Christmas Morning!!

I found the angel, now where's Mary?

I like to collect Nativity Scenes and thanks to some great gifts each year from my sister-in-laws and my mom I've got a good little collection going. I try to get a new one each year even if it's just a small one.



Well this year there has been one character in particular who has been quite popular. Can you guess?



Yep, it's Mary. (This one looks pretty good considering Roman sent her flying with a sword) London is very interested in her, not because she's a girl, but because she is pregnant. London is OBSESSED with pregnancy. She makes me watch that TLC show, A Baby Story, all the time. She is constantly shoving towels up her and Roman's shirts to make them look pregnant. Pretty much if she ever hears the word she's all ears. But the funny thing is, is that she doesn't care for the finished product AT ALL. As soon as they give birth on The Baby Story, she tells me she is through watching it. When I bring up the idea of having another baby she just tells me that they are loud and they cry all the time and if I bring another home she will just go up to her room and lock the door. Which is probably why I find the Manger Scenes looking like this a lot.


Marys on one side.


And the baby Jesus' lined up and off by themselves somewhere.


One time I found this and I thought that was pretty funny too.






Her and the other little girls in Primary got to dress up as angels for the Nativity Scene at the ward party and she was super excited for that. They all looked so cute and had tons of fun spreading their angel dust around......and speaking of angel dust, we all know these right?



I always thought they were okay, but nothing great. I could take or leave them. If I'm going to indulge in a treat I usually want it homemade and involving chocolate somehow, but I read on a friend's blog about how her mom used to buy these when she was younger and put them in the freezer for all the kids to have as an after school snack. I thought I'd buy a bag and maybe London and Roman would like them frozen too, but I did sneak a frozen one for myself and it was soooo super good. I highly recommend it once all of the hundreds of plates of Christmas cookies lying around everyone's kitchen are gone. Happy Holidays!

Spain Table

We had this fabulous dinner for our Relief Society and the theme was Christmas Around the World. Each table was decorated like a different country and I signed up to do Spain since Tim served his mission there and we have lots of cool stuff. All the tables looked so beautiful and I was really bummed that I had forgotten my camera so I decided to recreate the Spain table at our house. And since the table looked so great I HAD to cook the cuisine to go with it. We had our appetizer platter of manchego cheese, kalamata olives, breads, and of course the meats of salchichon, jamon serrano, and chorizo cantimpalo. Then there was the tomato salad and last but not least lentil bean soup that cooked all day and made my house smell so great. If you've never had lentil bean soup there is a fabulous recipe on allrecipes.com under sausage lentil soup and be sure to add a splash of balsamic vinegar to your bowl before eating. It adds a great zip.

So here's the table





Here's the appetizer platter



Here's me and my little sous chef in our matching aprons.


And pretty much every time I turned around this little dude was digging this bowl out of the cupboard and putting it on his head. I thought it was a great contribution. :)

Teddy Bear Toss!

We are regulars at the Wrangler's hockey games here in town. We have been big hockey fans ever since we lived in Boise and my Canadian brother-in-law got us hooked on it. Every year at Christmas time the Wranglers host a teddy bear toss. The fans bring teddy bears and as soon as the Wranglers score their first goal everyone tosses the bears onto the ice. The players round them all up real fast and then the bears are given to needy children in the area. What a great idea!! Don't you just love how Christmastime is full of opportunities to give like this? I'm also grateful to other programs like Toys for Tots, Letters to Santa, and Giving Trees so that even if you may not know anyone in need you still can give to them amongst all your other shopping. Sprout T.V. does this really cute thing where you can go online and choose a book and some jammies for certain kids. There's also this great thing here called Baby's Bounty. My New Year's resolution is to donate to them monthly. What they do is pack diaper bags full of all sorts of baby stuff and give it to the mother's here in Vegas who really need them. But EVERYTHING has to be new, even the diaper bags, and each diaper bag has to be a certain size and contain a certain amount of all the necessary goods. I guess they spend hours and hours putting diaper bags together each week. Right now I can't really volunteer to put the bags together (although I think that sounds super fun) but I can pick up an item each time I'm at Wal-mart. Anyway, we had a great time tossing our bears (we actually threw a zebra and a giraffe) and since Tim's company is now the official sponsor of the Wrangler's they had a company deal where we all got to sit in the ice box right up next to the glass and eat some goodies. The players smashed into the glass so hard that they spilled all the drinks of the table next to us. But it was fun being that close!

Thanksgiving

We decided to make the LONG and COLD drive to Idaho to see some grandparents. We went to Rupert first and it's a good thing we did because that is where the snow was. I thought for sure Rexburg would have more, but it was actually really nice and sunny there. Go figure. I got my shopping fix in Rexburg at all my favorite small stores. There's just something about small and personal stores that make it so much more fun to shop there than big department stores where it's all mass produced. Porter's even sells candy behind the counter that has to be measured out. So old fashioned, but so great!

Hat Day!

London goes to two different pre-schools and they are both so great. At Miss Erika's Lil Academy they had hat day and the kids all looked so cute!

Messy Messy Love

Okay, this post isn't really about messy love. It's about one kid who is a mess and one kid who has discovered love :).

These next two pictures happened the same day. The first is actually a brown sharpie he got into and drew between his eyes. When we first noticed it Tim thought it was blood and I thought it was something a little more on the stinky side. The next picture you have to look closely, but he has sparkles all over his eyes. He got into London's play make-up which has lots of glitter and the next thing I knew he had very pretty eyes.





And here he's just had enough of me bothering his mess making.



Now on to London's one true love. So the other day she says to me, "Mom, let's start naming off cute boys." (We actually play this game a lot now a days) So I began naming off boys in her pre-school class and her responses were things like "ewww" "gross" "not him" Then I said, "Well, what about Justin Bieber?" She got all shy and red in the face and went under the table and said, "Well maybe I could think about him being handsome." So funny. Even a four year old loves the Biebs.



I told her to smile really big, but she just said, "Mom, I'm doing my best here!"

Strength of a Family

So this post is due to a few things I have heard or seen or felt this week. Because of the gospel principles that guide most of our lives, we understand the importance of family. One lady made a great point in gospel doctrine last week. She said that all God does all day long every day is serve his kids, that's it, and that's all He WANTS to do. That's the way to happiness. This is mostly for moms, but think about what we do all day. We make three meals which includes meal planning and grocery shopping, clean non-stop so the family has a comfortable environment, do the laundry so the family has clean dry clothes, think of crafts and games to keep them happy and learning, run them to school and activities so they have joy and fulfillment. I could go on and on. That's a lot of serving that can only be learned through motherhood. I will be the first to admit that sometimes I wish I was off somewhere else on my own, but really...this is the most happy I have ever been in my life. Sure, I had a ton of fun in high school and college, but serving little souls all day long, and a fabulous husband of course :), just brings so much peace. Does that make sense? I had a great talk one day with my sister-in-law, Amy Jo Hunsaker. I was feeling frustrated about my feet because I feel like my injuries have stopped me from doing many things I love, but she started talking about how she has felt frustrated about some things in her life and she decided to just get rid of all the outside influences that cause her anger and just focus on her kids and she said she has felt so much peace. She even cleaned out her room of all distraction so she has to be downstairs more where the family life is taking place. What a great idea! So I have been trying that. Trying not to feel bad for myself and to just focus on the gospel and the family. And today this scripture was discussed in Sunday School..."For bodily exercise profiteth for a little while, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." (1 Tim 4:8) Now I am in no way saying you shouldn't exercise because you SHOULD, it's important to, but I was so focused on doing it, that I lost sight of many other things and that, my friends, is WRONG. In fact I think I was falling to one of Satan's greatest tools on Latter Day Saint Women, distracting us with our hobbies. I think he knows what we like, and tries to get us to go overboard with it by comparing ourselves to others and putting so much time into it that we soon neglect our family. I think he's doing a pretty good job at that actually. So I'm trying to learn to fight him on that and only do what's appropriate as far as "me time" goes because "me time" can very soon turn into neglect of the kids and spouse. I have seen it time and time again. So here are a few pictures of the little kiddos that I get to spend time serving all day and I hope all you moms out there enjoy your time serving your adorable little ones too!

Down Here On The Floor

Our little Roman is as cute as a button, but refuses to crawl. He is super strong (just ask my hair which he pulls all the time) and he knows how to scooch around on his bottom, but he won't crawl. Some moms tell me not to worry, but he is pretty much 11 months old now so...I'm worried. Which has led me to spending an incredible amount of time down on the floor playing with and encouraging him. Although we're not making too much progress in the crawling area, I have realized that most of the good times I have spent with my kids involve them doing things down on the floor. I'll show you what I mean.


We opend our Christmas presents down here on the floor.





I'll push him around down here on the floor.


We share snacks with our friends down here on the floor.


We mess up mom's things down here on the floor.


I'm usually lying down here on the floor.


I've got a buddy down here on the floor.


Perhaps conceived down here on the floor?


Taken control of the game room down here on the floor.


So although I want him to move (which I know I will regret saying as soon as he does it) it's been pretty fun hanging out with these two cuties down on the floor.