2025 Christmas Card and Newsletter

It seems that every year I receive fewer and fewer Christmas cards.   While I totally get that Christmastime is an exceedingly busy time of  many commitments;  I consider Christmas card sending and receiving as one of my favorite parts of the season and you should worry if the day ever comes that I don't send them.    I enjoy thinking about aspects of my upcoming Christmas cards in snippets all through the year.   I consider all sorts of questions, like what picture(s) might I use, what tidbits might I include, how to structure the newsletter, who  I should purge  from my list after I haven't heard from them in a few years, how I can make it more interesting, etc.    In all fairness, I don't usually DO anything about my Christmas cards until late November, but I usually already have a good idea of what I will do by that time.   

This was another entire year with one of our family members on a mission, which meant no whole family photos to include.   Other missionary years included 2017, 2021, 2023, and now 2025.  I've approached this in different ways before, like the year we just put in a part-family photo and included photos of the missionary on the back, and the one time we commisioned an artist on Etsy to create this artistic version, but I knew early on that we would just do a collage this year.  I found this template on Canva and from there it was just a matter of finding the right photo for each person. I changed up the design a bit too and had it printed at a local print shop.      

Here's a little about each photo and why we chose it.   
The photo of Glen and I was taken at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. I think the background is lovely and it's a cute photo of us.  
The photo of Spence and Kiwi was taken by his request one day when he needed a photo for a work spotlight.  I knew instantly that I would include that one in the Christmas card.  
The photo of Cam and family was taken by a photographer friend of theirs near their apartment in Birmingham shortly before they moved.  I love how these turned out.   
Graduating from BYU was definitely one of Emma's big highlights of the year, so using a grad photo was a no-brainer for me.  
Adam had A LOT of mountain climbing selfies in the camera roll, but I like this one of him at the Provo City Center temple the best. 
There were other pics I liked better of Ellie, but I wanted one of her by herself that showed a little glimpse of the beautiful area she's serving in.  This one standing at Ventura Harbor (I think) fit the bill perfectly!  

The photo of me with Lucie and Oliver was taken in Rhode Island on Halloween.   It was one of my favorites that included them!  
I love this photo of Ellie and her companion, Hermana B, who is from Australia.  They get asked all the time if they are sisters.  
This photo of Glen and I was taken in the Dolomites.   
This *almost complete* family photo was taken this past summer when Cam came to town.   I was super sad that Glen and I didn't hop in the picture as well, otherwise that one may have ended up on the front of our card.  It's also missing Garrett and Ellie though, so it's all good.  
I like how this photo of Adam, Glen, and I at a BYU football game this past fall shows a glimpse of how much of our life is currently spent down in Provo!  

For the newsletter, I just ended up purchasing a template on Etsy, when I couldn't find anything I liked on Canva.   I included a quick rundown on each person and also had it printed at a local print shop.   

  I have been gradually whittling my list down over the years as I've been receiving fewer and fewer cards in return and this year I'm down below 200.   It makes me sad taking people off my list, but when I don't hear from them for a few years in a row, or if I know they've moved and make no effort to give me their new address, I usually take them off.  Good friends and relatives being the exceptions.  I leave them on regardless of whether they send anything or not.  

 I had so much fun making my own cards, that, once again, I volunteered to design and print some for my Mom as well.   The background in this photo with all of us siblings and Mom  in the Dolomites almost looks fake, it's so stunning, but I can attest that it's 100% real!   

So, in other words, my obsession is still going strong and you can find me excitedly running to the mailbox every single day to see what the haul is.   

What are your thoughts on Christmas cards?  I know many people choose not to send them and don't really get that excited about receiving them.    If you don't send them, why not?  I'd love to hear what you think!  

 Click here to see Christmas cards and newsletter from past years.   

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS!  

Another Thanksgiving in the Books!

I feel like I've been a little off my game with blogging lately and I'm here today to try to get caught up a bit by {finally} blogging about Thanksgiving.   What about the trip we took back in September, you ask?  Well, blogging about that, my friends, is going to have to wait for another day.  Maybe another year.  My bandwidth is not quite there for diving into trip photos yet.   

So, I'll start off the rundown on Thanksgiving with our Christmas decorations.      I've been feeling a lot more minimalistic this year and we didn't even put half of the ornaments on the tree this year.  I originally thought we might get a narrow tree for the dining room to display some of the other ornaments, but ultimately we left it more sparse.   Maybe we'll find a tree on clearance at the end of the season.    

I also tried to go a little lighter on decorating the display shelves.    It's probably still too much and it's definitely way too much brown on brown, but until I finally get around to painting these shelves, it is what it is.  It usually takes 5+ years of an item being on my home improvement to-do list before I even think about making it actually happen. Someday...perhaps!     

IN Virginia, we almost always hosted Thanksgiving at our house, but we haven't done it much since moving here to Utah, since my Mom was already filling that role when we arrived.  {Click here to see a glimpse of  past Thanksgivings}. It's been nice to just show up as a guest the past few years.   This year, however, my Mom and sister needed a break and we became the host house!   With all the hosting we've done with the YSAs the last few months, it didn't feel as stressful as it might have otherwise.   We had 2 of our 5 kids there {Spence and Adam}, my Mom, my sister, two aunts, one uncle, three cousins, the mother-in-law of my cousin, and four kids of my cousin.   We assumed we'd have some of our YSA ward members join the crew, but everyone we talked to already had plans, and the 1st counselor beat us to the punch with the two that didn't.    That was right about 20 people...just enough to keep things lively, but without it being that stressful.   

Glen  smoked the turkey, made mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Adam and I made the pies, which turned out dog ugly, but tasted pretty good anyway!    I need to keep working on my gluten free pie crusts!   

The rest of the Thanksgiving dinner was made by everyone else, which is an awesome way to do things. We played one round of Codenames and then I gave everyone a postcard challenge.   Everyone picked a random word and I went through my postcard stash after they left and sent them a postcard with that word on it.  No one stumped me, though a few people got close (all with food words).   

 In the end I actually found postcards with a pretzel....

pasta...

 and another with a taco on it...  

The words they gave me (besides taco, pasta, and pretzel) were iridescent, watermelon, tiger, purple, lake, candy, beach, pig, octopus, and heat.  And none of the rest of them were that hard.  

 Haha!   Yes, I'm aware that I'm quite a nerd when it comes to postcards.    Feel free to leave a comment and challenge me with your own word.  😆

Now, back to more Thanksgiving shenanigans. 

The boys also played a lot of Magic the Gathering...

And I was quite enraptured with the pics from Thanksgiving out East!   I really missed having any of our girls home and I am somewhat obsessed with Oliver and Lucie right now.  I really really need to see them again soon.   Isn't that flannel on Oliver the cutest?!   

 Adam gave a talk the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so I skipped out on part of 2nd hour and went to watch.   He spoke about becoming new creatures through Christ and did a great job! 

Last but not least, we did a peppermint ice cream taste test over Thanksgiving week.   

Last year, we did Tillamook vs. Umpqua and declared Umpqua the winner.   

This year we put BYU Creamery and Farr's peppermint up against Umpqua....

And Umpqua won the day again!  

 It's got a great creamy texture and by far the best peppermint flavor.    We'll look for more brands to test next year and see if any can unseat Umpqua!   

 

All in all, it was a great long weekend with my boys and it was nice not to have much on our schedule.  I've got a lot to be thankful for and you, my dear blog readers, are on that list!  Thanks for tuning in and have a beautiful holiday season filled with  peace and lots of love.  

Nostalgia in Rhode Island

Hello, friends!  

Rhode Island may be small, my grandkids might be small, and the length of my trip may have been small, but the energy when I visited in October was anything but small!  We played hard while I was there and I left there much more physically tired than when I'd arrived, but  I hadn't gone there for rest.   My main goal for coming was to hang out with my girls and to spend as much time as possible with Lucie and Oliver, so that's what I did.  This blogpost is to show a glimpse of my time there.  

First off, I have a question to ask you.   Have you ever been to New England in the autumn time?     If your answer is, no, then I highly suggest adding it to your bucket list.    I was actually there just barely past the prime of fall colors, and even still it was glorious.    

Living in Utah has many perks, but every autumn I find myself pining for East Coast fall—the real deal, with dramatic leaf colors and enough humidity to make your hair feel feelings. In Utah, the trees try, bless them, but it’s just not the same and I intensely loved the opportunity to experience a taste of a Rhode Island fall.   One morning we three girls took a little jaunt along this trail and the nostalgia was strong!  

 (FUN FACT:  Did you know that in New England, people walk on the left side of trails and pass on the right?   Apparently, it's a regional quirk, which I found quite charming in its own  confusing way.)  

Another day, while the rest of the adults were at work, I kept the kids out of preschool and took them on a traipse through the woods, where I experienced more nostalgia as I reflected on the many woodland adventures I used to bring my kiddos on back in  the day.

We also spent a couple hours at the local library to play with toys and read books.  They had a great time and I was impressed at how toddler friendly a place it was.  We spent a lot of time in the library when our kids were young, but it wasn't quite so fun a place as this one was.  We could have spent all day there, except the kids eventually got hungry and tired.   

Another day, my girlies took the day off of work and we went to Newport together. We visited Beavertail Lighthouse, which was closed, but  we enjoyed walking around and enjoying the ocean views.  

Then we took the Cliff Walk and stopped at the Breakers Mansion for a tour. Lucie decided it was a castle and was trying to figure out where the princesses lived!   

Then it was time for some ice cream  {a family tradition}!  We found this cute spot in town and enjoyed it, despite the cold weather!  

I also very much enjoyed being  with them on Halloween.  Lucie's costume included an Elsa dress, a crown, wand, and butterfly wings, as per her request.  When asked what she was, she gave a different answer every time.  Sometimes she was a fairy ballerina princess.  Other times  a butterfly ballerina.  And still other times, a magic queen.   Whatever she was, she was charming and thoroughly enjoyed herself.   Oliver had no anticipatory excitement about Halloween, but as soon as he realized that people were handing him candy, he caught the excitement bug really quickly.  He was adorable waddling around in his little dino costume. 

Over the course of the few days I was there, we shared a lot of silly, loud, grumpy, and snuggly moments!   

And I loved seeing a glimpse of the life they're building together.  💗

Mostly I just really enjoyed being able to spend time with them without anywhere else I had to be. 

It was good rest for my soul, even if  I left there needing a nap.  

Life Via Quotes to My Missionary

 I grew up in a home where being funny was valued as a desirable trait.   I tried really hard to be funny when I was young, but at some point had to admit that quick wit that requires the ability to think on your feet is completely and totally beyond the scope of how my brain works.   Self-deprecatory sarcasm is usually about where my humor efforts land these days--like "Oh, yeah.  I can totally win a karaoke contest.  Just sign me up and I'm there."  It's total hogwash, but relies on the other person knowing I'm a terrible singer to even be slightly funny.   And because there isn't actually any wit involved, it's not actually funny at all.  And some people might actually believe me and think I'm just a really confident singer and if I'm not careful I'll be asked to be the primary music leader or something.

  But, I digress.       

Recently I came across a few of my old blogposts and was reminded of the fact that  I'm not quite as unfunny in writing as I am in person.   Don't get me wrong.   I fully know that 99.3% of the posts on this blog are about as boring as the footnotes of a textbook on ferns, but, I do have written evidence that I have  occasionally posted mildly funny content.    

Here are a couple that made me laugh... (10 commandments of a teenage boy,  princesses don't toot, three versions of how to pack, helpful advice) 

But, I still claim no real wittiness, even in writing.    Really, it's all about the kids.   Kids make life funny and the only kids left in my life are living 2000+ miles away from me, therefore I continue on blogging like an out of work botanist.  Not that I'm calling all botanists boring, but maybe some.       

So, you all know my style well enough to know that I'm not really into writing long essays on any topic, so I must be  leading this blogpost to be about something from our lives and you're right.   Today you get the privilege of reading about our lives via some direct quotes from a recent letter I sent  to my sweet missionary. I didn't really start off trying to be funny, but I do admit to feeling slightly off-kilter that night.   Long Sundays will do that to me! Vote in the comments if you have a favorite quote and whether you think I should always blog in an off-kilter state of mind or if I should stick with   blogging only when I’m well rested and feeling sedate (which would be never). 

      
QUOTE 1: 
" I am writing this letter to you today under the influence of not eating since breakfast, spending 13 hours at church (a typical Sunday of late), then stuffing myself silly at 8pm with a lunchmeat sandwich and previously frozen brownies.

DINNER OF CHAMPIONS!!!!! 💣

Do you want me to send you the recipe? Of course you do. It was fantastic and you'll probably want to make it every day.

INGREDIENTS:
lunchmeat
cheese
mayo
sauerkraut
bread (if you're me then make it gluten free)

brownies, broken into bite size pieces (frozen for at least 3 weeks)

DIRECTIONS:
Slather it all together (brownie bites intermingled with sandwich bites) and eat within 2 minutes 37 seconds.
ENJOY!


Next time I make it, I'll take a picture, so you can see how it all comes together." 


QUOTE 2:   
Oh look at that! We had a ward party on Tuesday night. 


There are cute guys in this picture that I would totally set you and Hermana B. up with....just say the word in 7ish months or so...


Sorry...that's the lack of sleep talking....you can forget I even said anything.

You'll never guess what I was in charge of for the party.

I'll give you three guesses....

1. teaching everyone the macarena?

NO!

2. bull fighting?

Good guess, but no.

3. karaoke leader?

Heaven help us all....that would be a big fat NO to the heck no!


I guess I'll just tell you and you can stop wondering.

I was in charge of making gluten free versions of all the Thanksgiving food.

Shocker, I know.

I made rolls using an expensive mix that were meh. Totally not worth what I paid for the ingredients....


But the apple pie...

It may look hideously hideous, but the taste was perfecto! 😋 Go ahead and lick the screen now. "


QUOTE 3: 
"CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS PICTURE IS?

It's the tea set we got Emma for her birthday. She decided that she wanted to keep working on her Britishness, so she's brushing up on her British accent and is holding a daily tea party for the entire YSA branch. 5am every day. For Christmas I'm sending her scones and clotted cream. 

 {Note:  This was meant to be the aforementioned sarcastic humor of which is my specialty, but then my own son asked if this were a true statement, thereby confirming the fact that my humor is actually rather humorless.} 

Speaking of your sister....here she is with her friends at the Boston Temple...probably pretending to be British if I had to guess. I hear she asked for the British translation of her temple session..."



QUOTE 4: Adam, on the other hand, is working on his peanut butter game. He got invited to a peanut butter party and sampled one of everything...Can you guess what he and {his girlfriend} made? HINT: It was my recipe and they borrowed my pie pan for the occasion. 



QUOTE 5: Oh, I have some life advice to give you now. Very serious life advice, which you should probably write in your journal and tell ALL of your friends. Whatever you do, DO NOT GO TO TRADER JOES ON AN EMPTY STOMACH!!!!! It's a problem. Perhaps not the worst problem ever, but a problem nonetheless. 




QUOTE 6:  "The other night, I brought Nutella uncrustables to our friend, J., for her 20th birthday. Lest you think me the randomest birthday treat giver ever, I'll remind you that J. is the one whose Mom grew up in Minnesota and her family now lives in Cami's ward, so I had sent a little text to her Mom and got her suggestions. She was actually quite excited!" 


QUOTE 7: We also went to the temple this week and had an awesome turn-out. Notice who's NOT in this picture? YOUR PADRE!!! Why didn't he come to this beautiful night at the temple? Was he too busy at work? Yes, but he was going to come anyway. Did he bruise his tailbone wrestling with Kiwi? Good guess, but NO! He was all ready to walk out the door and realized that he'd let his temple recommend expire. So Bishop G. didn't come to the temple because his recommend was expired. oops.

Okay, back to cute guys. I would give you and Hermana B the thumbs' up on any guy in this picture. CUTE AND RIGHTEOUS GUYS THAT LIKE TO GO TO THE TEMPLE! What could be better than that?! Absolutely nothing, but there I go again."

QUOTE 8: I'll close off with one more picture of a few of our ward members....


Can you tell this is kind of our lives right now? We had church activities Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.   This was taken at institute on Thursday night. If you weren't in the habit of going to institute before your mission, I highly recommend it when you get home. It's a night to be spiritually and physically fed AND you get to hang out with friends. It is awesome. And lots of cute guys."  

THE CONCLUSION:  

This blog would probably be a lot more entertaining if I blogged only after spending 13 hours at church and after gobbling down  food for dinner with minimal nutritive value.   Though, perhaps it's best for the people who love me, if I keep things more sedate.   

Also...my poor missionary!  I felt kind of bad the next day after talking about guys so many times.  That is not normal for me.  But at least I wrote a letter, so I'll pat myself on the back for that.     

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!    

A Big Dinner!

  Entertaining is not something that comes naturally to me.  We've always hosted missionaries for dinner and  had an open door policy when it came to the kids' friends hanging out/eating with us,  but I've never been much of a party planner or big dinner party kind of person.  You can read some very hilarious (but entirely true) blogposts from past days (here and here (part d) being good samplings) when the kids basically planned their own parties and I just did my best to make their chaotic dreams come true.   Chaos is a good description of how I rolled, especially when the kids were younger.  

 It's been pretty quiet since moving to Utah.  I host  book group at our house every month, have hosted the college kids' friends several times for General Conference weekend, and have thrown the random cookie party (see part 3 of this post),  but,  except for when nieces, nephews, and grandkids come to visit, it's rather quiet here on a day-to-day basis.    

Now that we have 180 or so young adult kids, though, we find ourselves hosting a lot more than usual.  One of the regular items on our calendar is a monthly FHE dinner, when 1/3 of the ward at a time is invited to our home for dinner.  Thankfully, 1/3 of the ward doesn't actually show up every time, but we plan on serving about 50...just to be safe.

 This past Monday was the 4th such dinner we've hosted (the 3rd for our current ward).  We've kept the menu the same for each 1/3 of the ward and plan to switch it up for our next three dinners.  This round has  been taco salad, rocky road brownies, and fruit. Everything I make is gluten free, which is something that some people really appreciate and no one complains about, since I go to great lengths to make everything taste great anyway! 

 I make the taco meat, dressing, and brownies on Saturday, then chop everything and  pull together the rest of the details the day-of.     In the middle of getting ready, we talk to our missionary, since it's her p-day.  I always feel a little bad on these Mondays, because we are definitely more distracted than usual talking with her.  I can't wait until she can come join us for these dinners in about 7 months.  :) 

It was very fun to hear  about her first baptism this week!  She was so happy and told me that she'd for sure be extending her mission (scheduled to end in June) if she wasn't finishing up the same transfer as her mission president.  That little tidbit surprised me, but also made me happy to know that she's having a good enough experience on her mission that she'd even consider extending.  

We ended the phone call with Ellie at 6:55pm and quickly did our last-minute prep while awaiting for our guests to arrive at 7:00pm!   This  picture doesn't include the meat, but shows a glimpse of how we set things up for the taco salad menu.  

Our first dinner in this ward ended up being about 45 attendees and each dinner since then has gotten progressively less well attended.  This past Monday, it ended up being about 25 people.   Since we are about 40 minutes from BYU, it's not surprising that fewer people have come as the semester has gotten busier.  

We always start with a spiritual message, before getting to the food. I love the chance to talk with individual members and get to know them better while they are in our home.   And it seems that they enjoy being in a homey setting and eating home-cooked food.  

 
It's  fun to see who gets the most excited  about Denali too.  She generally gets pretty smothered with lots of affection during these evenings and we almost always get a few volunteers for dog-sitting.  She very much enjoys all the attention, though she remains as awkward as ever!  

Since starting to host these dinners regularly, we've invested in way more serving dishes and folding chairs.  It's fun to have a big enough space to actually have room to store them, as well as use them!  

We also have started stocking up on disposable containers from the Dollar Tree, so they can bring all the leftovers home at the end.   

 Our stress level, even outside this calling (mostly to do with Glen's job), has been very high lately, but all in all, serving in a YSA ward is stretching us in positive ways we've never expected.   We are often tired and feel some heaviness at some of the struggles the members face, but we feel it is a privilege to be able to love and serve in this way.  💗 

Free Therapy

I'll be honest...

I'm currently sick with a bad cold (and the worst sore throat I've had in many years) and I have a lot of things swirling around me that are keeping my head in a pretty negative space.   As such, I am using this blog as my free therapy for the evening and I am going to try  and use this post as an opportunity to embrace the positivity as much as I can.   Don't worry though...since I don't pay you to read my blog, I'll keep you out of the muck of my brain!  

I'll post more about this trip later, but last week I was in Rhode Island to celebrate Emma's Halloween birthday with her.  Yes, my third child is 25 now and I am kind of feeling extra old because of it.  Cami has a full-time job and two small children, but she still managed to make a beautiful cake for Ems, as well as put up some decor (neither skill which she learned from her mother).  It was fun to be there with two of my girls...

I also very much enjoyed the opportunity to spend Halloween with these two cutie pies, even if they sent me home with this terrible cold.   

I also very much enjoyed seeing photos of Adam and his roommates' Halloween costumes. 

Speaking of photos of my "babies", I just got this one of Ellie texted to me yesterday by a girl that used to be in Vienna Ward like 20 years ago!   I think she recognized her by her nametag, not her face.  In any case, it totally made my day (which isn't hard when you feel like I do)! 

 If you happen to know me in real life, you may or may not know that I  have two core love languages...one is food, the other is postcards.    I love sending and receiving both.   I send  A LOT  of postcards in a month (probably 50+ most months), but don't get too many in return.  That's okay, because I love sending them so much, I don't really care.   Recently, though,  I got a homemade one from my sister-in-law...

And another one from a friend I met in Portugal...

 Both made me very happy.  

Also, every Monday we get to do this...

The calls with Ellie are always a bit chaotic and we are usually missing one family member or another (this week Adam), but being able to gather virtually with the fam is something that brings me incredible joy...the next best thing to being all together in person.  

So, yes, life is hard right now, but it's also good.     Hope you're having a beautiful week.