May our joy be full!

What an amazing year!. After studying the law of attraction over the past few months I have become much more aware of my inner dialogue. I am constantly improving my positive self talk and I am excited to see what it will become by the end of the year 2007. Life seems to be handing me joy the more I see joy. The way I see life truly does have an affect on what I receive. I see good... I have more good. I see sadness... I have more sadness.

We have had an armful of what could be called challenges. Moving out of state with a four week old, trying to get a new business off the ground, trying to build a house that doesn't seem to want to be built, Ryan being called to serve as young men's president in our church, being asked to do what I once thought was the unbearably hard calling of music teacher in primary.

But on the contrary what a basketful of blessings. I was reading Leslie Householder's blog when I came across her November 29th post titled my favorite rejection. I had an amazing realization. We have been in need of a large sum of money to really start our house. Ryan and I have been assuming someone would loan it to us. The control was out of our hands, Right? As we were driving yesterday Ryan asked a new question, "How could we come up with the money ourselves?" Then an amazing money making idea came. It was like the flood gates opened and we couldn't stop it even if we tried. Idea after improving idea came. As I read Leslie's post I realized what a blessing it has been that we didn't have the money, otherwise we would not have had the necessity of coming up with a new idea.

Last Sunday I was to sing a wonderful song in church about the birth of the Savior. Well the whole week before I lost my voice and had a challenge even talking. My six year old daughter Sarah loves to sing as well. So when I tried to practice she would sing along. She had learned the song better then me. She decided to sing it for our extended family the night before I was to sing in church and what a wonderful job she did. Because of my lack of voice I had the thought come to me to let her sing with me. What a most wonderful blessing it was to sing this duet with my little girl. I have always had a dream of singing with my children. This dream was realized because I got sick. As we sat down the tears started flow from her eyes. She shared with me how grateful she was to sing testimony of Jesus on Christmas Eve. We truly can see what we think are misfortunes as the beginnings of tremendous blessings.

I also need to mention that being allowed to lead the little children in song has become a cherished event. I look forward to helping these little ones learn that they too can bare testimony to their God through song.

New Years funness!

Funness is not really a word but it sure does make me smile. We enjoyed a feast of snacks for dinner and then sat down to write 101 goals. Jared and Sarah are old enough now that we had them write goals with us. I was surprised how easy it was for me. It is a good sign that I now know what it is I want. You can't get what you want if you don't know what you want.

Sarah makes this funny face lately. We call it her old lady face. In our silly mood we all tried making it.

Yeah! Life is good!

Chapman's Christmas Exchange

With Ryan's family all of the married children do Christmas every other year at mom and dad's. Since this was an off year we had an exchange party. With 13 children (six married) 13 grandchildren, Grandma and Grandpa, plus a special treat of Great grandma and Grandpa. We had a delightful houseful. This is what big families are all about!

Aunt's, uncle's and cousins all in there.Some more of the crew.

For Christmas we got this picture blown up for Great Grandma and Grandpa. I no longer need to wonder where Joshua got his chin. What a wonderful looking couple they are.

And here they are today. We love them both so very much. Thank you for being such an example to all of us!

Aftermath

We have enjoyed the nice vacation from school and work. It has been so good for us. We have played together and laughed together. I cherish these moments!

Jared let me help him organize his Lego's for this amazing ship. I think he said that it had 53 pages to the how to book.

Sarah, EmmaLee, and I made jewelery one night. Thanks Allie for teaching me how!

Christmas Day

I really didn't take as many pics as i normally do because I wanted to simply enjoy the morning. We had them open one present at a time and it was so nice and mellow. As my Mom pointed out. You know your kids are not spoiled when they get excited over pants.

The kids thought dad took to long getting dressed. They were so excited to start the opening!

And here is the reason I buy the jammies, for these two pictures!

Calvin and Hobbies, is there a better gift?
Grandma and Grandpa got to be with us also. What a treat since they are leaving
for France in a few months!
Joshua enjoying toys of his very own. They didn't stay his for long. Joseph made sure of that.

"Setting up Jedi is hard work"
"I got Pant!" He was seriously excited over his pants!
Dress up Queen got even brand new outfits!

Santa hit it right on the nose with my little fairy princesses.

Joseph insisted I take a picture of his "Guys" he set up.

Christmas Eve

A tradition in our house is to let the kids open a pair of Jammies Christmas Eve. That way they look nice for pictures on christmas. Boy do I have cute kids!

JOshua is helping with some last minute wrapping.

Christmas At My House!

We were so blessed this year to have my family come to our house. I love having everyone over! I have not seen my brother Clark in a few years so I was glad he could come. We were so busy in the kitchen I forgot to take pictures. I am not sure why this was one of the two pictures I took. But I was glad I did. Look how cute it turned out!

Pictures with Santa

The kids and I drove over an hour away to get their picture taken with a rather real looking Santa. We also went to have lunch with an old high school friend, Shannon. It was so good to visit with her. It is amazing how two people can never see each other yet pick up right were we left off. We waited in line for almost an hour to see Santa so I took pictures while we waited.

Kids Christmas Party

The kids threw a party for their friends. We made gingerbread houses, played a few games, and made an ornament. We also asked the children to bring a new toy to give away to children who wouldn't have much for Christmas. We thought this way the kids could get in the spirit of giving. The toys ended up going to a branch in Mexico were the families are so pour they have dirt floors. Man are we blessed!

When they were playing this game the kids kept yelling,"The babies cheating!" Joseph kept "helping" both teams. It was so funny! The object was to get candy as much candy as you can into your bucket using only a spoon. Joseph kept taking the candy and filling the buckets. What the kids did not realize is that he was helping both teams relatively equal.

Joshua is 1/2 a year

6month milestones

*Joshua is now a real crawler. He still basically leaps forward and looks like a seal, he gets where ever he wants to go. He completely skipped army crawling. He is to big and strong for that.

*He weighs about 23 lbs and the last we checked he was 28 3/4 inches long.

*He has started to really jabber and every once in awhile it sounds like a real word.

*He can roll over both ways but prefers crawling.

* He had his first meal. He didn't like or dislike it. He was indifferent about the situation so I haven't really tried again. He does not really like the sippy cup so I am considering trying a bottle. Well see. I am not in a super big hurry.

*Joshua says Dadadad and bababa

Joshua did get to go with us to Universal Studios and I think he was so good. He is a little flirt and every where we go he demands smiles.Sponge Bob would not leave Joshua alone. At first it was funny then it was like, Ok, enough already!

Here he is getting ready to crawl. He looks like a bulldog when he crawls. We love it.

And here is that first meal. I was trying to feed him and take a picture at the same time so this is all I got. It's great!

Cute kid facts.

Joseph calls Christmas "prismas" He has almost single handedly redecorated my house. He has colored on my couch and walls. he has taken apart most of my Christmas decorations, with a little help from Emma. Basically the two of them have wonderfully curious minds.
Sarah is super aggressive in her Basketball. She will take down the players if needs be.
Jared's team is more serious. The parents get real into it. Jared is an awesome dribbler and great on the defense.

Emma is Five and alive

Emma was so fun on her birthday. She realized that she is now big and can do everything by herself. She refused to let anyone help her open her presents. She got a doll that had a hundred of those ties on them and she insisted on doing it all herself. After this experience I decided to let her decorate her own cake. She loved that. I layed the fondant on and she got to put on all the other stuff. She had a blast.

Cute things about Emma. She put on a Hawaiian dress she got from her Aunt Kaylee and she said, "Helloha" She is having a hard time understanding why she can't do what the bigger kids can do. She is learning to how to read and that has been fun for both of us. She has known all her letter and how to spell some words but she is finally understanding how to sound things out. She loves to look at books and I know she will be thrilled once she can read them. Most nights we go to tuck her in and she has fallen asleep with a book.

Emma was so thrilled to get a big girl bike.
Here is her masterpiece.She is blowing out her candle not trying to eat it/

She calls this hair do the Princess Lea hair.