Everything, including the kitchen sink....

What I am NOT going to do is give you a long and boring recap of Christmas for us.  Suffice it to say that our kids did well this year and that was before we decided to throw a new puppy into the deal.  Eric got some much wanted (and expensive) bicycle parts to upgrade his ride, I got the long coveted MacBook Pro (even more expensive) and we even put in a new kitchen sink.

Many props to Eric for the sink install. As is typical in home improvement projects, what should have been a 2 hour job turned into a 2 day job.  Props to me for only buying fast food once during the 2 days with my kitchen torn apart.  Although at one point, water to the whole house had been shut off for much longer than the 15 minutes we expected, so I had to go with Eric to Home Depot on one of his many, many, many trips just so I could use a potty that flushed.  I also learned why I shouldn't shop on the internet past midnight.  I ordered everything for this sink online and somehow in my sleep deprived state didn't notice that I ordered 2 faucets instead of one.  For the price I was paying for this faucet, you'd think I'd do the mental math and realize my cart total was $250 higher than it should have been.  At least the cost to send back the extra faucet was only $8.  I also ordered the wrong type of Reverse Osmosis faucet.  Who knew there was more than one kind?  Not me...   But overall, the sink and faucet are amazing and it's staggering to see how many dishes can be piled in there before you can see them.  My goal is to keep it empty and shining.  Flylady would be proud.  It's not empty or shining right now, though, so I better not spend all day playing with my new toy (my mac) and get some housework done.

Today is the first morning I've had home alone in almost 3 weeks.  Eric and the kids have been off since December 22 and they all went back to work/school this morning.  It feels weird to have an empty house.  I spent most of my free time yesterday reading  this book:

I hope I can have my house organized and puppy proofed by Friday morning.  Having a deadline really helps me get stuff done.  The last year has taught me that having no big time commitments just encourages me to procrastinate.  This year, I'm taking classes at the local community college and breaking in a new puppy.  Fun stuff, but busy stuff for sure!  Maybe my house will actually be cleaner because I'm more busy with other things.  Let's hope a little reverse psychology is just what I need to get my act together for 2012!

Lights

I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve already! 

Wednesday night we planned to go to see the Mesa Temple lights with the youth group from our local congregation.  Unfortunately, it began to rain on our way over.

In Arizona, rain usually lasts a few minutes, but as the night went on, the rain kept going, and going, and going….  It was heavy enough that I didn’t feel comfortable bringing out my camera unless I was standing under the overhang from the visitors center… but of course, 100 other people were crowded under there with me, so getting any pictures at all was pretty difficult.

It did seem like there were more lights up then in years' past, but who knows… it was raining so much we didn’t really get to walk around and enjoy them all that much.

So we headed inside the visitor center to see the Creche display, and warm up and dry off a bit. 

Here are some of my favorite nativity displays.

This one is a painting from Africa:

Japan:

I can’t remember which country this one came from, but I’m thinking it was a tropical location…. agreed?

We had planned to stop at another neighborhood with amazing light displays on our way home, but because of the rain, it would likely be 80% dark.  We’ll have to try to go back another day before New Year’s to see them. 

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve today… we will be baking all day, delivering goodies to friends, and going for our bike ride around the neighborhood tonight.  Thank goodness rain is OUT of the forecast.  (I wouldn’t mind getting a little bit of fog, though.)

My Collection

It's a well known fact that I have a lot of handmade Christmas decorations.  I have lately become obsessed with collecting handmade nativities.  The one in my blog header is made by Willow Tree, and it’s one of the few mass marketed nativities that I love, but here are the ones I have collected that can’t be bought at your local chain store.
This is the Baby Jesus for a Nativity set my grandma made for me.  She is the queen of felt, and she gave me the pieces for a nativity that go on my Christmas tree.  I usually try to get the nativity up first so I can group them all together, but this year I forgot to do that before the kids went crazy on the tree, so they are scattered, but they are all there.

This nativity I made at a Relief Society Craft night.  Michelle, I still love this one.  I’ve made many more like it to sell at craft fairs or give away as gifts. 


Eric got to go to Israel this summer for a conference.  I told him, I didn’t care what he brought home for the kids, but I wanted only one thing.  A Nativity set made in Jerusalem.  This is what he brought home.  This picture doesn’t do the detailed carving justice.  I love it!

This was a project we did this year for our Relief Society craft night.  The glass blocks have vinyl silhouettes on them of the nativity scenes and I put Christmas lights inside the blocks to backlight them.  I used a batting-like material to block the lights from being seen and diffuse the light in the blocks.  I am super happy about how they turned out!

Pretty soon I am going to be in full crazy mode trying to get everything done for Christmas before my parents come in less than two weeks.  Wowza!  But when I take a minute to sit and look at one of my nativities, I remember to slow down, breathe, and enjoy the celebration of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  He is the reason for the season, after all. 

13 Days in 13 Photos

So after I blogged on endlessly about our summer road trip, I've decided to go short and sweet on this last vacation. Mostly because the primary people I write this blog for were with us the entire two weeks. So, I decided to pick out 13 photos (one to represent each day we were gone, even though I didn't take any photos on travel days.) These are the pictures I liked the best from our trip...

This one happened by accident, but I loved the blur effect mixed with the genuine smiles they were giving someone else...Grandmas can NEVER get enough hugs from their grandkids!Burger King Knights, UNITE! What absolutely amazes me about this photo is that Dallyn ISN'T holding a weapon. This must be the only time he didn't have one in his hand.I am so glad that these four have stayed so tight growing up. They are lucky to have each other. Lyndi, can I have your hair? I love it! Dear friends who we miss so much from our Dublin days... Brayden wasn't too happy about this photo, but to his credit, he wasn't even born when we moved away from these friends, so he doesn't get the importance of it all!A family photo with my Grandma. Who knows how soon we'd get another chance to all be together for this photo!?!We considered ourselves VERY lucky to get a visit from the big man in red... Brayden was so cute, when he saw him. Excited, but shy too. Not his normal self at all!My mom has carried on the tradition of making felt ornaments for the grandkids... do you see a recurring theme here?I don't think any of the adults were expecting to get ornaments too. Adam and Delia's were made from two of their favorite pets. (Yes, they have more than 2 pets....)

Ours were copied from some photos taken of us wakeboarding while out on the boat. We all got a kick out of watching Dad open his gift from mom and the family. We ordered him a new lawn mower, but it was out of stock until after Christmas. This was the "loaner" he got to open up and use until the real thing arrived!What gift did Ian get that could possibly cause this reaction when he saw the box? I will give you three guesses, but I know you won't get it. So, I'll just tell you... a Snuggie. No joke. He has wanted one really bad for a long time, so my brother got to be the lucky one to be the hero of the holiday for Ian. He LOVES it.

All the little kids playing on some truck toys outside our favorite ice cream place at the Nut Tree. They played and played on these trucks for at least an hour and never got tired of them.

All in all, it was a great trip. We were there almost 2 weeks and we were always going, going, going. There's no resting when there is so much family and good friends to visit. It seems that we never get enough time to spend with anyone, but we do the best we can. Hopefully we'll get some more visitors heading south this year... one great thing about people coming to see us... they get our "undivided" attention!

Christmas Cheer

The first year we lived here, we didn't put lights up on the house. We had lights, but not enough of them, and Eric didn't have time to do the job. He was working full time and going to school almost full time and the lights just weren't a priority.

I thought I would be okay with it. But I really wasn't. I put lights up in every front facing window I could get to, except our shower. I figured that might be crossing the line, and I didn't know how I'd plug them in. There are still a few windows with scotch tape residue on the glass from my exploits way back in 2005. But, despite my efforts, it just wasn't the same.Eric said he would get the lights up today, but work got in the way. I decided to take matters into my own hands and bribe our very capable 15 year old with some cold hard cash if he helped me get the job done.Turns out that Taylor is very afraid of heights. He really had a hard time being up on the roof to get the lights under the eaves, but he did it. (Yeah, only because he knew I would pay him!)He must get that fear from me. There is no way you'd get me to do what I got him to do today!Someday, Santa's elves will fly into the neighborhood and put lights on the upper story as well, but for now, I am very grateful for what I've got. It truly makes me happy to look at.

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Projects

I can finally blog about my Christmas projects... until today they were all top secret and I couldn't risk the wrong people reading about them on the blog! (By the way, check out those cute cardboard gift boxes I got (they stack inside each other for storage!) Aren't they cute???

At the beginning of December, we still didn't know what we were going to do for Eric's mom. She is fun to shop for, but still challenging to come up with something that hasn't been done year in and year out (like stationary.... or fancy lotion, etc...) I've heard about this website called Blurb where you can make your own book and have it printed. I decided to do a blog recap of the last year and have it printed for my mother in law. She's not terrible computer savvy and so she rarely gets to see what's on the blog! So, I got online to find out that printing her a high quality hard bound book was within my allotted budget! The only issue was time... I had just 3 days to get my book uploaded to the site to ensure Christmas delivery... talk about pressure!

Here are some screen shots of my favorite pages... I'm going to order a book for myself tonight! I'm sure my mom is going to want one too...

I also took on the monumental challenge of sewing christmas pajamas for my family. I thought I could really save a lot of money and they would be so cute if they all matched! Well, I didn't save a whole ton of money, but they did turn out good! I can thank Sheri for helping me to realize that I can pump out a few pj bottoms in an evening (YW camp jammies)! My serger was invaluable on this project! Then I went to Target and got matching tee's for under $5 a piece!

After our bike ride around the neighborhood on Christmas Eve, dad made hot chocolate for everyone and we got ready for bed. It was a very relaxing Christmas Eve night... the best we've had in a long time!

This was the only gift I got to open that I didn't already know what was inside... (pathetic, eh?) But what a suprise! My mother in law has been busy with Christmas projects too... she committed to make this wall hanging for me a couple years ago and to be honest, I'd completely forgot about it! She took some scrapfabric from my curtains and then her and I picked out some calico prints to go with it. I absolutely LOVE it! I'm already trying to decide where it's going to go and how I'm going to hang it up... I'm thinking a wrought iron bar... what do you think? If not iron, I might go with a square dowel (if I can find any) stained to match my mission furniture. It will be fun to get this up on the wall!

I love this picture... it's just so darn cute!

Merry Christmas!!!

Recommendations

Here are some of my favorite Christmas Books... just wanted to share some because I love a good sappy, heart warming story of "giving" this time of year....

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

This is not your average John Grisham novel! The movie Christmas with the Kranks was based on this novel and the movie is great, but the book is even better! I bought this book and then loaned it out a few years ago... so if you have my copy, now is the time to fess up! ;-)

The Christmas Train by David Baldacci

(again, not his typical novel) This is a fun Christmas story - romance, danger, second chances, etc....

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

I loved reading this book - it falls in the kids genre, but very touching and entertaining anyway!

Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright

This is a sappy feel good story about giving... and a great material for a family night lesson or a christmas "experiment" for your own family. I attend TOFW in San Diego where Jason Wright was a presenter, so I feel like I know him personally, even if I really don't....

The Christmas Shoes by Donna VanLiere

This is the first in a series, which I really enjoyed. They are all super short, so you could read all of them in a day or two and in the end, the books come full circle and connect again, which I always enjoy!

Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon

This is kinda part of the Mitford Series... you can read it separately or as part of the bigger whole, but definately more enjoyable when you have some background knowledge on the residents of Mitford....

Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich

This is a Christmas "extra" in the Stephenie Plum series. I started reading those books, but had to quit... I couldn't handle the "potty mouth" of Lula (the x-hooker, bounty hunter associate). But, if you've ever read just one Stephenie Plum book, read this one too, it's pretty clean and an interesting twist on the usual christmas story!

And last, but definately not least...

Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson

This is the book for you if you need to detox, take a step back and simplify your Christmas. It really helped me gain perspective on why we make ourselves crazy at Christmas and how we can simplify things, yet enjoy the spirit of the season even more!

So, now it's your turn to share... what are your favorite Christmas Books?