Ahh, the life

Upfront I'd like to say there aren't any pictures because I still haven't downloaded anything from my camera. But I decided to write down some boring thoughts. Boring because it's late and I can't feel creative on my limited sleep.

Zarina is loving the decorations that come with the holidays. We haven't had a chance to decorate our house as much as we usually do, but we put up a few lights outside and have a little tinsel tree in the front room. She loves driving around and looking at Christmas lights. Z has a great eye for spotting Santa and Snowmen. We went to The Festival of Trees at the Ely convention center and she loved looking at all of the Christmas trees. Every time we go into the True Value/V & S Variety store she gets excited to see the artificial trees on display and the Christmas blow-up decorations. Her excitement is awesome. I love her reactions to everything. Two-year-old energy and excitement is refreshing and energizing.

I've been working on some homemade Christmas gifts. My in-laws and grandpa are coming this afternoon (the 18th), so I have that deadline to put the finishing touches on a few items so I can send them back to Utah instead of paying for the mail. I also need to completely make my gifts for the Blake Family (my sister that we are exchanging gifts with this year). This week I was fortunate to get some help on finishing the 36 journals (composition books that were gussied up) for the Young Women at church. We're also giving them to the YW leaders, and a few extra for the girls that are turning 12 next year.

I love the snow, not so much driving in it. But after the roads clear up I love how pretty 8 inches of whiteness look on the lawn. It's nice to have the lights on the fence reflect on the snow.

I think I was made for cold weather, not so much the super freezing temps at night, but the low-teens during the day really don't bother me.

I love how much Zarina is talking. She's a regular chatterbox. She also love to sing. Mid-November we decided that "Jingle Bells" would be a great Christmas song to teach a 2 yr. old. She loves it and it has become the 1st song she requests when we sing to her before she goes to bed. And her prayers are great. Tonight she said, "Heaven Father, (mumbly jumbly) dad, (mumbly jumbly) daddy, (mumbly jumbly) thanks; and I gave her ideas on what else she could say, but somehow "I'm thankful for mom" became "dad."

A couple of nights ago (Tuesday I think) she did not want to go to bed. I tucked her in a few times, but she would get up. She decided to turn on her light to read a book. (Brien says her love of books comes from me. Lately we have walked in on her reading in her room quite often.) Anyways, it was 11:30pm, so I decided to make sure nothing was out for her to make a mess with, and I went to bed myself, leaving her awake in her room. It only took a minute for her to decide to turn off her light. I called out, "You going night-night?" Z said, "I go night-night." I then said, "I love you Zarina; see you in the morning." She just echoed back, "I love you mom." I love when she says she loves me. Usually I say it first, but last week she just came up to me and said she loved me as she gave me a hug. I need to record it so I can have a copy of how incredibly sweet she sounds.

I have a good life.