Staying Sane in January

This post is mainly for my sister, Camille, who lives in Washington. She wanted to see pictures of some of my projects this month. (The poor girl has to listen to me drone on about my latest decorating fiasco on a weekly basis.) One of my New Year's resolutions was to spend some time beautifying my home and making it more functional. I have had WAY too much fun doing this, and I need my husband to ground me from "Hobby Lobby" or I may never stop.

Project: Beautification
I started in my bedroom. Just before Christmas, I took a class and made this beautiful picture of the Salt Lake Temple. This is where Ryan and I were married almost 10 years ago, so I love waking up to this picture every morning. The next thing I wanted was to bring my bedroom to life. I have always wanted to make a flower arrangement in there, but I was having a hard time finding anything in the sea foam green color.

But I found this great pot that had the sea foam green on it, and I decided to just go with browns and creams for the arrangement. Thank goodness for my interior decorating friend, Kristen, who walked me through it so it wasn't so stressful.

I then found matching lamps for our bedside tables on KSL.com. I love having extra light!

This project is called decoration migration. The family picture has been sitting on this wall solo for over 2 years. I pulled the heart from the other side of the room and the saying from above my door (where you couldn't even see it because it's too short). I like this arrangement much better and it speaks "LOVE" to me.

This is my new dining table flower arrangement that got a little out of hand. It is about the size of a small child, but it certainly brightens up the room! (Kristen coached me a little on this one too.)

I got my kids' pictures taken together so I was excited to dedicate an entire wall to the "Little Wonders" in my life. Sorry about the glare. But I'll post these pics big soon.

This was a fun $15 project thanks to my sisters' donations. I got the pictures from my sister Rachel and the plate rack from Ryan's sister Heather (I think?) years ago. I just bought the plates and voila! A new wall in my kitchen.

Project: Organization
This may not look like much, but I am super proud of it. This is our office closet. I wish I had a "before" picture because it was a wreck. It had all this stuff stacked on top of each other and everything was always falling over. With the help of three shelves (thank you, Ryan, for your awesome installation skills), and some cute organization boxes from IKEA, I can get to everything I need and nothing falls on my head. Projects like this make me ridiculously happy. I've also made a few organization changes to some cupboards and drawers to make them more functional and revamped my recipe book so it is better organized and user-friendly. It is the most fun I've had in a long time (I know how lame that sounds, but it's true).

Christmas Morning

Santa Claus visited our house again this year!!

And Preston was the first one down the stairs to discover it. He yelled up to his sisters to "hurry and get downstairs!" He LOVES opening presents and toys of any kind. He was in heaven.

Adelyn got new art supplies, a Barbie, and some dress-ups.

Annalise got a new Potty and some big girl underwear. It looks like 2012 will be the year to get potty-trained.

She also got a darling rag-doll that she loves.

Aunt Heather left us a super awesome gift before she went back home to Boston. Our kids (by kids, I mean Ryan) have ALWAYS wanted a Wii. Do you like Adelyn's new golden wig?

After presents, we hurried and got the kids dressed and went to church. I wish we had taken a picture of all of them because they looked really sharp, Preston in his new suit and Adelyn and Annalise in their Christmas dresses. Church was wonderful. The ward choir put on a very moving musical program. After church, we went to Ryan's parents' house for a delicious Christmas dinner and spent most of the afternoon there. It was a VERY Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve with the Ostler's

Yummy food is always an important part of our Ostler Christmas Eve Party. My mom even roasted a lamb this year. With all the people and chaos, I thought for a second I was part of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

The kids always enjoy acting out the First Nativity with all their cousins. Grandpa read the story from the Bible and Grandma played some songs to break up the different scenes.

Ryan fashioned these halos from a hanger and some sparkly wire so the girls could be angels.

Annalise loved being part of the nativity this year.

The shepherds: Preston, Luke, and Miles did a really good job keeping track of the sheep, Emily, and following the angels to the manger.

Girl's Christmas Party

These are some of my best friends from high school: Andree, Kellie, Heather Emily, and Leslie. We have been out of high school for ten years now, and we have somehow managed to get together with each other for all ten Christmases since. We are of course missing several girls who live out of state. But it is so wonderful to see everyone, eat yummy food, and catch up on everyone's lives. I look forward to it every year. The big news this year was that Kellie is getting married!! She is the last one of our big group of friends to get hitched, and we are super happy for her.

Gardner Village

We don't usually come to Gardner Village for Christmas, but we'd heard about the new little elves around the village and wanted to check it out. It was so cold, however, that we mostly ran from shop to shop and hardly even noticed the elves.

This is a pretty cute little elf though.

Preston carried his "Lightning Mcqueen" in its box (that he got from Aunt Heather) around to all the shops, and surprisingly didn't ask for anything else.

Annalise wanted this baby sparkly purse.

Rocque Family Christmas Party

After a yummy meal and some catching up, we moved the party into the gym and played a very competitive game of Four Square. I never played the game much as a kid, but Ryan and his family are masters. They knew all the rules and all the tricks. It was intense and super fun. It was especially wonderful to have Ryan's sister, Heather, in town for a few days.

Ryan sporting his game face.

Meeting Santa

Our ward Christmas party this year was a real treat. We had a delicious meal, live entertainment, a Christmas story reading, and a visit from Santa.

Adelyn asked for an Aurora Barbie.

Preston asked for a dragon.

And Annalise begged to be put down. . . immediately (but she did appreciate the candy cane).

Preston's Preschool Program

Preston has been spending a lot of time singing, which is not entirely characteristic of him. It surprised me how many Christmas songs he knew. I found out he'd been learning them in preschool in preparation for his Christmas program. He was so excited to have me come and see him perform. I always forget that he has a shy side because he is so assertive in situations he's used to (at home, with friends, at church). He was pretty reserved; but he was on his best behavior, and he sang every single word (very softly) and did all the actions.

I am so proud of him and how big and mature he is learning to be.

This was the best I could do in getting the three boys to look at the camera and smile. Preston loves his best friends, Jacob and Stanley.

Annalise was a good supporter of her big brother and was very well-behaved during the program. She loves to clap.

Family Pictures with a Tripod

In an effort to capitalized upon Costco's Christmas greeting card special before it expired (as I'm writing this, I realized it saved me all of $5.00; what is wrong with me?) on November 27, I decided on November 22 that we needed to take our family pictures IMMEDIATELY. As a result, we drove up to the Riverwoods and resorted to a tripod, a timer, and Ryan's ability to run fast. Here are the results:

Annalise sported this scowl in over half of the pictures. Due to the fact that for an hour straight we were telling our two-year old to smile at a blinking light, it was rare to even have her looking in the right direction, let alone capture a pleasant expression. We decided this wasn't the best method. Next year, things will be different...hopefully.

Good picture, except our little sweetie again.

Ryan's effort to be creative.

Ryan wanted us to pretend we were tipping over. Annalise must have missed the memo.

This is as good as it gets folks. Yes, this is one of the pictures we used in our Christmas cards.

Now she knows where the camera is.

Precious kids. These guys were real troopers.

Annalise was whining and squirming because Preston was trying to hug her. (sigh) Two-year-olds.

You'll also see this one in Christmas card. A last-minute bridge shot. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Disney on Ice

We couldn't go to Disneyland this year, so they brought Disney to us. How nice of them. This was everyone's first experience seeing "Disney on Ice" and it sure didn't disappoint. It was truly amazing--every prop and dance perfectly choreographed. The kids were enthralled, even Annalise. We saw mini-shows of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Snow White, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tangled, Princess and the Frog, and of course Mickey and Minnie. It was a really special night.

My parents came too, which made it super fun.

"Prince Ali, fabulous he, Ali-abobwa"

The Lion King was fantastic!

All the princes and princesses came out at the end and skated together. It was the perfect finale.

Halloween Happenings

Scary-face kids with their scary-face pumpkins. We carved these pumpkins as a family the night before Halloween. We let Adelyn and Preston each carve their own.

Annalise wore this pumpkin costume all evening for the occasion. Addie called her the third pumpkin.

Pumpkin pancakes shaped like pumpkins!! Our new Halloween breakfast tradition (topped with a chocolate chip face and lots of whipped cream).

Ryan dressed up in Russian garb for school and trick-or-treating. Most of the little kids thought he was a pirate though.

Dinner in a Pumpkin may or may not become a regular tradition. Adelyn is the only one of our kids to try it. But Ryan and I LOVED it, so we'll definitely eat it again.

Do these kids look ready to go trick-or-treating? Well, they were more than ready. We went along Main Street to the shops, then we went around the neighborhood and AF High School. Our final stop was at Grandma Rocque's to show off our costumes.

Adelyn decided to change to this pink dress for trick-or treating. The long flowing red sleeves on the other dress were a bit too cumbersome for an energetic 6-year old. (Thanks Aunt Amber for letting us borrow the dresses.) After insisting I put "princess make-up" on her for school, she had me wash it all off that night because it hurt her eyes. :)

Preston made the perfect fierce dragon. He had so much fun trick-or-treating. He's my big candy-lover.

There's that tongue again! Annalise stayed in the stroller and ate suckers the whole night while trick-or-treating. People would try to talk to her and she'd just look at them with a blank stare. We told them she was probably in a sugar coma.

At AF High, Preston got a shark painted on his face. Adelyn had a rainbow. We had a wonderful Halloween. We love spending these special times with our kids.