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!

All Lit Up!

Well, after a couple of Saturdays, the lights are finally up. Doesn't our house look great with Christmas lights? We sure think so.

It doesn't usually take us this long to get the lights up, but Robert went to eight different stores to try and find a couple more strands of the white C9 lights that we have always used in this house. For some reason, these lights are nearly non existent now. I guess we are just behind the times as all the stores had plenty of lights, but they were usually of the LED variety. In the end, Robert used his Martha Stewart skills and bought three more strings of clear lights and then proceeded to spray paint them white (I guess he was looking for something to do today). If you can guess which lights are the spray painted ones, we will give you a prize. Now we just need to add the final touches outside, and set up Christmas inside.

Blue Christmas

We always know it is Christmas time when our friends (Hi guys) put up their blue snowflake Christmas lights. We can see them clearly from our house and they even give our living room an interesting blue glow when all our lights are off. It's the kickoff to the season and we love seeing them every year. Thanks Ryan & Robynn, we love you!

Wicked-Tennis

Dad and I played some wicked tennis today. (That's a sneak peek reference to the 2nd half of this post). I like to run, he likes to play tennis-so we compromise. Last night he ran 3.1 miles with Kayla and I around the Rose Bowl, and this morning I played tennis with him at his friend Brenda's house. He is a very good tennis player (being ambidextrous can only help) so he doesn't get much competitive play from me, but we always have a great time. This time he was helping me work on my serve. I couldn't combine serving hard and keeping it within the box. I learned I was hitting the ball on it's way up instead of waiting until it was staring to come down. I did get several good hard serves in and never hit any of my home run type balls over the fence. Oh, isn't tennis so fun when you're not very good. It is fun when I play with Dad. Thanks for a great morning Dad!

In the afternoon Grandma, Aubrey, Kayla and I went down to Hollywood to see Wicked at the Pantages Theater. It's always fun to got to Hollywood, and it's not that far from where we grew up. Robert & I, we seem like the Hollywood type, huh? Anyway, it was Kayla's 1st time seeing Wicked, and she loved it. We've been listening to the soundtrack for a long time, and all those songs come together when you see the production. We had a fun time and got some neat souvenirs to remember our experience.

Let the Journey Begin

The Girls and I are headed out on a 24-day journey. Grandma Webber flew up to Salt Lake to drive back to LA with us. Here are the girls about 5:15 am when we moved them from their beds to the car. We were hoping for a few more hours, or at least a few more minutes of sleep from them. Doesn't Emi look tired back there in her seat?

Once the sun and the kids arose, they watched the new American Girl Movie, "Kit Kitridge". We had seen it once before as a family, and I do recommend it. We stopped in St. George for breakfast and ate at IHOP, one of the girls favorite breakfast restaurants. Emi ordered the chocolate funny face pancakes and I thought this picture captured it well. After endless stacks of pancakes and french toast, we were back on the road. Our next meal stop was in Baker, CA. Not a good choice. The service was slow, the food was okay (though Mom did have a good salad) and about 10 minutes after we left, Brenna started throwing up in her car seat. This is one of the things you dread on a long road trip. Aaagh. Not so fun. Aubrey's undershirt became Brenna's new outfit, and we carried on.

As we came into town, we could see clouds of thick smoke. This photo was taken as we exited the freeway in La Crescenta, the city where Robert & I grew up, and where both of our parents still reside. We did not know we were about to enter the worse series of fires in the Los Angeles area in the last 50 years.

We were glad to finally arrive and be able to move around outside of the car. We had made it, and we're looking forward to the adventures ahead.

Tour de South Jordan

Many of you know that Robert bought a road bicycle this spring and has enjoyed riding it. He has been bugging me to get one for a few months, so a couple weeks back we went on an 18-mile 'test bike ride' with a friends bike and I really enjoyed it. Last week we went to the bike store and came home with a fancy orange bike specifically designed for a 'short woman', that's me. I had been practicing using the special shoes and pedals in our family room using Robert's trainer (a machine you hook your bike to so you can ride it like a stationary bike) and felt ready to hit the road. Well, that's exactly what I did. I took some asphalt to my shins, thighs, and elbows as I tried to get the hang of unlocking my shoe from the pedal. Balancing on the road was a little different than balancing on the trainer. I was glad when I finally got the hang of it, and we headed down to the Jordan River and then around South Jordan. We are looking forward to some fun rides together when it gets warm. Thanks for the bike bub!

Catching Up

It's Sunday night. The kids are in bed, and I am catching up on the blog. For those of you who don't have little kids, the daylight savings time extra hour actually comes the next night, when you can put the kids to bed early. I have been out of town this week, but am slowly getting back into the routine. I can't beleive it's already November. Amazing. We were just mentioning how a farmer down the road on 2700 West will be putting up his manger scene soon. It seems like it was just up not that long ago. Time is flying by. Our goal is to enjoy it.

Pyrmaid Time

Oh, the joy of school projects. The last week before tracking-off is always 'big project' time. This weekend Aubrey worked on making a pyramid, (notice it is hallowed out to show all of the interior chambers) . This picture doesn't really do justice for the sweat and tears shed on this project, not to mention the 2 day dilemma of what type of material to use to build the pyramid. We finally gave up on thinking, and wandered the aisles of the craft store, until we saw the Styrofoam cube. Boy, with 5 kids in school, we've got a lot of craft aisle wandering ahead of us.

Halloween Fun!

It's Halloween time! Our crew this year consisted of a Hippie (Aubrey); Alice in Wonderland (Kayla); Purple Princess (Lindsay); Minnie Mouse (Emily) and a giraffe (Brenna). Click on the picture to see how happy that giraffe is. This is the warmest Halloween we have had in our 10 years in Utah. It was 72 degrees when we headed out to go trick-or-treating. Robert wore shorts and no one needed to worry about a coat. We had our crew and Emma & Kenley with us, and we went all through our neighborhood. Brenna understood the concept a little better this year. Last year, she wanted to stop, sit down, and eat each piece of candy when she received it. This year she didn't sit down on any porches to eat her candy, but she did still try to go inside some of the houses she was familiar with. We just had to get a picture of her from the back. She was a very padded and wide giraffe and drew many laughs as she walked away from doors. It was fun to see all the girls have such a good time together.

Autumn Sunrise

So we are not really nature photographers, but we do try to appreciate the great outdoors. We don't see the sunrise as a family very often, but we were all able to enjoy this one out on our driveway in our pajamas. Our house sits in a good location to see the sun rise in the East and set in the West. This was a great pre-Halloween orange/black sunrise, and the beginning of a beautiful day. The beauties of this Earth God has created for us are awe-inspiring.

Grandpa's Funeral

Today was my Grandpa's funeral. It has been an emotional time. He was 89 years old and had been living in a care center in Fallbrook for about a year now. Ten days ago he had a major stroke which left the right side of his body paralyzed. His health continued to decline and he passed away on Friday. His wife, Jeannette, (who is pictured with me below) was with him, as well as his 3 children and some of their children. I flew down 'solo' Sunday morning to be with the family. We spent the days leading up to the funeral reminiscing, remembering, and reflecting on how he had touched so many lives. Because I was doing his eulogy, I did some reading on his family's history and listened to countless stories about his life prior to my first memories of him. I was so grateful that I could be there, and spend this time with my family. There was a spirit of unity within us, and I rarely get to spend that type of one-on-one time with my parents and Barb. That aspect of the trip was just the best! A very big thank-you to Robert and my neighbors, for holding down the fort in South Jordan, and also to Ally who held down the Holt & Williams forts in Arizona, allowing Barb to travel out early. Though it was hard to see Grandpa go, I feel peace and comfort knowing that there is a God, and that He does have an eternal plan for all of His children. "God Be With You Til We Meet Again".

Hawker's Party

Our family loves going to the Hawker's annual Halloween party. Rachelle always has the house all decked out, games, prizes, trick-or-treating areas, good food, and great company. The kids kept asking, "When are we going to Hawkers, is it time to go to Hawkers"? Six o'clock did eventually come and we were off. The bottom picture has our family photo. Brenna wasn't to sure about the giraffe head. It seemed to be limiting her vision. We had a potato and nacho bar and headed outside for backyard trick-or-treating. The picture below shows our favorite station. It was a table with a box on top. You can see Aubrey's reaction (& Rachelle's in the back) when the hand reached out of the box. We're not too into scary stuff around here, but we made it through. The girls also liked the cupcakes Becca made for decorating. Pile all the green frosting and toppings you want on your cupcake, that's their kind of decorating. We had such a fun night with the Cains, and the Hawkers, and their extended family. We love you guys, and can't imagine Halloween without you.