Haircuts

Evidence that the girls were playing salon this morning. Luckily the only hair found is pink and belonged to a My Little Pony.

Lost tooth

Leland lost her first tooth. She was so excited. She's been wiggling it for days and finally this morning she let me tug a little and it came right out.

Lately

Lately I feel like not much has been going on in our lives, yet every day seems to be busy, busy. Between running the girls places, work, my church calling in Young Women, volunteering at Leland's school and training for a 10K. I feel like some days I don't have time to sit down at the computer for blogging.

Chuck and I recently both got Droid phones which I love, totally love. Leland and Lucy love them too and ask to play games on them all day long. Lucy is improving so much in regards to her speech. She also loves wearing band-aids for every little thing. Leland recently decided to stop sucking her thumb, which went really well this week. She made the goal she set and got her reward of going to the local indoor inflatable bounce house place. I realized that I really just needed to wait till she was ready and actually wanting to stop, and she did it. Do know you remember that little joke "Hi. My name is Chubba. My daddy's Chubba and my momma's Chubba....One day my daddy took my on a motorcycle ride and I said "faster daddy faster.." Charly loves that joke and wants to do it all day long. She's hilarious.

One morning while getting ready (waiting for Daddy to be ready) for school, the girls were watching the squirrels in the backyard. They are such cute sisters. Lucy was actually yelling "Die squirrel, die!" Not sure where that came from.

I spent this last Saturday visiting a farm for work. It was so much fun. I was bummed that it was muddy and rainy, so we didn't stray very far from the house, but it was fun planning the items that they will be planting for Dominion Harvest this year. Farmers are just awesome down to earth people. Most of them just love what they do and are trying their best to grow good food. The best line of the afternoon was "We just do the best we can, and we take what the Lord blesses us with."

Massanutten Resort

For a few days between Christmas and New Years we went to Massanutten Resort. We had so much fun and it was great to hang out with the Benner's who were also there for the week.

We spent a day at the indoor water park. The girls amazed me with their bravery - going down all the big slide and even doing the pipeline.

Leland

Lucy

Chuck

The girls couldn't catch their breath,
so Chuck gave them puffs of his asthma inhaler.

Chuck and the two big girls went snow tubing.

The snow tubing group

It's always fun just being in the hotel room together.

Family pictures.

Massanutten ski slopes
in the background

Christmas Service

Last year, Chuck's family decided not to exchange gifts for Christmas, and instead, we exchanged names to do service in the name of that one person (read the details about it here). Last year, was such a wonderful experience, we did it again this Christmas. We all post about our experiences on a blog that we wait to read on Christmas morning. Once again it was amazing.

I think one of the best things about doing this type of "gift" exchange is that I have felt so much closer to those members of the family that I am performing my service for and who is serving me. Many of us do not live close to one another and some I haven't ever really gotten to spend a vast amount of time with, so I love feeling connected to those family members.

Serving others is also a great way to feel closer to your Heavenly Father and your Savior, Jesus Christ. It allows us to feel the true spirit of Christmas and celebrating the birth of Jesus, instead of getting caught up in the commercialization of it all.

Please feel free to read about all of our gifts of service.

Ashley's gift to Hock

Char's gift to Ashley - woohoo!
Chuck's gift to Mitzi - be sure to comment on that blog if you want to be a recipient of his service
Ryan's gift to Chuck - totally worth the long read and if you know Chuck you will know how much this meant to him.

Some friends and family members have told us that after reading about our family's experience last year, they decided to do it with their own families this year. If so, we would love to hear about it. If you have a blog that you would like us to link please let me know.

As a twist for next year (Christmas 2011), we decided to draw names now, so that we can have all year to think about and do a service for our recipient family member. I'm excited!

Also read about Chuck's parent's 18 months of service on a mission in Congo, Africa. Check out their blog here. They just posted about an amazing experience of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.