Seven on Sunday

1. The Many Faces of Abby  Abby is always stealing the show around here.  I try to capture it on camera sometimes but usually when my phone comes out, she stops whatever cute thing she's doing and just tries to look at my phone screen.  Sometimes I can manage to get a good shot...

Here she is running in circles, trying to get a look at my phone.

Here she is bringing me her boots so we can go in the car.  She likes to go and especially likes it when I say, "Let's go pick up Matt and Kate!"

She loves to push things.  This day we filled the truck with some of her doggies and she liked to push the truck down the stairs.  So much fun!

When I give her a snack she loves to take it over to the fireplace mantel and eat it there.  It makes me laugh everytime.

I decided that taking a selfie was probably the best option to get a non blurry shot of her looking at the camera.  I love this face!

2. Kids in the winter We haven't had very much snow this winter which has been kind of a bummer.  We haven't had great weather either.  The valley gets an air inversion and the air quality gets really bad.  It just ends up being weather that you don't want to be outside in.  We got lucky and this weekend and had some wind come through which cleared the air out a little bit so we went on a walk and Sara rode her bike.  It wasn't extremely cold, but it wasn't exactly warm either.  When we got back home I was about to offer to make them some hot chocolate and Sara says, "Mom, can we make snowcones?  I'm so hot!"  What?!

 3. The Binky I created a monster with Abby and her binky and I know I can't blame anyone but myself.  But I don't really care.  It gives her a symbol for sleeping time and she definitely calms down when she has it.  The rule is that when she wakes up, she has to put it back in her bed.  She's pretty good to do that, but she now knows where it is and will often try to sneak it during the day.  I usually try to make sure that it's somewhere that she can't reach it which makes her really really sad! 

 4. Crochet When Matt was a baby, my neighbor taught me how to crochet a border around the edge of a blanket.  I like doing it because I don't have to think much and at the end of the day, I don't like to have to think.  It's a nice hobby, but I've never felt that it's very useful.  I decided that I wanted to learn how to crochet something that was more useful.  I've wanted to do this for years, but haven't had enough motivation to really get it done until I came across this pattern for a scarf.  I thought it was cute, it seemed easy and Sara wanted one.  During one of our many trips to Michael's for Rainbow Loom rubberbands, I picked up the supplies.  

I know how to do a lot of the stitches, but I can never seem to remember so YouTube is my best friend.  I also am not great at reading patterns although I have gotten better.  It's amazing what you can learn on Google and YouTube even when it comes to reading patterns.  So after a couple of random questions to my sister and lots of YouTube hits, I finished it.  And I only had to take it all out once!  It's called a potato chip scarf because it's supposed to look like Pringles chips.  I like it and Sara LOVES it!  Yea!

 5. Growing up After I took that picture of Sara, Kate wanted me to take a picture of her.  As I was looking at it, I realized how much this girl is growing up.  She is in senior primary in church, she's finding her own activities in school, she learned how to crochet herself in Activity Days...  I'm very proud of her.  She's a sweet girl.

6. That's how we DO! These videos cracked me up this week.  

This is how we wash the dishes in our house.

I like to call this, "Drop It Like It's Hot"

7. Noticing  On Fridays I stay at Kate's dance class and watch her.  There is a couple of other moms that stay and we all chat and it's a nice time.  This past Friday another mom was there whose daughter was trying out ballet after doing the tumbling class there.  She had two other daughters there with her.  One was about Abby's age and the other was around 5ish.  The 5 year old stood out pretty quickly, she had a binky attached to her shirt, she didn't have a big concept of personal boundaries with strangers and she wasn't talking but communicating in other ways.  It seemed as though she might have had some type of autism.  She was a very sweet girl and all the moms there were nice and polite and shared toys and talked to her and her mom and it seemed fine, but I couldn't help but think about this poor mom.  She apologized frequently for her daughter getting into things or taking toys or leaning on someone.  It was clear she deals with this a lot which would be exhausting and worthy of empathy from strangers.  But more than that, everywhere this poor mom goes everyone notices.  They notice her daughter is different.  And maybe they're kind about it and helpful and comforting to the mom, but they still notice and she can never get away from that.  And this little girl will carry this with her her whole life.  She doesn't get a break.  It broke my heart a little bit.  I wish I didn't notice, but how could I not?  I think there is a special place in heaven for those who have had special needs and their moms.

Six on Sunday

1.  Off track.  I have gotten used to year round school since Matt started school 6 years ago.  Crazy that it has been that long!  Anyway, the January off track always seems to be the hardest and this year has been no exception.  It has helped that Kate and Sara have been getting along fabulously, but the days still seem really long.  We have managed to survive and they go back to school on Tuesday.  I will miss them for the first few days as I always seem to.  Abby will miss them the most.  She has loved having them around.  Anyway, we tried to do some productive things and not just play MarioKart the whole time!  Matt did a lot of work on Webelos things and Kate and Sara got Brain Quest workbooks for Christmas which they have worked on each day.  We also went swimming one day and another day we went downtown and toured some of the church sites.

 My kids had never been inside the conference center that they remembered so we started there.  It was really cool.  The kids were amazed at how big it is.  We're going to have to go back because they have the roof closed during the winter and they really wanted to go on it so we'll go again in the spring.  

 After the conference center we went to the visitor's center.  We always go in it at Christmas time, but it's always packed so this year I promised them we could go see the Christus statue when it wasn't crowded.  So we did that.  It was an amazing moment to sit there with my kids and point out the holes in His feet and His hands and talk about what He willingly did for us.  We looked at some of the pictures and other exhibits they have there as well.  Then we peeked in the tabernacle but they had something going on so we didn't step inside.  They have been inside that recently.  It was a fun morning and it made me happy to be in Salt Lake City!

2.  Date nights  I like to get Matt alone by himself so I frequently make dumb bets with him that I know I'll lose and then take him to get ice cream.  I had to cash in one of those bets when Kate and Sara were at a birthday party.  We enjoyed some time together at Cold Stone and were amazed at this window display.  It is totally covered in candy.  Some of the candy has been spray painted different colors so we had fun trying to figure out what each candy was.  It was fun to be with him.  More than once he said, "It's so nice to not have any whining or fighting or hee heeing going on."  Poor kid in this house full of girls!

3. Car Show. Jerry also tries to make sure that Matt gets good quality guy time.  They had fun together at the annual car show and then at Five Guys Burgers for lunch.  I love that Matt has come to expect this each year.  It's fun for him and Jerry.

 This is Jerry's dream truck.  Glad he gets to dream...

Weird that Matt will be old enough to drive this in 6 years.  Six years!!  Not that he'll ever get to, but you know, he can dream along with Jerry!

4.  Sara the crack up.  Sara makes us laugh all the time.  Here is a commercial that she's always repeating.  I'll post the real commercial, too, because Jerry told me to in case you haven't seen the real commercial.

5. The Abby Dance  Abby is getting better and better and walking and stuff.  We have a lot of fun with her.  This week she started doing this really funny dance that we have named, The Abby Dance.  Watch for her arm.  It leads the whole thing!

6. Kate  Kate woke up one morning so excited because her tooth had come out in the night. She had no idea how it came out and that was part of the fun.  She just felt the hole in her mouth and then found her tooth in her bed.  She wrote a note to her tooth fairy the first night wondering how she lost her tooth and what her tooth fairy's name is.  I don't know why but my girls insist on writing notes to their tooth fairy.  Sara is always leaving random pictures and notes for hers.  I think it came from the book, Silverlicious.  Anyway, imagine the distress it caused when the tooth fairy didn't come for TWO nights.  Kate was very angry.  Finally, she came and left a response for Kate telling her she had been very sick and couldn't even fly.  She also told Kate her name is Francesca.  That's so fun to say!!  (Kate helped me write this!)

Six on Sunday

1. Well, there is a reason that my weekly post is late this week and it's a fabulous one.  Jerry surprised me with a date night Friday night.  He got the babysitter and arranged everything but he wouldn't tell me what we were doing.  I hate the kind of surprise that I can't figure out what it is.  So I tried to ask random questions to trick him into telling me what we were doing, but he's got me figured out and didn't spill the beans.  So I took Kate to dance on Friday and was talking to another mom who is the sister of a good friend of mine.  We were just randomly chatting and then she made some comment about Jerry and I going out with her sister and husband.  I knew immediately what we were doing and was SO proud of myself for figuring it out!  I have always wanted to shoot a handgun and so our date night was at the shooting range with all of our friend's guns!  Ryan first came over and taught me how to hold the gun and aim and all that stuff without any bullets in and without all the noise of the range.  It was really helpful to do that.  I'll be honest, guns really freak me out.  But if I ever had to shoot a gun, I want to be able to shoot it decently.  

The range was an experience.  I was already a little nervous and walking into the range really freaked me out.  As we walked into the shooting area and the noise and the closeness of all these literally deadly weapons surrounded me, my first thought was, "I can't do this, I have to get out."  But the whole point of this for me was to be in control, so I made myself stay.  At first, I shot the gun without bullets and it helped calm my nerves a bit.  A couple of stations down, a group was shooting some big rifle, AR-15, and it was really loud and extremely unnerving.  It was hard to get past that.  Luckily, they had other guns to shoot so I didn't have to deal with it the whole time.  Anyway, after dry shooting, I loaded the bullets in.  I started with just three shots loaded in.  My first shot was pretty close to the middle of the circle I was aiming at!  I may have closed my eyes though and just got lucky!  Pulling the trigger was totally freaky.  The anticipation of it almost every time I shot nearly made me pass out, so I reminded myself often to be the one in control.  After my next two shots were off, I shot without bullets again.

By the end of the night I was feeling more comfortable, but I was definitely ready to leave.  I'm really glad I did it and I'd definitely shoot again.  But guns still really freak me out.  As I was standing in there watching others shoot, I couldn't help but imagine the shooters that have been involved in mass shootings lately.  How do you get that desensitized and don't feel the power and magnitude of taking someone's life?  And watching the group with the rifle was weird because they were older teenagers and I just couldn't help imagining the worst.  

2. The second reason this is getting posted at the end of the weekend is Saturday night we went to watch the U of U gymnastics team.  I love their meets.  They are a lot of fun and always packed because they give out free tickets for the upper bowl.  It was fun to take the girls.  Matt chose to play with a friend because he thinks it is, "SO boring!"  Here's my question though, as my girls were standing up dancing to the song YMCA, I just wondered, are we destined to listen to this song at every group gathering for the rest of eternity?  I mean really, it is a VERY dumb song and I can't help but think of  pedophiles every time I hear it.  Can we just be done with it?  But hey, it was a great meet and the Utes won and we got to hear the Ute fight song like a million times and I love their song! 

3. My older kids are constantly going into the pantry and coming out with cookies.  Abby finally had enough and had to discover what the big deal was.  So, she found our cookie stash and was very happy about that!

4. In other Abby news, she does the most awesome booty shake.  She's been doing it for a couple of months.  Every time we lay her down, or pick her up she swivels her hips.  It's so funny and I've already started researching Latin Dancing studios.  Ok, not really, but I hope she keeps up this hip movement.  We all died laughing when she did it while standing on the stairs.  Of course, when we tried to video it, she didn't cooperate, so when you watch the video you have to watch for about 45 seconds until you get a tiny glimpse of it.  And you have to listen to me playing the piano to give her some music, and it's not good because I was trying to play and watch her and that doesn't work too well for me.  The shake is worth it though!

5.  We moved our old bed downstairs and Kate has renamed the room down there as The Lair.  It's hilarious.  She has spread out all her Rainbow Loom stuff in there and spends a lot of time in there.  So funny.  Kate and Sara were very excited to sleep down there.  They did great!  I wasn't sure if they'd stay all night, but they did and they slept in and they loved it and they did it again.  At first, Matt was so mad that they were encroaching on his space, but he later admitted, he kind of liked having them downstairs too.  They haven't slept down there every night, but I like that they have a fun option if they ever want to.

6.  The kids are off track right now and they are driving me a little bit crazy.  The weather has made it hard.  We've had a couple of storms, but our friend's family was in town and they borrowed all our kid's snow gear for their nephews and nieces and so I haven't even been able to send them outside to get out of the house.  And we're all a little bored.  January is just hard.  One more week...

Six on Saturday

1. Ok, I'm giving myself a break.  Just in case Jerry and I have a date night on Friday or I just feel like watching a movie, I will post at some point on the weekend, or during the week. :)  We'll see how it all goes!

2. Happy New Year!  We had a great New Year's Eve and Day.  I have to say it's kind of become one of my favorite holidays.  After spending a lot of money on Christmas, it's nice to have a big holiday that you don't have to spend much on.  We wanted to have some fun snacks, but that was about it.

We headed up to Snowbird for the light parade and fireworks like we've done for the past few years.  The temperature was about 35 degrees!  It felt awesomely warm compared to last year's 0 degrees.  It was a lot of fun.  We had fun laughing at the skiers that broke the parade line and went rogue down the mountain.  And we had fun watching the fireworks.  Abby didn't really know what to think of them.  She didn't love them, but she didn't cry either.  Good times.

After that we went to some friends house and played and ate together and then we headed home to put Abby in bed.  The other three had really wanted to stay up until midnight.  It was after 10 by the time we put Abby down and got our own jammies on so it wasn't too hard to stay up.  We watched a t.v. show and played uno attack and had some more snacks.  Then we watched the ball drop and cheered and hugged and kissed and drank our Martinellli's and went to bed.  I was dreading the next day, but everyone behaved really well.  I was proud of them all for acting so big!

My arm can only stretch so far...  Fun night.

3. Ice skating.  Sara has been begging to go ice skating and Jerry made it happen on New Year's day.  Matt wasn't interested in going, but Kate and Sara had a great time.  Jerry even got skates on.  The day was beautiful and everyone had a good time.

This video shows just how different Kate and Sara are...

4. A year or maybe even two years before Jerry and I were married, I bought a queen size bed.  It was fine.  My roommate found some ad in the paper, (yes paper, so old school) and we bought it out of someone's garage.  It was inexpensive and I knew nothing about beds but I didn't need much.  It has survived, but it was time for a new one.  So when we found a great deal on a new bed, we used some Christmas money and bought it.  It has made a huge difference in our sleep and the fact that it's not as crammed when the kids all climb in in the morning to watch t.v.

Abby is still not sleeping well.  I happened to look back through my blog at when Kate and Sara were younger and went through phases of not sleeping well.  As I was reading about them I felt totally discouraged.  When it comes to sleep, I do everything that all books say to have a good sleeping baby.  I make sure to do the same routine every time before I lay them down, books, songs, binky, snuggle, bed.  I make sure they get naps and go to bed on time so they don't get overtired, and yet I have had horrible sleepers, except for Matt.  Sara overall hasn't been bad, except for some phases that I'd actually forgotten about until I read about them, but Kate and Abby are the worst.  I can't help but feel like it's something I do, but I don't know what else to do.  Abby is up several times in the night and won't go back to sleep by herself.  She'll stand up in her bed and cry and cry and cry.  I've let her cry for an hour (which feels like 5 at 2 in the morning) but what happens is she sits down and does this body bob, like the head bob when someone is drifiting off, but it's her whole upper body, and she falls asleep leaning forward onto her legs.  It's totally uncomfortable.  I know this because I've spied on her.  Then she only sleeps for 20 minutes and wakes back up and stands up and starts the whole process over again.  The only way to get her to go back to sleep is to sit next to her crib and let her hold our thumbs, that's her happy place.  Then when she's asleep 20-60 minutes later we have to sneak out of the room which sometimes works and then she'll sometimes sleep the rest of the night but more often than not, she's back awake in an hour.  It's exhausting.  So, usually at some point she ends up in our bed.  Once she falls asleep in our bed she can zonk for a long time, but it sometimes takes her a long time to fall asleep and sometimes it's disturbed sleep and she'll toss and turn and that is hard to sleep through.  I feel totally sleep deprived.  I didn't mean to rant on this; I guess I needed to vent!  I have no idea what to do.  It's very discouraging, but then in the morning, I instantly forgive her, and who wouldn't!  She is walking pretty good though.  She almost walks exclusively and is very happy to do it!

5.  Each day I try to play something on the piano.  It doesn't happen, but I still try each day.  Some days when Abby needs something to do I'll have her sit on my lap and bang the keys and I'll play above and below her hands.  It's fun.  She loves to do it.  Now she'll walk up to the piano by herself and bang the keys.  I think it's pretty cute.

6.  Our elementary school is putting on a play this spring.  We didn't get much information about it except for a recorded message from the principal before we went on break.  I kind of didn't want to tell Kate about it, but I knew she would want to do so I did, finally.  I just didn't want another thing on the schedule.  Anyway, long story short they are doing the play Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Kate decided to try out for Violet, the gum chewer that turns blue.  We found out later that they really just wanted 3rd graders to be Oompa Loompas, but Kate still auditioned for Violet.  She had to say some lines and sing a solo.  We only had a day to practice and I thought she did fantastic.  I was so proud of her.  Technically speaking, she doesn't enunciate and she doesn't follow a tune well so I'm pretty sure she won't be getting the part.  She, however, is really confident that she will.  It breaks my heart a little, but I believe it will all be a good experience.  We've had lots of talks about not getting the part, but the day of the audition as Jerry left for work she said, "I can't wait to call you and tell you I got the part."  Oh, boy.  We find out on Wednesday.

2013 Review

1. What did you do in 2013 that you've never done before? This is very exciting.  For the past few years I have participated in my family's fantasy football league.  Somewhere along the lines, before I was cool enough for a team, my brother, Jay, made a trophy and named it the Blue Bowl.  When he and his family were living in Utah for a year, his son won the trophy.  My sister, awarded him the trophy because someone in her family had had it the previous year.  As we all stood around Seth and cheered for him and watched him drink sprite out of it while yelling, "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!", I decided that I wanted to win that Blue Bowl trophy.  Since then, every decision in my life has revolved around the trophy.  And this year all my hard work has paid off.  I WON THE BLUE BOWL!  I was so excited.  I didn't think I had much chance when I had to face Clark who was in the #1 spot in the semi finals, but guess who had the game of their life??  That's right...I did.  Ok, well technically, my team did, but since I only know the names of two people on my team, I'll just take all the credit!!  Pictures will come as soon as Seth can part with it, he won it again last year and when I knew I was facing him in the final game, I knew I couldn't let him win it for a third year!

2. Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions and will you make more for next year? I actually feel pretty good about my goal from last year's BAG.  It was to focus on education, secular and spiritual, in our family and especially with my kids.  We worked really hard this year.  Every time they were off track we had another challenge usually centered around reading.  We had spelling and math challenges throughout the year.  We also worked hard on cub scout things, Faith in God things, reading the scriptures, having good quality family home evenings, and working on learning the Articles of Faith.  I'm not trying to toot our horn, but we worked hard this year.  It was a very fulfilling year as a mother and there were many times that I felt very fulfilled in being a stay at home mom.  I'm grateful that I had this goal in the back of my mind all year.  Will I make more for this year?  Yes, but I already think I'll be less successful at it than last year.  My goal this year is to again put together good quality 72 hour kits and a solid 3 month food storage.  This does not excite me nearly as much as education, but I think it is important.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?  Yes. My good friend Kayce.  It was a big deal after many miscarriages and waiting for 7 years for this big surprise.  He's adorable and I'm so happy for her.

4. Did anyone close to you die?  Not anyone close to me.  I don't think.  I always have to think about this question and the previous one.  If I forget someone, will they haunt me?

5. What countries did you visit?  Well, still no countries, but we took a fabulous trip to California much thanks to my sister and her in-laws.  It was awesome showing my kids the ocean and we all had a great time hanging out with her family.  It was a totally relaxing trip and so worth the long drive and taking the kids out of school.  It was definitely a trip to remember!  We also had an awesome trip to Bryce Canyon this fall.  It was another very memorable trip.  Both trips were great family bonding time and I hope we'll notice the effects of that for a while!

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?  I'm stumped.  2013 was a pretty good year for me.  I'd really just like to continue that momentum!

7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory and why?  May 31st.  The day Sara had her surgery.  And, later, the day I was released from serving as the primary president.  I can't remember the actual day, but it was a day filled with sadness and relief and happiness that I won't forget.  Also, August 31.  The day Kate was baptized and confirmed, the same day I was baptized 28 years earlier.

8. What was your biggest personal achievement of the year? Working my tail off at home and being able to quit work.  Quitting work was actually more of a logistical decision.  I don't need to work full time, but it's hard to find part time work that pays decently and I would end up paying most, if not all, of that money back to daycare.  But it did feel like an achievement to not have this "have to work" feeling as much.  I might go back in the near future.

9. What was your biggest failure? Keeping good friendships.  I have to admit I've gotten annoyed with some of the women around my age in my neighborhood and church.  There are days when I just feel like I want to move and get around some new people.  There has been fighting between daughters and that's carried over to the moms and I've just removed myself from it and luckily Kate hasn't been involved in it at all.  It's hard when the same people live in my neigborhood, go to my same church, and our kids go to the same school.

10. Did you suffer injury or illness? We all had a much better year illness wise.  I only had some minor colds.  Sara did have her major surgery and I am so glad that is all over.  Her ear looks amazing and her scar, though not done scabbing, is already fading where the scabs have all healed.  She still refers to it as her "little ear", but I don't think it will ever be something that is easily noticed.  As I have started running more, I have been reminded that I'm not in my 20's anymore.  What?!  I've worked through my calves getting used to my new shoes and then as I've picked up my miles and speed, I started having plantar fasciitis pain.  Seriously, what??!  But I found these compression socks that are miracle workers and have eliminated almost all of the plantar fasciitis pain and my calf pain.  Yea!

11. What was the best thing you bought? I really wanted to make our backyard more usable even though it's small so we took out the garden boxes and the pavers and put grass back in and then I found a hammock that we bought and I LOVE it!  We spent a lot of time laying out in it this summer.  I took more than one nap in it.  I read lots of books to the kids in it and almost every evening I laid in it and read.  It was FABULOUS and definitely the best purchase ever!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?  A few weeks ago the Bishop of our ward was released.  I had the opportunity to work with him the whole time he was serving as the Bishop.  I thought he did an excellent job and I am really glad I got to work with him.  I'd give him the shout out this year!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Obama and the government.  He's a lier and we're losing our agency.  Also insurance companies, but don't think that I think Obamacare will fix it.  It will actually make things worse for us.  Our insurance told me, the hospital and the doctor that Sara's surgery would be covered 100% and then after the surgery they denied it.  All three of us plus the anesthesiologist have appealed it.  I'm not optimistic.

14. Where did most of your money go? Home and living expenses.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Going to California.

16. What song will always remind you of 2013? Radioactive by Imagine Dragons is the first one.  Sara loves that song.  She can sing it all and even has the deep breath at the beginning down.  We also listened to that album a lot while driving to Bryce Canyon so it will always remind me of that.  Karmin also had a weirdly fantastic song on, Acapella.  I heard it while we were in Durango and the first time I heard it I thought it was the dumbest song ever.  Then the second time, I heard it for the gem that it is and I fell in love with it.  I never heard it on the radio again, but we've youtubed it many times.  We've also sung Royals by Lorde until we were sick of it.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer? a) I always say happier, but I don't know if I'm happier this year.  Last year I had just had Abby and was so happy with her that it would be hard to beat that.  But I'm definitely not sadder either, so somewhere in the middle.  b) Thinner, although after every baby my body shows the wear and tear a little more. c) probably technically the same, but I feel richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Nightly, personal prayers.  I seem to always get out of my rhythm after a baby is born, but I haven't been very good at getting consistent at it again.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Look at my phone screen.  It's just become a habit and not a habit I'm proud of.  Because we have no land line and I feel like I always have to keep it with me, it's really easy to pull out and get distracted when I should be mentally with my kids or something.  Even though I have it with me more, I always seem to misplace it.  So, I also wish I'd spent less time looking for it.  I have found it in bathroom drawers, in my make up bag and in a bucket of rocks outside.  I can never seem to remember to turn on the sound and not vibrate so one night Jerry had to keep calling it and we could hear the vibrating but it took us a while to find it.  It was upstairs buried on the counter and we were searching downstairs in Matt's room thinking we were so close to it.

20. Did you fall in love in 2013? Nope, but I'm glad to still be happily married to Jerry.

21. What was your favorite TV program? Modern Family is really the only one I've watched much this year.

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? No hate, but I got really annoyed with my neighbor when she told me she knew I was being released from my calling before I did and that she knew who the new presidency was.  Apparently, her husband tells her a lot of stuff he's not supposed to.  That definitely hasn't made us any closer.

23. What was the best book you read? I read some good books this year.  I really liked The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton, Eleanor and Park was my guilty pleasure, but I really loved Elizabeth Smart's book.  I think she's amazing.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery? Running Down a Dream by Tom Petty is THE BEST song to run to.  The beat of the song is quick and if I can get my cadence to match it, I can run in the low 7 min/mile pace.  I love that.

25. What did you want and get? I wanted a pair of classy boots, but I'm really picky, but I found a pair!!

26. What did you want and not get? I really wanted an ipad mini and I didn't get one, but I didn't really plan on getting one.  There's always next year, right?

27. What was your favorite film of this year? We all loved Despicable Me 2, that was my favorite.  Jerry and I saw The Saratov Approach with some friends.  I really liked it.

28. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you? 36 and my kids really don't believe me when I say 29.  I watched Matt's baseball game.  The weather was nice and we got In N Out for dinner.  That's not so bad!

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I really can't think of anything here either.  This was a year of hard work and hard play.  I like that combination!

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept for 2013?  Well, I bought my first pair of skinny jeans.  It has taken me forever to warm up to them.  I like them.  I definitely won't go for the colored denim though.  Yellow? Coral? Turquoise?  On jeans?  No, thanks. (I won't say never though)

31. What kept you sane?  Looking ahead to trips and getting back to running.  There is something about pounding the pavement that is serious therapy for me.