And as if Christmas wasn't enough...

We head out to this place next.

Happy New Year!

The reason for the season

This has been a season of giving. We have been able to share our home, time, resources, and baked goods with friends, family, and neighbors. Our girls have given to each other by doing small acts of service, buying gifts, and playing without fighting. We have been the recipients of the kindness and service of family, friends, and neighbors and are so grateful for their thoughtfulness.

Giving.

That is what Christmas is about. It all started with the first gift. The ultimate. The greatest gift that would span time and space and cover all the people that would ever inhabit the earth.

The gift of God's Son.

I am grateful to celebrate His miraculous birth and for our loving Father who sent Him down to save us all. I am grateful that He willingly gave His life for you and for me. And I am grateful that He continues to give mercy, grace, and love through the power of His atonement. That is what Christmas means to me.

Tree report

Dead.



She lived for 23 days (Monday the 19th) before she stopped drinking.

She couldn't survive without water.

A few days later her pine needles lost their color, shriveled up, and turned crunchy.



Yet her skeleton stands waiting for two more days to greet the fat man who delivers.

I hope he is not displeased with her.

She tried her best.

[Her caretakers promise to do better next year by buying the tree a week later, soaking it again in the pool, and watering more consistently each day. They do feel grateful that she lasted longer than any other tree they've had.]

The real deal

One stalk of broccoli came from the store and the other one came from my garden. This one, combined with the other 3 stalks I've got out there, an onion, and maybe some celery probably equal the sum total of output from the winter garden. Oh well. At least it looks and tastes awesome.

Catching up on Christmas

We had dinner and watched the 1st Presidency Devotional with D&C campout style in front of the computer screen.



I've gone into Hobby Lobby 10 times in the last 3 weeks to get supplies for a wreath, presents, chargers, napkin rings, stuffed animal sleeping bags, and numerous other things.



We are doing our first "12 days of Christmas" daily present leaving/doorbell ditching and are all loving the thrill of running away before we get caught.

Several times a week we hop in the car with hot chocolate and drive around looking at lights before bed.

The girls love putting up a piece of the advent calendar every day and everyone is almost here to welcome the baby Jesus. 



Spent time with different girl friends crafting, sewing, and just hanging out with kids running wild. 

We've had 3 fires in the fireplace and I've got logs for a dozen more.

Ellie had the most darling Christmas program at preschool and brought home a beautiful homemade ornament (which broke, but was recreated the following day after another trip to HL).



We attended  a junior league production of the Nutcracker at a local high school with some neighborhood friends and the girls were in heaven.

We ordered our girls main gifts online.  Our neighbor let me send them to her house and her husband  assembled everything today. Score!

A storm came through our toy room and left behind some snowflakes.



Started training for a half-marathon on March 3 with some cute ward girls. Anyone else want in???

We spent time making gingerbread men at the Children's museum and Ellie and Ada were in heaven.

Lauren bought her sisters presents at her school's "Christmas store," and even when I told her she could use a few dollars to buy something for herself she decided to get something for me and Jake instead.



And tonight we hosted an Elders Quorum cookie party with some wonderful company and fabulous desserts.



I can't believe there is just one more week to go.....


(And lest you think we live in a wonderland, I ran over a curb on Saturday in J's car and did this. Big oops for sure)

It's great to turn 4

Our sweet Ellie celebrated her birthday in style with a Christmas birthday party. We put fuzzy decorations on pine cone trees, played pin the nose on Frosty, duck duck reindeer and hot potato Santa. Ellie wanted to invite everyone from her preschool and primary class so we had a house full of sweet little kids who had a great time. She loved opening her presents, decorating sugar cookies, eating cupcakes and hearing her friends sing "happy birthday to you." All in all it has been a great day to celebrate this sweet girl we love so much. I'm so grateful for the 4 years we've had to get to know this amazing, sweet, sensitive, bright, and lovely daughter.

Thankful

I am so thankful that we went to Utah for Thanksgiving.

We drove up on Wednesday, stayed for 3 days and turned it back around on Sunday.

It was a great holiday. I loved being with my family. They are seriously all wonderful people.

We ran the turkey trot, ate a lovely and delicious meal, watched some football (some more than others), saw Breaking Dawn, laughed and joked around, played at the Provo Beach resort, held a baby shower for Courtney and little Vern, saw the Messiah, got some gas station hot chocolate, visited campus and enjoyed being together.

I am thankful to my parents for hosting us, feeding us, loving us, and making the holiday memorable.

I am thankful to my siblings and their spouses for making the trip and for their support and fun loving natures.

We spent Saturday morning with the Utahans on J's side of the family. Jen & Taylor hosted us for brunch at their lovely apartment and we had a great meal with them and Matt and Jessica. We loved talking with them and hearing about whats going on in their lives. We are grateful that they patiently broke the ice with our kids and were so good to them.

After our visit we all headed down the street to visit J's only living grandmother.

She broke her leg 6 weeks ago and is in a facility recovering. She will turn 93 on Christmas Eve. She is truly a wonderful lady and we so enjoyed talking with her and seeing her doing so well, despite her difficult health condition.

We were sad to leave, but so happy that we got to spend those days together. Our girls truly love their extended family members and I am so grateful that they have so many good influences and examples to look to and learn from as they grow up.

Family really is what matters most.

(And since we were having so much fun together, I forgot to take any pictures. Shame on me. Just visualize all of the above events with all of the members of the family I mentioned. If you don't know what those people look like, feel free to create your own cast of characters.)

We'll try anything

Every year we buy a live Chrsitmas tree.

And every year our tree stops drinking water and turns to a crisp pile of needles about 10 days later.

This year we want our tree to last for the whole holiday.

So I got online and researched different ideas on how to keep your tree green. 

Last night we bought our tree and threw it in the swimming pool.

Literally.

(It was AWESOME!)

People say that this works and "keeps your tree green until February."

I don't know if that is true, but if it keeps my tree green until December 25 I'll be one happy girl.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Is it a Mom thing?

I get holes in the knees of my jeans.

The right knee more than the left.

They are in almost every pair of pants I own.

My husband couldn't understand how I, an adult, manage to get holes in my knees.

So I walked him around the house and did a little play of my day.

{Kneel down} pick up toy
{Kneel down} hug crying child
{Kneel down} wipe up spill on floor
{Kneel down} collect laundry
{Kneel down} go through backpack
{Kneel down} fix a hair style
{Kneel down} do a chalk drawing on the sidewalk
{Kneel down} apply a band-aid
and not to forget {Kneel down} pray to make it through the day
{Kneel down} you get my drift...

Am I the only Mom who spends half of the day on her knees in holey jeans?

Guessing game

I love the comparison of these sweet 2 year old faces and hair lengths. 

Toddler 1

Toddler 2

Toddler 3

Halloween tricksters

Ever since my friend Hayley convinced me that my girls can be princesses the other 364 days of the year, they have loved dressing up as something "spooky" for Halloween. Our ladybug, skeleton, and witch made a killing on candy this year and ended up with a gallon sized zip-lock bag full of the stuff. Lucky dentist here we come!

European holiday, Part 6

I'm just going to pound out the rest of our trip so here's to my longest post ever!

MADRID

I loved this beautiful city and I loved seeing it even more with my husband because it is where he spent a life changing 2 years of his life. We arrived on a train ride in the morning and walked through Atocha train station. I'd heard J mention it many times and it was very nostalgic for him to be there again. We set out on foot with our 2 roller suitcases to find our hotel, which we thought was relatively close. After walking, and walking, and walking some more J realized that we were on the wrong street and had gone about a half mile too far. We ended up signaling a cab to drop us at the hotel a mile in the other direction.

Arriving at Atocha where he made many a transfer

We got settled into our room, and then set out on foot to walk through the 2nd area J lived in on his mission. We walked the streets for several hours and it was so fun seeing all the things that came back to him or the memories he had of different streets and buildings. He found his old apartment building, and then we headed across a river to his final area. I loved seeing the parts of Madrid where the working class people live and I could definitely tell that we weren't in the tourist traps anymore. We found his other apartment building and walked through a plaza where they made contacts as a district every week. I was grateful to get a real sense of where he worked as a missionary and am so happy to have something concrete to relate to when we talk about his mission experiences. I didn't realize that he was in such an urban atmosphere, but everything is very close together, tall, busy and crowded. The people get around on bus, train, metro and very few in the city own cars.

Apartment building in 2nd area

The whole building

Apartment building in final area

Plaza Oporto where the district made street contacts

After our walk we went back to our room and got ready to go to the temple. The Madrid temple is beautiful, inside and out. We attended a session that was in Protuguese, but both listened to the headphones in Spanish. The building is exquisite and it was amazing that although we were on the other side of the earth, the spirit of the temple was exactly the same as every other temple I've been in. The workers were so kind and helpful to us and we were able to walk around and see most of the rooms in the temple.

We spent the night exploring the plaza mayor at Sol and enjoyed the night time atmosphere there. I was continually surprised that everyone was out at night- families with young children, teenagers, middle-agers, and even many elderly people. I commented to J that because families and the elderly are out at night it seems to keep the streets safer, unlike here where generally it's the  people up to no good that are out roaming the streets late at night.

Saturday we had another busy day, starting with a morning run around El Retiro, the central park of Madrid. We loved the morning air and saw some great sights as we ran. The buildings in the downtown are very impressive and old, but they are well preserved. We walked along the Calle de Alcala and ended up at a great restaurant recommended by my friend Eryka for some churros and chocolate. It was like a melted chocolate candy bar in a cup that you dipped warm churros in. Divine! We finished off our souvineer shopping at El Corte Ingles and I brought home a beautiful Lladro flamanco dancing doll.

The statue of my lladro doll, except mine is colored

A sampling of our shopping bags

We returned to our hotel and showered and then checked our luggage at the train station in a luggage holding area. We then set out to visit Real Madrid's stadium, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. As we were approching, J noticed that a ton of people had on team gear and when we got out it was very crowded with fans and vendors. We approached the ticket boxes and realized that there was a game that night! J had checked the schedule when we first decided to take this trip, and must have misread the dates so we didn't get tickets. We ran to the ticket window, but the only ones left were over 150 Euros ($225) each and we just couldn't pull the trigger. After that disappointment we went to the Prado art museum and spent an hour seeing the beautiful works of art there. It is probably the most cohesive art museum that I've seen, in that most of the paintings are of Catholic scenes of Christ by Spanish artists.

Luggage lockers are awesome and this fit all of our pieces

Real Madrid's stadium

The Prado

Once we finished our tour there we left to find the streets full of protesters campaining for educational reform. J said that it is completely normal for staged protests to ocurr around the city on a regular basis and it was interesting to see one. We went back to the train station and rented a car for our drive to Cuenca. J was so happy to drive in Spain since he was never able to as a missionary.

CUENCA is a little city (60,000) to the east of Madrid where J served as a branch president for 8 months. It only took an hour and a half to drive there and it was lovely to get outside the big city and see the countryside at dusk. Spain looks kind of like Southern Utah in that there are rolling hills and sage brush and everything is different shades of brown. There were literally olive trees and groves all along the freeway and I could see why Spain is the main producer of olive oil.

Protesters outside of Atocha

Olive trees

We made plans to stay with Margarita, a member of the Cuenca branch, and were warmly welcomed into her piso. She had a beautiful 4 bedroom apartment and gave us our own room and bathroom to use. She served us a wonderful dinner and we stayed up for the next 4 hours talking and laughing together. Margarita's parents live with her now and her father is in poor health and under 24 hour care. Her mother was so sweet and cooked us all the food that we ate.

J and Margarita

Margarita's sweet parents

We woke up Sunday and ate a quick breakfast before heading to church. The church building is housed on the first floor and basement of an apartment building and this Sunday there were 7 members along with the 2 missionaries and us. I played the keyboard and they were so kind and grateful to have someone play music for their church meetings. It was fast Sunday and we had the opportunity to hear the members speak and each took a turn to share our testimonies. J was so overcome the first time he stood up that he had to sit down and collect himself. It was a very  powerful experience to be there with them and the spirit in the branch was very strong. After the meetings we took pictures together and then met up with a member Isabel who offered to tour us around the city after dinner.

Cuenca church members

The members who were there when J was the branch president

The office

The church from outside

We returned to Margarita's home and ate a wonderful meal of salad, paella, bread and had flan and ice cream for dessert. I loved talking to her and hearing about her conversion and feeling of her faith. She told us to come again and stay for a week and we'd love that. We left her home and met up with Isabel and her friend to tour old town Cuenca.

The city was built in the 1600's and was an impressive sight up on the hill. It housed a monastery and a beautiful chapel and had different buildings up and down the street. We also stood on a bridge overlooking the river and enjoyed all of the sights.

Old town Cuenca

The plaza of old town

View from the bridge

We left for the airport and got there just in time to check in the car before it was due. We wandered the streets for an hour looking for a hotel (always book in advance) and finally got to sleep. We were up early to spend our Monday flying. We flew from Madrid to London, had a 2 hour layover and then took the 10 hour direct flight home. We landed and spent 2 more hours going through immigration and customs and finally arrived home at 7pm. Our little girls came bursting out of the door when we opened the garage and it was wonderful to see and hold them again.

We loved our trip. It was seriously amazing and enriching and so memorable. I'd do it over in a heart beat and am so appreciative to J's parents for hosting us in London and to my sister, Dad, and mostly my Mother for watching our girls so that we didn't have to worry. I am more grateful for my husband. He is tough, he can roll with the punches, he is thoughtful and caring and he's my best friend.  I'm glad that we can walk this journey of life together.