Thoughtful

It's great to have people who know you well enough to know how to give a gift that makes you happy and touches your heart. Tracy was recently the recipient of such a gift. Our kids are also very thoughtful gift givers. Here are some of the Christmas gifts I received this year. I believe that most of these ideas and the execution of them came from the girls, although I know that guys can give thoughtful gifts, too.

My mom has had one of these for awhile and I've always admired it and wanted one. Tracy made this one. For someone who claims to not be crafty, Tracy is always doing crafty things.

Shannon stayed up until 3:45 am on Christmas Eve/Christmas finishing this calendar made with pictures of our beautiful grandbabies. It brought tears to my eyes.

Emily designed and made this cross-stitch picture. She made almost all of the gifts they gave this year. Very creative, Em. I need to find a good place to display it.

I received TWO flannel nightgowns this year. Woo-hoo! For those of you who are uninformed, it's getting harder and harder to find real flannel nightgowns and they are getting more and more expensive. Rene and Joanna and Ben put in the time, effort and expense to get me these this year.

Over the summer, we played a game owned by one of Sarah's roommates called Rapid Recall. It is no longer made. I really enjoyed it, and looked to find it online. To my dismay, it's really expensive because it's "vintage." I had forgotten about it, but Sarah searched diligently and found it for me for Christmas.

Like my sister Susan, I have a foot that has been bothering me. I read about "Yoga Toes" and thought they would help. They are expensive, however, so I didn't get them. I told Janet about them and she searched around and was able to find a deal on them. Here is Ben, modeling them. Susan, you really need some. I think they do help.

In Matthew 7:11, we are taught that our Heavenly Father gives good gifts to them that ask him. It makes me happy to see our children emulating this Christlike trait.

Christmas trip to Utah

Our friend, Casie, got married in the Manti Temple over the weekend. She asked us when she got engaged if we would come and we decided that it was important to support Casie. AND it let us spend time with Sarah and Brian, who aren't coming home for Christmas.

The wedding:

On Friday night, we went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at the Museum of Art at BYU. It was seriously awesome! The church has used many of his paintings in church publications, so they are familiar. We all liked the exhibit a lot.

After the wedding on Saturday, we went up to the Riverwoods Mall in north Provo. It was really prettily decorated--very sparkly. We wandered around, found some really fun stores, and rode in a carriage ride. We got the long version, because no one else was waiting for a ride at that point.

It was a quick trip, but worth it. At the airport in SLC on the way home, our plane was late getting in from it's destination (which was Minneapolis). When it did get in, we were just sitting there watching people get off, when Janet nudged me and said, "Hey, that's Rachel Brown." Haha...we were getting on the plane they just got off. I got to say hi briefly and I met baby Forrest. He's a cutie!

No more, please!

Lots of people in Wisconsin listen to country music. Ugh! I dislike country music. Hence, I don't have many radio stations I enjoy while I'm driving around in the car. Lots of times it boils down to Rush Limbaugh or the "mix" station, which has been playing Christmas songs since Thanksgiving. And, not to offend anyone, sometimes I've just had enough of Rush and can't listen to him anymore. So I've been listening to a lot of Christmas music lately. I love Christmas music and when you consider the number of songs performed by hundreds of artists, there must be many, many permutations. However, I seem to hear the same songs over and over. So, here is my list of 5 Christmas songs I wouldn't mind never hearing again:

5. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
4. Santa Baby
3. Do They Know It's Christmas?
2. My Grown-Up Christmas List
1. Christmas Shoes

And if you're the people who have been calling WLJY and requesting the above songs, knock it off, would ya?

Under the tree

About 26 or 27 years ago, my sister Kathleen made a tree skirt for us for a Christmas present. We have used it every year since then. A couple of years ago, I made tree skirts for Joseph and Tracy and Ben and Shannon. It was obvious last year that Emily and Preston also needed one. And when Joanna and Sarah both got married this summer, I decided to make three tree skirts for this Christmas.

Now, the tree skirts I made earlier were panels, where all I had to do was apply batting and backing and sew them together. But tree skirt panels seem to be a thing of the past in just two or three years time. I'm way too cheap to buy a pattern, so thank goodness for the Internet. I found this awesome tutorial and used it to make the three tree skirts. I had to change it some for Emily and Preston's because I already had fabric for theirs and wanted to make sure I used what I had. For the others, I did have to buy a few pieces of fabric, but I was also able to use some I had around here and some I got from a swap meet at church this summer. Plus I used up a bunch of peices of batting that I had hanging around.

This is Joanna and Ben's. I think they all turned out well. Hopefully, they'll get as much use out of them as we have from ours.

Into December

I wanted to do something for the kids this year that was inspirational for Christmas. I saw this tutorial and went from there. I think these little advent calendars turned out well. I compiled my own thoughts to put on the little cards. It was fun, although it was way more work than I anticipated (plus I made 8 of them!)

Through the woods and over the river

Our trip to my Mom's for Thanksgiving was great. It's always wonderful to be with family. I inevitably come away uplifted and inspired to be a better person. Although the weather was cold, cold, cold, our hearts were warm.

We didn't do anything too strenuous or exciting. We did do a lot of this:

and this:

Lauren was a big help when it was time to clean up:

On Saturday, a group of us ran the Warner Wobble Gobble. Warner is a teeny town 10 miles south of Aberdeen. Janet's blog will have the full details. It was very small townish and lots of fun.

We are thankful for all of you. We wish we could be together for every holiday, but are happy for phone calls, emails, blogs, facebook, Skype, and letters to keep us close. You are all an essential part of our happiness and we think of you and pray for you always.

New in the Neighborhood

I guess WPS got tired of the drug dealers parking on their property. Just kidding....sort of. More than 5 years ago, Wisconsin Public Service bought a bunch of properties at the end of our street and tore down the homes. But they couldn't do much about the paved streets. Russell St. ends in a cul-de-sac down there. People drive and walk down there all the time. WPS has tried to stop that by dumping a huge pile of dirt at the end, putting up sawhorses, not having it plowed in the winter, etc. I guess this is their latest attempt. There probably aren't a bunch a drug dealers (that's kind of an inside joke) but there are lots of deer hunters who try to sneak back there and hunt.