Merry Christmas to all...

I love the Christmas season! I love the the lights! (Those put up by others of course) I love the music! I love teaching my kids about giving and having them get excited to buy gifts to give away! I love the extra time with family! It makes me aware and ever grateful for the great circle of friends we have. I love the food. Mmm...fudge.... :) I love that so many people turn their focus to the Savior and His incredible life.

This year Christmas creeped up on us. Mike and I got home on the 16/17th and really only had a week to prepare. Sarah insisted on decorating before Thanksgiving, and I had most of the shopping done, but the week leading up to Christmas flew by.

Sarah is a holiday nut! She loves decorating and talking about the true meaning of Christmas. She liked to color and draw nativities and made sure her friends knew that Christmas wasn't about the gifts. She decided to make a Mary costume and wore it for a few days.

When we went to Midway a couple weeks before Christmas Sarah and her friend Lillian BOTH got to be Mary.

Here are a few more pictures from our trip to Midway. We had breakfast at the Homestead, where they had a Santa, and then made ginger bread houses.





Since Mike couldn't take any more time away from work my parents came to us for Christmas. Sarah and my mom are really close, so they insisted on sleeping in the same room together. On Christmas Eve we let the kids open their Christmas pjs, which is a tradition of ours.


We went to Mike's families annual Christmas Eve party at his grandparents in Bountiful. Mike's grandparents are two of the sweetest people I know.


Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, which I was thankful for. It makes it easy to have the day focus on the Savior when you get to attend church. We let the kids open their stockings in the morning before heading to church at nine. The kids tried to get Adam interested, but he isn't there yet. :)



After church we had Mike's family join us for opening gifts and brunch. We watched "The Nativity" to try and set the mood, but the kids just wanted to open presents.






I realized I skipped Thanksgiving, so I wanted to highlight some of our fun events leading up to Mike coming home:

I'm writing this post January 4th and the weather has been unusually warm. It's been ~50 for over a week. I do have evidence of snow though. The kids wanted to build a snow fort, so they watched me as I labored away. :) Then they threw snowballs at me behind their safe fortress.



For Thanksgiving we drove to Colorado to be with my side of the family. We stayed with my sister Ashley and loved our Isabel time.

My older sister Becky made an amazing Thanksgiving meal...
Sarah and her cousin Angelina were born only nine days apart, so we celebrated both of their birthdays. They had fun playing with their doll look-a-likes.

Welcome Home Lieutenant Starley!

On December 16th Mike graduated from the Academy of Military Science as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Air Force. After six weeks being yelled at, taught and conditioned to be a military officer he received his commission.

Adam and I flew in late Wednesday night along with Mike's parents. Mike greeted us at the airport and took us to the on base hotel. In the morning we (Adam and I) slept in and then took a short tour of Mike's dorms and campus before eating lunch on base. After lunch was the State Commissioning Ceremony where Mike was sworn in as an Officer in the Utah Air National Guard. Lieutenant Colonel Nate Nelson, from his Guard unit, gave him the oath.


Captain Chrystal was his flight commander during training. (His flight consisted of 16 officer candidates. There were multiple flights in the "Wing") She may be small, but she apparently has a loud yelling voice. :) She was very nice and spoke great things about Mike. Here she is pinning Mike's rank on him and standing with Mike and his roommate Brian Bachman.



Lynette and I also got to pretend to pin on his rank. You might notice that Lynette and I match so well in our pink tops and black pants. This was on purpose of course. ;)


In the evening we got to attend the awards banquet. It started out with an emotional video about serving in the military as well as a few talks. One of the officer candidates in Mike's flight is the son of Four Star General Raymond Johns, so he was there as a special guest. It made me very proud to be married to a man that is a part of something so important. It was a formal event, so we got to dress up.


On Friday morning we went to the federal commissioning ceremony where Mike was sworn in as an Officer with the Air Force, which made his commissioning complete. General Johns administered the oath to all of the officer candidates at the same time.



Then they walked on stage and received their commissioning certificate.




After the commissioning ceremony came the graduation parade. It was an impressive sight seeing them all marching in their dress blues.






Here are a couple pictures of most of the officers in Mike's "Flight".



And some family pictures :)




Before attending his graduation I didn't have a full appreciation for what it meant to be an Officer in the military. I saw it as a necessary step to being an Air Force pilot, but being an officer came second. After attending the commissioning ceremonies and banquet I finally understood what it meant and the importance of what he was doing. I'm grateful that he's going to be a pilot, but more importantly I'm incredibly proud that he has the opportunity to be an Officer.

Congratulations Mike!




*I didn't want to spoil the post writing about what went wrong, so I'm including it below. I was surprised at how many things could go wrong in a 48 hour period, but it was still a wonderful trip.

1. Blow out at 50,000 feet- I was careful to pack all of mine and Adam's things in a carry-on so we wouldn't have to deal with lost luggage. Our trip had three flights, and on the 2nd flight, from Denver to Texas, the overhead bins filled up and they made me check my luggage. Half way through the flight Adam has a down the leg blow out. YAY! Thankfully I had spare diapers in my smaller carry-on I'd kept, but no extra clothes. Adam was stuck in a diaper and sweater until Alabama.

2. Where's my luggage- After getting plenty of looks at my half naked child we finally arrived in Alabama and were greeted by my amazing and handsome husband. After waiting a while for my luggage we realized they'd lost it. Adam's car seat had also been lost. The airline lent us a car seat and we decided to make a midnight run to Wal Mart for some necessities to tied us over until the following afternoon when my luggage was supposed to arrive. We drive to Wal-Mart and...IT'S CLOSED! We drove to a Walgreens as well hoping for some baby clothes, but they didn't have any.

My luggage being lost had a couple of extra consequences. We were supposed to have breakfast early and tour the base, but instead had to go to Walmart in the morning. Adam didn't get to sleep until 2 AM because the hotel didn't have any cribs, so it was probably better we didn't wake up early. Although it's vanity, I had packed a couple of cute outfits and looked forward to dressing up for my husband that I hadn't seen in six weeks. Instead I got to wear dirty clothes, pull my hair back and go w/o make-up. Not a big deal, but a slight inconvenience.

My luggage was supposed to come in on a plane that arrived around 1 PM, but the plane was delayed...of course. It finally got delivered somewhere in the 3-4PM time range. Too late for any of the Thursday day activities. (Who wouldn't want to match their mother-in-law, right?)

3. Thirty minutes to banquet- I was almost done getting ready when Adam reached up and broke my new necklace. I didn't have a backup, so I spent a decent amount of time figuring out a way to rig it so it would work.

4. Ten minutes to banquet- Right before we were supposed to leave and drop Adam off at a babysitters he grabbed my curling iron that had accidentally been left too close to the counter. Three of his fingers got pretty burned and he was a sad little guy. There was no way we could take him to a sitter, so Mike's parents and I took turns hanging out in the foyer of the hotel outside the banquet. I missed some parts, including the delicious chocolate cake above my plate, ;) but it was still a great evening.

5. Lost Luggage...again- This really wasn't a big deal, but worth mentioning. Mike's luggage got lost on the way out to Mississippi, and on the way home. Mike used to work for United, so I think they might have put him on a "permanent mess with me" list) Inconvenient, but not a big deal.

I guess I'll go eat worms!

We wanted to do this craft around Halloween time, but time got away from us. I found the idea on Pinterest and given Steven's love of worms, had to try it. It's pretty easy to make and the kids all loved it.

This is what the worms look like. I didn't add enough green dye, or they might have looked a little more wormish.


We used Oreos for the "dirt", which made it an even healthier treat. I also discovered that cheap Oreo knock offs don't taste very good. :)


Steven and Malcolm loved the idea of eating worms


Sarah and Lillian also enjoyed saying "ewe" before every delicious bite. My niece was also visiting, but refused to eat them because of how they looked. Proof that they look somewhat real. :)

He's leaving...on a jet plane...

Yesterday we took Mike to the airport to start his six weeks of officer training at Maxwell Air Force base in Alabama. Although we've been anticipating this for two short years, it was still sad to see him go.


We wanted to do something special for the kids to lessen their sadness during the separation, so we took them to Build-a-Bear and had them each make a "Daddy" bear. Sarah named hers Daddy and Steven named his "Shooter Bear." Mike made a specialized recording for each of them and put them in the bears paws.


Because of some unforeseen time constraints we finished packing the night before at 10 PM. Bringing all of your personal belongings for a six week period adds up to a lot. Mike "allowed" me to pack his things so we could make sure it was all there. :) Here's most of what he brought-


Although we're going to miss him all day every day, I'm grateful he has this opportunity. It's taken a couple years for this to happen, but the timing has worked out perfectly for our family. (as perfect as having him gone can be ;)

12/2/11- Update:

Mike graduates two weeks from today (yay!) and the time has really flown by. Mike's first week was spent getting yelled at, but things have mellowed out quite a bit. He wasn't expecting it to be easy, so there haven't been too many surprises.

We've had a lot of good friends check in on us and when I say we're doing well, we really are. We miss him a lot, but it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. It's a lot like when he was earning his MBA, but I don't have to feed him, clean up after him or do his laundry. ;) In some ways it's almost easier than when he was in school, but not as easy when he's here. For the first three weeks we couldn't talk to him very often, but now we can talk to him every evening which makes things much easier.

The kids have taken it pretty well. Sarah has almost run out the battery in her build-a-bear playing his voice and talks about missing him a lot. She also likes to hug his car and wants to go clean it off in the morning. Steven misses him, but isn't as vocal. Must be a guy thing. Whenever Adam hears Mike's voice from his bear he cuddles up to it thumb in mouth. It's really cute.

Happy Halloween!

We love Halloween! I'm not a fan of the scary, dark side of Halloween, but I enjoy the costumes, creativity and candy corn. (I'm an addict so I only eat it in October and November)

Sarah is a Halloween Junkie! She picks out her costume a year in advance and spends all of September and October preparing for the main event. She loves the fantasy part of it and the scary stuff doesn't even phase her. (as far as I can tell) She decided we were going to do a "Tangled" theme this year. There is a lot of merchandise for little girls to be Rapunzel, but nothing really for her supporting cast. What did that mean? You guessed it, I got to make all of the costumes. Some of you might remember our "Little Mermaid" theme a couple years ago and know how that turned out.



Steven became obsessed with all of the scary decorations in our neighborhood. He would walk past them multiple times each day and just stare. He loved the skeletons and creepy stuff sticking out of the ground. When we went to Lagoon Frightmares we took him into the two least scary haunted houses and he loved them. When ppl would jump out he would just stare at them and say hi. I thought he had a really good understanding that it was all fake. I was wrong! A week before Halloween he came into our room crying that he was scared. It turns out that even though he's fascinated by it all, it frightens him. Especially the thought of werewolves. I had to start keeping him away from the decorations and haunted houses so he'd stop being scared. Steven was supposed to be a Stabbington Brother, but Mike wanted him to be able to choose and know his options, so he chose Anikan Skywalker.



Adam really liked skulls and would try and grab them whenever he saw them. He's look at them and say a "spooky" "ooooohhhh." We couldn't decide if Adam should be a chameleon or a Stabbington brother, but since I already had the fabric we settled on Stabbington brother.



Mike was of course Flynn Rider. I found a vest tutorial online and cut a lot of corners in making mine, but it still took a while. His wig was a "modern vampire" wig that I tamed with styling products and curlers. He looked Fantastic! I wish I'd taken some pictures just of him. :)



I was Mother Gothel of course. Always the villainess. :) I found my dress and wig on Amazon. I had trim the wig and fix the dress a little, but it was easy.


On Saturday morning we joined Lynette at her work for a trunk or treat.


In the evening we went to our wards Halloween party/ trunk or treat. All three of my kids are "dougnut on a string" masters. (they ....)




Sarah painted an airplane on Mike's cheek and Adam got a small airplane with some smudges. :)




On Halloween we went to Ann's annual Halloween party


On Tuesday Steven's school had their Halloween party, so we had three days of costume fun. Steven was tired of being Anakin, so he wore a spider man costume instead. :)





Happy Halloween!