Christmas Jammies

The Christmas Eve festivities were pretty quiet around here this year.  

Megan made the traditional quiche for dinner since I couldn't really do much more than direct the process.  They turned out beautiful and delicious and I think her kitchen confidence increased a ton!  She kind of loved how everyone raved about her food.  (I kind of loved that, too!)

After dinner, the kids opened their Christmas jammies.  We do this every year and they love it!  I think it's their favorite tradition.

We finished the night by reading a handful of our favorite Christmas stories.  

I love Christmas Eve.  I love the joyful anticipation that fills the house.  I love the quiet night to reflect on the birth of the Savior.  I love the traditions that we look forward to each year.  And I love being in a house filled with people I love during this amazing and beautiful holiday season.  

Allen Celebration

Fourth of July festivities start early in Allen.   Tonight was our 3rd annual Allen Celebration with the Rodriguez's.  We had so much fun...as always...at this amazing summer tradition.

All this is literally right in the Rodriguez's backyard so we always have an up close parking space, perfect seats for the entire night and great company.

 Here's how brooding teenagers spend their evenings outside in the gorgeous summer weather.  I finally got her to perk up and smile for one picture with me.

 McKay spent most of his night trying to track down people to play catch with him.  

 Isn't this the most adorable Rodriguez you've ever seen??

Emerald City...70s and 80s cover band.  Unbelievable.  Best local live band EVER!  They opened for Dennis DeYoung, who wasn't as good as these guys.  :)

 Star Spangled Girls

 Another adorable Rodriguez.

Fireworks!  I tried to practice with my manual settings...it's SO hard to hold the camera still without a tripod.  

We had an amazing night hanging out with our dear friends in the cool Dallas summer breezes.  What a great way to end June and bring in July.  More fireworks next week, too! 
I LOVE summer.

Christmas Eve Jammies

Today has been longer than I wanted it to be, not quite as memorable as I had hoped, and much more frustrating.  I'm always caught off guard at how darkness can creep into places where there should only be light.  The month has been filled with too much rushing and buying, and not enough being still and reflecting.  I always try so hard to make everyone's dreams come true at Christmas and that's a pretty impossible goal.  I want the presents to be perfect, the food to be delicious, and the decorations to be beautiful.  I want to remember every single person and to be generous and thoughtful.  I want it to be a day as good as they've all imagined it in their heads.  I never want anyone to feel disappointed.  And 24 hours before Christmas is always when the weight of all my lofty expectations starts to crush me.  I've spent the day paring down the endless list, and tossing out the things that don't matter.  

Fortunately, the four little believers in my house missed most of the melt down I had today.  And as usual, they spent all of Christmas Eve excited and happy.  They jumped up and down and ran to their rooms to put on their new jammies tonight...all footies this year, by request.  Their excitement is contagious.  And thankfully, because of them and because of an infinitely patient Scout Master, I'm going to bed tonight realizing that what's under the tree doesn't matter as much as the love those four put into all the little presents they bought for each other.  And that the turkey may not get into the oven by 6:00am, but it's not as important as the fact that we have a kitchen overflowing with food and a warm home to live in.  And that the hope that comes from the Savior's birth all those years ago is a far greater gift than anything I could ever buy or make for them.    

I'm grateful that today is over and that we can always count on tomorrow.  I hope the day finds all of you exactly where you want to be, surrounded by people you love, and filled with the joy of the season.  

Merry Christmas!

Gratitude

One quiet morning in November, as I was doing my daily blog stalking reading, I read this post from one of my favorite blogger idols.  She made a tree out of construction paper and her family spent the evening cutting out leaves and writing things they were thankful for.  By the end of the evening, her little bare tree trunk had become a beautiful, glorious tree filled with leaves of gratitude.  

I loved the idea so much that I immediately ran around the house looking for poster board and fall colored construction paper.  I cut out a naked, pitiful tree trunk with some odd looking branches and glued it to a half piece of poster board that I found on Spell Girl's floor.  Then I cut out lots of bright colored leaves and glued a few of them onto the branches with a few of the things I am grateful for this year, and added a quote about gratitude from President Monson.  I hung my little poster board tree on the pantry door in the kitchen (because that's the first place my kids go after school.)  On a nearby counter, I put a cute little box that Mack made a few years earlier, filled with the leaves I had cut out, and a glue stick and Sharpie next to it.  And then all afternoon, I envisioned my kids excitedly scribbling down all the things they were thankful for and running out of leaves before the night was over.   I could hardly wait for them to come home and find the tree...

It took awhile for the idea to catch on...

In fact, my pitiful little tree staying looking very pitiful for most of the night...

I was so disappointed.

But the next morning, leaves started appearing on my little Thankful Tree.  I didn't even see anyone gluing them on, but when I opened the pantry door, I noticed a much less pitiful tree.  And then Flowering Buttercup and her cute friend came home from Seminary and added some.  After breakfast, more leaves appeared.  Every day, the kids and the Scout Master thought of things they needed to add and they would spontaneously grab a Sharpie and a leaf and glue it to the tree.  By the time we left for Utah, my tree was looking full and beautiful.  

I had thought about making a new tree for our Utah family to fill, but one of the kids suggested just bringing the one we had been using, and that was the most brilliant thing I had ever heard.  So we brought it.  And we hung it right in the middle of the most conspicuous wall in the kitchen hoping once again that everyone would love this idea as much as we did and feel compelled to add hundreds of leaves to our tree.  Once again, it took a little while for the idea to catch on.

But on Thanksgiving Day, the cousins came and more leaves appeared...

  
We loved reading what everyone wrote, and carefully packed our beautifully full tree in the van and brought it home to put back onto our pantry door for the remainder of the month.  (Apparently when we ran out of leaves, someone just cut up post-it notes and taped those on.)  

Last week, Flowering Buttercup wanted to use it for her devotional in Seminary, and all 20 of the kids in her class added more leaves.

Here's what it looks like today...

It's now time to take the tree down and get ready for Christmas, but guess what!  All the kids are so excited about this little project and so sad to see this tree go away that they have asked if I can make a THANKFUL CHRISTMAS TREE that they can decorate with little gratitude ornaments.  Hmmm...??  Maybe I'll do that when I have a minute to take a breath this month.

My tree doesn't look like the one in that other blog, and some of those leaves are filled with goofy things, but I loved this project anyway.  I loved the way it made my family try to find things during the week that they could add to the tree.  I loved how proud they were to see it filling up and becoming beautiful.  I'm so grateful for inspiring blog friends, for reminders to be thankful, and for the month of November when we are all more aware of the blessings in our lives.  

Sweet 16

Next week, Flowering Buttercup turns 16.  This year she asked for a party.  She's had parties before, but she wanted a BIG PARTY this time...the kind with invitations and intentional activities, and 15 girls.  I'm not great at that.  It stresses me out like crazy to be in charge of things, especially parties.   Right after she mentioned the word party I started trying to talk her out of it.  I offered her shopping, money, dinner out, a trip to Hawaii (I only offered that when I was pretty sure she wasn't going to bite at anything.)  But unfortunately for me, when Flowering Buttercup gets an idea in her head, she's pretty determined to make sure it happens.  So, on Friday, I finally gave in and started preparing for this party.  Because, after all, they only turn 16 once, right?

Here's what happens when you have really good intentions, pray really hard, and call all your friends, neighbors and family for help...

After consulting Pinterest, I made a long list of everything I needed.  And then I dragged my friend, Amy, to every store within 15 miles of Allen looking for all things PINK!  She's such a trooper!! 

Spell Girl and June stayed home from the football game with me on Friday night and helped me put up decorations.  It looked like a pink Flowering Buttercup shrine when we were done.  

We dug through all the old picture boxes upstairs and found so many cute ones that we couldn't just limit our decorations to the mantle.  The girls taped all these up in the kitchen, too.  I LOVE this!  And so did FB.  We're definitely continuing this tradition for all future birthdays.  

PINK treats! 

Did you even know that there were so many pink things??? 

Table for manicures

Since we had so many treats, FB wanted a few healthy food options, so I tried to pick things that were easy to make and didn't require an oven.  There's a fruit, yogurt and granola trifle back there.

The CAKE!!  This turned out so much better than I expected.  And it wasn't even super hard either.  Now all the kids want one just like it for their birthdays, too!

Be careful when you blow the candles out, though, because the girls standing on the other side of the table got showered with sprinkles!

Here's what the inside looked like...PINK and white!

FB has some really cute friends.  They're silly and loud and totally dramatic, but they're really good girls. 

This whole party came together without tears, frustration, or yelling.  That alone was a huge miracle.  I am so grateful for all the hands who helped make this happen.  I could NOT have pulled this off without them.  I am especially grateful to the Scout Master and the other kids for setting aside their entire weekend to make this an amazing birthday for Flowering Buttercup.  The memories that we will all have after the last two days of preparing will last so much longer than that shopping trip I had in mind.  I'm glad Flowering Buttercup always stands firm in what she wants. 

And I'm so glad she had a great day!