*Monday Memos*

*MONDAY MEMOS*

   

 (If pictures are too small, just click to enlarge) 
Weekly recap of my rather crazy, insane, but fun and rewarding life!
 

dear monday, I had planned on doing my 10 mile long run this morning, but HOLY HADES it was cold!  Single digits!  I opted to wait and do it on Tuesday and did Pilates instead! My piraformas always hurts all day after doing Pilates, but I am hoping that means it's getting stronger.   I had a busy morning trying to work on Christmas stuff and then I headed out to our Sista party at Carlas.

dear sista party, I am always so excited to go to our annual Christmas Sista party.  This year we were doing something extra fun - learning how to make professional looking caramel apples.  Lisa (aka Martha) taught Dawn how to do it and Dawn taught us! They turned out really cute too!  I want to make some when I find some time hopefully after Christmas! 

Our yummy apples!

My gingerbread "cake" house.

We also ate pizza and salad and everyone brought a treat.  I took my gingerbread house that I made out of my new awesome pans!  I decided to do some lattice work on them this time and I think they made them even more adorable.  Sadly, nobody wanted to eat it.  I also made the smaller ones and left them hoping someone would eat them.  We all took a small gift to fill each others stockings and we all got some fun things!  Patti brought us all a chocolate wand from Harry Potter-ville in Disney World.  I had no idea she had even gone to Disney World!  We got aprons from Chris and a homemade pillowcase that Carla and Bonzo made us.  We got chocolate and Pez dispensers and little coin bags.  I took chocolate covered cinnamon bears.  I would have taken a more elaborate gift if I had known that some of the others were going to.  Oh well, it was fun!  We had a blast taking pictures.  Sometimes the funnest part of the whole party is when we take pictures.  We like to be silly!  We had a inside joke going the whole time about a guy from high school named Randy who friended us all and he is a bit "off".  He was older than us, but we all knew him.  Everyone knew him because he had some special needs.  My sistas make me laugh. I do feel really bad Kathy missed it because she had her days mixed up.  She felt even worse!

Modeling what we received in our socks!  WOW!  We got some cool stuff!

FUN FUN FUN!

dear shop, shop, shopping!  I am running out of time!  After the Sista party I headed to return some things and to find some gifts.  I am really almost done and have been for weeks, but I still have our parents that are stumping me this year!  Ugh!  I also had to make a trip to Home Depot because we are in the middle of our bathroom mess.  I can't believe how such a small project has turned in to such a headache!  I can't even imagine if we were replacing the counters, flooring, and tile!  Which btw, I REALLY want to do!  Now to just convince Dave!  I got home after dark, but that's not saying much since it gets dark now at 5:00 pm.  

dear long run, I made it out on Tuesday morning to do my 10 miler.  Somehow I even survived.  It was tough!  The is the farthest I have run since the marathon.  I guess I can keep saying that now until I run Boston. Haha 

Lots of crunchy ice to step on!  Found a nickel!

So many gorgeous sights in winter

dear family newsletter poem, I came home and worked on the poem.  I got it all done but it needs some serious editing.  Dave was too busy working on the bathroom stuff to help edit it.  My goal is to get it printed by Wednesday but he is so busy I am not sure that will happen.  We both worked our tails off today trying to get a ton done.  We did get a lot done, but even without a break, we didn't get our list all checked off.  Things always take longer than expected! Especially the dang bathroom! He installed new hinges on the doors and they aren't working.  He spent a ton of time on the phone talking to Moen about the shower/tub fixtures because ours are unique in that bathroom.  I was so grateful he didn't have meetings tonight!  I needed his help!

dear sleeping in, Wednesday morning I actually slept past 5 a.m.!  I was so excited!  I woke up at 7:15 a.m.  It felt so good!  Yesterday I woke up at 4:30 and fell back to sleep at 6:30 until 7:45 and I felt like I had been hit by a mack truck.  I will not make that mistake again. I will just get up instead.  I wish I could just sleep until 7:00 each day. I would function so much better if I could.  

dear mr. cat, I caught him drinking from the Christmas tree water!  Hmmm....

dear i want a vacay, I didn't even go on a run on Wednesday because I had SO much to do and I am running out of time. I worked from sunrise until sunset and then kept going until midnight.  I got a lot done but I still have a lot to do.  Skyler and his girlfriend are coming tomorrow and besides trying to finish Christmas, I am also trying to finish the bathroom project (I spray painted the brass trim around the mirror today to match the faucets - that was fun! NOT!) and clean the house, finish shopping, finish the poem, mail the poem/newsletters, wrap, do neighbor gifts, do laundry, organize, buy groceries.   And on and on and on.  NEVER start a home improvement project during the holidays!  What I thought would be a couple of days project turned out to be two weeks!  And we aren't even doing that much.  Older and slower, I guess!  I know I will never get it all done even if I don't sleep, but I will keep working until I get close.  THIS IS WHY CHRISTMAS STRESSES ME OUT!  There is always SO much more to do on top of what you are already trying to do!  But by this time next week, it will be way over!  Whew!  Oh, and on top of it all, my vacuum broke today!  NOT GOOD TIMING!  Waaaa!

dear run, I was hoping to get in five miles on Thursday but I got out later than I hoped and I just went a few.  But even that felt good.  The weather was great!  It was in the high 20's and low 30's but actually felt nice.

dear bathroom, we were working on it until the last minute, but we managed to get it done.  Well, mostly.  We are still waiting for the tub and shower faucets to arrive.  I spray painted the brass mirror trim and thanks to Dave's amazing taping job, it turned out great.  Now to talk Dave into replacing the counter tops, flooring and tile!

dear sky arrival, they were supposed to arrive at 6:30 but due to a stop in Vegas to visit Julie and fam and then a massive snowstorm in Cedar City and dangerous roads, they didn't arrive until 1 a.m.  I guess we could have gone to the Anderson's Christmas party, but I used the time to get the poem done, go to the grocery store, make dinner, and get more gifts ready.  I had laid down in my chair and was drifting off but then heard them in Bryce's room (where Sarah and Carson were going to sleep) and I went in and Carson was wide awake with the biggest grin on his face!  He is a doll!  So cute!  Always smiling!  That grin didn't leave his face the entire time.  I met Sarah and she was really nice and Sky is so dang cute with Carson.   We chatted for quite a while and then Dave came up (he and Taylor had a Dr. Mario tourney and were both still wide awake).  We chatted more and then let them get some sleep.  

I made them a WELCOME basket full of fun stuff.  It put a smile on Carson's face that stayed the entire time I was talking to them.  Oh, he's a doll.  He loved his dog.

dear pitter patter of little feet, about 9 a.m. Carson came wandering down the hall and said, "Where's Sky?"  I told him he was downstairs in his bed.  I took him down and he opened his door and went in and jumped on him.  Sky cuddled him for a bit and then he came up with me and I fed Carson breakfast and had fun getting to know him.  He is such an adorable little thing!  We made breakfast for them and then got busy doing all the last minute Christmas things.

 He and Taylor became instant buds.  Taylor is so dang cute with little children.  They all love him.

This little guy already melts my heart!

dear poem, I got the poem miraculously done and mailed on Friday the 23rd!  I was glad Sky was here to edit it a bit because Dave didn't have time this year and it always needs a new pair of eyes, especially one that was written so quick. It wasn't up to the normal par or quality as most years, but done is better than perfect!  I didn't get it out as soon as I had hoped, but the bathroom project kind of interfered. Some will get it on Christmas Eve but most not until after Christmas!  Oh well, it was a relief to have it done!  Forgive the quality.  Not sure why it won't download clearer.

dear neighborhood gifts, we got some more awesome gifts.  The theme this year seems to be bread!  haha  We have been given three loaves so far. I am okay with that! 

Here is what we gave this year:

dear mom and dad visit, my parents stopped by to see Sky and to meet Sarah and Carson.  They are so cute with kids and Carson took right to my Mom.   He kept taking her to "jail".  It was hilarious.  

dear photos at floral shop, I told Sarah about the cute scene at our local floral shop that would be so cute for Christmas photos.  She was all for it and so my Mom and Dad also came and so they were in on some of the photos too.  It was a fun spontaneous little trip.  It's fun to see how good Sky is with Carson and how much Carson loves him.

My fave!

dear snowstorm, on Friday a storm started blowing in and we got a few inches of snow.  Carson and Sarah have never seen snow before and so they were VERY excited!  Taylor and Carson headed out to build a snowman.  A tiny one, but a snowman nonetheless.  It was cute.  Sarah was MORE than excited!!

 Taylor helped Carson build a snowman.  He was tiny, but so cute!  Carson's FIRST SNOWMAN!!!

Story time

 Look at that sweet face!!!

Having fun snuggling a little one again!

Pillow fight!

Our fridge died AGAIN and so Dave brought some pebble ice (MY FAVE!) from the clinic that someone brought!

dear last minute gifts, I waited to decide what to give our parents (besides the calendars and a few little things I had already got them) because I kept hoping something better would pop up rather than the gift card idea we had originally planned on but Sarah had some good ideas for how to give them and so I headed to Walmart (craziness!) to get the stuff and came home and she helped me make some cute snow globes for the gift cards.

MY CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY 2016 POSTS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

 

dear random,  when my friend Val brought over the nativities, she also brought me 50 rubles her brother said I could have!  How cool is that!  LOVE IT!

Some random pix I found of Taylor trying to find some for the newsletter.