I can finally share with you...

...all of the Christmas gifts we've been working like mad on this month for the family members we were in charge of.

Stores sell these wooden blocks for $19 per set. We bought the wood for 4 sets at a beautiful $6 price. John cut them out and all 6 of us sanded them like mad one night. Then John and I spent a couple of hours painting them all. Once dry, I got to decorate them, which was my favorite part.

I sewed up this car play mat for the nieces and nephews of the families we did this year. I hunted down this fabric for days and couldn't find it at any of our local fabric stores. John swooped in and saved the day by finding the fabric on ebay. Thanks dear.

I decided to crochet up some washcloths and sew up some hot pads for our parents and grandmas. I will definitely be making more washcloths in the future. I will definitely NOT be sewing this particular hot pad again. They took me hours to do. I'll find an easier version for next time.

I decorated these frames for my mom and grandma. Now I want one.

And last, but most certainly not least...I just have to share with you the cute bears John's mom made for the girls. They love them and they are so cute and cuddly!

Keep reading to my next post about our Christmas Day fun :)

Christmas Fun

Merry Christmas to all of you! We had a lovely day, even with church smack-dab in the middle of our normal day's festivities. We did stockings and strings at 7 a.m. before getting ready for our 9 a.m. church, then came home and unwrapped the presents from under the tree.


The three older girls all got scooters at the end of their string. Alicia captured all of their emotions - can you say, pure bliss?

We have not allowed scooters for the girls because we thought they were slightly dangerous. we still think that, but after one broken back from sledding, a crazy bike crash, and considering the fact that our girls are already riding all of their friends' scooters on a daily basis anyway, it was time to get them their own. They may be the only ones wearing helmets while riding scooters in the neighborhood, but that was our one concession to allowing them to ride the things.

This cute gal got a wiggle car at the end of her string. You see that sucker bottle in her hand? She would not let go of it and sucked on it ALL day (other than church and her nap). I think it was her most favorite present.

The RC cars we got all 4 girls were a hit. They've been racing them almost non-stop for two days now.

We have been really slow this year getting to some of our traditions, including gingerbread houses. We did them on Christmas Eve, then proceeded on to the Layton park lights for our usual Christmas Eve night activity.


Now this week we will be focusing on recuperating, sleeping in, consuming yummy Christmas treats, NOT exercising or dieting, avoiding the after-Christmas shopping, and most of all for John and I...NOT working (that is, I hope I don't get a call from my editor this week...I'm taking a self-imposed vacation).

**slight addendum** John has just reminded me that we are all working on the basement this week. It is coming along nicely with John all done with hanging dry wall in Kimberly's room - this week he will be hanging dry wall in the den area, and it sounds like I get to help mud up Kimberly's room. Should be fun, right?

Happy Holidays to you all! Thanks for reading our blog. I sure enjoy reading all of yours. I am especially thankful for technology that allows us to keep in touch with family and friends nowadays. We thoroughly enjoyed Skyping with most of our family members yesterday - it was a gift in and of itself being able to see and chat with family as if we were sitting in the same room together.

Love, the Rimingtons

Hello, and Good Bye.

I just said goodbye to my mom who is flying back to Seattle this evening, and now I am in mourning. Therapy calls for a blog post of the fun things we got to do with her over the last 5 days. We had such a wonderful time.

We visited downtown Salt Lake where we saw the lights on temple square and rode the train across town to the gingerbread house festival at Gateway.


Mom had fun with the girlies doing different craft projects, cookies, and even...


...helped Alicia with her Christmas song on the piano. I am ashamed to admit I had completely forgotten my mom knew how to play the piano because once Christy and I surpassed her skills, she stopped playing.

So now we go back to telephone visiting until the next get-together, which for now isn't scheduled until July. I love Utah, but sometimes its hard to live so far away from my mom and siblings, who all live in different states. At least we're all west of the Colorado river.

I have got a story for you...

My fellow readers, who I know are my dear friends and family members - I have finished typing up my notes of the interview I had with that German gal who grew up during WWII in Eastern Germany and was able to escape after the war - it is truly an inspiring story.

She has given me permission to share her story, provided I do not include her name. If you would be interested in a copy of her story, I will gladly email it to you. It's not too terribly long - only 3 1/2 typed pages, so you're not out a ton of reading time. I promise it will be a read you will never forget, and will be forever engrained in your mind.

Just leave your email address in the comment section and I will send it to you.

Blown Away

Last Thursday was an eventful windstorm with record winds as high as 100 mph. School was cancelled due to no power, entire trees were downed, wood fences crumpled, shingles scattered everywhere on the ground, trampolines in the wrong backyards, siding melted off sides of houses - and this was just in our neighborhood!

After retrieving my daughters from their 20-minute day of school, shortest day of school on record for them so far, we holed up in the house while the storm raged around us. The forceful winds just pounded into our garage door and was even pushing the front door so hard, I had to dead bolt it to keep it from getting blown open.

I went out to take down the flag and could hardly stand up straight and was fearful of all the debris flying around. Closing the garage door was almost impossible with each wind gust pushing the garage door back up when I returned from picking up the girls.

My neighbor across the street called to tell me her wood fence had fallen down. While chatting with her on the phone and watching the storm rage from my front window, I noticed my other neighbor's shingles were flying off her roof like loose paper! I had my friend I was chatting with on the phone look over to my house, and she said I had several patches ready to fly off as well!

The storm finally settled down about mid-morning, but the aftermath was ridiculous throughout the neighborhood. John was out of town, so this is what he got to come home to...

My loving neighbor came over and got on the roof to assess our damage and covered up some of the really bad sections - thank goodness, because it snowed that night.

John spent a good chunk of Saturday up on the roof putting new shingles on. Just what he wanted to be doing in December with temperatures below freezing.


Our chimney cap even blew off in the storm. Good thing some of our neighbors on the street behind us retrieved it so we could get it put back on.

All-in-all, we fared pretty well, considering the damage that many other neighbors experienced. Thank goodness for insurance, though this time, we didn't sustain enough damage to warrant a new roof (shucks darn, because we need a new one in the next couple of years!).

On Sunday, we were expected to get another really bad wind storm with winds up to 70 mph, so not as bad as the first one, but pretty serious. There was still a lot of debris throughout the neighborhood, and trees still downed. During church, it was announced that the ox was in the mire and a work group was put together right after church to go around and clean up all of the debris so it wouldn't be flying around in the storm.

John and the older two girls set out with the trailer and got to work cleaning up one of our neighbor's trees. John said the lineup to the dump was outrageously long because everyone else was doing the same thing.

The second storm didn't end up arriving, but at least the neighborhood is cleaned up, families are getting their houses assessed by their insurance companies, or like us, doing the work themselves and getting everything back in order. I'm so grateful John is able and willing to get on the roof to fix it for our clan as I am devastatingly afraid of being on the roof.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Newish Roof!