December 24 - 30, 2007

Well, after a little dancing after everyone left on the 23rd we got ready for Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, we held our traditional Jerusalem Supper. This year it consisted of our (not so Jerusalem-ish) cheeses and crackers, pomegranates, pineapple, grapejuice (our homegrown), bread, and roasted turkey (fish was once again vetoed by that non fish liking person in our house). We also had prunes, dates and figs.

After our supper, we acted out the nativity. For some reason, my husband always ends up being the donkey - I'm afraid the donkey may go on strike next year! Our Mary and Joseph sort of traded places halfway through - but they made it despite the cranky innkeeper (me).


After the theatrics, the girls got to open one present - their new jammies for the year, and then we went upstairs and watched the Nativity story and put hair in curlers, and then dad read the Nativity story. We set out cookies and oatmeal for the reindeer and got tucked into beds.


Christmas morning came bright and early - the girls got up at 5:30 am. The girls saw 6 deer outside their window as they woke up! Although the kids had asked for skateboards and DC shoes, I don't think they were too disappointed. They got some pretty cool toys - with a big focus on the world - puzzles, globes, maps etc for some reason. The girls were pretty excited also about their sewing kits they received (they are getting into sewing), their ice skates, and some fun animal play tents that we set up downstairs. Our oldest thought that tinker toys were only for boys, but soon discovered what cool things she can make... her first creation was a spider. I think everyone's favorite gift though was their electric blanket - controllable nighttime heat is such a blessing!









Several of my husband's presents came late, but he received a pretty cool bronze statue of Joseph and Hyrum and some fun things from the girls. He got me a cello box - so I don't have to constantly get my cello in and out of the case - I can just leave it sort of out, but protected.



Our day was nice. We watched a video we got, and then my husband and the girls shoveled (it snowed for 24 hours on Christmas). He and our eldest then went sledding in the BLM land, and had a GREAT hill! The youngest and I stayed inside and kept warm.
We had a late had dinner, and crashed into bed. We left the next morning (11:00ish) and headed out to see family. There we visited all of my husband's brother's homes, and took a family picture. We spent some time with my family who had planned a baby blessing, baptism and family sealing around our being there - it was pretty packed. We headed back home in hopes of missing a storm. Although the roads were fairly icy, we made it home okay - albeit tired at 1:00 am, but safe. It snowed all day on the 30th and they closed down most of the roads, so I'm thrilled we didn't have to deal with it today!

We will spend time with friends for New Year's Eve, and make it an early evening. I think our eldest is excited to have a couple more days off - although they still haven't seemed to have the time they've wanted to just play with their toys. I'm sure it will come. It's crazy that the break is already over and we all go back to school this next week!
We loved seeing family and spending time with everyone! Hope the upcoming year will be full of joy and goodness.

December 16-23, 2007

So - it's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything, everything has just gone by in a blur. I finished with Seminary for a couple of weeks on the 14th and received news that my parents and sister (and family) were all coming into town starting on the 18th. So - I started to really clean out the house. The good news is that while they were here, my dad was able to get the ping pong table back into order and we now have foosball and ping pong tourneys in the basement (we cleaned it out too). We spent some time cleaning all of the old baby toys out of the playroom (made room for new sophisticated stuff). We were able to find some toys in great shape and donate them to a family who really needed the stuff, so it was good for the girls to experience this. Our youngest was so sweet - she wanted to give her favorite toys to this family - and was so excited to do it.
Well grandma and grandpa got here, and grandpa fixed almost everything that was fixable in the house. He fixed the stove (well - figured out what we needed and ordered the parts), the dryer, the sink, the handrail and the coat closet as well as the aforementioned ping pong table. Amazing that we needed so many little repairs here and there!

Grandma helped bake our Christmas breads and kept the food cooking. It snowed the whole time, so it was nice just to hang out inside. My sister and her husband came into town on Friday - it was great to see them. Just before they got here, our neighbors called to see if the girls wanted to go sledding. We sent the girls over to meet them (we could see them from the front window). Come to find out - their daughter has a small snowmobile. They tied up our sled and while he made jumps with his four wheeler, they pulled the girls through the snow. After a while the girls got to try their hand at driving as well! The girls had a blast!!

It was great to have grandma and grandpa here, as well as aunts and uncles and cousins - thanks to all for taking the time to come out!!
The next day, our friend called and invited my husband and brother in law to go snowmobiling. They went up into the high country - to treeline. It was an extremely cold day, but they had a great time digging out their snowmobiles and getting stuck. It was also great to see the beauty of the awesome place we live.




On Sunday I played Handel's For Unto Us a Son is Given in church (from the Messiah) - this signaled to my husband that Christmas could start and then everyone went back to their respective homes, while we started to prepare for Christmas.
We finished our shopping on Monday and all of our wrappings.
That finished up our very busy fun filled week! Onto Christmas.

December 15, 2007

I wanted to include these cute pics of the girls - after spending the day cleaning, we thought we'd better bathe the girls too - they just happened to look so darling in their bunny robe that I couldn't resist the pics.

Our busy Week December 10-16, 2007

Hi all - well, this week has been one of those doozies - and you look back and think - what could I blog about this week, but because of the blur have no idea. Monday and Tuesday saw snow, and the roads were so bad on Tuesday that we canceled seminary the next day (on Tuesday one of my students had an accident on the way to class due to icy roads.)
I know we made a bunch of caramels to give to people for Christmas - that's a start. On Wednesday, we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. I can't believe it has been that long!!!
We decided to go to our favorite Indian restaurant (which I'd been craving for weeks). When we got there, we saw that it was a new restaurant, and we were totally bummed. We then discussed riding the chair lift up to the top of the mountain for dinner, but realized that my coat wasn't in the back of the car (where I thought it was). We settled for going into the village and eating at my favorite (although costly) restaurant. It was pretty amazing. I ordered the Turbot (that's a fish) - it was in a coconut milk concoction...it also had watermelon radishes (they were amazing), and fresh palm hearts dipped in tempura. It sort of had a tropical taste but was great. My husband had the Kobe beef and ribs - his was pretty tasty too. For dessert we thought we'd try the prickly pear lime sorbet. It was not so tasty, so they brought us a pear parfait instead - with 'pistachio dust'. It was actually pretty amazing. Definitely a night to remember.
On Thursday I had a gig with my trio at the local library. They roped us off, and we played Christmas music while the kids stood in line waiting on the red carpet to see Santa. I'm attaching a few pics. They had story time for the kids, then crafts, refreshments, and Santa for the kids. Apparently, our music was very soothing and provided the 'ambiance' they wanted so it all turned out good.
Friday I worked on my quilt block, and then went to help out in the school with the Christmas party. We swapped some baby sitting on Friday and cleaned on Saturday.
I think that pretty much wraps it up.

Holiday Cheer

So - we did our Christmas cards yesterday. Some people weren't in love with the Christmas card photo we sent out, but we didn't really have many photos with the entire family to choose from - so we opted for the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean ball thingy. So - to offset the morbidity of our Christmas card, we thought we'd post a few photos of our holiday cheer.
The first is our youngest with the Christmas tree, and the second is our eldest with dad, making some more stars for our Christmas tree - he's become the expert.

December 7, 2007

I've been getting lax in my blogging - that's all there is to it. Our computer died a while ago, and I'm still really trying to figure out some of the little idiosyncrasies of the new one. We still continue to keep as busy as possible. It was a relief to start to get back into the swing of things after Thanksgiving. Solely due to the fact that I COULD stay up late (because I didn't have seminary the next am) I did - almost every night of the break. It was both delicious and exhausting. It just doesn't seem natural to go to bed at 9:00 pm because you are exhausted. Last night we swapped some babysitting. Unfortunately, our kids went to bed at 8:45 (super late for them since they are ready by 7:15 usually). These kids were still going until 10:00 when we made beds on the couches for them. I had fallen asleep at 8:15 while my husband was reading the kids stories. Yes - my pathetic going to bed at 8:15 on a Friday night life! I think we are going out tonight though, and I can stay up a little later.
Last week we had the ward talent show. I found 3 other ladies who are as crazy as I, and we resurrected the Grandma "Winking at me" song. I think it was a hit - people were pretty surprised, and the girls at least loved it! My daughter played Jesu, Joy of Man's desiring on her violin, and my husband juggled while the audience sang (directed by the girls) Jingle Bells, and Happy Birthday to the Bishop.
I've been working on getting our Christmas card put together this week, and I think we've got most of the shopping done. We are hoping to get everything sent out today or Monday. Then we'll begin making treats and sitting back enjoying the season. I think my sister and her family are coming out just before Christmas (and my parents to see them). We will celebrate Christmas Eve with a Jerusalem supper, and then Christmas day here. After that, we'll travel back home and spend a couple of days with the family.
I celebrated Hanukkah with my seminary class this week and learned to make latkes. That was pretty interesting, but fun, and my family loved the latkes.
Oh, I also learned how to put music links onto web pages and how to set up a counter on my blog pages... thanks for the help!
I had a rehearsal this week, and we have a gig for the Library party next week. We haven't ever done a Christmas music gig, so this will be interesting. We are the music and entertainment while the kids wait in line to see Santa. We'll see how it goes, and I'll possibly post some pictures from that. I'm working on a blog for the trio which we can use for marketing - I'll post the address of it once I really get it up and running.
We are going on a date today! The first one in ages! Details to follow!