Counting our Blessings

2011 has been a great year for our family. We made a few life changing decisions this year which have turned out to be major blessings. First of all we became homeowners! We closed on our house on January 7 and have loved having our own place. We have enjoyed decorating and landscaping and just doing our own thing because we can without worrying about landlords. The best part is, we are no longer just throwing our money away. We love our house and we love our neighborhood and ward. We also love living next door to my Grandma Morwood.

Second, we welcomed Colby into our family on March 4! Colby has been such a blessing in our home. He had a rough go at first but he is a healthy happy little boy now. We love having him and he is the sweetest most content kid I know. He is just happy to be here and watch everyone. He absolutely loves Emily and she loves him as well. Emily has gotten used to having another kid around really well. I was a little worried about that before Colby was born but Emily has been a really good helper and playmate with Colby.

In April, Russell applied for the St. George City Fire Academy. His dream has been to be a Fire Fighter Paramedic for quite a while. He earned his Paramedic license in 2010 and now decided it was time to go after the fire end of it. In April he participated in the Physical Test of the application process and passed with 2 or 3 minutes to spare. He was so happy. Then the waiting game started. The next step of the process was the Oral Board. Finally after almost 7 months of waiting, he got the letter from the city telling him when his Oral Board was scheduled for. For a few weeks, Russell studied and crammed and practised his interviewing skills with his friend from Paramedic school, Bill Winder. Bill was a great asset to have because he has sat in on Fire Oral Boards with St. George City and Clark County. He really helped Russell fine tune his answers. Finally just before Thanksgiving, Russell went in for his Oral Board. After the interview, Russell felt really good about the things he had said. Then the waiting began again. Right before Christmas, Russell received the letter in the mail stating that he had been accepted in to the St. George City Fire Academy!! He was so excited he was literally jumping for joy!!!! He read the letter at about 10 at night but that didn't stop him from calling every one he knew and telling them the great news. So Russell starts the Fire Academy on January 24 and will be a slave to them for 4 months. After which, he will be a volunteer fire fighter which has to potential of turning into a full-time position when one arises.

Another dream of Russell's was to work for an ambulance agency as a Paramedic. He currently works on the hospital's ambulance doing inter facility transports. He likes his job but wanted more 911 calls. After a whole bunch of political garbage, the DRMC transporters were finally allowed to work for Dixie Ambulance as well as the hospital ambulance. Russell jumped at that opportunity and applied at Dixie Ambulance. After another long waiting period, Russell was called in for an interview and on December 1, was hired on with Dixie Ambulance as a Paramedic. He is still in the probationary stage until he completes his orientation shifts and a practical exam but he loves it. Russell will still be working full-time at the hospital but can now also run as a medic on the side as a hobby.

As a hobby I started my own craft website/blog: Made In A Jiff by Tiff. It has been a lot more work than I thought it would be but it is fun to hear people talk about the things they see on the website. Eventually I would like to have the website make me some money but I am still trying to figure that out. So for all you that read this blog, check out my website too at madeinajiffbytiff.com and add it to your favorites and tell your friends. Hey maybe even click on a few ads so I can make some money!

Russell and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary together this year. I cannot believe how fast the time has flown by. I have enjoyed every minute of our 5 years together and can't wait for eternity.

In August we took a trip with my family up to Lagoon. It was so much fun. Emily loved every minute of it and is still talking about the fun trip to Lagoon. While up north we also checked out the sites at Temple Square as well as the Living Planet Aquarium. We also met up with my friend, Trista, and went to the Martin Harris Pageant in Clarkson. I loved being with the family and just relaxing and having fun.

This year was also big for my family because Jessica and Danny got married in September. Jess was such a beautiful bride and her wedding was so much fun. We had a blast dancing and singing and just having a good time. Emily loved the wedding and was so cute as a flower girl. She loved dancing with her cousins and her dad. She asks me all the time if Ca can get married again so she can go dance.

In October, my mom participated in the St. George Cotton Mission Wagon Train. She had a really good time. We joined her for the last day of the trek. We also had fun riding in the covered wagons dressed as the pioneers. Russell had fun because he actually got to ride one of the horses. He learned to ride a horse this year too when he took his Priests on three-day horse back riding camp out. Now he likes riding horses.

Finally we get to the holidays. As I look back at all of the things we have done this year, I realize how greatly blessed we have been. It seems that, for the most part, everything we have done has worked out for us. Don't get me wrong we do have our struggles but we have managed to get through them and it is not without the Lord's help. We are so grateful that we have the jobs we have, the home we live in, our health is good, we are happy, we have each other, and we have the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Come what may and love it because we are blessed. We have truly been blessed this year and are looking forward to this new year.

Handmade Gifts

Russell and I made a few homemade gifts for Christmas this year. Now that Christmas is over and everyone has received their gifts, I can post them with out ruining the secrets.

First I put together this Christ Book for Clay's family. We had their name this year. This book goes through Christ's life and especially birth. It gives a scripture, summary, song and picture for each day until Christmas. I also made a book for our family to read.

I also put together this Proclamation to the Family floating frame. I made one for us and I also made one for Clay's family. One side has a family picture and the other side is the Family Proclamation. These frames were pretty easy to make and they look really elegant on the wall too.

We gave Colby these taggy toys. He likes to chew on stuff so we thought these would be good for him. He doesn't really play with them though unfortunately but they are still cute.

On of the funnest gifts to make this year was this Money Tree for Clint. When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas he said he wanted us to pay off his truck! I told him "Well all right!" We decided this money tree would be a fun gift and something he could actually use. We used $25 in ones to decorated the tree. I also got a screaming deal on the tree so it only cost $3. I found a lot of cool ways to fold the dollar bills so that I could make some ornaments for the tree and the rest of the money I just rolled up and attached with ribbons. When Clint opened the gift, he said "Well I don't know about the tree but I love the ornaments!"

Above are a few gifts we made for Emily. She is going into Sunbeams this year in Primary so we decided she needed her own scriptures and scripture case. She loves her new church bag and having her own scriptures. Russell and I also wrote our testimonies inside her Book of Mormon.

All Emily wanted for Christmas was a jump rope and a mermaid so I made her this cute mermaid doll. She turned out cute but is kind of small. Emily was excited to get her for Christmas.

Emily loves playing dress up and loves watching me put on make up. She even asks me if she can have some of my make up on. I put it on her every once in a while and she walks around so proud like she is the most beautiful thing in the world. I knew she would love this pretend make up I made her. She is constantly putting it on and even puts it on her friends too.

Finally, Russell made Emily these fun lacing boards. She is always watching me sew and asking if she can help so we thought these boards would help her learn to sew as well as help her motor skills. She loves playing with them and is getting really good at "sewing."

Above are some gifts we made for Colby. First the jingle bell bracelet. Colby loves anything that he can shake and make noise so he loves this little bracelet.

Colby has completely out grown the baby hooded towels, okay he had out grown them like 6 months ago! Any way he needed a new hooded towel so we made him one. I went to ask my mom how to make the hooded towel and she told me she would make it if I would do somethings for her on the Internet. I figured that was a good trade so she actually made Colby's towel. He absolutely loves it. He is so excited to be wrapped up in a towel after a bath and actually be wrapped up and warm! Sorry Colby we are bad parents...

Finally I made Colby this cute Eddie doll. Colby doesn't even care for it but I think he turned out cute. I think boys need a doll too so they can learn to me nurturing just like girls. Maybe someday Colby will play with it...

I made Chelsie and Cassie these cute bags. They are pretty big bags that can be used for a purse, an overnight bag, or you can even put your school books or a laptop inside. I hope they like them and use them.

Finally, I also made this duffel bag for Tyler. He is going in to high school next year and is going to be on the football, wrestling, and baseball teams. Russell and I decided he could use a duffel bag to put all of is practise clothes and shoes in or use it when he goes on bus trips to out of town games. We also had the Snow Canyon mascot and his name embroidered on the bag so that everyone would know it was his. I really like how it turned out and I hope Tyler likes it too.

Well as you can see we have been busy but Christmas was totally worth it. Now on to the New Year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a really fun Christmas this year and we all got what we wanted or needed. It is so fun to have little kids because the magic of Christmas is still there in their faces. Emily was so excited to go see what Santa had brought that she had a hard time waiting for everyone. We woke the kids up at 8:00 so we would have time to play and get ready before it was time for church. We would not let Emily go in the front room until she had made her bed, we had made our bed and changed Colby's diaper. Then Dad had to turn on the Christmas tree lights and get the cameras ready. That was so hard for an excited 3 year old. The whole time I was changing Colby she kept saying "Come on Mom! I have to go see if Santa came." She even tried to sneak a peek before we were ready but we caught her. Then, finally, we all went in together. Emily was ecstatic! She ran right over to her new toys and started screaming "Look, look!!" Emily and Colby both loved Christmas this year and Emily loved opening hers and Colby's presents.

Colby and Emily got what they asked Santa for. Colby got his truck well he got a Little People bus which is close enough. Emily got her jump rope and mermaid doll and she was so excited. Here are a few pictures of all of the kids' loot:

Emily loves drawing with her easel and the art smock protects her clothes. Her favorite gift I think is her dress up box full of princess dresses. We also got some new movies like the Lion King, Cars 2, Pirates 4 and Captain America. Colby loved his new toys too. I think his favorite was his drum and other percussion instruments. He loves making "music" with them. Emily has also claimed the drum as her own because she likes making music too! My brother told me that every boy needs a new tool for Christmas so Colby got his first tool on his first Christmas. He got a little hammer that giggles when it is hit. He loves it.

Russell and I also got a wheat grinder and apple peeler for our food storage. Russell got a sander and an inverter. I got some new clothes and a Yoga ball. I am going to learn some new exercises on the ball.

After playing for a while we decided we better have breakfast and get ready for church. We had our traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham, orange rolls, and of course egg nog. Then it was time to get dressing in our new Christmas outfits. Because Christmas was on Sunday this year, we all got new church clothes:

Don't we look so styling? Colby definitely needed new church clothes because he has outgrown everything he has. I love how handsome he looks in his vest and tie. Russell also need new church pants because his other pants were from his mission like 7 years ago! And of course Emily and I couldn't be left out so we also got new dresses.

Now that we were ready to go, it was time to open the presents under the tree.

Here we got a few more fun gifts. Emily got her new scripture bag and her very own Book of Mormon to take to church. She will be a Sunbeam in Primary next year so Russell and I decided she needed her very own scriptures. She also got a dentist Barbie that we are hoping will encourage her to brush her teeth. She hates having then brushed and it is a fight every night. Russell also made Emily some lace boards so she can practise her sewing. She loves helping me sew so we thought this would be a fun little activity for her to do while I sew.

I gave Russell a radar detector for the car. If you will remember a few posts back, Russell ruined our lucky day by getting a speeding ticket. He is trying so hard to keep his driving record clean for the ambulance agencies. I figured this radar detector would help him with that as well as save us a lot of money in fines! He thought it was pretty cool and went right outside and installed it in the truck.

Russell got me an external hard drive for the computer. Now I will have a place to store all of my pictures because our computer is starting to get a little over loaded!

By this time Colby wasn't too excited about Christmas anymore. He loved rolling around and getting into everything he could because the ground was covered in toys. When we tried to get him to unwrap his gifts, however, he didn't want anything to do with it. He would much rather be playing on the floor than sitting on my lap being forced to rip some paper. It really interfered with his playing. So as you can see he was trying anything he could to get off my lap. He did love rolling under the tree and kicking the limbs though that was pretty fun. Finally he had had enough and crashed. He slept until we went to church at 1:00.

Church was really good too. The choir sang some Christmas hymns and the Primary sang also. I should have let Emily go up and sing with Primary as I played the piano because she had learned both of the songs. Instead sing sang the songs to Russell down in the pew along with the Primary. During Singing Time over the last couple weeks, the Nursery kids have been coming into Primary so that they can get used to coming for next year. Emily loves going into the "big" Primary and singing.

After church, we went home, had lunch, and then headed to everyone else's houses to see how their Christmas was. Our first stop was Russell's family. There we were given even more gifts:

Emily got these fun hair supplies to add to her dress up box. She loves brushing, curling and blowing her hair dry. I also gave her some pretend make up and she sits and primps all day. She loves dressing up and getting all pretty and done up.

Next we headed to my parent's house and met up with all of my siblings. More gifts were given here too. My parents gave Emily a beautiful wooden rocking chair and gave Colby a wooden barn and fence along with some horses. My mom said he was probably still a little young for the gift but he will love it when he gets older.

By this time it was almost 9:00 pm but we still had to got over to Clay's house to give them their gifts. We headed out to Ivins and got to see how the Morwood's Christmas was. Finally at 10:00 pm we decided we had better head home because Colby and Emily were getting so tired. It had been a really long day for both of them and they didn't get their naps. When we got home, we decided to go over to Grandma's house for a little while before turning in. After visiting for a few minutes, and having Taco Soup, my parents, Lacie's family, and Clint came over to our house to see our Christmas. Emily loved showing her cousins all of her fun new toys.

We finally got to go to bed at around midnight! Poor Russell had to go to work at 6:00 am the next morning. Emily, Colby and I were so tired that we didn't even get up until 10:00am the next morning. Well Colby and I got up then Emily slept until noon! We decided the day after Christmas was a pajama day so we just stayed in our pajamas and played with our new toys all day. It was great. What a great holiday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas this year. We began our Christmas festivities with a Christmas Eve dinner with the Farnsworth's.

We had the dinner at the Bloomington house where Traci is living now. She was a great host and the dinner of ham and funeral potatoes was very good. We were assigned to bring rolls so I made my mom's homemade dinner rolls for the first time. They turned out a little small but they were still tasty. We also brought the ever popular 7-layer bean dip and a very delicious candy cane pie made from this new candy cane flavored Jell-O pudding. During the dinner, I think we all got a little carried away with the Martinelli's Sparkling Cider:

Grandma Farnsworth was the funniest. She is a little wobbly anyway when she walks but now she had an excuse. She could blame the wobbliness on the drinks! I think this picture is so funny. I especially love how the books on the shelf behind her are LDS doctrinal books like The Holy Bible, each volume of Journal of Discourses, and we can't forget the big one, Mormon Doctrine! Cheers Grandma!!

After a ton of laughs, we played some games. Then we finally settled down enough to read the Nativity story in Luke 2 as well as "The Living Christ." It is amazing what Christ has done for us and what a great time to celebrate His birth and life.

When we got home, it was time to get ready for Santa. Emily was actually excited about Santa this year. Last year she wouldn't even go to bed for fear he would come. The first thing we did was sprinkle oats on our front lawn for the Reindeer:

Next we wrote our letter to Santa. All season Emily has been asking for two things: a jump rope and a mermaid. That is what she put in her letter. We asked Emily what Colby wanted for Christmas and she told us he wanted a truck so that is what Colby put in his letter. Over the past few weeks I have also been asking Emily what Dad wants for Christmas and every time she tells me he wants a kick in the butt. I laugh every time she tells me that.

After writing our letter, we put it next to our cookies and milk for Santa and we also put out some carrots for the reindeer.

As a tradition, we open one present on Christmas Eve and it is always new pajamas. So here we are in our new Christmas PJ's. I was a little lazy this year and just bought the pajamas. The pajamas, however, were only $3 and I couldn't make them for that much. Besides that, Emily loved her Rapunzel pj's and Russell got a kick out of his Angry Birds pants.

Finally we were off to bed in hopes that St. Nick would soon be there. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Best Friends

I am so glad that Emily and Colby are best friends. The other day we went grocery shopping and when we went to get Emily and Colby out of the car, this is what we found:

Both of them had fallen asleep on the way as they were holding hands. They were even sharing the blanket. It was so precious, Russell and I didn't want to wake them up to go in the store. I definitely need to frame this for both of them.

A Week of Christmas Parties

Last week was a week full of Christmas parties. We had a Christmas party every night. They all started Tuesday the 13th with my work party. Instead of going to Las Vegas this year, my company just stayed in town and had dinner and a white elephant party. It was different than past years but I thought it was still a lot of fun. We had dinner at Bloomington Country Club. The white elephant gifts were really good. Russell and I chose second and got a good gift of a popcorn tub and theater sized candy. I wanted to keep it but of course Hans stole it from us and then Jeff stole it from Hans making it no longer able to be traded. Then we got a $10 gift card to Wal-Mart which also got stolen from us. Finally we got the gag gift of the party... A Gas Powered Razor! It was the gift Jeff brought and he had duct taped a funnel to some tubing and then to a razor and included a can of refried beans. It was so funny we had to keep it. Everyone was laughing so hard. Russell and I had a great time.

The next day, Wednesday, was Russell's work Christmas party. This party was held at the St. George Leisure Services building. It was catered by Texas Roadhouse (SO GOOD!!!). They also had a white elephant exchange at the end of the party and we came home with a cozy Christmas blanket. Also at the party Eric Dodge sang, which I wasn't too excited about but it turned out to not be so bad. There were a few songs he had people do line dances to.

He even got all of the ER doctors up there dancing in front of us. It was so funny to watch but they were all good sports about it. This party was fun as well.


Thursday was the Dixie Ambulance Christmas party but we decided not to go to this. Instead we went to Tyler's jazz band concert. Tyler did really well in the concert. Afterward, we all went out for ice cream shakes at Arctic Circle. I love the Christmas flavors of the shakes. Russell got Egg Nog and I got Candy Cane. Yum!


Friday was another Christmas party. This one was with my family. We started this Christmas party tradition last year and it was fun to do it again this year. This year the theme was Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Chad was the official winner with the ugliest sweater:

While at this party we played Christmas pictionary and I made a few videos on Jib Jab with our heads. The videos were so funny. The best was seeing my dad's head dancing around to Feliz Navidad. I wish I could figure out how to download the videos to a disc so I watch them on something other than the Internet. Also if I can figure it out I will post them on the blog. They are great. After the games and eating soup, we started the white elephant exchange. With so many people, it turned to noise quite fast but we are all used to it because that is what our family does. For one of our gifts, we gave the Gas Powered Razor I got at my work party except we added Dynamite Hot Chili to it as well. When that gift was opened, I could not contain myself and just started busting up. It was so funny. Chad ended up with that great gift...Perfect!

Finally Saturday was our final Christmas party of the week. This one was our annual Morwood party with my extended family. We hold this at Santa Clara Elementary. This year was really fun because we did a few Minute to Win It games:

First my dad, and uncles Don Lynn, Chad and Rick had to hold a string with a pom pom on the end in their mouth and wipe it up and have it stick to their nose. First they lathered up their nose with Vaseline so that the pom pom would stick. The whole thing was so funny I am glad I got it on video. Finally right before the buzzer, my dad and Don Lynn got the pom pom to stick. The next stunt was to get an Oreo cookie from the top of your head to your mouth without touching it. My 93 year old grandma, cousin Shawna, and uncle Dennis tried this stunt out. Grandma was the funniest to watch because she kept trying to whip her cookie off her head and catch it in her mouth but it never worked. Dennis almost got it a few times before the cookie fell on the floor. No one was able to complete this challenge in time but the whole room was laughing so hard.

After the Minute to Win It, all of the kids participated in acting out the Nativity while my aunt Sally read the story. Emily was a beautiful angel. She was excited to be up on stage with all of her new found cousins and friends.

Finally, the main event of the evening was a visit from SANTA! Emily was not too sure about Santa. She knew she needed to go up and talk to him to get her present but she wanted me to go with her for moral support. When she got up there she did not want to sit on his lap but she would stand next to him to get her present and that was it. She was much happier to walk away from him instead of toward him. She told Santa she wanted a jump rope and a mermaid for Christmas. When she opened her present however, it was not either one! She was kind of mad until she realized it was a Strawberry Shortcake and then it was an okay gift.

Colby was asleep when his name was called but I still made him sit on Santa's lap for a picture:

I am kind of glad he didn't wake up right when I placed him on Santa's lap because he probably wound have freaked out and been traumatized for life! Any way when he did wake up, we had him open his present and he was so excited for his cars.
Santa even got Uncle Yoddy up on his lap even though Clint thought he was way too old.

And that concluded our week of Christmas parties. There are only 5 more days until Christmas. I can't believe how fast it has come. Merry Christmas everyone!

Gingerbread Houses

Making a Gingerbread House this year was a really fun Family Home Evening activity. We all had a blast decorating and eating the candy. We decorate a gingerbread house every year and this year Emily was even getting into it. I think this is one tradition we will continue through out the years.

Here is the "before" picture of the house. Of course they had to make silly faces. And here we are busy decorating:

Emily loved helping. She put all of the candies around the windows and helped me with the roof. I love Colby's face in this first picture. He was happy to "help" or watch too. Finally, here is our beautiful finished Gingerbread House:

We are really happy with how it turned out. I think it is cute. We even added 4 teddy graham bears to represent us in the front. I love it.

Another fun tradition we do every Christmas is go see the lights and Nativity Scene at the temple:

We love looking at all of the lights around the temple and Emily loves seeing Baby Jesus. We had planned a trip up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square and also see the Savior of the World pageant at the Conference Center earlier in December but our plans got changed about a week before we were supposed to leave. Russell has been wanting to get hired on with Dixie Ambulance as a Paramedic ever since he got his Paramedic last year. He finally got a job interview right before Thanksgiving and right after Thanksgiving he found out he got the job. We were really excited about this but the orientation was on the exact days we had planned to go to Salt Lake and the pageant. We decided we had better take the job and go to orientation instead of going up north even though the tickets to the pageant we non-refundable. We decided this was the best so instead of seeing the lights at Temple Square, we are enjoying the lights at the St. George Temple which are just as good. We were able to sell the tickets to Russell's cousin so we weren't out too much. Russell is liking his job so far even though he has only worked three shifts so far. We are really grateful to have a job and able to support ourselves especially in this time of economic struggles. COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!!