Christmas is coming and Lara's getting FAT!

... with a baby that is.
But, I tell you what, the combination of being pregnant and surrounded by delicious food and attending lot's of Christmas parties is a bad combination. Not to mention the cold weather and lack of a gym pass does not give me much motivation to exercise as much as I did when I was pregnant with Caleb. But, as I keep telling myself, "oh well..." (I know, real self control and determination huh)

I turned the big 26! I am now closer to thirty than to twenty. Again, I say to myself, "oh well..." because there really is nothing I can do about that.

We have been enjoying this season with the snow, fun decorations, and our traditional gingerbread house decorating which this year went quite well because I made a point to tell Adam that we have to plan it out and work together as opposed to just throwing whatever on top. The key really was he glued the sides together and I did most of the decorating while he watched Caleb and ate the candy!
But, the best part of this Christmas season has definitely been the music. I have been lucky enough to attend the best two local Christmas concerts available: the BYU Choral Christmas Concert and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert which this year featured the King Singers, of whom I am a big fan.


The two best numbers without a doubt were "Oh Holy Night," an arrangement by the incredibly talented Mack Wilburg and I believe it is a new arrangement done just for this years concert. It had just the men from the choir singing along with the King Singers, mainly a tenor soloist. It was absolutely wonderful.

The second was by a fairly new composer, at least one I have never heard of. He is only a few years older than me, and obviously extremely talented. His name is Dan Forrest and the combined BYU choirs and orchestra sang his song, "Carol of Joy." As I read the words and listened, I could not keep myself from crying I was so moved. He has a recording of "Carol of Joy" posted here. It was recorded with just piano and choir at Carnegie Hall, I believe. I really look forward to the recording of the BYU choirs with the orchestral arraignment. The words are also posted on Suzanne's blog. I encourage all to take a look and a listen.

Encouraged to blog for missionary purposes

It has been confirmed to me that blogging can be a good thing! I mean, I thoroughly enjoy reading about other people's lives, but as I have expressed before I don't feel absolutely comfortable with posting my personal life completely online for the whole world to potentially see, even though I realize that most likely, only those who already know me are going to be coming to visit. However, recently, Elder Ballard, an apostle for the church, encouraged us (the internet savvy) to use these forums as a place to talk about the church. What a novel idea! I mean, who can count the numberless sites full of misinformation and anti-church propaganda that people probably stumble upon and read everyday. I loved this quote in his most recent General Conference address.

"I would hope that those who know very little about the Church would seek to learn more about us. I would hope they would get to know our members rather than judging us by the misinformation given by those who do not know and in some cases by those who would deliberately mislead or defame."

As I have been following the current presidential election campaigns, I of course have been very keen to hear what people say about Mitt Romney and his religion. I am not surprised to hear the bad, but I have been shocked at how many people have such bogus information about the church and how they cling to it as doctrine without the slightest ounce of open mindedness to other possible truths.

Thus, as you may have noticed, I have added a little sidebar containing links to church websites, including the Kiev, Ukraine mission website, which is where I served my mission.

Here is my awsome companion Sis. Oyuerden from Mongolia talking to a local vendor in Kiev about the Book of Mormon. The next is me and my companion, Sis. Cook, with a wonderful member of the church, Anna at her chastnie dom (meaning she had her own free standing house and yard, which was rare in Kiev).



Now, this does not mean that my blog is becoming completely church oriented. I still have lots of other things to post about. I just wanted to let you all know why I have attached the church related links and to maybe encourage others out there to start a dialog on their own blogs about the church. Because, I know that many of you out there are much better at this than I am.

Happy First Birthday Caleb!

Caleb turned the big "1" last Tuesday. As far as we can tell, the mile stone has had no serious affect on him. He doesn't even really seem to notice. He has just the last two days started saying "no no" but it's more to himself. He'll say it when he gets into the kitchen cupboard that he knows he's not supposed to get into.

We celebrated as a small family Tuesday morning with a nice breakfast of pancakes and party hats. Caleb opened one of his presents from us which he thoroughly enjoyed. The were small balls with fun toys in side like a rattle and a disco ball. He liked ripping of the wrapping paper. Here is Caleb with his crown party hat enjoying his birthday breakfast.





On Saturday we had an extended family birthday party, mainly to have Adam's family down to Provo. They all live up in Davis County and haven't seen where we live yet, so we thought it was a good excuse to have eleven people drive an hour and a half. It was really fun though. We played pin the "Y" on the mountain in honor of the BYU football game earlier that afternoon and had pizza and cake. Caleb's cake was in the shape of a "1" with little blue footballs all over it. We all had fun watching him eat it exactly how he wanted to, all messy with his hands as can be seen in the pictures.





He got sick of it because the frosting and cake were so thick on his hands and he couldn't get it off, so he gave up on the cake in order to have his hands washed.

Adam and the Goliath Stump

Ok, it really wasn't that big but it was such an exciting event to get that stump out of the garden. It had been this giant, overgrown, spider-infested, bush that we chopped down about a month after we moved in. Now, one month later, Adam got the gumption and the time one Saturday morning to spend about four hours and single handedly chop the stump out. What a man! Now we can plant our tulips in our nice and organized garden.

Adam, conquering the stump.

He kept referring to it as "the bloody stump of a stump" like on the office when Michael burns his foot.

It was pretty deep.

Caleb tried to help, but he just kept patting the shovel instead of trying to pick it up and help move some dirt.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some of our festive Halloween pictures.

Carving pumpkins.

We were a princess guarded by the fire breathing dragon who is defeated by the brave prince charming.

From left to right: Caleb (dragon), Adam (prince charming), Lara (princess), Jane (octopus), Maren (lamb), Jessie (Mom), Amy (white trash hiker).

Fall Fun

Caleb recently had surgery on his cheek to remove a small cyst that was growing since he was about 6 months old. It was very minor surgery except that he had to be completely anesthetized up at Primary Children's Hospital. He is too young for them to numb the cheek locally and remove it at a regular dermatologist's office. I held his hand while they gave him gas. That was really sad, but it only took about twenty five minutes and he hasn't been in much pain at all. He had the stitches removed a few days ago and the worst part about this whole ordeal was the nurse removing the band-aid. Caleb did not like that. Here are some pictures. You can see that his left side is a little droopy right after the surgery because it's still numb.






We have also been enjoying the fall season. Caleb has been out in the yard a lot playing in the leaves. We also went to a corn maze/pumpkin farm and had fun with Caleb's cousins. Fall is such a great time of year.

Various fun pictures of Caleb playing in the front yard.



















































Here are some pictures from the corn maze. One is Caleb and his cousin Camden and one is a family shot.

Adam, Caleb, and Grandma Mills going down a hay slide.

Adam keeping Caleb warm in the corn maze.

Beach and Blogging

Ok. I'm finally giving in and doing a blog. I apologize in advance if I do not update it enough. I just can't imagine that our family's life is really that interesting to most people out there.

The most recent thing I would like to post is our trip to California. It was super fun. Caleb had a good time hanging out with his cousins and learning how to associate with other people his size. Lara had fun shopping, reading, and playing with Caleb on the beach and Adam had fun body boarding. There was something for everyone.


Here is the place where we stayed, top floor overlooking the beach.
















I thought this was a funny little fisherman, had to snap a pic.


The family all together.















Caleb and Maren at the mall.












Jane and Grandpa