Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Mother Teresa

I found this on a friend's blog this morning and fell head over heels absolutely in love with it!

I ALWAYS love a little Mother Teresa wisdom.

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you find happiness people may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Give the world your best and it may never be enough.

Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.

It never was between you and them anyway.

-Mother Teresa

Give the Best Gifts

My fabulous friend Carly left this little bit of inspiration on her blog that I am so in love with that I must share. It's 2 weeks till Christmas, so to all you crazy gift givers out there, we love you, but don't stress yourselves out! Enjoy the season.

"Christmas gifts should be in memory of the divine gift--the life of Jesus Christ. His gift gave us eternal life; our gifts should enliven with joy those who receive them. His gift was the sacrifice of his earthly life, our gifts should represent personal sacrifices on our part." --John A. Widtsoe

Sunday

We are sick. Sick with colds, the kind that make you cough and cough until you almost throw up. The kind of cold that makes your head pound with every cough. We stayed home from church today. Daddy is the only one not sick. He has left on travel this afternoon and will be gone all week. I made bread for him to take with him, per his request. I made cinnamon swirl bread, large and small loaves, and cinnamon rolls. I have a new method. I sprinkle my counter with cinnamon sugar and then roll the dough out on it, and then put butter and cinnamon sugar on top. Then I roll it and it has the tasty cinnamon goodness on both sides. It's pretty tasty, I must say, and makes really good toast! This week I cooked a turkey from its frozen state. I wasn't sure about it, but the good old Internet came through for me and not thawing the turkey is actually recommended by the govt. food people and the turkey hotline. Who knew? Anyway, it of course yielded much turkey, so today I made Tex-Mex Turkey soup. Very tasty! It's basically a variation on taco soup. The salsa bottle slipped while I was adding it, per the recipe, so it's kinda spicy, but maybe it will clear out all the goopiness from my cold. Kelsey gobbled it up. I diluted it a little with some water so it wouldn't make the steam come out of her ears. She's so funny. Such an independent little sass, but still wants to nurse constantly throughout the day. I've been toying with the idea of weaning her, but I receive such fabulous physical side effects myself, that I have serious reservations. Plus, everything that ends with Kelsey is really the last I'll experience, since she's the end of the baby road for me. Everything is a little harder for me to give up with her than with Jeremy. I got very melancholy taking down the crib. Sometimes I feel so happy they are growing up and becoming less dependent on me, cause it can be exhausting, but the little babies are so cuddly and fun to hold. My children are very precious to me, in a way that is hard to explain to anyone that never struggled to get pregnant. Tonight I'm thankful that we get the First Presidency Christmas devotional on our TV at home. There's no way we're making it to the Stake Center tonight. As I turned the BYU channel on to get ready for the broadcast, I caught a talk by President Eyring. I will leave you with a quote that struck me.

"The most important and most difficult trial for us all is to become clean and know that we are."

-President Henry B. Eyring

Happy Holidays!!!

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November, Part Deux

Thanksgiving week was full of fun! My cute cousin Katie came down with her family to go to Disneyland. Every time I see them I wish we lived closer to them. They are some of the nicest people I know. Our kids piled on Christmas Mickey Kelsey and her little girl are born in the same month. They play cute together. My cute kids! The kids had fun on Tom Sawyer's Island. Thanksgiving Day we went to visit my mom and dad and grandma. My sister and her little girl came too. Jeremy got to read the book to grandma that she'd given him and show her how much he's learned. Kelsey got her picture taken in the family high chair. It's over 100 years old. It was nice to talk to my mom. I don't get to see her very often. On our way home we stopped by our friend's house to drop off some baby clothes and got to visit with the Greer/Huffaker/Ireland family. So fun to see them! I wish I'd taken a picture, so I just stole this one off FB. Then we drove home and went to our neighbor's house for dessert and fun. The kids had fun with this cool toy. Friday we went to the park for a family photo shoot! Thanks so much to my awesome SIL Kathryn for taking our pictures, and Jared too! She's fixing the lighting on them and I can't wait to see them all done, but here's just one. Kelsey stepped in dog poop and then got it on David and I so we went home to change and then took our photographers to Mimi's for dinner afterwards. Yummy. They brought me the wrong soup by mistake so I got another soup for free! On Saturday we had a Jenkins family Thanksgiving. Kathryn made place settings for everyone with these cute lollipop turkeys. Kelsey tried to eat her lollipop with the wrapper still on. Silly girl. We all had fun holding our new nephew, Chase.Kelsey loves babies. It was Chase's blessing day as well, and he got blessed in the same little outfit Jeremy was blessed in almost 7 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long. With that busy week over, our house has fallen into sick mode. The kids and I have yucky colds and we are lucky to have had a healthy Daddy to take good care of us. Monday he stayed home from work. I was glad he did when Jeremy came to me wanting to make a paper boat. Daddy helped him and they had fun floating it in the bathroom sink.

Happy December to everyone! I'm sure this month will be filled with fun adventures as well!

November, Part 1

A couple weeks ago I took the kids to visit my sister and her family in San Diego. We had a lot of fun hanging out, eating yummy food, and going places together. David even got to come down on the last day and eat yummy tacos with us. We got to visit my grandfather. Jeremy loves to play in their backyard. Here's my cutie patootie niece getting ready for family pictures. I got to take their pictures this year for them and it was so fun! Daddy had the next day off so we went to Disneyland! They are all decorated for Christmas. It's beautiful. One of our favorite holiday attractions is the Haunted Mansion all decked out Nightmare Before Christmas style. Daddy had fun taking pictures of Kelsey while I took Jeremy on a big ride. She's learned how to say "cheese." But only when she wants to of course. Playing peek-a-boo with Daddy and his hat. That Saturday was the last game of the soccer season. The kids love to run through the tunnel of people who came to cheer them on. We missed the team picture because it was on Sunday, so I told David to have the kids pose with their banner. This week we had the soccer team party at our favorite pizza place. Jeremy had fun playing the arcade games. We had fun playing with Kelsey.Jeremy was so excited to get his trophy! He kept asking me when he was going to get it. They gave David a little coaches trophy too. Kelsey liked it and screamed when I took it away from her. I've been wanting to move Kelsey out of our room because we couldn't go in there when she was sleeping. Since bunkbeds were the eventual goal, we decided to get them now. I found an awesome deal on Ebay! Thanks to Grandma who gave us some Christmas money to help buy them!We organized and counted all the screws. David graciously let me help. ;) First one together. Now the top. Ta Da! Jeremy loves them and was so excited to sleep on the top bunk. Kelsey has been doing great sleeping on the bottom with her bed rail to keep her all tucked in and safe.I love these cute surf sheets I found on Ebay for a great deal! And finally, Thursday night/Friday morning was the movie we'd been waiting for - NEW MOON!!! I painted my toenails blood red with sparkles just like Edward! I broke out my red feather boa. I went with some friends to the midnight showing. We made matching shirts that said Bite Me. Thanks ladies, it was so much fun! Can't wait till next year!