Last week's snowstorm.

Well, Alia described last week as "one of the best weeks of her life" so you know that we had A LOT of fun in the snow. This snow storm made up for the lack we saw on our Christmas vacation to Utah (we saw maybe 2 snowflakes while staying there).

The girls daily routine was pretty much go outside in the morning and play until lunchtime. During lunch throw all your wet snow clothes in the dryer and head out as soon as they were dry to play until dinner. I kept them supplied with warm cups of hot chocolate, spiced rice milk and egg drop soup too.

Our next door neighbors (who our girls play with all the time) took our girls sledding along with their family on this big hill near our neighborhood two days in a row where they had so much fun.

We love snow!!!

Bath Time

These are for you mom...

Matt loves his bath toys!

California

After Christmas we traveled to the fair city of Martinez, California to spend some time with Aaron's brother and sister-in-law and their kids. We got to spend a day in San Francisco and then Sacramento as well. A big thanks to James and Chrystina for letting us stay with them. It was a great vacation - except for the one day Alia and I got some stomach bug and were sick in bed that whole day. Yuck! Chrystina was so nice and went and got some chicken noodle soup, ginger ale and saltines for us. Then Aaron and Chrystina took the all of the kids to the park so we could rest.

First stop - Jelly Belly factory tour. Lots of fun and lots of sugar.

Waiting in line for the tour.

All the cousins after the tour.

Next stop - San Francisco
Golden Gate Bridge
The Beach
Cable car ride

Last stop - Sacramento
Welcome home to Sister Ali Teerlink!
And a fun visit with Aaron's grandma and relatives.

Christmas 2011

Christmas was delightful and all the kids were excited about their gifts. Aaron loves the sliderule I gave him from his wishlist.

I'm so glad my phone will be protected from all the abuse I put it through.

I think these next three photos are so cute

Love the look on his face!

There are always delicious meals at my parents home. This was our Christmas dinner and it was good!
We know Matt loved the pillow he got for Christmas seeing as this is how he fell asleep one day for one of his naps...

Madelyn sewed the pillowcase and gave it to Matt for his birthday.

FaMiLy

I love my family!

I feel so blessed to have such fabulous relations. We enjoyed a lot of family time over the holidays and I loved every minute of it!
My girls absolutely love their cousins and all the fun things they do together. Even getting a little crazy at times.
And then of course, there's uncle Bob...
The first in-law to join our family...what a new dimension he added.

Creating things of beauty.

I love this quote by Dieter F. Uctdorf:

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before."

No more is this true for me than in the fall and winter. When the weather turns cold in the fall and the daylight is shorter, I find myself thinking about and getting involved in creative projects. These projects energize me and give me a sense of satisfaction when complete. This year I began a BIG project for my mom. For her Christmas present I wanted to make her a quilt for her bed. After looking for ideas online I came across a type of quiltmaking called Cathedral Window. I fell in love with the design and knew immediately that i had to try making one of these quilts. I learned a lot in the process of making this quilt and after over 150 hours it was complete.

I was happy to have my girls help me with the project by clipping threads, pinning squares together for me and laying out most of the colored squares.

I really like how it turned out.

Gingerbread

December had a lot of gingerbread decorating going on...