Weekly Review December 28 '12

My last post for the year 2012...already!  Who knows where the time goes?  We hope you all had a nice Christmas...we did!  It was especially great to have all our boys home and Frank's parents with us as well. 

 

Saturday began with Frank and I going to the temple.  I'm glad we took the time to go; it was a great way to start our busy Christmas weekend.  We did sealings.  Some of the women in our session spoke only Spanish and the sealer spoke Spanish too so he did some of them in Spanish and some in English.  One time he even inadvertently switched from Spanish to English half way through!  That was interesting; I've never done sealings in another language before.  Most of the people being sealed were German or Italian, too!

 

After we got home we started some holiday baking with help from the boys.  We were just finishing up a batch of jingle bell fudge (butterscotch / peanut butter) when Frank's parents arrived.  We welcomed them and then continued to bake--the boys did paintbrush cookies:

 

 

Seth with his tray

 

 

 Tanner & Scott hard at work painting another tray

 

Jared with his finished cookies

 



 

Some of the end results

 

I also got out all the nice dishes that day and washed them in preparation for our Christmas Eve dinner.  We kept really busy all day--no time for relaxing!  The kitchen floor did not get cleaned but thankfully it doesn't show dirt very well. :)

 

Sunday we had an extra nice musical Sacrament Meeting.  This year we had several musical numbers and right before each one, one of the people who was singing / performing talked a little bit about the song and what it meant to them and bore testimony about the concepts in the song.  I thought that was a really great idea and it made for a very uplifting meeting.  I sang two songs with the choir which I enjoyed very much. 

 

After church and dinner we did more baking.  Here are some of the end results:

 

We had several people drop by treats also so along with what we made, we had a table full of goodies:

On Monday we prepared for our Christmas Eve dinner.  We had invited another family from our ward to join us (the Pedersens).  Between cooking our special dinner, making more treats, and getting the tables set up, we were on our feet in the kitchen literally all day.  After another very mild winter with hardly a snowflake appearing, we were very surprised when it started to snow and even began to stick!:

On Christmas Eve--how perfect is that?!  By evening, we had a good couple of inches.  We put our sparkling cider for dinner outside to get cold:
 

For dinner, we had pork loin with a yummy barbecue / maple sauce, sour cream potatoes, sweet potatoe casserole, green bean casserole, and rolls.  Our friends brought fruit salad and dessert.  With 13 people, we decided to set up two tables.  The kids' table was red:

And the adults' table was blue / green / silver:

(I didn't notice that someone had been playing with the place setting until after I took the picture!)  The tables turned out looking a lot nicer than I had expected and the food was delicious!  Unfortunately, I got so busy with the serving / eating that I forgot to take pictures of the people!  I hate it when I do that.  After our yummy dinner, some people played a rousing game of speed Uno while the rest of us cleaned up.  Then we all settled down to watch Joy to the World (scripture accounts of the birth of Jesus with music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir).  It was a nice way to end our evening.  The Pedersens headed back out into a beautiful clear night.  The sky was just glowing after the recent snow fall.  I tried to get a picture of it, but it didn't turn out very well--blurry (I really need a tripod) and not capturing the lighting the way I wanted.  It's still pretty, though:

It was actually very dark by then--it looks a lot lighter in the picture. 

After the Pedersens left, we each opened a present from under the tree (I got a cool Lego book that interested all the boys as much as it did me!) and then we got everyone to bed.  Frank and I were in bed last, of course.  We were so tired by then and very ready for some rest!  Thankfully, no one woke up really early so we were all able to get a good night's sleep.  We all congregated in our room and then went down to see what Santa brought:

 

Scott's loot (the iPod is just charging--it's not a Christmas present!)  He says the ties are "Grandpa ties" so I guess he'll be exchanging those.

 

Tanner received a pedal for the keyboard (that's what's in the box).  It came with a handful of candy in the shipping box so he got that, too.

Jared got a game he wanted and some gift cards (Tanner got a gift card too).

Seth received training wheels and a helmet for his bike--he has not been able to use them yet because the weather has not been cooperative!

Frank received a lot of kitchen stuff.  I was surprised to recieve a sewing / quilting machine.  I haven't had a chance to play with it yet!  I also received some books--I've already read 2 of them.  The stockings are for Granny & Grandpa.

Snickers got a dog bed.

The tree with all the wrapped presents that we gave to each other.

Seth was excited to get an apple and "two oranges" (one's a tangerine) in his stocking!

Seth loves his new Perry the Platypus hoodie!  He's been wearing it every day since Christmas.

The older boys playing a game.  (Jared wearing new headset from Grandma & Grandpa.)

Seth playing one of his new games.

Santa also brought lots of candy, nuts, etc.  The table is full!

Christmas was a relaxing day--we just played and enjoyed each other all day.  I figured out where Frank gets his love of snow from--his Mom!!  She couldn't wait to get outside to do this:

(Making a snowman!)

The  house was messy and noisy all day and I was amused at one point to find that Snickers had taken refuge under the Christmas tree:
 

While his new bed remained empty:

(He did climb in it for a little while the following day)

Wednesday morning Scott had  a doctor appointment (the physical for his mission).  First thing that morning it started snowing again.  We had some freezing rain first, and then it switched to snow.  The roads were a mess but we made it to the doctor ok.    The three older boys and I had all received tickets to see Les Miserables at noon that day.  The doctor took longer than we had expected and with the nasty roads we didn't even make it to the theater until about ten after noon.  Miraculously, the theater was not crowded though and it turned out perfect--we still got good seats all together (Allie came with us and the YW president & her two boys met us there as well) and all we missed was most of the previews.  I thought the movie was incredible--I really, really enjoyed it!  I cried at the end but I wasn't the only one who did that.

Frank stayed home with Seth and his parents.  Frank's mom did a lot of crocheting while she was here:
 

She finished this blanket and started on a pink one before she went home.  That evening, we took Frank's parents out to eat at a Chinese buffet place.  Scott went to Allie's house. 

On Thursday I tried to get caught up on some of the chores I'd been neglecting.  I also took Jared to the eye doctor--he needed his annual check up.  He picked out new glasses (hasn't had new ones for a couple of years) and got his contact lens prescription updated as well.  That afternoon we went down to the temple grounds.  Tanner and Jared didn't want to go but the rest of us went and Allie came too.  We had intended to stay long enough to see the lights before we came back home but it didn't take us as long as we had anticipated to do the things we had planned to do so by the time we were done it was still an hour before the lights were going to come on.  Seth was being difficult, Frank's mom was really tired, and we were all getting hungry so we decided to come home.  I guess it just wasn't in the cards for me to get any pictures of the Christmas lights this year! 

We did enjoy the exhibits at the visitor's center, including a lot of new exhibits because it was just recently remodeled.  I also saw the International Nativity exhibit again (Seth enjoyed this exhibit too) and I was able to get some better pictures.  One of the things I really like about the international nativity exhibit is seeing how people in different countries interpret the nativity to fit their own customs and culture.  For example, I love how this nativity from an African country includes a giraffe and an elephant:    

This one definitely has a Jamaican flare:

Love the costumes in this Swedish nativity, and the Wise Men on horses:

And how about this one from China?:

This American set has photographs of people in costume:

I took this one for Tim, since it's from Finland:

Those are just a few examples!  There were many more.

Frank's Mom & Dad enjoyed the visitor's center.  And the temple looked beautiful (as always):

 Scott, Allie, and Seth tried out the camel next to the large outside nativity scene:

Tanner and Jared made sour cream enchiladas for us so they were ready for us when we got home.  Allie stayed to watch a movie with the boys but the adults went to bed.  Don't know where they get their stamina from!

Today has been really busy too.  Frank's parents left this morning to head back home.  We will miss them!  We are so glad that they made the necessary sacrifices to come spend Christmas with us.  It made the holiday extra special.  They made it to their hotel ok this afternoon and will go the rest of the way home in the morning.  We hope they don't have too much trouble since another storm is coming in the morning and they have some mountains to go through.  We've been busy today cleaning up a bit and moving furniture back to where it goes (Seth slept in Scott's room while Frank's parents were here so that they could have his room).  Scott had to go back to the doctor to have them check his TB test and to get some blood drawn.  Allie came with us and then they went to her house to babysit her brothers for the afternoon.  They are at a YSA party now.  After the doctor, I returned books to the library and went to Wal Mart.  Then Frank and I went to the grocery store.  The boys took out trash and returned tables and chairs that we borrowed to the church.  Jared and Tanner also went to a friend's house for a couple of hours.  All of that has kept us busy all day. 

Here are three new salt & pepper shaker sets I got for Christmas:
 

Curtis & Julia's family sent us this set from Austin, Texas.  Very colorful!

Frank got me this set, which will be a nice neutral set that I can use year round.

And this fun set was given to me by Mom & Dad.  So cute! 

At church on Sunday they announced that they are going to be creating a new ward in our stake and rearranging a lot of boundries.  They are having a special meeting this Sunday evening to let us kow the specifics of all the changes and they will all be effective for the first Sunday of the new year.  So naturally, we are all a bit anxious to find out how that is going to affect us.  I'm pretty sure that we will still be in the same ward (although there's no guarantee of that) but we will very likely lose quite a few families and may even gain a few.  It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.  Hopefully it won't be too devastating!  Even if we stay in the same ward, we will really miss the ones who go.  But this change also means that we are growing, and that is a good thing, of course. 

Weekly Review December 21 '12

Once again, I am starting this post much later than usual.  This week has been ridiculously eventful, but I'll try to stick to the basics.  Saturday was our ward Christmas dinner.  Frank helped do the cooking for that and he was gone literally all day--from 9:00 am until about 9:00 pm.  Meanwhile, I was Jared's personal chauffeur for the day--he had a basketball game at noon, a birthday party from 1:00-3:00, and a practice for the ward Christmas party program at 3:30.  (He had to go home in between the game and the party to shower--so yes, he was late to the party.)  I stayed to watch his game and they played pretty well.  It was a very close game, with our ward ahead by a few points for most of the game.  When the buzzer went off, though, the game was tied.  To my surprise, they did a two minute overtime and unfortunately the other team got ahead by one point, so they won the game.  It is fun to see how many of the boys are improving, though.  Besides all the driving around, I also went on a walk (Seth came with me), cleaned the kitchen floor, and finished up my lesson preparations.

 

The ward dinner was very nice--beautifully decorated, yummy food, and a fun program.  Frank ended up serving food as well as cooking so he didn't get to join us for the meal at all (he ate in the kitchen, in snatches, whenever he could fit it in).  Seth got restless during the program so I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I would have, but it was pretty good.  (Jared was helping with some of the technical aspects). 

 

Sunday was also busy--besides church, Tanner recieved his patriarchal blessing and Erin joined us for dinner.  Tanner's blessing was beautiful (I wished I'd thought to get a tissue out of my purse before it started).  He already has the written copy--it came in the mail on Tuesday.  I thought that was a pretty impressive turn around time!  As always, we enjoyed visiting with Erin!

 

Monday I had a phone meeting with the YW presidency in the morning.  I intended to wrap presents while talking, but I'm not very good at doing two things at once so I didn't get much done.  I continued the wrapping after the meeting ended and spending that much time sitting on the floor wasn't so great for my back.  Luckily, I didn't completely take it out but it bothered me for the next couple of days so I had to be careful.  We were all looking forward to Scott's return that evening, but as many of you know he didn't make it home on Monday because his flight was cancelled.  This was a big surprise to us since the weather here was fine--apparently there was fog in Baltimore, though.  He was able to book a flight for very early Tuesday morning and after some debate we decided to get him a hotel room near the airport rather than have him stay with Mom & Dad.  We did that for two reasons--so that no one would have to get up at a terribly early hour to get him back to the airport and also because a winter storm was forecast for Utah on Tuesday morning and we weren't sure if the roads would be bad or not.  Many thanks to Mom & Dad for getting Scott to the airport (and then turning around to go pick him up again) and to Amy for driving Scott back up to the hotel!  Fortunately, his flight Tuesday morning got on it's way before the storm hit.

 

Meanwhile, at home we were really disappointed with the delay but we coped.  I had a complicated grocery list to make and we had lots of errands to run Monday evening and with all the phone calls back and forth with Scott, we ended up having dinner VERY late.  Tuesday morning I got some cleaning done and made some cookies before going to pick up Scott at the airport.  Frank worked from home so I was able to take his car (plus Frank got to see Scott as soon as we got home).  When he got home, Scott went over to the high school for a little while--there was a drama club party after school and Tanner and Jared had stayed after for that so he wanted to see them (plus several friends were there too).  They got back a few minutes after Seth arrived home from school and Seth was very excited to see Scott!  We took all the boys shopping to get Christmas presents for each other, had dinner late again, and then had family night.  Scott thanked us for making dinner and told Tanner and Jared that you really come to appreciate having someone cook for you after you've had to do it for yourself.  See, he learned something! :)

 

I didn't exercise Wednesday morning because my back was still bothering me and I decided I should be careful.  I had visiting teaching appointments that morning.  After that I had errands--I took Scott out to Allie's house first and then got my errands done, including grocery shopping at Wal Mart.  That evening for YM / YW we took the youth down to see the Christmas lights at the temple.  We met earlier than usual since it takes a while to get down there.  I had kind of a crazy trip--when we were leaving, one of the parents told us that there was a bad wreck on the spur getting on to I-495 so we decided we should get off the freeway before we got to that point and take an alternate route the rest of the way to the temple.  I've never gone any other way, though, so I was supposed to be following someone else, with a GPS for back up.  Well, I got separated from the rest of the group and the GPS took me some crazy way that took a long time.  Meanwhile, everyone else decided to take their chances with the usual route and it turned out the accident was cleared up so they all got there about a half hour before my group did!  By the time we got there we only had about a half hour until we had to start back home.  The kids didn't seem to mind, though.  They had a fun time singing and playing in the car.  I got to see the international nativity exhibit, which I always enjoy.  Here's a few pictures:  

 

Love the eskimo nativity in the center, complete with igloo and arctic animals!

I wanted to zoom in as well as take more pictures, but my camera's batteries were dying and it kept shutting down when I tried to zoom in.  Then it died completely so I didn't get any pictures of the lights (except with my iPod, but I have no idea how to get the pictures off of there onto my computer).  I barely had time to look at the lights anyway but they did look absolutely beautiful as we drove onto the temple grounds.  The trip back home went much quicker.  We all met at a restaurant (Chipotle) in Frederick to have dinner.  (I was the second car to arrive this time!)  It was yummy, but we didn't get home until nearly 10:00.  Scott & Allie went to a party so they were even later than we were.  (I was actually asleep before he got home and didn't even hear him come in!)

Yesterday I helped take kids to the library at Seth's school, got my hair done, grocery shopped, and did laundry.  Scott kept the laundry going for me while I was out and he also vacuumed the whole house--nice!  I did some cleaning in the kitchen, worked on Personal Progress, finished wrapping presents, made some phone calls, and made dinner for another family in our ward (the dad recently had back surgery). Scott and Allie went to a concert at Allie's high school; they had dinner at our house first.  Tanner and Frank went home teaching.  It was a very busy day.

Today started out pretty crazy.  Seth had pajama day at school.  He only has one pair of pajamas that still fit him and after getting up (at 8:00) he informed me that he had wet his pants in the night!  There was not enough time to wash & dry his pajamas before school but luckily Scott was up and offered to feed Seth and make his lunch so I could run to the store and buy him some pajamas.  Our car pool boys' dad had also offered to take the boys in this morning so I didn't have to pick them up.  (I told him I would take Seth in myself since we were running late.)  We managed to barely get to school on time!  Here is Seth after returning from school, in his new pajamas:

I've been meaning to get him another pair of pajamas; wish I'd done it sooner!  Scott went to the high school this morning to see friends and help set up some lights.  I made one quick stop at the store and then came home and worked on the budget for most of the day.  This evening Scott & Allie are out on a date (they stopped by here for a while) and Tanner & Jared are at an "End of the World" party at their friend Taylor's house.  It doesn't look like the world is going to end after all--I can't say that I'm surprised by that!  It is really, really cold today though.  We had mild tempertures earlier this week but today is super cold and windy too.  We even saw some snowflakes drifting down for a while.

Everyone is glad that school is out and that Frank doesn't have to go back to work until January 2nd.  We are looking forward to Frank's parents joining us for Christmas!  They left this afternoon and arrived safely at their hotel this evening.  They will drive the rest of the way here tomorrow.  We invited them to come for Christmas when we were in NC for Thanksgiving but they weren't sure if they would be able to come.  Last Saturday morning Frank said to me "Oh, I forgot to tell you...my parents are coming for Christmas.  They're coming on Saturday and they'll be here for a week."  I had to give him a hard time about that...how do you forget something like that?!  He had just found out the night before that they were coming, so at least he didn't forget for very long.  It will be nice to have them here and we are grateful they are making the effort to come.

We hope you all have a beautiful Christmas--we love you all!

Weekly Review December 14 '12

I'm starting this week's post a lot later than I usually do, so I'll try to keep it brief.

 

First of all, I can't believe I forgot to mention last week that Tanner was ordained a priest on Sunday (the 2nd).  My memory is going I guess...by the end of the week, I can't remember what happened at the beginning of the week.

 

Last Saturday we had a lot going on.  Besides the usual early morning walk and cleaning the kitchen floor, Seth had a birthday party to attend, Jared was invited to dinner & a movie with some friends from his old school, Tanner was gone all day with 3 performances of Little Mermaid, and I took Seth to Museums by Candlelight (an annual Frederick County event).  We didn't have a lot of time, so we only visited two places.  First we went to a place in Thurmont, Maryland (home of Camp David) called Catoctin Furnace.  There was a big iron foundry there a long time ago.  We visited a little cabin that is still standing--some of the workers' families used to live there.  Unfortunately, I totally forgot to pull out the camera and take pictures.  Seth was actually pretty interested in this little house and he asked lots of questions.  We were the only visitors while we were there, so we got undivided attention from the workers.  There wasn't a lot to do, though, so we didn't stay very long.  The second place we went was Rose Hill Manor, which is right next to the boys' high school.  It's a large historic mansion.  Besides the house itself, they also have a carriage museum full of old carriages, surreys, carts...you name it!  It's really very interesting.  When we walked toward the carriage museum we were greeted by Father Christmas.  Seth's eyes got really big when he saw him!  But then he thought about it and informed me that he couldn't be the real Santa Claus because no one can see the real Santa.  Father Christmas was nice, though, and he let us sit in his sleigh and agreed to be in our picture: 

 

(There were several old sleighs in the museum, too.)  After looking at the carriages, we went to the main house:

It's a beautiful old house with period furnishings, very interesting.  Seth was a lot more interested in this house than I would have expected him to be also.  He liked the toy room the best, though, and enjoyed playing with a marble toy for a while:

This has been a fun family tradition to visit a few museums every year.  Eventually, I will have been to them all! (I've already been to Rose Hill Manor a couple of times, but it is geared more toward children than a lot of the museums so we end up going there more often.)

I can't think of anything remarkable about Sunday (I'm probably forgetting something important again!)  I had a class presidency meeting as well as choir practice after church, and we had family night that evening.

The rest of the week has been extremely busy between all the usual things that need to be done and the extra preparations for Christmas.  I will not bore you with a blow-by-blow account, though!  I did a lot of shopping--went nearly every day for an hour or two at least--and I am almost done with all the Christmas stuff now.  We have another family coming over for Christmas Eve dinner this year and I've been wanting to get a few things like napkin rings and candlesticks so I was looking for those too.  It was suprisingly difficult to find what I wanted, so that added a lot to my shopping time but I have almost everything I was looking for now. 

Besides all the shopping, we had tithing settlement (Tuesday), I worked on pledge drive stuff for a morning and the boys had a two hour early dismissal (Wednesday), the boys and I had dentist appointments (Thursday), and Frank and I went on a date (this evening).  For our date, we went to see Breaking Dawn part 2 (enjoyed it) and had some dinner at a Mediterranean place; it was good. 

For YM / YW this week we met with another ward at the stake center to work on decorations for the New Year's Eve dance, because it is our turn to be in charge of decorations.  We made a ton of paper snowflakes--I actually really enjoyed it; I'd forgotten how fun it can be to make those!  I met Tanner's friend Alivia (the one he went out with last week) because she's in that ward.  She is a really cute girl.  We I introduced myself, she said "you have a great kid!"

Last night we did our annual 12 Days of Christmas service project.  The family we wanted to do this year lives pretty far away so instead of driving out there every night for 12 nights straight, we wrapped everything up and put them all in a large box and dropped the whole box off.  I spent quite a bit of time doing the wrapping on Monday.  Tanner and Jared did the actual delivery (Frank drove them over) and thankfully they didn't get caught.

Frank was doing maintenance for all his clients this week so he's been really busy with that.  I am teaching this Sunday so I've been trying to get my lesson prepared.  I tried some new recipes this week and was very pleased with the results--everyone liked them!  They are from a book I got at the library and I wouldn't say they are completely "low fat" but they are definitely "lower fat" than I am used to cooking so I'm excited that they actually taste good.  They were fast and easy too.  Definitely going to try some more recipes from that book this week. 

I have started reading the Magic Tree House books with Seth.  We try to read a chapter or two every night.  (Except the last several nights he has wanted to play a game of "Fish" instead.  So we've been doing that.  He has gotten really good at the game and has beaten me several times.)  We are in the fourth Magic Tree House book now.  It's been fun to read those together!  Seth is reading really well, by the way.  He brings readers home from school and he is zipping right through them.

Today I've been sad about the elementary school shooting in Connecticut.  It breaks my heart to think of all those families who have lost children!  (And the adults' families too of course.)  It's especially tragic that it happened right before Christmas.  I just can't imagine how horrible that would be.  I'm grateful that all of my kids had a normal day at school and came home safely.  You just never know, I guess.

It's been much colder this week than last week but still not too bad.  The last couple of days we've definitely had a temperature drop.  I'll finish up with some photos of a beautiful sunset we had a few days ago:
 

 

We are looking forward to having Scott home in just a few more days!  

Christmas Tree Additions this Year

Last year I did a post about the stories behind a lot of our Christmas tree ornaments.  We have a couple of new ornaments this year, so I want to record why they are important.  Last year I mentioned that I didn't have an ornament for the year 1991 but this week I was out shopping and found this ornament that looks like a large diamond ring:

 

(Not the best picture--sorry!)  Since 1991 is the year that Frank and I got engaged, I thought this would be the perfect ornament to help us remember that year.  It's especially appropriate because my real engagement ring actually hung on the Christmas tree (briefly) that year.  Frank and I got engaged in October and at that time he gave me a beautiful blue topaz ring that he had purchased in Hawaii.  (He was living in Hawaii at the time and we got engaged on a week end visit).  He didn't intend that ring to be my permanent engagement ring, though.  He wanted to pick one out together, but that was hard to do when I was in Utah and he was in Hawaii!  So he got me the topaz ring to wear in the meantime.  (I think his real motivation was to let all the boys I encountered know that I was already claimed, so "hands off"!)  Frank had to return to Hawaii until mid-December but when he got back we picked out a ring.  We weren't sure if it would be done in time for Christmas, but it did get done on the 24th.  They called Frank to let him know it was done, and he went to pick it up without telling me.  He hung it on my parents' Christmas tree and when I got home, we were sitting on the couch in front of the tree.  Frank kept saying things like "It sure is a beautiful tree!"  I thought he was acting strange and then I finally caught on!  We removed the ring and put it on my finger.  It was the perfect Christmas present! :)

 The other addition to our Christmas tree this year is this ornament:

(Again, not the best picture.)  It says "Annapolis MD" on it.  This summer I went with my friend Jeanine to Annapolis for a day and I purchased this ornament then.  Jeanine and her boys have been dear family friends ever since we moved here in 2000.  We've kept in touch in spite of the fact that they moved an hour away (and into another ward) several years ago.  Jeanine is like a sister to me.  She is one of those people that I am sure the Lord placed in my path as a tender mercy (and she says I have been the same for her).  I am so, so grateful that our paths crossed when they did!  Jeanine has been through some very difficult things and she is a great example to me of faith and endurance.  I have never known anyone who relies on personal revelation the way that Jeanine does.  She is just amazing!  Jeanine and her boys moved to California last month so we probably won't get to see each other much anymore, but I know we will always keep in touch.  This ornament will always remind me of her and her family, and of all the many wonderful times we have had together, particularly our fun "girls day" in Annapolis!

I'm hoping to add a BYU Idaho ornament to our tree this year, too.  If we do, I will post a picture of it later!

Weekly Review December 7 '12

When I wrote last week, Tanner was on a date.  He says he had fun--they did some shopping / browsing in downtown Frederick (where there are lots of restaurants and cute specialty shops) and then they went to her house to watch a movie.  At home, we got out a lot of the Christmas decorations.  Frank and I did some shopping for some new decorations--I wanted to get something to put outside since our big candy canes broke last year and I also decided to have pity on the guys and not ask them to put up the lights again this year.  (The trees in front have grown so tall that they make hanging the lights very difficult and the lights are partially obscured by the trees anyway.)  In lieu of lights, I wanted to get something else to put out front.  (Pictures of what we got are at the end of the post.)

 

Saturday was pretty busy.  Frank and I went on an early morning walk.  Then I baked Tanner's cake and cleaned the kitchen floor.  Jared had two basketball games--one at 1:00 and one at 3:00 but we weren't able to go watch.  He's on the older team now (instead of the Deacon's team) and he reports that they lost both games.  But he had fun so oh well.  Tanner invited two friends over to share his birthday cake and they arrived around 3:00.  They played games and then we had dinner (Tanner chose gyros instead of pizza--yummy!) and after that we had his cake:

 

Tanner's friends--Ryan and Taylor--went in together and got him a ukelele.  I neglected to get a picture of it but it's yellow with a big smiley face on it.  Tanner has dubbed it "Wal-Mart".  Hopefully he will actually learn to play it!

After cake, we had his friends help us bring up the Christmas tree before they left.  We set the tree up that evening but saved the decorating until Sunday evening.  Sunday was the usual church, with choir practice afterwards for me.  We had family night and got the tree decorated, finishing up just in time for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  The tree looks nice:

(I was experimenting with different camera settings to see which would get the best picture.  The lighting was definitely the best in this one, although if I had a tripod to keep the camera still it would be much better because it wouldn't be all blurry.  This was the "fireworks" setting!)

Anyway, we tried to listen to the devotional but things were a bit chaotic--the boys (particularly Seth) were not in a quiet, contemplative mood and Jared was driving Seth crazy, as usual (all with the best intentions).  In the middle of it, Seth broke one of my pepper shakers--he loves this set and has been playing with them ever since I got them out on Friday and I have told him more than once not to play with them because they'll get broken.  Well, I was right!  He dropped it on the floor and it was no match for the tile (it may have survived if we still had linoleum in the kitchen--one of the disadvantages of tile!) so now I have a lonely little salt shaker snowman:

I'm a little bummed about it because this was my nicest Christmas set and I doubt I'll find another one like it (my mother in law gave it to me) but it's just a thing, right?  Hopefully Seth also learned that I'm not just making things up when I say something could get broken.  He usually doesn't believe me when I tell him that! 

So the devotional wasn't the super uplifting and sweet exeperience I would have liked it to be, but I've watched most of it again this week when the house has been quiet!  And the music was so beautiful that I cried, even in the midst of all the chaos!

Most of you have probably heard that we've been having unusually warm weather out here.  Monday was quite pleasant; I think it was in the high 50's or low 60's.  I exercised, bought groceries, did laundry, vacuumed, went to the bookstore (I needed a used book for a gift exchange and I am proud of myself for making it out of the store with only that one book!), and had lunch with my friend Christine.  By the time the boys got home from school, the temperatures were so nice that I decided we needed to take advantage of it and rake the leaves in the front yard.  It's amazing how many leaves a couple of little apple trees can produce!  Seth loved the pile:
 

We enjoyed the sunset while we finished up:

We filled three big yard waste bags and when we were done, the yard looked like this:

We had family night after that.  Originally, we had planned to go to the Visitor's Center at the temple for a violin concert (which I really wanted to see) but Tanner had to stay late to work on the current high school play and we didn't know when he was going to need a ride home, so I decided it would be better to go to the visitor's center another night.  Instead, we played Scattergories, which Frank won (he always wins) and we also enjoyed pumpkin pie for treat, which Frank had made.  (And Tanner got home earlier than he expected so he was here for family night.)

Tuesday was even nicer.  The temperature got up to 70 degrees!  Seriously, I love weather like that!  I don't mind a good snowstorm at Christmas time, but the Christmas tree / warm weather combination really works for me, too!  I had lots of errands to run and house work to do; I also had book club that afternoon.  That evening  we were working out in the yard again--this time, we were pulling up all the weeds that became very obvious after we raked all the leaves.  We didn't get all of the weeds pulled, but we did get a large amount and the yard looks much nicer.  Maybe it will be covered up by snow before the weeds grow back!

On Wednesday I exercised and went to the temple--my friend Susie came with me.  Frank worked from home that day so I was able to leave earlier than usual (he took Seth to school for me) so we got there in time for the 10:00 endowment session.  Susie has lots of family file names so I was able to be a proxy for one of her family members, which was cool.  I really enjoyed visiting with Susie on the way there and back.  The weather was still fairly nice but not as warm and a bit windy.  It was colder when we left the temple than it was when we got there.  After I got back from the temple, I went to Wal Mart to do the weekly shopping.  It took a while because in addition to the weekly groceries I also bought items for our annual 12 Days of Christmas service project.  I barely got home in time to make dinner and then leave again (I actually had to take my dinner with me--didn't have time to eat it!).  Jared was supposed to take brownies to YM and he had forgotten--of course I didn't have a brownie mix in the house although I almost always keep one on hand--so I had to stop at the store (again!) on the way to the church to buy some brownies.  For YW we visited single sisters in our ward--took them plates of cookies.  I took some girls to visit two women and we had a good time.  The YM were doing the same thing--they were visiting single men / less active YM. 

Yesterday I took kids from Seth's class to the school library.  Then I got a little bit of Christmas shopping done.  Frank worked from home again--he started to drive to work but the traffic was so bad he just decided to come back home.  I did laundry, vacuumed, finished up the grocery shopping for the week (our Wal-Mart doesn't have produce and meat), worked on Personal Progress, and picked Jared up early from school for an orthodontist appointment.  They took x-rays and said he's going to probably need his bottom wisdom teeth out soon--the dentist said the same thing about Tanner last time we visited so I foresee all three boys needing at least some of their wisdom teeth out early next year (Scott still has his top ones and will probably need them out before his mission).  That'll be fun--can't wait to see how much that's going to cost us!  (NOT!)  Last night I took Jared and Seth to see the play Tanner has been helping with--The Little Mermaid.  (Tanner ran the spotlight.)  It was quite good--most of the kids were great actors and good singers.  I was particularly impressed with Ariel, Sebastian, Flounder, Ursula, the chef, and Flotsam & Jetsam.  The costumes were great and they had some cool special effects.  I wasn't terribly impressed with the set, but Tanner says they have almost no budget for that (the football team gets all the money at their school, apparently).  Anyway, we enjoyed the play.  Seth liked it too although he got quite wiggly.  He was really difficult during intermisison and kept running off--of all my kids, he is the one who has the most trouble staying with me.  He just takes off if he sees something interesting, no matter how often I talk to him about not doing that.  It can be quite trying at times.

Today I exercised and got the budget caught up.  It is raining and quite chilly today (although still a bit warmer than usual for this time of year.)  Frank went to the temple right after work and now he is doing work for a client--he's been quite busy all week because he is getting a new server set up for one of his clients.  He's trying to get it done this week because next week he has monthly maintenance for all of his clients.  Tanner is gone to the high school again--they have another performance tonight and three tomorrow.  I had contemplated taking Jared and Seth to the visitor's center tonight--there is a bell choir concert scheduled for tonight--but since Frank can't go and I didn't have a great experience with Seth last night I decided not to go.  Jared had expressed interest in the bell choir (we saw them a previous year and all really enjoyed them) but we are going to be going to the visitor's center in two weeks for YM / YW and he said it would be fine with him if we just waited to go down until then.  I would have liked for Seth to see the lights but it's really packed down there this time of year and I'm afraid it would just be too stressful trying not to lose him.  Maybe we will all be able to go down together sometime after Scott gets back.

I'll finish up with pictures of some of our new Christmas decorations.  Here's a new doorknob hanger for the front door: 

 This is the 3rd one we've had--not sure why they wear out so fast!

Here's one of the lights we got to go outside:

Some holographic signs for outside:

Ok, I admit I'm not a big fan of the stop sign.  I've always considered "Santa stop here" signs to be a little on the tacky side.  But I needed another sign and there weren't any others to choose from.  Seth loves it, too!

We also got a snowman.

And a snowflake.  (Will it be the only one we see this year?!)

Another light (we got two blue ones and two red ones)  They look nice when they are lit up, but they are harder to photograph then.  Unless you are talented, like Anna!

A new candy cane to replace one of the ones that broke--we got two of these, too.

We also purchased some battery operated candles to put in the windows.  Seth has already broken two of those (yes, he's been on a roll this week!) and when I tried to get replacements the store was all out.  We still have two of them, though.  They actually flicker, so they look kind of like real candles.

The month is racing by and the amount of Christmas shopping I haven't got done is a bit alarming!  I've done a little here and there, though, and no one wants much this year so hopefully I don't have much left to do.  We feel fortunate to have so much--to not be in need at all and to have so much of what we want.  I'm glad to see my kids starting to grow out of wanting "things" so much.  I haven't given the present side of Christmas a whole lot of thought this year and it is nice not to focus on that part! 

I did get myself one early Christmas present this week.  I got a cassette player (yes, they still make those!) because our stereo that included our only cassette players died sometime this year and we got rid of it.  I didn't miss it until December came and I realized that a lot of my favorite Christmas music is still on cassette tapes!  Hopefully we will find a way to convert the tapes over to CD, but in the meantime, the cassette player works nicely.  I enjoyed lots of beautiful music while I got my work done today.  Love Christmas music! :)