Christmas and New Years

I know its a little late...I have been meaning to blog for quite awhile now. I have a ton of pictures to share with everyone from Christmas time so I'll just start right in... Before the Christmas break my staff and I decided that we wanted to buy Christmas for all the families that were enrolled at my preschool. For those of you who don't know the preschool program I am in is for low in come families that are either trying to learn English or finish up their schooling. Many of the families have little to no income and they are so hard working that we wanted to surprise them with Christmas! It took a couple months to plan and put together but it was a blast and the families were so appreciative. Here are a few pictures from the project. (Also thank you to all who donated money or took on a family to provide Christmas for! I couldn't have done it with out you! We were able to provide Christmas for 20 families!)

Wrapping up all the gifts!

The big bag of presents for all the families! The office was full of them!

Some of the kids from my preschool before the Christmas party.

This is me and two of my staff members! It was so fun to work with them on this project! It was a lot of work but we did it!

After school got out it was time to get ready for the holidays and family to come...but before we get to that I would like to introduce all of you to Bobby. He is our new cat...against my parents desires. As in mostly my Dad. You see what happened is that Bobby came to our house one day looking really hungry and lost. My parents continually kept saying ... "We can't feed him or he will stay around and we are not having a cat as a pet!" Well, a couple days past and every time I went to the door Bobby was standing there looking at me with his sad eyes and I could tell he was just starving. I couldn't do it anymore! I am too much of an animal lover. I secretly gave Bobby some tuna fish. Then it just went down hill from there. We started letting him in the house so he wasn't so cold and now ... we have a pet cat. Despite my parents not wanting a pet they have actually really enjoyed B0bby. The grandkids all go nuts over him and just love him to death. They decided Bobby needed to have a middle name. So they all call him Bobby Rock.

Im a major dog lover...I never have really liked cats. But Bobby Rock has grown on me.

Now to Christmas festivities... My family had two Christmas Eve celebrations and then waited til the day after Christmas to celebrate Christmas. We did this because my sisters family couldn't make it down because of conflicts with Marks work. So...we did a Christmas eve celebration on Christmas eve...and then another when everyone was able to be there. Anyway here are pictures from all the Christmas events that went on this season.

Some of my nephews watching the polar express after our big Christmas Eve Dinner. I thought it was a cute picture.

Christmas Eve PJ's. We did our first Christmas eve celebration at my brothers house in St. George.

My nephew Eli did a performance for us on the piano. Ha.

Mom Dad and Grandma Lyman enjoying the Christmas Eve happenings.

Now these are the pictures from Christmas Eve where EVERYONE was able to make it...

Acting out the Nativity Scene

Everyone listening to Grandma Keate tell the traditional Christmas Eve story we read of my Grandpa Lyman being born on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve Pajamas #2. Don't I have the cutest nieces and nephews?

The mass chaos of opening presents

It was such a fun Christmas. I'm glad all of my family was able to make it. We had a great time. I brought in the new year with all my friends watching all 3 Lord of the Rings movies in a day plus lots of games and food. It was a lot of fun. 2010 was a good year but I'm looking forward to see what 2011 has in store for me! Happy New Year!

My new Love...

The new love in my life is...



For all of those out there that are looking for a fun work out... Do Zumba! I went to zumba for the first time about a month ago and have been going religiously ever since. Its so much fun and a great work out! The one I go to is across from Lins on main street.. the gym is called Iron Sports Acadamey I think. Its Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at 8 o clock and also Saturday mornings at 8 o clock. Anyone who is interested should definitely come! It's free your first time and after that just 3 bucks! Let me know if you want to come...and I mean anyone!
(For those of you who don't know what zumba is ... its a lot of dancing mixed in with some excersize moves. The class I go to we do some latin dancing and some modern music. Its great!)

Beautifying my Bathroom

My bathroom was completely out dated with floral wall paper and with even more hideous counter tops and more....until now. This was my little project (with the help from my parents) I painted over the wallpaper, we had the countertop replaced with granite, got a new sink, new door handles, took down the floorboards and put up new ones, new light fixtures, and changed the color scheme a bit. Here are some before and after pictures.

Before...

After...

And there you have it. Went from old and ugly to an updated fresh look! It was a fun project to work on.

My Car Accident

I got in a car accident on Monday night. I was coming up the hill to come home and a guy rolled through the stop sign and didn't even see me. He T boned into my car. I was lucky that it wasn't by my door or I would have been badly hurt. It could have been a lot worse if it would have been a few seconds later so I'm very thankful for that. His truck sure wiped out the front of my car though. He was in a HUGE truck ... it didn't even scratch the truck but it totally dominated my nice new car. I sure can feel the effects of the crash though. My whole body is very very sore from the whip lash and I have some very deep bruises where my seat belt was. I couldn'tbreathe very well when it initially happened because my body was in such shock...the rest of the night I was dizzy and nauseous. I'm doing fine now...like I said before just very sore and some deep bruises. My car looks pretty bad and the tire is even bent inwards... its not drivable but hopefully she will be fully recovered within 3-4 weeks.The guy who ran into me was super nice and very cooperative. He fully admitted it was his doing and so his insurance is covering everything. They are even able to give me a rental car until my car is done being fixed. Thanks everyone for your concern and calls. It means a lot. Here are a few pictures of the damage done.

Halloween is in the Air

Halloween came early this year for my family. All the family was in town this weekend so we thought we would have a Halloween party. I've never been a huge fan of Halloween, but for some reason the past couple of years I have gotten very very into Halloween. I love it. I've been thinking about possible costume ideas for a couple months now. I think its one of my new favorite holidays. These are a few of the things that we did this weekend. We started out the day by preparing a Halloween feast. We had spooky jello jigglers, pumpkin bread bowls filled with yummy soup (one of my favorite personal touches is the pumpkin bread bowl), and witches brew to drink.After our delicious meal we decorated Halloween sugar cookies and made skeletons. All the boys got to put bow ties on their skeletons and all the girls have hair bows of course. They turned out so cute. All my nieces and nephews loved it...

The rest of the night we watched Halloween movies, played outside, and all the kids had a huge sleepover in the upstairs while the adults stayed up laughing and playing games.

My nieces brought their Halloween costumes to model for us while they were in town since we wouldn't get to see them all dressed up on Halloween.

We had a witch, a fairy ballerina, Minnie mouse, and don't forget out little baby bee.

I think Rachel was getting sick of her Bee costume after several pictures...

Even though my costume isn't complete yet, I had to go get it on when I saw baby Rachel in her bee costume because...

Halloween is just around the corner! This weekend was just the beginning of the Halloween celebrations. In my preschool on Wednesday all the kids and the staff are going to dress up and have a Halloween carnival. That should be a lot of fun. I guess I better finish up the rest of my costume before then. As for Halloween day... I actually have no party plans. Who knows maybe I will end up just passing out candy in my Bee costume? Halloween Party? Scary movie? I don't know what it will be, but whatever it is I am sure I will have a spooktacular time.
Happy Haunting!

What have I been up to?? Let me show you...

Oh dear... looks like I'm not all that great at this blogging thing. I need to be better. It's like a journal I always have good intentions to do it but I just never get around to it at the end of the day. It has been on my to do list for several weeks now and I'm finally getting it done. Well there is just too much to share so I better get on with it. School started.. I am LOVING it. The kids are just so darn cute for their own good. I will tell you about school in a minute but to show you some of the things I did before summer ended....

I got a call at about 5:50 on my last week of summer before school started. As I was laying in bed I thought...who in the world is calling me this early ( I am not a morning person ). Well it was Bryan. He was up early, had read in the newspaper that a new cascade falls hike was re opening and wanted to go hike it. I had my first staff meeting that morning so we were hurrying. We got up there just in time to see the sun rise and it was BEAUTIFUL. Here are a few pictures from that little trip. Although I'm not a morning person that was well worth it. We had a lot of fun.


School started a couple days after that and I have absolutely loved it. I haven't taken any pictures of my classrooom yet... I will get some though so that I can post them. But I have taken some cute pictures of a few of the kids. The most kids I have had are 17! It doesn't sound like a whole lot but then if you consider that 10 of those kids were under the age of 18 months I think you understand. The youngest child we have is 6 weeks old. The oldest is 4. Me and one of my staff members are in charge of the preschool part of it while my other two assistants are trying to handle the babies. It can get hecktic but for the most part we have handled it all really well. Here are a few of my kids. I just love them to death...


So far I just love my job. My hours are 8-2 Monday thru Thursday and I have all Fridays off (which is SO nice). I have a great staff and the kids make me laugh everyday. You never know what to expect.

Over labor day weekend my family went up to participate in our annual sale ... Swiss Days. I took a few pictures of what it looked like in case nobody has ever been. Which by the way if you haven't I highly suggest it. Its so much fun and there are so many cute booths!

Mom and Dad loading the truck before we left!

Usually it doesn't look this calm. Usually there are people all in the booth and lines of people waiting to get into the booth as well. Swiss Days is a lot of fun but there are some vicious and crazy shoppers up there! We had a little over 700 stitches going up and came back with about 1/3 of that so we thought we did really well at the sale. For those of you who don't have any idea about this family business and stitching that I'm talking about here is a link to our website so you can understand a little better what it is we do. Plus thats good advertisement right? Thanks to Bryan who designed and put together our website for us. It's a lot of work.

http://www.livewellstitches.com/

After Swiss Days was over I was only a couple hours away from Logan so Cicely and I met up and we made a weekend trip up to Logan to visit Bryan and McCabe. It was a lot of fun. I just love it in Logan. I hope I get to live there one day. Its beautiful. We had fun and will probably make another trip within the next while.

My parents made a quick trip to the temple this past Friday and I thought since I had the day off I would join them. While I was waiting for them to be done with their session I just sat out on the grass of the temple and enjoyed the weather, did some thinking, and did some reading. It was so peaceful and relaxing. It was great. This is a picture I took while enjoying my beautiful surroundings...

Just to mention the other things that are keeping me busy after work everyday:
* I'm taking 6 credits through SUU at the school district so that I can get closer to getting my ESL endorsement.
* I just got 3 new piano students this week filling me up completely taking me to 15 piano students. That definitly keeps me busy everynight after work. It can get pretty hecktic but its good extra income and I love teaching piano.
* I just got called as Relief Society President in my ward. It will also keep me busy but will be a great blessing in my life. I was Relief Society President once before in my previous ward and I absolutely loved getting to know all those girls better. This ward is all new people so it will be interesting.
* I'm still trying to learn some spanish on my own ...its been one of my goals for a long time and I've got a good start. Rosetta stone has become my good friend as I've been doing that.

Most nights I don't get home til pretty late and its always a full and unpredictable day but so far I've loved it all and its been great! Hope everyone is doing great! Until next time...