Christmas 2009

Christmas at home this year! I am so blessed to have had the family together this year!Christmas was spent caroling with friends, making egg rolls and watching movies with my family! LOVED IT! (It was really hard to get these pictures and these were the only pictures I was able to get!)
This year I made blankets for everyone. Well, Klaira made her's back at Thanksgiving and it gave me the idea to put one together for everyone so we could all be warm on Christmas morning. (Colton was being a stinker!)
Ok, lets try it again! Come on Colton! Mommy wants a nice picture! Oh well....
So this year has been big changes for Coqui. After 3 1/2 years of being married to Derek, she found that he was not the eternal companion that she needed him to be. She filed for divorce (it will be final next month) got a new place to live, a new job and now is finding out who she wants to be. She says that she is happy now!

Keana and AJ are living in Merced which is only an hour from us! AJ is now working for a lumber group, but he has a weird schedule. Kea is still looking for a job and has learned that it is hard to find a job in a college town. All the college kids have the jobs. They had to give up their animals to be able to live in the new apartment. This has been really hard on Kea since she really loves animals.

Colton doesn't like having his picture taken by me for some reason...Colton is a student at ITT focusing on Drafting and Design. He just got a job with U-haul and is really busy with friends and dirt bike riding. He has a really cute girl friend this year that we all like! (Yea Jody!)

Klaira is so incredibly busy with 2 choirs, drama, school and church! She is really looking forward to getting her drivers licence this year so she doesn't have to wait for me to pick her up for all her activities. She has found that she loves ATV's and can't wait to get back up to the Ranch in Idaho!

Silly Jeff! It is hard to get a picture of this guy without him crackin up! Jeff is unemployed! NOOOOO! Well, this has been a good and bad thing. I am LOVING having him home. He has been such a great support with everything that I have been busy with the past few weeks! The bad part is that no money is coming in! The good part is that he is doing some things that he has wanted to do but has not had the time. (Yep, he is finally taking flying lessons!!!!)

Sorry, no pictures of me...(Which is really ok with me since I am growing my hair out and look like a left over of the group Wilson Phillips!)

I am so busy with so many different things(work, wood signs, nursery, chasing Klair...) that I am thinking that it is time to start clearing off my plate. I want to take some classes this year, try some different things. I will just have to see what this new year brings.

We have been blessed to have been able to stay in the same house for 2 years now! Amazing! We love where we are and love the people in our lives! We are blessed with good friends and great family! We miss having family so far but love the updates we get in emails and facebook!

Ok...here is my serious face...

New Tree

For almost 20 years we have had a little tree that has had special meaning for us. Unfortunally that tree has started looking like a Charlie Brown tree. It is falling apart. It just wasn't feeling much like Christmas and I really did not feel like decorating. It took about 2 weeks of Jeff telling me it is time to get a new tree to convince me it was time to go shopping. After running back and forth between two stores looking at the selection, we finally found one we both agreed on. The only thing missing was the wonderful smell. We found a live wreath that smells like Christmas. We brought the tree and wreath home and started decorating the tree. It took me a bit of time since I am so use to decorating a two foot tall tree. This one is over 6 feet! Even then, I had it almost finished when we though something was missing. It just was not working. So I added other colors. Nope, still not right. Then another color. Ooops, now it looks like a patriotic tree. OK, take all the blue off! THATS IT! ( NO Colton, take the blue off! I understand that you love the blue ornaments but they don't work on this tree. Go put the blue ones on a little tree for your room.)
Then I felt like decorating the rest of the house. Now it feels like Christmas. I am looking forward to this week when we will have all of our kids home!

Past Few Days

So much has been going on that I thought it would just be easier to blog it all at one time.
Across the street from me is this house. I got a kick out of the fact that the polar bear has flowers blooming behind it. At night time their lights give off a soft glow that reflects to our yard. I will be sad when they take the lights down.

The other day we actually had fog. I love how it makes the trees look. It is interesting how people here can not drive in fog! I get frustrated getting behind people going 20 mph when you can see at least a half mile ahead of you.
Today in church we had our Christmas program and we had many visitors. We had 19 kids in nursery with 4 more popping in and out. It is fun to see just how much of a schedule these kids are use to when I changed it up today since classes were shortened so we could get out early for a ward social. We didn't have snack time since the ward was serving cinnamon rolls for the social. Several of the kids let me know that we were doing it wrong. We were missing snack! We finally were able to convince them that they would not miss snack, but that they were going to have snack with Mom and Dad today. What a great group of kids we had today! I love it! Yes, this is a picture of 18 kids ,ages 3 and under, sitting and coloring while we gave the lesson. Amazing!

This is one of my buds! He insisted on having me take his picture today and wanted to see it. I am going to miss having him in my class. Next week is the last week for several of my kids since at the beginning of the new year the 3 year olds will be moving up to the next class, the Sunbeams. About 7 of our kids will be moving up. They are such good helpers and have the BEST stories. (Not to mention, they CAN talk and I can understand them.) Our little ones that will be with us for another year to 2 years are just learning how to talk. I am so Thanful for the helpers that I have in nursery. I could never do this job without them. This many kids on my own? Makes me shiver just thinking about it. (I truely enjoy this calling, but go home every week so wiped!)

Open House Fun

This past week was a fun, exciting, time consuming, stressful, and more! Loved it! My friend Laura opened her house with a little boutique for several of us to bring and sell our crafts that we had been working on all year. One gals had home made glass beads that she had made and made it into beautiful jewelry. Another gal had made headbands for babies. Another one had candles that smelled soooo yummy! I had put together several fun new projects and most of them sold! Then Susie had an open house for just vinyl lettering. It was a crazy day! Susie got several orders off of her open house and so we are going to be busy for the next several weeks! Here are some of the our favorite projects!

Temple Square

For years I have been trying to get our family up to Temple Square to see the lights for Christmas. Lucky for me, we were in Utah for Gobble day! The day after Gobble day is the first day of turning on the lights! The weather was PERFECT. (Well, if it has to be winter time and cold, then this was perfect. The wind was not blowing, it was not below 0 and I didn't get too cold with all my layers...PERFECT) I so enjoyed my time with Klair and Jeff!

What a week!

We drove up to Idaho for Gobble week to stay at the Ranch. As we were driving from Salt Lake up, it started snowing. For Klaira, this was heaven! When we got to the Ranch it was covered in about 2 inches of snow.

Jeff had Klair up early to go feed horses and check the fence lines. When we say check the fence lines, it means to get on the wheelers and have some fun! It was 21* of cold in the mornings yet Klaira was always happy to be out, without a coat, driving fast on the wheelers. Yes, she found her happy place.

The first night we were there, Klair and I made some blankets.
As soon as I made mine, Jeff decided that he needed it. I guess I will have to go get some more stuff to make another one.
As with every Ranch, there is always work that needs to be done. We cleared out a field of cattails. I think Klair liked tending the fires the best, which I don't blame her. This was hard work for lazy city girls like ourselves.

After the hard work, Klair and Jeff rewarded themselves with a 3 hour ride up in the canyon on the wheelers.

The Ranch has a magic power over all who go there. It calms you and slows you down. It gives you an incrediable view with air that is crisp and clean to breath. Klair says we HAVE to go back next year. Yep, we all have found our happy place.