Per tradition, my children are forced to dress in their Christmas finest, and pose for their annual picture in front of the Christmas tree.
Lauren, who has evolved over the years from cute, to pretty, to stunning. I can't believe this child is fruit of my loins....she got some dang good genes.
Mark, well what can I say....., the picture says it all....
Katie, a most difficult subject to capture on digital image, but I lucked out.I love Christmas day after all the presents are opened, and wrapping paper and boxes properly disposed of. My children are highly entertained with new toys, fighting and bickering is nearly non existent, and I get a NAP, with minimal interruptions!
Katie was delighted with the princess castle.
I could not peal the Nintendo DS out of Lauren's hands.
Mark thought spin and fix Thomas was the bomb.With anticipation in their little hearts that Santa had visited, my children reluctantly posed for a picture on the stairs before proceeding down stairs to see if anything was left for them.
I actually can't believe that I got a decent shot of all three, now that IS is Christmas miracle.
Mark, with his bike, too bad my street is currently snow covered....he is hoping that it works...., because it did not come with studded snow tires.
Lauren found a pink leopard print eye mask in her stocking. (Not to be left out, so did Katie)
Checking out the loot in their stockings.
Oh, yeah, its that Nintendo DS she asked Santa for.
What every princess needs, other princesses.
Of course those princesses, need a place to live, specifically a castle.
One fancy pink coat, courtesy of my trip to China.
Spin and fix Thomas, a HUGE hit.
Dora, is right up there with those princesses, for most favorite toy status.
Grandma always comes through with some fun clothing, check out this hat, Katie did!Since our mom was neglectful in making cookies this Christmas, we had to "bum" some sugar cookies off of grandma in order to make sure that Santa was properly nourished for hauling all our toys down the chimney.
We elected to hang our stocking by the couch with care, because well, the stocking hangers on the chimney would just not be strong enough to support all our expected loot.
Santa did not disappoint, this was the pile we found waiting for us on Christmas morning.
This was the rest our our haul, courtesy of our parents, and grandma and grandpa.Christmas was quickly approaching, and we had yet to pay a visit to Santa. The kids were afraid that if this visit did not occur soon, the big guy might not know what they wanted. So we dressed in our Sunday finest and had our date with Santa.
Last year Katie screamed in her picture with Santa, he seemed a little scary to her. This year she warmed right up to the big guy.
Mark, ever the poser for photographs, refused to look at the camera, but did manage to impart the vital information to Santa
Finally, Lauren, who informed me several days ago, that she was simply just too old to go see Santa, and you can see by the look on her face she is none too pleased with my not letting her off the hook.A few weeks ago I was feeling particularly brave or crazy, not sure which...., and I took my children to Toys R Us on a Saturday night. The purpose of this visit was to see if they had a replacement battery for Lauren's snazzy yellow corvette. (No luck) But I decided while I was there to let my kids look around at things they may want to put on their Christmas list. The store was already trashed due to Christmas shopping, so I figured my children couldn't do any more damage than had already been done.
Katie, LOVES, LOVES, LOVES this pink Barbie car, however she is a bit too young, as in she can't reach the electric pedal to make the car operate, so perhaps in a few years. This year the top of her list is a Disney Princess Castle. 
Mark would really like a car too......still has a few coordination issues before he can be trusted with a car....
Then I was on to bikes.....of course Katie found the pink princess bike.
Much to my surprise, Mark jumped on a bike and took off! To my knowledge he had never ridden a bike before, and he was like an old pro. Granted it had training wheels, but he still got on it and was tearing up a storm with Lauren in the bike section of the store. So a bike went on to his Christmas list. A couple of months ago I published a post about a "Dinner Diva's" group that we have in my ward. We meet once a month and cook together, each taking home dinners that can be placed in the freezer and pulled out on a night you don't know what to make for dinner, in other words, every night of the week!
For the month of December we decided to do a cookie exchange, with a twist. Instead of bringing baked cookies, we brought frozen dough, and one batch of baked cookies for everyone to try. We ate, talked, and swapped cookie dough, and recipes.
Since it was December I decided to make gingerbread. I wrapped up my dough all fancy from an idea I stole from someone else's blog. I freely admit that when it comes to originality, I am lacking, but when it comes to copying someone else's idea, I am the QUEEN! I froze my dough in a log shape, covered in plastic wrap. After it was frozen, I wrapped it in butcher paper, tying the ends with ribbon. The center section is just a piece if wrapping paper around the middle.
Here are my baked cookies.
Here are everyone else's baked cookies!
The assortment of dough we had to choose from.
Finally my friend Sherry brought this delicious punch it was apple juice, mixed with white grape juice and then raspberries and limes. Not only did it taste good, it looked festive.
While in Idaho for my dad's funeral I discovered that Chucky Clause has a cousin. This is my step brother Steve's stocking from when he was a little boy. Looks just like Chucky Clause. Hummmm....I am sensing a movie about scary Santas.......
Its just been a crappy few weeks, for a variety of reasons. I seem to be unable to escape drama in any area of my life. Just when I thought I had reached my capacity to deal with life, new challenges keep being thrown my way, requiring me to push that limit further and further.
Last Thursday had been a particularly challenging day. I was struggling with changes to our business, trying to keep on top of all my cases for work, and had just learned that my dad had been taken to the hospital via ambulance.
That morning I had worn a beautiful scarf one of my friends had given me for my birthday. In the early afternoon I sent my friend a text telling her how beautiful I felt in her scarf. She replied and asked me if I had heard the good news of another friend, Jamie. I said that I had not. She then told me that Jamie had gotten a baby girl the previous Friday. What wonderful news this was. Jamie has two great boys, but always wanted to be a mother to a little girl. Unable to have children she and her husband had been trying to adopt for quite some time.
They were all set to go to China two years ago, around the time I was pregnant with Katie and we discussed how our girls would be the same age. China fell through and kept getting postponed to the point that all hope was lost. They were picked several times by birth mothers only to have the adoption fall through. Last summer a break in the water main for the city sent their back yard sliding off the hill and destabilizing their house that was only four years old, resulting in them moving out of the ward.
Now a baby. A miracle baby. The baby they wanted and waited for, for over 6 years. It filled my heart with love. It reminded me that Heavenly Father does things according to his will, and that although we go through periods of time in our lives that seem dark, cold and filled with loneliness, hope promises us better days.
With all stress of recent events my body decided it needed a suitable manner in which to honor my father. The bacteria located specifically on my chin, decided to congregate in a facial pore and begin to have a little party. It was the best party to have if you are a microorganism. It’s a party that begins deep below the skin’s surface, inflicting as much pain as possible before becoming visible to the naked eye. Once visible to the naked eye the bacteria have multiplied, and invited all sorts of liquid to join the party, resulting in one very large and noticeable red spot appearing on the chin. 
Somewhere in a trash can on the third floor of St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center lays the remains of my Saturday make up. It can be found on 27 tear stained Kleenex. (The good kind, with lotion of course.) It was never my intent to remove my make up in such a fashion, but life happens when you are making other plans.
On Saturday morning as I was putting on my make up, I reflected on the last 20 years of my life….and sat in awe at the things that have occurred, the people whose lives have changed me, the people whose lives I have changed, and all the experiences, and growth along the way. It is a story that if I had read it, surely it would be fiction.
December 13, 1989 I was crying my make up off for entirely different reasons. I had just finished Washington Seminar, which was the crowning jewel of my college experience. I was sad to leave a city that I had grown so fond of, and friends that had become so close. I returned home, not knowing that in a month’s time I would lose my mother to cancer, an event that would color the rest of my life, and impact me in ways I could not anticipate. An event that would force me to stretch and grow in new ways, an event that would set in motion the next 20 years of my life and prepare me for what was to come….
Over the course of that 20 years I would mature, I would grow, I would learn to love new people in new ways, and the life that existed for the first 22 years of my life would morph into a new life, one that often times I had difficulty recognizing, but eventually I would come to accept and find peace with, and continue to be at peace with as it evolved over the years. A new life that was rich and full, and new life where I learned to be comfortable in my own skin, a new life that also brought heartache and sorrow, with the promise of joy and peace. A new life that was mine.
With my make up done, and having waxed philosophical, I pressed forward with what I anticipated would be a challenging day, wondering why I bothered to even put my make up on, but realizing that by putting my make up on I was hoping that it would not come off, as opposed to resigning myself that it would.
I arrived at St. Alphonsus knowing my father’s health was critical. He was in ICU, fighting the systems in his body that were failing him. Deep in my heart I knew it was not a battle he would win…..and that he needed us to let him go, a realization we all knew.
Knowing my dad, we all knew that extra ordinary life saving measures would not be his wish. He would not want to stay trapped in body that had already betrayed him years ago. If it came to that point he would want to move on, a decision probably easier for him than for us.
We, being myself, Loretta, Jeron, Arianne, and Ciarran, gathered, all of us knowing what our cumulative decision would be. The medical staff removed the BiaPak that was forcing air down his lungs, allowing him to communicate more freely with us. Through his pain and struggling to breathe, he could hear us, he could respond to us, he could understand what we said and respond with a smile, or a blink of his eyes. Jeron said a few individual words, and then I spoke for us children as a whole, telling him what an incredible father he had been, how much we loved him and that he needed to tell mom what a good job he did raising us. With the mention of my mother his eyes opened widely. She was close, I knew it and he knew it, and everyone else in the room knew it. I thought of my mom often during the day, how she was waiting for him, how she would welcome him. Then I thought of my grandparents, his parents, and how excited they would be to see him and him to see them. I thought of the many others that were waiting for him. Then I thought of how much we would miss him in our lives. The emptiness that would be there. The feelings of loneliness and grief that would occupy that space in our hearts once filled by the moments of spending time with him. The change in our lives, that death inevitably brings. The close of one chapter, the opening of another.
After speaking collectively, we spoke individually and each had an opportunity to say good bye and tell him that we loved him. He in turn, although difficult, was able to tell us that he loved us. It was closure that none of us were able to have 20 years ago with our mother. Loretta got to express her love, tell him she forgave him for not keeping his promise of 30 years together, and kiss him good night. We then told stories and made him chuckle though struggling to breathe.
Finally it was time. Time to remove all artificial means of support, all medication, and just let nature take its course. Once the oxygen was turned off suddenly the room was quiet. I don’t think any of us realized how much noise the oxygen machine was making. But it was a good silence, a peaceful silence, a silence that gave all of us a moment or two to reflect in our own thoughts.
The morphine gave relief. Over the course of the next hour and a half he struggled, struggled for every breath. Dying is not easy, it’s a fight. The body instinctively wants to fight dying. Instinctively the body wants to live, even when every system is shutting down. He was hooked to machines that monitored his blood pressure, oxygen and heart rate. We all gathered around his bed. From my vantage point I could see the numbers of the machine. I could see the numbers drop as his body was finally giving in to what was occurring. His breathing was short breaths, and becoming more sporadic. The end was close. I called for the nurse. Eventually he stopped breathing and it took about a minute for his heart to flat line. We sat in pondered silence, each reflecting on our loss, his happy reunion, and what now lay ahead, both in the short term and the long term. But, ultimately thankful for the part that he played in our lives, the example that he was, but most of all grateful that he was our father and husband.
To celebrate my birthday, Arianne brought a fun craft to Utah for both of us to work on. These are chip boards that we have covered in scrapbook paper and tied together with ribbon. I made these to match my fun "Believe" blocks.
She is a sister who knows exactly how I like to celebrate my birthday!
Today is the day of the big Christmas tour at my house. For those of you wondering why I have been so feverishly working on my house, it is because I was asked to be on the Christmas tour of homes which is a fund raiser for the Utah Valley Symphony. It is the reason I have been over the top with decorating projects, fixing everything broken in my house, and polishing up my house to a spotless condition.
Actually I have not minded. It has given me a deadline for all sorts of home improvement projects that normally you say "yeah I will get to that."
Now the tour is basically self directed. People come to the door and a hostess greets them, checks their ticket and they are free to roam as much or as little of your house as you allow. Well as you know from reading my blog, nothing is sacred, so I am letting them self tour the entire house.
Mark, in an effort to be helpful, has self appointed himself as a tour guide. Recently whenever anyone comes to our house he demands that they take a tour, with him as the guide. Over Thanksgiving, Krista and Carl stopped by, and of course they were accosted for a tour. Once they got to the basement, Mark announced "Welcome to the basement, where fun is all around."
Yep that pretty much describes my basement, fun all around. Endless toys for the kids, crafting for me and the coolest guest bedroom on the planet. Perhaps during the Christmas tour I will give the people the option of self tour or tour by Mark....because he is pretty good at describing the features of my house!
Recently Lauren was watching an interview with Taylor Swift, whom she happens to adore. Part of the interview covered the incident that occurred at the VMA's when Kanye West stole the microphone from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech. Despite the intense media coverage when it occurred, Lauren was unaware of the incident. After seeing it on the interview she felt compelled to write a letter to Kanye West.
Now if that does not prove she is Taylor Swift's biggest fan, I don't know what does?I love this guy. I have literally grown up with him. From the time I was one year old, and all throughout my childhood, every Christmas he would appear and take up residence on a chair in our living room. At some point during the holiday season I would have my picture taken with him. He is circa 1960's and came to my house from my dad's furniture store.
If you look closely at his nose its clearly been chewed on, by me of course, in my effort to "love" him, although my mother might have a different take on my vandalism.... His rosy cheeks are minus a little of their rose color. His white beard is a little grey with 42 years of dirt, grim and probably drool from small children. He smells old. But I still love him.
I managed to take possession of him when my dad moved out of my childhood home. Over the course of the last few years, he has only made an occasional appearance at Christmas time. You see, as much as I love him, apparently he frightens members of my family..... They think he is creepy. So creepy in fact, he has been re-named Chucky Clause. (After the "chucky" movie with the possessed doll.) I have been prohibited from allowing him to sit in the living room for fear that someone coming around the corner will catch him out of the corner of their eye and be frightened.
So for now enjoy a trip through my childhood and my memories of my beloved Santa.
One year old.
Two years old.
Three years old
Four years old.
Five years old. A few weeks ago I wrote about my cleaning lady and her love of daily shower cleaner, specifically her belief that it is an all purpose cleaner. Well last week I decided I had enough of my house being scrubbed down with daily shower cleaner and provided a brand new bottle all purpose Lysol.
At the conclusion of her three hour cleaning session she asked me to purchase a different product because the Lysol was too toxic. (She really wants that daily shower cleaner back...)
After she left I pulled out the Lysol to see how toxic it was. Here is was I found, a bottle in which 2/3 of it was used during a three hour cleaning session. And she wondered why it was toxic???!!!!!
Earlier in the week I wrote about the fun crafting party we had the day after Thanksgiving. Here is how my project turned out, and if you want to know how Arianne's looked, look at mine, she is a big copy cat!
The last night of Arianne's visit we allowed Kallie and Katie to have a slumber party in Katie's bed. Now neither girl really understood what a slumber party was, but they both knew it was something that sounded fun, and keep repeating "slumber party!" 
In matching Pj's both girls got tucked into bed, with the necessary blankets and stuffed animals of course.
Not that they stayed tucked in for long...as Arianne and I turned off the lights, they continued to talk and giggle. In case you were curious what two year olds talk about, they talk about mommys, sisters, and family. There was one incident of an undetermined nature, in which both ended up crying and out of bed. We put them back in. Katie was the first to fall asleep, and once that occurred Kallie determined the party was over and came downstairs to sleep in her sleeping bag in her parents room. Its good to be two and have slumber parties with you bestie cousin!Friday night, Thanksgiving was over, black Friday shopping was done, it was time to craft. Krista and Jenni were in town for the weekend so I invited them over to my house, along with Courtney and Linda, to join Arianne and me in making cute holiday craft.
Look at that mess on my table, that is some serious crafting!
No crafting would be complete without Diet Coke and chocolate. (Although the empty box of chocolate is hard to spot among all the crafting necessities, its kind of like a "Where Waldo" game.)
Linda and her girls, and note I actually have a picture of Linda WITH her eyes OPEN!
Jenni, doing some serious gluing.
Me of course at my Circut!
Krista's finished product.
Jenni's finished product.
