Christmas Letter 2013

You know I have this tradition of writing a letter about our doings that I tuck into each one of my Christmas cards. It's really just my opportunity to brag about the kids and their awesomeness to all of my family and friends.So I thought I would share it with you again this year. Hope you enjoy it (or at least suffer all the way through it...)

We need a new picture!

December 2, 2013

Can you believe it is already December? This year has just flown by with so many changes in our family!

Bossy and Gamer have a new daughter. She is 14 years old and she has lived with various relatives in Texas before finally joining their family this summer. Gamer didn’t know she was his until recently, but she seems to fit right in and she has taken up dance and volleyball like my girls. She was baptized in October and now Gamer is planning to be baptized on December 14. If you are close by, please come! The boys are all doing well, but I will leave their activities for Bossy to share with you.

Gym Rat was promoted to Sr. Lender this year. He is in his last semester of school and will finish up with his BS in Business Management from Western Governors University in February. In his spare time he works out and makes amazing chocolate chip cookies. He also has a little Chi Weenie dog (I probably spelled that wrong) named Franco that is Baby Doll’s best little furry friend.

Drama Queen is teaching at Juab High School. She took over the Drama Dept. this year and just finished up a successful run of Princess Ida that she rewrote in her spare time. She is an amazing teacher and her students love her! She also loves being the “Sugar Mama” when she comes home and she takes each of the kids shopping and spoils them something awful.

Teach is on a mission in Ft. Worth, Texas. She is right about the halfway mark. She has been a Sister Leader Trainer since her second transfer and she loves being a missionary! So far they have had about 4 baptisms, but much of their work is reactivating less active members.

The Dog Walker is attending jr. college full time on scholarship and he is preparing to begin his church service mission soon. He recently finished the temple prep classes and will start mission prep again after Christmas. He is still Dog-Walking and is currently watching two little dogs for a couple of weeks while their owners are out of town. He is working hard to get his amazing holiday display set up in the front yard and finish up school at the same time.

Princess is a junior this year and she is still a straight A student. She is working on becoming a New Century scholar and she took a full load of college classes this summer. She started her first real job as a Jr. Jazz official and she just sold her first real order of cake pops for a shower this weekend. She is an amazing dancer performing in the Nutcracker this week as the Lead Mirliton and member of the Snow Corps.

Prima Donna is a sophomore and she is also a straight A student. She took classes with Princess this summer and is well on her way to becoming a New Century scholar. She just finished up her first play as part of the cast of Footloose and she plays the Bass Clarinet in the Symphonic Band. She is also performing in the Nutcracker this week as Madam Ginger. She and Princess are both active on the Youth City Council.

Crafty is a 7th grader and she is also a straight A student. (I love this trend!) She plays the clarinet in the Concert Band and she just cleaned up at Reflections, winning an award in each of the 7 categories. She is also dancing in the Nutcracker this week in the Waltz of the Flowers. She is one quilt binding away from finishing her Silver Award for Girl Scouts. She, Princess, and Prima Donna are also members of the Library Student Advisory Board.

Sport is a 5th grader and he loves all things sports! He played the center for his football team. They had a great season but lost in the semi finals. He is excited to start basketball this week. He is also dancing in the Nutcracker, but he will be upset with me for telling you that since it doesn’t fit his studly image very well. He is a Webelos Scout, he plays the trumpet and he gets great grades at school. We are very proud of him!

Scout is in the 2nd grade and she loves dancing and sports. She played flag football with Curly and Burrrito and Dog Walker and Princess coached their team, but now she is moving on to basketball and I will be coaching her again this year. She is a buffoon in the Nutcracker and a Brownie Girl Scout. She loves reading and she gets great grades in school.

Curly loves kindergarten, dance, and basketball, not necessarily in that order. He is in two ballet classes and a tap class. I think he would dance every day of the week if we would let him. He is too young to be in the Nutcracker this year, but maybe next year. He has his first basketball game on Saturday and he can hardly wait! He also took top honors this week with the fastest car in any class at our Pinewood Derby!

Baby Doll is also dancing. She loves tap and ballet. Curly is in both classes with her, so that makes it easy. She loves nursery, especially her teacher (me!), although she will be going to primary starting in January. She loves to help Mom and she and I share our day after we drop Curly off for kindergarten. She loves scouts, both boy and girl and she won 3rd place open class at the Pinewood Derby with her pink princess car.

As you probably already guessed, my sweetie is still the Cubmaster. He is coming up on 3 years now and the pressure to come up with new ideas is incredible. He works hard and takes good care of all of us. I won’t mention that he hit the big five oh in August, but you would never know. He can still act just like a 9-year-old boy at pack meeting!

I stay busy with all the craziness of being a mom. I’m still trying to write a post every day on my blog at www.twelvemakesadozen.blogspot.com. I actually have an ad company so I even make a few bucks at it every month and I do mean only a few. I sell a little Tupperware once in a while. Most months I only do a party or two, but I service quite a few people and it lets my buy what I want for the kids at a discounted price. (They are actually my best customers!) I’m on the board for the ballet and they have me writing grant proposals. I have to defend one tomorrow before the entire city council which is a little intimidating but I guess I’ll get along all right. I’m still coaching, both kids and adults. We just finished up the volleyball season and basketball will start soon. I have had the calling as Stake Sports Director for the women for 7 years now and I still love being part of that program. I work out at Curves 4 days a week and they have asked me to start a blog for them in January. It will be much easier than my blog since I only have to post a couple of times a week. My girl scouts have been making a tree for the Festival of Trees and we just set it up today. That has been a huge undertaking, but oh so rewarding to be part of such a huge service project! I try to stay busy and productive. Dog Walker’s homework (and everyone else’s) takes up tons of each and every day of my life, but at least I’m learning new things.

We hope you all have a joyous holiday season and a wonderful Christmas full of love and family.
I know we will.

Done!

We did it! The tree is assembled and all set up at the Festival of Trees. Last night it was pretty dicey if I would even finish the tree skirt. Crafty and I were sewing the patches on until about 9:00 and I hadn't even begun to assemble it yet. It turned out really cute, but it was nearly 3:30 AM when I sewed the last of the rick-rack to the outside edge.

Bossy came over about 1:30 this afternoon and we took the tree to the expo center. I hate to confess that she rode in the back of my big van and held the tree to keep it from tipping over while I drove. Baby Doll was very stressed about the fact that she was not wearing a seat belt, so we made sure to have a long prayer for safety before we left.

We arrived without mishap and soon had the tree inside. It was hard to keep Baby Doll from wandering off. There were so many cute trees! Just across the aisle from ours was a Barbie and a Princess. And she wanted to touch everything...I was wishing we had figured out how to find a babysitter.

It didn't take us long to set things up since the girls had decorated and wired the tree on Friday. Bossy spent most of her time straightening branches and checking wires. I tied ribbons to the boxes of cookies and arranged everything under the tree.

When we were finally finished and checked out, we started down the rows to leave the expo center. That is the first time Baby Doll started to cry. "What's wrong?" I asked, somewhat out of patience with her. "We are leaving the tree!" she sobbed. 'Of course we are! That was the plan." She continued to sniffle and sob for the next 10 minutes. I really don't think she quite understood what it was all about. And you know what?

I have to confess that I was a little sad to leave that tree too.

I wonder how many people just go in there and buy back their own trees?

Did you Miss Me?

I had planned to write a post last night, really I did, but yesterday just got a bit out of hand. We had the Girl Scouts over at 10:00 AM to finish up our tree for Festival of Trees. I don't know if I told you much about that, but in Utah, Primary Children's Medical Center has a huge fundraiser every year called the Festival of Trees. You have to apply to get in, and if you are accepted, you get the privilege of donating a Christmas tree and and the trimmings and packages underneath.

Since we had some extra money this year, I really wanted the girls to have the opportunity to give back to our community by putting together a tree. We decided on a small one, 4 1/2 feet tall. We have spent every single meeting since the first of October making ornaments and preparing our little tree.

So yesterday I had the girls over to finish it up and wire on the ornaments, stuff like that. The tree has to be set up on Monday so it can be ready for the silent auction on Tuesday. I'm sneaking you a preliminary picture so you can see, but I will post on this again after we get a chance to set it up at the Festival so you can see it with all the trimmings. We are hoping that it will make some good money for the sick kids at the medical center. Either way it was really fun.

The girls left about 3:00. Then the Dog Walker settled into homework once again. He had one last chapter of Economics and his final exam. He did a great job on the chapter, and at 8:00, we sat down to begin the final. He had printed out all the quizzes and he was able to use his book and notes. I sat with him to keep him calm and organized for the 100-question exam. He had a 5-hour time limit, but we were hoping it wouldn't take that long.

As the 4th hour ticked by, my brother showed up. He lives in New Jersey and had been in town for a few days, but I had not had the opportunity to visit with him. His flight was leaving this morning and he had to be at the airport at 7:30. I hurried the Dog Walker through the last  10 questions as the clock rolled past midnight. By 12:30 he had scored a 96 and I was finally able to sit down with my brother to visit.

We yacked for hours about everything until he finally decided he'd better get a little sleep around 3:30 AM. I crawled into bed at 4:00, but then back out again at 6:30 to make sure he was up and getting ready for his trip to the airport.

When he was out the door, I laid back down for a couple of hours until it was time to get the kids up for the Home Depot class. Now it's back to the homework. The Economics class is done and the A is earned, but he still has to finish up his Intro to Special Ed class today. Then he will have less than 2 weeks to complete his Math and Reading classes. Reading will be OK, but I'm holding my breath on the Math class. I'll keep you posted...

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful day today!

It started around 8:30. The kids wanted to watch the parade and they weren't willing to let anyone sleep in. Since our plans included an evening meal, we were in no rush to get the cooking started. Princess and I made all the pies last night, 6 pecan, 4 pumpkin, and 1 apple for the Gym Rat. Can you believe he doesn't like pumpkin pie?

The Dog Walker is rapidly approaching the end of the semester, so we squeezed in 3 chapters of Economics including quizzes. He wasn't very happy to be doing homework while everyone else was celebrating. Did I tell you the Dog Walker is also dog-sitting for a couple of weeks? My Tupperware manager needed someone to watch her two little dogs. They are really so cute and haven't been much trouble at all. The Dog Walker is very excited about the extra income just in time for Christmas shopping.

But I digress...

We had our fun and traditional Charlie Brown Thanksgiving around 12:30. My favorite part is always the chocolate pudding, but I also enjoyed the black jellybeans (since no one else will eat them anyway). We put in the real turkey right after that and my sweetie started on the rolls. Honestly, he makes the most delicious rolls! That was my cue to head back into the office with the Dog Walker. When we finally emerged almost two hours later with one more successful quiz finished, my sweetie announced that it was time for a new tradition.

A family basketball game! We split into two teams of 8 players each and we played a rousing game of ball for about an hour. We only had one casualty and it didn't even draw blood. Oh, except for the time when Bossy was trying to steal the ball from the Drama Queen and rather than give it up, the Drama Queen just gave her a little warning bite...I guess she has been hanging around with the dogs a little too much this weekend.

Princess peeled potatoes for over an hour as we just hung out together and slowly prepared food. Some were playing games, my sweetie let the boys get out the racetrack, and the Dog Walker and I kept at his homework. At some point Grandpa showed up.

About 6:45 we sat down to dinner. After an extremely long prayer of gratitude from my sweetie we dug in. Bossy had helped the kids with a cute Oreo turkey project she found on Facebook and these fun turkeys made from apples and marshmallows. We had all the traditional stuff, turkey, potatoes and gravy, stuffing, yams, corn, rolls, and cranberry sauce. It was an awesome meal! We snacked all evening and enjoyed pie around 9:00.

Unfortunately, I helped myself to one of my sweetie's rolls a little bit ago and now my tummy hurts. Way too much good food in a single day! I hope you all had the happiest of Thanksgivings full of family, food, friends, and fun.

And no homework...