Growing up, my mom devised a dish-doing game to try and motivate us to do our dish jobs. The game was fittingly called catch-up-and-quit. The game entailed my mom scraping dishes while one of us kids loaded them into the dishwasher. The idea was that if we were able to catch up and load the dishes faster than mom could scrape them, she would finish both dish jobs and we were free to go. She let us win just often enough to keep the game motivational.

Wouldn't it be great if she were still around to finish off all the jobs that I don't want to do. Updating a much outdated blog for example. I guess that is just part of growing up, so here it goes. Sorry it is so long.



One of my goals this Christmas was to make a real gingerbread house (not the graham cracker imitation). My super-cool mother-in-law helped me out by making an extra batch of dough for me. We even got together to decorate them. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it until the holidays were long past and Oliver had attacked it several times. It was pretty cute at one time. Sam's step-dad even rigged up a light to make my sucker windows glow.


We spent Christmas (actually almost the entire month of December) at my parents home. It was wonderful. We did Christmas morning a day late to give my little sister time to fly home from Hawaii. One of the greatest things about Christmas day, in my opinion, is spending the entire day in your pajamas. Of course, the presents are nice too and Sam totally spoiled me this year. Oliver didn't make out so bad himself. Santa even knew to stuff his stocking with berries because they are his very favorite.


Here is Oliver with his new rocking horse.


Of course, the greatest gift came from Grandpa who bought Oliver a Thomas the Train set. He was ecstatic from the moment he opened it. There was nothing we could do get him to put down the train, he carried it around for days. He took his naps with it, it sat next to his plate while he ate, and we experienced a complete meltdown when we pried it out of his hands to give him a bath. I guess that means he liked it. Way to go grandpa.


We were lucky to make the drive across Wyoming when we did. As soon as we arrived in Utah the snow started to fall and it didn't let up for a good week. For Oliver that meant his very first sledding experience.


We didn't have any boots for him so we improvised with baggies.


We hooked a sled up to the four-wheeler, but Ollie preferred to be a driver rather than a passenger. He really didn't get into the whole snow thing until we taught him how to throw a snowball, something he just couldn't get enough of.


The biggest event of our Christmas vacation was my little brother's wedding. Donald and Caci got married on January 2nd at Millcreek Inn. It was beautiful and we are so happy to have Caci in the family, she fit in great. The picture above is my sister Whitney and I at the wedding. As you can see, we have similar taste in haircuts. However, since she lives in Hawaii and I live in Colorado we figured it wasn't too big of a deal.


Here we all are before the big "I do." Donald, Sarah, Whitney, Ashley and I. In case you couldn't tell, I am the oldest.

Oliver's favorite part of the wedding was the dessert bar, he almost finished off the fruit trays all by himself. Go Ollie!