My 34th Birthday!!!!!!

This year my birthday was perfect, yup perfect I tell ya! My kiddos did a great job planning (with a little help from their Dad and Grandma)  

I ended up having a Minnie Mouse themed party (Thank you Kayla!) 

The girls choose this very cute Minnie Cake

Kayla bought me a Minnie Mouse watch-in her words Mommy don't you just love Minnie Mouse?

We started my Birthday eating breakfast with Minnie Mouse-loved it!

My cute parents and hubby :)

 So glad my Mom & Dad flew out to visit me! 

My birthday cupcake...it was more than just a little good it was heaven!

This picture cracks me up!!

 Somehow Justin and my dad ended up on the Ariel ride together; don't they look thrilled????

My sweet family gave me the best Birthday I could ask for! As you can tell it was more about the kids than me, but that's what made it great!  I love that my kids put so much of themselves into my day, and to see their enthusiasm to celebrate me in the only way they know how made it perfect! 

So while I'm in a blogging mood

 I'm going to try and get a little caught up with my goal of posting monthly updates

  November

Jenna's last soccer game!

I don't have pictures of Thanksgiving...guess I was too busy cooking-lol! But we had a great day with family and friends, it is quickly becoming my favorite holiday! 

My parents and brothers stayed the weekend and it was great to spend so much time with them.

We celebrated my Mom's Birthday!

Chad being Chad

What a cute pilgrim! 

Jenna's girl scout field trip to the humane society

And on to the Jolly old month of December

Started off the season with a visit to Santa

Jenna's class Christmas party

This years gingerbread house

Jenna's primary class singing for the ward Christmas party

The L.A. Temples visitor center

Lights at the L.A. temple

LOVE not freezing while looking at the lights!
Instead of hot chocolate we went for ice cream after !

We had a cookies for Santa party

Justin and his Grandma Christmas Eve at his Uncle and Aunts house.

Christmas Eve with the Chavis family

Our house, I add this for two reasons:
 1. Justin almost got sprayed by a skunk
2. We may not be celebrating next Christmas in this house and
While I don't love this house I am going to be sad to say goodbye .

Yea!!!! Christmas morning!!!!!!!

Working hard at opening gifts!

Happy kids

Christmas dresses

Christmas was wonderful, we had such a nice day! Then that night we packed up and left for Utah for some more celebrating!

Cousins playing games

Opening even more gifts from Grandma!

Grandma V with a sleeping Kayla

New Years Eve, Jenna woke up right before midnight and decided
she felt well enough to welcome the new year!

That's the end of December and January well lets just say January flew by I have not had a moment to think clearly! I am working on Jenna's school year book and it is taking up so much more time than I ever thought it would, my deadline is in 6 weeks I can't wait to be done!  I am also in charge of a program called School Smarts it's held once a week for the parents of our students, we provide dinner and child care I coordinate both, we have 6 weeks left (yup I will be glad when the middle of March hits) I am also chairing our random acts of kindness week, it starts on the 14th.  We are teaming up with the 6th graders to do a book drive for a local doctor who provides free child care to very ill kids, each time they come into his office they leave with a book our goal is to collect 750 books.  I'm also working on the schools garden that has become rather neglected.  Our school was invited to apply to become a California Distinguished School, only a few schools every year are asked to apply for the honor and we are in the final interview process so the principle has asked the PTA to spruce up the school grounds a bit.  I volunteered to be Jenna and Kayla's team mom for softball because I'm crazy like that, but it's turning out to be my most favorite thing I'm doing. So far we all love softball much more than soccer!  Jenna is busy with girl scouts selling cookies, it's already been decided we will not hit last years numbers, I just don't have much time to devote to it, oh well she will survive!  I know this all sounds insane and I yes I will admit when I volunteered to do all this at the beginning of the year I didn't realize it was all in the same month, normally I am not this busy!  Did I mention it's also my birthday month whoohoo! My parents are coming out to help me celebrate and the girls are out of school on my B-day so we are all going to Disneyland for the day! Yup after this month I will need a vacation and a vacation I am going to get! I'm proud of my hard working hubby once again he won Presidents Club through his work! This year they are taking us to the Mayan Riviera in April (well they pay for him to go and give me a nice discount to tag along!) I can't even contain my excitement to see the Mayan temples it is a dream come true for me, plus we better go before the world comes to a end this year-lol!  

Whew I am now all caught up, I am determined to update this at least once a month life goes by too fast and I don't want to forget any of it!

A New Title

Yup I changed the title of my blog, something I have been wanting to do for awhile now. I have been so busy as of late I have not had time to even think about blogging, but today I logged in and re-read my last post and inspiration came...not that I think it's all that creative but it IS how I view our life.

For a little while last year I struggled with finding contentment with life. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I read other peoples blogs I am sometimes left feeling like my life is not all that great. Let's face it we all in some small way want our kids to be these amazing prodigies that are the best at everything...and well reading about others kids who are 5 and can read at a 6th grade level, get 100% on a spelling test without batting an eye and who everything just comes easy, it gets to be a little hard. Don't get me wrong I think my kids are amazing! I am so proud of how well they do, especially Jenna. She has to work hard to earn good grades. We spend hours a week studying so yes I am so proud of her, that through hard work she is right where a 1st grade girl should be!

I am happy to be in a much better place now, I find that now I can read all my friends and family blogs with contentment and happiness. They have their own trials that I don't and would never want, so yes I'm happy with the good life I have been given! I found this quote the other day and I fell in love with it so I thought I would share, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:)

“Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to just be people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old time rail journey…delays…sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling burst of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley