Favorites of the Week - last one for 2016

I am ready for the new year. Even though 2016 has been good for our family in a lot of ways, there have also been challenges - but then there are always challenges in life.  As actress Gilda Radner said, "its' always something."  So true.  Still, this week between Christmas and New Years has been good, so its time to talk about what some of my favorite things were.

• Temple Time - the peace and inspiration of this place is always a favorite part of my week.

• Christmas ornaments - these cute, cute Christmas ornaments made by my daughter, Tiffany, and her two youngest children came in the mail a couple of days after Christmas.

My daughters are such fun and creative moms and these little ornaments will be a special part of our Christmas tree for many years to come!

• Birthday time - it was this sweet granddaughter's birthday last week. She is ten-years-old now! I have no idea how time can fly so quickly. It is amazing how much this little gal looks so much like her mom did at the same age.

From the pictures her mom posted, it looks like she had a fun birthday. Charly and I had a nice phone conversation with her and her mom, our oldest daughter, Amber. They live far away, on the East Coast, so even though we had just talked to them on Christmas Day, it was nice to talk again.  

• New job - Josh's seasonal Driver's Helper job with UPS has ended now that the busy Christmas deliver time is over, but he had a successful job interview Thursday and, if all goes as planned, will be starting another, more permanent job next week.  He is also starting college in mid-January so this is a busy and exciting time for him. In the meantime, he is looking forward to a Rocking' New Year's Eve party tonight with a large group of Young Adults from our church.

• Moving on - this was our living room earlier yesterday afternoon, as we took down and put away all of the Christmas decorations. 

 Now the living room looks like this.

As much as I like Christmas, is it nice to be all cleaned up and put away and ready to move on into the new year.

All that remains is these cards on the door. We love hearing from friends and family each year and were happy that we got a door full of cards again.  These will stay up and be enjoyed for another day or so.

• Thrift store finds - yesterday Charly and I took a couple of bags of clothing to our local Deseret Industries which is run by our church and is one of my favorite thrift stores. Josh finally went through his closet and got rid of some of his high school clothes as he was able to replace them with new, more-adult threads, so we had a lot of donations from him. We had fun look around and Charly found and fell in love with this lamp.  It is quite a nice, high quality lamp and was probably expensive when it was new. Charly loves the look of it so it now has a temporary home on the table where our Christmas tree was. 

I also found these books.  No, I didn't need any more books, but these caught my eye and so they are now on my "to read" shelf.

• Good movies - one of the nice things about Christmas vacation is a little extra time and do things there aren't usually time for - like watch movies. We watched several Christmas movies as a family, and Josh and I also watched these two movies - "America - Imagine the World With Her, " and also...

this movie -"Hillary's America." Josh is quite interested in politics so he bought the Hillary movie himself. I had "America" for a couple of years, but had never taken the opportunity to watch it. Without revealing my own  political leanings, let me say that these are both interesting movies - definitely  representing a certain point of view, but interesting none the less.  Now we are trying to find a copy of "Obama 2016" to borrow and watch so we can complete D'Sousa's political trilogy.  

And that brings us to the end of 2016.  It has been a year of ups and downs, but there have been many positives and abundant blessings, for which I am extremely grateful. Here's wishing every one of you a...

I am joining, as always, with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, and other blogging friends for the final Friday Fave Five of 2016!

Christmas Memories 2016

Our Christmas weekend was happy and full. Here are some of the highlights.

Charly made a delicious broccoli salad to go with our dinner.  It was soooo good. We ate it all and he made another batch today.

Here is a close-up of this delicious salad which is super easy. It is just broccoli, walnuts, dried cranberries, and red onion, with a dressing of mayonnaise, white vinegar and little sugar.  The hardest part of this recipe is chopping up the broccoli and onion, but it is well worth it.  

For years now, starting when our older kids were little, we have purchased KFC for our Christmas Eve dinner. When the kids were little, we didn't go out to eat a lot (still don't) and the kids always thought that KFC was such a treat, that we decided it would be something special for Christmas Eve, and so the tradition stuck.

We watched a couple of movies on Christmas Eve - names "Fred Klause" and "It's a Wonderful Life,' but after dinner, we gathered in the living room for another tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve.

Here Josh is puzzled by what gift he is getting in an unmarked white envelope.

He was pleased when he realized there were movie tickets in the envelope. He cheated a bit and actually opened two gifts of Christmas Eve. The second present was a gift card so he could get some new clothes.

Our Christmas Eve was cold, rainy and windy from mid-day until about 7 p.m.. When the rain did finally let up, we went to the home of a family from our church congregation who always decorates their home for the holidays and has hot cocoa on their driveway for anyone who comes to drive by their home and see their lights on Christmas Eve.  We enjoyed the cocoa and friendly conversation before succumbing to the chilly outdoor temperatures and returning to our warm home.

Christmas morning, we enjoyed sleeping in a bit, then going to church before unwrapping presents.

There was a lovely Christmas program at church. Our choir and the children of our ward (congregation) did a wonderful job of helping us all keep the true spirit of Christmas in mind.

After church, we opened our gifts.

We had a nice Christmas in the gift department.  We all got the things that were on our Christmas lists and some extras too!

Here are some of the nice things I got - movies, a book and audio CDs to listen to in the car. My husband usually gives me a nice watch and this year was no exception. He knows that watches are my favorite kind of jewelry.

 Of course some of my favorite gifts were the things my grandchildren made...

 ...and the pictures I got of them.

Talking on the phone to our daughters and grandchildren was a fun part of our Christmas and gave the day a family feel even though all of our children but Josh live in other states.

After dinner on Christmas night, Josh and I went back to the Mesa Temple grounds to see the lights one more time.  

We also listened to the performance put on by a choir of missionaries serving in the Mesa, Arizona mission.   It was a selection of lovely Christmas music, all celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We always enjoy the Christmas Lights at the temple grounds. Seeing them is a special part of our Christmas.

Another nice part of our Christmas was the fun treats friends brought by to share with us. This cute goodie plate was probably the most creative that anyone brought by.  It was so cute and the cookies 

were very good too!

Charly always likes to get creative in the kitchen when he has extra time off and last night he made these Fondant Potatoes which were excellent.  I am blessed to have a husband who is also a good cook and I enjoy the special dishes he prepares.

I have been blessed by participating in #Lighttheworld and trying to do some act of service each day for the 30 days leading up to Christmas. It helped me to always be thinking about what I could do for someone else. Serving others takes my mind off of my own problems and focuses me on how I can help and bless others. I want to continue thinking of and serving others more this year.

This little Family Circus cartoon pretty much sums up how I feel about Christmas. No matter what is going on in our lives or who we are with, there are special ways to make the holiday a good one and to create memories worth holding on to.

Let's carry the spirit of Christmas with us into the new year! Everyone have a good week!

Hope for Christmas

One of the many blessings of this season of our lives is our eight beautiful grandchildren.  We love each one so much!  They all bring joy and happiness to our lives! We have been especially concerned, this past year, about our six-year-old grandson Thomas who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last March.  If you have been following my blog long, you know that I made a couple of trips to the East Coast last year to be with Thomas and his family and spend my summer in Philadelphia while Thomas was getting Proton Therapy treatment at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. 

We had positive news this week about Thomas, shown here with his big sister.  Thomas' field of vision had recently deteriorated and that had been cause for concern, but his doctors have now concluded that the recent deterioration was caused by last summer's proton therapy.  Apparently this is a common side-affect of proton therapy and while it is not a good thing, the loss of vision does not appear to mean that the cancer has returned.  That is a very good thing and a reason for much hope.

Also, his mom, my oldest daughter posted this on Thomas' Facebook page last week:

"On a very happy note, we received the results of his [Thomas'] neurophysiological exam and he scored "superior" in mathematical reasoning. He tells us all the time that he is a genius and now we have confirmed it, at least in math. I (mom) am a big fan of mathematics, so this made my day."

Thomas spent some time in the hospital last week and had to have a blood transfusion. He was anemic after his last round of Chemo, but the good news is that he is now home and enjoying Christmas Eve with his family. We hope to Face Time with him and his family later today or tomorrow.

You can follow Thomas' progress on Facebook by searching for @FightlikeThomas.

Just Before Christmas Favorites

Merry Christmas!  There is just enough time before the big day to join with Susanne at Living to the Tell the Story and other blogging friends for Friday's Fave Five.

• College Credit - Josh took the CLEP test (College Level Examination Program) yesterday to see if he could get college credit for all that Spanish knowledge he gained during the past two years on his mission in Mexico. He ended up getting 6 hours credit  - which is the equivalent of two semesters of Spanish classes! Outstanding job Josh. We are proud of you.  You saved yourself (and your parents) a lot of time and money! Good job.

• Stress Management - The school district I work for is trying to get all of its employees to "Take Steps for Wellness" and is offering an incentive program that is connected to our health insurance and Health Savings Account.  I don't really like the idea of being "bribed" to be healthy, but I do like to participate.  Charly and I both did the walking competition where we tracked the distance we walked every day since October 3. I have walked 486.5 miles since the competition began. In December, the emphasis was on stress management and we were asked to keep a calendar of what we did every day to relieve stress, and then submit it.  This is my stress relief calendar.  As you can see, reading and walking are my main stress relievers, but then I already knew that before keeping track.  I am glad to have an employer that supports healthy lifestyles and will continue to participate in these kinds of activities.

• Cold-Eeze - This stuff actually works - at least for me.  Last Monday afternoon and evening, I started to feel really sick.  It started with a scratchy throat then developed into a tight chest, stuffed up head and body aches. By the time I went to bed, early I might add, I was really feeling rough.  I wished I could and take the next day sleep in and relax, but there was one more day of finals, so it was up early and off to school.  I took some of this Cold-Eeze when I woke up in the morning and then throughout the day every 2-4 hours as the directions say.  I really could feel my symptoms actually lessen as the day went on.  The cold never really developed, the symptoms went away and I expect to be enjoying Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without feeling sick with a bad cold, as a feared I might be. 

• Gifts wrapped - the last of the gifts I had ordered from Amazon came yesterday so everything for Charly and Josh is now wrapped and under the tree.  I even managed to purchase, wrap and mail birthday gifts for two little grand daughters who have birthdays shortly after Christmas

• Christmas music -part of enjoying Christmas, for me, is enjoying Christmas music.  In primary last Sunday, the children got to be part of an impromptu bell choir.  They really enjoyed it, and the music they created was pretty good.

• Special ornament - all of the Primary teachers got one of these engraved wooded Christmas ornaments last week.  I love this quote that is on the back of the ornament, "As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands, our eyes His eyes, our heart, His heart."

This is a very special ornament that will be part of our Christmas for a long time to come.

• Amazing sunrises - we have had some beautiful sunrises lately. I love this orange and purple sky.

I snapped this picture before school from the parking lot on the last day of finals last week.  It was absolutely gorgeous. The cloudy skies that made this sunrise so pretty have also made this an overcast and rainy week here in the Valley of the Sun, but that is fine with me.  I love the cool temperatures and sometimes wet winters here in Arizona, but the hot summers, not so much.

• Holiday flowers - a family from our church congregation brought these by the other night. It was a unique Christmas remembrance that is still brightening our home. 

• Christmas baking - I don't enjoy baking, but I always end up making several batches of cookies during the holidays, mostly to share with friends and people from church.  These are the Creme de Menthe cookies I made the other day. They were pretty darn good. No secret or special recipe - just took a chocolate chip cookies recipe and added Creme de Menthe chips instead of the usual chocolate.

• Books sold - we are continuing to purge our belongings a bit at a time, anticipating an eventual move out of Arizona. Charly bought this set of books for $6 at Goodwill some years back, and sold them to a book collector this morning for $30!  That is a pretty good return on investment.  He also recently sold a large box of Sci-Fi books to another collector in Texas, so we end up with a little spare cash and fewer possessions to eventually move.

• Christmas reading - this little book is excellent.  It is a prequel to Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol . Usually, I am not a fan of prequels and sequels to books, especially when they are written by authors other than the original.  I have had this book a couple of years, and for some reason, this year, it called to me, so I decided to read it.  I loved it! Author R. William Bennett does justice to Dickens' original story and writing style, while adding the heart rending background on Jacob T. Marley explaining why he was the way he was and what happened to his spirit after Ebenezer Scrooge had his ghostly Christmas Eve and change of heart.  If you like A Christmas Carol, you will probably like this book too.  

As Christmas comes this year, let us not get so caught up with the busyness of having a "perfect" holiday that we forget the true meaning of Christmas - Jesus Christ and how He came to light the world and take away our darkness.  Remember that the best gifts of Christmas are gifts of love that honor Him and are given with our hearts. 

Have a wonderful, magical, meaningful Christmas!