Thanksgiving/Christmas 2011

The Holiday's are such a pain in the butt! Yep - all the effort, stress, cleaning, shopping, money, expectations, crowds, messes - one big pain in the ol'rear. BUT - there is also the fun of getting spend time with family, enjoying yummy food, seeing the excitement in your children, creating/re-living memories, traditions, showing your loved ones how much you care, being grateful, reflection, time off from work, and feeling the love of others. As a Mom, sometimes the Holiday's seem a bit overwhelming - there is so much to do, on top of what you are already doing, and wanting so badly to make the Holiday's just as happy for your family, especially your kids, as what you remember from growing up. I LOVE Halloween, I enjoy Thanksgiving, but sometimes it feels like I am just going through the motions for Christmas. This year my kids - especially the two little ones - were so excited for Christmas. They really "got" it! They were singing Christmas songs, making decorations, asking about Santa Claus, playing with the nativity and learning that "Christmas is about Jesus, and Santa Claus is just for fun". I feel bad that I didn't even put the Advent calendar that I made at our Super Saturday to use ..... I felt like such a grinch/scrooge. I hope that I can learn to relax a bit - and just enjoy! We are so truly blessed - we have such a wonderful extended family, such wonderful friends and neighbors, a lovely home, food to eat, the knowledge of our Savior, the blessing of living in a free country, prosperity beyond so many others and such a great life. I AM grateful for what I have - I just need to remember that when I get so caught up in life.

Here are some of the highlights of our Holidays:

We spent the night before Thanksgiving at Grandma Honey's house - we watched a movie and enjoyed being with Grandma & Grandpa. We were there to help with the Thanksgiving dinner preparations. We had such a nice meal - we wish Dustin & Natalie could have been there too, but they were with her family this year. It is so much fun to get the cousins together. Spending the night before Thanksgiving at my Mom's is definately one of my FAVORITE traditions!

Grandma Honey treated all the girls (even Ariya) to The Nutcracker. The girls were so mesmerized by the dancers and they all wanted to be the princess.

Both Carson & Kelsi had a Christams program at their school. Kelsi got to do a duet with her friend Nica. Grandma Honey was able to come and hear Kelsi's concert. Kelsi has such a beautiful voice and did such a great job on her performance. Carson's kindergarten class had a program where they sang several songs. It was so cute to see him sing and be excited to perform. Grandpa "papa" was able to come and listen to Carson's concert.

We had a fun kid's party at the church. The kids got to decorate cookies, make a christmas card, play reindeer games, sing songs and visit with Santa!

My sweet niece Ariya was blessed. She is such a precious angel and I just love her to pieces. I also love her mommy - my sister Ashley! She is such an AMAZING mom! She made Ariya's blessing dress and had such a yummy dinner after the blessing. She is getting so domestic and is going to surpass me in the roll making business very soon. Ashley is just awesome and I love her and her cute family so very much!!

The kids got their pictures taken with Santa Claus!

There were also some other fun things that we did - that I didn't bring my camera to for some dumb reason. We went to the Dicken's festival, went to see that lights at Temple Square (which we only got to see for about 15 minutes), had the annual Swanson Family Christmas Party - where we made gingerbread houses, made reindeer food, did a kid's gift exchange, made hand print ornaments and played "Christmas Minute to Win It". It was so much fun, and is quickly becoming another one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

On Christmas Eve we made a plate of cookies & carrots for Santa and the Reindeer and the kids wrote a letter to Santa. The kids also got their new Christmas Pajamas and a book, put the reindeer food out on the front lawn, listened to the Christmas Story from the book of Luke and were so excited for the big night that they could hardly get to sleep.

When the big day finally arrived the kids all seemed pretty excited about what Santa had brought them. It looks like they were good this year afterall! After all the presents had been opened, we had breakfast casserole and sweet rolls, then got ready for Sacrament meeting. After sacrament meeting we were invited up to my Grandma and Grandpa Lundeen's house for dinner. It was nice to be able to spend Christmas with them, because they are usually down in Nevada at Christmas time. After spending some time with my grandparents and aunts & uncles we headed out to my Mom & Dad's house. The kids were so excited for the gifts that my parents gave them and so excited to play with their new toys with their cousins. We spent the rest of the evening at my parent's listening to the radio scanner and having Mike decode what the cops were saying about a car that had rolled down the hill and had to have life-flight come. This Christmas seemed to come so fast, and I, once again, didn't get to do everything I had thought about doing. This Christmas was magical for my kids, and I don't know how much longer we can keep the Santa Claus story going with Carson (he asks WAY to many questions). I am so grateful to have gotten to spend time with my family and to see the excitment that my kids had. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!!