Christmas time

December flew by and I can't believe that tomorrow is the last day of the year 2014!
This Christmas season has been a nice and mellow one for the most part. I personally have been struggling with staying healthy... but I am feeling almost back to normal as of this evening. I feel a little cheated, we didn't travel on purpose so that we wouldn't get sick... but I got sick anyway. The boys got a little sick earlier in the month but seemed to bounce back pretty quickly. I'm going to blame my pregnancy for hanging onto it longer than everyone else.
We enjoyed a nice ward Christmas dinner/ social, a few service opportunities, sharing Christmas dinner with the new Elders in our ward & Bryce (Billy's old landlord)... and of course the company of Grandpa Wrenn & Uncle Nathan for the past 5 days :) We were supposed to go up to Ian & Stephanie's for Christmas eve, but I just didn't think I was healthy enough at that point to make the drive and have a late night away before Christmas day.

 

The boys were easy to please this Christmas. When asked what they thought they would like for Christmas, responses like "a pack of gum, please" and "my very own clay" made me smile. William, Zachary and Jameson were just so happy and kept it so simple. My favorite thing I watched this Christmas was the 3 boys, secretly making little drawings, notes and paper gifts for each other. They would sneak them out and stuff them into each others stockings when no one was looking. It was neat to watch the excitement of giving as well as the excitement to see the brother discover their gift on Christmas morning. It made my whole Christmas complete.

Billy and I celebrated 8 years of marriage yesterday! We had Grandpa Wrenn and Uncle Nathan to babysit for us, so we took advantage. We went mattress shopping and then out to a nice dinner. There is a new Sleep Number bed store in town and we gave it a shot. I think we spent at least an hour in there and this afternoon I took the plunge and we ordered a new bed. I'm looking forward to the delivery in a couple weeks! Billy made me a sweet card, as he always does. I finally finished (just about) the painting that I started for him last year for our anniversary! Whoops. Had to add another star for another year :) but I like the way it looks.

Looking forward to another great year this 2015.

The aftermath of "the big storm"

We are back up and running on line after what seemed like a long 6 days. I am not a big computer person, but there are certain things I do on line and on line only. William missed a few days of school (which he was not sad about at all), property management communication and trying to finish up the bills and spreadsheets was a no go, on line banking, email communication... anyway, we survived.

The storm racked havoc on our yard. The biggest surprise when we woke up was opening the front door to our pepper tree laying across the entire front yard! We all were pretty shocked that no one woke up when it fell. I think because the storm was so violent, windy and noisy, it took forever for us to fall asleep that night. Things kept hitting the side of the house and the trees were jerking so hard in the wind it was just a loud night in general.

Our fence was another sad sight to see. We had worked slowly all summer long getting the fence up and complete around the back yard. Luckly it's not too broken, just sagging, which can be fixed with a little extra digging and concrete around the posts.

It's been a slow clean up process. One of the ranch hands came with a tractor the next day to clear the drive way of the tree while Billy ran the chain saw and cut it up a bit. But now the drive way has remained a muddy mess and we still have to do a little more cutting to the tree to remove it completely off the grass.

We are just so blessed that the tree didn't fall on the house (or the cars)! We went to bed praying that the trees would stay in the ground, or at least not hit the house... our prayers were answered. The 60year old pepper tree missed the corner bedroom where all the boys were sound asleep by inches! We woke up saying prayers of thanks that we were all kept safe that night.

Moments that make me smile

Just a few photos from the last month of moments that made me smile.

                                                      Loving Brothers!

                      Jameson riding the razor scooter, he is always so happy!

Cousins in the golf cart, driving around the park in between photo sessions

              The boys enjoying the Santa Barbara annual Christmas parade :)