Tuesday Confessional

I would have run out of gas this week if I hadn't used the gas for the lawn mower.

The Dollhouse

My nieces got to play with it briefly while GG was otherwise occupied!!!

This Christmas we had a lot of fun building this dollhouse for our little GG. My mother-in-law provided all the furniture!!! Mike built the dollhouse, and I got to decorate it.

I am really bad about the whole Santa Claus thing, so GG saw me painting, wallpapering, and designing the dollhouse in the basement. I couldn't get it done before school finished--but was barely able to finish it before break. The outside still isn't painted, and I don't really know what to do about the floors--but the dollhouse is nicer than the house I live in! My niece said, "That isn't a dollhouse, that is a mansion." It is--too bad GG is a little territorial about the house--because no one else is allowed to play with it--not even me.

Thankful for this day!

I finally have my word for the year--well not really a word but a phrase. Thankful for this day. I have a hard time--as I sure everybody does not being satisfied. I think this will help me to be centered and just enjoy what I have been given--which is a lot. I want to enjoy it every day.

More Sledding Fun!

This is my favorite part of my house: the little hill in front of our house!! The kids had a lot of fun sledding during Christmas break. It was still cold--but the sun shone. Luke (I may change his code name to reflect his new obsession with Harry Potter), would invite GG to come and sled with him. They were so cute going down the hill together. I convinced the kids to go down once all together. I was trying to get a picture of the three of them together--luckily I got one. As of now our snow is gone--can't wait for the next snowstorm just for the excitement for sledding to be rekindled.

Pinkalicious!

GG loves this book--well so do I for that matter. Pinkalicious get a classic case of Pinkatitis when she eats too many pink cupcakes. GG and I made pink cupcakes, but luckily we only ate one a piece so we didn't turn pink. Although GG's fingers started to turn pink!

GG got to put in all the pink dye--and stir it in!

Love this girl!

The Nativity Display and Concert

This was the forest room. It is hard to tell how absolutely beautiful this room was because you can't smell the trees, feel the peace, or see the beautiful ornaments. It felt like God's forest.

The white room was so peaceful! Every display was either white or gold.

The Traditional Room. It was amazing how this room (a gym) was transformed into an amazing display of nativities. I liked how they put electric tea candles in jars as a barrier to the nativity displays.

The International Room had so many interesting displays from around the world. I love the ones from Africa. The tent and carpets also added to the feel of the room.

I donated one from Mexico, Israel, Hawaii, and the Southwest.

Now this was my room. I literally was tracing the outline of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus 15 minutes before it began! It was a lot of work putting the room together, but it was so fun to be in the room and watch people come and enjoy it! I became very attached to my room!

I donated two little people sets, lego, cloth, pinto beans, ceramic, and my time!

We had nativity books for people to look at. I love how this mother and daughter took the time to read them together!

The donkey Mary rode to Bethlehem!

I put an alphabet line that went from A to Z around the room. GG loves letters, so she had fun handing them to me as we went along. Here is D and she would jump up and down until we were ready to put up E. It was fun!!

In any good classroom there is a map--right. Here is a map of Israel at the time of Christ's birth. I place two stickers on the map: one for Nazareth and one for Bethlehem.

A view of the room. The quilt was a last minute idea--it worked really well in creating a path for people to view the nativities.

On the day of the nativity, we kept getting more displays. I had to bring in two of our benches give the nativity ad added tier. I love the puzzle nativities. I've always wanted one!!! They also had a really cool nesting nativity with baby Jesus being the smallest.

The Veggie Tales was a big hit!!!

I loved the multi-tiered look that the benches added!

Along with the map, alphabet line, I also had little trivia questions. The question was on the outside and the answer was on the inside. How many miles to Bethlehem? The answer is 80! How many days did it take to travel? The answer is 4--they probably traveled 20 miles a day.

I quickly made this one up from our duplo legos. I love it!! One of the kids knew the set and said, "You realize that you have Jesus on the fire."

It was a crazy week--running back and forth from the Stake Center to getting my kids ect. ect. I was told there would be about 20 nativities to display. I ended up with 70. They just kept on coming in.
The first week of December was quite busy getting ready for the big event!

Christmas Card 2010

Family Wall Noir Christmas 5x7 folded card

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