New Year's Eve

New Years Eve - big night on the town. Not really. Robert and I went out to an early dinner with friends and then hung out with the girls. We were asleep by 10:30, while the girls attempted to stay up until midnight. I awoke at midnight to Kayla, Aubrey, and her friend, banging on pots and pans out on the driveway. We watched the South Jordan fireworks show from the front window, waited for Molly's Dad to come get her, and called it a night. Maybe next year Lindz and Em will make it for the big 'Ball Drop'. I can remember trying my darndest to stay awake until midnight on New Years Eve (and to stay awake until the wedding scene in the Sound of Music each time it aired in TV). I'm not sure how many years it took to conquer that goal, but staying up late is something I no longer strive for. I'd have to say that the highlight of my night was receiving a call from my childhood best friend, Kellie. She was remembering a New Years Eve we spent together at my Grandma Zelda's house painting my cousin's nails and called to share with me. Isn't it amazing the small memories we carry with us. I'm so grateful I got to share so much of my life with her, and that our friendship has continued throughout our lives. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life, and to each of you I say,"Happy New Year".

Green Eggs and Ham

We needed to finish off the Christmas ham, so we decided to make green eggs and ham for dinner tonight. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it really did look pretty cool. The girls were excited about the idea, but that excitement did not translate to their palettes or their stomachs.

Lockers

I've been thinking we need a new system for the girls stuff in the garage. I don't remember talking to Robert about this recently, but I guess I must have. When his Dad arrived for Christmas he asked him how he felt about building the girls lockers. Dan is very good at creating and building things, and he started making drawings. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, and after just 2 trips to Home Depot, they built these lockers. Boots on the ground, lower cubby holds gloves, scarves, hats, and snow socks. Main opening holds coats and backpacks - where they can each reach them. Top cubby holds snow bibs. V-wala. It works. In the summer we will switch it to bathsuits, goggles, swim caps, etc. Thank you Dan & Robert!!!

Shoveling Girl

Aubrey was the first one out to start shoveling the driveway this morning. It is a lot of heavy snow. I think we're the only one's in the neighborhood without a snowblower. Robert says he likes the shovel technique. I guess Aubrey does too.

Christmas Day

Christmas Morning! The girls woke up about 6:30 am and we all headed to the basement to get Papa and Grandma up. At our house, Santa usually only brings 1 present and he hides it under a sheet or blanket in the family room. (Is that a tradition or laziness on his part, I'm not sure?) This year he brought a Wii. He must know we're a little behind the times, but thought we were actually ready to join the gaming world. It was a hit! The best part is that everyone, grandma's and grandpa's included, can play. From tennis, bowling, & baseball to skiing, yoga, & hula hooping (Emi's personal favorite) there's lots of fun games to play. As he reads this over my shoulder, Robert says he likes to watch Brenna ski. We had our usual cinnamon rolls from Nahborhood Bakery at Gardner Village and started with the presents under the tree.

As you may know, I don't do loud crazy chaos very well, so Christmas morning takes awhile here. We open presents one at a time, not in any order or anything, but we all try to watch each present get opened and you have to say who it's from before you open it. It really isn't quite as structured as it sounds, but there is some order to the madness. Wait. I forgot to mention the snow. The Snow! We had about 23 inches of fresh, white, powdery, glistening snow from the 'Christmas' storm. It was cold and windy and a good day to stay bundled and cuddled up inside by the fire. Papa and Grandma had planned on going to Mass, but the weather kept them safe at home with us. Back to the presents. It was the year of the 'Books'. Between the seven of us, we got 52 books. Big books, small books, thick books, tall books, series of books, and coffee table like books. I guess our families and friends know us well. And, within those 52 books, there were no repeats. At last count, which is when we moved into this house, we had over 1,000 books, with more than half being children's books. At one point I had 465 children's books all cataloged and in alphabetical order by the authors last name. I'm sounding a little like a freak now, but we do like books. So everyone that sent us books, "Thank You" We'll have to start doing book reviews on here. Robert also got a new Router (sp.?) wood tool that came in handy for the post Christmas project in the garage. (It was from his Dad, not me) I got some clothes, a cute purse with Talbots $, a pink laptop, Willow Tree sisters, and a very cool magnetic board with a big M (I'll have to put a picture, cause my description doesn't do it justice.) My biggest surprise came from my friend in Oregon (Hi friend!) She had taken all of our pictures from the 2008 Blog and put them to music on a CD. So cool. Okay, gotta tell you about one or two more unique gifts. One was a personalized snow globe with Christ inside and another was a hard to describe matching game with two cards of each person in our family on it and a picture of Robert & I together. So awesome. It makes me think I give kinda boring, non creative gifts, but we just do the best we can.

Anyway, we had a great day and are looking forward to getting into all our books. Goodnight for now.

Christmas Eve

It's here! Christmas Eve is one of our favorite days of the year. We get to just hang out, finish up any family presents we are working on, start preparing food etc. I had to get a few miles in at the track, so Robert and his Dad took the kids ice skating at the Oval. They are becoming good little ice skaters and they love the time they get to spend there.

After skating, we started the tradtional Miller Family Christmas Eve. Robert's parents always had cold cut sandwiches on wreath shaped bread for Christmas Eve dinner, and since we got married, we have continued that tradition. It's low key and everybody likes it - hard to beat that!

After dinner, the girls do a puppet show of the birth of the Savior as I read it from the scriptures. As I'm sure is common in most families, Baby Jesus is the most coveted part. Once Brenna got her hands on him, she tried to hide Him in Grandma's glasses case. She's still working on the whole sharing thing.

We then read The Christmas Orange Story and cracked open our own chocolate oranges and passed the segments around our family.

It was on to present time. This years jammies were red Mickey Mouse jammies from Disneyland. We all love them and PBJed (potty, jammie, brush) for the night. We closed the night, as we do each year, by watching Luke II. Off to bed. See ya in the morning!

Christmas Lights

We may think that our white C9 Christmas lights outlining our roof line are pretty, but they have never ended up on the local news. Tonight we ventured over to Murray with our friends and watched an amazing home light display that is difficult to fully appreciate unless you see it with your own eyes. We tried to capture the essence of the experience on the video below with the radio in our car turned up (the lights are synchronized with the music that is broadcast over the radio). Brenna liked switching cars half-way through the wait and riding with her favorite miniature schnauzer Boston. Maybe next year we can start working on our lights in July and encourage a few thousand cars a night to drive through our neighborhood...nay, we'll still be swimming in July.

Christmas Dresses

I love getting the girls Christmas dresses. Even when they're all wearing the same outfit, their personalities and individual sparkle shines through.

Indoor Run

The half marathon training program called for a 9 mile run. The temperatures were in the teens, and it's been snowing like crazy. This is why Uthans don't run races in the winter. But, once I commit myself to training, that was it, so Robert & I headed to the Oval. The Olympic Oval is about 15 minutes from our house. It is where the 2002 Olympic Speed Skating events took place. They have the state's longest indoor track (450 meters) around the outide of the ice rink, and that's where we like to run indoors. On Friday nights the rink is mostly occupied by families and teenagers on dates. We were the only runners on the track (who else would be there at 8:00 on a Friday night). A pair of 10-year old girls invited me to race them while they skated. After several attempts, they learned I needed about a 35 second head start to compete with them around the rink. It atleast kept it interesting for me and made the time and miles pass by a little faster. Though Robert was there with me, we ran at our own pace (meaning he was ahead of me). It was a fun night, but the best part was, knowing we didn't have to run on Saturday!.

Dance Night

Tonight was Emi and Aubrey's dance recital. Robert was in New York, so I had to try to vidoe tape it and watch at the same time (I don't like to watch through the camera) Emi loved her costume, loved her tap routine, loved the music, loved everything about it. Aubrey was not so thrilled about the costume (which we got as Emi went on stage), the routine (which she learned 2 nights before the performance) , or the music (the only non-Christmas song of the night), but she loves the stage and had fun had fun performing. Here's a little glimpse into our night. Warning: We crack up everytime we watch Emi's.

Hillary Weeks

For lunch today, Amy & I went to a mini-Hilary Weeks concert at the mall. She is a Christian singer, and she's one of my favorites. (If you want to hear some of her music, go to hilaryweeks.com) It was so great to just take a break from the hustle and bustle and enjoy some down time. So fun!

Christmas Sneak Peak

We have had presents under the tree since we set it up on December 8th. Periodically, we've seen Brenna looking at them, but she is usally more interested in removing or rearranging the ornaments. On Sunday evening, as the girls were getting ready for bed, we heard some ripping noises coming from the family room. Brenna had opened her first present. Foruntately, she can read her own name, so she chose one of her own. She loves the baby doll from her Holt cousins! She is taking it with her everywhere she goes. That was a perfect present for her, she's just enjoying it a little early. Anyone else have any early bird specials at their house?

Run in the Snow

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let us Run,Let us Run,Let us Run!

I am currently training for a half marathon vicariously with my sister Ally in Arizona. I fell off the wagon a little with the whole "coming back from vacation-welcome to reality" stuff this past week. I am finally feeling pretty caught up on life, so I thought it was time to get back on a running schedule. I think the hardest part about running is---getting out the door. Once I'm out there, I love it and feel great, but actually getting out the door is often very hard. I have great admiration for my sister Barb, who gets out the door and runs every weekday morning @ 6:00 AM. I WISH I was that disciplined (I must have a comfier pillow than she does- that is harder to leave) Maybe one day I will develop that type of discipline, but for now, I just try to get my runs in at some point during the day.
Today it happened to be snowing here, as you can see from our post-run picture, but my fearless & very best looking running partner (sorry other running partners) said "Let's Go" and so we did!
It's a little treacherous running in the snow. The snow part is actually not too bad, but it's the ice part that kills you. Neither of us fell, but we had some close calls. You also lose a lot of your running lane (aka. the shoulder) from the plows, so we had to run close to the cars, and they sometimes shoot out chunks of ice as they pass.
But, we set out to do 8 miles, and that we did. I hope Ally had a good 8 mile run in her shorts and tank top on the sunny and clear streets of Arizona. Though races are fun, the real joy is in the journey of training, and so, we will look forward to many more runs in the snow, and we will Enjoy the Journey!

Cookie Decorating

Today was the girls Annual Cookie Decorating Party. This party seems to get bigger and better every year. This year it was held in the basement instead of the kitchen, so that was an extra bonus for Mom. It's so fun for the girls to get together with their friends, and we enjoy having them. They kinda divided themselves up my grades-6th,4th,2nd, & K's at their own tables. They each decorated a few cookies and then each table was in charge of creating one special cookie. We took the 4 special cookies and went caroling to a neighbor battling cancer. She was so happy and appreciative to have all these girls come see her.
The girls shared a lot of laughter, and silliness, and we love them all.

Toothless

I hope the tooth fairy is ready because we now have another toothless grin in the house. Emily lost her first tooth today, with a little help from the pediadontist. It had been loose for a couple weeks and at her cleaning today he did a little extraction, free of charge. She is very excited. How much does the fairy pay at your house these days, given the recession and all?

Tales of our 3 Week Journey

We really like having the girls in year-round school. It gives us an oppotunity to travel at different times throughout the year. This off-track session we decided to travel to Southern California and Arizona to spend time with family, and enjoy some of the tourist opportunities that we don't usually take advantage of. We traveled from the hills of Hollywood to the sands of Coronado, from the cactus and palm trees of the Arizona desert to the Happiest place on Earth...Disneyland. The best part was being able to be with each other and our extended families. We love you guys! Enjoy the Slideshow of our adventures!