Making Our Blog Private

Hey Everyone-

Just wanted to let you all know that due to my husband's new position, we will be making this family blog private as of March. What this means is that you won't be able to access our blog unless you are personally invited and approved by the administrator (which is ME). :) So if you would like to still check in on us from time to time, please shoot me an email (hollidwyett@gmail.com), and I will add you to our "safe" list. Family, I will try to remember to add you all. Let me know if you have any trouble. I would love to continue to share our life and lessons with you all!

Holli

February 2012

Forgive this long, mish-mash of a post (is mish-mash even a word??). This month has flown by! We have only 10 days until James' graduation! We are all so excited, we can't stand it. I feel like we are in the last stretch of a very long marathon. We are all tired and worn out, but we can see the finish line and it has given us a little boost to push through to the end!

So here is what our family has been up to these past few weeks:

For those of you who know me well, you know that one of my dreams is to live off my own land...I want lots of it with acres for my boys and dog to run, lots of fruit trees, a huge garden, chickens, maybe a jersey cow... and goats! Yes, I would like a little goat farm. At least enough to milk, and make cheese, and keep my pastures looking nice. In the meantime I will live vicariously through some good friends who are blessed with land (and this cool mountain goat)! These friends board and train horses and have a kid's day once a month where they can ride the horses and run around. It is wonderful!

Emma loves it because they have several dogs and she just chases them around for hours. She isn't too sure about the horses. We got her on the mini pony, but that was about it.

Savanna was recently called to be the Mia Maid president at church. She has had several presidency meetings and is taking her calling very seriously. She also had the opportunity to speak in church again, and blew us away with a beautiful talk on being a shining example to those around her.

Our sweet Emma has had an exciting month. She recently had two more teeth break through (one molar and one lateral tooth), and has FOUR more about to break through (3 of which are molars too)! Needless to say she has not been as happy as usual, but you won't see her grumpiness in any of the pictures here!

However, she has this terrible habit of pulling out her own hair! She mostly does it while sleeping, and I have been finding chunks of hair in her crib in the morning. It got to the point where there was a large bald spot right on the top of her head with longer hair on the sides and back. Mullets are not an attractive hairstyle on most people (I might even venture to say all people), especially baby girls! James offered to buzz her head to which I replied, "NO Way!" So I took her to one of those fancy, kid hair cutting places. The lady informs me the only way to even out her hair and have it not look so mullet-ish is to in fact buzz it! I about died watching her buzz off all the fine, blond, baby hair. She is still cute as ever, but is practically bald. It's a good thing hair grows fast! :(

BEFORE

AFTER

Still beautiful...

We have continued with our weekly family hikes! We headed way up Lopez Road to Hi Mountain Road and found a beautiful trail. The next week we went North to Bishop's Peak in San Luis Obispo. There were some incredible views from the top of the peak! There are so many beautiful areas to explore here, and the weather is perfect for hiking. We are going to take a long family hike every week. We all benefit, especially Marley.

Benjamin finished Basketball season. Overall he had a good time, although there were some punks on the team that weren't very nice to him. He says he still wants to play next year, so I guess it didn't affect him too badly. The coach had a big BBQ at his house and the kids had a blast. They have a huge yard with a dirt bike track, a zip-line, a trampoline, a clubhouse, and lots of animals. Super jealous!

Oh, and here is Emma AGAIN! She is talking up a storm these days, and wants to be outside all of the time! She says, "Desiiiiiigh" every morning after breakfast and takes my hand and walks me to the door.

Emma Leigh's first owie...so sad. :(

Emma is getting so big now that she has no room to stretch out her legs in her car seat! I think it's time to flip her around. I had to dig out all of her 18 months clothes. This pink dress and the Winnie the Pooh tennies were actually Savanna's at that age! I didn't save too much of Savanna's things, but I did save a few- it is so fun to see Emma in them!

We have another Shakeology-lover in the family! I can't drink one without Emma following me around saying, "Mmmm..Mmmmm."

I found her in my room, sitting on one of my pillows, with one of my old dolls in one arm and her big stuffed Elephant in the other reading an electronic book!

I am finally finishing some projects I swore I would get done with ALL the extra evening time I would have while my hubby was gone. I didn't realize that I would be absolutely exhausted most evenings and that the list I created was actually insane!! At any rate, I made these kitchen valances for my windows. It helps tremendously when the sun sets, and I can still see my crazy boys on the trampoline. Aren't I domestic?:)

Book worms. :) Speaking of books, I am half-way through an incredible psychology book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. Absolutely riveting. It's an in-depth study of how mindsets can actually determine your personality, behavior, and ultimate success. She also talks about how to change your mindset if it is not working for you. We've all heard, "Mind Over Matter" and know the value of our thoughts, but her examples and explanations have really enlightened me about HOW much my way of thinking actually affects my perception of myself, others, and my life as a whole. Good stuff. I highly recommend it!

Had to post this cute basket my MIL bought me for my farmer's market purchases! I use it every week!! I have another one that is black and white that is handy for just about anything, but mostly we use it to drag stuff up and down the stairs. :)

The boys doing one of my Turbo Fire "Fire Drills." I have one more week of my 90 days of Turbo Fire. Will post some results and pictures over the weekend!

February 2012

Pinewood Derby

Bradley has had an exciting couple of weeks! He finished his pinewood derby car and was able to race it twice! First he raced it at the Santa Maria Mall at the Scout-O-Rama event, and then he raced it at the church building for the big Pinewood Derby. He didn't win any trophies, but he had a great time and has already said he is going to start designing his car for next year!!

At the Scout-O-Rama event they had dozens of booths set up by the individual troops with fun activities for the boys. We were there for HOURS...they had a blast!

Best news: Dad was able to be home on Saturday for the Scout-O-Rama. So even though he missed the pinewood derby at the church, he was at Brad's very first pinewood derby race. That meant a lot to Brad...and to James. Ben also had a ton of fun at the booths so that helped to ease the jealousy of not having his own car yet.

And the always supportive Sister along for the ride to cheer on Brad and scout out cute boys! ;)

Brad wins his very first heat! He actually won 2 heats out of 4, but they have a crazy accurate computer that measures and averages the speed of the cars and that is how they pick the top 3. So he was fast, but not quite fast enough!

The boys' favorite booth at the Scout-O-Rama!

February 4 - 10, 2012