The Blanket

When I was younger my great grandma had a tradition, that every person in the family got a hand tied quilt from her before she died. We would go to Grandma's house and all of my aunts, my mom, and my Grandma would all get together to tie a quilt. They would laugh and talk while they tied and the kids would hide under the quilt that was on quilt frames, as they tried to tie it. Those are fond memories. After she died my mom carried on the tradition and before she died almost everyone in the family had a quilt from her. In fact, Josh got the last one. I am the only girl left in the family to be able to carry on this tradition but because of the time and money that goes into making these have really had mixed emotions about starting the tradition. Both of my sisters n laws did not get a blanket. Nate married Brittanie in May a few months before my mom died and Marshall married Melissa in July just after my mom died. Every year I think, I should make them a quilt and then push it out of my mind.

A week before Thanksgiving I was at the temple, feeling my mom's spirit extra closely that day, which I so enjoyed. As I was sitting there I had the strongest feeling as if someone was talking to me, "You need to make Brittanie a quilt for Christmas this year." "Ok" I thought, "I can't deny that, I guess I'll make a quilt." Although, I had a lot of reservations, I really did not have time to be making a quilt this holiday season.

After I had bought the fabric, I was talking to a friend of mine, Rebecca Menzie, their family lives in our ward now but also lived by us in the Arlington Ward. My mom visited regularly then, so Rebecca knew my mom. I was making arrangements with her to borrow her quilt frames and telling her about my experience in the temple. When she says to me "You know what that was right?" I said "No What?" She said, "That was your mom, wanting you to make that blanket for Brittanie." All of a sudden this blanket had so much more meaning. Of course she would want her to have this blanket.

As I made this blanket, I used my moms scissors, her thread, and her yarn and tried to make it the way she would have if she were here. I know that my mom wanted to recognize how important Brittanie is to our family, and no better way to do it but by making her a blanket. Something that has always meant so much to my mom. I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to make this blanket, it became such a special experience for me. I love you Britt!

Christmas project - Sunday Art

Remember Luke's Sunday Art pictures? For those of you who don't know, for the past year Luke has drawn a religious related picture every Sunday. This picture was posted to the blog and titled "Sunday Art by Luke". Sadly but understandably, after a year he got burned out and stopped.

I took all of the pictures that he had drawn and put them into a book for him. This was one of my favorite gifts, that I made this year.

Looking through the book, he didn't realize how many pictures he had actually drawn.

Nor did he realize how much he enjoyed the pictures and the memories that came with some of them.

Thank you Luke, for so many wonderful Sunday Art pictures.

The Laundry Basket

I have posted updates about this story on facebook, but haven't dared update the blog with this story until after Christmas (Josh doesn't have facebook, he can't read about his presents there).

Here is the story . . . .

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, Josh was hanging out very comfortably with a blanket in my laundry basket. Actually, he had the blanket rolled off the bed and fell in. He was amazed at how comfortable it was. I told him he had to get out because he would break it. He tried to convince me to let him sleep in it. I told him "Nope." He asked if he had his own laundry basket could he sleep in it? Or do whatever else he wanted with it? I said "sure". He says "Well that's what I want for Christmas then." I thought he'd forget about it and decide he would want something else, but nope, he wouldn't stop talking about it the entire Christmas season. He'd say "All I want for Christmas is a laundry basket and a pogo stick."

So 4am on Black Friday you could find me in the laundry basket isle. That, by the way, is a completely EMPTY isle on Black Friday. NICE!

I got the basket home and couldn't figure out how to hide it. It wouldn't fit in any of my normal hiding spots, so I had the genius idea to put clothes in it and put it in my closet! That worked great! He never thought anything of it, and I never ran out of dirty clothes throw in it. Now I kind of miss having two laundry baskets.

Christmas morning came and he got the laundry basket. The gift tag was from the Cleaning Elf. He thought that was pretty cool, because how many times does the Cleaning Elf give out a gift?

Since Christmas the laundry basket has become a permanent piece of furniture in our family room.

He checked out his Christmas presents in it.

He watches movies in it

He has slept in it (Only for a couple of hours not all night)

He has eaten in it

and he'll read in it.
Who knew you could get so much use out of a laundry basket?

The missing tooth

Josh gave Ben this nerf type bow and arrow for Christmas. Jean, our friend, gave each of the boys a nerf gun for Christmas. Christmas evening when the missionaries were at our house, all four missionaries and my 3 boys went to the basement for a little battle. It didn't take to long before Luke came up in tears with blood pouring out of his mouth. There was also a very apologetic missionary not far behind him, claiming that his parents have insurance and they can fix whatever ever damage he had just caused. Come to find out this missionary was hiding behind a wall jumping out occasionally to shoot his bow. One of those times, Luke was in his direct line of fire, the arrow hit the side of his mouth and sent his baby tooth (that wasn't loose) flying across the room. NICE. Luke will survive. After the shock of what happened wore off and the swollen lips and cheeks went down, he realized that too. No insurance required.

Christmas

By the time everyone left on Christmas Eve, it was after 9pm. We opened our homemade gifts that we made for each other and sent the boys to bed. I had a project or two to finish and THEN STARTED WRAPPING. UGH! I tried so hard to get some of that done ahead of time but there just weren't enough hours in a day. We finally made it to bed at 3:08am, and just our luck Luke was in our room saying "Santa came" at 4:57am. Nothing like a good nights sleep. I convinced him to go back to bed for 30 more minutes, which he did. We then had all 3 boys on our floor for the next 20 or so minutes while we tried to gain consciousness enough to move down stairs.

Jean and Kelly stay the night every year and are most helpful with the wrapping. Especially Jean. His job is to address the labels. We end up getting gifts from Santa, parents, grandparents, reindeer, elves, them, Frosty, and Mrs Claus. Reading the tags became a fun part of opening the gifts.


It was a nice morning. We took our time opening the gifts which I think we all enjoyed.
(Yes, Josh is hanging out in a laundry basket, that explanation will be another post)

Mike loved the "in n out"shirt Josh surprised him with. Thanks Bob and Jeri!

Another "highlight" gift was for Jean. Jean is a Michigan fan, and everyone who knows college football knows that that doesn't mix very well with Ohio State fans. This is the but of a lot of jokes at our house. The boys thought of a perfect gift for him this year. A Michigan-OSU blanket. Luke designed the letters and they helped me pin etc as I sewed everything together. He was so excited when he saw the Michigan side of the blanket and was then crushed to see the OSU side. They all had fun with that one.

After our lingering morning, we quickly had breakfast and headed off to church then after, delivered the food baskets that we had made the night before. It is now 3 days after Christmas and we still haven't left the house. We entertained the idea of a movie today, but don't think it's going to happen. Apparently, we were all in need of some major RELAXATION!

We had Christmas Eve left overs for dinner. I know, lame but we were gone so long delivering baskets that lunch wasn't until about 4;30, I wasn't making dinner after that. I put out a spread of munchies and we munched all night long.

The missionaries came over to skype their families from our house. As they each took turns, we played games. It was fun to watch how excited they were to talk to their families, not to mention, hit a little close to home. It dawned on me that the next time Christmas is on a Sunday, Ben will be on his mission. WOW

The rest of Christmas and the day after seemed to all blend together. Building new toys, playing with new toys (Josh got a pogo stick and hasn't stopped bouncing), trying out the new kinect games, eating, movies, games, eating, fuzzy jamas and fuzzy blankets, puzzles, hot chocolate and fires in the fire place. HEAVEN! Does it ever have to end?

This has been such a good holiday for us. In church someone gave a talk about giving. He talked about the study that shows that the richer we are the more likely we are to give. He also said that there is another study that claims that the more we give the richer we become. As he talked about this, I thought a lot about this past month. In a little more then 3 weeks, I have helped plan a relief society Christmas party, a ward Christmas party, performed the violin twice, helped plan two funerals plus was dealing with Mike's Grandmas funeral, helped with the giving tree, helped deliver and wrap the giving tree gifts, helped organize a convert baptism, helped put together food and deliver food baskets. Then on a family level, I made more gifts (posts will come later) then I have ever made before and this is all above and beyond the normal Christmas hustle and bustle. I'm really not sure how it all came together, but I'm so thankful it did. Going back to the talk in sacrament about the more we give the richer we become. I have felt this in my life these past few weeks. I haven't had any extra time except for the current project that I was involved in, and my family. All of the commercialism of the holiday took the back burner this year in a big way. What a blessing! Throughout this season I have felt a sense of peace, calmness and guidance which has allowed me to feel that spirit so much more strongly. Looking back I feel so much richer and blessed because I had the opportunity to give to or help not just others outside my family, but also my extended family and my family. What a blessing it has been to have this focus at this time of year. It was not a planned focus, in fact most of it hit me by surprise, but I feel so much richer because of it and for that I am so thankful.

Christmas Eve

The best words to describe Christmas Eve at our house would be - a large mass of organized chaos! There were 32 of us who gathered that evening. All of us without family close by, but because of the love that was there felt as if we were family.

While some of us were busy cooking dinner in the kitchen, another group of people were putting together food baskets that would be delivered to some people on Christmas day. The kids helped put together some soups in a jar, and cookies in a jar mixtures. We also had canned food, pastas, fruit, some baked breads and some baked treats as well.

One lady said as she was filling and organizing the bags that it felt like as if the food was multiplying. We ended up with so much food that was to be delivered. It was pretty awesome and not mention humbling, to have the opportuinty to put these baskets together.

The night was filled with a lot of laughs

lots of games

visiting

and lots of good food. We had an evening of Asian food. Egg rolls, orange chicken, beef and broccoli, fried rice, stir fry and the list goes on. It was all delicious!

We ended the night with a short program. As part of the program, Mike read "The Cajun Night Before Christmas." This is a book that he has read every Christmas Eve since his mission. As you can see from this picture, everyone enjoys it. This year our friend Kelly recorded it for us. Sorry for the jiggling in parts, there was a little to much laughing going on!

Following the story, and some caroling, we read the Christmas story and then went home to get ready for Santa. We were so thankful everyone could join us. What a wonderful evening.

Family favorites

Yes it's after midnight which technically means I'm really late to be posting the Sunday recipe. I don't have a good excuse for not posting earlier, all I can say is this recipe was worth the wait.

A new family tradition
Coconut Syrup
Last year at Thanksgiving time we were at Mike's Mom and Dad's house visiting. One morning they fed us coconut syrup for breakfast. "Yuk", I thought, I am not a big coconut fan, but I'll try anything once so I did. I probably would have been better off if I hadn't tried it, it's now a new weakness of mine. We all fell in love with the coconut syrup and unanimously decided that it's to be a Christmas morning breakfast tradition.

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp Karo syrup
Put in pan on medium heat and whisk together. Let boil for 2 minutes. Take off heat and then add
1 tsp coconut extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
Adding the baking soda will make the syrup froth up.
Best when served hot

Joyce bought us a cute little pitcher to use for our coconut syrup on Christmas morning. Thank you Joyce for introducing us to a yummy new tradition!

Newport Mansions at Christmas

Today we played hookie and went to Newport, Rhode Island to see the mansions. The boys and I have seen them but Mike had not. That was one reason to go, number 2 reason - everyone always tells us the mansions are so beautiful at Christmas time because of all of the extravagant decorations. So way back in November before our lives became insane with the holiday we scheduled our day trip to Newport. It was so nice to have a day off from the hustle and bustle and to just focus on the family.
Well worth the trip.

The mansions ARE decorated extravagantly. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, so you'll have to imagine large beautifully decorated trees in every room, gingerbread houses in the kids dining rooms, hundreds of poinsettias every where, added with period to the time decorations everywhere you look. It was fascinating to take a step back into history and really see how these people lived. These homes were built as summer homes, and were really built to impress and entertain. Because of this, every room was decorated over the top with the finest the world had to offer at the time.
Ben says "It's so cool to see how they lived back then but I would never want to live like them." Well said.

Of course I had my camera and of course I took a million pictures. I had many favorite pictures on this trip. These pictures are good ones . . . .

But these are my favorites.

On the way home there was a full rainbow! Perfect ending to the day.