Christmas Week 2012 - Part Two

Christmas Week Part II

 ... and here is the rest of the story.  On Christmas at one, in addition to having Grandpa, Cheryl, Dad, me, Darby, Ben, Spencer, Emily, Sam and Beckie, we welcomed, Ashley and her family, Davin and his family and Becca and her Family, for a total of 22 peeps.   To the right are Becca and Brady, with Ashley, Zach and Andy, shown below, all at dinner.

I loved this shot of Davin and Bri, because Elias, behind them is putting such a huge amount of Grandpa Scott's amazing mashed potatoes in his mouth!

This is a picture we rarely see of Dad anymore, with the stack of plates as he finishes up everyone's lefts overs ... Spencer is even helping.

Here's another picture that tickled my fancy, Ian, at 11 is the oldest grandson, and here he is teaching Elias and Titan how to pop bubble wrap ... I love the look of amazed adorement on Titan's face, don't you?

 And here are a few general shots taken as everyone opens gifts.

Of course we can always count on Uncle Ben for comic relief, right?

I was thrilled to get this family shot of Ashley and her loved ones.

Becca shows off the amazing tshirt quilt she made out of Brady's old skate boarding shirts from back in the day!!

 

After opening gifts, Briahnna and Dave rallied the troops to head over to Trevor and Nell's to change out their appliances with the ones that Britt had taken out of her house that was short sold.  She had intended to sell them, but decided it was too much hassel, and since they were a little nicer than what T and N had in their house, and since they (T and N) had picked them up and stored them for Britt, she decided to give them to T and N.  Emily, Britt and Bri decided it would be fun to put them in while T and N were at Christmas with her family out of state.

 

They all went over, but Dad's only key to their house opened just the back, basement door ... (Read its at the end of a hallway with a couple of stairs then though a laudnry room, down another hall, up a set of stairs ...)  The front door has a keyed dead bolt.  The boys (Spencer and Dave) figured out how to muscle the bigger appliance up onto their deck, and through the door there into their upstairs family room.  They spent the rest of the day and got most of it done.  Then Dave and Bri headed off to see Les Mis, while Spencer, Dad and I watched Elias and Adilyn and watched The Grinch that Stole Christmas with Jim Carey. 

 

Dad went back on Wednesday (while I was at work) and finished up.

As I mentioned, I worked Wednesday and Thursday, while dad did the install at T and N's as well installing the flat screen TV the kids had given us for Christmas in our bedroom.  Of course he also spent  more time at work on the bathroom renovation.  Emily helped a bit with Grandpa, when dad was off to the hardware store, etc, which we appreciate.

I spent a lot of both days at work, putting together this drawer of Christmas memories.  It was a super fun project, and just makes me happy to look at it.  When I got home on Thursday night, Dad and I watched a Sherlock episode in our room!!

 On Friday, I was home, doing normal home chores, while Dad did more work on the bathroom, then in the evening we watched Sherlock again.  Thanks kids, what a super thoughtful gift, we love how you all work together to make things better for us all.

 On Saturday, Dad and I were off to a long day of movies and meals with Barb for her birthday.  Above we are shown with Jeff and Robin at the movies.  Below it is us with Barb and Randy.  We saw Les Mis, Lincoln, Jack Reacher, Parental Guidance and The Hobbit.  Parental Guidance was my least favorite and Les Mis was my favorite, not surprisingly.

Some of us had dinner at Zupa's ... where I discovered a new favorite soup, their Chicken Enchilada Chili ... YUM.  Dad and I both liked it and will be returning soon I am sure.  I made a knock off version of the soup for our Sunday dinner, surprisingly I had everything I needed on hand except red bell peppers, pretty good eh?

After dinner on Sunday Davin and Bri came over to play games ... Emily and Sam came up too.  I won both games, weirdly, but I guess everyone gets lucky once in a while.

So that was the week of Christmas.  I loved having Dad home all week, even though I had to work a couple of days.  Christmas was awesome, and we hope everyone had as much fun as we did.  Love you all!!

Christmas Week 2012 - Part One

Christmas Week Part I

 Here we go ... its Monday and Christmas Eve ... I am busy getting Bethlehem Dinner prepared, with the help of Dad, when he is not distracted by his boys .... Sam brought up his trombone, so Spencer went and got the one he, Trevor and Davin had shared growing up... then back to the attic for Dad's trombone ... and we have an impromptu trombone trio.  Sam even worked with grandpa Carlo, until he got him to toot a few notes ... Grandpa had a delightful time, though he was concerned when Beckie was bothered by the volume of sound and said they should not "scare the little cowboy" ... guess Grandpa knows about Beckie's Texas roots.

The table was laid in our wood and pottery best, with rough woven clothes and candlesticks.

Then we gathered the pilgrims, both those that came to Bethlehem to be taxed, as well as those who came from afar following a star.  There were locals gathered there as well, such as the Inn Keeper (Who was repeatedly scorned for his lack of Inn-keeperness) and local shepperds who came to see what all the hullabaloo was about!

 Above are the three kings from the orient ... to the left is Joseph and the 'baby Jesus'.

After Dad read to us from the Gospel of Luke, we watched the boys participating in push up wars, not really sure where that came from.  But as you can see it was Elias, who topped them all, so to speak.

Christmas morning fell on Tuesday.  We had sweet rolls and hot chocolate while we opened gifts ... having Beckie there made it extra fun and we appreciated Emily and Sam's willingness to join the rest of us upstairs ... Spencer was even there in body (if not in spirit, he spent as much time the whole weekend texting and skyping with his friend Brit)

Darby and Beckie open favorite gifts.

Here is Spencer opening his gift from Britney.

And this is Grandpa with his memory book from Emily.  She put it together to help him know the people is is around most of the time.  He has really enjoyed it.

 

Since there are so many pictures already, I decided to do this week in two segments.  The other segments starts with our Christmas lunch.

An Ugly Sweater, a Luncheon, a Duece and a half Wrapping it all up..

On Monday Dad had a party at work, an ugly sweater party ... and he wanted to wear my favorite (and only surviving Christmas sweater, the one his mother gave me.)  What is that about.  Unfortunately Tonya wore the same sweater so those that thought it was an ugly sweater split the vote ....

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, someone was busy slaving over a stack of hot presents that needed wrapping ...   I also finished up the Christmas cards, got them mailed and picked up a few more gifts, which I then wrapped.

On Tuesday I spent the day getting ready for my luncheon with my book club on Wednesday.   Davin and Bri came by in the evening with the Deuce ... even Aunt Cheryl thinks he's nuts ... but when they tell you why they got it, it makes sense.  I finished up my long day setting the table for the party and taking pictures of it, and then, yawn ... blogging about the place cards .... yeah that happens a lot. 

 Then Wednesday morning Emily was sweet enough to think of getting the ice and snow off the walks so the book club ladies would dare risk walking to the house.

Beckie obliged by wearing the colors of my luncheon table, pretty cute eh?

 

 

 Another lady chose the roast recipe, which required a meat thermometer and a crust ... whoa, a first for me on both counts.  Ann Shumway, shown center left, got home from her half year sabbatical in Australia and New Zealand (Her husband is a professor at BYU) ... it was so fun to hear all the wonderful stories she had to share.  That is the day that Grandpa refused to wear his glasses, we later found that one of the nose pieces had broken off, leaving a metal shard ... ouch.

I worked on Thursday, as usual ... then came home and crashed. Dad who had been working in Tooele all week, ran down to St. George to get a shelf count on Thursday, stopping to bring my squeekie cheese on his way home. (my hero)   On Friday I finished up a couple of projects for the Christmas basket for Trevor and Nell ... The spell book is for Scott, the craft kit is for Nell. 

I worked Saturday and Dad stayed home to make another batch of dust to cover my wood floor in the kitchen ... OK, he also managed to get some green board up in the bathroom, tear out some trim from a closet upstairs to retrim the door in the main floor bath, as well as assorted other bit projects that took way longer than they should have.

 When I got home from work, he suggested we watch Love Actually ... which of course I love.  It wasn't until I put my feet up that I noticed the socks I had been wearing all day did not match .... silly me.

Since Spencer's Brit is back in NYC he decided to spend the weekend with us and go to church.  It was great to have him, and we had some great meetings.  I had prayed the night before to be able to feel the spirit and I was amazed how the Lord healed my heart, from that one request.  A woman in the ward who has disliked me for years, was standing in the hall, I made a complimentary comment to her, and felt compelled to give her a hug.  Now I am not really a hugger, but at that moment I felt such a rush of love for her, that I knew it was the spirit telling me to just love her and not worry how she feels about me.  It was very cool. And I just have to say, she was quite surprised.

 

After church Trevor and Nell stopped by on their way to Arizona to pick up their gift basket and drop off their exchange gifts.  It was great to see them for just a minute, though we will definitely miss them on Christmas eve and day. Emily and Sam agreed to join us for dinner, and even managed to talk Ben into coming down.  We were 8 at table, plus Beckie ... pretty good for an off week.  After dinner Spencer got up and cleared the table then did the dishes, what a nice treat for me and Dad. 

 So then we were able to run our neighbor goodies around, after which  all the young adults played games. Oh, and Sam wanted to build a fire too, which turned out to be quite smokey, but still fun. Beckie was quite interested in it as well, as you can imagine.