A New Addiction.

Well, I realize that we have neglected our blog for a couple of weeks, but I'm new to facebook. It's a regular family reunion going on over there!! Not to mention all of the friends from high school and college that I'm finding there on a daily basis. Even Jim has gotten into the swing of things and now there is hot competition for the computer. I've really enjoyed getting to know my cousins better. Layne and I are bowling competitors.

Saree started singing a new church song yesterday. I think it is the Welcom Song, Hello, Hello. She is finally warming up to the other kids in there and making friends.

We thought we had Jaycie broken from sucking her fingers, but all of a sudden this last week she has started it up again. Grrrrr!

Both girls are excited to get their pictures taken with the school mascot this week. Saree doesn't really like the Panther once she's up close but she waves and yells at it all the same. There was a home game on Thursday that was against a big time rival from Durango. The house was packed!! I left wondering when Mom and Dad attended the games if they were a little shell shocked from the noise like I was. It was sooooo loud in there! Not to mention the music was terrible, well some of it anyway. I'm starting to think that I'm getting old.

Klondike Camping in Colorado

Jim went camping with the scouts this weekend. There is an annual Klondike Derby held for the Scout District. I guess they've been doing it for several years now. The campout went well. The boys had fun. They got to participate in various activities which inlcuded pulling sleds that resemble dog sleds. I guess this year was mild compared to past years. It only got down to the low teens. It warmed up into the 40's on Saturday. I guess last year it was at 5 below before the sun even went down, then never warmed up much more than 0 the next day. We got to camp out in a wall tent that included propane heat and a wood stove. It got a little chilly until I opened the flute on the stove, allowing the fire to properly breathe and heat up the tent.

This picture demonstrates the proper attire to wear when klondiking- a light jacket, basketball shorts and tennis shoes.

The boys attempted to build a couple of snow caves, but neither were big enough for them to sleep in. They had fun though digging around in the snow. It also kept them busy and wore them out for the night. On Saturday they spent about 4 hours running around the moutain side doing different activities, so they will sleep soundly tonight in their comfortable beds at home.

We only had four of our scouts go with us. I think it was a successful trip. No body got frostbite. I look forward to doing it again next Winter.

Dashing through the snow. . .

We took the girls to story time today. I'm glad that they started doing a session on Saturday mornings, because both girls at that was too much for me to handle by myself. Saree just isn't quite ready to sit through the 30-40 minutes, but Jaycie won't sit by herself. Then they have a craft time afterward. They both have fun with that. Today we modge podged some paper and tinfoil onto bottles to make candle holders.

Then we went geocaching again. I didn't think it would be too successful considering we have snow, but it was nice to get out and see some of the area. We went to Dolores, CO. It is a rustic, kind of quaint, little town about 10 miles North of Cortez. The first cache was a virtual cache, that just means you read something or see something and answer a question about it correctly and then you get credit for the "find". The second one was the one that turned out to be problematic. We had passed the cache and turned around in a parking area for the hiking and skiing trails in San Juan National Park when Jim decided he was going to pull of to the side of the road. It wasn't a good idea because he promptly got us stuck in a snow drift that took 5 men to get us out of.

I've also started potty training Saree. She was already pretty much trained except the wetting part. I have had a difficult time getting her to go in to the bathroom for that. I finally got her some M&Ms and that seems to be going well. Another chocoholic in the making. That's the first thing she says after "I'm done", "M&Ms"!!! She is also finally going into nursery by herself and not screaming and crying for Jim or I.

Jaycie is loving her new primary class. I can't believe she is a Star 5. She also has started on a jewelry thing. She wants to have jewelry on all the time, of course it doesn't stay on, but she still insists on it. I've gotten to the point of "forgetting" so that she won't be a disruption at church.

I have to talk again in church next Sunday as part of the Primary presidency, can't tell you how excited I am about that. Jim gets to go camping next weekend and can't wait. The girls and I are looking forward to our girls night. I get to watch a Barbie movie (again), eat popcorn and share my bed with the girls (not so fun). Anyway, I'm going to make Jim take the little camera camping so we can see how it was and I'll post the pictures next week.

Love to all.

Merry Christmas to all . . .

Our family Christmas was exciting. We eagerly awaited our last gift from our Secret Santa (we got a bucket meal from KFC) Thanks to the generosity of so many we have a full refridgerator.

Santa actually got everything wrapped and Mom got everything made before Christmas Eve so Dad and I retired early. Saree had other plans for us, however. She has a little cold and at night will often cough a little. This night she coughed for what seemed like ever and then had to get in bed between Dad and I. The only one that got any sleep was Jaycie.

We woke up to quite a bit of new snow and it continued to snow off and on throughout the day. We then had a great Christmas dinner. I had asked for, and received, an air popcorn popper and we popped some corn and watched a movie, sort of. Jaycie loved her gifts so much that she just wanted to continue changing in and out of her new princess dresses, shoes, necklaces, and tiaras. They both like to color, paint, and stamp and I find myself constantly putting it all away.

We plan on going swimming today. I'm not sure I really want to but the girls seem to be really enthusiastic about it, and Jim just wants to get out of the house. I just want to curl up with a book for a while.

I hope everyone's Christmas was as wonderful as ours was. Love to all.

The Hillsteads

Popcorn Popping . . .

Today was the Christmas program, the one I had to play the flute in. Everything went well, I did make a couple of small mistakes, but I don't think anyone noticed. Saree looked so cute in her fancy little dress, I'm bummed that I didn't get pictures of Jaycie in hers before it got destroyed. I'm just going to let you all know now - NEVER buy a dress with tulle on it for a 4 year old. It won't survive the first wearing. We did find something else for her to wear that was "Christmassy" though.

We're still getting presents from our Secret Santa. Last night they brought 1 qt of chocolate milk and 1 qt of egg nog - ock milk - as Jaycie calls it. We're eagerly awaiting the next drop off which should happen any time now. As we are waiting Jaycie and Saree are playing with play-do and Jaycie is singing Popcorn Popping on the Ackipot Tree. I had to laugh.

We got three invitations for Christmas this year. We will be spending Christmas Eve with the Pardington family and Christmas day with the Lenier family. Some may know their daughter (she knows Dad and Shane) anyway.

We feel really blessed to have so many people that are taking an interest in us and in our welfare. And I'm glad that we have been making so many friends.

Merry Christmas to you all. We love you and miss you.

Jim, Regan, Jaycie, and Saree

Christmas cookies

We started making Christmas cookies the other day. I started with the peanut butter cup cookies, we made those too soon though cuz we ate them all. Now we have the pretzel treats (so easy) they taste like chocolate covered pretzels without the mess. The girls like to help :). Jaycie's idea of help with the peanut butter cup cookies was to lick all the chocolate off of about 12 of the cookies. I let them unwrap all of the kisses for the cookies and the pretzels. They did pretty good. I still had to really watch them though. Saree seemed to think she should be able to eat one or two for every one that got put in the bowl.

This Christmas season has seen us at the receiving end of a lot of kindness. We have a Secret Santa, that has been fun. The girls race to the door to check if Santa has come several times a day. (If the cat is ever out of the bag we're going to have a little chat about the 4 WHISTLES though). We also had someone give us a tree - I had mentioned we had decided against one this year for various reasons. Sure enough one was dropped off. Jim then went into work and checked in his in box to find a card with $100 dollars in it. It's been very humbling, the Lord does answer prayers, it's just hard when you know that there are people in town that have a whole lot less than we do. We feel kind of bad thinking that someone else might not get anything at all when we are being given so much.

Jim and I both have 2 weeks off now. I'm not sure what our plans are for activities, but I know we aren't going to just stay home (unless we get more snow). It snowed here the last couple of days. The first day saw about 8 inches - snow day at the school. I found it somewhat humorous considering that school hardly ever got called for that paltry amount in Montana. It does look like a white Christmas this year though.

Next week brings my first Mammogram (can't tell you how not excited I am about that one). I also will be having a complete blood work up. So I'm sure I'm going to hear that I have high cholesterol (thanks Mom & Dad).

Jim's Contribution

I thought I'd better get on this blog and add a few things for the guys. The pictures of the kids are good and everything, but some guy stuff is good once in awhile. We went for a drive today (Sunday 12-7-08) and saw this nice buck laying down about 20 feet from the fence line. Of course Regan is the only one that can shoot it. And of course it's with her camera.

Regan and I went to a Christmas dinner on Saturday night. We got one of my students to babysit for us. When we got home at about 9:45 both girls were zonked out on the couch and this is how we found them.