what it's all about

Happy Christmas Eve! I'm eating lunch in a quiet house (in between resurrecting the house from the craze of the last week) and had to stop and just feel thankful. The list is done, there's fresh snow on the ground, and the kids are filled with excitement and anticipation. Rick and I had the chance to be in the temple last night and I found myself praying that our tiny gesture of being there would be an acceptable offering to the Savior we love so much. Instantly my heart was overfilled with warmth and emotion and I knew that it was. Let the festivities begin as we honor His birth!

"To catch the real meaning of the spirit of Christmas, we need only to drop the last syllable,

and it becomes the spirit of Christ." -President Thomas S. Monson

on the 8th day of christmas...

...I was hoping to post a lovely holiday post with all the fun traditions and things we've been doing, and how honestly fun it's been to have the elementary kids home all month, and how much I love our house decorated in all it's twinkly Christmas glory...cozy sigh...but instead I,

created the Christmas card, baked goodies with the kids, ran two last minute shopping errands, provided a job reference for a friend, wrote the Christmas letter, fed people, chased laughing little boys around the kitchen, made sure Brayden finished his powerpoint presentation, assembled neighbor gifts with the family and delivered them for fhe, and eventually found the floors and counters again. Not bad for a day's work, I suppose, emphasis on day's. Earlier, I was considering pulling an all-nighter tonight, but after too many late nights in a row, I'm rejecting that hair-brained idea. Tonight, the couch and a mug of hot cocoa seem all too inviting.

And so it would appear that on the 9th day of Christmas (and who are we kidding, the 10th and 11th day too,) I'll be...finishing the neighbor gifts, delivering my presidency gifts, shopping for holiday food, picking up the Christmas card at Costco, printing the letters, addressing and mailing them out, finishing making a gift that will remain unnamed, taking the kids shopping for their secret sibling (ugh, how have we NOT done this yet? I actually know the answer to that, but I won't bore you with the scheduling issues), celebrating a dear friend's birthday, watching the BYU bowl game, and, if I'm some kind of miracle worker, starting the wrapping?!? Sure makes it sound like I haven't been doing anything all month, but that's certainly not the case...hmm, sounds like an all-nighter is inevitable. And oh yeah, did I mention I got asked to speak in sacrament meeting this Sunday? Nope, no problem fitting that one in. Merry Christmas to me!

Josh Groban, you're keeping me sane.

true blue, through & through

Sweet, sweet VICTORY!!!!

And of the very best kind.

Blue conquers red. Cougars smash Utes. BYU beats UofU.

The game was super CHARGED and super LOUD and watching 20,000 BYU fans rush the field after the crushing end-of-game touchdown made our screaming headaches and torn up throats feel like battle scars to be proud of.

Ahh, the bragging rights are back where they belong for another year.

Feels gooooood.

GO COUGARS!!!

thankful? me too

time out, the good kind

Last weekend, I got some blissful R&R with my mom and two of my sisters, Lisa & Melanie, at a 'Time Out for Women' conference. This was the first time TOFW has come to our area so we anxiously bought tickets, booked an overnight hotel room and spent some quality girl time together. The theme was 'Sweet Assurance' and that it was. Among others, we heard excellent, inspiring talks from Wendy Nelson, Sheri Dew, an incredible and hilarious woman named Kris Belcher, and absolutely beautiful music from violinist Jenny Oaks Baker. We laughed, we cried, my mom & I discovered the 3 a.m. wonder of slow motion dance, programming for insomniacs, and the four of us had a wonderful two days together. It made me thankful for my testimony of the gospel and the purpose and assurance it gives me in life, as well as the good women I love and get to make the journey with.

When we first arrived and were waiting for the program to begin, we wondered why there's no such thing as "Time Out for Men." We chuckled and made jokes about a bunch of men gathering together to laugh and cry and take notes...and how it seems so much easier for men to compartmentalize, watch a football game, and turn off the stressful things in their lives when they need some time out. But is that enough? It seems to be, yet I think of my man who is has sooo much on his plate right now--even just this week. The two of us are the guest speakers at YW in Excellence tonight, he's teaching (for the first time) two classes tomorrow and Friday for the BYU Executive MBA program, he's under extreme pressure at the company he's been with for 2 1/2 months, he's in the final stages of a new position with a different company with the final interview tomorrow after BYU, and he is continually, seriously, running to stay on top of his church responsibilities, all while pulling off good fathering and husband-ering. I am CERTAIN he could use some real time out--only I doubt he'd choose it with the men in his life. Sure, he loves time to golf or watch a football game, but what amazes me about him is that coming home to the life that I sometimes need a time out from, is often as much time out as he needs. I don't know how he does it, but I gotta give him props. And arrange some real time out for him someday soon.

FALLing in: part spooky

How great was it to have Halloween on a Saturday this year?? We thought it was awesome. No crazy weeknight after school, after work, squeeze in dinner, rush to trick-or-treat mayhem...instead a surprisingly laid back Saturday made even better with daylight savings winning us an extra hour that night!? Not to mention the pleasantly crisp weather with a perfect Halloween moon and the smell of burning pumpkins (and on our street, frying doughnuts & bbq-ing hot dogs) in the air...I vote we do it this way every year.

And now for the s-p-o-o-k-y part...

Logan the monkey

(he kept trying to eat the banana attached to his hip and would. not. smile)

Dinosaur Fisher who morphed into a really strong fireman on Halloween:

Connor the Jedi

The three amigos

Queen Bee Maddie, with beehive hairdo, naturally

Brayden, disco guy

The trick-or-treaters:

And the pumpkins (notice Brayden's cougar, Rick's skeleton,

and the friendly sign Connor taped on the front door):

The next night we had a day-after-Halloween family dinner. All of the grandkids dressed up and everyone brought spooky food:

9 out of 11 (soon to be 14) grandkids

Can't leave out the far away girls:

Spider Tacos

Brains & Eyeballs

Mummy Pizzas

Creepy Apple Mouths

Deviled Eyes

Dip if you dare

All in all, another

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

FALLing in: part tradition

. . .

. . .

Connor's scary creation, Fisher's "MAD punkin," Logan's "baby pkin," and Maddie's witch

The others were still in progress and mine's the nervous one

FALLing in

Let the marathon posts begin! This one would be more appropriately titled:

"Things We've Done this Fall that I Actually Remembered the Camera For"

1. Wheeler Farm complete with aggressive geese, especially smelly pigs, and cows doing what cows do after they've eaten lunch, making it impossible to get everyone to look at the camera.

2. Circus Parade! This outing gets FIVE STARS and I'll tell you why. Step 1, drive downtown to Gateway Mall, park and walk 5 minutes to find a place to sit on the sidewalk:

Step 2, enjoy a picnic lunch while waiting:

Step 3, watch a quick kid-pleasing parade directly in front of you:

We LOVE LOVE LOVED the long elephant train! All of them holding each other's tails...

Kind of makes you want to ride one eh? But maybe not in a swimsuit.

Step 4, feel pleasantly satisfied and a little surprised at how quick the whole thing was, notice happy faces of kids, and head back to the car to get back home in time for naps! Hooray for everyone!

3. Maddie at JA Biz Town, a fantastic real world simulation for 5th graders at our elementary school. She worked all day as the store manager of Smiths Marketplace and had a ball while I volunteered at Rocky Mountain Power & Questar Gas. Seriously the best school fieldtrip ever.

4. Corn Mazes. You'll have to trust me on the corn part. We love this McGee Family Fun Night tradition but I didn't take a single picture of actual corn or gathered family!? Instead just one shot of light saber wars revisited:

Brayden got some friends together last week to hit another corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. There was MUCH more than the maze to do and they had a great night wearing themselves out (while I read for a couple of hours at a nearby cafe, nicely planned if I do say so myself). Again, no pictures of actual corn or boys...but here's a blurry look from my car at an impressive tower of jack-o-lanterns and a giant jumping pillow! Good call to have doughnuts on hand to lure them out eventually.

To be continued...