12 on the 12th--February 2020 Edition

{click to enlarge}

1. I listened to this great BYU devotional while I got ready for the day.
2. The book I'm reading/listening to while driving back and forth to work.
3. My daily breakfast at work.
4. Our "Fun Committee" reserved a conference room for Valentine Box making this week.
5. Crammed in to Jen's backseat on our way to lunch.
6. Pizza at The Village Baker.
7. Our self-time shot (sadly Kramer got cropped out when I had to resize it for this grid).
8. Dinner at Slackwater for family birthdays.
9. My mom was sick and couldn't be there but sent brownies, Peanut butterfingers, & Ready Whip.
10. The guests of honor--Amy and Ashley have February birthdays, and Austin is moving to Australia next week!
11. Whitney is obsessed with Timothee Chalamet and was showing us the preview of his upcoming movie.
12. Loving my bookshelf and cute stuff on top of it.

12 on the 12th--March Edition

{click to enlarge}

1. My deluxe cooling system for not overheating while getting ready in the morning.
2. Randy makes the bed better than I do.
3. SPRING!
4. Our Crocus always bloom first.
5. Whitney torturing Ferris as usual.
6. Chick-Lit, not my favorite.
7. The kids being funny.
8. Whitney made these fabulous cookies.
9. Junie outside our bedroom window.
10. Landon loving on Randy.
11. We had an Accountability meeting for our weekly goal.
12. Family movie night selection for the week was Dr. Strange.

Christmas 2015 At A Glance

I love it when the presents are all wrapped and looking pretty under the tree. I just wish I had them there earlier in the season so I could enjoy this view more than a day or two.

We woke up to 10 inches of snow! It hasn't snowed this much in years.

Whitney gave me this sweet note/promise and the DVD of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (which I picked out and paid for but was "from" her).

Whitney made Randy this great Dad of the Year picture showing how he has won the title every year and has it locked up for next year as well.

I surprised her with this Supernatural poster.

Whitney made me these adorable miniatures of the photo cards and tags I make and little packages because I love them.

Landon pretty much only wanted money this year so he was happy every time he unwrapped another present holding a $20 bill.

Our kitchen and laundry room windows look like this, so pleasing.

The guys were out there shoveling for over an hour!

We made the scary drive to Salt Lake to Adam's house, and Andrew was already all set up watching Monster's Inc.

Their living room made for a lovely sight.

Everyone was gathering in the kitchen to load their plates as my parents looked on.

Lola got A LOT of food scraps and was trying to squeeze her face between my knee and the leg of the table to get some from me.

Andrew was beyond happy to get a new Woody doll.

Lori gave all the kids a notebook (chosen just for them) and a Sharpie. They were a BIG hit.

Whitney was using Lola for a table, so funny.

I got Lori a t-shirt with a quote from the oft-quoted movie Mean Girls, "You Go Glen Coco".

My mom grosses us out by wrapping up the cartilage from her recent

 knee surgery as a white elephant gift.

Amy set up the tripod and camera and we got 4 tries to get a decent photo,

 it's no small task to get both Lola and Andrew to look up at the same time!

Memorial Day Weekend 2015

I haven't even blogged about Junie having 4 kittens in March. It has been so much fun watching them grow from tiny, hamster-sized kittens into full fledged, crazy, playful, adorable kittens; that will have to be another post.

One of Whitney's friends from school had claimed a grey female from the litter, so sweet Belva Boo (that's what we'd been calling her) got picked up Memorial Day weekend. Whitney made a birth certificate for her and we put a bow around her neck (which she was none too keen on). I may or may not have cried when she left. The good thing is that Whitney's friend started an Instagram account for her so we get to see updates on her regularly and she's doing well.

As for normal Memorial Day activities...Sunday evening we drove out to the Herriman Cemetery with my mom and Lori to put flowers on the graves and pay our respects.

My mom's parents' grave.

My mom's sister Launa showed up with her husband, daughter, and grandson plus her 100 year old Aunt Berniece (who kept saying to us, "Do you know who I am?!").

The boy was looking fly as usual.

I handed my phone to Landon to take a group selfie of us and he surprised us by jumping up onto a bench and snapping this photo. It was so funny and resulted in this very unposed photo, which I love.

This happened.

I couldn't sleep that night and ended up starting many Trivia Crack Challenges with Lori, and named them after my plight.

Monday morning Randy and the kids finally got to work weeding all the flower beds (this is what I wanted for Mother's Day).

It ended up being a beautiful day.

We met up with my parents, Lori, and Adam's family at JCW's for lunch and then came back to our house to hang out and celebrate Tess' 13th birthday.

We sat outside enjoying the weather and chatting for hours.

12 on the 12th--January Edition

{Click to Enlarge}

1. I'm participating in BofM 365 so I've been reading every morning.
2. Ten minutes of Jimmy Fallon.
3. For family scripture time this year we're watching church videos on the Mormon Channel, so far so good.
4. I stopped at McDonald's to get my Coke.
5. It was seriously rainy all day (rare for Utah) so it felt like it was night time at school.
6. My desk at work.
7. Whitney had to wrap Junie in a towel to get the mud off her paws so she could be inside.
8. I started a new book!
9. We went to Landon's football banquet (for 3 hours!).
10. Landon hit the homework as soon as we got home.
11. Whitney cleaned out her binder for the new semester and found all kinds of doodling.
12. I have a couple stacks of books on my dresser, so pleasing.

Musical Theater Girl

This year Whitney has a Stage Crew class and an Advanced Musical Theater class at school, both of which are taught by a guy who was a 16 year old priest in our ward back when Randy and I were first married! We actually went to see him play the Tin man in the Wizard of Oz back when Landon was a baby!  He's now an amazing actor, dancer, performer and teacher at our junior high. How's that for a small world?

I signed up to help with publicity so I had this vinyl on my car window for a month and a sign in our front yard.

Whitney was all kind of busy leading up to the play because she was doing double duty with rehearsals and stage crew (painting sets and props, etc.).

She was a Who Mom and is seen here with her Who husband and Who daughters.

I had never seen Seussical before and wasn't expecting it to be very good because Whitney had made it sound lame, but I thought it was great! Ridiculous, but great.

The kids were impressive and such good singers.

Whitney as a jellyfish.

I never had the inclination to be in a musical back in high school, I'm far too wussy for that so it makes me emotional and impressed when I see kids participate in something like this. It looks so fun and is such a memorable thing to be a part of.

Randy was out of town on opening night, but my mom, Lori, Amy and the girls, and Landon all went to see the show.

These are the "Act-o-grams" we bought for a dollar to wish Whitney well.

Miss Sassy Pants Turns 14

This year Whitney's birthday fell on the Saturday of Fall Break, so she had Thursday and Friday off of school leading up to it.

On Thursday my mom picked her up and took her to lunch and then birthday shopping with some money from us and then some from my parents. They also had plans to pick Bella and Tess up from the train to join them for the end of their shopping outing and then for a sleepover at my parents' house.

Whitney saying goodbye to Junie.

Whitney and Bella came back to our house Friday afternoon (Tess went home) and entertained themselves so much I hardly saw them.

On Saturday, we joined my entire family at Wheeler Farms for family pictures. Usually we set up my tripod and a self-timer and hope for the best but this year Robyn's boyfriend (who is a professional photographer) offered to do a photo shoot with us. It's so weird that the kids are all getting so big! Ashley is the youngest cousins and she's now 8 1/2...crazy. It felt like they were tiny for so long and now it feels like they're all teenagers.

After a couple hours of of photo taking, me, Lori, Whitney and Bella went to lunch at Apollo Burger. I took this shot of Whitney modeling her birthday shopping finds (i.e., new shoes, new jeans and new sweater) which she is thrilled about.

She loves, loves, loves these Sassy shoes!

Lori wore her sunglasses during lunch because she was next to a bright window. She could have closed the blinds but she and Bella said the sun felt nice. It was funny to sit across from her wearing glasses though.

Next we went to Color Me Mine (just like last year).

Lori took this fabulous photo of the girls.

Lori and I both painted mugs.

I painted this mug (which will end up being a bright turquoise after it's fired), Bella painted the bulldog, Lori did an ombre affect on her mug, and Whitney did a really cute little sugar bowl, lid and small spoon which she'll probably eat cereal out of.

Later that evening we got together at Lori's house to finally celebrate her birthday (which was September 8th), Landon's birthday (which was August 10th), Andrew's birthday (which was September 29th), Randy's birthday (which was October 12th) and Whitney's birthday...apparently we've had a really hard time getting everyone together. Robyn and Lyman (boyfriend) ended up having a couple Halloween party to be at and Landon ended up going to the BYU-Nevada game, but other than that we were all there.

The spread of gifts. Lori wanted work done for her gifts so Adam and Randy hung a couple heavy duty items, mounted her flat screen tv to the wall and fixed a toilet.

We had cheesecake AND the Oreo Ice Cream dessert.

All lined up so we could sing to them.

We relit candles and put them on Andrew's piece of dessert so he could blow them out and spray as needed.