:: hope ::

Yesterday I was at my good friends house and she has a "hope" Christmas tree and it inspired to to have more hope towards life at the Christmas time of year. About 2 weeks ago I was laid off of my job at Henriksen/ Butler and now am back on the job search. This has been a rough year for me and employment. I have spent more months unemployed than employed and to some that may sound glorious but for me I am on the verge of loosing my sanity. I feel like a failure and that I can not help support my family. I am doing my best to try and find any form of work and trying not to be picky and I am still not having much success. The days are long and I am trying to keep myself motivated to have hope that everything will workout as long as I keep trying and doing my best.

my hope list for the day:

• being more hopeful about getting a good job
• keeping high hopes that Brady gets accepted into PT school
• hoping Brady's job continues going well
• hoping to be a better friend
• hoping to be a better wife and pay more attention to my sweet husband
• hoping to have good health
• hoping to be more productive daily
• hoping to cook dinner daily
• hoping to remember Christ daily and thank my father in heaven for all he does for me and my family
• hoping to be kinder and less judgmental
• hoping to start exercising daily again

Hope is a desire with an expectation of accomplishment!

:: weekend of firsts ::

Yesterday Brady and I decided to head down south to Las Vegas to finish up our Christmas shopping. We had a fun time spending all day with each other. It was also a day of many firsts.

Brady's first time shopping for 8 hours (mind you much of that time was spent getting lost and trying to find our way around Vegas). I must say thought Brady did VERY well for shopping for that many hours. He is such a good support to me :) I love you hunny.

Both of us made our first appearance in Bloomingdales - I was actually very disappointed with this store. We all know its supposed to be a very high class, expensive store but all of their furniture was falling apart, the wood was split, and scratched with the paint flaking off. I guess they don't know that the appearance of the showroom = people liking their products and wanting them in their home not showing us how poorly they really are.

It was also our first time in Neiman Marcus as well and yet again I was not thrilled by the store. I was searching the entire day for a new pair of black boots. Don't get me wrong I found hundreds of black boots at the 3 malls and DSW that we went to but nothing was hitting the spot for me. I for sure thought with such a wide variety of stores I would be able to find the perfect pair. 8 hours later I did finally find a pair I love and of all places that I found them it was Bakers.

It was also my first time ever stopping in Mesquite and my first time eating a whopper at Burger King in about 12 years.

Merry Christmas friends! Oh and we can't wait to see these lovely people in 13 days.

:: tis the season ::

Last night Brady and I were feeling the season of Christmas. We went to a Christmas concert at the tabernacle and it was so wonderful. I love listening to Christmas carols. It makes me wish I could sing...
Last night was my first time in the tabernacle and it was very nice. I did find the eye on the wall interesting... can you find the all seeing eye? Brady said it is God's eye - he sees everything.

Merry Christmas to all from the Wood's!! We love our HUGE tree and how it takes up half the living room. Ooops! I guess we went big and went home :)

:: Thanksgiving in Springville ::

We had such a fun time in Springville this year for Thanksgiving. We ate lots of yummy food, played tons of games, laughed a lot, danced, sang, cooked, talked to our hearts continent. We missed you Peter and Shellie and Kelsey and Anthony. We hope to see ya'll soon.

Nanna feeding Lyra her first roll at her first Thanksgiving. She loved it!

The Rabner family Thanksgiving dinner 2009

Happy Thanksgiving sweets I love you and I am so grateful for all of your hard work and all that you do to provide for our family. You always know how to make me smile and you are the best at knowing how to have fun and stay out of the drama. You rock my world!!

Liam and his friends, baby otoa, ducky blank, and bear.

I love my pappy! He is the best and take such good care of us. He is such a strong, faithful, hard working, family oriented, good man.

Lyra loves uncle Brady and he was so good with her. He will make a good daddy someday.

The pie monsters!

Liam and Nanna fell asleep while watching Harry Potter after a long fun Thanksgiving day.

Lyra was so cute just hanging out in her bed smiling and cooing away. She is such a happy fun baby to be around.

We love Julio and Natalie they are so much fun to play games with and to hang out with. We love Natalie and how well she fits in with our family.

The after math on the cook top after boiling apples for 8 hours. Yeah the clean up was not so much fun.

We had a great team to make 6 bushels of apple sauce = 8 hours of slaving away for yummy organic apple sauce for our food storage. Funny how cooking like that can be so tiring yet so fun when you are doing it with people you love. Thanks everyone for all of your hard work.

Liam was living the dream on Friday while we were making apple sauce all day. He got to stay in his dinosaur jammies all day long, play trains with his auntie and uncles, eat treats, and watch movies. What a lucky little guy.

Lyra bean is getting so big and so much fun to cuddle with. I love just holding her all day long. Oh how I can't wait to have one of my own someday. Don't you just love her little minny mouse dress?

My little Liam guy and I had so much fun playing all weekend long. He is my best friend and I miss hanging out with him everyday. We danced, played trains, cuddled and watched a movie, ate gold fish, and read bed time stories. Oh the life of a two year old. Love him!

Saturday morning it was so fun to get together with my Paris gals and Terry. Thanks for being our photographer Terry you always do such a good job. This was really sad saying good bye to these girls because all four of us live in different states and we are unsure when we will get to see each other again. This is the worst part of growing up... saying good bye to good friends. I love you girls!!