This & That

Back Soon

 It’s been kind of a wild and woolly week, but also a lot of fun with family. We are on our last leg of celebrating and I will be back soon when life settles down to a more normal pace. 

Stuff I Know #23---Mindsets

I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately, mostly as it relates to this specific holiday and my attitude about it.

When my husband and I dragged the first Christmas bin down from the loft this year, it happened to be the one that held my nativities. If there's anything I've had a positive feeling about as I make my way through the season, it's getting out all the nativities I've collected over the years.  As I opened each box or bag,  I thought about how that made me feel. It's an activity that's so anti-commercialism, and anti-materialism....so far away from the frenetic "buy me and be happy" ideal retailers start hawking before Halloween.  

I really thought about that.

How did I feel as I unwrapped each piece and placed them just right, so they could all be looking at the Baby Jesus? And I have to admit that the act of doing this, the opening, arranging and placing, soothed and calmed my soul. And I also have to tell you in all honesty it was an answer to a very specific prayer I've had over the course of the last few Christmases. There was a very real sense of peace and comfort as I completed this task this year.

So that made me think some more. Maybe I can take that feeling and spread it over the month. Maybe I can adjust my mindset a little. Maybe I can take that feeling of love I received and extrapolate it to the "have-to" things. I can make the dozens of treats because my kids and grandkids love them and I love my family. I can do the big cleaning jobs because some of my kids are coming to stay and I'm looking forward to time with them. I can do the buying and the wrapping and whatever else needs to be done if I remember the feeling...the feeling that I absolutely know came from a Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me...who knows how I feel and the struggles I have.

The feeling that's helped me adjust my mindset just a little bit about the whole Christmas thing. Maybe that can be extrapolated further to other mindsets and judgements we all might have about specific things. Maybe if we just look or feel deeply enough, we can expand our mindset outward and imagine how others might be feeling about struggles or problems.

Now, that's not to say that I'm going to run over and gush over those first garish things I'm going to see before Halloween. Christmas is always going to be hard in a lot of ways, but this experience has taught me that even as I approach another decade marker next year, I'm hopefully never too old to learn, and never too old to try to do better. Maybe it starts with a change of mindset.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas! That it's filled with those who are dearest to you...that's it's magical in the best way, and most of all that it's filled with love.

Around Here This Week

So around here this week....

This is a shot from the duck pond last weekend at sunrise. When I look at pictures like this on Marc's camera, I'm tempted to go down there to see it for myself. When I look at the thermometer, I'm not. I'm totally OK with cold weather, but I'm not sure I want to go out at Oh-Dark-Thirty just for fun.

I made some cinnamon honey butter...

Good stuff, and the recipe is here

and put it together with some bread...

to give to the men my husband has been working with at church lately.

The wrapping has commenced.

I spent 3 evenings this week participating in the same live nativity I was in last year. You can see that we try to do a good job with the whole experience. We have all kinds of animals...camels, llamas, sheep, goats, chickens, and even a donkey.

This year I was handing out small coins to people waiting in line so they'd be able to pay the tax collector and get into Bethlehem....aka working the crowd. Here are our wise men.

And our angel Gabriel. (Amazing pictures taken by Whitney Majors, who was my partner working the crowd in the lines.)

We even had our own Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

It was long hours, standing and walking around, but it's one of my favorite things to do at Christmas.

We had a surprise Honey Day one day when my daughter-in-law got sick. 

Christmas donuts were the order of the day. The thing I noticed here was that Quincy's eyes are the same color as the frosting on his donut.

These boys managed to finish them off in pretty short order.

Sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week, Collin's family decorated sugar cookies for family home evening. This is how we roll with sugar cookies. We rarely frost....we sprinkle.

Probably the most exciting news for the week came with the results of the gender ultrasound from Marc's family. This will be the second new little grandson arriving during 2019. It comes as no surprise that it will be a boy, and we are thrilled that everything appears to be moving along just as it should. And we definitely know how to do boys in this neck of the woods.

And finally, from my sister's letter board.

:)

Meeting the New Guys

Part of my method to dealing with Christmas is to participate in, and surround myself with, things that will hopefully keep me in the right frame of mind for the season. I usually find a new nativity each year. Love my nativities. You know this about me already. This year there were maybe...um....more than one that caught my attention. 

I don't have anything quite like this one. It comes from a company called Lisa Leonard designs.

This one comes from Mozambique.

This one from Peru.

And this one from Thailand. I'm always pleasantly amazed at the craftsmanship from all over the world that depicts the same event.

Then there was this beautifully, expertly hand-colored card that came from my blog friend, Donna. She's a long-time reader of my blog, and is obviously very aware of how I feel about my nativities. I need to find a little frame that will hold this one. These just make me so happy.

Keeping My Hands Busy

This time of year it's all I can do to keep current with Project Life app pages. There are no other paper crafting or quilting projects going on because I'm just trying to get Christmas accomplished for my family.

The wrapping, the baking, the cleaning.....yep, crazy time of year, and long-time readers will know I have very mixed feelings about this.

But I've been pondering on it a little bit and may have some insights to share later in the week.

Still, the ease of this way of documenting a slice of life every week is still making me really happy.

As you can tell, these are all stories you've already seen,

....but I'm staying accountable by posting them here.

After the first of the year, I'll be ordering my 2018 yearbooks through the app.

They'll sit out in my living room as I accumulate stories for the coming year.

But before I put away last year's books, I'll flip through them...

...and I'll think about the changes that have taken place in my own family...

....and in the world around me, before I start recording what's going on right now, this week. This is a really great way to document a family's history, and I'm happy to give tutorials. Recording what happens in your family, no matter its make up will be something that your posterity will cherish. I know it's something I wish my parents and grandparents had done. OK, PSA over. Now to get back to the wrapping, or maybe it's the baking. I know it's something on the never-ending list.

Absolutely No Cooking

Pretty much. Because my husband was out of town, dinners ran to whatever I could rummage around and find.

There was a little baking last weekend as I made a batch of granola, mostly for gifting.

Both my mother and my in-laws like it, so I usually make some around this time of year for Christmas gifts.

This also happened. Yes, the devout non-drinking gal ventured into the liquor store again to buy rum to start a new batch of homemade vanilla. It wasn't quite as disconcerting as it was the first time. I just stomped in like I owned the place and said I needed rum. 

Kind of like this. The gal at the register pointed to the exact same place it was last time, I grabbed what I needed and was out in less than 2 minutes, much to my relief.

I'm down to my last quart, that you can see there on the right, and since it takes several months for this to do its thing, I needed to start now.

Around Here This Week

So around there this week....

There was a trip out to the ponds before the guys left on their adventure. Some of the kids went along, and then were here while the menfolk were cleaning the foul fowl. Emmett discovered he could tuck himself into the barn.

Church on Sunday. It was my Sunday to be in Primary....always a good thing.

When the guys left on Monday, they hadn't been gone 30 minutes before these arrived. My husband is getting pretty good at that.

Since I was alone for the week, I got to work on some Christmas projects accompanied by my favorite Pandora Christmas channel.

Since Christmas tends to be a really frantic, frenetic time for me, I tend to go for very soothing "elevator" type music in the background.

Maybe it's a mind game, but I feel like it helps.

One of my projects included making myself an angel costume for the live nativity I'm participating in next week. I'll be singing with the heavenly host again, but will also be occupying the butcher shop as I did last year. The latter involves me trying to sell unsuspecting people animal parts, some of which have been supplied by my family.

The Christmas cards went out.

On the fun side, there was this. I love the music, which is very familiar to me.

I took my two grandgirls with me, and what else is there to do while we wait for it to start other than take selfies we can text to family members.

I told Caroline we had to take a nice one first, and then we could take a silly one.

Her dad, who is with my husband and some of his brothers on the critter adventure, responded with this one.

Apparently there are other people in the world who have dead things at their houses. Who knew? 

We took a picture in all our finery at Eric's house when I dropped them off. It was a late school night for them, but we had a good time.

Sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week, I got this little video of Ephraim. He looks like he's having a great time.

Collin's wife, Alison, sent this old church program from 2002, she found in a set of Collin's scriptures. Bryce would have been 9 or 10. I love that there are flowers and a fountain around the temple. Sweet memory.

Also having a great time at his house was Levi. I got these from his mama who left the room, but accidentally left the markers within reach.

When she started gathering them up, he said, "Wait!!! I forgot my feet!" And he grabbed another marker.

And lastly, here is a video published by the BYU Men's Chorus about this past semester. Bryce shows up surprisingly often. Once you kind of locate him in the choir (front right, sometime front row, sometimes 2nd row), it's easy to see him.

 

I Know You've Been Wondering

I know you've been waiting with bated breath, wondering about the status of my Christmas tree. I mean, I had a friend stop me in Target the other day, asking if it was decorated, and had another friend offer her boy as a slave to come help me.

When we last left the tree, Collin had helped my husband get the lights on.

Which made it really beautiful, but that's where the process stopped. We were in kind of a time crunch because my husband and all my Idaho boys were going on a  once in a lifetime yearly adventure.

Well, everyone will be tremendously relieved, I know, to hear that Marc drove over from eastern Idaho on Sunday night before the Great Departure, and helped us finish off the tree. My husband and I had decorated as high as we could reach a couple of nights early. If you look closely, you can see that the Acrophobic Angel isn't actually on top of the tree, but propped up against the top of the tree. That's because the tree is flush with the ceiling and there was no clearance to settle her over the top. 

But, true to her nature, she's floated down to lie flat on a branch in the upper reaches of the tree....and we're not hauling the mega ladder in again to give it a second try.

James is a little worried that we don't have anything on the tippy-top of the tree, but I think we're going to be OK.

Other People's Cameras, the DC Version

Collin got himself a Black Friday/early Christmas present of a new camera that he's been getting used to.

I got a few pictures from his early experimenting which is always nice, since he lives the furthest away right now.

These first few are from David's birthday, and I love the little toddler curve of his cheek right here.

Of course, James had to have a turn. 

Last weekend Collin and James made an excursion to The Washington DC Mall for a few more pictures. I think there were also donuts involved. I heard rumors of Christmas sprinkles with chocolate frosting.

It was a chilly day and there weren't a lot of people around.

Their new area has built in photo opportunities.

I mean, just wander around the corner and there's Abraham Lincoln posing so nicely for you. I guess I'm going to have to haul the big camera out there when I go to visit.

Cooking, And Do I Have To?

It's been a bit of an odd week food-wise here. We had my husband's office party at the beginning of the week, so no cooking there. Then there was the ward Christmas party mid-week, so no cooking there.

Well, I should qualify that. I had to bring a dessert and I elected to bring a pan of Sugar Cookie Bars.

I used the last of the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes to put in bread. It's my favorite. The bread comes out really soft and yummy. I know this because I cut the heel off one of the loaves and ate it when it was fresh out of the oven.

This happened....oh yes it did. The fruitcake is done for 2018. I'm not a fruitcake fan, but it's not Christmas for my husband without it.

There was a BBQ chicken pizza I made for dinner one night with this and that from the fridge and freezer. So there was cooking....just not a lot of formal meal cooking.