Sinks, Santa, Skates, and Snow - (Man I'm good!)

 When I came home from church meetings this morning at 11:15 ish, I found all 3 of my girls in the bathroom getting ready for church.  Maya - just happy to be included. 

 Janna and Maya at the ward party last night, Dec 3rd.  

 This is the first year Rylee was not too shy to actually speak to Santa. 

Lauren is 8 now, but still hanging in there. Who knows, this may or may not be the last year.  I hope not, we are enjoying it while it lasts - and so is she.  She asked Santa what kind of cookies he likes, she was very concerned about taking care of him on his busy night.

Ready for Church.  

Pulling taffy.  This is a tough job, but it's becoming a family tradition each year.  I'm not a taffy fan, I just like making it because I get to show off my big muscles for a bunch of cute girls.

Me & Rylee at the skating ring.  We were quite the pair out there, should've worn caution tape to keep others away.

Lauren and her good friend Kimberly Monson.  

Rylee's snowbaby.  First snow this year was around Nov 13th.  When I came home from my Sunday morning meetings, there were two snow blobs in the yard to greet me.  

Twisted

Janna: Mark, the washing machine quit working.

Mark: Really! I'll look at when I get home.

I tend to keep my 'honey-do list' too long and top priority is in constant motion depending on my ever changing mind. Hence, the big elephant's too complicated even to hack an ankle bone. However, on this occasion within 10 minutes of arrival and a brief 'how-to' YouTube' search this was the state of things.

Janna: Mark, have you always wanted to do this? Are you enjoying this?

His reply was simply a 'fascinated-with-my-new-toy' little boy grin.

My engineer's in the right profession. And I'm the lucky laundry lady.

A sneak into Elder and Sister Mangum's mission

Winter Quarters trail center

'For some must push and some must pull'

'Did you know?' Elder Mangum fascinating the engineer with the wagon odometer.

Welcome committee

Kanesville Tabernacle



Omaha Zoo- We wore out Elder Mangum

We brought the Monkey to see the monkeys :)

Thanks for the sneak peak Nana and Papa. We are so proud of you and the work you're doing. You are truly giving all your time and talents. You have dove in reserving nothing and found yourselves very much needed and loved by the people of Omaha. We sure love and miss you!

Family photo shoot

emilyharknessphotography.blogspot.com

Playing catch up

Stake Farm work.

For future blackmail

8th birthday wish come true!

Little Maya's firsts-

Bottle

Tummy time

Bath

The Games we Play

We found this box of Jenga blocks at Grandma Sharon's house. Blowing the dust off the blocks, we noticed about ten of them were labeled: Obedience, Kindness, Faith, Love. . . and more. The one that brought the tower down was Sacrifice.

I was over at Bill & Erin's house one morning and I discovered this masterpiece made of sand in the driveway. A new planter of some type? I confronted Bill on the subject. . . he laughed and hesitated before admitting it's the drum from his dryer. His tone hinted toward, "I'm not exactly sure what to do with it now, so I'm saving it until Erin comes home and we'll figure something out." Long story, ask Bill or any of his four girls.

Two sets of my expensive eyewear - each on a child under the age of 9. Not sure why I thought this would make a good picture.

It's official. I spotted Herbie in the parking lot at Wangsgards grocery store near 2nd street & Washington Blvd in Ogden on August 12th, 2011. I took this with my camera phone... wasn't exactly sure how to get an autograph.

If you haven't heard, the Ogden temple is undergoing a few minor changes. The parking structure is gone, the fountain is gone, the walkway is gone, the landscaping is completely gone. . . Through the green construction fence you can see backhoes and bulldozers and guys with hardhats walking through the skeleton of what used to be the Ogden Temple. The only thing that will stay the same is the boiler room and angel Moroni. Check out the artists rendering of what the new temple will look like: http://lds.org/bc/content/church/temples/ogden-utah/images/Ogden-New-Render.jpg

I wish I could take credit for this idea and maybe I did have something to do with it, but this time it was all Lauren's idea. We highly recommend it. We get a bunch of socks and see how many we can dangle from the fan by throwing them up there one at a time (fan is off of course). Suddenly, mom walks in the room: "What are you guys doing?" Me, Lauren, and Rylee stare at her. . . is this a trick question? "We're throwing socks up into the fan. Here, these are yours, help us out."

So . . . this was my rental car during my trip to Cincinnati for work last week. 2011 convertible Camaro. They were out of standard size vehicles, so the lady asked me if wouldn't mind driving a Yellow Camaro. What kind of a question is that? "Well, I'd rather have one of those weird PT Cruisers if you've got one. Purple please."

Miss Maya's Photo shoots

I have two very talented friends, who for baby gifts did some incredible photos. Such talent, I'm sure glad I don't have to choose just one. Here's a few favorites of our newest princess.

These were done courtesy of Emily Harkness

www. emilyharknessphotography.com

These were done by Marianne Schaelling

www.littlelottiephotography.com