To Love

I share my birthday with two lovely nieces -- Gabby and Haley. We were able to spend most of the day together: eating, talking and playing. A perfect day! (Where did this year go?)

Touring the lights on Temple Square was another first for our kids this holiday season. The warm coats, cold air, twinkle lights and nativity were simply magnificent. Of course we drank hot chocolate afterward.

It's been since 2005 that we've been in Highland for Christmas. What a blessedly perfect one it was!

Today was a whirlwind -- food to make, projects to complete, presents to wrap, house to clean -- and Austin was gone for 5 plus hours of it. So I headed to Guymon's house feeling a bit abused and completely lacking of the Christmas spirit. However, as we prepared costumes for the nativity, the peace of this season filled me. Then as we acted out the scriptures, then Mom bore her testimony, and Dad expressed his joy, I felt the reality of Christ's birth and gloried the the beauties of this season.



Afterward the kids opened their first gifts of the season, jammies. They are all trying to fall asleep now. Me, I am trying to stay awake. Luckily Mrs. Claus solicited help from Santa last night, and they are well on their way to a visit from Santa that should take 15 minutes, max.


To bed I go, not before some carrots, cookies and milk, and a long shower. I am expecting tomorrow to be filled with love, joy and good eats. God bless us, every one.

"Mom" is the second word, only to their own names, that I teach my preschoolers to recognize and write. So for years and years I've found my title and beloved name on various scraps of paper and beautiful hand-crafted artwork. Maisie is particularly generous with her art and thus her praise. Here are some examples of her work, framed beside my clock.

Today however, I found my name on a lovingly labeled a well-used tool.


What deductions can be made from this labeling?
1. What is mine is mine, and Maisie knows not to use my tools. Which means she no longer has to scour the "duck" bathroom Saturday mornings, because she doesn't have the proper equipment.
2. She must really love me. That nice girl of mine stopped her cleaning to lovingly inscribe my name, so she could think of me while she worked.
3. She really wrote "Wow!" on that tag. Maisie loves cleaning our facilities.

I don't even want to guess why she did it. All I know is that I am not going to ask her; I'm already tired thinking about cleaning all 3 bathrooms tomorrow.

This week flew by -- only one more week until Christmas is here. I suppose it quickly passed because we seemed to be busy all week.
Austin made stilts and foot racers for my wolf pack.



Maisie's Christmas program. Her hair was so cute before school, then she wore a hat during the program. Drat that hat.



Office party. We went to lunch at Macaroni Grill and then went to see "A Christmas Carol" at Hale Center Theater. Mark and Emily babysat.


Finally posting some decor that I actually dusted today.

Last night Meg, Andy, Austin and I went to the Blue Man Group concert. I didn't know it would be so entertaining -- I was thinking it would be 90 minutes of loud pipe music. But it wasn't. Comedic sketches and lots of audience interaction made the evening entirely entertaining. The kids loved it as much as we did!

Last night we watched the Christmas Devotional. Both Maddie and Nick fell asleep (and slept the entire night) which made the devotional the first one in many years that I listened to in its entirety. We felt the love of our Savior.

Lessons learned: Trying to create the perfect holiday season is like playing jenga -- the situation is as precarious as it is impossible. And, we need to read these three books as a family this month: The Book of Luke, The Christmas Carol, and The Mansion.

After church, just before testimony meeting.


We ate popcorn, apples and celery with peanut butter while we watched.

(FYI: Kindle has the Dickens and Van Dyke novels for free.)

As a family we recently finished the Book of Mormon, so we've started the Doctrine and Covenants. This morning one of our children read their verse trading the letters "n" and "a". So it read,

"Pray always, that you may come off conquerer; yea, that you may conquer Santa, and that you may escape the hand of the servants of Santa that do uphold his work." (D&C 10:5)

Perfect seasonal timing for this tiny little mix-up.