Honestly!

I have been nagging Jackson to finish ONE Faith in God goal to get his religious knot. For some reason it seemed like a mountain for him. He had to write a poem or a short story on a gospel principle. The more I nagged him the more upset he got and the more daunting the task seemed to him, I even tried writing the title for him. When I pray... No luck. So I dropped it. I figured if he wanted the religious knot bad enough he would do it, if not his fault. I didn't hear much for a week. When my kids go to bed it is no secret I like to mess around on the computer, one night I kept hearing them in and out of bed. I yelled (nicely, of course) for them to GO TO BED! I had just about had it and I really didn't want to go up there..it's like 15 stairs. When down floats this paper airplane. I ignore. As I get up to go to bed I notice it says "unfold" on both wings. I do and this is what it says..." Honesty ...
Honesty is warm, loving, and gentle. To me honesty means everything. Honesty is a great attribute to have. When you are honest you feel like you just did the right thing. When you lie all you feel is guilt. I truly hope always to be honest"

See- not that hard. He did a great job. Jack is a great kid and I have learned time and time again not to push him to hard. He knows what is right and by george he will do it if given the appropriate time and space.

Bye Bye Basketball

Whew! Basketball season is officially over. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy watching my boys play, but several months of two games each Saturday can get to anyone. The boys really enjoyed playing this year. This is an action shot of Jackson. He did really good this year. His team only lost one game.

Jackson made his own fashinon statement this year with his socks.

This was Bowen's first year, so Carter coached his team. It is getting harder for him to find the time to coach so it was fun for them both. Since it was the last game of the season we made giant basketball sugar cookies for each of the boys with their names on them. They loved them!

Bowen is right under the basket. He loves playing defense.

As a mom of three active boys I know I will have to resign myself to the fact that I will spend all of my evenings and Saturdays on the sidelines, but I don't mind.....I love concession food!

Christmas with the Cluff's

Here is a small sampling of what we did during December. We went to Tuachan to see Christmas in the Canyon. We saw Santa and got hot chocolate before the show.
We made the kids pose for our make believe Christmas card.




The traditional decorating of the Gingerbread house.

Pie plus.......
Pajamas = Pie and Pajama night. This is one of our very favorite traditions! We have been known to do it more than once during November and December.
Jackson was in Dallas at the Cowboy's game so he missed it. He was not happy.




This is Christmas Eve. This is a picture of our kids pretending to be interested in our Christmas program, but really wondering if I was going to let them open a present before bed.
Carter reading the Nativity.
Christmas morning our older kids crept downstairs and ruined the initial Christmas surprise. I yelled for them to high tail it back up the stairs and the above picture is what happened instead.





Christmas Night at our good friends house. The Mayfields make us feel like we are one of their own. We love their family and are grateful they took pity on us on Christmas.
Notice all the men doing the dishes. I had to catch it on film.

We spent the next week up at my moms house. We got to visit with Carter's mom and dad. We saw my cousin Gary get married, I hung out with my sisters, we got to go to the annual Bowen family Christmas party at PG rec. and we got to celebrate the new year with my family. We had a wonderful, and relaxing time.