Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Winter Wonderland

Have you ever had one of those days where you get up, spend a couple of hours getting you and your kids ready for family pictures, then when the time comes to load them all into the car you can't get the doors open because they have been frozen shut by the previous nights snow/rain/freezing temperature?

Not only were to doors to the car frozen shut, but the windshield was covered in an inch of solid ice. It took so much time to get everything defrosted that we missed our appointment to get the pictures done. Now, I don't mean to complain or anything but this is the fourth time we have had family pictures ruined in the last two months due to weather! And I wouldn't even be that upset about today's car fiasco except that I had taken the time to really get myself ready. Usually I put my hair in a pony tail, dab on some blush and swipe on some mascara. Rarely do I have the time these days to doll myself up the way I did PC (pre-children). I spent all that time making myself into the good looking girl I once was and it was all wasted on a day spent inside.

Yesterday when it started snowing I was super excited. After all I'm from Arizona, snow is still a novelty. Everything was covered in a pretty powdery snow, it covered up all of the grossness that is Jersey City. For a while it looks like we live in a snowy fairy land...until the snow turned to rain, and then the rain froze along with the snow and turned our car into an ice cube.

Huck Gets Blessed

When you live in Jersey City it's not unheard of to travel back to your hometown to have your baby blessed. When Haylie was born I asked Tom if we should wait until we visited Arizona and do it then. He said No. Tom said that you have your baby blessed in your ward, where you live. So we blessed Haylie in JC with no family in site. We were lucky enough to have some great friends to participate in the blessing, but still not the same.

This time around I didn't even ask to wait to bless Huck with family. But we were lucky enough to have some family around. Tom's mom, Charlotte, was here as was my good friend Jeff Depew.


We had a great time having Tom's Mom here. The kids loved her! Haylie cried when we dropped her off at the airport. Well, it was either that or she was really sad that her fruit snacks were gone. Huck was spoiled rotten while she was here. If I wasn't holding him, she was. Now he's back to normal life hanging out in his swing. It was really nice to have some family here, we rarely get visitors.

It was also fantastic to have Jeff help with the blessing. Jeff and I served our missions together in France. We served in the same small town of Beziers for over eight months. He is pretty close to family for me, Jeff was even a bridesman at my wedding. Talk about a good friend, he never even told anyone about that time Julie and I wet our pants from laughing at the beach on P-day.

Tom did a great job with the blessing! Huck was an angel the whole time and it couldn't have gone better. Huck was adorable in his blessing gown. It was the same gown Tom was blessed in over 29 years ago. Not to be outdone by his son, Tom looked pretty handsome too in his suit.