It's Christmas!

It's Christmas Morning in Arkansas!

Christopher on Christmas Morning:

Sarah enjoying the gift opening:

Steven watching others open their gifts:

Christopher and Sarah having fun on Christmas Morning:

Samantha is excited opening a gift:

Simon being held captive so the others can open their gifts:

Sandy modeling her gifts from Rebecca:

I thought this was a cute way of Adam and Savannah addressing a gift (family pic) to us:

Here is the grandma enjoying playing with Simon:

Miranda and Dan and family arrived the day after Christmas.  It was so fun to see them.  Then Kera and five of her six came on Saturday. How do you know when you have 13 grandchildren in your house?  Just check out the toys in the family room:

Or the shoes at the back door:

We've played games in the evening-- five crowns, Wacky Six and dominoes.  The cousins have enjoyed playing among themselves with train tracks, legos, going fishing, and even monopoly.  Steven is fascinated with Monopoly.  He'll pull it out and play it every day. He's learning how to make change. 

I was cleaning out and organizing the file cabinets in my office and he wanted me to play Monopoly with him.  I said he could play for me.  So he came in every two minutes to report who I'd landed on and what money I owed.  He had interesting rules.  Each time I landed in jail it took a different number to get me out.  Nine or seven... but I don't think ever double ones.

One evening Dan Mc entertained the children with these balloon rockets:

Food has been tasty. We decided to have "Christmas Dinner" on Christmas eve.  We invited a couple, an older sister from a retirement home and our two neighbors-- Barbara and Ernie over for dinner.   It was a nice evening. 

I decided I liked that.  I worked all day Christmas Eve on the food.  We made the Christmas breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls that evening.  So then on Christmas, food was so easy.  We cooked the casserole and ate leftovers all day. Leftover turkey, stuffing, pies, rolls, casserole.  Yum!

Everyone has pitched in with the cooking, so it's gone pretty smoothly. Sunday was a good meeting.  Deborah helped out as primary chorister.  I tell you... you're here a week and you're part of the ward.

Just how many women does it take to fix a Sunday dinner of 7 adults and 13 children?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Tom and Deborah had an uneventful and blessed trip across the country.  The kids were good.  The roads were good.  The weather was a bit overcast but not a lot of rain and no snow.  Drivers stayed alert and attentive.  Miracles abounded.  Here are some pictures documenting the trip:

They spent Sunday night at Miranda and Dan's than traveled to Springdale.  Three sets of missionaries plus one elders quorum member helped them unload the truck in less than 2 hours.  They picked up applications for school for the kids, went and visited the house, and arrived home about 7:30 Monday night.

The kids have settled in well.  They love the game closet.  Somehow Monopoly-- single player-- is a hit with Steven.  Calvin and Hobbs comic books are popular along with play dough, painting, coloring, and giggling and running through the house.  It's been nice enough that they've played outside a few times.  Christopher is enamored with the chickens.

I spent some intensive time working on my most recent assignment from Newsmax. I finished the first draft and sent it to a fellow copywriting friend to critique.  Again, she gave great insight.  This time I paid her for her time.  It's a win-win for both of us.  I appreciate her insight and have more confidence in sending it off.  Since the editor will be out of the office until January 5th, I also, will be able to take a vacation.  At least from that.

It does seem to take a little more time to do things with little children around.  But we're having fun. Tom has been doing Bishop stuff all week. Tuesday and Thursday were tithing settlement evenings. Wednesday the youth went caroling and then he had his normal bishopric meeting.  Friday the Primary had their worker appreciation dinner and invited Tom and I to attend.  It was tasty and after diner they had people share about their favorite sharing time or lesson.  We had some touching stories about special lessons and times the kids "got it."

I had been wanting to put Roger into the stew pot.  Of the 5 chicks that hatched and grew up this year, three are roosters.  Bah!  So I now have 4 roosters-- who just eat.  Roger has managed to denude one of the chicken's backs with his activities.  He crows incessantly, and last summer he was getting a little aggressive with Rebecca's kids.  So he needed to go.  I also wanted to reduce the other rooster population.

The only way to snatch them is early morning or late at night when they are roosting.  So after the primary dinner, we went into the coop and picked up Roger, then the black rooster.  Killing them was easier than I'd remembered.  And defeathering-- a bit of a bother, but not bad.  But butchering... now I know what they mean when they talk about a "tough old bird."  Roger had thick skin, tough muscles and was really hard to work with. The young rooster was a breeze by comparison.   I pressure cooked the young one and his meat was tender.  Chicken keepers on Google suggested letting the old rooster rest in the frig for 2-5 days to soften before pressure cooking.  So, while I'd like the frig space for defrosting the turkey, it's sharing space with Roger right now.

The hen house has been much quieter.  I think the younger roosters don't know they are allowed to crow yet.

I finally got a Christmas letter written and sent out. It was short.  I just wrote about the changes in the family-- graduates, moves, etc. After I sent it out, Tom reminded me that I'd not made mention of Miranda at all.  My excuse? They weren't moving or graduating from high school or dental school.  Sigh.  Sorry Miranda.  We love you and your family. Honestly!

Today we had our Christmas program at church.  There was a wonderful narration of the Christmas story and much singing.  It all sounded lovely.  The choir performed the First Noel with a Pachaelbel Canon accompaniment on piano and organ. It was quite nice.  Then we had an organ rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus for the finale.  Since I was in the choir loft next to the organ, I got to watch the footwork.  Impressive.

There has been much wrapping behind closed doors here.  I think Christmas is on it's way.  Hope it's a joyous time for all.

Ho, Ho, Ho

This has been a fun Christmas season. I think it started with listening to the Messiah up and back from Jonathan and Kristy’s. We also had to put up the tree and decorations early because of Empty Nestor’s being at our house on Dec. 1^st. So lots of the hard work was done.

Tom and I ordered most gifts online—and while it took a lot of time deciding on the best gift at the best price, it was done in front of the computer. Since we had to mail off gifts, most of that was done early, too. The only thing left to do is Christmas cards.

I had really hoped to get this financial newsletter writing assignment done this week, but we went back and forth on what the offer would include and I had to wait for resource material, so I didn’t get it started until Friday. Sigh. Now I’d really like to get it finished before Deborah and crew comes and I don’t think that will happen.

Tuesday I went visiting teaching. Wednesday I drove Tom to Little Rock so he could fly out to Deborah’s. Deborah and Ian rented a 28 foot moving van and had it mostly packed by the time they picked up Tom from the airport. At least I think it was mostly packed.

Thursday they finished packing it and cleaned the house. Then Deborah and Ian signed the closing papers on their house. Friday they started driving across country. I guess kids and truck and van and drivers have done well. They have been blessed with good weather. They arrived at Miranda’s Sunday evening. They should unload the truck into storage in Springdale on Monday and be here sometime Monday night.

Thursday I wrote—sent off a few spec assignments and did some research on the writing assignment. I had a raindrop treatment. The treatment is less than an hour… the visiting… add another two. I enjoy visiting, but perhaps I should plan appointments when there’s someone coming behind me.

Friday I held my feet to the fire with a solid 4 hours of work in the morning.  Then I did some shopping and present wrapping. Saturday was more work, more gift wrapping and I mailed the last two packages at the post office. That evening there was a gathering for all bishops and wives at the stake president’s house. I went alone. We had a great dinner then the men divided off for a meeting. We women visited and had a great time getting to know each other better. We shared how we all ended up in Missouri/Arkansas.

Sunday we had good meetings. After church I wrote to grandkids and missionaries. Then I drove to Ava for a meeting about Just Serve—a new church program. I’m excited to be a part of it. Tonight I need to write up some information for my RS presidents about the program.

For part of the week I took the computer downstairs and snuggled in front of the fire.  Later in the week the weather has warmed up. Nights are 46-50, so I let the fire go out.  I'm sure it will get cold again.

Christmas Advent

Sunday they forecast icy weather for Monday.  We were supposed to host the Empty Nester’s Family Home Evening that night.  We got a light dusting of ice early Monday morning—mostly on our deck and steps.  The roads were clear. So we (read Tom) decided to hold the Empty Nesters and surprisingly 26 people came!  More than that, they all brought tasty goodies!  So it was a nice evening.

In early November I got my first job writing a win back series for a financial newsletter.  This is the niche I want to focus in. So I studied the product and wrote 4 emails designed to showcase the product and invite people to reorder the subscription.

I sent them off November 14^th…. And didn’t hear anything.  It was fine as we were at Jonathan’s and Kristy’s and having fun.  But no news. Did she like them? Hate them?  I send a few gentle nudges.  Nothing. After we got back from Iowa, I gave it another few days.  Then, I thought, I gotta call.  So I pulled up the emails to have them fresh in my mind, and also pulled up some edits a friend send me after I’d already submitted the emails.

She’d made some great suggestions.  So I changed the emails.  Then I send them saying, “I was planning on calling you today, but when I pulled up the emails to review them, I found things I could improve on.  So here are the revised emails, and I’ll call you tomorrow morning to discuss the status.”  I called late morning, her time.  She said, “I was thinking about you and waiting for your call.”  Bottom line—I needed to make 3 easy changes.  She liked my writing, and offered another assignment.

I had also followed up with some other newsletters and got responses back from three others—all expressing interest.  So I’m hopeful.

While we were gone, more leaves fell! Imagine that!  And we still have a few on the trees.  Tom did some blowing of them out of the flower gardens and some raking, but the big lawn is still covered in leaves.

As bishop, Tom has tithing settlement in December.  This is a chance for every member to declare their tithing status to the Lord.  Did they pay a full tithe, are they exempt or non-tithe payers.  They get to come and visit with Tom.  It’s basically a simple yes/no question, but Tom like it because he gets a chance to visit with so many people and see how they are doing. However, he’s gone Tues, Wed, Thurs evenings and also Sunday afternoons.

Tom has also been the main Santa this year.  He’s ordered presents, wrapped them and mailed them off.  It’s a little crazy with us mailing things to Andy and Kera and Kristy mailing Deborah’s things to us. And us mailing our gifts here… and some of Kera’s mailed directly to them… and Adam mailing to us… and…

Friday we went to Branson to finish Christmas shopping and to go to Silver Dollar City.  For some reason, this was an especially nice day at SDC.  It was raining and foggy and a bit chilly so there were not many people there.  We watched the musicals of “A Christmas Carol,”  “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and saw the living nativity which was really the Christmas story.  We listened to some Cajun Christmas music—not exactly our style—and a silly Western Christmas folly at the saloon.

It’s always fun to see the beautiful lights and the musical Christmas tree.

We stopped at IHOP for a Denny’s like dinner. Pretty good food.  Slow service. And got home about 10pm.

The ward decided to forgo the traditional Christmas dinner in favor of a service project.  So Saturday at 8am we went to the North West Arkansas Food bank. There were about 60 members that showed up—from ages 6-80. We had someone with only one hand.  The other was in a cast from recent surgery, and one with heart condition and an elderly widow with a cane.  All were able to help out.

Some of us took puffed wheat cereal from a 4’x5’ box and bagged it into one or two gallon Ziploc bags.  Some took cases of #10 cans and put labels on them—sliced peaches, diced peaches and fruit cocktail.  They had an assembly line-  open the box, remove the cans, tape on the labels, re-pack them in the boxes, tape the boxes closed, and put them on a new pallet.  It was fun to see people working happily together and doing something valuable. Some organized Christmas toys, some cleaned up and stacked cardboard for recycling.

He said that our 150 man hours saved him $1500 and was enough to free up money for 10,000 meals for people. A nice morning’s work.  Then Tom went to help someone move some things, and I went to clean the church.  Fortunately the carpets and floors had been professionally cleaned on Monday so we got to do what Nana called “a lick and a promise” cleaning.  That evening we had a baptism.

Today was Fast Sunday.  I’ve been reading about the promises of the fast and wanted to have a more meaningful fast.  I think it went better.  We did some home teaching and watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.

All in all a good week.

Thanksgiving

We spent the week with Jonathan and Kristy and kids.  They are loving and welcoming and it was a nice time.  Isabelle is being home schooled, so she and three year old Zachary are home during the day.

Isabelle, David, and Emily are all in school. Monday and Tuesday it was COLD.  Like 2 degrees outside in the morning! I think it was Monday night that Tom and Jonathan went outside and chopped wood.  Jonathan has a neighbor that cuts down trees, so they had several logs to dispose of.

That night it snowed, so Tuesday, the kids had to dig in the snow to find the wood in the pile and carry it to stack against the fence.  They went outside and played and worked for several house.  Tom and I went out for a little bit... but didn't stay out all that long.

For us it was a low-key visit. Here are some of us napping before early morning scripture study.

I did a little writing and then got beguiled by Kristy's novels. We introduced them to the Granite Flats series on BYU TV and watched a couple of those sessions.  We shopped for deals and bought some stuff online.  Some of us had a little less relaxing time than others.

Wednesday we celebrated Kristy's birthday.  Jonathan and I made her cake,  I worked some on the mashed potatoes, while Jonathan cooked the steaks from their home-grown steer.  Here is the family at the gift unwapping part.

The cooking was sort of non-stop for two days. Jonathan pitched in and helped a lot.

Thursday's Thanksgiving dinner was AWESOME!  Yummy turkey, yams, potatoes, beans, rolls... all the good stuff.  And of course pies, truffle, and left over flourless chocolate cake-- which is like a wedge of fudgey-brownie.

The time passed too quickly.  Friday morning we left to return home.  Here is sunrise Friday morning.

The 9 hour trip stretched to about 12 as we stopped at Ikea and shopped for several hours.  Then we stopped at Trader Joe's and Aldi's.  Add in gas stops and changes of drivers.  But it was kind of fun to do Christmas shopping.

Before we left home, we'd started decorating the house for our Dec 1 Empty Nesters activity.  We came home to more to do.  Plus, all the leaves on the trees?  They didn't stay there.  I think 90% are down now-- blowing across the driveway, scattered on the lawn and piled against the fence lines.

We put the tree on a low table since we were going to have little children at the house around Christmas.

Saturday we did some cleaning, some gift wrapping, and... um... er... I had to finish the book I'd borrowed from Kristy.  We had soup for dinner and I invited our neighbor Barb over.

Today I went to West Plains for their ward conference.  I was supposed to go visiting afterwards, but some of the Relief Society presidency was sick or out of town... so there was no one to go with.

The weather has gone from frigid to balmy.  But they are predicting a cold snap.  It includes sleet on Monday night, so I think we will be moving our Empty Nesters FHE back a week. No one wants to be out driving in iffy weather.

House Hunting Week

Monday Tom and I drove to Springdale to look at houses for Deborah and Ian.  I had been worried about the weather.  They had forecast several inches of snow.  But it really didn’t materialize.  So we had clean roads on the way to Springdale.  We looked at 5 houses for them.  It was easy to see a ranking on the ones we viewed.  

But in my mind we came up with three real possibilities.  Each house we viewed improved in quality and neighborhood even though they were similar in price and size. The nicest one had an offer going in, so if Deborah and Ian wanted it, they needed to decide and put in an offer quickly.  They did put in an offer.  However the other offer was a cash offer, and they didn’t get that house.  So the next day they put in an offer on another very nice house.  Here is a picture of it.

It had been Ian’s favorite.  And it was accepted.  So they are moving along in their house selling and house buying and packing and moving plans. 

Tom will fly out on Dec 10^th to help with the final packing and help Deborah drive their stuff out.  Ian will need to work another 2 weeks or so.  Then he will drive to Arkansas shortly after Christmas.  Deborah will stay with us until the house closes in early Jan… or maybe at a timeshare if it’s cheap enough.  They already have plans for Tom to come and help them remodel a bathroom as soon as it closes.

We hope that Andy and Kera and Miranda and Dan will come for the week after Christmas.

The week started with bitter cold weather.  At night it got down into the low teens and in the days barely above freezing.  As the week progressed it warmed up.

My writing was pretty uneventful.  Mostly just more of the same. Tom helped neighbors and delved into the leaf raking.  Wow!  Did we have a generous abundance of leaves.  He burned a lot of them and we mulched some and spread them in the garden.  I had intended to get the weeds out before we covered them with leaves.  I was only sort of successful. And not all the leaves are off of the trees.

Thursday we prepared to go to visit Jonathan and Kirsty.  We had planned on looking at some houses for them, but they also decided to come down and check out houses.  So we went to Branson and did a little Christmas shopping.  Then we caught up with them after the 3^rd house and went and viewed another 6 or so.  While they were looking at a favorite house, they learned that an offer was coming in on the house.  So as they looked at the other houses, they compared it with the one with the offer.   That one was the one we thought they’d like the best.

They did decide to put an offer in on it.  Each house had some trade-offs, but that one seemed like the best—nice house, energy efficient, close to church, lovely barns and land.  However, the other offer (like Deborah and Ian’s) was a cash offer, and so the seller chose that offer.  So it’s back to house hunting for them.  Since they don’t plan on moving until summer, they are not rushed.

We spent the night with them in Bolivar, as they discussed an offered on the house.  Then Saturday we drove to Kansas City and went through the temple.  It was really great.  We did some sealings for a sister in our ward.  To kneel around the alter with a father, mother and 7 children created a very special spirit. We also did a session.  Then we stopped at 5 guys for a delicious late lunch and drove on to Jonathan and Kirsty’s.

They had stake conference.  So I watched children while Tom, Jonathan, Kristy and Isabelle went to the evening session.  Today we had a great Sunday Session.  Now it's raining, but we are snug inside.