Christmas

This year my parents came up for Christmas. They were able to come from the 12-27. Part of that time was spent in Fairbanks with my sister, Kim, and her family. My nephew turned 12 on the 18th so he was ordained with the priesthood. I am so proud of him. Kim and her family came down to Anchorage on the 23 and stayed until the 27th as well. It was nice to be around family. I love my family so much and was so glad we could all be together minus one sister, Amanda. :( Our Christmas was quite eventful. At around 8pm on Christmas eve Grayden began throwing up and at around 1am Connor joined in. My poor little guys. Grayden stopped probably at 2 and Connor at 8am Christmas morning. They both opened their gifts but slept most the rest of the day. I got my coveted kitchenaide for my main present. I am very excited.

On Christmas day we don't do the large meal. Instead we get a huge deli tray, croissants, veggies, and snacks and graze all day. By the end of the day I was feeling pretty sick. I had eaten way too much and my tummy hurt. I went to bed just feeling so full and awful. When I violently hurled up everything I ate that day I realized I was confusing a full tummy with a sick tummy. It.....was.....awful. I feel so bad that my kids had to go through that. I slept most the next day like the kids the previous day. By this time they were bouncing off the walls. Good thing it was only a 12-24 hr flu.

Thanksgiving

Almost every year since I can remember we have gone to the church for Thanksgiving. Always the same core group of people with added people that needed a place to go. We make a big dinner, play games, and enjoy one another's company. Each year we have gotten older. The kids have become the adults, etc. As years have passed the group has gotten smaller and smaller as people move away or create there own traditions. This year the only people left were my family, my sister, and our good friend Ronda and her children. We opted to get together at Ronda's house instead. It was nice and low key. I'll always cherish the memories of Thanksgiving at the church but it looks like they will be no more:( I'm sad but also just so thankful for the family and friends I was able to spend time with this Thanksgiving.

Connor enjoyed a whole turkey leg to himself.

James played in the Turkey Bowl with the missionaries, Elders Quarem, etc. He got a boo boo. It was hard for him to eat:(

Someone is old enough for nursery!!!

FREEDOM!!!!! ha ha ha

The Grand Opening!

Just over four years ago me and two lovely ladies decided to branch out and open our own salon. We found a quaint little mid town location that allowed us all to have our own rooms as well as a little extra room to have some employees and set to work opening Modify Salon. After a few years and many cases of annoyance later I found us a new location. One that had exterior windows, a washer and dryer, no drunks hanging out outside, no lame management company, etc. It was perfect! The only problem is we were legally bound to our other location because of the lease. I had explored all legal options and found our way to get it out but it looked like it was going to be a long hard journey and I was worried that this place would be snatched up. Thankfully Holly was able to find someone just to take over our lease and we were out within just a few weeks. We have been at the new salon since the end of September and we are LOVING it! We have been able to hire on more people and turn into a day spa! On November 12th we had our Grand Opening/Open House to show off the new place and introduce all of the new employees. It was a blast:)

This is the design that I came up with for our fliers and James helped me make it happen. He is much more computer savy then I am.


This is the entry way to the salon. You come in and either go upstairs to the esthetics floor or go down four steps into the salon. The handsome guy on the right is my hubby:)

The three owners. Holly Russell, Carolyn Western, and Carolyn Easton.

The crew from upstairs. Kaelin Gillet is our sugar waxer. She focuses just on make-up and body sugaring. Jessica Pannone is and esthetician as well as Noura Obeidi. Jason Palmer is our massage therapist who specializing in all kind of massage techniques. It is so fun to have them just upstairs for all of our skin care and massage needs. :)



All of the food was put on out the main salon floor, hence the mirrors. We moved the stations and chairs around though so we could have more room for everyone. Our event was catered by Hailey Fike from the Smokehouse BBQ and Catering. It was AMAZING. She is the one who made the party. We are so thankful for all of her hard work. She went above and beyond.

Halloween 2011

Once again I took on the task of making costumes this year. I get so frustrated sometimes but I love doing it. I wanted to make ones for James and I as well but just ran out of time. Time is something I feel I have very little of anymore. It seems like I am always running somewhere or doing something. However, I got the kids finished and that was what was most important. Connor really wanted to be an angry bird so I just made angry bird costumes for all of the kids. I think all of the birds are boys so I just put a bow on Scarlett's to make it more feminine. They were a big hit! Most importantly though, they were warm. I decided to make them out of polar fleece because I knew it would probably be cold. Boy was it ever. It started out okay but by the end of trunk or treating it was a blizzard. We were all covered in snow. We came home and enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate before sending the kids off to bed.

Pictures of my babies.

I wanted to get some pictures done of the kiddos but decided to go out and try to get some good ones myself. It was hard. I think maybe if I would have had another person there to help me direct them it would have been easier. Thankfully I got a few good ones. It made it all worth it. I love my babies:)

Employee Appreciation Week

For employee appreciation week Pepsi had a spaghetti feed for their employees and families as well as had a party at Putter's Wild, one of the new local mini golf places. Since Deborah works for Pepsi we were able to tag along and enjoy these functions. We had such a great time. Scarlett really enjoyed the spaghetti :)

Putter's wild is a 3D/black light course. It was pretty cool. The kids had a blast.

My First Marathon

I am almost 29 and in September I ran my first full marathon! I didn't run the entire time considering the fact that it was up the side of a mountain but I ran a lot of it and I am super proud of myself. I finished in just over 5.5 hrs. I'm not gonna lie...it was hard. I went through every emotion. At about mile 19 I started to cry, then I got mad, then I went back to weepy. I felt completely hopeless at the fact that I still had a good 6 miles. I thought I wanted to give up but of course couldn't. I wasn't going to run 21 miles and give up at the last 5. It took everything I had to run the last mile to the finish line, but I did. These pictures are from before we started. Hence the smiles :)


Part of the steep trail.


My sister Kim on the way in to the finish line.

She is finally walking,

Scarlett has been taking a few steps here and there but on the 14th she took her first 3 in a row. Since then she is getting braver and braver and walking more and more. I'm so excited!! I can finally put her in all the cute dresses that we have!

Out of order

Okay, so my posts are going to be out of order until I can catch up. I didn't want to post anything new until I got the olds done but so much is going on and I don't want to get even more behind.

Hatcher's Pass

About 45 minutes out of town is an old mining village. A few years back we asked Connor what is was called and he called it, "Broken drun druns." So now every now and again we take a drive out the the drun druns and walk around. Here are some pictures from this time around. Its up in the mountains a bit and it was a cold rainy day so we are pretty bundled up...and we were still cold.

Hanging out at the lake.

We live right down the road from a lake. We have been having some absolutely beautiful weather so we decided to take the kids to the lake. I figured it would be pretty cold and they wouldn't want to get in too much but I was wrong. The water was actually not too bad. We waded in with the kids and dipped Scarlett in. I thought that she would think it was too cold for sure. Again, I was wrong. She had a blast. They all did. It was a fun family evening.

Out visiting the cousins.

James' sister and her family lives out in Roosevelt. We were lucky enough to be in Utah during the time her oldest son was getting baptized. We hung out a few days there, went swimming with them, and just enjoyed their company. I really wish we lived closer. We have so much fun with them.