This was a good week! Last Friday after I finished the blog post, I
got the rest of the things done that I needed to do, including making a bunch
of cookies. The sister missionaries came over to help decorate but even with
their help, it took 4 hours to cut out, bake, and decorate all the cookies. I
was tired and a bit grumpy by the time we finished. The cookies taste great,
though!! They look pretty good too:
On Saturday I wrapped a few final presents and delivered
treats to the sisters I visit teach. Scott’s flight was right on time, thankfully,
and we all went to pick him up. Since we were picking him up during the time we
would have been making dinner, we didn’t have a nice fancy Christmas Eve dinner
like we usually do. Instead, we ordered Chinese food. The Elders came to eat
with us too. It was yummy and I enjoyed not cooking all day—this might become a
new Christmas Eve tradition! Ha!! After the Elders left for their next
appointment, we each opened a present and then watched the Joy to the World CD.
I was feeling really sleepy by then and so was everyone else, so we quickly got
the stockings ready and put out the Santa gifts and went to bed. Scott and
Jared helped with the stockings and Seth was invited to help (he’s figured out
Santa Claus now) but he chose to go to bed instead.
Christmas Eve photos:
So many presents!
Seth got a Bionicle
Jared got a set of 3 ties, and he was actually excited about that!
Scott got a 72 hour kit
Frank helping Seth put together his new Bionicle. (Frank got a book and I got a movie, but no one took our picture when we were opening our presents.)
This year, for the first time ever, Santa wrapped gifts. It
just seemed simpler to do it that way, since Santa only gives one or two gifts
to each person now. Everything else had to be wrapped anyway. We decided on
Christmas Eve that we would only open the gifts from Santa before church and
save the rest for afterwards. (We have church at 9:00 am.) Frank and I woke up much earlier than anyone else,
so we showered before waking up everybody else. Scott really didn’t want to get
up (still on Utah time) and I don’t think he even bothered to open his Santa
gifts until after church! I actually really like having Christmas on Sunday and
our Christmas service was lovely, with lots of musical numbers.
After the meeting ended, we did a little bit of mingling and
wishing Merry Christmas to others, but we had to hurry because Jared was
getting ordained an Elder. A member of our ward was there as the high council
representative and we knew his missionary daughter was calling them at 11:00 (church ended
around 10:15) so we knew he needed to get home soon. Frank ordained Jared and
Scott got to assist, so that was really nice. After we got home, we opened the
rest of the presents and quickly ate some lunch before Tanner Skyped us. It was
GREAT to see his face and hear his voice, even though the connection wasn’t
the best. It went by fast, and I don’t feel like we got to adequately express
our love for him but I hope he could feel it anyway! He looks and sounds so good.
Stunning statistic for this Christmas: I gave more
ties and pairs of socks as gifts this year than video games!! (I only gave one
video game—to Seth. No one else even asked for one.) I guess my boys are
growing up!! We spent the rest of Christmas relaxing and enjoying being
together. The sister missionaries came over in the late afternoon to Skype with
their families and we fed them too. We didn’t really sit down for a meal, just
ate leftover Chinese food and other snacks. Pictures from our day:
Santa left a few things for each of us:
Plus, a few more gifts appeared under the tree:
Snickers is interested in what Jared is unwrapping!
Snickers got some treats (he has one under his paw).
Seth with a new movie and the one and only video game!
I got a box!! (It had doll clothes for my American Girl doll inside.)
Seth really wanted this Mega Blocks set
A book and a weather center for Frank
Please give me something to eat! (Isn't he cute?)
Scott with socks from Jared
The book on Scott's lap was a favorite with all the boys (they each got a copy). It has copies of all our family portraits (and a few snapshots of the family, since we didn't have a portrait taken every year) from 1992 through this year. I put these books together on Mixbook earlier this month. They were appreciated even more than I had anticipated, which was nice!
Jared's Christmas socks
Putting together his Mega Blocks set
Finally, all the presents are open! (And Snickers looks tired!)
All my loot (Except for one thing, because it's hard to get a picture of digital books! I got the digital set of Harry Potter books for my tablet.)
Seth spent several hours putting together this large Lego set, all by himself. I was impressed!!
One more picture from this morning--Seth snuggling in the quilt Grandma made for him. Isn't it beautiful?:
Jared on his way to his interview, wearing a new tie from Grandma & Grandpa
Tuesday didn’t go quite how I’d planned. Seth and
Jared had orthodontist appointments that morning. It took a lot longer than I
wanted because Jared forgot his retainer so he had to drive back home to get
it! One of his retainers started breaking while he was out at college so they
decided he needed a new one and made it for him. By the time we finished at the
orthodontist we were already much later than I’d planned but I had also planned
to visit my friend Wanda on the way home because the nursing home where she lives now is
near the dentist’s office. I thought about not going after all, but since it’s
a long drive I decided we really should stop while we were in the area. Then it
turned out that she was in some therapy but was almost done, so we had to wait
to see her. They told us a few minutes, but we waited a good 15 – 20 minutes
and were close to giving up but we did finally get to see her. It had to be a
short visit, but I’m glad we got to see her. She looks good and seems to be
very happy. The new place is not as nice as the last place she stayed, but she
says she loves it there. They are trying new therapy on her legs and she says
she can move them more than before, so that is great! She is getting new braces
for her legs soon and she is very excited about that.
By the time we got home, it was mid afternoon and I had
planned to make a nice turkey dinner, so I had to hurry to get the turkey in
the oven. Then I had a lot of chores to get done as well as cooking the rest of
the dinner to go with the turkey. Thankfully, the turkey got done in a
reasonable amount of time and we ate dinner only a little bit later than usual.
Everything turned out well although I’ve decided that I really don’t like
turkey that much!
On Wednesday we took Jared to the temple to be endowed,
which took most of the day. He had to be there at 10:00 for the 12:00 session,
so he would have time to visit the distribution center before getting his
ordinances done. While Frank and Scott went with Jared, I did the work for a
couple of sisters in initiatories (and met a sister from Chico who knows Rachelle's family), then met up with everyone else to go to the
session. It was very nice to all be there together and Jared seemed to enjoy
it. I'm so grateful all of our boys so far have had a desire to go to the temple and make covenants there. It is a huge blessing!! There were two other missionaries going through for the first time in our
session, a girl and a boy. They are both going to missions in Washington state.
Oh, and my record holds—I had two temple workers tell me that I don’t look old
enough to have a child going on a mission!! I suspect when Seth goes to the
temple for the first time, I will NOT have anyone say that. We’ll see! J
One of the teenage boys in our ward came and stayed with Seth while we were gone to
the temple for most of the day. We stopped on the way home to get some food
because by then it was close to 4:00 and none of us had eaten lunch, so we were
starving! After we got home, Frank took the babysitter home and then he needed to do some
work for a client. I got some grocery shopping done. We relaxed for the rest of
the evening. Yesterday was a busy day. I needed to finish the grocery shopping,
and I also did laundry and Scott helped me vacuum the whole house. I spent
quite a bit of time helping Seth clean up his room to make way for the new
things he got for Christmas—this mostly involved taking apart several Lego sets
to make room for the new ones. His room looks much nicer now—it’s been pretty
messy for a while!! I also did some planning for Cub Scouts (starting on plans
for the new year) and took all the boys to get haircuts (even Scott, although
he paid for his own). Last night we all went together to see Rogue One (the new
Star Wars movie). Scott and Frank had already seen it, but the rest of us hadn’t.
I wasn’t particularly excited to see it, but I actually enjoyed it a lot more
than I thought I would. I loved how it tied in with Episode 4. By the time we got home, it was 10:00 so we all went to
bed.
Today is Scott’s last day here, since his flight leaves
really early tomorrow morning. I’m sad. It’s been really nice to have him here
this week. I’m glad Jared will be here for a while; it’s been nice to have him
home too. We don’t have much planned for today besides going to a wedding reception tonight. It actually snowed for a few
minutes this morning…Frank looked happier than a kid on Christmas morning!! It
stuck a little bit but has already melted. We seem to be going back and forth
between cold days and fairly mild days. I don’t mind that at all, but Frank is
disappointed, of course! I’m sure we’ll get some snow before the winter is
over, though.
That's all I can think of to tell you about this week. Happy New Year!!
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