Late December happenings

So, now I will get on to reporting what we did in mid to late December, other than sitting around being sick (which was our main activity, unfortunately).

We finally got enough snow to play in, and on December 14th after church (hence Tony in a button-down white shirt and Faith's hair in a bun), we made good use of it. One of the kids' favorite things is to throw snowballs at their dad.

Of course, he retaliated! Or wait, maybe he's the one who started it. Anyway, it was lots of fun and a beautiful day to be outside.

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The morning of Dec. 20th we had a Christmas breakfast activity at our church. We had a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausage, ham, homemade sweet breads and orange juice, and then some of the primary kids put on a nativity program. Faith's class got to be angels who sang "Picture a Christmas".

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There she is!-->

It was very sweet, even if Faith acted like she'd never heard the song before in her life. Of course, she'd learned it in primary when I was the chorister, practiced it in her class with the new chorister, and I had worked on it with her for an hour or so the evening before. In her defense, the vast majority of the kids also had temporary amnesia.

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Then, Santa arrived and we went in the multipurpose room to visit with him. Christian told him that he wanted a "choo-choo table"

and Faith requested a hot pink iPod, a little worried that she had left out her color preference when she sat on his lap a month before at the mall.

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The next day, I sang in our Christmas Sacrament meeting program. It (the program, not me personally--especially since my voice was suffering the effects of being sick all month) was AMAZING!!!!!! Our choir director was Ben Dee, even though the Dee's got split into another ward about a month before the program :( But they and several other familes came back, just for that Sunday, along with the Stevens' who had moved :) Ben and his wife, Debbie (who is an amazing musician and singer) put the program together and even arranged several of the musical pieces! In addition to being unbelievably talented, they are also adorable--check out their blog: Our Family Has Grown by Two Feet.

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To begin with, Debbie played a beautiful prelude on her harp, which set the perfect mood. The program was made up of musical numbers, with small spoken parts about Christ's birth from scripture and words of the prophets, in between.

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Some of my favorite choir numbers were:

-"Still, still, still" (click here to hear a version of it),

-"O Come, O Come Emanuel" with just the women singing and accompanied only by violin and harp (here's the MoTab's version),

-and "Joy to the World" accomanied by two people on the piano and two on the organ.

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My favorite instrumental numbers were:

-a flute duet of "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" (here's as close as I could find) played beautifully by my friends Emmaly Nielson and Brandi Johnson

- and "Stille Nachte" with Ben on the piano, Debbie playing the cello and Lindsay Stevens playing violin. It was the Manheim Steamroller version (click here to hear it), but sounded even better than theirs!! I definately wasn't the only one shedding a tear or two during it!

There were also performances by a youth choir, a children's choir, a clarinet duet, and two hymns where the congregation joined us. It was the most inspiringly beautiful Christmas program I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot after the awesome job they did the year before! I feel so lucky that I got to be a small part of it and will miss the Dees terribly!

Sunday evening, at my mom & dad's, my mom gave the kids each an ornament. She started this tradition several years ago, and Faith always looks forward to it! Christian's is a jingle bell reindeer and Faith's is a tiny pop-up book that ties open so you can hang it on the tree.

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Monday was Lana's family's anual Christmas party (held at Craig & Arlette's house) where we also celebrate Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell's birthdays--Marcella's is on Christmas day and Kent's is January 4th. We chatted and ate pizza, then sang "Happy Birthday" to them. Right after they blew out the candles, Christian started saying, "Cake. Cake, now. CAKE!"

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So, being the awesome aunt that she is, Tammy hurried and cut the kids some cake while grandma & grandpa were opening their gifts. Christian's face especially loved the raspberry filling!

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On Tuesday, the 23rd, we invited Ann & her kids and Natalie & her kids over for a get together. The moms had a great time chatting while the kids played and strung candy necklaces. Then we had an awesome lunch of hot dogs and mac & cheese.

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After that, we made candy melt suckers from a kit that Ann brought over. It was such a fun day! Hanging out with friends is one of my favorite things in the world!!

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This year, I decided to make an assortment of cookies to hand out as neighbor gifts. It was a lot of fun making them, but, as I'd never tried

most of the recipes before, some didn't turn out tasting as good as they looked :( Tony said he liked them, though, so I proceeded to still give them out. Because I do everything last minute, I didn't get plates out to everyone that I planned to. I'm sorry to all my friends who missed out, but I'm telling you now that I think you're better off! :)

Starting at the top and going clockwise there are: Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies (mine came out a little too salty), Candy Cane cookies (I didn't care for these at all), Wreath Cookies (one of my all-time favorites), Meltaways (very shortbread-y, but pretty good with the cream cheese frosting), and Cathedral Windows (I didn't melt the butterscotch chips well enough, but they still tasted good even if they looked a little off). I also made some Mexican Wedding Cookies (the recipe called them snowballs) that turned out okay and they made it to some of the plates. The best new recipe I tried was for Soft Gingerbread Cookies. Not sure how this plate in the picture missed out on these (sorry neighbors!!), but they were delicious. I definately think I'll make them all year long!!

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Next up: Christmas Eve!