. I've been feeling so much sadness and pain over my divorce. I really miss James and wish things could have been different. I've cried more in this past week than I've probably cried in my entire life. I decided that I couldn't just sit around and cry about him any longer...I needed a distraction. Even though I'm terrified of heights, I've always kind of had a fascination for skydiving and have always thought it was something I would like to do someday. So I figured it might be the perfect distraction to end my bad week!

While we were gearing up I started to get a little nervous about everything...but the people were so calm about it that it kind of put me at ease. We loaded the plane and started climbing in altitude and that's when I started getting really nervous, maybe even a little terrified. About 5 minutes before the jump we started putting on our gloves and hats and got our goggles ready, and then bam...they opened the doors and the first people were off. I didn't even really have time to think about it and then all of a sudden I'm sqatting with my toes off the edge of the plane in the doorway and then 1,2,3 I was in freefall...Holy crap!!

What an unbelievable feeling. You know you're falling but you kind of feel like you're floating. We were in free fall for about 55 seconds. The camera man was right in front of me. You couldn't even tell that we were getting much closer to the ground but we had fallen 8,000 feet in that short amount of time. Then he pulled the rip cord and we shot up and then started a slow descent. We did some big turns and then got ready to land. We had a perfectly smooth landing. What an awesome experience!

Campout

Alyssa got a frog tent for Christmas and I had been promising them all summer that we would take it outside and have a campout sometime. Well, I crawled into the frog tent the other day and realized that we would never be able to fit, or at least it would be terribly uncomfortable for the three of us in that thing for an entire night. But I had to make good on my promise...so I borrowed David's tent and we went for our first campout. We drove all the way to Woods Cross and set up the tent in James' backyard. We ate hotdogs for dinner, we hooked up a little tv, made popcorn and watched Alice in Wonderlad in our tent after it got dark. We had a fantastic time "camping." The girls thought it was a lot of fun and keep asking me when we can go camping again.

First day of Preschool

I'm so excited for the girls to be in preschool! Alyssa and Holly seem to love learning. Their little minds are primed for soaking up lots of new information. On Tuesday they went to meet their teacher...Mrs. Butters. Wednesday morning was their first official day of class. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. I knew that Holly wouldn't have a moment's hesitation, but I wasn't so sure about Alyssa. We had a pretty smooth morning...the girls didn't fight me too much about getting dressed and letting me do their hair, they even let me take some first day of school pictures. When we got to Mrs. Butters home I was anxious to see how it would go...but they did great! We went in and I took Alyssa to the bathroom, gave them a hug and a kiss and I was off...no crying or clinging at all...yea! When I returned, Alyssa was smiling brilliantly...she ran up to me, gave me a big hug and said, "mom, I did it all by myself," I was so proud of her. Then Holly gave me a big hug and said, "I love Mrs. Butters." Sounds like a great first day.

Tumbling Superstars

You would never guess by looking at this picture...but little Holly was so excited to start her tumbling class last Monday, and she did awesome! She is fearless, energetic and a fantastic leader. Alyssa did great too, she clung to me for the first 40 minutes...but those last 5 were spectacular. She's as fast a locomotive, leaps small objects in a single bound...she was super! I'm so proud of my little girls... that are growing up way too fast!

Girls just wanna have fun!

The girls love to get out of the house, so we try to do something fun, away from home, as often as possible. One of their favorite places is the Castle Park in Kaysville, they also love to feed the ducks at the Layton Park. Some days we just go to McDonalds and have lunch together and play in the play area. The other day we did something that they really love...we road Frontrunner to Salt Lake City and went to Discovery Gateway. They love that place, and they especially love to ride the train.

This summer they also had a lot of fun at the Fair. I had been looking forward to taking them all summer because I knew they would love the petting zoo. David ended up taking them for me.

When the going gets tough...

the tough go to Disneyland...right? I was sitting in Relief Society contemplating my chaotic life and trying to make sense of everything, when the girl sitting next to me strikes up a conversation. She asks if I've got any fun plans for the summer. I explained that I recently found out that I was getting divorced and that I had no plans whatsoever, including where I was going to be living the next day. She said...you should go somewhere and get away for awhile. That sounded nice...so I mentioned that the only place I could afford to go, was probably to my brother's house just outside of San Diego. Well, the next day I got a knock at the door. It was Kim from church. She handed me an envelope and told me that she had been thinking about me, gave me a big hug, and then she left. I opened the envelope and inside was a thoughtful card and tickets to Sea World, the Wild Animal Park, and the San Diego Zoo. That was just the motivation i needed to call up my sister-in-law Kara and ask if we could come for a visit. We loaded up the car 5 days later and took off on a road trip to California.

The girls did awesome! I was a little, okay, extremely nervous about the whole thing...being on my own, but to my surprise the girls were truly angels. It also helped that David, Kara, and the kids were so wonderful! We had a great time at all of the attractions and even made it to the beach. It was really just what I needed, and I think the girls had a great time too. David flew down to help me take the girls to Disneyland and drove back with us. What a wonderful trip!

One of the highlights for the girls was playing with max and gus gus, cousin Zach's rats.

Never in a million years...

would I have imagined my life to be like this. So many ups and downs, twists and turns. There have been wonderful times interspersed with deep sadness and loss. Most of my life has been like a quiet peaceful summer's morning...but these past few years have felt more like a long, dark, cold winter...

At least I have Alyssa and Holly. What would I do without them? Their sweet, "i love yous," hugs and kisses ignite a warmth that helps me get through even the coldest, darkest moments.