Another Christmas come and gone...

Some of my favorite things (including Candice in her fabulous Christmas sweater) from the last few days...

Wednesday Jenny and I had planned to go out visiting a few ladies in the ward. We were going to go with the all the young women, but it turned out only Jenny and I were available to go.
I made up some raspberry jam and wrapped it up with a cute Christmas towel.

We went to Leah's first. She has been pretty sick the last while with blood clots in her legs. She has really not been quite right for quite a while. She has been saying that she feels really dizzy and loses her balance. Last month when she came visiting teaching, as she was leaving and going down the front stairs, she just fell right over. It was awful! I was standing right there in the doorway, but couldn't catch her. So Ann and I helped her get back on her feet and she said she was fine. Anyway, since then she has not been feeling good and was in and out of the hospital several times.

She was sitting in a chair with her legs propped up when we got there. Her legs were so swollen though, it looked like someone elses bottom half of their body was attached to her tiny little top.

She was sweet and cheerful though and kept apologizing for not getting her visiting teaching done that month. Seriously? I told her that I was coming to visit her instead this month!

She is a pretty amazing lady.

Then we went over to JoAnns and talked to her for a few minutes. What a great lady...you would definitely not find her under the listing of little old ladies, She is very capable and independent and always looks beautiful and is always taking care of everyone else! but she is an older widow in the ward, so bishop asked us to stop by there.

We went up to Anita B.( I don't think I have seen this lady for about 20 years) house, and I'm so glad we did. She invited us ind and seemed really grateful to have someone to talk to. She said she had retired in September, and had been really lonely and depressed since then. She said she didn't feel like anybody needed her anymore. We invited her to come out to church and gave her our phone numbers to call if she needed anything. I think she just needed someone to talk to.

We went over to Judy's and had a real nice visit with her too. She is another lady that is just really dear to my heart. She has some health problems that keep her from doing what she wants to do ( I swear that woman has more energy and can accomplish more than one half her age!) but she has found a medication that can help enough to where she can function. Oh this was a terrible thing too....when she was bringing us a Christmas gift, she fell down our front stairs too! Oh I could have died! I think our steps are just kind of different... not steep or anything...I love how Kelley made them like a half circle, but they are different and I think people have a hard time navigating them. Kelley and Katie ran out to help Judy, but she said she needed to just sit for a minute. I think she was just really embarrassed. She said she was ok, and they helped her to her car. I called her a little later to see how she was and after much prying, she admitted she had probably sprang her wrist. I felt horrible! Oh man, when Kelley's dad came over on Christmas eve, I made sure Kelley walked with him when he went down those stairs! Next project...railing on front steps!

Anyway, back to Wednesday...It was one of those days when you have so much to do that you don't know where to start, but I at the end of the day, I was sure glad that was what I chose to do.

I had signed up to have the missionaries come for dinner that night and that was really a treat too. The regular sister missionaries came and they had another sister with them whose companion had gone home. They were really sweet and fun to visit with. After dinner, they gave us a nice message, then asked if they could sing a song for us. We were like...sure! Well they started singing Silent Night and they all had incredibly beautiful voices!...
Then they sang the last verse in Mongolian. One of the missionaries was from Mongolia and had taught it to the others. It was so beautiful, and there was such a sweet spirit there, it was pretty cool.

Later that night after Kelley got home from bishopric, we decided to run around our Christmas gifts to the neighbors. This is something we have always let the kids help us do....we would drive, and they would run the gift up to their door. Well this time, we didn't have any happy helpers so Kelley and I got to run to the doors. It was actually really fun! I got to visit with a lot of the neighbors, which was really nice....seems like we don't take time for that too much anymore.

Kate got her Wednesday night too!
So good to see her!

Friday night we had Kelley's family over for dinner.
It was good to see Fred and Renea...they've both lost a ton of weight and look great. Fred seems a lot happier too. Michelle and her family came too. They are always great to make the extra effort to get together with family and are so fun to visit with. Love them!

Meg and Quinn came by for a visit and an enchilada. He is really good to her and they seem so happy together.
She is such an amazing person and has really had to weather some ugly storms in her young life. I always hope and pray for some happiness in her life.

Time for new jammies...

I found this fabric with cats all over it when I was looking for some flannel for Liv's jammies. I knew I must buy and make some pants for Candice!

She liked!

K.C. was supposed to be calling at 9:00. We were all waiting patiently by the phone. It didn't ring. 9:30...still nothing. I kept checking the phone to see if it was working...yup, it was working. Finally at 10:15, the phone rings. It was him! He said he must have miscalculated, and thought it was just after nine. He sounded so good and we chatted for a few minutes, then I asked him how long he had to talk, (so everyone could get a turrn), he said he had an hour, so we kept talking. Then all the sudden he says, " do you have a calling card? "This lady came in and told him he only had one minute left to talk! I quick handed the phone over to Kelley so he could talk, he only got a chance to say hello,and K.C. was gone. Oh man we were so sad! We tried to call him back on the number he called us from. It wouldn't go through. Then about 15 minutes later, he called back. He said he had a few more minutes to talk, so everyone got a turn to talk to him.

In the mean time, Aaron came over to visit Candice.

So fun to hear Kate and Candice talk to K.C. If I closed my eyes, I could picture him sitting right here with us.

It was so great to talk to him! He sounds so happy and just like his old self. Funny and sweet!

We had a wonderful Christmas morning.

Katie had made the neatest collage in a shadow box for Kelley and I. She really put a lot of thought and effort into it. Really something special! I will take a picture of it and put it on here next time. She made one for Candice and Camille too. (plus gave all the time effort and $ to have them shipped here...they were big!)

Candice gave us super thoughtful gifts too. Spent way too much and got us some things we really needed! Gosh I'm so lucky to have such thoughtful kids! And Camille gave us a skype thing for the computer! Wow! I have wanted one so much! Now I can see their family and it will almost be like being together! Kellen has a new computer now that has a webcam too so I think it will work out just great!

Kelley and I decided we would get a tv for our bedroom for Christmas...ours is from 1982. So Thursday we went over to Costco and found a real nice one. We said that was all we were going to get each other, but then he spoils me with other sweet thoughtful things too!Lizzy was pretty excited about the big chewy bone I got her!

Candice gave Katie the sweetest gift...It's that jar right there by Kate with the hearts on it. She called it her jar of love. It is full of things that friends and family have said about Katie.

Candice called all of us and asked us if we wanted to add to her jar. I sure did! It was wonderful to sit and think about why I love Katie. She is a pretty amazing person...so many great qualities. I could have filled the jar on my own.Had a yummy breakfast of crepes, and sausage.

Got ourselves together and headed up to moms. Teina had called earlier and said she wasn't feeling good at all so she wasn't going to make it to moms. I said I would stop by on the way and pick up her things. She was really coughing bad. I hope she's better soon. Brad and Amy's kids were sick too, so they didn't come either.

Anyway, we stopped by Kelley's dads for a little while and took him his Christmas gift. Kelley had got the new book about President Monson for him. He is always so generous and gave us all some money for Christmas.

Played "would you rather?" and read from Katie's "love jar" on the way to Grandma's.Mom seemed pretty good and even played the uke for us while we sang. That is definitely one of my favorite things about Christmas...singing together with my sisters and family.

I've been talking to my sisters about bringing mom down here to stay for a while. I think this week we will give it a try. I'm pretty nervous about how she will react when I tell her. I don't want to make her sad or upset. But she really needs to have someone there with her much more than she does now. We all agree on that. I'm just praying that it will work out and she will go along with the idea.
All in all ...a pretty wonderful Christmas...I guess it's just what you make be.
A few weeks ago I was talking with Merrilee and she told me she realized that she had been making every Christmas miserable by putting such high expectations on herself for getting a million perfect presents for everyone. It just hit her that it doesn't need to be that way! So she said she was cutting way back on the presents and was just going to try to enjoy all the good things about Christmas...like family get togethers, and being with the grand kids.

What great advice! Sometimes I really work myself into a tizzy with worry about pleasing everyone. I have all these thoughts and worries, and things I want to do swirling around in my head till I feel like it's going to explode! It doesn't need to be like that! I know my family will help me get whatever I want to get done...all I have to do is ask....and if I can't get it done...so what? The world will not end and probably nobody will even notice! These are all just expectations that I put on myself...no one else has told me that I need to do it except me! I'm going to do better at that next year...my new years resolution.

It's been a good time for spiritual growth for me though. Lots of great experiences and even a few Christmas miracles that warmed my heart and stirred my soul as I felt the love of Heavenly Father pouring down on me. I truly have so much to be thankful for...amazing, loving family, good health, wonderful friends, a warm house, and the knowledge and testimony I have of the birth of our Savior...that he would come to this earth and suffer all to give us the greatest gift ever...the gift of immortality and eternal life with our Father in Heaven and our families.

I'm kind of a slow learner, but it's finally really sunk in this year how very incredible and real this gift is and what it means to me.

yes...it's been a pretty wonderful Christmas!