December 2015

 December brought with it another roller coaster of activities and emotions.  And yet again,  I somehow managed to survive them all.  I will begin with the drama of losing my nanny.  I have been a working mother for 21 years.  I have always had a job the entire time I have had children.  And every month....  month after month....  a way has been provided for me to be able to do both.  I am very proud of the fact that I have never put my children in day care.  I am paralyzed by fear when it comes to day care (you can also add play groups, joy school, preschool and the nursery at church).  I am a germ-a-phobic freak.  Especially when it comes to my children.  So, I have never, nor will I EVER put my kids in an environment where they are surrounded by other children and their sick germy bodies until the state FORCES me to.  One Sunday Raleigh tried to sneak Walt in the nursery and he received a verbal thrashing that he will never forget.... and he never made that mistake again.

Anywho....

I lost my nanny.  She gave me 24 hours notice before she vacated the family and went on to live new and unmentionable adventures.  And I don't need to say more than that.  Luckily for me,  I had 10 days of vacation saved up and so I took a week off to figure things out.  And literally had the time of my life.  I cleaned every corner of my house and enjoyed every minute with my kids.  And it sparked a new desire in me.  I am on a mission.  And...... by golly, I will succeed.  This working full time business needs to not be for me anymore.   2016 is the "year of the mom".  Made easier by the fact that we will be down THREE kids in one year.   Plans to downsize our home and downsize our bills and downsize our stress level are in the works.  Wish me luck.  It will be really strange.  But it will be a very good strange.  And I am ready for good change.

 Probably one of the greatest parts of my week off was snuggling with these joys in the mornings.  I have missed it.  My spirit needed it.  I love them.  I am so glad that they are in my life.  They make everything better.  They are such good kids, so well behaved, so self entertained. 

 The second week of the month my dad also saved my professional life by

becoming Mary Poppins.

He is the world's best babysitter.

The kids were up and dressed at the crack of dawn.

He took them to the park.

He took them to McDonalds for Happy Meals with toys every day.

Needless to say, it was mentioned to me (and not so subtlety) (and on several occasions too) what a monumental disappointment I was as a child care provider after his week was over.

I didn't ride scooters with them.

No park.

And I made them eat what we had in our cupboard.
~Ummmm.....  yeah.....  but you could eat off the bathroom floor during my week
doesn't that count for something??~

Some of us are just over achievers.....

The next event was the opportunity that our ward had to be in the live nativity at Tuachan. 

Raleigh signed up to be a "Buff Soldier" and he got to ride a real horse.
I was in Sunday School on the 5th Sunday and Raleigh wasn't there because he was in with the Young Men and I was sitting with my pals and their husbands and one of the husband's pointed out to me that MY HUSBAND signed up to be a "buff soldier" and I don't know why, but it struck us all so funny and we all got the giggles so bad in the chapel and they probably almost kicked us out because we were acting like teenagers.
So every time I look at this picture, I get the giggles thinking of him carefully selecting and contemplating which character he felt he most resembled. 

He took his role very seriously.
 I am not sure about the Buff Soldiers in Jesus' day wearing University of Utah sweatshirts under their chest plates though

The next night was my office party.

We went to Rattlin-D Playhouse.

We had THE BEST prime rib I have ever had in my whole life.  And I have had a lot of prime rib, so I consider myself quite qualified to judge.  I am trying to figure out how I can get the recipe by some illegal means because I bet they'd never just give it to me because I asked for it.

I can NOT say enough about the food.  It was SO good.

The show that followed was HYSTERICAL!  We laughed so hard.

They called several of us up on stage "to participate" whether we wanted to or not.

Here is my boss, dressed up as "Dominick the Donkey"
Apropos.....

The next day my work friends and I  had to attend a "Fair Housing Seminar" as part of our certification for work.  It was at the community college down in Mesquite.  It was quite possibly the dirtiest place I have ever been to.  The table was filthy and luckily I had some wet wipes in my purse and I used every single one (and there were 50 of them)  and all they did was push the filth and vomit, or whatever it was around on the table and make it wet and more gross.    I maybe got a serious disease there.

And then we drove home all together in Justin's SUV and I "volunteered" to sit in the back, like an idiot. 

And we drove home through the gorge

And I got SO carsick.  Like massively carsick.

I came home and had to lay by the fire for 2 hours just trying to calm things down.

And nearly all of my daughters were worried about me and sat nearby and talked to me and played with my hair.  And took photos of me in my weakened condition....

The next event was our annual family picture attempt.

I already reported on these, but here are a few more

 This little elf is the greatest poser of any 5 year old I have ever known.

She made me put make up on her. 

She is absolutely darling

Don't pay any attention to my legs and how my knees hyperextend backwards like a flamingo.  I don't realize how awful it looks until I see it in pictures.  I forget to tell myself not to stand like this until it's too late.  I have at least one thousand pictures of me standing screwy with my deformed legs over my lifetime. 

 This little coat was Allie's when she was 6 and I loved it then.

I have kept it in Peyton's closet all these years waiting for her to grow big enough to wear it.

I love it.  I am so glad it finally fits this cute red riding hood. 

 The look on Morgan's face here sums up the feeling at all of our family photos

I may or may not be squeezing her arm really hard while telling her to shape up
And she may or may not have obeyed me.

 Every year I love this boy more than the last.
And last year I thought I couldn't love him more, but I was sure wrong.

He is the Love of my Life. 

I am so blessed to get to be his wife.

 Here are the cute newlyweds

The skinniest couple in the world

 Morgan really is a joy to me

I enjoy her company and I love that she includes me in every

square inch of her life.  There isn't much that goes on in her every day that I am not involved in.

That's pretty fun for me.  She lives a pretty great life that I am proud to be a part of.

One day last month, Morgan curled Allie's hair and put some make up on her and it wakened a sleeping giant....  And she has discovered mascara and clothes and she fills in her eyebrows now and likes to look pretty.  It's been a fun transformation to watch.  Quincey's recent departure freed up the back bedroom and Allie moved right in.  I am so happy for her to have her own room and she is taking perfect care of it.  It is such a delight to go back there and visit.  It is always perfectly clean.  I think the previous tenant kept it clean one day the entire time she lived here.   It's so weird to see the carpet when I go in there.  I forgot it even had carpet.  

What a cute little boy Walt is turning out to be.
He is still a stinker...  but man he is smart and spunky

It was my total plan to post a ton of pictures of the Royal Purple Bowl

in our cute rival clothes.  But, throughout the entire stupid day,  I only took 2 pictures.

This one of Raleigh watching the basketball game where the Utes beat Duke.  He didn't sit down for the last 20 minutes.  I couldn't find one reason to take a picture during that football game being that it was ridiculous and embarrassing.

It actually turned out to be a pretty okay game as long as you don't talk about the first 7 minutes.....  before our quarterback figured out his team was wearing BLUE and he should throw the ball to those guys....

The next event was Raleigh's work party

It was a great night with a great company.

It's so fun to be a part of a company that is growing so fast it's making heads spin.

I have loved watching Raleigh climb the ladder.   He is truly in his element.  I love that his talents are appreciated and recognized.   I am also so proud of him and how hard he works.

I love that all but like 2 people are members of the church and that is the environment he gets to be in every day.  It is the greatest feeling as a wife to know that her husband likes what he does and is really good at it too.

 Raleigh looks so cute in this picture 

We were so happy this night because we got to go on a real date at a fancy restaurant and then we saw Star Wars and stayed the night in a cute little lodge up in Zion's.  Our first night alone since New York.  And it was really nice.  I wish that I could say that we slept in and enjoyed a morning without children, but NOPE....  we were up literally with the sun and in the car on our way back in to town,  so that we could finish up our Christmas Shopping.

Here is our Sunday before Christmas Photo.

Allie took it because she was sick and didn't want to be in it. 

She had a solo part in her choir concert, which she nailed, even though her throat was so sore.

Then the next day, it hit her hard and she never got out of bed.  I kept going in to make sure she was still breathing.  I told her to stay home from church, so she didn't infect everyone in the ward.  

Whatever you do kids, don't you dare smile.

 Ryker completely zonked out during Sacrament Meeting as he does from time to time.
Today he was OUT!!  And I was sweaty and my arm almost fell off holding him.

PS....  I am SO bummed that we have stupid 9:00 church in the new year and that we will have to become inactive.  We very nearly had perfect attendance at the 1:00 time.  I hate 9:00 church.  I was praying for a miracle (like for instance, the entire church would do away with 9:00 times worldwide or maybe we could go to online churching), but I guess we will just have to MOVE... to the 11:00 neighborhood

Christmas Eve came way faster than anticipated.

I was kind of more ready this year than in years past and what I mean by that is I didn't have an anxiety attack like I usually do at 3:00 on the 24th.  The only thing I had left to purchase was a skinny tie for Brayden, which he requested and I was happy to oblige since on this very day, he was offered a new job at America First Credit Union following an interview that a friend of mine (who works at the bank) said was "very impressive" and this mother wept tears of joy over the monumental leaps and bounds her boy has made this past year in his grown up life.  Last year, he could hardly order a pizza and this year he is "very impressing" bank managers.  I told him that this was my second most proud day, the first being the day he was married in the temple, of course.   He was floating on air, he was so excited.  I thoroughly enjoyed being with him and his cute wife (who incidentally solicited our help as a family) by begging us to help her to get rid of his "giraffe" shirt that is bringing shame to their marriage.  It was so funny.  She made him show us the picture of it and we quickly agreed, it needed to go and FAST.

Dinner at Outback minus the Hydes who were with Russ' Family

for dinner.  They joined us later for dessert. 

We were watching LDS.ORG videos on Christmas Eve

They were mesmerized

~Christmas Day~

This is the ONLY photo I took of our Christmas morning extravaganza.

I was having so much fun watching everyone open their gifts,  I forgot to snap some memories. 

We had SO MUCH trash.  It took us an hour to clean up the mess. 

We kept our PJs on and zipped over to Papa and Nana's house for brunch

and stayed well into almost dinner time.  It was so fun to be together.

Kori and her new "easy to put on" sweater.

Here is Morgan with Kami's new addition to their family

He is full grown and very tiny

Poor Allie....  she woke up at 6:00 am on Christmas morning and had the silly thought that we were all going to get up and open presents at that ridiculous hour.  She started sending me texts letting me know that she was awake and so I should be too.  Well, she was VERY wrong.  And I suppose she must have laid in her bed for a few hours because the next time I looked at my watch, it was 9:00ish.   And I started to make an attempt to wake up the rest of the kids, who may have slept in until noon if I would have let them.

She was pooped and fell asleep right after breakfast in Kori's chair.

We were SO sick of our little kids stealing our phones to play their games.
They will come in and steal my phone from the charger in the middle of the night and then fall asleep with it in their rooms.  I will faintly hear my 6:00 am alarm from across the house and I have to follow the sound of the alarm to find out where my phone with 9% battery life is.

So, we bought all of them $35 Kindles and downloaded every game there is and set a new rule that if our phones are touched, they"ll lose a hand.   It's working well so far.


December 29th was Ryker's 4th birthday.
He is always such a good sport, considering we not only don't have any more money to buy gifts, but we also have no desire to buy gifts on this day.  He was supposed to be born on January 19th, but he came all early.  Buddy, your birthday would have been so much more lucrative in January....  What was your rush?
I do want to point out, mostly to myself, that I have successfully survived the very last round of the TERRIBLE THREE's.  I will never have to go through them again.   I have 4 inches of dried up fallopian tubes in a plastic jar on my shelf ensuring that.  And I'm not going to lie....  it feels pretty good.  3 year olds are not nice people.  He's so happy to be 4.  He thinks he can do things now...  like be on the counter to get his own food out of the microwave without help.  And stay outside past dark.

Don't worry about me letting them play soccer in the house.   I figure the tree needs to come down eventually anyway, if they knock it down it will force the process to speed up a bit.   He's a great left footed kicker and she's quite the goalie.  Every time she blocks one of their goals, they throw themselves down on the floor and cry.  It's been a long evening for the parentals.

Allie was invited to go skiing with her friend Kennedi.  Kennedi's dad offered to teach both of them how to ski.  That's brave.  They sure looked cute and she had the best time.

I am quite possibly the happiest person in the world that I got to take New Year's Eve off allowing me to have a 4 day weekend.  I vowed to make the most of it, by planning multiple events to make the days seem longer.  Only, I am not that creative of a person when it comes to conjuring up with fun plans for holiday weekends.   Raleigh and my dad went golfing and I did all the laundry and washed our bedding.  And then mom and dad very kindly volunteered to babysit so we could go to dinner and bowling with Kami, the birthday girl and Brent.

We used our WhiteTrash Bowling Names
And here is proof that Misty (that's me) beat her husband, Kyle
That's a first.  And most definitely a last.  That will never happen again.

 I liked my shoes a lot

And then

On the first day of every year, we do the same tradition.
We start off at the Dillard's Clearance Sale.  It is a madhouse.  We walk in together, but don't see each other again until we meet up in line to make our purchases.  It's Raleigh's most favorite sale.  He isn't phased by the crowds.... he is just so excited about the amazing deals he has found.

Then we meet the rest of the adult family members at Sakura for lunch.
This year I ordered correctly, since I've blown it the past two years in a row.
I even caught the shrimp this day.  I never catch the shrimp.  Because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.  Either you don't catch it and feel foolish or you catch it and HAVE TO EAT IT.....  YUCK!!!!

 I'm not even kidding....  every year on this day, I pause to reflect how blessed and lucky I am to get to be married to him.  I really hit the jackpot with him.  I am the most happily married girl on the earth.  He truly is the Love of my Life.  And I am so grateful that I found him and that he loves me.

I sure do love these girls.  And I am grateful for all the blessings of healing and miracles that we have felt this year.  Looking forward to more progress and strength this year ahead.





Kaci's 2016 New Year's Resolution:
I am going to try and have a more positive outlook on things and stop forecasting "what will probably happen" and try not to worry about problems until they are really problems.

Case in Point:
That one time I got released from my calling that I was really good at and thoroughly enjoyed and the counselor that was firing me said "we don't have a new calling for you right now,  but we will very soon."  And then the very next week the other counselor called me to come over to the church and meet with him and I didn't go because he is the counselor over the Primary and I JUST CAN'T DO PRIMARY.  I've done Primary.  10 years, I've done Primary.  I have been the nursery leader, Sunbeam teacher, Star A teacher (back when they were Stars), CTR 8 and 11 teacher,  Secretary, 2nd counselor and 1st counselor.   And never in my decade of service to the organization, have I ever caught the vision.  It's just not for me.  And it's not one of those things where "if you just serve with all of your  heart, might, mind and strength....  you will catch the vision either.   I am simply not good with children.  I am barely good with my own children...  why would I be good with other people's children?   Little kids scare me and bother me and make me insane.  I'm good with the youth.  I am good with anything music.  I'd be a good program passer outer.   You know what I want to be??  I want to be the dude who gets up mid-Sacrament Meeting and stands in the back and counts the people.  I am such a good counter.  I would be so good at that job.

So... true to Kaci form,  I have spent the past TWO days crying on and off, but mostly on over this unknown, speculative calling.  And Raleigh says to me....  "Um my dear.....  I'd love to be compassionate to your distress, but the bottom line is YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE BLASTED CALLING IS YET....  YOU JUST THINK YOU KNOW.  AND YOU'VE GOT YOURSELF ALL WORKED UP OVER IT."

Yeah....  well.....  I'm going to try to stop doing that next year (speculate that a problem is a problem before it is a problem).  But today, it's still this year.  And so in this year, I will try and guess the calling that is about to be extended to me and I will manifest the appropriate emotions ahead of time...  if I want to, cuz I can.    That way when the man says the words to me....  "we'd like you to serve as the new "hum hum" teacher in the Primary."  I won't have a melt down and slit my throat with the nearest sharp object that I can get my hands on right in front of him.

I will have to report another day as to what the calling really ended up being
and how I dealt with it.

This was quite a year for our family.
We are closer
We are wiser
We are more grateful

Bring on 2016