We are still alive!

Hi there. Yes, we did survive the holidays and are alive. I have just been lazy-at least as far as posting. So first things first....I have kept up on my running despite being sick and not running the week after Christmas. After 7 weeks of running, I have run 108.43 miles. I am .22 miles ahead of where I should be. I am really excited that I have stuck with it. Here's to another 100 miles:)

I hope that you all had a really nice Christmas. We sure did. It was just our little family until Christmas night when my in-laws and Gram came for dinner. The day was really nice...we stayed in our pajamas until we felt like getting dressed and just played with our new toys. For New Year's we went up to Montana to visit mom, Mat and Emily and dad. We really had a great time. As always the time was too short, but hopefully this spring or summer we can go up for a week or so.

For the past couple of weeks I have been experimenting with some new recipes and will be sharing them over the next little while. For tonight I want to share a recipe for one of our new favorite muffins. They are Chocolate muffins and oh so good. If you try them, let me know what you think. The recipe is from a website called Chocolate on my Cranium. The original recipe calls for 2/3 cup of butter, but I reduced it to 1/3 cup and they taste even better. So here is my slightly revised recipe:

Chocolate Muffins
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 Tbs unsweetened chocolate powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup butter, melted
4 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin pan or put muffin liners in. Beat the eggs with sugar. Mix with flour, cocoa powder, baking powder vanilla and milk. Fold in the melted butter. Add chocolate chips. Scoop batter into 12 muffin cups. Bake until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes.

They certainly aren't healthy, but boy, are they delicious. Let me know if you like them. It's time to sign off now, but I promise I will be better at posting.

Birthday Goals

So a couple of weeks ago I entered the final year of my 3rd decade. Yep, next December I will be the big 4-0. My hubby will be 40 in July and for his big hurrah he is going skydiving with whoever will go. I will not be joining him-I am sooooo terrified of heights that there is no way I would be able to do it. Plus I would rather not leave our children orphans for the thrill of a few seconds of complete terror. Not to be outdone by my main squeeze, I had to think of something big to send my 39th year out with a bang. I really love to run, and have decided that from b-day 2009 to b-day 2010, I am going to run 800 miles. It works out to be 3.08 miles each day, 5 days a week. That will actually get me to around 780 miles, so to make up the extra 20 miles, the plan is to run a 10 mile race in June, a 1/2 marathon in August and at least 3- 5k races. There is also the possibility that I will be part of a team to do the Wasatch 100 relay. We shall see on that one. I did see a mile counter on another blog, so when I can figure out how to do that, I will set one up here on this blog so you can keep me motivated. So far I am on track and plan to keep going. Wish me luck!

Thoughts of Christmas

I have been pondering on the Christmas spirit lately, and am wondering why it is only one time a year when we think and act to help those who are in need, not only on Christmas, but every day throughout the year. Last night my sweet hubby gave a great Family Home Evening lesson on being grateful for what we have and not complaining because we may not like the broccoli or raisin bread that is served for a meal. He shared some very touching true stories about kids and adults who would give anything for a good meal, even broccoli. Or people who would keep their beds made and rooms cleaned if they only had a bed or a room. There is a passage in the Book of Mormon that I have also been pondering on for a few weeks. The phrase is "and there were no poor among them". It was at a time when those who had the "good" things in life shared with those who had little or nothing freely, not being forced to do it. One thing that I love about Christmas is the spirit of brotherhood that prevails, the patience and love for those around us. My question is, why don't we as members of the human race, have these feelings and act on them all year long? Aren't we supposed to follow Jesus Christ every day, not just to celebrate His birthday? There is no problem stepping things up a notch or two at Christmas, but what about the rest of the year? My mother-in-law was telling my sister-in-law and me about a soup kitchen that she had inquired at, where throughout November and December there were no spots available for going to help serve meals. However, come January, there seemed to be few spots filled.

I am not trying to make anyone feel badly, I am guilty of all of this, however, when I make my New Year resolutions, I think I am going to focus less on my own person selfish desires, and perhaps make a few goals to help my fellow man.

Ok, enough with the serious side of things. Only four more days to Christmas, and the kids are out of school for 2 weeks. What is a mother to do to keep these little darlings occupied so they don't fight and quarrel? Perhaps there is a soup kitchen or homeless shelter who could use some energetic little helpers?

From the Butlers to all of you.....Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Christmas decorations, or lack thereof

I love Christmas. I love the sights, sounds and smells that go right along with the season. I love to deck my halls with the Christmas Village, the train, tree and lights. I remember my mom singing You'd Better Watch Out to us kids when we would misbehave, beginning about on Thanksgiving day. At our house we usually get all the decorations out and put up the tree and turn on Christmas Carols the day after Thanksgiving. However, this year we have not one thing that would indicate that Christmas is only three weeks away. No tree, no lights outside, I haven't even put up the wreath on my front door. Instead of decorating for Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving we had 4 men downstairs framing the basement and 8 children running around playing upstairs. There was no place to send the children since it was about 10 degrees outside and no room downstairs for them to play and I was not about to add to the chaos by bringing out all the Christmas decorations. So our home remains bare. It is such a sad thing:( Perhaps tomorrow I will at least get the wreath up on the door. Oh well, I guess my kids need something to tell the therapist when they grow up:) I hope you all are enjoying your holidays.



Shelly

FINALLY!!!!!

I have finally decided to join the blogging world. It has taken me several years to take the leap, and here I am. After being inspired by my sisters and so many amazing blogs that I follow, it was time. Hopefully I will remember to keep it up to date:)