It was a Very White Christmas Day

(I got a new camera for x-mas - this is the only photo I took because the battery had to charge for 14 hours, but there's the nativity scene on my piano. What says Christmas more than that?)

Let me paint you a picture because I was honestly too frightened to grab a camera.

For the last 14 years we've lived here, B with the help of D, and now Mr. T, has been shoveling snow. No snowblower for him because it is "good exercise". With the storms we've had lately and last year, I thought it was high time to get one. I hid the big machine in the laundry room under towels. (B never goes in there, esp when it looks like every towel in the house is dirty). I got up around 6:00 and pretended to go out and get a drink of water, but I dragged it into the family room. He was impressed with my sneakiness! So after breakfast, he, D and Mr. T went out with their new snow clearing equipment (D & T got their very own shovels too). Let's just say, the wind was blowing hard and the wrong direction while B was trying to snowblow and he came roaring into the kitchen COVERED in snow, with red eyes (picture the abomidable snowman from Rudolph) saying he doesn't like the snowblower. (this is when I wished I pulled out my camera) I think he figured it out & he didn't take it back, but me, Michelle & Aub got quite the laugh at his expense.

I printed copies of my blog for each of the kids. It's the closest thing I'm going to get as a journal/scrapbook for a while. It was fun for me to go back and reread. I'm not sure how much they liked it.

Later we went to Grandma's house for dinner. Thanks to Roma & Mom! Michelle T. got me this fun game of cards, called Tabletalk, that has all these good questions to get good conversations started. We had a lot of fun with a lot of new topics and didn't even really give much attention to "He Who Must Not Be Named", except giving him that new nickname. If you want to know who that is - send an e-mail to me, Becca or Dad (we liked it the most). Did you know that Roma would love to go into space? I didn't and I wouldn't!

I'm going to keep my christmas music up on here for a little while longer, hope there's no diehards reading that have something against it!

Our Version of The Polar Express

For our Christmas Eve tradition we build a train out of graham crackers & candy. That way, we can be sure that the kids are properly sugared up before bed! And this year was a doozy, as you can see by Ari's needing to be held for the photo. D surpassed his previous year's skill in building a half pipe for lego snowboarder. Mr. T didn't want to build a train car, so he built the train station, that you can't see behind D's half pipe. This year we also had more cars built because even Mom, Roma & Michelle built one. Dad was the hold out, as we have yet to get him to join the fun. One of these years maybe?

B & I were in bed by 11:00! That is quite a record for us, and then we had to wake up the kids at 7, because Aub needed to be to work at 10:30. (Benedryl is the antidote for sugar high, in case you were wondering)

Ward Santa Breakfast

Friday night, my friend Connie had tickets & invited me up to go to the Savior of the World at the Conference center theatre. The weather was horrid! So we took trax up there, went to dinner & were totally spiritually uplifted by this beautiful program. I need to take my kids to something like this. It was very much testimony reminding. I hope they do something in Primary today with the Nativity.

Yesterday morning, our ward had their like 25th annual Santa breakfast with a guy who lives to be Santa every year for this. Ari went & sat with Santa and when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she said "I want to pull your beard off!" He was a very good sport and just laughed. This after doing a little play for me & B, with Lelu & Mr. T about Santa putting her on the naughty list and she grabbed Lelu's shirt (who was playing Santa) and pulled her close to her face saying in her sassiest voice "Listen you old fat man, if you put me on the naughty list, I'm going to hurt you!" What do you do as a parent with that? You laugh or you cry......and we laughed until we cried. Merry Christmas to everyone!

The Twins Politically Correct Program

I can't even say it was a Christmas program. Because it was a Hanuka, Kwanzaa, Ramadaan, & Diwaili (sp?) and then Christmas program. I've never even heard of Diwaili, have you? And the most I caught was something about a monkey demon who killed an evil king and stole the evil or maybe she was good, I couldn't tell, queen. Huh? That's what we thought. And they never put the twins by each other, so I have to videotape going back and forth. I need a better camera, don't I?

I Love Thanksgiving!

I wish I had more photos of Thanksgiving.
I just didn't think to pull out my camera enough. We were so happy to host this year with Jeff & Christina, Landon & Wyatt with Michelle T too.

The day before is my favorite because I start listening to Christmas music while baking pies & rolls. Is there anything better than yummy smells with good music? Someday I think they'll add smells to movie experiences - come to think of it - that's one of the things I do love about the movies is the smell of popcorn! Lelu informed me that was one of the traditions she will continue when she's a mom (there aren't too many because she will do everything so much better than me, so I'll take what I can get) - BUT Ari WILL NOT! She will only start to listen to Christmas music when it is December 1st. And she was quite adamant about it too.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed over to Mom & Dad's to stuff ourselves more with pie, etc. Everyone was a good sport as I reminisced about my afternoon with Chris. Ahhhhhh, sighhhhhhh. Thanks for letting me!

On Saturday we went up to the shack and spent the night. There was exactly 1/2 inch of snow on the shaded road across the meadow from us & Landon, Wyatt, Lelu & the twins decided to sled on it with Uncle Jeff chasing them down the hill every so often when they went out of control. It was truly sledding on the mud! Christina & I stayed close to the fire reading & watching them sporadically. B & Jeff fixed us a yummy steak & everything sandwich dinner. Then we played "Settlers of Cataan". After 20 years, I saw a very backstabbing side to Jeff that I didn't know existed, it was quite shocking to me! I still haven't recovered from it;0.

Even after that shocking turn of events, I would still love to have them come up here every year. I will just be very suspicious of every move Jeff makes in board games in the future.

Cooler than ANYTHING I ever could Have even Dreamed Up!

I wasn't going to blog about this, but it's so huge for me, it would be ridiculous not to put this in.

He really gave Lelu a Piano Lesson for 1/2 hour. He taught her to play the beginning of Clocks. He was SO nice and friendly. We spent an hour and 45 minutes all together touring backstage with his assistant who is also SO nice. We got to go into their dressing room & talk to the other guys (I know I am the LAMEST at taking photos & only got autographs from them) Every member of their crew is British and have been with them from almost the beginning.

And then the concert was AWESOME! Of course! I was in the 3rd row next to the side of the stage and during the second to last song he was over there and made eye contact with me and we both smiled at each other. B says "Did you see that, he looked right at us and smiled?". We were kind of in the aisle and B was standing behind me. That was the absolute icing on the cake. I could add a negative comment on here about how much I hate how I look - but I won't because the experience of it all was as positive as it could have been regardless of how I look! And don't I have the absolute greatest husband ever to have supported me in this dream (I think he's okay with it, because Chris looks an awful lot like B when he was younger, sorry Aub!)

Lelu's Trip With Mom & Dad

For the past couple years Lelu has been begging to accompany B to one of his Conventions. The problem is that she's in school and it has to be one I go to, because B is really too busy to entertain her. This year she convinced B. I admit I am very selfish about my trips with him, so I wasn't very happy. In my defense, I feel like a lot of the time we are just ships passing in the night with all the work & kids that take up our attention - so these trips are our reconnect trips so that in 11 years we don't look at each other and say "Who are you? and Why are we together now that the kids are gone?" But I did get the Cancun trip, so I didn't put the cabash on the idea. Now, however, we have to take a kid with us for the next 3 trips to make it fair to D & the twins!

We went to Clearwater FL. The weather was perfect. Lelu & I drove a couple hours to Universal Studios. We just went to Disneyland back in Feb. So I thought we'd do something different. It really was fun taking just one child who is old enough to ride everything. I have become somewhat of a chicken and we made a pact to ride that huge roller coaster & did it. I did close my eyes the whole time, which was probably worse! Being the middle child and the most easy going, Lelu tends to get lost in the crowd. I was really glad we took her and for B "she made a great booth babe".

Just a few observations about FL: They are the most courteous drivers. Lelu perfected her British accent by talking to so many British tourists. It really seemed like there were more of them than Americans. I can see why old people flock there for the winter - the weather was perfect.