Christmas- How are we doing?

Last Christmas morning I wrote about the need to adapt and change our celebration of Christmas because of the stage of life we are in so I thought I would throw out a few comments on how that is coming along.
This year I felt so good leading up to Christmas!  We had all of our shopping done long ahead of time, we had the goodies made and the recipiants chosen, we had a nice fun house to decorate and all the decorations were up and lit, we had two parties and enjoyed the feelings of the "old days". We attended a Christmas Tree lighting, a Parade, the Temple, 3 Christmas Concerts and a wedding reception.   I was able to go spend an entire day with one of my sisters helping another of my sisters and Christmas Eve was a lot of fun.  Emilie, Logan, Tommy and Jack came over and we  unwrapped gifts, we had a nice family dinner (note the red chargers Hope!) and we got an X-Box 360 with Kinex which everyone had fun doing!

 Dad, JJ and I read the Christmas story accounts from Mathew, Luke and Nephi together and enjoyed those quiet moments with the last child home (maybe his last?)  So far so good!  On Christmas morning is was nice to have a reason to get up so we could watch JJ open his gifts.  I made a breakfast casserole (thank you June Smiley from one of our retreats in Newberg!) and Emile brought the boys over for awhile while Logan slept.  I got to watch Toy Story 3 with Tommy (and cried...again!) but all too soon they too had to go home and the house was quiet.  I ate too much junk ( I gave up on points for the day), listened to Christmas music and watched the light snow begin to fall, and started to fall into a bit of a funk (maybe the sugar!). 
So the upstart of all this is that we have made progress toward our "new" celebration but I found the hole...Christmas day itself.  I think I have discovered that I  haven't learned to just relax and enjoy the moments of quiet.  I feel like I should be doing something all the time.  That somehow just sitting and reading a book is shirking my duty.  Dad and I finally sat down and watched one of my favorite Christmas movies...You've Got Mail (right up there with Sleepless in Seattle and While you were Sleeping!) and I felt better! 
Somehow I think that moving into the house and all of the decorations made me feel like things really were like they used to be.I realized though that with half of our family on the other side of the country and everyone having their own lives to worry about the reality is that I need to change focus.  The incident with my sister's health this year also reminded me once again of the fact that we never know if there will be a next Christmas for us.  That each one is special in it's own way and that we need to enjoy all of life and the love and connections we do have today.
 They canceled church for our ward this morning because of the weather but Emilie's ward still had church so we were able to go and it really changed my attitude.  When we discussed in Relief Society the difference between Joy and Happiness I realized that I had been looking at the wrong thing.  That we can always have Joy and that Happiness is fleeting.  Joy comes from within and Happiness is dependent on outside factors.  What I was missing was the JOY of Christmas.  That what really does matter is that Christ really did bring JOY to the World, and to me.

Pretty video of Mary Did You Know

I was looking for a video of "Mary's Lullaby" and came across this one of" Mary Did You Know" so I thought I would share it.

Home at last

This past week we had two parties in our new home and it felt so good to finally be back in a position to open our home to others.
After 3 years of having things packed away it was an early Christmas just getting to see our belongings again! Having the parties pushed us to get boxes unpacked and things on the wall and so now we truly are all moved in.  The house has such a warm, cozy feeling now that it is personalized with our belongings. I made a little video but for some reason it wouldn't upload so here are pictures of some of my favorite things in my new house.

Our practically perfect tree! It's a fraser fir from North Carolina.

My lovely Nativity:

Our living room with the tree of life.  You can't tell from the pictures but the walls are painted perfect colors for our furniture!

My Creation Spheres right where they belong!

Our new nifty bookcase (it turns!) along with some old friends:

Our dining room decked out for the holidays (I wouldn't have picked the wall paper!)

Dad's wall in his office and our great wood sculptures from John

Dad's favorite toy is back out!

Our Bedroom with our new lamps and our Lake Oswego comforter:

And Emma has taken her place back in my room. I love this picture.

My fun wall in my kitchen (some updating of pictures needed!)

Dad has been having a great time baking and getting things ready for Christmas.  He and Emilie have made quite a few goodies this year including some new ones. We made pepperment bark from a receipe in our ward newsletter, covered ginger cookies with chocolate, made the ever popular peanut butter fudge, chocolate fudge, almond joys, and peanut brittle and   I even made Stollen again this year for the first time in ages.  Tommy and Jack enjoyed playing while we baked and last weekend Brittany came and got in on some of the experimental baking!

I love Christmas, it brings back so many wonderful memories for me...and it lets me accessorize!

Whew!

I haven't posted for awhile because things have been a little busy!  First of all we moved into a new house on the 13th of November and it was like Christmas as we unpacked boxes of things we haven't seen in 3 years! Here is a picture of the new house.(we are just renting)

We are enjoying having lots of space but it seems very odd after having lived such "tiny"lives for these last several years.  We decided to move when we found out that a friend had been trying to sell their house for 2 years and had no offers.  They own the home outright so they can afford to rent it which is nice.   We don't know how long we will be here since it will remain on the market but nothing over $150,000 has been selling around here for a couple of years.

We had Thanksgiving in our new home with Emilie, Logan, Tommy, Jack and JJ.  JJ has now moved back in with us and has a nice space downstairs which will allow him to save money. These pictures were taken after the dinner, thus the naked Turkey! It's great to have space for everyone and a place for the kids to play!

We had a surprise snow last week so here are a few shots from the fleeting snow.  We had gone to DC to the temple and it snowed while we were gone.  It was the perfect snow in that it didn't stick to the sidewalks or roads but coated everything with a beautiful glistening snow.It was all gone by the time we got home from church the next morning which was a little sad.

  It is now biting cold out (20degrees) and Dad is out  putting up the christmas lights.  We have two parties here next week and we are trying to get all decked out for those. It is fun to actually be able to do all of this!  We had to go to get our tree on our lunch hour yesterday because we don't have any time after work.  There are events in the town or school every night this week (which is fun but a little exhausting). 

Last week my wonderful sister Kathy ended up in the hospital and she is still there.  She had emergency surgey on her intestines. The surgery went really well but she had problems with breathing after the surgery and she is  in the ICU because they still have her on a ventilator.  Dad took me up on Monday so that I could be with her and I had a very special time of sitting with her and having her communicate to me through writing. I loved being able to just sit with her and serve her.  She has always been such a serving person to others. She is healing well from the surgery so once the breathing issue is over she should be able to come home after a few more days in the hospital.

  We (the sisters) are scheduled to go to the Greenbriar on Dec 19-21 but they are willing to move our reservations if necessary.  Please keep her in your prayers.

Dad is having his baking day this Saturday and Emilie and Britney are coming over to help.  He has new receipes that he is anxious to try out and will do the old favorites too.  We might even make stollen this year!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!