Dinner Before Concert

Our good friends, Grant and Diane Stewart, invited a few couples over for dinner before we all went to the Christmas Concert with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra.

Diane decorates her home so beautifully and it is especially lovely at this time of the year.

We all contributed something to the dinner.

Here we have Diane, LaVona and Lane Lewis, us, and Colleen and Bruno Kossin.

We enjoyed the delicious meal and then had a very good time attending the concert. What a great experience to be in that big, beautiful conference center listening to the festive Christmas music and getting in the spirit of Christmas.

We learned we had the hottest tickets in town and we were not disappointed when David Archuletta came on stage and began to sing. Michael York, the special guest narrator, was also very delightful. It was a wonderful evening!

Collin Home Before Christmas

The Jensen family has received a very fine gift for Christmas. Elder Collin Jensen returned home safely from the Indiana Indianapolis Mission today.

Jamie did not make a countdown chain for Collin like Glen has done for Ben, but for the past couple of months, she has verbally been sharing with anyone and everyone the date and the precise time of his arrival. She was just beaming that she now has her son home.

It was great to see Collin. Jamie invited people to stop by to welcome Collin home and eat some lunch. I gave him a package of Keebler elf cookies because that's what used to be his favorite snack when he was hanging out here with Ben.

I am sincerely excited for the Jensen family to have their son home for the holidays.

BUT...

...there is a tiny bit of bitterness when I think about how he left after Christmas and here he is coming home before Christmas. That means Collin only missed one Christmas.

As Glen pointed out, if our son truly stays on his mission until the end of July as has been speculated, that means he'll be gone for three of his birthdays (he entered the MTC eight days before his birthday).  Now that hardly seems fair at all.

But, despite my petty grievances, WELCOME HOME, COLLIN!!!

Trimming the Tree

I loved that we had help decorating the Christmas tree. And what cute helpers they were. Thanks, Rebecca and grandkids for trimming the tree this year.

Jacob's family timed their departure just perfectly. The weatherman was predicting a heavy snowfall, and they were leaving ahead of the storm.

Turns out the warning was correct and we got tons of snow. There was so much snow that it reached the bench on the picnic table.

We gave all the kids hugs good-bye--but only managed to take a picture of us with Logan.

With the camera I did capture what one grandchild left behind. It happens to be a big vomit stain right on the carpet leading into our family room.

How does one deal with that problem with a dinner party scheduled at our house in a couple of days?

Problem solved with a strategically-placed, festive, cute holiday rug.

Any suggestions for what to do with the spot after Christmas is over and the decorations are put away? Do you think the green "believe" is appropriate for all year long?

Thanksgiving

There's nothing better than having your Mom cook Thanksgiving dinner.

It was very nice for Jacob's family to be able to join in on a family dinner once again at Mom and Dad's home.

Here are some of the activities that went on in the basement after dinner.

Poor Nani had hurt her back and was in a lot of discomfort that day. We decided to take her downstairs to try out my Dad's inversion table. If getting flipped upside down doesn't help, then--really--what else is there?

Clint and Laurie also decided to get in on the hang-by-your-feet contraption.

Emma was convinced that the chair in the basement was just perfect for playing dentist because it has a great light right by it that the kids thought looked just like a dentist light.

I became the patient.

Dr. Emma put the recliner back, turned on the dental light and got out her dental instruments--tools from a toy tool set--and started working away in my mouth. She used a small cloth worm for the water hose. Very inventive, but I'm still wondering about the headband that she used to tie up my hands.

Since when does a dentist tie you up to work on you?!?

Dr. Luke, with hammer in hand, also got in on a little of the action.

Natalie and Luke tried to do some exercising on the equipment down there.

Laurie wanted her kids to see the target that my Dad has all set up in a closet.

Jacob proposed to Laurie there at my parents' home and used the bow and arrow as part of the props for the engagement. Dad enjoyed showing the kids how he shoots his bow in his basement.

No family dinner is complete without lighting some candles and singing "Happy Birthday" to someone, followed by all the little kids joining together to blow out the candles.

Birthday boy, Jacob, was surrounded by his family for the blowing out of his candles, officially making him one year older.

Reminiscing back to the day he was born, I was so happy he waited until the day after Thanksgiving to make his appearance into the world so that he didn't ruin my Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanks, Jacob, for being so considerate!

After desserts were eaten and we were all sufficiently stuffed, we played the game Apples To Apples.

Looks like everyone had a lot of FUN!!! Thanks, Mom and Dad, for inviting us to a great Thanksgiving/birthday dinner party.

Withholding Information

Usually when someone announces she's pregnant, you can count 7 months or so down the calendar and determine when the baby is due. Nowadays it seems that a couple can receive a positive affirmation and announce even earlier than that.

Rebecca and Dallas kept all pregnancy #3 knowledge to themselves until right before Halloween. She decided to announce it to our family through an email with the following picture of her Halloween costume:

We did the countdown and came up with May or possibly even June--because girls these days seem to enjoy immediately sharing their news early. Imagine our shocked surprise when this daughter of ours told us the due date is March 21st, which made her almost halfway through her pregnancy at that point.

She was already scheduled for her ultrasound that would determine the gender of the baby.

The ultrasound happened last Tuesday--a whole week ago--but it seems that withholding information from parents for a long time is the theme of this pregnancy. Rebecca has been happily telling everyone, including her siblings, what she's having, but purposely kept us in suspense for these whole 7 extra days.

Dallas and Rebecca wanted to keep up the tradition of having a reveal dinner with their parents like they did with Brooke and again with Caroline and now with this baby. So, we fixed the food, Bob and Kathryn brought the most delicious fruit tart for dessert and then Dallas and Rebecca made their announcement.

They tried to throw us off by wearing pink shirts, but I wore the color of shirt that I was guessing and it just so happens that I guessed right. They're having a BOY!! How great is that!?!?!??

The other day when Rebecca was here, she saw the huge, ridiculously long countdown chain Glen had made to mark the return of Ben from his mission and she found her baby's due date (which happened to be about smack dab in the middle of the fireplace) and asked why we hadn't marked in big letters the significance of that day.

With that in mind, we decided to make up a new link for that particular date and printed the date on both pink and blue papers that we had all ready when the Goldens made their announcement. We then let them take out the white link and they stapled in the blue link to mark the date of their new baby's arrival.

Congratulations Dallas and Rebecca!! It's about time you get around to being able to use the boy name you've had picked out way back when you were sure Brooke was going to be a boy.

What's Glen Been Up To Lately?

When Ben wrote that his release date from his mission might very well be the end of July (and that's not even set in stone yet--and it's also a full 8+ months in the future), Glen got busy right away making a countdown chain to the big event. 

He so proudly draped the massively long chain all up and down and over and around the bookshelves and fireplace in the family room.

Each night he becomes giddy with glee when he anxiously skips (okay, maybe he just walks) over to the end of the chain to rip off another link, marking one less day of separation from his son.

It should be noted here that he was equally as anxious looking forward to the return of our two other sons from their missions.

Something else Glen's been up to lately is he's finally followed through with his threat of actually having a professional work on fixing his disgustingly, deformed big toenails.

This will thrill his children to know that the Thomas talon is no longer in existence.

After 14 years (that's absolutely no exaggeration) of self-mutilation trying to fix his own troublesome toenails, he finally sought medical help.

I'm sure we can all exclaim with enthusiasm--IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!