Day 354--Winter Wonderland!

Of course there was no church today, so we spent the day shoveling out some more and enjoying a beautiful sparkly, sunshiney day!

definition: pa·thet·ic

pa·thet·ic (adj.):  arousing sympathy, pity, or compassion

Sample usage: 

It was pathetic enough getting a 102° fever just in time to miss the first grade gingerbread house decorating party, 

  but when the fever got worse and the coughing kicked in right when the biggest snowstorm in decades hit the DC area (total snowfall 19.5-inches) it was even pathetic-er.

 Then when in a desperate attempt to enjoy the snow despite wheezing, coughing, and shivering he lasted only 5-minutes outside, he really won the prize for  patheticism. 

  
pa·thet·ic (noun):  Adam

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Day 353--20 inches!

With about 20-inches of snow, it was the biggest storm we've seen in these parts since 2003.  Shoveling was quite the chore!

Day 352--Hurry, Hurry, Hurry...

It's our anniversary, it's a week before Christmas and a huge storm is coming.  Today was spent running all over creation.  I braved the hour long lines and grocery shopped, bought new gloves for the kids, and tried to finish up as much Christmas shopping as humanly possible.  After all was said and done we went out to eat and then to the late showing of Avatar in 3D to celebrate our anniversary.  It was slick as snot on the way home.  So slick that the people who were returning Cami after a babysitting job got stuck in our neighborhood and ended up at our house until about 1am.  We never even saw her though, since we got home right after that.

Flashback Friday: 16-Years-Ago Today

Sixteen years ago today,  Glen and I were married for eternity in the Denver Temple.

A few random memories from the day:

With it being wintertime in Denver we were quite nervous about having inclement weather for the day, but it ended up being a beautiful clear and cold day.  Perfect driving weather for all the people coming in from around the country (Minnesota, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma).  

We were too cheap to hire a photographer, so all of our wedding pictures are just snapshots.  We did end up with a collection of photos from various sources, but none of them are professional quality.  I've been on a mission ever since then to tell people not to skimp in that department!

Me and my roommates went to store after store looking for a dress and just never found anything that I loved (or could afford).  My Aunt Zina ended up volunteering to sew my dress for me, which seemed wonderful enough at the time, but looking back at her busy life with six small children I'm in awe that she pulled it off so beautifully.

Enough reminiscing now....

Happy Anniversary Glen!  I love you more now than ever!

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Day 351--White Elephant

Tonight was the YM/YW annual white elephant party.  Spencer and his friend Ryan had entirely too much fun over-wrapping their presents.  On top of each present they taped a picture of Taylor Lautner in hopes of getting the girls to go gaga.  It worked like a charm, except the girls weren't too happy with the worthless junk (baking chocolate and hummingbird nectar) inside all that wrapping.

A New Christmas Tradition

We've recently just discovered a cheap family activity the whole family enjoyed....

Tacky Christmas Light Tour

This house in Alexandria has lights that dance in tune to music on the radio.    We sat there for a good 15 minutes just in awe at the ever-changing spectacle.

Every square inch of this tiny little yard was completely covered with Christmas paraphernalia and made the 3 giant inflatables in our yard look downright classy in comparison.  We saw an interview with the guy who does this who says his electric bill is $1000 every December.

This one was still over-the-top, but a lot less dramatic than the other two.   Cami liked it the best.

But my favorite part was still yet to come....

KRISPY KREME!

It was within a mile of the last two houses and a perfect way to finish out our night of Christmas light gawking!

 We watched in awe as the doughnuts were picked up right out of  the grease and dropped right into our hungry little hands...

Yum!  Yum!

  Christmas lights, laughing, playful critiquing, stuffing our faces with oodles of fresh hot doughnuts....


I definitely sense a new Christmas tradition in the making.  (Thanks Linda for the idea!)

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Cheap Therapy

Many years ago I had the opportunity to take the personality test from the book the Color Code by Taylor Hartman.  I went through taking the test with my rose colored glasses on and ended up squarely blue and white, which is always how I idealistically viewed myself.  Self-disciplined, perfectionistic, loyal, emotional.  And of course not a touch of red, although my family always begged to differ.

Problem is, while I do have all those character traits to some degree, that's not really what defines me.  When I look at myself honestly I have to admit that I am far more demanding, driven, competitive, critical, and hard-driving than I give myself credit for.  Red.  I have a blazing hot red personality and it's bothering me.  Not that having a red personality in itself is bad, but where I've taken the red streak is.

I'm beginning to realize that I've been spending the last 20 years or so of my life pressing the complete opposite of the figurative Staples Easy Button.

Instead of streamlining and prioritizing,  I hold myself and the people around me to impossibly high standards that can never be reached, then berate myself when invariably I don't.

After spending yesterday in a completely useless and discouraged state of mind I decided that it's high time I started looking for ways to throw that "Hard Button" out the window.  Here's what I've come up with so far:

1.  Stop writing personal notes in every single Christmas letter. While I like to do it, it's making the process impossibly slow for me, not to mention the fact that we rarely receive  personal ones in return. I think most people just don't care.

2.   Don't post any more recipes on the recipe blog until after Christmas (or whenever I feel like it will be fun).  I had this grand notion that I would post a cool Christmas recipe every day up until Christmas, but who the heck cares?   Certainly no one but myself.

3.  Stop waiting for everything in my house to be perfect to entertain.  I'm ashamed to say that I can't even remember the last time we had a non-family member over for dinner.  I always have an excuse.  Let's wait until we finish the bathrooms (3 years ago), let's wait until we decorate properly (never going to happen), let's wait until the basement's done (hopefully soon), let's wait until we remodel the kitchen/dining room (probably 3+ years in the future).  At this rate we'll be old and retired before everything's "good enough", but in the meantime I shudder to think of the friendships we're not developing and the people we're not getting to know.

4.  Stop thinking that approval from others is more valuable than my own.  If I do something that I've worked hard on and am proud of, why do I think I'm a complete and utter failure when people don't shower me with accolades?

5.  Stop being so "routine".  While my routines serve me well in a lot of ways (cooking dinner, getting the kids to bed, reading the scriptures, having FHE, blogging, etc), I also feel like they hold me  back as well. For instance, my exercising.  I've gotten out of the routine somehow and seem incapable of shaking my routine up enough to add it back in there on a regular basis.  I need to figure out ways to be flexible and to start looking outside of our own little box of life for ways to be more people oriented.

Sorry to burden you with way too much into my muddled mind on this fine day, but it has been a cathartic and healing post for me to write.    I'm ready to go forward with a new train of thought and hope that if you ever see me straying back to my "Hard Button" ways, that you will  feel free to remind me of my new path.  

PS   I've turned off the comments for this post.

Day 350--Visiting Teaching Party

Today my visiting teacher, Jenny McArthur, hosted a cookie decorating party at her house.  Ellie had a fabulous time decorating cookies and playing with all the kids and I had a great time hanging out with the ladies.

Day 349--Decorating

Here's a little glimpse at our decorations.  I'm totally in love with our new built-in book shelves in our living room.

Christmas Home Tour

Here's a peek at our house this holiday season....

 Glen "fluffing" our artificial tree.  With Glen's allergies we'll never be able to have a real one. 

Our 4-foot tall wreath.

Our clearance rack steals from last year--a mere 5 bucks for giant inflatables.  I'm pretty sure Glen would've bought 20 if they'd had enough.  :)

Our olive wood Nativity from Jerusalem.

Our wooden JOY from our wedding.

Our porcelain Christmas tree from Aunt Evelyn (also from our wedding).

Our stuckings hung by the chimney with care.

FYI  We like the mismatching look.  Every time I talk about getting matching stockings I get lots of protests from kids and Glen alike.   Apparently my stocking (made for me when I was a small child) is a left-handed stocking as it faces the opposite direction as the rest.  I'm not left-handed, but I love it anyway. 

Glen and Emma putting our wingless angel on top.  We got the angel as a wedding gift.  We kept it winged for a couple of years then one time when Spencer started asking a lot of questions about the wings,  we just pulled them off for accuracy's sake. 

Our final masterpiece!

 

(Based on the number of Christmas decorations we received as wedding gifts, can anyone guess when we got married?)

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Drumroll Please...

And the winners are:

1st Place: $50 Gift Card of choice goes to Emma
2nd Place: $25 Gift Card of choice goes to GG aka Glen

And because we exceeded my expectations and surpassed 100 comments I also chose a 3rd winner:
3rd Place: $25 Gift Card of choice goes to Charlene

How I picked the winners: I numbered all 95 eligible comments and put them in the random number generator found here and came up with the winners.

Congrats to you! Please leave a comment and let me which gift card you would like. Charlene-I will also need to get your address.

Merry Christmas!

Day 348--Rocky the Celebrity

Today we had our friends come over to play with Rocky.   The kids were enamored with him and we really enjoyed the company!

Last Chance to Win $50 Giftcard

This is Kristina again. Your chance to win a $50 gift card of your choice ends TONIGHT.  If Lara gets more than 100 comments, then there will be a second prize!! Enter now.