The Month Before Christmas

Twas the month before Christmas and all through the villa,

Every creature was stirring, except the chinchilla,



All the wrinkled stockings were hung by the chimney with care,



In hopes of St. Nicholas who too soon would be here.



The children were all snuggled in their forts on their beds...



with visions of expanding Christmas lists bright in their heads.



Jeff at the office working away,

to pay for this Christmas and the bills on the way.



I sit in the kitchen contemplating recipes to fill the Christmas platter,

knowing that in the end no amount of dieting will matter.



Early in the month the celebrations start...

though it's hard to keep soccer playoffs, birthday parties, campouts, plays and parties apart.



Candles lit by the sink so the house won't catch fire,



Children practicing their recital songs by the hour.



For the ward party Mom Spent all day baking hundreds of rolls,



When the oven burnt the bottoms of most of them out it goes.



So mom asked Santa for an early Christmas gift,



Dad got a good deal on a stove which gave her a lift.



With Dad, Mom was clearly impressed,

Until right before hosting missionaries for dinner, then she was just stressed!


(My kitchen 1 1/2 hours before I'm supposed to have a fully cooked meal!)


Children love the game of freezing outside then snuggling up to get warm...



planning to finally use big jackets the next day with the arrival of winter's first storm.

To my talented friend Shawna I have to give out a shout...



because of her I have nice Christmas cards all ready to go out!


So on planning, on shopping, on cooking and serving...

on wrapping, on visiting, so much to do I admit it's unnerving.



The craziness of the season is just begining to start...



but we're working hard to keep the true meaning in our heart.


So amidst the craziness we wish you too the remembrance of Christ's light,



and a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Looong Thanksgiving weekend

For having a pretty boring Thanksgiving week things started picking up once the weekend rolled around.

On Thursday we hosted Jeff's family for Thanksgiving. It's always big, messy, loud and crowded but lots of fun too. After our count at the end of the day we had 42 brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandkids. Mix them all up and tell them to bring some food and voila you have our Thanksgiving celebration.

This year we had a new addition. Since we were having so many over we thought we'd make a second turkey, since we only have one oven Jeff got the idea of getting a turkey fryer. So after racing all over town the night before to find one and then racing back to the store on Thanksgiving day to get a missing part we were ready to fry our turkey.



We've seen enough Funniest Home videos to know to be careful. Kenny did the honors of putting it in and Rueben and Robert hung out in the backyard to "watch" the fryer. After one hour...here were the results.



Not too bad but I have to say it was dryer than the oven roasted turkey and I would say in the future I would cook it less time. Though one hour to cook vs. 5 hours was pretty hard to beat.

Here is Cindy pulling out her famous potato rolls (she's the one who taught me how to make mine). They were in a box sealed with packing tape until we were ready to eat so there would still be some left by the time dinner was ready :)

(I've learned to include pre-dinner snacks in the food assignments)



Food's ready...line up...



Yum. If you can notice the names written on the cups. These were supposed to insure that the owner of the cup would be able to return to their drink later. This isn't likely since the host has a habit of throwing cups away as soon as they are alone. Then when I let the host know that some people were complaining about their lost cups he left them alone. Well...sure enough at the end of the night there was a table covered abandoned cups full of drinks maybe the names didn't help :)

Here's the girls snuggling at the kid table (suprised they still fit)



Luckily it was a beautiful day outside and we were able to sit a lot of people outside.



And after dinner what would a family celebration be without some video games.



It's amazing how many people congregate when something exciting is going on :)



And to test the room capacity of our family room lets have as many people as we can come in to pose for a picture. (And this wasn't everybody)



Probably our favorite part (over eating) was getting together and playing games. Steve started a rousing game of Murder and another group was in the kitchen playing Trivial Persuit.



At the end of the day it was a lot of fun, tiring but fun. The kids were all still up late when the last of the family left and we sat around and talked about the day and just enjoyed being together.

Friday we skipped all the early morning Black Friday deals (not worth it) and took the kids skating and recovered from the day before. I admit it, I did go to a couple of stores but not until after 11:00 :) We spend the evening with Angela and Robert and had dinner and the boys bonded over video games while Angela and I got to talk.

Saturday we went to the Redlands temple to be with Ian and Josh as they took out their endowments for the first time.



Proud parents and grandparents are sending Ian to Mexico (forgot the city but it's just south of the Texas border)





And proud parents and grandparents sending Josh to Balitmore, Maryland.



The temple was great, and even better because of all the friends and family that were there.



Of course we had to end it with lunch at chili's :)



We ended up getting home at 5:00 with just enough light to pull out our Christmas stuff from the shed into the garage and hastily decorate since we were too beat to do it the day before.

Sunday we did church, chior and then went to celebrate with a Monica Bullock at her baptism and at the after baptism potluck. Lot of fun, so excited for her! Another late night for the kids and trouble getting them back on their school schedule.

Now it's off to officially start the Christmas craziness.

I have to say that part of me is sad to leave Thanksgiving behind. We spend a month feeling thankful for everything we have and then the next day we turn on a switch to get our children thinking about all the things they "want" (but don't need) to put on their Christmas list. I am sad to leave the "gratitude" feeling behind when I feel like we are forced to embrace a "gimme" feeling to replace it. Like I tell myself every year (but hope to stick to it this year) I really want to keep Christmas more simple and focus on the true meaning. We'll see if it works ;)

A lesson in gratitude

I have my Thanksgiving pictures and I'll get to them soon but I already had this post waiting to publish so I have to post it first.

So today we are learning a lesson in gratitude (or at least it's one that I've been tryin to learn)

I heard a talk once about being grateful and the speaker said all you need to do is "reverse the buts". Anything that is negative can sound more positive if you reverse the buts. "What???!!" you might ask (as I did). Let me demonstrate.

Growing up we used to always like to brush and play with my mom's hair. I imagined the day that my own children would do the same. Well, it's extremely extremely rare that any of my children will even attempt to brush or play with my hair so I've stopped asking ;).

So imagine my delight when Ashley OFFERED to play with my hair. I was happy she wanted to play with my hair BUT, she ended up getting the brush hopelessly stuck when she was trying to "roll" it up like a curler. (It took Jeff and I the next hour to get it out.)



So here is the trick I now try and tell myself...Ashley got a brush hopelessly stuck in my hair when she was trying to roll it up like a curler BUT I was happy she wanted to play with my hair.

Lets try some more.

Jacob and Ashley wasted most of the rest of the Halloween chocolate on "experiments" BUT there is less for us to pack on our waistline now.



Soccer will officially now extend into the Christmas crazy zone BUT he was so excited to win his game last Saturday. (He really loves soccer this year :)







Soccer took a lot longer than normal on Saturday BUT team was thrilled that the coach made good on his promise to treat them to snow cones if they won 3 games in a row.



Our Saturday ended up being crazy busy with Jeff and I going every which way, with a primary activity, errands, campout for Taylor, soccer for Jacob, play for Jeff and I BUT Ashley got to got to a friend's house and play for the day so at least she had fun.



I have been working hours and hours staying up until 10:00 every night trying to finish
the stuff for Jeff's tax audit, while getting the house ready for Thanksgiving BUT this project has helped me keep busy while the kids were at school and feel like I'm helping lighten Jeff's load.



Because I've been so busy with the tax audit and getting ready for Thanksgiving I haven't really been able to take the kids anywhere during their time off BUT it's given them time to hang out at home with friends and rollerblade to the donut shop to buy breakfast for themselves.



In one night we caught two different possums and an unfamiliar fat black cat eating the cat food BUT at least we can confirm the reason the cat food is gone every morning.



The next day we found two more cats eating the cat food in our yard BUT they were brother and sister cute kittens that the kids have loved playing with every day since.



While Jeff was gone in Utah I set up this tent at Ashley and Jacob's insistence complete with 1/2 the contents of their bed. The kids never slept in the tent once, and it was a pain to clean up BUT it made a nice toy for the kittens.



The kids thought that the Woodcrest library Indian campfire tales, songs and dances were pretty boring BUT Taylor, Cameron and Jacob earned 2 out of the 4 requirements of the indian lore merit badge by participating.

(It seems that my attempts as busying the kids during this break have resulted in the comment "I'm bored" or "this is boring" pretty much every day.)



And lastly,

It seems that my brilliant plan to occupy the children on the day before Thankgiving when I needed the time the most completely backfired BUT Ashley had a fun day with friends, by the end of the day the boys figured out how to exist in the house with the girls without bothering them too much and my wonderful husband took pity on me and brought us out to dinner so I wouldn't have to worry about cooking!

(I was also happy that Chloe's hair looked about as tousled as Ashley's so neither mom would stand out as not having fixed their daughter's hair that morning. Of course Ashley's hair has looked like that all vacation ;)