12 Days of Christmas Continued...

 

 Here is our four calling birds,

a.k.a. four cans of chicken in this cute telephone booth :)

 

I didn't take pictures of the five golden rings, aka doughnuts, six geese a laying, aka eggs and bacon, seven swans a swimming, aka soap for us to use after swimming in the lake with the swans, and eight maids a milking, aka a gallon of regular milk, and one of chocolate milk. 

 

Here are our Nine Ladies Dancing:

 

Tonight, we received crowns and a Burger King gift certificate for 10 Lords a Leaping.
 

We anxiously await our 11 pipers piping and 12 drummers drumming. 

In other Christmas news, I helped out with Natalie's Christmas party at school last week.  I dreaded driving over there because it was the day we had a huge snow storm all day long, and even Kimberly's bus got in an accident on the way to school - no one hurt, thank goodness, but it sounds like there were several buses struggling that morning.  We live in a very hilly part of east Layton, so it is very difficult for buses to maneuver around here on snowy days - the elementary bus for Natalie and Alicia was almost an hour late!  Anyway, by the time the party was about to start, the snow had let up a bit, and the plows had been through most of the side streets, so I braved the roads an was glad I did, because we had a blast:

 

 Even Megan got to join in on the fun:
 

She was working so hard tying up each fabric strip that she didn't dare look up for a picture!

 

 Since we've had a ton of snow of late, we enjoyed a rousing rendition of the chicken and fox game in our backyard after some big snow falls last week - we spent a good hour and a half playing...good times, for sure.

 



These pictures just do not do it justice. Because of the huge backyard, it is a ton of fun to play, and very exhausting!

 

Now, to end this post with one of our absolutely favorite traditions every year at Christmastime: 

This is our favorite advent calendar - 

 

 Marian, John's sister, and now my dear sister and friend, made it for us several Christmas's ago, and the girls LOVE - and I do mean Love, putting up the cute items every day.  They fight over whose turn it is, and sneak extra pieces on when no one is looking just so they can have an extra turn. 

 

Lastly, if you are wondering where the heck our Christmas letter blog post is (because I've simplified my life by doing away with cards and stamps), alas, I have just begun working on it. Oddly, I haven't had a desire to work on it this year, probably because I've already blogged about everything we've done this year, so I don't want to bore you with a summary repeat of the year, but I do like to do one for our own family records, so it is coming...though it may be a New Years letter!  Stay tuned :)

 

A Little Christmas Now

 We've been enjoying some Christmas festivities around here.

 

 

We got to experience the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert for the first time in person. 

Because of parking difficulties (we will definitely be taking the train next time), we had really poor seats, so it was hard to see the stage, but it was still fun.

We also had the annual Rimington Christmas party with crafts, dinner, and gift exchanging. 

 

 

'

 

Also, someone is doing the Twelve Days of Christmas for us, so for the last few nights, we've had these on our doorstep:

 

A partridge in a pear tree:



Two Turtle Doves:



Three French Hens:

The girls are anxiously awaiting to see what is in store for them tonight and upcoming nights.



 

December Continues

I was asked to help put together the Christmas party in our new ward, which was fun because I got to work with these fun ladies - Sue and Julie.

I was in charge of putting together the entertainment and kid's activities.  It was a fun night and I enjoyed getting to know the ward members this past month as I worked on the program.    

It was also a joy to see the kids hook up with their new friends in the ward during the party too.  Any mom knows that we worry about our kids - we want them to have good friends, so its nice to see they have transitioned to this ward nicely. 



It snowed a ton this weekend - nearly a foot.  Good thing we have a snow blower :) 

 

 

 We also got our Christmas tree up

 

 

 

and decorated our mantel

 



Welcome December

 

 Merry Christmas my friends!

 

 

As of now, this is our only Christmas decoration out. 

We really ought to get going on that.

The plan is to get our tree up in the next day or so, in addition to the other Christmas stuff.

 

 

In the meantime, we went with some friends and saw reindeer. 

 

 

took a hay ride,

 

 

 enjoyed cookies and hot chocolate,

 

 

and visited with Santa Claus.

 

 

In other news, we bought a new camera. 

Isn't it lovely?   



I wish I actually knew how to work the darn thing.

It's our first-ever digital SLR camera, so there are like three how-to booklets and a DVD to figure out how to work it.

I have only barely cracked open one of the booklets. 

 

I had to have Kimberly show me how to attach the different lenses, something she learned how to do in her yearbook class at school.

Have I really gotten to the age when my kids are showing me how to use technology?  Sheesh.

 

John and I are headed to a photography class this Saturday, so hopefully we'll get some good pointers on how to operate the thing.

 

 

 Over the weekend, John put in this beautiful door to the den (remember, this is where the closets used to be right next to the front door).

 

Also during the break, Alicia and I got the ceiling and doors painted in her room.  Next up is the trim and the beautiful blue color she chose.

 

Of course, we enjoyed lovely turkey festivities up at John's folks in Perry, and I for the first time ever experienced the true crowds of Black Friday when Walmart opened on Thursday evening.  Thankfully, I wasn't purchasing anything - just interviewing people for a story assignment, but whoa, there were a lot of people.

 

Lastly, this is currently my view out the kitchen window

...lots of blessed snow. 

Isn't it beautiful?

I love that we have different seasons here. 

Wind Storm 2013

It happened again...a giant windstorm last week causing power outages and damaged trees.  Last time this happened in December of 2011 we lost a good chunk of our roof.  This time the storm wasn't nearly as bad, but still wind gusts were between 70 and 80 mph (Dec. 2011 was 100 mph). 

We buckled down the hatches (whatever that means) and took care of all of the things in the yard that could possibly get blown away.  We lost our power for about an hour that night, but other than that, thought we had fared fairly well.

That is until Alicia and her friend playing in the backyard the next afternoon noticed this...

...and were slightly alarmed when they noticed the bike/wood shed at an odd angle...

Little did she realize, it was actually the tree next to it that was the problem. 

 

John spent Saturday chopping it down, well technically, chain-sawing it down. 

And the girls and I spent several hours putting all of the branches in this lovely pile and transporting the wood into our ever-growing wood pile (not pictured).

 

In the process of hauling branches, I noticed this cross next to the apple tree.  I wonder if the previous owners had a pet that died and lovingly placed here.  Got me thinking...hope Athena, John's very first Red-Tail Hawk is still resting in peace back at the last house in the backyard. 

Oh, and John has repaired the fence.  Thankfully, we were planning on redoing it anyway because it was in sad shape when we moved in.  We even had the pieces already purchased and John was in the process of working on it when the wind storm hit...the wind just helped us tear the old fence down faster :)

While we're at it, speaking of home improvement projects, work has begun on Alicia's bedroom down in the basement. 

 

It has been determined that the basement finishing, as is the case with most projects, is taking a tad longer than we expected.  In finishing the fireplace downstairs, it was determined that we need to repair the upstairs fireplace at the same time, therefore pushing the basement completion out a little further.  We have also come to the firm conclusion that Kimberly and Alicia absolutely do not share a room very well together.  Alicia was volunteering to sleep in the recliner down in her basement bedroom, a sure sign that things were getting desperate, so Alicia and I will be working on painting the room during Thanksgiving Break while John is working on his myriad of other projects. 

 

We had planned to finish her bedroom and the adjoining bathroom after the family room work was done so we could carpet the entire basement, then put Alicia in the bedroom, but Alicia has happily agreed to some rugs on the concrete floor in her bedroom until we get to the carpet stage. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! 

My pie baking commences this evening. 

Bring on the pumpkin!

 

Let it Snow

 

 

It snowed, if you can't tell.

We're discovering we get a lot of snow up here in bench-land. 

I'm okay with that, because it keeps these kiddos occupied for hours...OUTSIDE!!!

 

Sadly, underneath all of that white stuff are still a bunch of leaves we still need to get taken care of. 

With new snow, comes the usual snow/ice-cream-making. 

This time, Alicia did the honors.  

 

It works well when it is snowing, because the girls stuck this bowl out Saturday morning and within an hour, it was full (you can't tell in the picture because it is has been sufficiently smooshed down via the beater).

 

I also just happened to find this picture on my camera while hunting down the snow pictures, and since it was a good hair and makeup day, thought I'd include it.  I found a mascara I just love.  All these years, I have been using mascara that is either clumpy, hard to put on, messy, gets in my eyes and messes up my contacts, or all of the above, so I basically gave up wearing it.

I happened to try Cover Girl - it's either Stiletto or Luminous Volume mascara, and it is none of those things, so I find myself putting it on everyday along with my foundation and blush (both Bare Minerals, also something I LOVE and have been using since I turned 30). 

Total time drying and styling hair: 5-7 minutes
Total time applying makeup:  2 minutes
Don't you wish you had short hair about now? 

 

More Power Tools...

 

 Our new place had this fabulous 1970s mammoth rock wall down in the family room.

We decided it had to go.

The far left corner shows the beginning of demolition.

 

John spent many, many hours working on it by hand with his chisel and crowbar, getting nearly half of it done.

 

Today, he rented an electric drill and now it looks like this: 

All those rocks are now in a neat pile in the backyard (thanks to the girls' help), ready to be turned into lovely rock terracing.

Totally off-topic, but John and I spent our Friday night date checking out Norman Rockwell's original Boy Scout paintings down at the LDS Church Museum.  They were incredible.  I had no idea the man got his start working for the Boy's Life magazine before his career skyrocketed in other arenas. 

A Lesson in Power Tools

 

Pumpkin Carving Lesson #1:

Knives are SO old school.

 

 

Lesson #2:

No need to deal with scraping pumpkin guts with your hands when you have a pumpkin corer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now that's how it's done. 

 

 

 On to carving now. 

Knives come back into play.

 

 

 

The final products:

 

 

 

 And now that Halloween is over, time to celebrate Christmas:

 

Sorry, I got absolutely no pictures of the girls in their Halloween Costumes.  We were having too much fun at the neighborhood soup and dessert potluck, off trucking around the hilly neighborhood trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, and scone-making.  Good times indeed.