Christmas Eve & early Christmas morning

Not a good week last week! Christian threw up throughout two nights starting Tuesday at 3 a.m. and still felt sick as of yesterday, I got the yuck on Friday (but at least I wasn't sick while having to care for a cranky two-year-old and doing a bazillion loads of laundry), and Tony got sick on Saturday. Faith seems to have escaped the wrath of this stomach virus, let's hope I don't jinx her now!!!! On to catching up my journal/blog:

We spent Christmas Eve at my mom & dad's and first enjoyed some amazing hors d'oeuvres (spinach dip, crab rounds, barbeque bacon wrapped chestnuts, etc.) and a wonderful dinner. Afterward, we did our anual nativity with Sarah's gorgeous homemade costumes.

Alaura was Mary at the beginning, and aparently either was pretending to be "great with child" or thought that the wrap style of the dress conveniently doubled as a baby sling. Celeste is on the far left being an ever-vigilant shepherd.

At this point, Faith was an angel.

When it was time for the Wise Men to show, everyone switched costumes and Faith then got the coveted role of Mary.

Alaura's showing her angelic side & Noah looks pretty pleased with himself as a Wise Man here. Grandpa Quinn was even up to coming which was a really neat surprise.

Christian was absent from these festivities as he was sound asleep during the whole thing!

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A few days before when I teasingly asked Eric what he was going to do for the (non-existant) talent portion of the night, he said he didn't have anything planned, but my mom then proceeded to talk him into breaking out his magic tricks from back in the day. It's been a long while since he'd done them, but you couldn't even tell--they were awesome!! He first astounded us with his amazing card tricks

and then some other magic (he's doing a floating hankie trick here). The kids really enjoyed the show, too.

When we got home, the kids got to open one present.

Surprise!!! Jammies!!! Actually, after hugging them so cute, Christian tossed his aside and grumbled, "Clothes," obviously dissappointed. It's so hard to wait for Christmas day with all of the anticipation of new toys!

The kids tossed reindeer food out on the grass to prepare for their visit. Thank you to the Hustons and Parkinsons for the fun gift of it. Having two bags worked out perfectly for us!!!

When Faith set out the cookies and milk, Christian seemed really interested. He helped me tuck Faith in and then started saying "Ho-ho come, sky." I said, "Yep, Santa's going to come in the sky tonight!" He kept saying, "NO! Ho-ho come, sky!!!" I finally came the the realization that what he was actually saying was, "Ho-ho come, scary!" Christian was my two-year-old who was excited to sit on Santa's lap and everything! I guess seeing those snacks set out made it sink in that some big guy with crazy clothes and a bushy beard was coming into our house and around him as he slept, and it was just too much for him! He absolutely wouldn't go to sleep in his crib, so I let him fall asleep in our bed. The first time I tried to move him back to his crib, he was so jumpy that he woke up screaming in terror, "Ho-ho here?!!!"

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The next morning Faith woke up at five or so and finally Tony got up with her. He let her look in her stocking while he made us all a bacon and egg breakfast! When Christian woke up, all fear was forgotten when he saw what Santa had brought. He got this awesome, gigantic train table!

Then he dug every last thing out of his stocking.

The kids then opened thier gifts from us.

Here is Faith with her hot pink MP3 player from Santa. Luckily, Santa must have known early on that she wanted this color even though she forgot to tell him, because when we were looking for a similar one to give Tammy, we found that they were sold out all across the United States!

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We didn't forget the pets, either!

It was a wonderful Christmas morning . . . but that was just the beginning of our day!!!!

Our family has grown by four feet :)

FINALLY!!!! I'm getting around to posting our baby announcement. This is the new addition to the Braegger family. We adopted him from the Ogden Animal Shelter and brought him home on January 26th, named him Dusty and given him the honorary birthday of November 1st. He is very playful and also very loving, but gets scared and hides when we have guests over. He tries to play with Crumpet, but since she's old and grouchy she either ignores him or snarls. These pictures were all taken January 26-30, so I'm already really behind and need to get some new pics of him posted--he's already nearly doubled in size! (I also need to finish getting the rest of our Christmas pictures up and what's happened since then. I promise to work on it!)

Enjoy! Baby Dusty:

And a little video of him playing with his stuffed mouse:

One more Christmas card!

We got one more adorable Christmas card, and I forgot to post it!!! Well, here it is: Liz & Matt with their darling twins. Doesn't get much cuter than that!

Our beloved Misty Kitty

Last Wednesday, January 21st, we lost our beloved Misty. She was 16 & 1/2 years old, but she acted like she was much, much younger, so it did take me a little by surprise. Sunday evening she threw up, but since Tony isn't careful with his hot wing bones, I just assumed she had gotten into them and had an upset stomach. But she threw up quite a bit on Monday also and then Tuesday and Wednesday morning she was lethargic and not eating, so Christian and I took her to the vet. Unfortunately what had happened was that her kidneys had failed, and because the possible treatment had a low chance of helping her, especially at her advanced age, we had her quietly be put to sleep as we petted her. Our hearts are completely broken because of this great loss, and I would like to post her stories and the pages that I scrapbooked of her long ago (before kids, when I used to have time to do more scrapping).

Because my brother and both my sisters are allergic to cats, I never got to have one growing up. I take that back--when I was born, my parents had a cat. Her name was Ming, but they always called her Kitty. As a baby, petting Kitty with my feet was my favorite thing and my first word was "Key" (meaning kitty) instead of Mama or Dada. Unfortunately she got sick and had to be put down when I was a year old.

So, I guess my love of cats began early on, but I only know of that kitty through pictures and stories from my parents. When I was about to be married, I couldn't wait to finally get my own cat. I even bought a litter box, cat litter, kitten food, toys and other pet supplies several weeks before the wedding. Tony was also excited to get a cat because he was having to leave his family cat, Nikki, behind with his parents.

As soon as we moved into our house, we began looking. I had previously volunteered at the Ogden Animal Shelter, but I figured that the ones adopted there were screened to go into good homes and get fixed, but that free kittens were in danger of going into worse situations. Many are taken by people who think it sounds fun to get a baby kitty, but then tire of them after they grow up. Some are even picked up as snake food or used to teach fighting Pit Bulls to rip animals apart. So, we called on a free ad in the newspaper and went to see some one evening.

When we pulled up to the house, two young boys came out to show us the little white kittens. They told us that the mama cat had been hit by a car and that they were trying to find homes for these last two. I asked them which of the kittens was the friendliest, and the older boy said it was the one with different colored eyes. It was dusk then, so he had a hard time seeing which one it was, but then he held out a kitten to us and we took her home. When we got her home and looked at her in the light, we saw that she, indeed, had different colored eyes. Her right one was green and her left one was blue. She also had lynx point Siamese markings (they were very light then, but darkened with age).

As a kitten, Misty was CRAZY!!! She was very loving, but also extremely playful and energetic. She loved to run right at us and up the front of our bodies (using her needle-sharp claws) and into our arms. Her favorite game was to hide under the bed, behind the bed skirt, and then pounce out when we were least expecting it and bite our toes. She would also attack our feet when she saw them moving under the covers. I remember quite a few times coming to bed in our shoes, and then throwing them off and shoving our feet, protectively, under the folded up comforter at the bottom of the bed :)

(Uh huh, that's Tony in the pic above--Misty's not the only baby on that scrapbook page!) She also loved to jump up and knock things off of our five foot high mantel and off the entertainment center. But she was also a lot of fun, too. She would fetch little pom pom balls, snuggle in our laps, and had the loudest purr (we always called it her motor) that you've ever heard.

She always loved food. Oddly, two of her favorite things were Pringles and red shoestring liccorice! Of course, she rarely got those treats. And I think because I always had her on high quality crunchy cat food, her teeth were in excellent shape. She sometimes would gnaw on dried flower arrangements and grapevine. During the year she lived at Braegger's while we built our house in Clinton, she especially took to Lana's fake grass-like fronds in her centerpiece!

Tony's favorite thing was to rough house with her. He would hold her like a baby, then have one hand be a hissing "snake", attack her with it and she would bite it. He would also stare her down and Misty would arch her back, bristle her hair up, and hop sideways!

Of course, Misty wasn't our only pet for long. We got a German Shepherd puppy named Magnum in April '93 (who, unfortunately was hit by a car and died when he was 10 months old), our first Yorkie in Feb. '94 (who had congenital defects and died after only a few months--yes we had a horrible streak going that year. Luckily our other animals lived long, fairly healthy lives), our second Shepherd-Smokey in May '94 (lost him to Lymphoma at nine years old), Yorkie-Dutchess in July '94 (Protein-losing Enteropathy at eleven years), Dutchess' puppy-Crumpet born Aug. 8, 1995 (13 & 1/2 and still going strong, that stinker), and numerous puppies and kittens that I fostered through the animal shelter.

Each and every time I brought another animal home, Misty would sniff it, growl and hiss at it, hiss at ME, and then avoid me except to give me dirty looks for three days. After that, she would forgive me and be back to her loving self. I always thought it was so funny that she recognized it was my fault that more animals were in the house and felt the need to express her displeasure.

She got used to the dogs pretty quickly, but always hated other cats. However, she did come to tollerate Nikki during her year-long stay with Tony's parents, and also put up with Tina's cats during the five months she lived there while we were building this house.

At our house in Clinton, she practically lived on the counter, cabinets and fridge top to keep away from Smokey. He never hurt her, but he would always chase! The few times that he caught her he would hold her down with his front leg and lick her in the face :)

We had animals as our children for the first nine years of our marriage, so they got all the love and crazy holiday rituals foisted upon them. Lots of pictures with Santa:

Misty really is in the family picture (from 1995) at the top left, she's just kind of hidden behind Smokey's head.
<--enlarged view (or click on the layout above to see how hilarious Tony & I looked)

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And doesn't she just look thrilled to be wearing that hat!

The pictures on this page are also from '95, the adorable puppy is Crumpy-dump!

One funny story about Misty has to do with mice. She was an inside cat for her first five years of life, but when we moved to Clinton and got a doggy door, she started sneaking outside. Shortly after moving in, we started getting mice in our house. We would find out because Crumpet is a born mouser and totally freaks out when she spots or smells a mouse. She barks and whines and tries to get under or behind any furniture where the little rodent is hiding, and when they come out (many times with our assistance using a broom handle) she immediately kills them. We didn't think too much of it since we were in one of the first houses built on that farm land and there was still a large field behind us. But one day, I happened to spot Misty coming through the doggie door with something in her mouth. She proceded to walk over to a corner, carefully set down the mouse, and then paw at it and chase it around. That stinker kitty was smart enough not to kill the mice because then they weren't fun toys anymore!

When Faith was about to be born, I was worried about how the animals would react. Fortunately, the dogs were slightly interested and fairly glad to have a baby in the house, but Misty was absolutely overwhelmed with happiness. She loved to snuggle next to her, and when Faith was a few months old and would involuntarily grab at anything and everything, Misty just let her grab handfuls of fur and pull them out. I guess it was worth it just to be next to her little buddy, and I think she understood that it wasn't meant to be mean. As soon as Faith moved out of her crib, Misty always slept at the foot of her bed. She let Faith carry her around everywhere, dress her up in doll clothes and hats, and push her around in the doll stroller without jumping out. Because of their close relationship, Faith is taking the loss especially hard, and has been having a lot of trouble going to sleep at night--alone.

We were so lucky to have Misty for such a long, wonderful time. When I told our new vet that she had an Injection Site Sarcoma (cancer caused by vaccine) when she was a year old, which we had surgically removed, he was stunned. He said that that kind of cancerous tumor almost always comes right back with a vengence and kills the animal, so we were extremely lucky and blessed to have her in our family for so many more years. She was a wonderful pet and a true family member. We think that she is being well cared for in heaven by Grandma Braegger, who loved animals and cared for many on her farm; Great-Grandma Smith who was a rancher woman with a soft place in her heart for cats; and kept company by our other pets--especially Smokey.

WE LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU MISTY!!!!

~In memory of Misty: July 1, 1992 - January 21, 2009~

But we weren't destined to be kitty-less for long, so my next post will update you on our family's new arrival!

Dooce just posted this video, and I absolutely had to share it! My newest favorite video:

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!

I'm so sorry I've been such a horrible blogger. But the good news is that now through the boring month of January, I still am going to have lots of fun Christmas pictures up!

I want to hurry and get my Christmas card up before it's over a month late ;) !! I printed out a few for the parents and siblings, but, because I am the ABSOLUTE WORST at sending out cards, I didn't get ANY mailed this year. I put these two things on a red Walmart photo card:

1) I had a photo session with the kids in some cute headwear, and just couldn't narrow it down to one favorite picture. They had lots of fun horsing around for the camera, and I think it shows. (click on picture for a full screen view)
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and 2) a neighbor from our ward had come over earlier that evening to get a photo for our "spotlight" in the Sacrament meeting program, and I had him take some pics of us with my camera as well:

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So, to all my friends and family out there, Merry Christmas!! (Better late than never, I guess!) I hope you all had wonderful holiday seasons filled with warmth, love and happiness and I wish you the best 2009 possible!
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We did receive lots of wonderful cards :) and this shows how we displayed them in our giant metal wall art thingy:




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. I wanted you to get a better look at the gorgeous photo cards we got, and because my scanner is crap, I had to photograph them. This, of course, doesn't do them justice, but at least you will get an idea of their awesomeness:



My sister Sarah's kids in a pic that she took at Bear Lake this summer.

My youngest sister Joy's girls playing in the snow. (If you can't make out the sentiment, it reads, "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas -- Because other colors of snow aren't so yummy" :D )




My dear friend Carolyn's family in their new home in Colorado.






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And my cousin Hilary's darling family, who live in Salt Lake.
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We also got cute cards from parents, grandparents, neighbors, and some friends from our old neighborhood--the Willards and the Newmans! Thank you all so much! Someday I hope to be on the ball like you!

I saw this on Jay Leno and thought it was really pretty:
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Some holiday recipes

Sorry, I meant to get these up earlier, but I've been so sick the last few weeks I've hardly even felt like being on the computer!!! This is the worst cold I've had in years. It's stolen my voice, made me tired all the time but not able to sleep at night because of the coughing, and given me the worst sore throat I can remember. Watch out for this horrible bug! And I wanted to do so many Christmasy activities with friends, too :( . . But the good news is, I'm finally feeling a bit better and am hoping to feel great in the next few days.
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I finally got my Christmas music up--ecclectic mix, as always. At least check out "In the Sun They Melted"--it is so clever!
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I did these recipe cards for a recipe share and wanted to post them for you. You can click on the card for the larger version and then you can right-click and save to your computer:

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(Leave a comment if you want the credits for any of these digi layouts.)

An inspirational story for this time of year, not a Christmas one, but one I hope you'll enjoy. My favorite quote from it: "...great moments often catch us unaware—beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one." Enjoy!
The Cabride I'll Never Forget