One of these days...

...my house will be clean, the laundry will be washed, folded, AND put away, I will have returned everyone's phone calls/texts/emails, and my stress levels won't be through the roof. At least I hope so! Everything that is going on right now, although insanely busy, is also very exciting, and we are feeling very blessed.

Ryan and Jenna are, what can I say, two-year-olds. They keep me on my toes all the time. They are best buddies and partners in crime one minute, and beating each other up the next minute. I can't believe how grown-up there are. They aren't my little babies anymore, they are little people. Sometimes I get sad that there won't be anymore babies, and then the twins color on the wall or put a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet, and I am immediately grateful for what we have :). As long as my friends and family keep having babies that I can snuggle, I am good.

Macey and Heidi are both in Girl Scouts, and it is Girl Scout cookie time. They have had fun selling, selling, and selling, trying to earn money for their troops. They have also been busy with weekly troop meetings and their Girl Scout Investitures, the ceremony where they officially become Girl Scouts. This has kept me pretty busy, too, shuttling the girls to their meetings, taking cookie orders, and sewing on patches. It is so cute to see them in their little uniforms, and the things they learn are such valuable life lessons. I am so glad that they wanted to be Girl Scouts.

Scott has been very busy at work, there are some really exciting things happening that I will expound on in a later post. He still misses the guys at the Fire Department, but we know that he made the right decision changing careers. He is a natural at his job, and he absolutely loves being home every night and weekend. It has been so good for our family to have him here. I am still so proud of him for being able to make that sacrifice for our family. He loves his job, and it is so strange to think that he has already been there for 2 years.

My work has exploded in the last few weeks! In December I started looking for a new salon to work out of, and I was having a really hard time finding the perfect situation. Scott and I prayed that a good opportunity would come up, and guess what? It did! I found a salon in Chandler that was going to opening on January 1st, where I would be working with a massage therapist and a Naturopathic doctor. The massage therapist had been in the field for a long time, and was finally opening up her own salon. Her problem was that she sells mostly packages for massages, facials, and body wraps/scrubs, and she did not have an aesthetician to work with her. It was not luck that directed me to her. I have been working like crazy with her, and I actually had to hire another aesthetician already to help take some of the work! I am working out of that salon, and I am still working out of my first salon. I am also in the process of opening another salon on Scottsdale that I will use to teach my classes. Needless to say, 3 salons is extremely busy and stressful. After January, I will move out of my original salon and only be working in the Chandler salon and teaching in the Scottsdale salon. Despite the economy, I have been teaching 2 classes a month, which is a lot of work in itself, not to mention all of my aesthetics and permanent makeup. Things should settle down in a couple of weeks, and I am extremely happy about that. My poor house has received most of the neglect. But as long as Scott and the kids are happy, healthy and fed, I will try not to stress myself out about the condition of the house too much. One of these days it will be spotless, but I'm not holding my breath.

We learned this week that Scott's Grandpa is very sick, his cancer has spread throughout his body. If you could, would you please keep him and the family in your prayers, as it is obviously a very trying and emotional time.

Tucson Adventures

Macey and Heidi went to Tucson with Scott's dad and step-mom over Christmas break, and they had tons of fun! They went to the Biosphere, to Colossal Cave, and went horseback riding. They sure had some fun stories when they got home.

Christmas 2009

We actually had a white Christmas this year! We spent it at Scott's mom's house in Pinetop. The kids had so much fun playing in the snow, and it was cool to actually have a chimney for Santa to come down! It was a little too cold for me, I am definitely a Phoenix girl, but the kids didn't seem to notice that it was only 20 degrees. We had to bribe Ryan with hot chocolate to get him to come inside!