Birthday and Christmas Celebrations

Merry Christmas to all! I hope everyone had a great Christmas with family and friends. This is always a busy time of year for our family with so many birthdays and holidays with in 2 weeks.

Monday Dec. 21

Today Emily received her birthday package from Nanny and Papa. She got candy, a check for her savings account and a card that sings. She loved the card and I'm surprised that the batteries aren't dead because she's plays it often.

Tuesday Dec. 22

Today it was cloudy most of the day, and early afternoon it started to rain. With the rain we got some hail, and then it turned to snow. It dotted the ground and stayed there for about 10 minutes. Of course I took my dear sweet time and didn't get the camera until it melted! I was too amazed to move!

Wednesday Dec. 23

Happy Birthday Mom! I have been teasing mom for about a week that I had a surprise for her. She tried everything to get it out of me, she even had Kathryn and Jessica try to coax it out of me. We met at Mom's house at 6:30, had pizza from Papa Murphy's, then at 7:30 my cousin Lance pulled up in his LIMO!!! My mom was very surprised and we had the best time driving around looking at Christmas lights. Lance is such a great cousin to treat us to such a great night!

Thursday Dec. 24

The kids and I had last minute errands to run this morning, so we set off early. Nathan got grumpy so I handed him my camera. He took pictures of everything within his sight. So I decided to turn around and have him take a picture of me driving (don't worry, I was stopped). Then that night we went to mom's house and had our annual clam chowder and corn bread Christmas Eve meal. So yummy! Then we let the kids open 1 gift-jammies! We came home and Emily helped me set out chairs for Santa. In our house, Santa doesn't wrap presents, so we label a chair with our name, and that's where Santa puts our gifts. It's a tradition I grew up with. Then Robby and I finished up the preparations for Christmas, and went to bed early so we'd be able to get up with the kids.

Friday Dec. 25

Robby and I were both up around 6am because we had gone to bed so early, so we waited until 7:30am before we couldn't wait any longer and we woke up the kids. Everyone got dressed and we went in the family room to see what Santa brought for us. Then we loaded up in the van and headed to mom's house. We opened up gifts and then started breakfast. Robby made bacon and sausage, mom made holiday (funeral) potatoes, and I made breakfast enchiladas. The sausage smelled funny, but it was maple so we just went on. Robby tasted it, quickly spit it out, and then checked the expiration date. It expired in January of 2008! No wonder it was bad. Robby was the only one that ate any, and he got a little sick, but his iron stomach conquered it. We were very blessed with gifts that were given to us. Our favorites: Robby-money to get new Sunday shoes and pants, Kim-bagless vacuum (So cool!), Emily-Princess scooter, Nathan-Tricycle. Tonight we went to Aunt Linda and Uncle Floyd's home for the Hallsted family Christmas party. We had delicious food and caught up on family stories. Then we did the Nativity story with the kids playing the characters. Emily was Mary (she was a stinker and didn't want to put her costume on), and Nathan was a wiseman. Next we had a white elephant exchange. The theme was candy and Emily got her favorite-Cotton Candy. Then we had dessert and carried on Grandma Hukill's tradition of soaking a sugar cubes in lemon extract and lighting it on fire to see who's cube would burn the longest. So many people blessed our Christmas this year and I can't wait to get started on all the thank you notes! Tonight I vacuumed the family room to see how much my new vacuum could suck up. I just vacuumed last night, so I didn't think it would be much. Holy Yuck! It was so gross! I'm so grateful to have my new vacuum! Thank you mom! I only took 157 pictures today! Haha!

Saturday Dec. 26

I attacked the laundry and cleaned everything but the kitchen today. I was very tired by the end of the day. Mom, Kathryn and Jessica went to see New Moon (I stayed home because those books/movies don't appeal to me) and then I met them at Cafe Rio for dinner. SOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!! Kathryn calls it her new Matta's! That's saying something because Matta's has been her favorite restaurant for a long time. Then Kathryn and I headed over to Seagull Book and Deseret Book. I got some Christmas books for next year so I can read a Christmas story each night. We went back to mom's and Allison decided to be really, really cute.

Sunday Dec. 27

Happy Birthday Kathryn! I can't believe my "little" sister is now 25 years old! Today Nathan decided to scream through half of Sacrament meeting and Emily whined at the same time. They got better, but it was still frustrating. In Young Women's today we talked about setting goals, and I got fired up to set some great goals and start accomplishing them. Tonight Robby said he was bored and wanted to see how much he could get out of the carpet in the hallway and the 3 bedrooms. I was just excited to see him vacuum! But he got so much out of the carpet that it made me sick to know what was in my carpet that I vacuum at least once a week. Again, I am sooooooo grateful for this new vacuum. I'm sure it will make my home much cleaner!

Birthday Girl!

This week has been getting everything finished and ready for Christmas and Emily's Birthday. Emily has been out of school, and the kids have enjoyed having the run of the house. I was feeling better from being sick starting Tuesday, and I think now that is Sunday again, that I am finally feeling better.

Monday Dec. 14
Emily and Nathan took it easy today because I was still feeling yucky and started out by watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp-Emily's favorite movie. They decided to empty the toys out of the baskets and sit in them. Then after the movie, Nathan bumped into Emily who had an open bottle of red fingernail polish, and it spilled on the tile. Robby and I quickly got out the nail polish remover, and started wiping it up. We got most of it off, with only a small light pink spot.





Tuesday Dec. 15
Today I ran errands this morning with Emily. Emily and I had a good conversation about death and I was able to talk about the Plan of Salvation and that we can be with the ones we love after we die. She was in tears knowing that she would miss her Gran-Nana, but grateful she could see her again because Jesus was resurrected and then she started crying because she misses Jesus. It was a great conversation that brought us closer together. After the kids went to bed I made Amish Friendship bread. Yummy!



Wednesday Dec. 16
Tonight Robby got his new toy. Intouch Technology now has a UPS battery that is an uninteruptable power supply that will run for an estimated 30 minutes after the power goes out for us to safely shutdown our server farm. It came on it's own pallet, and easily ways over 70 pounds. Robby tried to give himself a hernia trying to pick it up!



Thursday Dec. 17
We ran a major errand run today. We went to the post office, the dollar store, Wal-mart and Fry's. On the way home I treated us to Whopper Jr.'s and onion rings at Burger King. We don't eat at fast food restaurants very often, and the onion rings have been a big craving of mine.



Friday Dec. 18
I had to return something to Wal-mart so I picked up a "birthday surprise" for Emily of Popcorn Shrimp. When I got home she proceeded to take the breading off, eating the breading, then eating the little shrimp. She was so dedicated in her work too!



Saturday Dec. 19
Robby had to wire a new outlet for the UPS battery, so he took down the server farm and went for it. I'm so grateful he is talented in so many ways. Tonight we went to the temple and watched mom and her singing group perform. The temple lights are always so pretty, and even with the large crowds, it was great walking around with my little family and enjoying the Christmas season.







Sunday Dec. 20
Today is Emily's 5th birthday. I can't believe my baby is so big! She got a call during breakfast from my mom who sang her Happy Birthday. Church today was filled with the Spirit of Christmas and I shed many tears as the spirit touched my heart. This afternoon my family came over and we had a little party for Emily. She wanted a candle in her ice cream instead of cake. She was blessed with many wonderful gifts: I Spy Books (Jessica/Michael), Headbands (Nathan), Leapster2 and TinkerBelle game (Kathryn), Color Wonder Fingerpaints (My Mom), Puzzle and Dress Up (Mommy and Daddy), Pretend Hair Dryer, curling iron, hair/beauty stuff (Gran-Nana), 6 $1 bills (Granny Pat) and we're waiting for a package to come from Nanny and Papa. After the party Nanny called and talked to Emily to wish her a happy birthday. We delivered some Christmas gifts and then our Home Teachers came over. Emily was so excited from the day that she didn't want to go to bed!





We took another 4 Generation tonight. This is the first picture we took Christmas Eve 2004, when Emily was 4 days old. Look how little she was!

Whirlwind of a week

Well, it's Sunday again and life is flying by. I saw a post on Facebook that said "I wish time would drive like an old grandma, not fly." That is exactly how I feel, especially at this time of year.

Sunday Dec. 6

Today we went to mom's house and decorated gingerbread houses. This year mom bought premade gingerbread kits. Mom/Kathryn had a sleigh with Santa and reindeer, Michael/Jessica had a house and our family had a train. Right before we started to decorate, Nathan walked up to me, said mom, and then emptied his stomach of his dinner all over the floor. Thank goodness it was tile! We got that cleaned up and started decorating. We laughed, ate too much candy and just had fun being together. Emily got to feed Allison her bottle which made Emily feel like such a big girl!

Monday Dec. 7
Today it rained most of the day. We stayed inside and enjoyed watching it rain and spent the day trying to stay warm. It definitely felt like winter! The internet/cable/phone went in and out all day, so Robby had Cox come out and fix it. Well, at 11:45pm, the power went out for about 15-20 minutes. That reset all the work Cox had done to make the internet/cable/phone function properly. But it made for a lot of business this week because people needed things fixed because of all the rain! (I forgot to take a picture of the rain Monday, but lucky I found one on the internet somone took that day!-Thank you to whoever you are!) We dealt with internet/cable/phone craziness all week until Cox came back out on Friday.

Tuesday Dec. 8

Today I packaged up all 8 packages to be mailed out. My family room looked like a packaging place blew up in there! I'm glad that's done! Now to mail them!

Wednesday Dec. 9
Today I mailed 7 of the 8 packages. I can now say I have to file bankruptcy! No, I'm just kidding, but it did hit the bank pretty hard. The kids and I met my friend Marianne and her daughters EmmaLee and Maycee at the mall. The kids played on the indoor playground and then we had lunch. We had a great time being with friends and none of us wanted to get back to real life! We have too much fun playing!

Thursday Dec.10
Tonight I worked on our Christmas gifts. This year for our neighbor, friend and family gifts, we are giving them caramel dip. I got the idea from this blog: http://www.browniescraps.com/blog/2009/11/13/friday-freebie-7/. Robby doesn't like that I turn the house into a humidifier every time I do this! I even had the vent on, and we opened the doors for a few minutes too. I finished them completely on Friday during the day so that we could have the doors open. In Sunday's Relief Society lesson they had Gifts for Christ by President Howard W. Hunter on the board, and I knew I wanted to recreate it and give it to our friends. I loved how it is shaped like a Christmas tree, that's what caught my attention. So, for you friends and family that will be getting one, just act surprised when you get it!

Friday Dec. 11
Today was full of cooking and getting ready for the weekend. I finished boiling all the caramel dips, made sugar cookies and frosting for the ward party, and did a bit of house cleaning. Tonight we had our ward Christmas party. The activities committee always does a great job with the program, decorations and refreshments. I got to sing with the Young Men/Young Women choir, Emily sang with the children's choir, Nathan was a grump that didn't want to sit still, and Robby had fun running the ice cream maker with a few of the other men there. The kids were able to sit on Santa's lap, and they actually took good pictures for me! We sat with the Gleasons and found out Shawna is having TWINS!!! I'm so excited for her! We waited in line for ice cream and Santa with them also, and you can tell that Rhett and Emily are good friends. Emily talks of him often because they have preschool together. Nathan has started a funny new habit. He loves to have his picture taken, and then see himself on the little LCD screen on the camera. If pull out the camera, he'll say "Cheese" and hold his hands up near his face. It's rare to catch him with him holding his hands down!

Saturday Dec. 12

I spent the majority of the day getting ready for the Pew family Christmas party we had at our house tonight. I didn't get everything done I wanted, but the party turned out great. I always love getting together with family and catching up with everyone's life. I finally finished decorating the house today (parties are good for that!), and made a texas sheet cake, and chicken enchilada soup. I went to bed with a little bit of a sick stomach, thinking it was because of all the soup I ate. Boy was I wrong!

Sunday Dec. 13
Last night the stomach bug hit me. Knocked me out! I have been achy all day, with fun times spent with the toilet. I have been able to sleep most of the day, and even though it's 9pm, and I don't usually go to sleep till midnight, I'm ready to crawl back in bed and stay there until morning. Robby was awesome today and let me sleep and kept the kids occupied so they wouldn't come in my room and wake me up. I'm praying that I wake up tomorrow feeling better because I don't do the achy/sore/sicky body very well!