Happy Pink New Year.

click on photo to see the eye poking through!

My account of learning what it means
to really get ready for Christmas

Our Christmas eve planning really started about two weeks before with a phone call. One Sunday night we were driving home from church talking (in separate cars on the cell phone) about one family of 3 teenagers who we realized we had overlooked. They are raised by their father who does not practice Christmas. We realized the without some creative Santa'ing, they would have no Christmas. We learned more and realized that they had never had a Christmas morning or tree in their home. Jeff and I both knew if it was possible for them we needed to have them in our home on Christmas Eve and we started making plans for that to take place. We are so greateful the dad shared them with us for their Christmas.
Then before we went to bed that night our phone rang. It was the three wise men that you hear about every year in the Christmas story. Three men from a local ward felt they needed to call us during a Presidency meeting to see if there was any family that may have been overlooked and just wanted to see if there was anything else that they could do.... they wanted to know if they could help out with gifts for a family, just like those three wise men for that story so long ago! Between the tears I had on the phone we made some arrangements to get this in going with less than two weeks before Christmas.

That night while i was on the Church website I found this quote

"We watch. We wait. We listen for that still, small voice.
When it speaks, wise men and women obey.
Promptings of the Spirit are not to be postponed."

Thomas S. Monson June 1997

This quote seemed to be the theme for our season as I believe it was the spirit that prompted someone to send $100, to throw a party in CA for a family they will never meet, someone to buy as many scriptures as we needed, a woman to buy a gift card for a woman looking for a new job to buy whole new wardrobe, I could go on and on.
If anything I have learned from this lChristmas, do not wait to act on what you feel. What if all these people would have waited and thought twice about calling or contacting us.

On Christmas Eve morning we started to feel the emotional and physical exhaustion set in. The prior long nights were starting to show in our slow speed, but what else set in was the fact I had not really thought about one thing I was doing for our family for Christmas - this was a mixed blessing. That morning we got up early to start cleaning our house and getting it ready for our 3 guests who Jeff would be picking up in the afternoon. With all of our wrapping, picking up etc I had not done laundry or cleaning anything in a week. We just started going crazy getting everything ready. It was about 10:30 am and I started to feel very tired and then started to get a little bitter. I don't like admitting it but i was. I realized that we missed our annual Christmas Eve Tradition of taking the kids to McDonald's for pancakes. Not that I like McDonald's pancakes I just like traditions. Everything seemed a little out of whack. We were so tired, I had not wrapped one thing for the girls yet, I had not sewn their love gifts, nothing was cooking on the stove and all we were doing was cleaning. I thought this does not even feel like Christmas Eve. As Jeff and I were making up the guest bed I mentioned my feelings to him. He looked at me and said, "is this not what we would be doing if Christ was coming? We would be getting our house as clean and perfect as we could" He always seems to know exactly what I need to hear. This put this in a whole new perspective for me. Even though I thought we were focus our Christmas on giving I then learned what it meant to get ready for Christmas.

(Caroline's Strawberry Soupie, she had picked out the fabric months ago)

While Jeff ran to get a Birthday cake for the girl staying with us, her birthday was also that day. I was able to sew the girls "Love Gifts" (i got the love gifts idea from Mindy's mom) I made each of them a new Soupie in their favorite colors.

Sally Jane is obsessed with the color yellow. It is all she wants to wear these days. If it is yellow it is hers. So this new big Yellow soupie made out of polka dot minkie fabric was just perfect. I had some white satin ruffle forever and was excited to finally use it.


I knew I only had about 1 hour before we had to leave for the nights events on the farm and chose to sew a blanket for our new visitor instead of sewing Annie Kate's Washington Redskin blanket. I was thrilled to have enough fabric to make a big one for her. Annie Kate never noticed that she didn't get one.

Jeff went downtown to pick up our three guests and we were were so excited to have them come and show them where to unpack their bags. I am not a sleep over mom so Annie Kate was beyond thrilled to think she was getting to have a sleepover on Christmas Eve. Our activity was going out to a farm for Christmas eve and have dinner in the barn with a live Nativity presentation and a visit from Santa. It was quite an event putting all that on. We did nothing more than just bring the birthday cake. We actually had 4 members of our ward Birthday that night.


Our ward is lucky enough to have a member with a 15 passenger van that makes it possible to get the youth to these type of activities. He was out of town for Christmas but left the van with someone who was nice enough to bring all the boys out to the farm, almost an hour away from the city.
I just love seeing Jeff with his boys, he really loves these guys. It kind of makes me teary thinking about his relationship with them, so this is all I will say on the subject. (Herb and Sharon you would be so proud of your son!)


The farm had a new 3 week old miniature pony. It was so small it could have ridden on Sally Jane's back. It was fun for the kids to feed it straw and carrots.

They fed so many people! They went through a 100 pounds of meat that night.

This is a photo of one of Annie Kate's favorite boys. She loves this guy but also thinks she is as tough as him too. He came and found me during the night and brought Annie Kate to me and said, "I am giving you back Annie Kate, she is out in the woods with the big boys and you don't want her out here" She loves Jeff's boys as much as Jeff. She was sentenced the rest of the night to the barn for her own safety.


I made all the missionaries get together for a photo. This is all the Elders serving in our ward (2 sets of Couple missionaries are missing) A ward normally has one set maybe two. I served my mission in North Dakota and this is what our district looked like. It is just awesome and shows if we need this many missionaries in our ward what amazing things are happening. The cool thing about this photo is that three of them are from France (Michelle I wish you were here) and two of them are brothers! How dreamy for a mom to have her sons serving together. We have many French speaking members in our ward.

Annie Kate was thrilled she got to be an angel in the live Nativity.

Caroline gave her last minute requests to Santa

she kept climbing up the barn rafters and it is a miracle no bones were broken.

We came home and our Christmas angels opened new pj's, only the boys didn't want to pose for a photo.

Then before we went to bed we realized we had not dropped off our last night of the nativity for our 12 days of Christmas. it was 9:00 pm. So me and the two older girls ran out to do our last drop off in our pj's. This year we gave the manger and then wrapped in a box the baby Jesus. I actually wrapped it box after box so it would take them a long time to open it. I put a tag telling the family how much they are loved and that this is to be the last gift they open on Christmas morning. I think we went the whole 12 days of them not knowing it was us. I hope I hope!

before we went to bed Santa was walking past our front door and I tried to take a photo only to come out blurry. (thank goodness for our friend who did it this year to save Jeff from putting on the suit)

we put out our carrots and celery on the front steps for the reindeer

then the girls finally went to bed and the fun began. Staying up with two teenage boys having them help us wrap gifts and put together this princess castle (a total summer score from a garage sale) was about the funnest thing ever! They were cracking us up. The oldest boy got put in charge of the Littlest Pet shop house. While we were wrapping and building he stopped and thanked us for giving him and his brother and sister a Christmas Eve and morning. They had no idea that our 3 wise men had brought loads and loads of gifts for them to open the next morning. I could hardly stand how excited I was for them to wake up.
I think the boys stayed up watching Disney movies while we said goodnight to our Santa filled room...
and at 1:05 am, we finally laid down to go to sleep. Only to be woken the next morning by not 3 but 6 EXCITED kids wanting to see what Santa brought them.

and then Christmas morning....

the Eve of Christmas Eve

(funny after I was looking at this photo, I started to wonder what happened to
all the Christmas plants we had brought in weeks before)

I think I always say, "now this was the best Sunday ever" but really this Sunday was at the tops for the year.
We were exhausted from our deliveries from the day before but still had more Christmas cheer to spread.
One of the real exciting gifts to deliver was from two different families - they were personalized sets of scriptures for EVERY single youth and also for some women in the ward who didn't have their own set of scriptures.
We felt a huge responsibility on how to deliver this items or present them to the youth. Jeff decided to give them to them personally on Sunday instead of having them open them on Christmas Day. We placed a few things in each set of scriptures. there was a wide Christmas ribbon in Chapter 2 of Luke in the New Testament and also a large Ribbon in 3 Nephi chapter 11 in the Book of Mormon, where it talks about Jesus Christ visiting the America's after he was resurrected.

I had taken a photo of some of the youth a few weeks before and printed a small copy of it and laminated it. Each photo was placed in 2Nephi in a scripture talking about friendships.

After the meeting where Jeff had given them to the youth one of the girls said to me, "I never thought I would have scriptures with my name on them" As with any youth group it is hard to really read how it impacted them, but I am so grateful for those generous people who donated these to youth and women they did not know.

Our meeting was INCREDIBLE. Seriously if you ever visit D.C. put visiting this church on your to do list, it is just an amazing experience. We had a young man give a talk who is leaving for his mission to Boise, Idaho (yes my Boise friends get ready for the best missionary you have ever seen!) In the past two years his life had made a dramatic change. It is hands down the best farewell talk I have ever heard. I am torn with how much to share on my blog, so if you ever meet me the first thing you need to ask me is this young mans story! I told him some day his story will sell millions of books.

The two other speakers were from different parts of Africa. It was touching. Amazing. Emotional. Unforgettable.(Annie Kate loves seeing the temple on the way home in the dark each

Sunday and is always trying to take a photo)

We came home so tired. We figured between our two cars that day we picked up 11 people for church. We have such a range of emotions knowing our time downtown could be coming to an end in the future. We don't talk about it too much and are trying our hardest to give it everything we have got while we are there. No regrets, no looking back, no wondering if we could have done more. I promised myself that this year. That I would stretch myself in this aspect as far as I could.


Each of the primary children were given a small envelope by one of the older ladies in our ward. this is the sweet lady I talk of often who brings gifts for the children and passes out fruit roll ups for them to eat on their rides home. She also sings her testimony each month from the pulpit.in each envelope was a $2.00 bill with her name on the outside of the envelope. There was one for EVERY child even the kids in the nursery. She wanted them all to have cash for Christmas. I heard one boy say, "now I have $13.00" Annie Kate was excited and said she will be saving hers. I will put Caroline's and Sally Jane's in their silver D.C. box and it will be a wonderful memory of this woman. Again, I was so amazed at the generosity and will never see a $2.00 bill and not think of her.Even though it was late I was able to get the last few of my neighbor gifts delivered that night. I made the addictive sweet check mix from Aimee and discovered the best way to give it as gifts. I stuffed into the left over waffle cones I had from the cookie exchange. (remember the cute ones with the red and white striped paper from Safeway) Then wrapped up each cone individually and wrapped with cellophane and ribbon. (cellophane and ribbon can make anything a cool gift)I put one on each plate for each member of the family. I slit holes in the toile paper plates and wrapped the ribbon from the bottom to tie up onto a bow on top. Great Santa tags from Target on a little metal hanger and our gifts were ready to deliver.
Two of our lucky neighbors also received one of our re-gifts. Jeff received two really nice bottles of wine from Nappy Valley and since we don't drink, we gave them to our neighbors, fully acknowledging it as a re-gift. They just giggled at us.

Another great, exhausting Sunday. I am not sure what are we going to do when we just go to church for only 3 hours and it takes 2 minutes to get there and back. This year has just been such a gift!

Delivery Day

We stayed up the night before delivery day until 1:00 am doing all that we could before we almost fell asleep in the wrapping paper. As I lay in bed I said to Jeff, "I could have done more, we could have helped more families" Prior to our deliveries on Saturday members of our ward had already delivered more than 40 baskets of Christmas items. AMAZING!
Jeff and I set our alarm for 6:30 am to get up and finish our last minute wrapping and organizing of gifts. We had to get sitters for the girls as we did not have enough room in either of our two cars because they were packed! We even had to take the seats out of the van. Loading up the cars was exciting. Driving to the city I felt like I was carrying precious cargo.
A few days before my girlfriend, who lives states away, told me her husband had prayed for our family one morning during family prayer to be able to make our deliveries for Christmas. I thought of that my whole drive downtown.

We got to our secret location downtown and began unloading the bags and bags of gifts onto the loading dock. There were many people there to deliver and separate the gifts. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall with each deliver. Here is just a sampling of what we were able to experience.
We called the family when we were out front and said we wanted to drop a little Christmas present by. Their mom was at work and the oldest daughter came downstairs and there we stood with just one of our three trips of goodies we brought into that house, keep in mind there were three of us delivering (yea Anne thanks for coming to help)
As we walked up the stairs into their apartment the boy said "are you kidding me?"
We brought in load after load to put under their empty tree.
A few weeks ago I was at Goodwill where they had three brand new (with the tags) leather rocking chairs with speakers in the headrest for $9.99 each. I bought them hoping we could give them to one of the families - who knew this would be the perfect gift for this family.
when Jeff brought up the first of the three gaming chairs - i didn't even know that is what they are called until the boy screamed, "A Gaming Chair?" Then Jeff said, "not just one but three." The 11 year old boy jumped into the arms of his older sister and the two of them were jumping up and down like they had won something on a game show. The 15 year old said, "I don't know what to say, but I feel like I am going to cry"

We stood with them around the tree and told them that Santa had accidentally delivered these gifts to our home but they had their names on them, that they were not from us but Santa himself.a photo of the packed car

The shy 8 year old girl had run into the back room to call her mom at work, I could hear her on the phone but didn't know what she was saying.
right before we left, the phone rang and the boy answered it and it was his mom, who must of just got off the phone with the 8 year old girl he said, "mom you are not going to believe what is going on at our house" His older sister told him not to tell her and let her come home to a surprise, then the 8 year old said the first words she had said since we got there, "I already called mom when they walked in"
We gave them big huge hugs, told them we are so happy they moved in our ward and that we loved them. Jeff reminded that this is the Christmas spirit and no peeking until Christmas morning. The boy asked him if he could use the gaming chairs as they were unwrapped and Jeff said of course.
those kids had no idea that under their tree sat, a PlayStation with two games, hundreds of dollars in target gift money, new clothes, an entire library for the children, mp3 player, CD player, new bedding, new star wars sheets, and honestly so much more, but for me the thought of them going to bed that night just wondering what is inside those wrapped gifts was so exciting for me.
When we picked them up for church the next morning the boy said,
"even though I had a mattress to sleep on (we just finished working on getting them all mattresses for Christmas) I chose to sleep on the floor by the presents so I could be as close to them as I could"

I learned so much during this experience. I think more than I wanted to learn. I saw a new side to service. I admire those who gave with no questions asked and said, "just tell me what you need" I have a new found appreciation for those who gave to people they will never meet and trusted me with their generous gifts! I am happy to report All were delivered into the hands they were meant for. That is a Christmas miracle.

As with any big project there are highs and lows. I have shared many of the highs and the lows will go into my personal journal. But I will say that from this I learned I want to be one who will give with no expectations in return and am grateful for those who taught me this this Christmas.

As amazing as this day was it is barely scratching the surface of what took place on Sunday and on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day. .... more to come.

Thank you to all of you for your gifts, donations and prayers.

It is in the love of one's family
only that heartfelt happiness is known.

Thomas Jefferson

I don't think I have been this tired in a very long time. Our Christmas was hands down the best Christmas Jeff and I have ever had together and we are exhausted!
I have so many wonderful experiences that were truly a gift given to our family this year, I really never knew Christmas could feel so good!
and the quote from Thomas Jefferson that we used this year on our Christmas Card has whole new meaning. The past two days we learned about how large our family circle is
and discovered a new found happiness. Merry Christmas 2007
Jeff, Kristi, Annie Kate, Caroline and Sally Jane

track Santa

We did this last year and it made the day so much fun!
Here is the phone number

1-877 - HI Norad

the people working the phones today are so AWESOME. Get a good map with your kids when you are on the phone and they talk them through the map and encourage them to go to bed early. You can call every hour if you want to.

If you are crazy enough to take
your kids to the mall...

I am not a big fan of malls or shopping, so why I took my kids to the mall on Christmas shopping weekend is beyond me. They were a little sick and weepy but I felt the need to get out of my basement that has become Santa's workshop. I forgot my stroller and was thrilled that our mall gives these little cars out for free while you shop.
The girls were dressed up to visit Dad at work in the afternoon. While I was sitting with the girls eating the yummiest pretzels that one could find in a mall two women came up to me saying ,"Where did you find those bows and smocked dresses?" These two women were so dang cute and after telling them all my eBay secrets for 10 minutes the one lady offered me to come to Annapolis and tour the Naval Academy and turns out the other lady knows my husband from work. All this conversation while my crazy kids spilled both of their slushies on the ground and threw the rest of their pretzels at each other. So I say if you take your kids out and they are crazy like mine dress them as cute as you can so that it will mask their poor behavior.
I won't be sending my new mall friends Christmas cards but will be taking the one lady up on the family tour of the Naval Academy.

We got to take the girls to see Jeff at work, I think this is their first time seeing what he does and where he works.
Caroline was just so thrilled to see that he had a chair in the office that went up and down. I thought this picture was priceless and when she is 30 I think it could be one of her favorites.
Our night ended with just about the best gift we could have been given. We have been totally overwhelmed and exhausted with all the secret Santa that we have been doing. I am amazed at how emotional it has been deciding what will go where and to whom. I don't like playing that person.
We were invited to our friends house for dinner and a gingerbread house decorating party. I think we must have walked in looking like zombies. Sitting down and eating a yummy warm dinner and doing something for Christmas just for us and our family was a needed break. I felt like I was at a catalog shoot for a Country Living Christmas edition. The feel in the home was magical. I can't believe I only took a few photos but that it always telling I had a great time. I felt like I wanted to lay down on their couch and spend the night but knew we had many more gifts to wrap for the big delivery in the morning. We left there feel rejuvenated by our night with them and motivated to finish the big project we had taken on.
We came home and wrapped and organized until 12:30 am and set our alarm for 6:30 am.

My doorstep is getting spoiled.

So look what else showed up on my doorstep today. This is going to make one basketball player downtown very happy this Christmas! woo hoo!

There have been a few things flying out my door in the other direction here are some.
The Queen of Soupies, Jeff's sister, had a sweet little girl last week. The whole reason we call our blankets soupies is because she called her blanket as a little girl her "Soup" So I made a big Soupie and a

"cup of Soup"
(smaller version of the Soupie)
oh my I really should market this one!
Congrats to the new addition.

Jeff will be taking all of his office staff gifts tomorrow. Remember my $3.00 soaps from a few months ago. They are all packaged in the $1.00 felt gift bags from Target dollar spot. and of course for the guy in the office a refill of the M&M's that I am sure Jeff eats off his desk all year long. Photo was taken before the rest of Michelle's wonderful tags were put on them. That means I used EVERY SINGLE ONE of them. Michelle. Thank you so much, you should feel so good that your goodness was spread all over the East coast.


And last but not least the Teacher Gift. The best thing ever is collecting a lump of money at the beginning of the year from the parents and giving them gift cards for birthday and Christmas, then the end of the year having $100 left over for the teacher money book. We gave our teacher $150 in gift cards and a basket with popcorn and her favorite Soda. (how would I know her favorite soda one might ask??? remember the quiz of favorite things I talked about doing for your teachers on the first day of school, this comes in mighty handy during Christmas time)

I got this idea from a girl in Tennessee. The note reads:

Pop! Pop! (popcorn inside basket)
Fizz! Fizz! (that is where the soda comes in)
of what a great teacher you is!
Merry Christmas From the parents of
your darling, cute and ever so wonderful
Third Graders!

One year for our neighbor gifts we gave all of our neighbors a bag of microwave popcorn & 2 liter of 7 up with a similar note saying what a great neighbor you is. It was perfect for our tight budget that year.

The best of all gifts around
any Christmas tree,
is the presence of friends all
wrapped up in each other.

One of my last S T R E T C H I N G projects for the year was to overcome my fear of having a party at my home. (I also want to memorize the Gettysburg Address by the end of the year, yikes)

I am a perfectionist in a weird sort of way. My friend calls me a compassionate perfectionist - which feels like it is two worlds colliding. I want things to be perfect but also am very tender to others feelings. It gets me in a rut. For example, I have had an email to return for over a month but because I want the email to be perfect I have not taken the time to write it, but then feel horribly guilty that I have not emailed this kind girl back.

Anyway, back to the party thing. I am not a good housekeeper. My house will never be known for being really clean, but if you pay me an expected visit you will think I am. I should underline expected. I am not good at the day to day upkeep but can get my house spiffy if I know someone is coming. I get worried about having people over because I know it will take me three days to get ready for it, then I will be exhausted and not enjoy myself. So my Stretching project was to send out invites to a party and NOT stress over it. I did just that.

My gift to my girlfriends was to invite them over for a cookie exchange and have them leave with plates of goodies tied with bows to deliver to their friends. It was my way of doing my neighbor gifts this year and I think I will do it again.

seeing my friends leave with packaged gifts with tags ready to give was very exciting, it felt better than dropping something off to their door.

I used my side table to do the packaging. I used Safeway waffle cones (they come with cute red and white stripped paper on them) in the center glued down with icing. This helped the cellophane stick up high and straight for the tied bow to rest on. I had found these awesome Christmas Toile plates at Home Goods.
My friend Jane made the most awesome salad - sad I didn't take a photo it was beautiful. It had dried cherries and yummy seasoned pecans.

this photo is of Peppermint Whip! it is yummy. I chilled my silver pan over night to keep it cold. You just dip it with the Pepperidge Farm cookies and it is yum.

These fast and easy Turtle bars were a snap and thanks to my friend Kimberly who gave me the recipe the night before.
I made the chocolate turtles as usually but this time used the Dove caramel chocolates and think they may have won out using Rolo's. Because they are square (and cheap at the commissary) they melt really evenly.
I overcame my fear of my house being too small. I didn't have space to put the completed plates, but my resourceful friend found a space on the top of my new $10.00 Goodwill shelf.
So I learned today, I have great friends, my house is not too small to have an event, my baseboards do not have to be clean to have a party and the theme of this Christmas has been giving people the opportunity to give is even better than giving! Great day!
I did go to bed at 7:30 exhausted but I did enjoy myself.

Recipes in case you are interested

Turtle Bars

1 (12oz) box of Nilla Wafers
3/4 cup butter melted
1 (10oz) pack of semi sweet choc. chips
1 cup pecans, chopped
caramel topping

Crush vanilla wafers to fine crumbs. Stir together with butter: press into bottom of 13x9 baking dish. Sprinkle with morsels and nuts. Drizzle caramel topping. Bake at 350 for 12-15 min. Cool in pan on wire rack. Chill (must chill before cutting) 30 minutes.

Peppermint Whip

1 bag of round peppermints crushed
1 med size carton of Heavy Whipping cream
1/2 cup of powdered sugar

whip cream into peaks, beat in sugar and stir (with a spoon) crushed peppermints. stir just enough to have the cream become pink and white striped.