families are the best things in the whole world!!

For Christmas this year we had mom and dad, rach and rob, amy and darren, jenny and eric and ben and I all together. We were going to go to the cabin but since the storm was so bad and Amy got in a car accident we decided to stay home- we went to the neighborhood park instead! We had a great big snowball fight- SUPER FUN!! plus sledding, swinging and taking a nice walk all around.

Santa came to the Harston home that's for sure! Ben and I got a new kitchen island thing with a counter top on the top and cabinets on the bottom- my mom has much better designing taste than I do and this is PERFECT for our kitchen! We also got a tent which is so fun! We can't wait to use it this summer!

Christmas eve at the Beus's was great except I was sick from food poisoning and throwing up.... :( The nativity was fun- Mason was our cute sheep, Emma was Mary with her slightly older spouse- Dave! Baby Christoper was his name's sake- baby Jesus, Carson was the donkey, Abby the handsome wiseman ect- most everybody had parts.

Here's some of what we gave- to mom and dad beus we organized all their photos into albums and for Laura and Greg we got their box of old jeans and made a jean quilt out of all of them- very fun and a total surprise to Greg!

We had a wonderful Christmas- hope all of yours was great too!

haircut and fun dinner

Before:















During:



















After (me in the corner of the pic):




















Good thing the person that jean quilt is for (first picture) doesn't check my blog or else her Christmas surprise would be ruined! Anyway I cut off 8 inches and I'm much much happier- I love my new haircut! We celebrated Ben's last final and Laurel's birthday (friend from the neighborhood) with McGraths Fish House... MNNNNNN... seafood is the best. For her birthday we made her wear the hat! Gotta love humiliation on your birthday!

What a wonderful season!

Isn't this glass block cute?! We made them at an RS meeting- you can put a string of lights in the block and it lights it up...

Here's are sweet little tree we cute down at the cabin. LOVE IT

It's been a while since we had a date so Ben took me bowling- Look at his form- he took a bowling class last year in college and he walloped me big time! Doubled my score from the get go! This bowling place is where we hung out for the first time after his mission so it was fun to go back and remember our dating times!

I am the cub scout den leader and here's what we had the boys make- aren't they fun! Socks full of rice.

My fridge is empty and I'm all out of ideas to cook- I need it to be CHEAP since Christmas time seems to make your money evaporate! Any ideas for cheap nutritious meals? (not spaghetti I don't really like it)

pediatrician

I don't know how to choose a pediatrician for our baby- we have lots of options on our insurance plan. Does any one have any suggestions or warnings about docs around here?

Wonderful Winter Thanksgivings!

We had such a fun Thanksgiving! We went to my parents cabin for the first half of the day. It was mom and dad, Amy and her family, and uncle Marv and Elizabeth with her two sons. The best part was before the big lunch we hiked up and cut down a Christmas tree for us. It's small but I have learned with our tiny little house that it just doesn't look good to put big things in it. Small things in a small house so our tree is a cute little one! Ben is carrying the one for my parents who can fit a big tree in thier house! Funny how we also helped my mom set up an artificial tree at the cabin!

After the cabin we were at the Beus's for the last half of the day. There we had Sam and Julie from Idaho with thier family, Chris and Sariah and then family friends from Mexico (Sariah's brother's family), family friends from South Sudan and friends from Jordan. Very fun to share America's traditions with people from other cultures! The last pictures captures me 5.5 months pregnant after two BIG thanksgiving feasts... notice the excessive chins... :)

confession

I feel guilty that I feel this way but I am getting more and more overwhelmed with the reality of this baby coming. For the past month I have felt like I am a pretty inadequate mother. I wish I had better self control about things and that I had mastered habits like reading my scriptures daily, serving others unselfishly, routine temple worship, the list goes on and on. Once in a while I feel like there are so many good things to do I just can't do them all.

The other silly thing on my mind so much lately is this gigantic debt that a house comes with. We have prepared financially and we will be fine with the mortgage when the baby comes but gosh I can't explain how much I HATE the feeling of being in debt. Especially when that debt happens to be 6 digits! I guess I'll get used to it, It's been ok for the last 6 months because we've made double payments since I'm working full time but now we'll go to normal payments and the thought of being in debt for 20 more years is just depressing. I love our house and I'm glad we bought it I just hate the huge amount of interest accruing.

Anyway sorry for the depressing post but I have been trying to sort out these feelings and get mentally situated. Yesterday I was reading the new conference Ensign- President Beck's message from the Relief Society meeting. She validated what I am feeling when she said, "Most women have many responsibilities and never have sufficient time to do everything their hearts and minds want to do." So then she quotes President Uchtdorf, "A wise man once distinguished between the noble art of getting things done and the nobler art of leaving things undone. True wisdom in life, he taught, consists of the elimination of non-essentials." So I am going to eliminate some non essentials. For me these are surfing the net too much (blogs, facebook, checking e-mail every hour ect), being preoccupied with finances (checking banks daily and thinking about it so much), spending too much time reading books (when I get hooked on a book it's hard to stop). If I spend less time doing these things I bet I'll have more time to read my scriptures and conference talks and go to the temple.

In the mean time I'll get used to the fact that most 20-40 year olds that own homes have mortgage debt. I just feel so guilty when people say things about avoiding debt and try to pay off your debt as fast as you can. Are they really talking about mortgage or other debts like cars and credit cards?

Halloween!

I love making traditions, we didn't do this last year since we were living in my parents basement and putting pumpkins on the top stair isn't quite the same as outside! But this year we continued with the Beus tradition of carving pumpkins for the FHE right before Halloween. Do you like our choice of figures. If they aren't familiar to you then you are outdated and old and need to go to homestarrunner.com. You ought to feel ashamed of yourself! :) (It could be our carving skills though too.)

The Green's threw the best Halloween party- if you can't tell who we are again you need to rent Harry Potter! We have been reading the books and loving them- for Ben they are a review for me they are brand new and soo fun! Gotta love how paul sneaks into all the photos!

Our contribution was breadsticks that Ben twisted into broomsticks and bloody marinara sauce to dip them in. Then we had 7 layer bean dip that was a spider web, rotten apple juice with worms in it to drink (really just martinelli), witches fingers for dessert- all of the food was so fun and sooooo tasty and then they surprised us with carmel and dark chocolate dipped apples that we could dip into different yummy things- they were way better than you can buy in chocolate shops! mnnnnn thanks dave and lori!

Park City Get Away!

We went to Park City for 3 days and it was a blast- the best part was the awesome people in our ward. We lucked out with this ward! Here is us at the Zipline- I think everybody should go to the Olympic Park- it's so much fun! You can watch people practicing jumps off of these and they land on grass and then they can do ariel jumps into the pool! Super cool Saturday activity!

Can you see the guy about to land above our heads? So I guess Lina likes Michael Jordan ... I admit she looks pretty good in that outfit with the one glove!

Guitar Hero!!

I had to throw this in there. We planted corn in our garden and this is all that came from the three big stalks of corn... It's struggling but we ate it anyway!