Celebrating Samantha's Birthday

We - especially the parents, I think - were pretty happy that Samantha wanted to celebrate her birthday outside, at a park, where she could play with her nieces and nephews.  It was a beautiful day and so we packed a picnic, which included her cake given to us by Lester's parents.

 We brought along the giant bubble wands which provided a lot of fun.

After having good family time Samantha went home and got ready for fun with her friends that night - going out to dinner, etc.  We hope she had a very happy birthday - she makes all of our days very happy.

Dress-Up for Christmas

Princess dresses and Super-Hero capes helped make it a Merry Christmas.

These 2 especially enjoyed being twins

Christmas Eve with the Hanaike's

STAR WARS BABIES!

R2D2 (above)
Yoda (below)

Princess Leia (below)

The 4 girls got new outfits and purses

and did a fashion show, while we all 

did a Disney Sing-Along

ugliest sweater contest

SUGAR COOOKIE STYLE!

Actually, some of these look pretty good.  In fact, our judges - Andrew and Samantha - awarded the best looking ones first.  When we reminded them it was the "ugliest sweater contest" they adjusted things.  But, some of us agree that Luke got robbed because he was not a winner with the one below:

sacred and peaceful

I love the hustle and bustle of Christmas.  I love looking for bargains all year long that will make great Christmas presents.  I love decorating, baking, wrapping, etc. etc.

This year, however, I was blessed with the need to slow it down.  My Mom called one day and asked if I would pick up some medicine for her.  I could hear that she was pretty sick and so offered to stay with her overnight and take the next day off of work.  In the middle of the night I woke to the sound of her calling me and found that she had fallen. We called 911 and the ambulance came and took her to the ER while I drove to meet her there.  They did a very thorough work up and found that she was not injured from her fall, but that she had a terrible respiratory infection that would take at least a couple of weeks to heal.  The doctor admitted her for the day, but then let her go with the promise from us that we would not leave her alone for at least 2 weeks.

So, I called my most local siblings and we made a schedule of who could be with her when, around the clock.  I found my time with her to be a very sacred experience. We watched a lot of the BYU channel together including many Christmas movies.  We had nice conversations.  We both took naps, and as her symptoms began to get better we both began sleeping really well.  She is a very independent person, but will also accept help when she knows she needs it, and so I made her meals and did some light cleaning.  Helping her out in that way was an honor and a privilege.

 When my sister came to relieve me it was hard to go.  I had so much to do at home - stuff that I wanted to do, like find all the Christmas presents I had bought some time ago but lost somewhere in the basement.  And even though Luke is pretty independent himself, yet not home alone this whole time, I still felt the need to go back and mother him. And I knew my Mom was in good hands with my sister.  But like i said, for some reason, it was hard to leave.  It had been a sacred and peaceful experience being with her all that time.  So I had several days at home and then my shift came around again.  I tried not to think about all I had to do to get ready for Christmas and all the kids being home.  I walked into my mom's place and got to slow down again.  It was wonderful.

Now life is pretty much back to normal for the both of us.  She is happy that this was a temporary illness and that she can be independent again.  But I am determined to spend more time with her than I used to - for her sake yes, but definitely for mine.

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care

At the beginning of the month my Mom had gotten quite sick.  I ended up spending more time with her than usual (which I will blog about later), which means I spent less time on Christmas preparations as usual.  In the meantime Reggie has been helping with his Mom several days a week after work as she is having some serious health issues.  So, Mariah and Ross to the rescue!  Mariah, Avonlea and I had already gotten the tree and Ross and Luke had put it up.  It then sat several days without being decorated, waiting for us all to be home.  When we realized that wasn't going to happen I asked Mariah if she and Ross would finish up.  So I came home one night to a decorated tree and, my favorite part:  17 stockings hung by the chimney with care (and lots of impressive paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling).  I love looking at those stockings.

winter

Reggie did the Costco shopping right before our trip and so I asked him to see if there were any boots there, my size, that would be good for the snow.  He came home with the most perfect boots and I enjoyed stepping out on the snow in them.  As the pictures show, snow certainly is beautiful.  It snowed all day on Sunday and it was mesmerizing watching it from Hillary's and Andrew's warm home.  On the other hand, driving in it scared me to death - even as a passenger.  With the right outdoor clothing I think I could handle living where it snows.  But the slipping and sliding - on foot or in a vehicle - just scares me to death ( and I've never even experienced any kind of snow accident in my life).  So I don't know, snow was a nice to thing to visit, for sure.

Christkindlemarkt

Couple of years ago I had heard of this German Christmas market that happens at "This Is The Place Heritage Park" (pioneer village).  I thought it looked fun, and hoped to go someday.  Well, it finally happened with this trip.  It was even better than I thought.  It was free admission and the various vendor's huts went all throughout the village.  I bought a couple of little things, but was mostly excited about the food - so many people selling authentic foods, pastries, etc. from German and other European recipes.  They also had performers who were magnificent.  I would love to go again some day.  And I have to say, it was refreshing celebrating Germany's rich heritage - learning something about their history other than WWI and WWII.