Some of our Favorite...

...PEOPLE!

I can hardly believe it's already been a month since we were there, but our time in good ol' Loomis will not fade from memory any time soon!

Here are some pics of cousins and siblings. We just LOVE this crew!
Two little ones attempting to "share" their peas.

One of my favorite sites...all of these little rascals sitting around G'ma and G'pa's big kitchen table. The sounds of them talking and laughing are just as great as the sight of them.

Then, there's the parents. Always enjoying any free moment from
tending to those rascals.

Aunt Kaylynn and Uncle Kyle were heroes and had ALL the cousins over for a slumber party!

I know my kids loved every second of it! They are asking when they can do it again!

We are so happy to have such wonderful family to go visit! You never know what kind of party is in store when we all get together.

Christmas Break! (part 2)

While we were visiting the Southwell G'parents, we went ice-skating!

Ezra was nervous at first, but loved the little helper they had for beginners.
Soon, he was skating without it...even trying tricks!

Zamboni!!!

These two loved the ice!

G'ma helped entertain William so we could all have a chance to skate.
Brrrrr! It was COLD!

Emily was like an old pro on the ice. Not bad for only making it an annual tradition.

Thank you G'ma Southwell for a fun day!

Christmas Break! (part 1)

I made my first attempt at home made gingerbread houses. With real gingerbread.

It smelled delicious, it tasted delicious, but it was WAY too much work!
(because all the kids want to do is smother ANYthing with frosting and candy!)

The kids had a really good time decorating their own house.
They each had a tube of frosting and more candy than
they've ever seen in one place at the same time!

Then, we went with some friends to the Christmas House!
This place was out of control! I think Santa himself lived here!
Yep, if you tune your radio to 96.9 fm you can see the show - all the lights choreographed to music. What a sight! Then we got to tour the inside and back yard.
A Christmas village, trains and even hot cocoa and cookies. WOW.
it takes him 9 months to prepare for this!

Even a snow machine!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the YEAR!

I love, love, love Christmas vacation with my kiddos! 3 weeks of NO SCHOOL and being lazy. Baking, watching movies, playing wii, doing puzzles, cooking up our favorite meals, and lately...watching it POUR RAIN for 4 days solid. The house is a mess, and the laundry is not done. But we are going to try and enjoy every day of our break.
Last night we went "caroling" in the rain...well, we DROVE from neighbor to neighbor and delivered our little hot chocolate mix gifts. We ran up two at a time and said Merry Christmas instead of knocking as a family and singing a couple of songs. ( It was probably a preferred method for some).
When we got home we decorated some cookies with MY new favorite (early) Christmas gift...The "Message in a Cookie" Holiday set from Williams Sonoma. It was so fun! Now all I need is the good kind of frosting for writing...not the slimy gel.

Oak Glen

My new favorite place!

We tried for months to find a day to get to these beautiful farms,

but the weeks just kept flying by!

Finally, we found a day we could escape from our urban life.

Ezra showing me his apple treasures

Sooo delicious!!

William, enjoying the deliciousness of

freshly picked apples

Climbing, playing, picking...it was so great!

Emily wanted to fill bag after bag, even our pockets and purse.

A girl after my own heart.

Joel could climb these trees all day!

After attempting to feed the cows by hand, we resorted to feeding them

"by stick". Their tongues were a little too long and rough

for my kids' comfort level.

We even got to make our own freshly pressed cider. 20 lbs. of apples later,

we had a gallon of perfectly delicious cider.

(did I mention the apples were delicious?)

Try It...

Tonight I was curious as to what would happen when I "Googled" some of my friends' names, including myself. It was weird to see different things come up. Most of which was completely irrelevant to the person I was actually thinking of.

Then I typed in "Ryan Southwell". I was expecting to see different "Ryan Southwells" from all over the map, like I did for myself and other names I typed in. However, I was in for a pleasant surprise! How did I not know I was married to a virtual Media Celebrity?! He took up the entire first page of Google, and then more! Just him and his amazing video work! Then I continued to sit here for another hour and weep, giggle and stare in awe as I watched his productions!

He didn't pay me to write this. I sincerely had no idea how many people admire his work and visit his sites. I'm just blown away by the results I found and I have to plug for my incredible husband and say how proud I am of him!

Feijoas

...Also known as the pineapple guava.

I have been getting these for 2 weeks in our CSA box and they were a mystery to me. But after cutting into them and tasting them I love them! I hope they continue to be in our box for weeks to come! They have a tough, leathery skin but the inside is soft and delicious. They taste exactly like their name...pineapple guava! Sweet and tangy. This week I am going to add the pulp to muffins, smoothies and whatever else sounds tempting. Last week we just cut them and ate them with a spoon.

I love trying new foods! Especially locally grown, fresh produce. These certainly did not disappoint.

25 hours

We may not be sisters by blood, but we are sisters through marriage and I love them all! What better way to spend a whirl -wind 25 hours in San Francisco, than with these fun girls?

I arrived in the City at 11:30 a.m. on thursday morning. We played and ate and talked and laughed all day and well into the night.

(at the theater, waiting to go in. We were the most colorful group there.)

There was food, always good food. There was dancing, Latin to be exact. There was jumping.

There was shopping. There were taxi rides, with prayers we would live. There was a musical at the theater. There were giggles. Lots of giggles. There were cab drivers. There were fancy outfits. There were colorful jackets. There were lots of photos taken. And there was more food.

(in the back of the cab, praying and holding on in hopes of a safe arrival to our destination).

(Kaylynn was a sport and sat in the front with our new friend, Kaz the -taxi-cab-driver.

We may or may not have gotten his number...but that's another story - and it's not what it sounds like).

(I love how happy we all look!

I'm not sure why we are crouching)

What we do...

...at soccer practice, while the big kids are on the field.

Ezra loves to entertain all of us by capturing life through his eyes...with my phone camera. I love it!

running for my life!

I wish I had words (and photos for that matter) to tell you about the incredible RACE I did last weekend.
However, I did not document one bit of it, I was just worried about running, and decorating vans (and making it to the bathroom on time). However, a few other people did get some great footage. And they did such a fabulous job of documenting it, I'll just link you to their site. HERE.

It's insane, it's amazing, it's fun, it's hard, it's exciting and frustrating all wrapped up into one. Did I mention Addicting? We are all looking for the next one to run

And, my talented husband put this together...in hopes of winning a free team entry for next time. I say he has a good chance.
watch and enjoy:

Ragnar Relay : Las Vegas from Ryan Southwell on Vimeo.

No Regrets...

I love cheesecake.

My favorite is the classic, New York Style cheesecake.

I love the crust. I love the sweet, tangy center.

Occasionally I love it with fresh fruit piled on top or on the side.

Yummmmm.

So, I finally made my own, fresh cheesecake from scratch. PASSIONFRUIT cheesecake. Made with the juice of the passionfruit that was delivered in my organic produce box last week.

Oh WOW!

And, because of last week-end's events and success, I felt I deserved a little treat this week.

And so, I have eaten a healthy-sized piece of homemade passionfruit cheesecake every day this week! (maybe even 2).

And don't regret it one bit!

Jaydon being goofy and helping to make the crust

I've never seen a passionfruit before. The inside took some getting used to.

Juice from 7 passionfruit!

Just what I needed

I don't listen to the news very often. But tonight, as I was in my quiet house, with all the kiddos down for bed, I turned on the news while I cleaned up the kitchen.

Kidnapping

Pornography

War

Suicide

(a roller coaster accident at Knott's)

All these terrible things kept coming up and were briefly talked about and then the newscasters moved right along to the next horrible headline. It was so discouraging and reminded me of why I don't listen to the news very often.

Just as I was feeling down and discouraged about raising 5 little blessings in this crazy world, I remembered a small portion of President Monson's talk from General Conference on Sunday afternoon:

"We live in a troubled world, a world of many challenges.

We are here on this earth to deal with our individual challenges to the best of our ability, to learn from them, and to overcome them. Endure to the end we must, for our goal is eternal life in the presence of our Father in Heaven. He loves us and wants nothing more than for us to succeed in this goal. He will help us and bless us as we call upon Him in our prayers, as we study His words, and as we obey His commandments. Therein is found safety; therein is found peace".

marathon stats...

And photos I got from the company who was there taking pictures...they are not purchased, so they are really small. oh well.

Dying! why is the finish line SO far away?

Leilani, my trusty training friend!

Feeling good and having fun (before mile 18).

Official Stats:

Category: Age: Sex: Chip time: Overall: Women

WOMENS 30-34 32 F 3:58:33 2063/5697 614/ 2457

Caught it!

I can officially say I have run a marathon! 26.2 miles are under my belt ( or should I say shoes).

The St. George, Utah marathon was on Saturday, Oct. 2nd and me and my whole gang trekked out there for the event.

It was Glorious and Terrible all wrapped up together!

Glorious to be there with 7,000 other runners. Glorious to be there with my 5 kids and husband! Glorious to be there with my friend that I trained 5 months with! And Glorious to say I've finished! It was Terrible to be soooo tired at mile 18 and Terrible to have NO more mental motivation at mile 25 ( I wanted to walk right off the course with 1.6 to go...who does that?!). It was Terrible to be so incredibly THIRSTY!

After all is said and done, and after learning many new things about myself through this event...I realize I have CAUGHT THE DISEASE! I hope to actually do another marathon again someday! Crazy, I know.

Pics and official stats to come soon!

still alive!!!

I think I have forgotten how to blog...what button do I push next? ...

We are very much alive and kicking over here. It's insane how ALIVE we are...we are usually going 3 places at once at any given time of the day. I need to be cloned! PLEASE, just one more of me to go around would be nice!

I love everything we are doing, although the soccer practice schedule has taken some getting-used-to.

Soccer (x 3) Scouts, Activity Days, Marathon Training (finally I'm tapering my miles), home-school, pre-school and a new Relief Society calling are all on our calendar every week now.
William turned 1 and is crawling around getting into EVERYTHING, but it's so cute to watch. My house is a mess and my laundry piled high, but we are living life to the fullest and (mostly) having fun while doing it!

I've got a summer's worth of pictures to post up here as well! Hopefully this is the return of blogging for me...we'll see.

Also, I got released as the Young Womens' President and I feel so conflicted about it. I love and miss those girls VERY much! However, the time and energy is nice to have "back".

Haiti

In case anyone here is interested in seeing a quick preview of what I captured in Haiti, I've got it on my blog, over here.

-Ryan

Easter Festivities

On Saturday, we colored 2 dozen eggs!

Sunday morning, (early) the kids awoke to a basket hunt with strings attached!

They had to follow the string with their name to find their basket. It led them on a wild hunt all over the house!

I know Willie's head is cut off...but this picture captured his latest look. Now imagine him breathing in and out of his nose quickly while he makes this face. It's so funny!

Jaydon, biting into his chocolate bunny. Who says eating chocolate at 7:00 a.m. is against the rules? (well, I do, on a typical day).

Emily, donning the fancy headband she found in her basket.

Ezra. Trying out his new Easter Basket treasure.

Even Ryan and I got a little Easter treat to hunt for...it was in the oven!

Burt's Bees almond hand cream is just what I needed.

Ryan always loves his Ovaltine!

(Thanks to little Em).

On the hunt for eggs in the backyard.

We spent the rest of the day watching LDS General Conference and being uplifted. Remembering the real reason for the Holiday.

Later that day, we felt the rolling, shaking effects of the 7.2 earthquake that hit Northern Mexico.

Don't worry Sheena, I think it's all out of it's system!