Goodbye 2011

I try to remember what happened in the past year and … it never comes to me. My memory has to be jogged for anything to rise to the top. It’s nice to have written down some things – I’m not one who thinks I have to write down every little thing that happens, just the high points – and for that, I’m grateful for a little blog/diary/journal thing going.

Here we go into my grey matter and cobwebs:

January - The kids and I getting a weird flu/bronchitis/crap illness that put us out for about three days. Literally laying on the floor, not being able to do anything. And here are the meds we were taking, trying to feel better and get better.

March/April - I actually sewed Felix a huge skirt and finished it the night before she left for Washington DC. I had to get up at 4 am to get the kids to the airport by 5:30. So yeah, I was tired. But it was cute.

I took Robee to Utah for Spring Break while Felix was gone and got to visit my dad and tour the Air Museum. Have I mentioned lately I love my dad?

May – a VERY quick trip to Disneyland/Seaworld.

And a very spectacular firepit which Porter likes to climb into and drag burnt logs out of to chew on. Grrrr.

June – we began tearing apart our bathroom, closet, bedroom to renovate it and we figured it would be done by July. As it happens, we finally moved in JUST before Thanksgiving. And I started going bald.

July – one of the worse summers since we’ve moved here. Weather was horrible, wet and cold, and my garden struggled to grow. We got to the river once and even then, it wasn’t great. Keeping my hopes up for the next year.

August – my most favorite month … and still no sun. Sad sad sad for me. Also the fair, which Felix chose not to do this year. But her friend Caroline did with one of our chickens, Siobhan.

September – my LEAST favorite month because I hate Fall (I have to say ‘Fall’ now because if I say ‘I hate Autumn’ then I’m saying I hate little baby who was born at the end of this month) and I had no warm weather to recharge my panels for the winter. BUT we tested for our 2nd Degree Black Belt in Ocean Shores. After several months of waiting, we found out that Felix and I passed and the boys were a no-change! So they have to re-test. I guess we’ll wait for them. :)

Baby Autumn born – Grandchild #8

October – Surgery and Halloween. Two major events within 30 days of each other. And both were successful.

November – Felix and Robee involved in their many many activities.  I spent most of the fall running the kids to their various happenings. Luckily, I don’t mind because it keeps them busy and it will give them some great memories. Also Thanksgiving added some stress into this month BUT  Daddy came to visit for the week. That was BEST time ever with him.

Felix getting ready for her show, PRETENDING to smoke and getting much glee from this.

Robee, playing drums with the singing group, Keynotes.

December – Thomas plays Santa for our church party and the kids are elves. Seriously, the best group I’ve ever seen.

Happy New Year! Next year in 2012, we shall be vigilant in our quest to keep the doh-headed Republicans out of office and keep Obama plowing forward to repair this country! Heh. I HAD to add a little political humor. But I’m not kidding however about keeping Republicons out of office.

Christmas 2011

Come and gone. Moving on.

Here are some visuals of the day or the days leading up to the day.

 

V masks. Amazing looking couple.      Robee and Jack, The Tree.

    

Checking out the stocking.

Orange ….. really??                                      But it flies.

 

His fav, Reese’s.

 

 

 

Felix on the couch, inspecting hers.

 

Imagine my surprise to find a mixer under the tree for MOI! And yes, I asked for it while trying to make something with my possessed old mixer on Wednesday. But I’m surprised by the color.

Felix and her stuff. New laptop on the table for her.

 

This a jean quilt I started for Robee about ….four years ago. I finally decided to get it finished. On Friday night, while the kids were shopping with Thomas (buying my mixer) and hauled a** to get this done. Why would I put off something for four years that I could have done in two hours??? The iron-on pictures are from Mario, the computer game.

Clyde with my green tea cup in his mouth. I missed the recycle bin and he caught it.

The kids’ Gingerbread creations. Felix’s house and Robee’s tree.

Meet Jack Frost

Welcome Jack Frost, our 2011 Christmas Tree!
The past five years here in Arlington, we've been getting live trees for Christmas. Then, after all the festivities are done in January, we plant it in our yard to re-forest.

By we, I of course mean ME, since I'm the one who plants them. Thomas usually says that he doesn't know how to dig a hole or that his arms don't work the same as mine or that he was never very good at digging holes and I'm way better at it. He really is Tom Sawyer.

Anyhoo ... the kids have had the opportunity to name each tree. There has been thus far: Ike, Charlie, Mento, Cratchet, and Alfie (not any particular order). Two died. One by the hand of an over-zealous landscaper who shall remain nameless and the other because I didn't get it into the ground in January. Actually I'm amazed any of them lived since I NEVER get any tree into the ground before January. It's usually around May or so.

This year I've made a promise to Jack Frost that it's root ball WILL be in the ground by the end of January.

I love our decorations. They're old and nothing matches and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Mom used to decorate our trees with traditional decorations. Then one year, she announced that she wanted a "Theme" tree - whatever that meant, we weren't sure. But we were to see very soon. She got rid of all our old favorite decorations and replaced them with theme colors. One year it was red and gold. The next, pink and brown. The next, white flocked tree with pink and gold. On and on every year with a color theme.

I was sort of sad not to have our old decorations but she said she was tired of decorating the same way each year.

So I've made a promise to myself not to change our decorations. It makes the kids so happy to see their old favorites. And if we add to them once in awhile, then great. Maybe something special from Leavenworth or a place we visit.

You know you’re old when ….

Do I really want to play this game?

Sigh. Yeah.

Once upon a time, I bought a really cute sweater. I mean, really cute. It was the style of the day and it made everyone happy when I wore it. Especially me.

It was a Christmas tunic sweater. Brooke and I bought this sweater while we were shopping together November in 1989. I think it might have been from Penney’s or maybe Weinstocks. I can’t exactly remember. But I’m sure it was in the Ogden Mall.

It was no ordinary Christmas sweater; this one had LIGHTS! Green lights on the words to make sure the viewer KNEW that I was wishing them a very Happy Holiday and a red light on dear, dear Rudolph’s nose. I wore it for many Christmas parties and office parties. It also had gigantic shoulder pads. Huge. I would wear it with red stirrups and flats. Or black stirrups. As I said, it was a tunic so fairly long on me.

Fast forward ….. 22 years.

Yes, I have actually KEPT this sweater in pristine condition for 22 years, thinking that what? That I might wear it again? I have to think that’s why I did it.  If you look really closely, you can see on Santa’s sleigh, the year 1989. It’s on the yellow sign. I purposely bought this particular sweater because of that; I always wanted to remember the year which I bought this gem.

It’s kind of hard to catch the blinking at the right moment when all the lights are on at the same time. I was hoping to get Rudolph’s nose when it was lit.

SO …. the other day, Angie is mentioning that she and Jen are going to a Christmas party and I vaguely heard something about sweaters. I happily said that I had a light up sweater she could wear. She was so happy and in my ancient mind, thought she was excited to wear a lighted sweater. She then said, “Great! We’re having an UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER PARTY AND THAT WILL BE PERFECT.”

Que? Huh? Did I hear right?? My lovely candy-stripe, lighted sweater was to be the guest of honor at Dinner for Schmucks?  I, of course, played along because I certainly didn’t want them to think that I held a candle for my little Christmas sweater.

I came home and was lamenting to Felix about my sweater and she jumped up and said, “Terrific! We’re having UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER DAY AT SCHOOL ON THURSDAY. Can I wear your sweater?”

What the hell? Is this some craze that’s sweeping the nation? One that I haven’t heard of at all?

And so, being the kind of person that has finally thrown away my needle-point cat vest and my Hyper-color tee shirt, I have come to the realization that I will never in innocence, wear my lighted Christmas sweater again. It will now be offered up for gleeful laughter while reminiscing the awful styles of the 80’s.

But I will NEVER EVER wear stirrups with flats again. You can put your money on that one.

Arlington Hometown Christmas 2011

It’s that time again, when Arlington holds it’s annual (but I’m not sure how long its been going on) Hometown Christmas Festival.

Walking on sidewalks, seeing all the lights, stopping and shopping, buying hot chocolate and taking pictures for my memory book in my head so that I can try to remember these days when my babies are all grown up --- I love this very much.

Free (FREE – how often does that happen?) wagon rides through the town.

  Hot Chocolate!! Mmmmmmm!! And it was chilly outside too!! (Thomas and Felix are paying)

The Famous Walking Christmas Tree!

  I love this wooden Snowman. Every year, Arlington puts out wooden snow people, depicting the different local shops and businesses. This one, however, is my favorite. I’m the one in the hat.

After the walk through downtown, things got really exciting. Ward Christmas Dinner! Yep. Time for that festive, all-you-can-eat funeral potatoes and jello dinner held at every Mormon church from here to the east coast. And guess who the special guest was THIS year??  

Yep. They asked Thomas to be Santa. And of course, we just happen to have a Santa suit hanging around in our storage. Who doesn’t?

Don’t forget, Santa has to have his helpers.

Throwing together anything they had that was green, red or white with bells, the kids transformed themselves into Santa’s Elves. It pays to have a mom who collects weird things once in awhile. I had on my trusty Green Grinch shirt that I bought because I loved Owen’s so much.

I bought a pair of elf-ish looking shoes way back in my years at Weber State and Robee claimed those quickly. Felix was sad. What’s a girl to do who likes to make a splash?

 

Have her mom whip together a pair of elf shoes out of felt in 30 minutes. Thank goodness Angie had already planted that idea in my brain from Halloween. And again, why in the WORLD would I just happen to have red and green felt? The only thing I didn’t have was bells. :(   I’m going to get some so that I’m never without them again.

Our Santa show was such a hit that I think we’re going to have to make this an annual thing and start hitting parties during Christmas – getting paid! Time for me to buy the Mrs. Claus suit!!

Me and my Santa.