Well I turned the BIG 40!!!! And it was FABULOUS!!!!

So this is my big year of turning 40.  I thought that it would be worse - I have to admit it was kind of hard rolling off my tongue...F_O_U_R_T_Y!!!!!!  But Tom and my kids made it all worth waking up for.  My first gift was granted a week earlier - when they announced:  Due to the weather and power outages - our Pinewood Derby ( scheduled on my b-day)  will be postponed to the following week YEEHAW!!!  My second gift granted when after 10 days of being home with our children and 14 inches of snow and ice storms to boot,  and NO POWER for 29 hours with only smelly Salt City Candles for light, a refrigerator of spoiled food and school delays - Awe!!!!!! They all went back to school :)  Third gift  - Tanner asked me if he could take a nap???  Really can 40 be all that?????   Tom and the kids really out did themselves this year.  As I found out later, while I was teaching piano, Tom and the kids were decorating the bonus room - that I would not get to see until after dinner.  Our family then went to Dupont to dinner and had a great time.  When we got home the kids raced upstairs to take their place.  The door way was wrapped with wrapping paper so I could not see in.  When the time finally came, I broke through the paper, to a room filled with homemade coconut trees, a cake that had palm trees and flip flops on it, and the entire room smelled Tropical.  Then the GIFT  - a beautiful book all wrapped up and inside...................................A trip on HOLLAND AMERICA CRUISE LINE TO THE CARIBBEAN!!!!!!  My Dream for atleast the last 20 years.  We will start from Frt. Lauderdale Florida, and cruise to Grand Turk Turks and Caicos,San Juan Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, and end with Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.  My parents have agreed to watch our children for the 8 days we will be gone.  I am so excited - BUT I need to quit watching horror stories on You tube of cruising adventures.    Thanks for the great Birthday - hmmmm what should I do for Toms b-day in less than a month????? 

Some Highlights of December

We had a great December.  Ofcourse we had to (me) had to get the biggest tree our house could possibly fit

into our house...and yes it was so beautiful, loved turning on the lights, loved just looking at it even though every day I had to vacuum the spiders that were living in it, loved having other people see our tree UNTIL on December 13ish our FABULOUS tree fell over, spilling all the water on the floor and all I could hear was the crashing and breaking of the ornaments.  From that day on Tom had to put a piece of tape on the ceiling so I knew if the tree was going to fall again.  Luckily it did not, BUT I have decided to scale back next year and get a much MUCH smaller tree.

Another highlight was my piano studio Tchaikovsky Christmas recital:

 This year for our Ward Christmas Party, we had a night in Bethlehem, so I got this great idea to have our entire family in matching outfits, I do say they turned out well, even if I had to threaten Tyson with an inch of his life to smile for this picture:And ofcourse the most exciting is that we finished our 1000 piece puzzle we started Christmas afternoon, and finished at 11pm Christmas night - AND I even helped this year!!!!!