Here's what we did this week:
Saturday: It was a very busy day--making all the final preparations for Christmas! I did the final present wrapping and got out the nice dishes, candles, napkin rings, etc. for our Christmas Eve dinner. When Jared got off work, we all met him there to have a late lunch. Then the boys went shopping to get presents for each other while I got started on cookies. I made two batches of cookies and I also made a gingerbread house. (We had leftover supplies from our Cub Scout gingerbread house projects, so I decided to make one myself.) I have actually never made a gingerbread house before--just helped my kids or other kids make them. It was fun and I was happy with the way it turned out except for the roof. I had to make a flat roof because I couldn't get the roof pieces to stand up.
The boys enjoyed painting our traditional paintbrush cookies, but none of them wanted to decorate with frosting, so I ended up doing most of the frosted cookies myself. I used leftover gingerbread house icing on some of them, and they turned out nice. The paintbrush cookies turned out really yummy this year--just the right mixture of soft and chewy. I'm afraid that I have eaten far too many of them!!
By the time all the cookies were done, it was quite late and I was tired so I settled for just sweeping the kitchen floor instead of mopping it too.
Sunday: Christmas Eve! :) We went to church in the morning, of course. Jared and I had to be there early for a short choir practice so we could go over our songs that we were singing that day. We only had Sacrament Meeting and it was very nice with mostly a lot of beautiful music (and just a couple of short talks). The choir sang two songs, one of which Jared directed. Jared also directed the Seminary students for the song they sang and he sang in a men's trio for another song, so he was really busy!! The choir sang a version of Angles We Have Heard On High and another song called "That Silent Night". I really liked that song. The tune is an original composition, but parts of the tune of "Silent Night" are woven into the accompaniment (which includes piano and violin). The words to the song are beautiful!!! The whole time we were practicing, I kept thinking how much I loved the words but I tried not to think about them too much because if I did that, I would cry and it is hard to sing and cry at the same time. I managed to be pretty successful at not thinking too hard about the words, but when we did the actual performance, the words of the 3rd verse (especially starting with the 3rd line) just got to me and I ended up crying (and trying to sing) for the remainder of the song. I'm sure I didn't contribute too much to the musical beauty of the song, but I was definitely sincere! Here are the words to the song--I want to remember them!:
That Silent Night
Verse 1:
How I would love to kneel at the manger,
Touch His small hand and look on His face.
Angels above would sing a chorus
Wise men would follow a star to that place.
Mary would sing Him a sweet lullaby,
Peaceful, gentle, soft as a sigh
Joseph would give her his cloak for a shawl,
filled with care for his family so small.
Verse 2:
What would I bring to give to the baby?
Wood for a fire to warm the night's chill
Oil for a lamp to light the darkness,
Wool for a coat from the sheep on the hill.
Mary would sing Him a sweet lullaby,
Peaceful, gentle, soft as a sigh
Joseph would giver her his cloak for a shawl,
filled with care for his family so small.
Would I have looked to the heavens?
Would I have seen the star?
Would I have followed the wise men
bringing their gifts from afar?
Oh, holy, silent, holy night, Ah, silent night
Verse 3:
I was not there that night in the stable
I did not see His bed on the hay,
Yet I believe my King, my Savior
came to the world on that holy day
Bethlehem baby now grown as a man,
Patient, lowly, meek as a lamb
Son of the Father who walked among men,
Healer, Redeemer, who loves without end,
The Babe in the manger,
my Savior, my Friend.
After church ended, we visited for a little while with others, wishing them a Merry Christmas before we came home. Frank was not feeling well at all on Sunday. After he went to the doctor earlier in the week, he improved slightly but by late Saturday he was feeling even worse than before. So after church he tried to go to the doctor. However, even though the recording at the office said the walk in sick clinic was open until 4:00 pm, it was closed when he got there (around 1:00 pm). Jared went to his friend Jessie's house after church and spent the afternoon with her and her family. I spent the afternoon making our Christmas Even dinner. We had invited the Elders to join us. Everything turned out really nice. Here is everyone ready to eat:
(Here's one without Seth trying to put food in his mouth):
Yummy food!!:
After dinner we watched the Joy to the World DVD (which includes music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and recitations of the scriptures from Luke, Matthew, and 3 Nephi). Then the boys each got to open a present, including the Elders. We got each of them a mug with hot chocolate, a cookie pop, and a tie. One of them opened his mug and the other one opened his cookie pop. They saved the ties for Christmas day, but we did get a text message from them on Christmas saying how much they liked the ties.
After the Elders went home, we quickly got ready for bed and Frank and I got the stockings and other Santa things ready, which didn't take very long because I had already done a lot of the stocking stuff, and Santa doesn't bring many gifts anymore. We were happy to get to bed after a long day!
Christmas: To my surprise, Tanner was the first one up (he is not a morning person)! He actually woke me up. We later found out that he had set an alarm--we told him we wanted them to get up around 7:30, and he took us seriously!! At any rate, it took a while to get Jared up but we finally made it downstairs to open presents. Everyone seemed to be happy with what they got. We spent the day playing with new toys, reading new books, taking naps (Tanner took two!), playing games, and generally relaxing and enjoying the day. Oh, and we all ate a lot of yummy but not very healthy stuff! A few pictures:
Remember those blankets I've been working on all year? One of them was for Tanner. Each row represents one of the days in the last year of his mission, and the color of the row reflects the high temperature for that day. Here is Tanner in his blanket. Jared is wearing the shirt that Seth gave him.
The other blanket I made was for Scott. We got to Skype with him on Christmas night and he had his blanket on and he said it was the best present he got this year! (I sent the blanket out to Utah with some friends who were driving out there, and they got it to him sometime on Christmas Day.)
Seth got a lot of Legos, as usual, and he spent a good part of the day putting together three different sets. This one is a Joker car (from the Lego Batman Movie).
Snickers isn't sure what to make of everything, but he did enjoy the treats we gave him.
The Christmas salt & pepper set that I got. I'm trying not to get a lot of new sets, but I actually don't have a lot of good Christmas sets and this one is so cute!!
Here's my stash. A lot of books, as you can see. I also got a shawl /wrap thing and an Ancestry DNA kit, which I forgot to put in the picture. Jared got me the watch. The two small round tins are from Seth. One is scented lip balm and the other is a scented candle. He made them at school. When I opened them, I asked him if he made them and his response was "Yes, we made them on craft day and I didn't want them so I decided to give them to you." Well gee, thanks Seth! :)
Most of Seth's gifts. He had a couple more Lego sets that he was already building at this point. His wish list is always exclusively Legos! This year we got him some of the Legos on his list, but Frank and I also discussed getting him a few things he didn't ask for that we thought he would like--hoping to encourage him to expand his interests a little bit! So we talked about other things we thought he would like and ended up getting him a blank comic book (he gets to create his own comic strip in it). He also likes music and Jared has an iPod shuffle he is no longer using so we had Jared put a bunch of music on that--CDs we already have like Lion King, Lilo & Stitch, Veggie Tales, Star Wars, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.--and we got him some headphones to go with it. The nice thing about the Ipod Shuffle is that it only plays music. No internet access or apps or anything like that. The other thing we talked about doing was getting him some sort of robotics / coding kit. That one kind of backfired on us, though, because when we looked at robotics kits, the one we thought would be the best ended up being a Lego robotics kit. Whoops!! :) On a whim, I also got Seth a white dress shirt, new dark blue dress pants, and two ties and to my surprise he was really happy when he opened those. He had mentioned once recently that he would like to have a white shirt and a tie (the dress shirt he's been wearing to church the last year or so is blue plaid, and no tie) but I really didn't think he'd care that much about them. He actually cheered when he saw what was in that package, though!
Now Seth is putting together a Batmobile set.
Hans & Griffin sent us this yummy chocolate dipped fruit! They also got us a game and a 3-D puzzle.
Tanner taking one of his naps under his new blanket.
Seth reading one of the books that Grandma & Grandpa sent him.
I read some of my new books too, but I also finished reading the book we are reading for book chat (The Case for Christ).
Frank was feeling somewhat better on Monday, which we were grateful for. I didn't get any pictures of his gifts. He only got a few small things because he already got a 3-D printer last month. He got a few ties and the crock pot in my gift picture was also partly for him. He gets to get a few Kindle books too.
I also didn't get any pictures of the older boys' gifts. Besides the blanket, Tanner got some fun socks, some winter gloves, and a hoodie. He also got some money so that he can buy some more clothes. Jared got warm clothes (including a coat) so that he won't freeze when he gets to Idaho and a smart watch. Both he and Tanner got gift cards and all four of my boys got a copy of a photo book I made for them which includes all the portraits we had taken of them over the years. All in all, it was a nice Christmas!
The rest of the week: It has been a relaxing week overall, with no school or activities. Frank took the week off work also. Jared was supposed to work every day but Monday but on Wednesday they took him off the schedule because of some sort of training that was going on and Thursday and Friday he ended up calling in sick. So he only ended up working on Tuesday. I'm not sure yet if he will make it to work tomorrow. He still isn't feeling well. He never did get totally better after he went to the doctor last time, although he improved somewhat for a while. He went back to the doctor yesterday and the nasal infection he had still hasn't cleared up. It turns out that he wasn't taking the medicine they gave him last time correctly--he was supposed to take two capsules twice a day, but he thought it was only one capsule twice a day. That meant some of the bacteria were getting killed, but the rest of them were developing a resistance to the antibiotic, which is why he started getting worse again. Now he is on a different antibiotic and he made sure he read the label carefully this time! He just started taking that yesterday, though, so it hasn't started to have much of an effect yet.
Meanwhile, Frank seemed to feel a little better for a few days (which is why he didn't go to the doctor on Tuesday) but by yesterday he was coughing even worse than before and feeling worse again, so I convinced him to go back to the doctor today. It turns out that his sinus infection has not cleared up completely but now he also has full blown bronchitis. The doctor said his lungs sound terrible. She called in 3 different prescriptions for him and she also told him to get 3 different over the counter medications and to start drinking a lot of juice. So this evening I went with him to the store to get all of that stuff, plus a few more things that we needed. Hopefully all this medicine will start working soon and he will start feeling better.
It hasn't all been sickness this week. On Tuesday we all went to see Star Wars : The Last Jedi. Frank and Jared had already seen it, but Tanner, Seth and I had not. I was surprised at how much I liked it! We had a fun time. Jared went ice skating with Jessie on Wednesday evening and last night he and Tanner went to a wedding reception for a girl in our stake that they are friends with. She went to the same school as they did and she and Tanner really liked each other when they were little. (He's not heartbroken though!) On Wednesday Jared and Seth also got haircuts. Seth has homework to work on over the break and he did a little bit of that every day. This afternoon he went to play with the carpool boys at their house. I have been doing all the usual chores (laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping never go away!) but I enjoyed not having long lists of Christmas preparations to do as well. I did a lot of reading and playing games and puzzles and relaxing. It's been nice.
It has definitely turned winter here. It rained a bunch on Saturday but now it is really cold. We might get a little bit of snow tomorrow. We saw a few snow flurries one other day too. (Can't remember which day that was, now.) Yesterday it was absolutely frigid and today, with a high in the 30s, felt warm by comparison. They say we are going to have more really frigid temperatures going into January. Well, it's that time of year, I guess! On a happy note, we get a few extra minutes of daylight each day now so we are working our way toward warmer days.
That's everything we have to report. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
1 comment:
Looks like a fun, relaxing Christmas! That blanket turned out great and looks so cozy.
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