Holiday Wrap-Up

Flashback to Thanksgiving: Greggie and Kristina drove up to the Parents Place for Turkey Day Weekend, and we were thankful that they did because we put them right to work. They helped Homely and I with the lights.

And they aided my mom in the heavy labor part of the fudge production process.

And Greggie even helped violate, I mean, prepare Turkey Lurkey for dinner.

Investigating the turkey was actually part of an informal homework assignment from Greg's anatomy professor at BYU.

Considering Greg's aversion to germs and obsession with clean hands, I hope he got A LOT of extra credit for this.

Homely ran some treats around to one of his home teaching families and came home with two real Christmas trees. One for the living room, and a tiny Charlie Brown-ish tree for the front porch.

Because there hadn't been a REAL Christmas tree in the house for over thirty years, we were woefully unprepared to host our arboreal friends. A lot of different Macgyver-ish attempts were made to try to get an old tree stand to work...

... but in the end Homely and Greggie ended up making a Walmart run to procure a new stand for the indoor tree. Then the newly weds used a variety of books and dvd cases to help it stand in such a way as to not drive OCD Greg completely crazy.

The next day, I found a simple, redneck solution so the old stand could would with the tiny outside tree.

The Christmas Season officially started in my cute little Cow Town with our junior high staff Christmas party.

Visual approximation of our junior high staff Christmas party. I didn't get any photos :-(

And then the next week, Jolene and Paul hosted our December FHE/Ugly Sweater Party.

President Jones won the ugly sweater competition.

But when we sat down to an amazing dinner, we all felt like winners!

My Christmas break started out back at The Parents Place. It was so fun to watch Kristie celebrate her first Christmas.

The IF temple visitors center was having a special art exhibit, so Warren helped me take the girls one Sunday afternoon.

Kylie's favorite part was petting the "pony" in the nativity display.

Kenna wasn't feeling great and was less than impressed with, "The place with the Jesus pictures."

My mom, Becky, and I continued the family tradition of making sugar cookies. My IF niblets are excellent bakers.

Bubba made some pretty fun sound effects when it was his turn to cut cookies. After cutting out his cookies, he wanted to put all of the scraps on his pan too. He didn't want to waste any dough.

While the cookies were baking/cooling, the girls went on a treasure hunt. I wrote/drew clues and hid them around the house that led them to some Christmas activity books my mom had wrapped up for them. Kenna and Kylie enjoyed the treasure hunt to much, they wanted clues left for all sorts of things the next few days. I think we might have created some treasure-hunting monsters.

Eventually the cookies were frosted...

... and decorated....

... and sampled. 

Christmas dinner was celebrated with Christmas crackers (and the accompanying crowns).

Kristie didn't get a cracker or a crown... but she didn't seem to mind too much.

My folks and I made a quick trip to see the Utah niblets after Christmas. On the way, we stopped at Ikea to pick up my big, cute gift from my parents (More on that in an upcoming post. I have a feeling that my attempts at putting it together will be very blog worthy.)

My mom made Jenny's kids quilts for their beds, but the kids didn't really get the "for their beds" part.

They dragged them around for the three days we were there so they could wrap up in them at all times and in all things and in all places.

I gave the older five kids bow ties, but Alton got a new shirt with his awesome nickname on it. Behold Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All.

I'm sure he appreciated the shirt, but it appears that all Stormageddon really wanted for Christmas was his thumb and his momma.

Homely spent some quality sports watching time with his eldest grandson, both wrapped up in blankets made especially for them.

While the quilt-making grandma read stories to the other kids upstairs.

Except for catching some sort of evil alien virus the day after Christmas, this is shaping up to be one of the best-ever holiday seasons.

And not just because Warren gave me one of the best-ever Christmas presents...

A Cumber-pillow!

What a great way to start a new year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to (and from) Idaho, Utah, Arizona, California, and New York!

Forty Christmases and counting...

40 Christmases from Mindy Haws on Vimeo.

The Bridge of Death...

...but not THIS Bridge of Death.

Last week I was checking the weather, much like I do every afternoon, when a photo (that happens to be completely unrelated to weather, what is up with THAT, Weather Channel?) caught my eye.

This bridge looked awfully familiar. 

 It looked like the bridge I drive across when I go to the temple.

Or when I go to regional Relief Society training meetings.

Or when I go to State Department of ED meetings.

Or when I want to shop somewhere other than Wal-Mart or Cal-Ranch.

And do you know WHY it looked that that bridge?

Because it IS that bridge. 

I don't think this newly acquired knowledge about the Perrine Bridge especially dangerous and/or deadly is going effect my travels much. I mean, I already close my eyes when I drive across it. (Ha ha! Just kidding, Policeman  Dan!) What it will do is knock yet another point of interest off the list of places I can take my sister's kids when they visit my valley.

Jenny has already vetoed trips to Shoshone Falls (a.k.a. The Giant, Bone-Crushing Waterfall), City of Rocks (a.k.a. Home of Enormous Child-Squishing Boulders), and Massacre Rocks (a.k.a. MASSACRE Rocks). So now that the Perrine Bridge has been labeled "One of the 33 most dangerous places" (by the folks at the Weather Channel, the leading authorities on Bridge Safety) I am afraid that, the next time my Utah niblets visit, they are going to be spending a lot of time in my home.

But not in my guest room.

One of the world's 33 largest spiders was recently spotted near my computer desk, and I think it is going to take more than my two burley home teachers to drag him outside and put him in a horse trailer.

But then perhaps they could take him for a tour of the bridge?

Thankful, Part 4

And to wrap things up (albeit a few days late)...

25) I am, oh, so thankful for a four-day Thanksgiving Break!

26) I am equally thankful for beautiful driving weather so that I could spend that break with family.

27) Even though I haven't always acted thankful for him, I am glad that my brother Warren was born on November 29th.

28) I am thankful that, in the midst of the craziness that was Black Friday, I was able to find the one thing I really wanted: a Downton Abby hat!

29) I am very thankful that, during that break, I was able to be in the temple as my dad was sealed to his late parents.

 

30) I am also very thankful that my newest sister-in-law was willing to proxy-up with my brother during that sealing. My grandma threatened to haunt anyone who dared do her temple work, and now she will have to split her haunting time between four of us!

Thankful, Part 3

This week I am thankful for... 

14)...kidlets who get REALLY excited for a couple weeks of sentence dissection.

15) ...the end of our first sentence dissection unit and the removal of 100 sets of surgical gloves and masks from my cluttered classroom.  

16) ...the awesome people I get to work with every day.

17) ... A staff so awesome I have to count them TWICE!

 Click here for the KMVT news story about the best school ever

18) ... My sister's food blog. She posts her weekly menu and links to the recipes she uses. It rescued me from a dinner rut and is the source of some of my new favorite meals.

19) ... the opportunity I had to feed the sister missionaries last week. (I made the sweet balsamic glazed pork roast from Jenny's blog!)

20) I am thankful I was able to serve as a sister missionary. (I learned so much!)

21) And I am especially thankful for the people I met and was able to learn from.

22) And I am oh, so very thankful to have served in Canada!

23) I am thankful that Brianna and Spencer are having a baby! I am extra thankful that they are having a girl because I had the BEST niblet nickname picked out for a little girl from upstate NY : Buffy (the Buffalo Baby!)

24) I am also super stinkin' glad that my older sister was born thirty-something years ago. Happy Birthday Jenny!