Feliz Merry Jolly

I've been on auto pilot for the last few weeks. I had one thing on the brain shop, shop, shop!

So far all festivities have been overwhelming. There is just so much to do and no time to do it.

I really enjoyed the Christmas Devotional where the 1st Presidency of the LDS Church spoke. President Uchtdorfs talk (found HERE) has been on my mind. It was very hard to stay focused while I Christmas shopped because I kept thinking about the part of his talk where her quoted Dr. Seuss,

"Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

'Maybe Christmas,' he thought, 'doesn't come from a store.

'Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!'"

Feeling guilty because I have not been focused on what the season is all about.

But lucky for me, I was able to get everything done and shipped out yesterday,

so I can focus on the TRUE meaning of Christmas over the next 9 days.

Here is the latest and greatest...

The Man and I got tickets to the East Valley Mormon Choral Organizations Christmas Concert. It was AMAZING!!!! I really hope that next year I can actually participate in the choir. It was so wonderful. It really helped get me into the Christmas Spirit.

Here is the rest of the Decking of halls up in our crib...

Since our trip to Florida, the kids have been WILD!!! I mean seriously OUT OF CONTROL!

The baby midgets have had problems with the potty training and for sanitary reasons, I have decided to put them in pull ups and re-address the potty training in the new year. Many tears have been shed by all and for my own sanity, it just needed to be done.

The baby midgets also decided to get into a new bag of protein powder and dumped it all over the kitchen. and then thought it would be HILARIOUS to flood my sink so that it would overflow and turn said protein powder into chocolate paste all over the kitchen counters and floor. I had to lock them in the backyard so I could clean it up. Took me 3 hours to clean it up!

The baby midgets have also (oh yes, there is more) overflowed our neighbors bird bath/fountain as well as poured an entire bottle of algicide in it. I swear I watch my kids. I swear!

So with all that and Jared out of town for an un-official Father/Son ski trip in UT (minus the sons), I was not so enthusiastic about letting the little monsters go see the Jolly Red man that night. BUT... since I am an incredibly patient woman, I took them to our neighbors Holiday Santa Party. The kids had a blasty blast and loaded up on way too much hot chocolate and marsh mellows and got to see the Jolly one.

They were all a little starstruck so they didn't get a chance to tell him what they want for Christmas.

Which is probably a good thing because "Santa" did NOT get Cori the Motorcycle she has been asking for!

And finally, we took our AWESOME Sunday School class (or half of them) to dinner to celebrate an Awesome year.

They will be graduating to the 17yr old SS class in January.

We will miss their AWESOMENESS!

We have had a great year teaching these knuckle heads. They are great kids with strong testimonies who kept us on our toes all year long! We have grown a lot as their teachers and appreciate their examples.

and I'm done now.