just pictures of Christmas Eve and Morning

Merry Christmas to all

So as I'm sure you've all already realized because nothing has been in your mail box's for a while now the Fox's did not send a Christmas Card this year.. for that I'm sorry We love you all so much, but, well I'm over it.. I'll put forth the effort next year i promise as long as there are no ice storms which make us powerless and school-less for days on end then you can count on a cute card from us to you no problems...

But this also kind of gets me out of the dreaded Christmas Letter that I always send.. I use to make fun of mercilessly the Christmas letters we would get as a kid then of coarse I followed suit when I had kids and now since I blog it seems kind of well too much or redundant so if i can resist it next year I'll just direct everyone here to see what we are up to..

In all I'm happy with our our 2008 has turned out.. we've all learned allot and have had lots of fun family time.. don't get me wrong we have had our fair share of fights and tears among us all BUT that's what it's all about isn't it?? I am SOOO thankful for all of my family, what a great plan our Heavenly Father put forth putting us in Family's, We've experienced some great time with the extended fam on Both sides memories we will not soon forget... I am also Thankful for all of my friends... I have come to depend on my friends so much since moving far from family and it's something I have kind of had to learn to do and I'm so thankful Heavenly Father sent me good friends!!!

This Christmas time I need to say that I am so thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ for his Birth and for his ultimate sacrifice in the Atonement which helps me daily in making correct choices and giving me a break when I don't make great choices.. I have tried to make a renewed commitment to remember what Christmas is REALLY about and I feel like I still need work on that regard (not in the knowing but in the expressing and living) but it has helped me so much this year to take a breath and enjoy and remember the season...

We have had an awesome but FAST 2008 and I look forward to what 2009 has to bring..
we love you all!!!
ta ta

p.s. I'm getting irony that this post is kinda like the Christmas letter i always send.. I guess old habits die hard!!! haha

The Aftermath

So somehow loosing 2 days with out power and 3 days of school has sent my schedule into a tale spin.. how can this be I am wondering myself... So as of today don't expect a Christmas Card from the NH Fox's unless I can pull something together tomorrow it's not happening and I'm kinda leaning towards not stressing about it.. I don't know why I'm feeling so much like a slug this year for bagging the cards.. We haven't missed many years and when we have we have had "good excuses" usually a big move or something of the such.. this year a little Ice hampered my December, not only that but am I the only one who feels like 2008 has whizzed by and never looked back... I've got like 3 tiny little Christmas gifts to still get which I hope to find tomorrow then we take the kids shopping for each other on Monday, we actually ALWAYS wait until the last minute for the kids because they still can't keep their mouth's shut about what they have gotten each other.. but I'm feeling pretty good, I've stayed with in budget, I'm not completely stressed and I'm trying VERY hard to just take the "if it gets done fine if not oh well" attitude! and I"m trying even HARDER to have the Christmas Spirit and show my kids WHAT Christmas is all about. I mean we've always talked about the true meaning of Christmas we've had our fair share of FHE lessons.. so they know it but when they see a frazzled mother running every which way what message is that sending???
anyway I hope you all are enjoying the season.. I'm getting excited for a relaxing day and then taking off to AR the day after!!!
luv to all..
ta ta

School's in sesson for now...

So today the kids went back to school.. I personally feel like it should have been a 2 hour delay due to the road conditions BUT thankfully I'm not the one who has to make those decisions, and I haven't heard of any Bus accidents yet so all must be well... and yesterday I seemed to have come down with an AWFUL cold and am feeling like dying might be the best remedy but Ben feels I get a little dramatic when I'm sick..

Tomorrow very well may be a snow day it is still snowing as I type this and we are suppose to get ANOTHER storm with even more snow tonight into tomorrow... I have to say I'm not so keen on a snow day tomorrow as I stated before I HAVE THINGS TO DO although Brad could babysit he's been doing great lately I just don't know if my car can handle TONS of snow.. I have All Wheel Drive which is a step below 4 wheel drive but it's not a very heavy car so even though all 4 wheels turn it doesn't always mean I can get around EVERYWHERE.. in fact i got it stuck in the ice on our driveway Sunday night.. I don't think I'll live that down with Ben any time soon...

So I'd Ben in Bed right now if I didn't have to Take KayLea to school at 11:55 and as long as i know FOR SURE Ben will be home in time to pick up the kids I'll be taking the afternoon off and popping some NyQuil but of coarse it's snowing so I'm sure Ben has no clue when he'll be home.. story of my life~!!!

anyway hopefully this all made since I did take some day Quill earlier today and so there's no guarantee's I'm firing with all my brain cells at this moment..
tata

School is scheduled for TOMORROW!!!

only problem.. we are to get a wintery mix tonight and up to 3-4 inches tomorrow morning.. followed by ANOTHER storm coming in by thursday afternoon.. i REALLY need the kids to go to school friday I have some odds and ends to pick up for Santa and I have class parties on Mon. and Tue. then schools out for Christmas break so Maybe mother nature will take it easy on us poor new englanders for the next few days..
this poor mom hopes so!
ta ta

How could something so Pretty cause so much TROUBLE!!

the pretty red bush in our side yard

So Yes i've been out of pocket or a few days.. and YES the state of New Hampshire is in a state of emergency but we are all GREAT!!! Thursday night (into Friday morning) we had a massave ice storm the likes of which Ben feels were worse than even what we saw in Texas or Arkansas... everything was covered in a lovely layer of clear ice which made things glissen and seem very pretty but which also wrecked havoc on everyone's electrical lines in the state.. 2 out of every 3 households did not have power we lost power after Ben left for work on Friday morning (he leaves around 2am) and didn't get it restored until around 11am Saturday.. it was a rough night but we all camped out in the living room with a sheet blocking the hall to try to keep in as much of the warm from the fireplace as we could.. this is actually the first time since moving here (to NH not just this house) that we lost power for more than an hour or so.. but on the whole we did pretty well, we had enough drinking water and food, we learned allot too.. we MUST MUST MUST buy a cord of wood or 2 when it is cheep again in the spring.. better yet Ben has grand plans to get a chain saw and cut our own from our property and do it early enough so that it will dry during the summer and be good for burning in the winter.. we need more back up games, entertainment for the kids.. they played every game we own more than twice and it was starting to get ugly by sat. morning... the only thing I hadn't gotten around to yet in this house is storing non drinking water in jugs to use to flush toilets.. see here in the sticks where you have a well and a pump no electricity also means NO WATER.. so I had to make a run to the grocery store that was running on generator to buy the last 13 gallons of DISTILLED water which wasn't 2 for a dollar like the drinking water it was a DOLLAR each.. but let me tell you i did it and paid happily.. because as ugly as it was it would have been WAY more tragic if we couldn't flush the toilet for 30 hours.. we also learned we need to look into getting a generator and maybe a fireplace insert.. see our fireplace is well just that a brick/cement enclosed with a rack for wood it does keep a fire but it doesn't really warm the room very well.. and if we got a generator we could at least run a space heater enough to warm the room and the fire could keep it warm etc..

I actually think the kids faired pretty well.. they took it on as an adventure and really only got board come sat morning when we all didn't sleep too well.. here are some pic's of our evening

above is Ben getting his clothes ready for work by flashlight

above the kids all with their beds spread on the living room floor playing monolopy... we survived but it was REALLY cold!!!

So we are all back up and running and we are grateful we were prepared.. of coarse we could do better but in all things it probably took something like this to really get us to know what we needed so i'm grateful this was a mild senario so we wern't out of luck! Keep the families in our great state in your prayers there are MANY MANY people still out of power, and they say those in the outlined areas (ALLOT of people) may not get power until the end of the week... we had a snow day Friday and today and they have already said no school tomorrow.. our elementary school still doesn't have power and with SO many roads still unpassable it is unsafe for the busses to run.. so I very well may be forgetting how greateful I am if we have too many more days off of school.. the only bright side to these days off are because the state delcared a state of emergency the state may very well forgive these days so we won't be going to school until AUGUST!!! all in all I am more grateful than anything else that we are all safe and no worse for ware!!

ta ta

Tis the Season

So we decorated the tree tonight for Family Home Evening... yes we have FHE on what ever night we can squeeze it in each week (if were lucky I'll admit it we don't get EVERY week in) Ben insists we got a "charlie Brown" tree this year.. only because we got a different variety, I have no clue what variety we usually get but this year I just fell in love with this Frazier fur it seems to have less branches and you can see right through to the trunk but I think it's cute and It fits perfectly in the space (after we cut a little bit from the bottom and the top) it's sucking up a ton of water so hopefully that's a good sign the guy at the lot swore it was cut down with in a day or so of when we got it.. so we'll see if I ever want to get this variety again.. we actually REALLY considered a fake tree this year but opted for tradition and so it was Chinese food and tree hunting at the same lot we've gone to since we moved here.. although i have to admit a fake one is getting more and more appealing..

So all is well in the Fox home as we are gearing up for Christmas

ta ta

Back among the Blog

So I've had my new keyboard for almost 4 days now but haven't had time to sit down and get it installed when tonight i got it out of the box and read the directions and it took all of 30 seconds to plug it into the usb port and whaaalaaa it works! so i should have let Brad have at it.. anyway so now if you e-mail me i can actually answer you in more than a few sentence responses (if you've received an e-mail from me in the last 7-9 days it was typed via an on screen keyboard that i hunt and peck with my mouse so that's the reason for the awful grammar and typos etc. my excuse now.. I'm getting use to a new fancy ergonomic keyboard)...

Anyway not much new we went and got a Christmas Tree today but it's not actually decorated it's at least up in the living room to be decorated tomorrow night for family night...

Well I'm about half finished with Christmas shopping and I haven't even thought of Christmas cards yet so hopefully something brilliant will come to me before the end of next week.. this is where i always swear I'm going to write myself a letter telling myself not to get stressed and frazzled and just go with the flow and the kids will be fine with what ever they get regardless..
but then the evil KyLeyne comes out and tells me all the lies we all hear.. my kids MUST have this and that and a little more this or they will be horribly disappointed and Christmas will be ruined etc. etc.. which I know in my heart is a load of bull but it's another one of those balance things I'm obviously still trying to learn... am I the only one who has such conflicting emotions this time of year??? don't tell me I probably don't want to hear I'm the only wacko... I've set kind of a strict budget for the kids this year and actually it has REALLY helped me to just be able to say "nope not this year" I've actually shared the budget with Brad and he actually seemed to appreciate and be able to narrow down his "list" and really think about what he wants this year.. KayLea still doesn't have a great concept of money etc. so sharing the budget with her would be futile but actually since she just had a birthday she's actually one I'm at a loss for what to get her.. the few things she has asked for are VERY inexpensive so she may actually come under budget and have the "most" things under the tree.. the boys are learning that the older they get the fewer actual gifts they have under the tree but they realize they are "better" gifts..
I'm rambling now... it seems a little therapeutic to write this all out.. thanks guys for listening!!!

I'm sure there has been more going on but for the life of me I can't think of anything.. hope everyone had a great thanksgiving ours was VERY laid back and GREAT!!!

love to you all!
tata