Christmas Decorating

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I love decorating for Christmas!  I love the colors, the smell of cinnamon pine cones, the Christmas music, the Christmas lights... I could go on and on.

This past week I decorated three different times and it was so fun. When Dan and Ems lived with us, we always decorated together, so now every year we have a tradition of helping each other with our trees. We have more fun doing it together (and plus Dan carries the heavy things up the three flights of stairs for us.)  My Mom likes us to help her with her decorating every year as well, so the day after Thanksgiving we start decorating and spend the whole weekend decorating.

This year we decided to spread it out a little because I was scheduled to work on the Friday after Thanksgiving. So, we did Emilee's tree on Wednesday, (although I got sidetracked that afternoon with Fluffy), my Mom's on Friday (which I was actually able to help with some until I got called into work) and mine on Saturday. So, I guess mine was the only one that I was involved in the whole time, but it was a fun weekend of decorating anyway.

On Friday, before we set up my Mom's tree we were moving furniture around and I was vacuuming. Ad and Stace and their kids were there, along with Emma, and they all decided they wanted to help me vacuum. Aren't they so cute?

(I am wearing my Christmas scrubs since I was on call to work)

All three times we had Christmas music playing. I love hearing little snippets of the music as we are decorationg. I love pulling out the decorations and remembering my favorite ones. I love the memories the different decorations bring! Most of all, I love that it helps me to think more of Christ and His birth and all that it means in my life.

I didn't get many pictures of Em's and my Mom's tree since I was in and out, but I did take some of my decorations when they were done. Here is my tree completed, with a close up of the decorations:

I love to sit on the couch at night with the tree on and read my scriptures or just listen to music and ponder the meaning of Christmas.

Here are some of my other favorite decorations (that are almost like seeing old friends again :) :

The ceramic bear, santa and trees are ones we made in a ceramic class that the four girls and my Mom took years ago. (I also did a ceramic village in that class, but I have not had room to get those out since I moved in to my condo.) I love them because they remind me of that time together with my Mom and sisters. The nativities are some that I have collected over the years, I really love nativities.

Here is the nativity that Jen got me last year. Isn't it beautiful?

And last of all, since probably no one but me really cares about all of my decorations, here are some of the other ones I have made or bought through the years:

I love Christmas!!

Thankful

I came home early tonight to go to bed because I am scheduled to work a 12 hour shift tomorrow at the hospital. Right as I was going to bed I got put on call, so I figured I could take a quick minute to write.

It has been a nice Thanksgiving. I have such a wonderful family, so supportive and fun to be with. I was able to see all of my family at one time or another today except my one brother and his wife (we missed you guys!). Jen and I went over to my parent's house early and helped set up and it was nice to visit with them. I sure love my good parents and all I learn from them.

Then the families that were coming for dinner came and we had dinner around 1:30 (yum, yum, I love turkey and stuffing). The rest of the day we played games and talked and ate pie. It was a very low key, but a nice Thanksgiving. One of the biggest things I am thankful for today is a wonderful family who are my best friends.

I especially loved seeing all the cute kids. My neices and nephews are such a comfort to me. I love to talk to them and hear the cute things they say. Today Josh asked me how Fluffy was buried if he went to live with Heavenly Father. It was so precious to explain to him (using the glove analogy) about the resurrection. It was so cute when Annika asked me to come and build a castle with blocks, when Joey sat on my lap as we were playing the game, when Brendan helped me decide what cards to put down... I could give an example with each child. I love that they all love me and want to be with me.

One of my favorite things is when they give me drawings or make some other cute thing for me. My journal has a lot of those precious little drawings from various neices and nephews. I have to add one quick picture here. The other day I went to Emilee's house and Emma, with Em's help, had made cookies that spelled my name.


Isn't she just so cute in her little apron? One of the greatest blessings of still being single after all this time is the close relationship I have with all these sweet little kids!

I wanted to add a few more things I am thankful for. This morning I woke up early with a tender heart. Yesterday was a very difficult day for me and Jen and as I woke up, I laid in bed for a few minutes and prayed and thanked Heavenly Father for comfort in difficult times.

When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was my favorite picture of Christ, and I thought again of how thankful I am for the Atonement and that Christ suffered for our sorrows as well as our sins. That even though this is a relatively small thing that I am grieving about, Heavenly Father and Jesus care because they care about me and my happiness. What a blessing to have a Father and Brother who love us so much.

I got up and made rolls and while I was making them I listened to October Conference for about two hours. It was so good. I listened to several talks, but my favorites were President Uctdorf's from the Priesthood session about learning from our adversity and President Monson's from the Sunday Morning Session about service. I love the counsel we get from our leaders and how it helps me to ponder ways I can improve and become a better person.

I also listened to some Christmas music. I love music! Here is a line that I heard again this morning from one of my favorite Christmas songs, "The Star of Bethlehem" by Sally Deford: "The star still shines for me... It beckons me through ages past by countless years undimmed. It bids me serve His children now, thus to worship Him." Aren't those beautiful words?I love the lessons I can learn from music.

The other thing I was really grateful for today was the beautiful sunshine! Wasn't it a gorgeous day?

Well, there are many other things I am thankful for, but this post is probably too long already and I'd better be getting to bed. I am going to be hating life tomorrow if I get called in at 4:30 am, but I am glad I was able to write anyway!

This and That

Ok so I have had this blog for over a week and have only posted twice. Sigh, I had such high aspirations when I started it. So, here I am at 10:45 starting a post. That is about the time I get around to things.

It has been a busy weekend, but I keep thinking of something I heard in a Conference at work a few weeks ago. They were introducing a woman speaker that had a lot going on in her life and talked about all the things she was involved in and how busy she was. When she got up to speak she said, "I don't like to think of myself as having a busy life, I like to think I have a full life." I really liked that and have thought a lot about that since then.

Sometimes it is hard to know what the most important thing for me to do next with all the things I have going on, but I am so glad that I have such a full life! I am so glad that I have such a wonderful family, wonderful callings and great jobs. (Although I do wish I could see each one of my family members more often...)

I have started praying the last few months every morning that I would do the most important things with my time that day. It has been so amazing how Heavenly Father will quietly lead me to do something different than I had orginally planned, and how I am able to get the most important things done. I am grateful to have the Spirit to lead me!

I had a great time with the nieces this weekend. As they were all gathered around at the beginning of the night and I looked at all of their sweet faces, I couldn't help but get a little teary eyed (I know, ME, get emotional) as I thought of how lucky I am to have so many sweet nieces and nephews to cuddle and love. Thanks family for sharing them with us!

On Sunday we had Stake Conference. On Saturday night, at the evening session, they called people out of the audience to bear "Christ centered testimonies." I thought of what I would say if I were called, and a whole organized series of thoughts came right to mind. I wasn't called up that night, but I was grateful for the thoughts I had that reinforced my testimony of the Savior.

The next morning, I saw there were no speakers sitting on the stand again and wondered if they were calling for testimonies again. I knew I would not be called, I mean, why would they call me? (Most of the people they were calling were Presidents, etc). They did call people out of the audience and I was not one of them. Then, one of the sisters they called was not there. The Stake President stood up and paused and looked around and then said, "We have a set of twins in our Stake...I would like them to come up and give their testimonies" and announced our names. Wow, I couldn't believe it.

So, since he announced my name first, Jen said I got to go first (she is so kind.) It was really neat though because since I had thought it all out the night before I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

I quoted part of D&C 98:1-2 and focused on the part thay says, "for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth..." I remember studying one time and finding that the word Sabaoth means "multitude". I thought of what that means in the context of this verse, that even though He is the Lord of multitudes, He hears my prayers. I can hardly comprehend that, but I know it is true. I know He knows each one of us individually and loves us more than we can imagine, that He longs for us to be happy.

I then shared the quote that I put in my last post. I was grateful for the opportunity to bear testimony, even though it was unexpected. Jen did a great job on her testimony. It was a neat experience to be up there together.

Well, enough rambling. It was a great weekend!

Serenity

“He is the answer to the longings of the human heart for certainty. He is the answer to our individual sins and to our sorrows... In the midst of our trials and challenges, we will find peace, knowing that in the end it will be all right. We will find serenity in the face of affliction. We will find this serenity in life even as chaos swirls around us. Such is the power of a testimony and witness that Jesus is the Christ.” --Elder L. Aldin Porter, April 2001 Conference

This morning after I woke up, I laid in bed for a few minutes and was pondering and looking at the pictures of Christ in my room. I have some of my favorite quotes taped to the desk right next to my bed so that I can read them when I first wake up. I read this one again and looked at my pictures and thought of how grateful I am for Jesus Christ and all He has done and continues to do for me. I love that quote! I love the part that talks about finding serenity even as chaos swirls around us. But the reason I can have that serenity is because of Christ, because of His great sacrifice and continuing love. Do I sometimes forget the cost of my serenity, what it must have cost the Savior? I love Him so much and want to do all I can to serve Him!

I have had a crazy couple of days, working 30 hours in 3 days between my two jobs and also doing Primary stuff at night(which I love...) so I haven't had time to post, but I wanted to at least post this today. I will try to post more later. I'm off to the temple soon! (Can't go a Thursday without the temple even when mine is closed.)

A Blog...Finally!

So, with the help of my wonderful sister Jen, I have finally created my own blog. (Jen is the reason I get around to a lot of things...) Now you can have access to all of my random thoughts and daily activities.

Since I am just in the process of getting my blog set up and organized, so you will probably see changes, but at least I am starting. Hopefully I will get in the habit of posting regularly.

To explain my URL, when I was young my Mom was trying to teach me the importance of service and talked to me about making sacrifices for others. I took it a little to the extreme and started writing in my journal about it. One of my entries in my 11 year old journal starts, "I made three sacrifices today..." and I went on to list what those sacrifices were. My family still teases me about that one. I obviously have a lot of work to do on my humility!

So, I thought I would do a quick first post about what has happened in the last day or two.

Last night we had our third "nephew sleepover." We actually had all of the nephews except Logan (who had strep throat--we really missed him) and Camden (who still is a little young to want to stay with Aunt Jan and Jen.) We had Matthew and Brayden come to the night celebration only becasue they are still too young to sleep over.

We had such a great time! The boys were all so excited and were very good. We made "Thankful Turkey" crafts by tracing their hands and feet and had them each write a thank you note to their parents. Then we made cookies and watched a video. They all did really well and had fun together.

Since Jen is going to do a whole post, complete with pictures (she is much more experienced at this kind of thing), I will not write many more details, but I really did enjoy it. I love that we can have such a close relationship with all of these cute kids. I love that they trust us.

Cute Joshy kept commenting on all the pictures of Jesus we have in our house and then came this morning and whispered in my ear, "I have wanted to ask someone this... Does Heavenly Father love Osama Bin Laden?" (He had been telling me all about September 11 and what he had learned about it.) What a precious experience to try to explain to Josh that Heavenly Father loves all of His children, but He is not always happy with the decisions we make and we will all have to suffer the consequences of our choices. I just loved that he trusted me enough to ask me that.

All the other boys were so cute as well, and growing up so fast. It was so fun to see them interact together and see all of their cute little expressions and hear them talk together. I sure love my nieces and nephews. They make being single so much easier! Thanks to all my family for sharing your kids with us! We are looking forward to having the nieces next week.

Well, with the sleepover and spending the last few hours creating this blog I haven't done much of my Saturday stuff, so I'd better get going. I hope I'll write more soon (and soon I will learn how to put pictures on to make it more interesting...)