ALIVE!

Alive is Ready. We are soft launching my new online lifestyle magazine for Southern Utah today.

What does that mean?

The site is functional, it has some fun articles but it is still going through some growing pains. There are some major design elements and even a few story elements to incorporate into the site but we are ready for our friends to take a look. In a few weeks we will tell the Press all about it. That is called a hard launch.

Here is what I hope you will do.

Take a look around: http://aliveutah.com/

Give me feedback. What do you love, what do you hate, what do you want to see on the site, what isn't working? Email me at editor@aliveutah.com

Join the community: Alive! is more than just a website it is also an online community. Create a free account and then you can post comments, participate in the forums or post classifieds. We really want to get our community started at this point.

Spread the Word: If you like what you see, tell your friends about the site. Get them involved. Digg us, stumble upon us all that good stuff. if you don't like it make sure you check back in a couple weeks when things are running a little more smoothly.

p.s. I am already looking for some content for my February issue. Do you have a funny romantic story that will work in our giggle section? email me.

Deep Breath, Here Goes

I took a deep breath and Christmas came.

We had family, and way, way too much food, and more family and more food (thanks for all the goodies everyone. I am five pound fatter)and tons of video game playing and sledding and sitting by a fire and laughing and sleeping and baking and eating. And then I slid into the New Year and I have barely had a moment to breathe. Tomorrow I am soft launching my new online magazine. I have been busy with that and cleaning and making New Year's resolutions. I am finally taking another short deep breath to give you a little update and post some photos.

Christmas Eve

I made two types of Roasted pork loin. Neither one turned out perfect, but they were OK and we were stuffed.

The cousins get pajamas from Santa, we read the story of the birth of Christ in Luke and then the kids play some duck duck goose or snowman, penguin as they dubbed it.

Next Santa comes

My parents come and visit for 4 days. I am sorry to say that we were pretty laid back. There is not a lot going on in Cedar in the freezing weather of winter. But we really loved having them here. I hope they had as much fun as us. My brother Nate and his wife, Elise came to visit too. So fun. We have not seen them in forever and they are such great sports with the kids. The kids basically follow them around. I had to keep saying give Elise some space. OK Isaac does not do that anymore. But the girls adore their Aunt Elise.

We had a great week that ended with a day trip to Vegas on New Year's Eve day. We had to drop off my parents at the airport and we stayed a while to visit the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was really awesome. My kids loved all the sharks, jelly fish and stingrays. We then hightailed it out of Vegas before all the party animals hit the streets. We dined at the new Brick Oven in St. George. I love, love love their pasta bar. We finished up the night in front of the TV trying to stay awake and occasionally catching a glimpse of the Vegas party. So happy I was not there. I am not a crowd lover.
We kissed and toasted the New Year and promptly fell into bed.

Can It Still be Christmas?

A short short post letting you know that I am not ready to come back to real life yet. I am happily ensconced in the bosom of my family this holiday season. I would really like to pretend as if I have no other obligations. Can I do that? Can the holidays last a little longer -- at least until my parents leave and my kids go back to school? I promise I will be a better blogger when I am done hiding out with the fam and kicking back after Christmas. I will be back but not quite yet.

Candy Express

Some of you may have already seen this on my food blog. But I loved it and it is quickly disappearing from existance. I barely recognize it anymore. I don't really feel inclined to eat the gingerbread candy and house or train after it is finished. I am sure my sweet SIL, Melinday would understand. The rest of my family can't keep their hands off our annual creation. I guess they don't think of all the hands that have been touching it or the fact that it has been sitting out for over a week.

Gingerbread houses are a tradition in our home. We love to build them and the kids have a fun time getting creative. Check out Lia's big eyed gingerbread man, Isaacs candycane lights on the caboose and Rebeccas elaborate smokestacks. This year I decided I wanted more than the standard box christmas house and the train kits they sell are too much money for a little train. So, I ventured into new territory and made the dough and the cut outs myself. It was a long process but we are pretty happy with the results.

A Mother's Intuition

Tonight I threw my hands in the air and marched to my room as soon as the kids were in bed. I was so done being a mommy and everything else required of me for the day and week. As I lay on the bed and calmed down I began to think of some of the moments this week that I really felt like I had my Mom game on.

Some days I really blow it. I say mean things to my kids, I lose my patience and sometimes I actually just don't care about certain things in their life, like when they are being hit or teased for the umpteenth time by their sibling. They usually bring that stuff on themselves and I get sick of hearing about it. However this week I had a couple of moments where I knew I was mothering the way my Heavenly Father expects me too.

As mothers there is this invisible thread that ties us to our children. My Mom still has it with her kids. In my scariest, most desperate moments my mother has always felt the need to call me. It is uncanny. How does she do that, still? I have recently realized that I get to have that magical thread sometimes too. I have learned to respond to impressions. Sometimes those impressions are fueled by normal worrying (we can't ever stop) but sometimes they are more than that.

Isaac has his paper route on Wednesdays. This week on Wednesday I had a full afternoon. I picked up Isaac's papers and dropped him off at home with specific directions to wear a hat, gloves, and his heaviest coat on his route. It was a frigid day. Tom was at home sick and I had to get Becca and myself to achievement day activities. After an hour and a half with a bunch of eight year olds I returned home at around 5 pm to find that Isaac was still not home. Usually I just wait till he gets home. But I immediately turned the car around and went to check on him. I felt like I needed to see how he was doing. As I turned around I noticed that it was 18 degrees outside and the sun was going down.

A few minutes later I found Isaac in the middle of his route. He was in tears and completely dejected. I was afraid he had hit an icy patch with his bike and fallen.
"I can't do this anymore, Mom. I quit." he said.
Well I would want to quit too if I was doing my route in 18 degree weather, especially if I had chosen to wear nothing but a sweatshirt hoodie. Why are 11 year olds so stupid?

He climbed in the car and threw the rest of his route from the window. We discussed the reasons we wear warm clothes in frigid weather and why it is important to be prepared before we leave.

The more I think about this experience, the more grateful I am for the prompting to go rescue Isaac. He had a good 45 minutes of outside time to go. He was so cold and could easily have been in danger of frostbite or another sickness. It scares me to think about it. But I am grateful for that thread that somehow ties us mothers to the safety of our children. That lets us feel when we are needed.

On the other hand it also lets us know when we really don't have to run to the rescue. The next day Becca called me from school 20 minutes before the end of the day. She wanted me to come get her and I knew that she would be OK for another 20 minutes. I certainly was not going to make an extra trip. "Nope, I said. Go find a place to relax until the end of the day."

It seems weird that I feel as good about this response as the Isaac rescue mission. Sometimes we can't always rescue our kids from every little discomfort or mistake. Sometimes they have to ride out the hard times in life, especially when you are on your way. However the awesome part of being a Mom is understanding and being available when it is time to rescue.

Sorry for the long post.

Sickies and Hospital Visits

We started our December out with a trip to St. George to get Lia's tonsils out. She was incredibly brave. This is the before pic and she went into surgery without a tear or a scared response. While we were waiting, I kept hearing other kids crying. I kept thinking poor Lia, that is going to be her in a little while. Isaac had his tonsils out and he kind of freaked out when he finally came out of the anesthesia. Lia came out alert and tear free. Seriously, not a tear was shed until on our way home and then it was more of a wimper when her meds wore off.

The last few days have been a little tougher. She hurts and the Lortab makes her a little woozy. But she is doing better and I broke down and bought a membership to the disney Pixie Hollow website for a month. I feel bad that she can't play hard or go to gymnastics or school for a few weeks. Still she is a trooper and I know she will get through this.

The rest of the family has been having its bouts with random illnesses the past week. In fact, Isaac called me while Tom and I were driving to St. George for Lia's surgery. He had come down with a wierd case of the flu and had to stay home. Fortunately, Nana was able to check in on him while we were both gone.

Becca has a nasty sore throat and cough. (Praying Lia doesn't get it).

Tom is exhausted and headachey and I have had some serious wierd stuff going on. I have had to take a slew of tests this past week. My blood pressure spiked really high and would not go down and I have been super dizzy and a little unsteady on my feet. So far the blood tests and EKG have been fine. The blood pressure meds are doing their job. But it has all been a little wierd. Especially since I have always had the blood pressure of an athlete. It was the one thing I have never worried about.

Well, we hope next week sees us all feeling better in the Hughes home, because I am ready to decorate my house for Christmas and get festive.

I Believe in Santa

Today I believe in Santa. This year, like many of you, I have a pretty limited Christmas budget. On my list of family presents was a new family DVD. I get one every Christmas. I was considering taking out this yearly addition from Santa just to make sure I could make my budget. Today I found out I won Aliens in the Attic from The Mom Blogs. YAY!

Santa just brought one of his presents early. I have not seen this movie. I will probably not love it but my kids have been dying to see it.

Also, as you can tell, I did not meet my deadline for a December 1st release of the Alive! Utah site. But it is close and it is coming, I promise. I have all the material I need for the first issue and I am just waiting for my designer and my programmers to finish up the site. I am anxiously awaiting the announcement that it is done.

Hang in there and I hope when it does release you will all help me with an email campaign.