Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve we go to my Grandma's house. We eat dinner, do a nativity, dance around the Christmas tree, and exchange gifts.

Brock played baby Jesus in our family's nativity. He did great (especially being held like a "little baby") He didn't wear the "swaddling clothes" so he kind of looks out of place. But he didn't cry or fuss once during the whole thing.



The whole cast


My family is from Norway, and we have actually kept many Scandinavian traditions. One of them being dancing around the Christmas tree. (you can kind of see it in the background). Every Christmas eve the whole extended family dances in a circle around the tree while singing Christmas songs, we mostly sing carols and hymns, but we end singing a Norwegian song, none of us know the words, but we do know how to mumble and dance! We think it is great - those who marry into the family (i.e. Jason and Travis) think it is weird.


This is my sister Katie and her cute Audrey!

Christmas Morning

My parents gave him a rocking horse (his name is painted along the bottom on the other side)


Opening presents with mom

We spent the night at my parents house and opened presents Christmas morning. Brock is at a great age for opening presents, he LOVES tearing paper and cardboard boxes, so he was just in heaven. I was so excited about the rocking horse, I had one just like it when I was little. I loved my horse, I have several pictures of me falling asleep while on the horse. (My name was also across the bottom ((I hope i am not living vicariously through him :) ))

Thoughts on Christmas

I have been thinking a lot about Mary the past few weeks, and the role she played in the Christmas story. I would like to share them with all of you.

I think that sometimes we expect God to just take care of things, or make them easy. I think we expect this a lot more when we feel that we are doing his will. We think things like, "If God wants me to ______ then he will do_________." But if you take a look at Mary and her attitude you will see a true "hand maiden of the Lord." Mary was pregnant with the Son of God, the Savior of the World. This was absolutely God's will. On the night of Christ's birth Mary had traveled to Jerusalem with Joseph. As we all know there was no room for them in the Inn and she gave birth in a stable and laid Him in a manger.

Now if I were Mary I would probably have a few thoughts running through my head. 1 - I would probably be a little mad at my husband for not ensuring I was taken care of. After all I AM pregnant and he is supposed to provide for me. I might be mad that he had not made prior arrangements or couldn't figure out how to make sure I had a suitable place to deliver our baby.
2 - I might be a little mad at God. My prayer that night might say, "God, this is your Son, this is your will, you asked me to carry this child, and now, tonight, you have not even provided for me. Did you forget about me? What about what I want? I am willing to do what ever you want me to do, but why is there no room in the Inn, why did things just not fall into place?"

I am grateful to Mary to teach me what true humility is. I am grateful that we have the beautiful Christmas story, and that through her obedience, grace, and understanding, she was not selfish or prideful, but willing to quietly give birth to her son, my Savior, in a stable. I pray that when things aren't going the way I think they should go, rather than blame someone else, I will have the quiet strength, faith, and courage to truly be "an handmaiden of the Lord."

Things I learned from Super Saturday

I am the Second Counselor in our Relief Society - and as such I am in charge of enrichment, which means I was in charge of our Super Saturday for Christmas. It was a few weeks ago, but I am just now recovering, so I am only now able to reflect on the things I have learned. I thought I might share them with you, knowing many of you might find yourself in a similar situation.

1 - You don't need 500 different crafts, although you might want diversity, most people sign up to do all of them, and then they don't have time to actually do all of them, so you waste money buying the stuff.

2 - Once Saturday has ended - end it! Do not do make up days, or continue to let people buy stuff - this only increases your chances of going over budget, and in the end you will not be able to make everyone happy, and it isn't fair to just make a few happy.

3 - Don't ever reduce prices until the day of - it will just be a nice little bonus if they get there and don't have to pay as much. Last minute spending is always more than you thought.

4 - Delegate. I say this with a little bit of hesitancy. I had plenty of people volunteering to help, but I just wanted to do it myself. I know that if I did it again, I still wouldn't delegate much, but it is still useful advice. Looking back, I guess, there were some things I could have given up control of.

5 - Don't expect to get your own crafts done. I actually thought I would.

I hope this was a little helpful (and humorous to those of you in my ward). I loved Super Saturday and am glad I got the opportunity to participate. I am proud to report I have finished all of my crafts and stayed within budget (it got a little scary at the end).

Temple Square

I love temple square any time of year. To be honest spring is my favorite time, but the holiday lights would have to come in at a close second. Although it was cold outside, Brock handled it very well.

Ward Christmas Party

We went to our ward Christmas Party last week. We had a nice dinner, got family pictures taken, and Brock got to sit on Santa's lap. Jess took some great pictures (as always)!

Our family picture.

The ward Christmas party was on December 8th, my birthday was on December 9th, so that is what we did for my birthday. I think i just need to know that every year for my birthday i will probably be at some sort of Christmas party. I guess it is ok because i love Christmas. Jason did make me breakfast that morning, and then we went to my family's house for Sunday dinner, so all in all it was a good day.

Thanksgiving

Life has been crazy. I have had no time to blog. But I plan on changing, so I need to catch up.

Thanksgiving was so wonderful! Jason's whole family came to town. The whol family hasn't been together in 4 years, and the 4 grandchildren have never been all together. We were only all together for like a total of 14 hours, but they were a wonderful 14 hours. I din't get a lot of pictures of the family, but we tried to get a picture with the grandkids and Jason's mom. Here is how they turend out.