HARVEY'S: January 2013

This New Years Eve was the best I have ever celebrated. It's the first time we have told Huntley such a holiday even existed. She didn't quite get the concept and called it "special day" and was really excited because it meant she got to eat treats and stay up late. In fact when we were making our time capsules the next morning she said "special day" was her favorite day of the year. It must have been pretty great to block out all the other fun things we did.

So what was so awesome about our special day. Dinner. It's not everyday you have everyone in the family pick one thing they really like and eat it all together. The meal was definitely special; nachos, French fries, crackers and cheese, mini marshmallows, and peaches.

After consuming such awesomeness we relaxed on the couch and watched movies until midnight eastern time and then off to bed went one happy little girl who just celebrated her first new year. As for Pais she was a little on the grouchy side and only made it until 8. I guess eating junk for dinner doesn't make her happy.

I blog all day long, every day, in my head. Everything we do I'm thinking about how I will write this story of our lives on the blog. Sometimes I take the pictures and imagine exactly how I'll have everything worded and formatted and how it will be so awesome that my kids will look back at our memories and think they had the best childhood in the whole wide world. In all actuality I pretty much stink when it comes to blogging from the computer and the only way I am good about blogging is if I do it from my phone at night where I have no control over where pictures or wording can go. It bothers me but then it actually gets recorded instead of a two week recap where I forgot all the great things I was going to write. Which is pretty sad since I forget what I was going to write about the picture below.

Isn't this great proof that my kids have the best childhood ever!

So for next year my goal is to continue blogging and to give up on the idea of having the blog in my head but being happy with the little thoughts I give from my phone. At least then it happens. Now on to Christmas.

Our Christmas was pretty great. Probably one of the best Christmas's ever. Every year I say that because it seems like every year my kids are just so much more fun. Huntley had the following face all morning long:

As for Pais the first thing she grabbed out of her stocking was a chocolate covered marshmallow snowman and she refused to put it down. She didn't open one present but wandered around the living room all morning with a death grip on her snowman.

This year we decided to try some new things. Each year has been an experiment for us to figure out what family traditions we want to have for our own family. Instead of doing the big family dinner thing we stayed at home and did our own thing. We played in the snow. Huntley, Chris, and I built a snowman while Paisley paced back and forth on the driveway watching us. I think she was scared of falling down and not being able to get up.

And since we didn't do the traditional family dinner our food was a little different than normal. This was probably Pais's favorite part. As long as food is involved she is happy. We started the day off with special Christmas donuts that Mrs. Clause sent with Santa and ended the day with Chinese food. The Chinese food was something Chris and I have wanted to do forever. We couldn't wait to have an experience like the Christmas Story where they chop a duck head off in front of you and sing Deck the Halls. In real life Chinese restaurants are crazy busy on Christmas and we had a 45 minute wait just to get take out, with no serenading. Not exactly what we had in mind but still a great way to end the day.

Now on to our Christmas Tree experience. Except for once my family has always cut down our own Christmas tree. The majority of the time we have went to my aunt's in Oak City and cut them down in the canyon behind her house. Unfortunately they all burned down this summer in a fire so we had to figure out something new. Chris talked to a couple of his hound buddies and we decided we'd go down to Spring City and find a new place to start cutting trees.

The morning of our adventure we loaded up the dogs and went hunting with them for a couple of hours before we got our tree permit. Chris was looking for animals and the girls and I were looking for the perfect tree. We found a few prospects, trees not cats, and then went into town to buy our permit. It's all down hill from there. I went into buy our permit and found out they had sold out the weekend before. Afterwards I spent the whole drive home searching the internet and making phone calls trying to find somewhere to cut a tree down. The only place I could find was Ferron, too far away, and BLM land, you had to cut a juniper. So I had to face the facts, Christmas was ruined.

After a few days of really taking the fact that Christmas was ruined to heart, Chris told me to knock it off and quit being the scrooge. I still didn't want to go to a tree lot so we went to a tree farm in Alpine where you can pick your own tree and cut it down. It wasn't at all the same as cutting it down in the mountains but somethings were better: not having to drag kids around a mountain, not getting stuck in several feet of snow, and actually being able to cut and decorate our tree in the same day. Although I do not plan on making this our new tradition. Next year I will go buy a permit the day they go on sale. If I'm going to have a crazy tree I want a day's worth of experience to go with it.