The Updike's

Don't let these angelic faces fool you . . . they have given me a run for my money lately.  Really they are such amazing and good kids . . . but the fighting, arguing and whining has been at an all time high lately.  I am sure I need to take a chill pill also.  After a long talk about higher expectations - we finished the day on happy terms and the excitement for Christmas day continued. I actually thought that our little family Nativity might not happen this year.  There was some grumblings about it last year so I thought there was no way they would want to dress up and do again this year.  I was a little shocked (but so excited) that they chose to still dress up instead of watching our church's Nativity video. Eternally grateful for our Savior's birth, life, and death.  A gift to us all! Christmas Pj's! Throwing out food for Santa's Reindeer And of course leaving Santa some goodies also.  I love Presley's note that she left him on his plate: "To Sant...

I swear . . . this kid as all of the luck!   He had been asking and asking me how he could earn some money  - - the only thing that I could think of that he could do was clean the garage even though it was super cold outside. He happily agreed and got to work.  About 10 minutes into his job, he ran into the house grinning from ear to ear and exclaimed "Look what I found, Mom!  Can I keep it?"  He holds up a $100 bill.  Say What!!??? What was a $100 bill doing in our garage?  Garrett and I can't remember losing it.  Because Lily's friends like to hang out in the garage sometimes . . . I told Crew that I needed to text their mom's to see if any of their teenagers lost some hard earned money.  If we couldn't find the owner . . . then we agreed that he could keep what he found. After we received a response from all of the mom's . . . we gave in and let Crew keep the money.  I told him I would hold onto it for safe keeping since he tends...

One of my favorite things about moving back to Utah is being able to go to Austin and Sarah's live Nativity.  It just gets better and better every year (if that is even possible).  It is a lot of work for them . . . but so beloved by so many people. I love that Austin asks the boys to be Shepherds!  And the boys love it!  Especially when they get to walk around with Senior Carrots (donkey) the whole night. It was a really bitter cold night - but these boys were such troopers and didn't complain at all.   Can you believe that they had a camel and an Alpaca?  So cool and so special!