Missing My Boy

It hit me that I will not see my son at all in 2012.  I'm so grateful he's serving a mission, but missing him a little.  I begged for pictures today and he complied.  Doesn't he look gorgeous?  I love him!

Christmas Cards

Thank you to everyone who sent me a Christmas card this month.  They made me so happy!  I have no idea when I'll take them down...I love them.

Merry Christmas

A wonderful Christmas with my tall, beautiful daughters and generous husband - our theme was doggie jammies in honor of our number one Christmas present:  our dog, Ginger.

Hugging and loving my dad and sister who traveled to spend Christmas with us.

Topped off by a 2-hour phone call with my missionary son, who was blessed to teach and baptize a Korean brother on Christmas Day.  So thankful.

Looking Like Christmas

Making sugar cookies for our neighbors.

Got this pic at the local Christmas tree lot.

Crazy Holiday Season

It's been a crazy couple of weeks! Lots of basketball games (16 in one week). Here's a few pictures from some of our stuff:

Jenna and Kellie all dressed up to go to the Ugly Sweater dance at school.

Katie at her first basketball game.

Kellie's official pic for the sophomore team.

Jenna's official pic for the JV/Varsity team.

Looking alot like Christmas

It's looking a lot like Christmas at my house and I'm so glad because I like all our Christmas decorations! Here's a little virtual tour:

These are the stuffed animals - I had to put them all together this year in a room away from the dog because we discovered that the dog LOVES to pull the ears off of stuffed toys. I especially love the Rudolph and penguin.

These three are of the windows in my kitchen right by the sink. I stand at these windows a lot to look out back at Utah Lake (and do dishes), so I put all my favorite little knick knacks there. Favorites here are the sock snowman, "Teach the Children" poem and sack, picture of Mary and Jesus, wood manger scene, and little plaid Santa sack (which I have had for like 18 years).

Christmas trees - I love them! We have them in every room, including the girls bedrooms.

This is the tree in front of our house. Last year, we had Josh and Kellie climb up and put lights all in it. This year, I found gigantic ornaments to hang on it.

Kitchen Christmas tree - I use little lightbulb necklaces for the lights and the ornaments are new this year: snowmen and reindeer.

Our "Jesus tree" - the first year that Katie was in our home (2001) I got all the pictures of the Savior that I could find and we decorated them with paper and glitter and then hung them on the tree along with a "gift" of an act of service we would perform for Jesus' birthday.

Stockings hung by the chimney with care - I bought all the stockings and cross stitched everyone's name on them as each child arrived. The hangers are a new things for this year. I've always wanted them!

Our main tree. When David's grandpa was alive, he would send us money every year for Christmas. About 5 years into our marriage, we used the money to buy this tree. Every year when we put it up, we think of him and his kind, generous love for us. The ornaments are pictures of my children - my mom learned how to create them when we were kids and she helped us learn. My sister made some of these for me as a gift one year, and I have added some since then.

Elves! My sister-in-law made these cute elves each year and sold them at Christmastime. One year, she gave us a personalized one for each member of our family. This year, they're sitting on this shelf in the kitchen/dining - I usually pose them funny, this year Josh is lying down :)

Door hanger - I've had this for years and I just think it's cute.

Nativity - my mom got this for us many years ago when she decided she wanted all her children to have a nativity. It's still in pretty good shape except for the baby Jesus who has been held and dropped too many times by loving children.

One more tree to come: this year we're getting a live tree for our TV room, partly because we have so many ornaments and partly because we just think it'll be fun!

Ginger

Two weeks ago, a dog wandered into the Thunderdome at Timpview. The girls coach, Jaimie, felt sorry for the dog and said to Jenna, "Jenna, take this dog home and I'll be by to get her later." Well, later didn't happen and after realizing that the dog didn't have any tags and no way to find its owner, we called Animal Control. We could tell that the dog was well-trained: she sits, shakes, rolls over, so we knew that she'd had an owner and been well-loved. Animal Control took her to the shelter where they found that she'd had a microchip under her skin to identify her owner, but after following all the info on that, they ended up at a dead end.

In the meantime, we were told that if she wasn't claimed by Saturday, that she would go up for adoption. David and I were praying that the owners would be found because we just didn't know if we were ready for a dog. The shelter called us on Wednesday and asked if we were interested in adopting her and I said, "Well, we don't want her to be put down, so if her owners aren't found, then call us." Turns out, what the lady really meant was, "someone else is interested in adopting the dog, so if you want first chance, you need to say so" but she didn't say that.

On Friday, I woke up and knew that I wanted to adopt that dog, so you can imagine my dismay when I called the shelter and they said, "Well, we called you and we have an application from someone else, so you'll have to turn in an application, too, and then we'll give the dog to the best home for her." I hustled down and filled out an application and the next morning, we got the call that we were pet owners!

The dog is a girl who all my girls named Ginger within moments of first finding her. She is a cocker spaniel, super cute. The shelter estimated her age at 8 years, but a trip to the vet put her at 3 years old. The hair on her ears and legs and belly was so matted that the people at Petsmart were nice enough to clip it off her even though she couldn't be completely groomed until 48 hours after her rabies shot. She came out of that experience a completely different-looking dog. Still cute, but SHORT hair. The super plus: she smells so much better!

We are getting used to the new responsibility and adjusting to taking the dog for walks and out to go potty and all the things that go along with a pet. She absolutely loves us and does not want to be alone. She likes to go outside, but she will not explore unless someone from the family is out there with her.

So, I am a pet owner. I can't believe I just wrote that.