My First White Christmas

Well, I just had my first white Christmas ever. I hve never been someone dreaming of a white Christmas - I prefer it when the weatehr is in the 60s and sunny and you can spend a lot of time outside. But, since it was cold anyway, I really did like the snow. Ryan and I went out in the morning, had a snowball fight, made snow angels, and a snow man. Making the snow man was just as easy as they make it look in the movies, make a ball and then roll it around in the snow until it gets to the desired size. It was a lot of fun, I fully enjoyed my first white Christmas.

Confused

Anyone who has lived in Texas knows that the weather here is kind of crazy, rather unpredictable. This year has been especially crazy, and I think it has confused my plants a bit. We had a a freezing day I think in October, I know it snowed in either October or November (I can't remember any more). Since I have lived here (6 1/2 years) it has snowed once a year - usually around February. Well, not only did it snow early, but it has gotten warm and then cold and then warm and then cold, several times. All of this has been too much for my daffodils, they started coming up in October.

On December 23 it got to 75 degrees!

My daffodils on the 23rd.

What I wore on my feet on the 23rd.

But less any of you should be envious of our warm temperatures, on December 24 it got down to below freezing - and we got a blizzard - at least to us in Texas it was a blizzard. We got covered in snow and the roads all iced over so people were slipping every where. It was crazy! I am not sure what will happen with my daffodils - I hope they make it!

The snow just starting in my back yard.

We had to leave Burleson to go to Grapevine so we could be there to do Christmas Eve stuff with Ryan's family before the snow really started sticking much - so we never got to see our yard covered in snow - but this was the result of the storm in Ryan's parent's backyard.

Eagles

My oldest sister, Missy, will turn 40 on Christmas Eve. Tonight my family celebrated her birthday by having a dinner, opening presents, and then putting all the kids to bed and the adults played games. I didn’t get to be there, which was sad, but such is life. Well, in order to commemorate her 40 incredible years my mom, my sisters, and her husband have been working on a project for her since Thanksgiving. I guess for my sister Emily’s baby shower Missy made her a bag with several “merit badges” on it. She said that as a mother you rarely get recognized for your efforts or achievement. For example, your son can get a badge for practically anything, like threading a needle, but you are the one who sews the badge on for him, and yet you don’t get anything for that, or the countless other things you do. So my mom thought Missy could use some recognition for some her accomplishments – our goal was to come up with and make 40 badges. Along with the badges we compiled a notebook of what she has done to earn each badge. For example, one of the badges was Scriptorian - For extensive personal study, wide knowledge of scriptural themes and passages, ability to apply principles learned to life’s challenges, special ability to apply gospel principles to raising children and other interpersonal relationships, and using knowledge to bless the lives of others by teaching and counseling. We ended up overshooting our goal a bit and made more than 40, but that is okay. Although I didn’t get to be there with them my family did a video chat with us so I could watch her open it and go through them and the notebook – I love some things about technology. Anyway, she liked it which made the hours of putting it together worth it. So, the reason I write this is because even though I am not a mom yet, I realize that it can be discouraging sometimes. I did teach seminary and know that despite all your efforts and sacrifices, kids rarely express let alone feel gratitude, which can be a challenge. So if you are feeling discouraged or like your efforts and sacrifices are not noticed, or like you haven't achieved much or that no one notices your achievements, let me know and I will point out what I love and admire in you, so you can know that there are people that think you deserve an "eagle".

A Nice Day - Including a First

Yesterday I went with my friend and her 7 kids to see “Polar Express” at the Omni, and then to Mc Donald’s for her kids to play. It was fun to spend time with their family. I am impressed with the obedience of her kids and how willing they are to accept disappointment and change and just go with the flow. I hope I can cultivate the same characteristics in my children. And then last night my visiting teachers (who are some of my good friends) and another friend came and caroled to me. This was a first for me and I really enjoyed it. They also brought me some yummy treats – so nice.

Sara Poyfair, Shadi Smith (my VT), and Leanne Bell (my other VT)

Our First Ginger Bread Houses - We Are Proud

Well, they never cease to amaze us – our activities committee, with the help of our Stake Activities chair, Sister Beezley, provided us with a fantastic evening of ginger bread house decorating for FHE. Ryan and I have never decorated ginger bread houses together, and Ryan doesn’t think he has ever decorated an actual ginger bread house (just graham cracker ones) and I think I have only assisted my nieces and nephews in making them. But we had so much fun this may be a new tradition for us. Not only did we get make houses and eat more candy than we should have, but we got to know some of the members of our ward better, and that is always fun.

Don't you love the creativity in our ward - the Elders and one of our other friends took off before this picture was taken, but we were impressed with everyone and had a great time.

Fabulous Activities - and a Funny Story

Our Single’s Ward has a fantastic activities committee. Every activity we have ever been to, including every FHE, have been super fun, super creative, and we have just enjoyed ourselves. For example, last Monday we attended FHE and it was “human bowling”. They often do “human” versions of games such as “human Battleship”, and it is just fun. Well this bowling was hilarious. Pins were made from 3 cardboard boxes taped together. The “ball” was a person sitting on a trash can dolly who was then pushed into the pins by his/her partner. So funny, and so fun. Ryan and I didn’t actually get to participate on account of his shoulder, but we still enjoyed watching.

I stole these pictures from this girl's Facebook since I didn't take my camera that day, but I wanted you to get the picture of what it was like.

Well, our activities committee continues to impress us. Tonight was our ward Christmas Party. We had a great dinner, and then had a gift exchange. We laughed a lot, and had a great time. In anticipation of this night Ryan and I picked out some gifts that we really liked. The first was a signed picture of us – last year we gave it for a white elephant gift exchange at a party for the high priests in the Burleson Ward. It went over super well – I think it was traded the maximum number of times and the couple that ended up with it still have it on their fridge. While it didn’t go over quite as well with the singles, everyone got a good laugh from it, and the owner claims he is either going to frame it or sell it on eBay.
Our other present I thought was equally funny, and now has a funny story to go with it – at least I think so. A few weeks ago Ryan had a doctor’s appointment to get his ankle checked out. This doctor was located in a hospital – we arrived 15-30 minutes early for the appointment, so walked around the hospital a little while as no one was in the office yet. We found this convenience store so went in. While there I saw this little puck shaped thing that said Oops on it, and so I read it. They were disposable panties! When I first saw them, since they were in such a tightly packaged form. They reminded me of those little sponges that you have to put in water and then they expand – and I just thought that was funny – although now I don’t think that is how they work. There were several things about them that I found amusing – they were called “Oops”, the fact that there was such a thing as disposable panties, that it said on the package that they were perfect for camping and I don’t remember what else, and that they were packaged as they were. We decided they would be perfect for this gift exchange. The night after we bought them I happened to still have them in my pocket when I went to the Burleson Ward Relief Society Christmas Party – and I ended up showing them to 3 of my friends, who thought they were equally hilarious and would like some themselves. So, I was all excited to take them to this party because I thought everyone would find them as funny as I did. I am not a person who likes bathroom humor at all, but I didn’t think of these underwear in that way, it was just the idea of them that I thought was funny, and still do. Okay, so someone finally picks up the bag they were in and I was all excited and had my camera ready to take a picture, and did as our Relief Society president pulls them out of the bag. Now realize that she is this very quiet spoken, soft hearted, sweet girl. When she pulls them out there was some confusion about what they were and the wife of our first counselor said “I could use that” and Summer, our RS president, said she could too. They thought it was ribbon. Then Summer sits down and starts reading it, and so I took a picture then also. Well, she was not amused. She didn’t read it all out loud, but after a second she say “That is inappropriate, who brought this?” She sounded mad, and at the moment she said it Ryan and I felt like we had done something really inappropriate, we were ashamed, and we were afraid to admit that we had brought them because we didn’t know how people would react to the bishopric counselor and his wife for doing something so horrible, and so we didn’t admit, we just sat there as quietly as everyone else. Our elder’s quorum president said something like “Yeah, like anyone is going to admit to it now that you are going to get them in trouble”, and we felt the same way. Later our EQ president did consider taking them from her, and so read the whole package out loud, at which everyone laughed quite a bit, which made us feel better, but since they said panties on the package he decided against them. Since then I have thought about the whole experience and am disappointed for several reasons. First, that Summer didn’t see the humor in them that I did, and was instead upset by them. That we ever felt ashamed, because I still contest that they are hilarious. And third, that we didn’t confess, because it also would have been funny if we had. Oh well, live and learn right. But if you are interested in obtaining some disposable panties for yourself, you can find them here http://www.shopinprivate.com/oodipa2pk.html. On a side note, we did come away with a Rubik’s cube for Ryan and a talking brain for me, which is awesome!

Starting in the upper left hand corner and then moving clockwise, and ending in the center - Ryan opening his Rubik's cube, members of our ward right before we ate dinner, Sumer (the RS president) opening the panties, Skylar (the EQ president) with his first present - a fish he was excited about but didn't get to keep, Joey opening our picture, some more members of the ward right before dinner, Joey showing off our picture, and Skylar reading the info on the panties.

Happy Thanksgiving!

When my oldest sister got married almost 20 years ago our family started the tradition of every year switching of Thanksgiving and Christmas between our family and in-laws (Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other, and then switch the next year). Somehow it worked at that even though we are now all married, we are all on the same schedule, either because our husbands were the first to get married in their families so they built their schedule around ours, or because their in-laws don't necessarily have a schedule and just feel grateful to get the families whenever they can. Well, on odd numbered years like this we have Thanksgiving with our family and Christmas with in-laws. So...I went to Las Vegas for a FOURTH time this year, and loved it. And, quite unusual for us, Ryan and I actually traveled together both directions, which was nice. We left Friday after work and got to be there for ten days. While we were there we spent a lot of time doing stuff with my family (of course). We went to the Bellagio and saw the arboretum and a pretty amazing sculpture display. We attended birthday dinners for our brother-in-law Bruce and our niece Michaelanne, went to dinner with some of our family, saw "New Moon" (not our favorite - the book is just so much better), went on hikes to various places (Springs Preserve, the Wetlands, Mt. Charleston, and Red Rock - I recommend them all!), visited with my good friend Steve and his family, went to Rebel games (go Rebels – we loved watching them beat Louisville), watched some football, played some games, celebrated the birthdays of all the brothers-in-law in our family (all but one of them have birthdays within 2.5 months of each other), and of course ate a ton! Oh, and Ryan and I braved our first Black Friday, came out victorious with a $150 video camera and a $25 8 GB micro SD card, and will consider doing Black Friday again. It was all fantastic and it was hard to say good-bye.

My dad, my niece Miachealanne, Ryan, and I really enjoyed hte Wetlands - did you know there was a place with this much water and this green right in the middle of Las Vegas?

A few years ago my family started the tradition of starting our Thanksgiving feasting the day before Thanksgiving. We really like appetizers, which we have always eaten the morning of Thanksgiving. But we realized that we like them so much that we sometimes eat too many to have room for dinner, or we don't get all that we would like. So we have started a tradition of eating appetizers for dinner the Wednesday befor Thanksgiving - and then we make more and eat left-overs before dinner on Thanksgiving. We combined our appetizer night this year with our brother-in-law birthday party (as well as a celbration of Mike who's birthday it actually was) and made the things they requested - it was excellent!

For the last 15+ years we have always had people visit us for Thanksgiving - whether extended family or friends. Every year I was at BYU I brought at least one friend home with me. We had thought this year was going to be the same, but for some reason everyone that was invited ended up flaking, and it was only my "immediate" family. And not even all of them since my sister Mindy and her family decided to go to their family cabin instead (which was very sad for all of us). Anyway, this is what our Thanksgiving looked like - not as much food as we normally have, but still more than enough. Luckily it was a nice day so we were able to eat outside - even though my parents' house is large, it is hard to fit my whole family (or even those that were there) inside one house for long periods of time.

After getting ourselves nice and full my sisters and I decided it would be a good idea to all jump on the trampoline together. It started with me jumping with just two of my sisters (Molly - 5 years older, and Maggi - 5 years younger). We then convinced Missy, our oldest sister to join us. Then Jenny (in between Maggi and me). We never did get the other two (Mindy was out of town actually) which is too bad because I really had a lot of fun. I am not sure if you can see the love from these pictures - but not only can I see it, I feel it. This is a happy memory for me. When I talk to people about my family and end up telling them I have SIX sisters there always comes a period of surprise, the repeating back to me of how many sisters I have (Six sisters?) and then the question - All girls - what was that like? (Or - What did your dad think about it?) My answer about what it was like has always been the same - It was awesome-I loved it! Having sisters is the best - thanks Mom and Dad.

We loved our hikes to Red Rock and Mt. Charleston - don't you love how Ryan and I are always pretending we are dog owners - we just want to be and will be some day. We would love to own this dog, Bella. She is my sisters dog and one of the best trained and most obedient dogs ever - we love taking her with us on hikes and walks.

Don't I have the cutest nieces and nephews ever! I think so. In the center is my mom with 17 of her 24 grandchildren.