Christmas 2024

Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Our 2024 Christmas was busy and rewarding. 

We don't really do a good job of decorating for many holidays around our house - but we definitely do a little more for Christmas Our tree had a designer approach....all silver and white (beads and tinsel, but alarmingly, no Christmas balls!) I really liked it. It was all Allen's idea but I happily went along. I loved having it up and sitting by the tree to read each day. The Christmas gifts were wrapped in paper that matched the theme as well. Allen is so clever!

All the fun started on December 22 when Jill and Chase arrived from Edmonton. Peirce and Michael also came over and there was a big sleepover in the family room (bigger people means bigger sleepovers!) It was so fun to have them here and my heart was especially happy to see everyone get along so well. Grandma Jensen also came and spent a number of days with us, which added a lot of fun to our time together. A friend of ours, Meredith, also spent time with us over the holidays.

Christmas Sunday at church was a fantastic musical program. There were a lot of songs I had never heard and our ward's little choir easily took up the challenge of the complicated music. It was really nice to all go to church togethr. I didn't want to pressure Peirce into attending and so I told to Peirce him it would be fine either way. After talking it over with Michael, happily, they decided they would attend with us. Peirce said that the first time someone said something stupid to him though he was going to march out. There was no need for that. Everyone was so happy to see him and to meet Michael. Again, a heart warming experience. 

My dirty little secret about Christmas is that Allen does most of the shopping to get us ready for Christmas. In turn, I try to do most of the cooking....although everyone helped a lot. Saturday night when everyone arrived, we had our traditional Chinese Food night. On Christmas Eve, we had a six course meal! Sunday was the regular turkey dinner and on Boxing Day we enjoyed a pot luck with friends at the church. 

On Christmas Day, we went to a movie: The Boys in the Boat. I read that book years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the movie as well (although, I still say the book was better). Our friend, Meredith came with us to the movie. I even decided to use the word "swing" from the book for my word of the year. More on that later.

Jill, Chase, Peirce and I volunteered to usher at Storybook Theatre. We got to see One Christmas Carol....which was a version of the story told by one actor playing ALL the parts. It was really something else. That takes some talent!

Allen took on the challenge from our Stake President to make sure the social needs of people we knew were met. It meant that he invited family friend over for dinner on Christmas Day, organized a Boxing Day pot luck, a young families dinner (lots of kids and lots of fun and lots of noise!) and an empty nesters pot luck. Phew!! It was a lot of socializing. LOL 

On New Year's Eve, Jill and Chase invited their friends, the Holoboffs over. We had breakfast supper and then played games. The Holoboffs are really great. We were really happy to spend the evening with the cool kids! LOL 

Being together and having everyone enjoy being together is really what made our Christmas great. We have a wonderful family.

Photo Regrets and Easter

I need to make one of my goals to be a better photo taker! Usually, what happens is that I'm so busy on those special days making food, getting ready, cleaning, and more that by the time the main event rolls around I'm tired and just surviving....and I forget to take photos!! 

On Saturday, we had dinner with the NAckroyds! It has been a long time since we have done this and I was surprised at how excited I was to have them over. I decorated the table with a yellow runner.Sad, but true.

Our menu was: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, fancy green beans, carrots, Thai cabbage salad, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, rice pilaf and for dessert the NAckroyds made the most amazing apple pie (with one crust!)

On Easter Sunday, Allen was asked to speak in church. He gave a really great talk on the Atonement. It made my heart burst with love and admiration for the good person he is. Jill and Chase came to our ward and Peirce listened on Zoom. What a blessing to have everyone be able to listen to his talk!

This is our family Easter dinner on Sunday photo. Sad, but true. I took the photo of the table before dinner and meant to take one when everyone was at the table, but....alas. I need to work on this!

Jill and Chase came over for Easter baskets and dinner. We had ham, scalloped potatoes, Asian cucumber salad, green beans (I love green beans) and for dessert, we made the kids share their Easter chocolate. LOL

We had a wonderful Easter even though I didn't record it very well.  

Christmas

Her car had been in for repairs for quite a while and so it also meant we got to drive her to work. It was great because that meant lots of visiting time.

On Christmas Eve, we played games together. Jackbox is a lot of fun!

Allen always likes to take something over to his godchildren, Antonio's boys - and so he dresses up and heads out as Santa. They really love it!

Santa was very good to us this year. Lots of clothes and books and other fun things....like a pie lifter! LOL

We usually have a few extra people for Christmas dinner. I really had to keep reminding myself to make small servings of each dish. Dinner was really great!

Letourneaus gave us some sparkly pear juice! Delicious! I have to remember to guy that kind of stuff.

We also had a zoom call with Grandma (she had spent the day at Brad and Jill's) and Gaylene and Duane (they were in Kelowna with Neil, Rachelle and Jordan....different rules in BC) and Taylor and Britt in Utah as well as Sydney who was in Airdrie at her (drum roll.....) fiance's house, Nathan Muller (son of Becky and Brian Muller!) Who would have thought their kids would get engaged?! It's like a match made in heaven. 

Later in the day we had planned to watch a movie, but the truth was, everyone really just needed a little quiet time - so reading became the focus. It was a wonderful day!

Happy Mother's Day!

Years ago, when I started a streak of walking every day, I did it because it seemed like if I missed a day, suddenly one day missed turned into 7 or 10 or more. It seems like it's the same with blogging. It's been 8 days since I've blogged. I'm going to get back to working on a streak.

Today was Mother's Day and it was a great day. It was an unusual Mother's Day because we had nowhere we could go thanks to the pandemic - but that was okay. I talked to my mom in the morning and had a great visit. The rest of the day was great too. 

I know that a lot of people have trouble with Mother's Day. They don't like the "pedestal-ing". They feel inadequate. I've never really felt upset by people talking about how perfect their mothers are or were. I guess I really don't believe that they were that perfect and maybe it's also because I'm okay with my imperfections. Perhaps it was because I never felt like my mother felt that way. She just seemed to enjoy the day. It wasn't until I became an adult and realized some of the women around me truly hated Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong. I had those awkward years where I felt like a fraud taking the the flower or the chocolate at church when I wasn't a mother. There is some kind of strange idea at church that all women are mothers. They're not and the push we have to seem to try to believe that is weird. All that being said, I love my children's and husband's efforts to make it a lovely day for me. Their efforts are appreciated. 

This morning I woke up to a gift bag of fun beauty products from Allen, which was quickly followed by a "Welcome to Mom Spa" from Jill. She brushed my hair, massaged my scalp, gave me a pedicure and a back massage while the boys made breakfast. What a breakfast it was! Scrambled eggs, granola, yogurt and apple turnovers. Yum! 

Allen made an amazing lunch of French Onion soup and garlic toast. Yum!! I spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. Peirce got me some new oven mitts. He's been disturbed lately by my ability to burn my inner arms as I take things out of the oven. Really, it isn't the oven mitts fault, but I appreciate his concern!

Tonight we had a French style dinner. I'm starting to really enjoy this Sunday tradition. Really, it isn't that different than a regular dinner, we just do it in courses. I like having a salad course first. We all eat many more vegetables as a result. And of course, my favorite is always the cheese course. I love cheese!

We had a "Zoom Devotional" tonight with Elder Evanson where he talked about motherhood. He tied it in with the nature of God and how mothers give us physical birth so that we can one day return to God and God gives us spiritual birth. We can't get back without both.

Friyay!

I have a goal to blog daily - and I felt like I was humming along - but man, this has been a rough week. Years ago I worked from home. I was grateful for it because it meant I was home with our kids - sort of. It also meant I worked a LOT of hours. The work is always there when you work from home. This teaching from home is like that. As someone described, we are learning to repair the airplane while we're flying it - only, we're not pilots and we're not mechanics. Bottom line: There has been a STEEP learning curve going on. All in all though, I think it's been a good week and I'll be a little better at it next week.

Today, to celebrate living through the week, we decided to order food in (really, the only option to eating out and avoiding cooking LOL) It was a lot of fun! We got dinner from one of our favorite places: Cactus Club. Yum!! We invited Grandma to join us too. :)

Some things that are bringing us joy:

• dogs
• cheese
• good food 
• friends...especially ones who bring cookies!
• games

After dinner games

 Frank just can't.play.anymore!

Happy Easter!

Our day started out with Easter Bunny treats. Allen is so funny. Since his stroke, he is NOT a morning person, except for days like this! He went out and bought surprises for everyone, which meant he couldn't sleep. Luckily, most people in our house are early risers so he didn't have to wait too long. There were new shirts, a jean jacket, beautiful scarves, and of course, candy.

Frank wanted some treats too - so we got out the special dog treats. LOL

We had a pretty quiet day with plenty of time to read and visit with friends. Jill did a call with all her soeur friends - which sounded like it was a lot of fun. I made pita bread today! I haven't made it for years and was pleasantly surprised to remember how easy it is. I'm always so amazed to see how it puffs up and makes a perfect pocket. It's like magic! (You can tell how super proud of it I am. I took more pictures of my pita bread than anything today! LOL) For those of you interested in doing the same thing, here is the recipe.

Peirce worked today from 8-4:30 and so when he got home we had our Easter Dinner. We had green salad, ham, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, waldorf salad and peacan pudding pie for dessert. Allen is a big pie fan. Me, not so much. I need to work on my pie skills though because he sure appreciates a pie now and then. We had our dinner French style again, with the salad course first. I am starting to really love having dinner that way. Everyone seems to eat slower and enjoy the food more and visit more.

We were super pleased to hear that the NAckroyds really loved the bunnies. Somehow they figured out that it was us. Actually, they had a hunch and just straight out asked if it was us. :) Apparently, last night when Allen and Jill dropped them off the girls were already in bed. It was a great surprise for them this morning! I love that the bunnies got carrots on their plates :) Also, one has a shirt on and another has a hat on. Fun!

Out and About

Peirce got a job at Safeway this year and it even though sometimes I worry about him being out and interacting with people, it sure is a nice reprieve to be able to be out and interacting with people. They have hired a number of new people who are around his age so that has been really fun for him.

Time for a rabbit hunt! We have a thing going on with the NAckroyds where these dinosaur skeletons show up in random places.....like tied to my car! LOL They dropped these off tonight at their house and are excited to see what they think. Typically, we'd have Easter dinner with them so we are sorry to miss that this year. We hope they love the rabbits!

French Dinner

Jill really loved the French way of meals. They take longer to eat. They serve dinner in courses and have more conversation. We thought we'd give it a try.

Our first course was Ceaser Salad. Jill made home made dressing. It was delicious! Start off with a plate full of salad seems like a good way to start a meal. I had two servings!

The main course was chicken breasts and broccoli. We cooked the chicken super slow and it was juicy and delicious. I've been tracking my food lately. I should eat more broccoli. Much more bang for the buck!

We then had a cheese course. When Jill first brought up this idea she mentioned a cheese course. That sold me right away. She got some special French cheese from Springbank Cheese. It was deliscious!

We finished up with an old family favorite that we call Moose Poo. Not very fancy and not very French. Oh well.

Jensen Christmas

We took advantage of everyone being here for Jill's homecoming to have a family dinner and Christmas celebration. We went to Cravings then we went back to our house to open presents and play games.