t h e m a y f i l e s is foremost a family blog, chronicling everyday life. Life including natural, healthy eating (with recipes thrown in at random), home educating (with ideas popping up sporadically), an attempt to homestead on .2 acres (with very meager yields), raising 3 of 4 children with a rare genetic disorder, and lots of highly personal family triumphs and failures. You may also find an eclectic array of musings on politics, exercise, sewing, emergency preparedness, backyard chickens, and religion. This blog isn't a campaign to glorify anyone or anything. Just simply a record.
Showing posts with label New Years. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Years. Show all posts

1.04.2010

A New Year, A New Decade: Resolutions for 2010

Welcome to a new year. A new decade. We are so ponderous about what it holds.
I have begun printing my blog into books. The year 2008 was a single volume. But 2009 required two. I used sharedbook. It is a great site for me because it is extremely easy. All I had to do was type in my blog address, chose a cover and dedication and I was done. Perfect! It is such a wonderful thing to have a tangible historical record. It gives me new meaning and dedication for my blog. It may get more mushy this year. Be prepared.
What will life look like in 10 years? How will this book change?
Me...42 years old, wow I can hardly fathom, running marathons, doing tri's, still spending time doing school, sports and music with my children, cherishing the moments which will start to feel fleeting, still cooking, cleaning and doing lots of laundry, living who knows where, we will probably have itched for an adventure and something new by this point, hopefully I won't look like this...
Brent...44, business, I have no idea running your own business you just never know, still fit without straying a single pound from his ideal weight ever, squeezing out of our children every last oodle of information about their lives without them ever suspecting he is doing so, probably fluent in Hebrew or attained some sort of master scriptorian status (at least in my eyes), thoughtful and involved, presiding and providing...

...Ellery sixteen, driving, dating, dragging her feet to school extremely late everyday (my heavens, she is a slow mover, this drives me bananas, there is no such thing as "hurrying Ellery", so opposite of my personality!) reserved, able to discern truth and deception wherever she encounters them, a true beauty inside and out...

...Callista fourteen, involved in everything, spiritual beyond her years, lots of smiles, lots of crazy, full-spectrum, emotions, continual spokesperson for the children (currently Ellery hides behind the corner as Callista expresses the wishes of the offspring), able to discern truth and deception wherever she encounters them, darling, passionate and irresistible...

...Emmett twelve, old enough to hold the priesthood, tipping the scales at 70 lbs, a permanent smile with hardly ever a even a smidgen of gloom. Maybe he still won't even have learned to say or express the concepts of "no" and "mine" (a mother can dream right?). Riding 4 wheelers and motorcycles with his father, able to discern truth and deception wherever he encounters them, sweet and friendly beyond compare...it's possible Emmett could look something like this...(he laughed his head off for at least 20 minutes as we did this)
...New baby 9 years old. What an adventure and pleasure it will be to meet this knew little spirit sent to our family from Heavenly Father!

...More children? Yikes! A question not to be fathomed at the moment :)

Resolutions for 2010

Grow a garden, not to be devoured by my chickens. One that is fruitful. I may have to abandon my "heirloom" intentions of last year. If I thought I had time last year, this year would be a joke.

Play with each of my children everyday. Not just interact, read or teach, but play joyfully.

Use the moments I have away from my little family and duties to reach out to others, and not focus myself.

Use some of the 50 lbs of chia seeds filling my freezer.

Get down a method for consistently growing and harvesting wheatgrass. Preferably one that doesn't involve the water damage currently left over on my mantel from our first experiment.

Figure out how to get my family to eat more beans. It is the magical fruit, or so my dad always told me.

Finish my "Christmas Dresses" oops did I say Christmas they are Valentines dresses for certain.

Write my husband love letters.

Bear testimony of the truths I know more consistently to my family and friends.

Here we go. The day of public reckoning will surely come.

12.31.2009

New Years Eve Madness

In addition to the fabulous "Snowballs" on New Years Eve here are some of our other activities to fill the day and night....

Riding horses with Grandpa, Uncle Brock, and Daegen...
Feasting on fabulous fondue...
Piling into Grandma and Grandpas car because it was too cold to walk to the barn....
Listening to Callista say "pinahta" over and over again....
Having a raging dance party in the barn....
Watching the girls try to knock down "Mr. Sunshine"....

Callista missed...
My attempt...
.
Brock smashing the "Mr. Sunshine" into pieces....
The girls picking up their prizes from the ultra clean barn floor....
Trying to share a romantic kiss with my half-asleep husband and trying to document it with my own camera...instead we got a great nostril shot. yuck.
Happy New Years!!! And so 2009 comes to a conclusion. Full of love and joy and a few tears. May the new year be better than the last. Could we ever be so blessed?

Snowballs...A Family Tradition



I think one of my favorite family traditions are "Snowballs." This one stems from my mothers side of the family. In fact, she did it every Christmas with her family and cousins. Snowballs are serious business with serious rules. And there must be strict adherence by all parties! This year I happened to be in charge of making the snowballs so I did them the "Rebecca Way." Actually they were the most delicious we have ever had! Click for the recipe here.

Here is Brock explaining the rules....

In a nutshell...

1. The last person whose candle is lit, wins and gets their wish for the New Year.
2. You can't touch your candle with your fingers, only your spoon or fork.
3. You can't blow out anyone else's candle...but you can try to distract or get them to laugh hysterically thus putting out their own candle.
4. You have to keep eating your ice cream.
5. Keep a detailed historical record.

It takes a lot of concentration....
This year there was a showdown between Brent and my mother. I think the picture tells the story quite lucidly. Don't you?
Better luck next year Mom! Here is a picture of the winning candle. As you can see all that is left is a wick. I love this tradition.
Here are some excerpts from previous years notes...

"Bruce (7) blew out his candle for fear of spreading fire. This is too dangerous Grandma"

"Amy in a sudden fit of laughter exhaled a bit too strongly from her nose and out went her candle"

12.30.2009

2009 in Review

Here were my New Years Resolutions from 2009...

March 21: Moab 1/2 Marathon...Goal: 1:30. Run fast. Run hard. Pray for good weather.
April 20: Boston Marathon...Goal: Complete with a smile, and enjoy a fabulous vacation.

July: Spudman Triathlon...Goal: Conquer my fear of Open Water and achieve a PR.

Live my Religion More Fully by following The Word of Wisdom.
This is a three-fold mission...eat meat sparingly, use the grains/crops of the field as our staff of life, use herbs more effectively.

So how did I do?

Moab 1/2 marathon I did in 1:35 which was a PR on the hardest 1/2 course I have done. This was a great accomplishment. 1:30 was a very aggressive goal. I still think I can make this pace but on a different course.

Boston...well we all know this sad story. I didn't sign up in time. So we ended up with a great vacation but no marathon. I ran the Ogden marathon instead and came out with a 4 minute PR at 3:27.

Spudman was mission accomplished. With a serious dedicated effort I conquered my open water fear. I also came out with an amazing time and smashed my personal record. This one will be hard to beat.

Eat meat sparingly...yep. Definitely.

Grains and plants...lots of them everyday.

Herbs, I haven't made as much progress on this as I hoped. Mostly all my medicinal herbs were eaten by my chickens. And I am not any better at identifying than I was a year ago. Maybe a little. This one I better work on.

It was a year of growth and change. I believe in all the right directions. We read books like crazy. Brent and I. The children and I. We started a homeschooling adventure, a backyard poultry experiment, a new baby on the way, Emmett finally has some boy toys...it was a good year.

1.01.2009

Happy New Years: Indulging the Children

We spent a fabulous New Years at my parents Full Circle ranch. And for the first time I indulged my children and allowed them to stay up until midnight, not Eastern time you cheaters out there! Actually they made it until 11:55 pm....it seemed torture to keep them up even a minute longer.

I spent the evening listening to my poor baby awaken every 30 minutes or so to his cousins shrieking Peter Pan lines... (Charlotte wondered if there were ear plugs for monitors so only parents have the pleasure of listening to their children cry...hmmm)a lengthy game of speed scrabble...an engrossing read of several chapters in The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve...(Extremely enlightening. I highly recommend this to anyone understand our current monetary/economic system. Extremely disturbing.)...fondue (a family tradition) and a discussion on pressure cookers. To sum it up...I live a wild life.

The children spent the evening running around crazy with their cousins...gaily dancing and banging pots at a fire...rapturously enjoying fondue....and cheerfully submitting to bed time at 11:55. The camera was a desperate attempt at a "flashlight" to pacify Callista, do you think she looks tired?I may have to rethink next year...