Heading to Wales

 We are leaving the big snowflakes...

 and accumulation...

 icy roads...

 and poor purple flowers trying to survive the snow...

for warm, sunny Wales.

Okay, so it won't be warm and sunny...well, maybe a bit sunny. But it will be a fun change of scenery.

Snowy Morning

It was so fun to wake up to snow this morning. It doesn't happen all that often (although it has this year lots more than last year) but it's nice when it does.

And Lucy took her baby for a walk in the snow. I love this little hat Lexie made for Lucy's baby. So sweet.

Measuring up

"Mom, can I stand on the thing that measures how big my feet are?"
She's the best.

Sam's Wedding

Today was Sam and Jason's wedding at the church. I ran and got some flowers and dropped them off first thing. Then we went and it was a nice wedding. Sang a song I'd never heard of before, but the music was very familiar, "Lord of the Dance."
After the wedding there was schloer in the RS room. There were so many people and lots of glass wine flutes. Poor Joseph accidentally knocked a small table covered with glasses and one fell, hit the wood on the floor and it broke. He was mortified. Felt so bad. Then I proceeded to knock over a pitcher of water with the glasses case we were filling to take to our house to wash after and spilled the water all over the envelopes. It was awesome. But amazingly, out of 196 glasses, we returned 195 unbroken. I'll call that a success.
After a quick clean up, we headed out to the Craiglands Hotel  for the dinner and the reception. The kids really loved the dancing there, particularly Lucy. She was so sad to leave the dance floor.

So once we got home, we put on some music and had a little dance party until it was way past bedtime. Lots of fun!

It was nice to see Joseph even join in at home. I tried teaching him the dance Erik and I would do at Stake Dances years ago...I'm forgetting a few beats. So I'll have to work on that one. But Joseph loved what I could remember. Sure do like these kiddos.

"Oh, Kitty Cat"

Lucy really loves cats right now. It's hilarious. Today I went and helped decorate for Sam's wedding at the church. I brought the little girls also, of course, and Lucy colored a picture, then used it as her music in the chapel to sing her "Ode to the kitty cat" and it was so sweet. She's a keeper.

Bridal Shower

Friday I attended my first "Hen Do" for Sam. We went to a yummy Vietnamese Bistro. It was so tasty. Maybe because we hadn't eaten real food for a few days over Christmas break and we had lots of snackage that having some real food was so good, but it was so good.

Then tonight I threw her a bridal shower (also called a Hen Do, i learned). It turned out alright.

Winter Sunrises

There is one wonderful thing about winter here, everyone getting to see the sunrise every morning. They are beautiful.

Pizza Night

Our family loves pizza. But pizza is really pricy to get out here (except at Croughton which has amazing pizza and it's so cheap, no idea why our base pizza is not that good-they even use the same boxes but definitely not the same recipe).  But Fridays have often turned into our pizza nights. Which we love. The kids especially love it when they get to make their own pizzas just how they like them. Tonight was one of those nights! I love this quick 7 minute dough recipe. It makes life really easy on a busy night to get yummy dinner on the table. May not always be the healthiest, but it sure is fun.

Student of the Month

Lexie got a new backpack for Christmas. It was very much needed. Today whilst cleaning up from Christmas and getting presents organized, we cleaned out her old backpack and got her new one all ready for school. At the bottom of her backpack we found this award. She was Student of the Month...in November. Hooray for Lexie. She does have straight A's and 3 A+s, so we'll let it slide that she forgot to tell us about it. She's a keeper! And she LOVES her new backpack-so do I. Hopefully it will last her a few years.

Reading Scriptures

How do you read your scriptures?

Eliza was so sweet reading them to Lucy. Good to start the year out as you mean it to go.