A happy new year

This last year has been a crazy one for us. We have been non stop. Some of our highlights were
- Daniel and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary
- Cody turned 8 and was baptized.
- We were approved by LDS Family Services to adopt.
- Daniel and I were able to work in Cody's classroom once a week.
- Daniel was given an award for his service as a SWAT medic
- Our family visited Utah for Daniel's sister's wedding.
- Daniel started the testing process to promote and passed and went through the training academy.
- Cody graduated from the second grade.
- Daniel's calling in church changed to being in the scouts program with Cody.
- My calling was changed to Enrichment Leader
- Our family visited Utah again for Thanksgiving.
- We had an awesome Christmas here in California.
- We took a fun couple days and spent them at a timeshare in Las Vegas.
- Daniel and I ran our annual 5k race and beat our previous years time.
- I planned a craft night for the women of our ward and had a fun time.
And every other holiday that we spent time with family and friends.

Some less than perfect times were
- our trip to the Dominican Republic was cancelled.
- daniel's grandmother and my grandfather passed away.
- Our summer camping trips were cancelled due to daniel's training academy.
- A few gum graph procedures had to be done.
- Last but not least...our main computer died!

We are looking forward to another fun filled year!

A picture less post

I am sad to say that our computer died this past week. It had all of our pictures from Christmas and so I won't be able to update with pictures until either our computer gets fixed or we get a new one.
We had a very nice Christmas with family. We spent this Christmas here in California this year. Daniel had to work on Christmas Eve. Cody and I spent Christmas Eve at Daniel's parents and with some of Daniel's siblings and his parents. We had a nice dinner and read the story of Christ's birth. Daniel was able to get off early on Christmas morning and the gift giving started. Santa brought Cody an I pod touch, which he hasn't put down for more than 5 minutes! It was a nice day. We went to Daniel's parents again for dinner with most of Daniel's siblings. Cody had a great time with his cousins. I wish I could post some of our pictures but maybe soon. We are very grateful for the people in our lives and for all that Jesus did for us.

My stress comes to an end...sort of

Last night was the big night. I have spent the past two days with my committee at the church decorating and setting up and then preparing food for our Relief Society Christmas party. Luckily our ward Christmas party was last Saturday so they already had some trees up. All we had to do was move stuff around to where we wanted it. We spent the first day at the church for about 7 hours decorating and setting the tables and serving table how we wanted. My sister found this picture at Hobby Lobby of Santa holding the baby Jesus from a nativity scene. Everyone loved it.

 This was the beginning of our setting things up. We set up for 80 and then in the back of the room we set up for 80 again to do the ornament exchange. 

 Day two was spent preparing food. We had soup and bread bowls as the main course. Daniel helped a ton. He made a broccoli cheddar soup that was so good. I had many people ask for the recipe. And then we had cobblers and ice cream for desert. 

 For our program part of the evening we showed a short Mormon message about a little girl who reminded her family about the real reason for the season. And then we had a special musical number that was very nice. 

 We had a very good turn out. We planned for 80 and almost had that amount of people show up. This is our number one attended event of the year so I was feeling the pressure a bit. 

 Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I had a lot of people tell myself, and other committee members that they had a great time. It's amazing how much work goes into a couple hours of the actual event.

We had a lot of help taking everything down that night. We have a couple of wonderful men in the ward that do a lot for us. Not to mention Daniel and even Cody helped. Cody is a great helper. As soon as I came home I crashed. I was asleep in no time and had some of the best sleep I've had in a long time. Now, I am off to do some Christmas shopping for the family. There really is never a dull moment when it comes to this time of the year.

January 5th

We are so excited here at our house. Daniel received his engineers badge and new helmet plates. As of January 5th he will promoted up to engineer. He will still remain a paramedic but now his main job will be to drive the fire engine and trucks, and pump the water on fires. It sounds so simple but he has had a very rigorous testing process to get this promotion over the last 6 months. He is probably the most ambitious man, besides my Dad, that I've ever met. I am sure he will excel at this job as he has with his previous positions.

And then last night was a fun night for Cody. He received his first round of belt loops at Cub Scout den meeting. He was able to get a couple of badges as well. We are so proud of his hard work. He is loving cub scouts, especially since Daniel is in there for his calling now. Daniel loved cub scouts for a couple of reasons but one being that his Dad was very involved. I know it will have the same influence on Cody.

As for me, I am busy putting the Relief Society Christmas party together. My sister and I are working long days now to get everything ready for this Tuesday. I am so glad that my sister is on my committee because she is such a huge help. The other women have to work during the day and so they don't have as much free time to do all of the shopping. But, I love shopping so it feeds my want to shop.

We are excited for this part of the year. We love the holidays and I am trying to stress to Cody the importance of this holiday. It's fun to see his face light up when he finds Buddy the elf in the morning though. He is still a believer, and I hope we have at least one more year of him believing.

November and the tree is up!

We decided last minute to head up to Utah for Thanksgiving. Daniel was able to get off work and Cody was out of school for a few days so we decided...why not!??

The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there. The kids got to play outside and go to the skate park a lot. While Daniel and Cody and the other boys were out at the skate park I was able to do some shopping and spend some time with my mom, sister and sister-in-law. It was fun. We even did a quick impulsive shopping on Black Friday at about 11:30. We made the decision to go shopping at about 11:00 pm. The stores were packed of course but we were able to get what we needed. 

Thanksgiving day was fun as always. Crazy, but no drama. We had a great time, some of us took short naps, some of us played card games and board games. 

 My mom bought some table cloths that the kids could color on and do fun little games on. It entertained the kids while the grown ups ate since the kids ate two bites of their food and said they wanted to go play. 

 Cody at the skate park. Since Daniel broke his ribs last time we were up there for Thanksgiving he was playing it low key and was the photographer. Even my dad got on a skateboard! 

My sister's birthday was the day after Thanksgiving so we had a small family party for her. I am not sure if she blew out the candles or if all the boys did it for her. 

 Since my late Grandpa was a bombardier back in WWII we decided to take all of the kids to the airplane museum. It was fun to see all of the different planes they flew and how technology really advanced the air force. My family has great appreciation for the military. My Dad didn't serve in the military but worked up at Hill Air Force Base so he knows a lot about the stuff that they make and test there. 

 The kids were able to make their own rockets and shoot them up in the sky. They loved it!

 My Mom wanted a quick spur of the moment family picture. This is all of my side of the family.

 This is Aunt Emily teaching the kids a card game. She's a teacher and loves to be around the kids.

 We decided it was time to get the tree and do the decorating. I bought a train this year (black Friday deal) to go around the tree. We were going to do a whole train night and read a book about trains but Cody found the train in the garage the night we got home. He absolutely loves it!

 And we can't forget Buddy, the Elf on the Shelf. He came back the night of December 1st. 

We are excited to spend Christmas here at home and with Daniel's side of the family. I am sure it will be fun. 

Our October

For all of those who had brothers in cub scouts, you'll probably remember the annual rain gutter regatta. Cody is a wolf and they had their rain gutter regatta recently. He did really well, almost lasting till the end but his cousin ended up winning. 

 We carved pumpkins of course. Daniel got Cody's started and then Cody finished it. It's his first year doing the majority of it by himself.

 We spent Halloween night with the families on the block. It's a tradition of ours to spend the evening with the neighbors. We walked a lot further than last year. The kids were candy hungry. We had a good time.

 Since Grandma lives so close we ended the trick or treating at her house.

 My big event was our ward's annual craft night. Me and my sister planned the evening and the crafts. It was a busy night but it was fun to socialize with friends while teaching the crafts. We had a good turn out and the women seemed to have a lot of fun. 

We made it!

For the past few months Daniel has been testing to get a promotion at work. He passed all of his tests. The past 6 weeks Daniel has been in training for his promotion to be an Engineer (driving the engine and trucks and to use the pumps on the engine for fires). He was in training 9 hours a day driving at least 30-45 minutes away to the facility. So, needless to say, we only saw him for a few hours at night. We are use to seeing him on a 24 hour shift schedule (which we prefer) so it was a big change in our home. But Daniel passed his training with no problems and soon will be promoted. We are very proud of him and happy he's back on his normal schedule. 

As for Cody and I, we've been getting Cody back into the swing of being in school. He's not too happy to be back but he has an awesome teacher this year. I plan to go in and help when I can. I am also putting together a craft night at church for the women. I finally have all of the crafts planned out and on display. It should be a good time and the women really appreciate it.