January 10

We had a great New Year's. We had a party at home with the kids. We had treats and fireworks. We had a wii tournament and played board games. Then we watched the ball drop in New York at 9:00 and went to bed.

The next morning we got up and drove to Utah. We had a fun-packed trip. As soon as we got there we got the kids all dressed in their new snow gear and went sledding. The kids LOVED it. We left Seth with Linda. We stayed for about three hours. We made a snowman and sledded. All the kids were in heaven. Then the next morning we got up and went again for another hour and a half. Then we left the kids with Linda and Bob had lunch with Josh while I had lunch with Amanda. Then we went bowling at BYU and at night we went to a BYU basketball game. Then Sunday morning we went to church and came home.

Danny started basketball and he and Rachel started piano lessons.

This weekend I went on a YW leaders retreat. We left Friday afternoon and went up to someone's cabin outside of St. George. There are 12 YW leaders because there are so many girls. We had a great time. We went to dinner and stayed up and talked and ate a ton until 3 in the morning. It was fun to get to know everyone better and have girls night. Bob did great at home with the kids.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to be better at my scripture study. I've decided to study by topics. This month I'm working on faith. And a started a notebook where I keep a record of what I read and what I learned or impressions I received. I thought that would be hard to do, but so far it's been fun and easy.

Another resolution is to do more service. I signed our family up to make blankets for a nonprofit. Disneyland has a program where if you give a day of service you can get a free ticket to Disneyland. We're all excited about the program. I think it'll be a great first exposure to service for the kids. Then I'll look into more ideas for projects we can do in the future. I'm also going to see if I can find a nonprofit or two that I can make a website for. I tried to do that a year or so ago and nothing ever came of it. So this time I'll follow up better and make sure I find some way to help.

Aaron and I have "plan" for his tantrums. He doesn't like them either, so he welcomed my help. The tantrums are at the very worst when he's either tired or hungry. So he has to make sure he eats something right when he wakes up and he has to take a nap on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. But on those mornings he'll also get to pick something fun for the two of us to do. This week his tantrums were much better than last week. So I'm really hopeful that this plan will be quite successful.