Christmas Card 2008

It's Christmas time, so time for the annual Christmas greeting.
I was going to try and make this rhyme, but my head hurts, so here's what ya get....

Stephen's got a new calling in the Stake Young Men's. He's home on Wednesday nights, sometimes, but gone on Sundays, so Korbi gets to take the kids to church by herself a lot. Yep, kids, there's 2 now. Paisley joined us on April 3rd and is the sweetest and cutest baby that you will ever meet. I can say that because I am her mom, but as I am typing this she is mad that I set her down, so I may have change my mind on the sweet part, but she's still pretty darn cute! Beck was in my Spanish 3/4's preschool class, but just recently I kicked him out. We started out with low numbers, so he was coming with me, but now the class has grown uncontrollably, so a child hanging on your leg crying, "Mommy," the whole time doesn't work very well. He actually did okay for an unpotty trained 2 1/2 year old. :) He is busy learning new paragraphs of words to string together and until recently one of his favorite things to say was, "get out of my room right now mom!" (even though we weren't ever really in his room) He loves his cousins and playing with his Lightning McQueen Cars and these little animals that I had when I was growing up. Paisley is very spoiled and as I mentioned before, very cute. She wants to eat what everyone else is eating and is currently trying to push up and get on her knees to start to crawl. She is 8 months old and mostly all smiles. Stephen is working hard still being a financial planner. He loves working with his dad, brothers, and brother-in-law (his mom too!) He still travels quite a bit with work, driving all the time. He went on his annual Harley ride with his brothers and a few friends in September down through southern Utah. I am still teaching my Spanish ¾ preschool class and started doing payroll in May and a little of the books down at the gymnastics center that my sister and I own (me a very small part) Hopefully I am on my way out of doing the payroll, it’s just not my cup of tea and I was only supposed to be doing it for a short time. I am also the new Activity Day Girls leader of the 8 and 9 year olds at church and those girls keep me on my toes. I started sewing and have been pretty crazy with it along with teaching myself how to knit and quilt. Put that with my obsessive picture taking and blogging and I keep pretty busy with a bunch of little hobbies.
We were able to go on a family trip to Mexico in May right after Paisley was born which was a headache to get Paisley’s passport because she was only 4 weeks old when we left. But we had lots of fun once we got there. It was hot and humid and very beautiful. Beck didn’t like the ocean too much, but thought the sand was great and he loved the pool that was at our Hotel. In July we went on another family trip through Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon. In Wyoming we went to a Sims Family Reunion on a ranch, the Sims are Stephen’s dad’s Uncle Dick and Aunt Charlsie. Beck had his first camp out there and loved it along with the horses and of course, many cousins. After Wyoming we drove all the way to Oregon for the Beck’s Christmas in July where we stayed in some tree houses, yes, tree houses! We had lots of fun and lots of memories.
Make sure to catch up or keep up with us at our blog:
http://ashtonfamily-sarakorbi.blogspot.com/
Thanks for everything everyone always does for us and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Catch up

What can I say? I've been busy. I have been slow on my posting, and definitely slow on my picture taking. The posts that I have done are half thought of and uncommitted, so here's my post for the last little bit of our lives....
This is what happened to Beck like 2 weeks ago. He was trying to jump on Paisley's Jump-a-Roo toy and totally biffed it and cut his lip. By the amount of blood that I first saw I though, "stitches," but then I got him cleaned up and it kind of just bubbled up and looked nasty. By morning it was looking so much better.
Last weekend I went shopping in Spokane with sister-in-laws, Tiffanni, Mary, and my mother-in-law, Ann, to shop for Christmas presents and spend some time together. This was my attempt at a girl's weekend because the brothers take a Harley ride every summer for a week, not to mention the weekend rides that they take. I am not against the rides at all, Stephen has lots of fun and tries to get me to come along some of the times, but it's hard with kids and nursing babies, can't really strap 'em to a bike can ya? So I put together this weekend a while back and hopefully next year more of the sis in laws can come. But anyways before I left I was bound and determined to get up my Christmas decorations and get a tree. This was the day that Beck was sick, so I waited until Stephen was home and borrowed a neighbor's truck, (thanks Dallas and Jessica!) and headed to town to pick out my tree. I cam back with this beauty and was so excited and started ripping open bins and tubs to get my decorations. Beck helped me get the tree straight and tighten the tree stand. This was at about 7 PM and by 3 AM I had everything up and decorated. All my nativities were set up and lights on. Yeah! I could now pack for Spokane...
This was actually the ONLY picture that I took while in Spokane. We shopped seriously from 9AM to 10PM. We arrived Thursday night around 7 PM and went and saw the movie Australia with Nicole Kidman, GREAT SHOW! I was so loving it and excited that I had seen 2 good movies in a row! Twilight and now Australia. Seriously good flick. Then we got to the hotel and crashed and shopped for 2 more days then headed home Saturday night. I got home about 5:30, unpacked then Kortni and I took our Department Heads at AIM out to dinner at Michaels on the Lake. We had a fun time laughing and talking, then we had to race home because my niece, Alizah, had fallen over the banister while with a sitter and long story and 2 days later has a fractured skull, a nasty black eye, and a broken wrist! Yikes! We love her oh so very much and pray that she gets better soon! She is home and just has to be very careful! No fist fights or gymnastics for her for a month! I am still trying to catch up on wrapping presents and am now in the process of stuffing a bunch of envelopes for Stephen's clients, but Paisley fell asleep, so I decided to come and take a break and do a big ol' post. Today at school was our last day before the winter break and Santa Claus came to visit! The kids loved it and Santa did a great job. So here's to a busy December and hopefully me and everyone else taking the time to slow down and smell the pine needles!

Giveaways!

Check out the giveaway button on the side for some cool giveaways!

My first FINISHED quilt

Here are some pictures of the quilt that I made for my twin sister's baby girl to be. (due April 1st) I am so excited to see pictures of her cuddled up in it. I was quite proud of myself. My friend, Kellee, AKA quilter extraordinaire, made me take the binding off that I had done and just sew around the edges to give it a frayed look to match the flower in the middle. I have to admit that it was a good suggestion and plus the binding I had done looked like poop.

Beck

Beck started throwing up last night, so we stayed home today, I got Jasimne to teach for me and we have had a low key morning and early afternoon, me trying to catch up on projects and Beck drifting in and out of sleep. Here's a conversation we just had;
Beck: " I love you the very more mom."
Me: "I love you the very more too, Beck"
Beck: "For my birfday I am going to be 7."
Me: "well, actually you will be 3."
Beck: "no, I want to be 7."
Me: "ok."
Then while I was copying a picture of Santa Claus onto a word document....
Beck: "Mom, who is that?"
Me: "Santa Claus."
Beck: "no, that's a snowy guy."

Going Home

We are on our way home from the good ol' town of Burley and after a few days of running into old friends, chatting with relatives, rearranging parts of my parent's home, standing in line at Wal-Mart at 4 in the morning, a tour of my grandpa Beck's and Grandma Mimi's (different sides of the family) old college, and constantly worrying about the list that I have been compiling over and over again in my head of things that need to be done when I get home, we are on our way back to the land of Moses Lake. Traveling in the car with Stephen reading his usual magazine while driving and both my babies sleeping I am taking this time to once again fret over the things that need to get done when I get home. :)
we had a fun time with family and worked in a few chores while at it. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious as usual, at Grandma Mimi's house, but once again missing a main ingredient of Papa Doodle. My uncle Al (owns a good Pizza Shoppe in Burley, seriously best pizza ever and I'm not just saying that, I actually crave it) was making fun of my little brother about this big watch that he was wearing and he said, "yeah, you're like Doodle!" and I thought that was the best compliment I had heard from him in a long time. (He's a pretty sarcastic guy :) I don't like not having Papa Doodle sitting in his chair. We were also missing Tim and Debbie and family, Kortni, Jakobi didn't come until way later and Brit and her family as well. So for the actual dinner family was quite sparse, but we had some good conversation and just sat and looked at "black friday" ads. Stephen had a great idea on Friday to take my Grandpa Beck and tour the old Albion College where he went to school in 1929-31. My Grandma Mimi also attended school there, but she was not able to go out there with us. It was fun to wheel grandpa around the old grounds and walk into the buildings and hear his stories. They have renovated one of the buildings and it is really nice, but the rest are really run down and actually quite dangerous with rotting floors and spray painted hallways. There are not working lights, but we grabbed a flash light and took grandpa into the old gym. He told us that he worked as the janitor for that building and the women's dean would always get him in trouble by running her finger along the floor and showing all the dust he missed. There was a pile of the old floor boards in a corner and I grabbed some and hope to make him a frame with his graduation picture in it. My Gpa Beck had surgery on his cataracts and can see a lot better now. Beck (who is named after Grandpa Beck) went up to him in his wheel chair and just kept saying, "hi, Grandpa," and holding his hand. Talk about tear jerker. Grandpa actually called the next day and wanted to talk to Beck, but he was napping. he told me to tell him that he had "made his day." Watching my Grandpa like that is hard. He's 98 and yes, still kicking, but when our Papa Doodle passed away, it was a shocker to me and I wasn't ready, so I hate to leave and think of how that could be that last time.... My dad and Uncle go and stay with him back and forth, and I am not there to see him change to his ups and downs on a daily basis, so I can only imagine how my family there watches it happen.
Okay, enough of a depresser. :) My nephews are all getting big, Broxton, who is a month older than Pais, has been crawling and now walking along furniture, daredevil of a guy! My parents got a big ol plasma TV that my sister, Jakobi wrestled out of some people's hands at wal-Mart and I had a crazy experience tracking down the $30 Leapster that I wanted to get Beck for his birthday. I walked right past them in the mad rush and then found one, bought it and it was the wrong one ($70, newer version) so i took it back and while in line found another one, the right one, in the return cart, but was ringing up wrong because it was not the "blitz" item, so I left disappointed, but had to return because I lost my phone, left it at the customer service counter, and decided to talk the manager into giving me the non "blitz" leapster for the "blitz" price because it was the same one and I over heard them saying that they had honored it to other customers, so in the end I did get that silly Leapster! (hand held electronic game) Holiday was good, I love to see my family and I ran into some old friends, I got to go shopping! whoo hoo! and Paisley didn't have any teeth come in, so I am counting it as a success. :)
Wal-Mart Black Friday shopping!