Our 'real' Christmas tree this year. Pretty small, but smelled better than our usual tree! If you notice the red box in front, it is a new sewing machine. (Which reminds me, I should be sewing Jason's nets - another blog for sure). Anyway, my first sewing on this machine was to shorten a few things for Jill: some cute jean legging's and a long dress - very Hawaiian.
I have two free classes to show me some amazing things the machine can do, but for right now, it did what I needed it to do. Yeah!

Jason's 'stach'. I can't remember what he grew it out for, but we needed a picture of it for sure. One of Allan's gifts this year was a 'fixer-upper' mini motor bike.

He learned the rules of how to ride it properly....Shannon didn't.
This is a terrible view of it, but there is a heart in this 'fencing' that hangs at Mesa High.
Besides my new sewing machine, this puzzle was a great and NEEDED surprise! This is after a few hours of work. Celynda was a great help and Doug also added his helping hand. This morning I went in to finish it and this is the help that was available......hmmm..... Not much.

Done at last ( with two pieces 'MIA') Grandkids were here yesterday. I'll be looking in closets and toy baskets. You'll have to look at it close. Besides the birds, there are ladybugs, butterflies, dragonflies, caterpillars, and bumblebees! Fun! Thanks mom!

We had a great time with the Selin's this year. It hasn't happened for a while, but all of my sister Carrie's kids were here in town. Sadly, because of the stomach flu passing through their family, we couldn't get together on our first choice day, but when we did get the chance to meet, Evan and Shanna and Calvin, had to take off back home. (sad face). And another sad thing - I forgot my camera. After playing some pretty good sand volleyball, (pictures would have been great) we headed to Carrie and Doug's home for the annual 'white elephant' exchange.
side note; Trudy, white elephant can be held any time during the year, so if you ever get a chance to vacation this way, let us know, we'll start hitting the thrift stores.
Here's the really sad part about not having my camera. There were some pretty spectacular gifts this year. The large white elephant wall hanging/table thing. (I swear it weighed 30lbs) (Carrie could you weigh that thing and send me the information with a picture of it!) We still don't know what it was, but I'm sure it will be left at Carrie's house and not taking the drive back to Utah with the owner, Lindsey. Also, the make it yourself wreath kit: the kitty cat statue thing that must have been made with real cat hair (scary): mom ended up with a novel called Viking that had Fabio as the front cover model, with a matching chest protector type thing that would make any of us look like Fabio's famed chest; a t-shirt with Evan and Shanna's makemebabies.com -baby to be- image: a mirror with darling attached colored pieces of glass; and one of our favorites, Richard Simmons 'video's and a sparkling outfit to match; and many more items. So, Selin's.....Thanks for having us over there and letting us leave a mess of papers, ugly gifts, oops, I mean, sweet, great gifts, and a mess in the kitchen. We had a great time. And if any of you happen to post any pictures especially of Allan in the Richard Simmons outfit, let me know and I will attach a post here.

a few hearts...

These past few weeks have been busy and I haven't been really attentive, but here are a few hearts we have found along the way. Sunday dinner's potatoes. Brian said he wants credit for these because he was the one slicing them. On Saturday night we had our DeWitt White Elephant out at Brad and Brenda's home. This was on a sidewalk out their front door. A mushroom for my cheeseburger.

These next two are stretching it a little, but here they are anyway: A pancake Shannon made- and when I was opening a jar of marinade the sauce formed a heart on the paper lid part. By the time I got back with me camera it was not really all there any more, but you get the jest of it.

Hancocks - Christmas Party

So we took a quick trip up to Snowflake on the 4th of December. I'm not sure I've posted about it yet, but since I downloaded some pictures of that event - I thought I'd mention just a few things about our trip. Our good friends Greg and Karla were getting sealed in the Snowflake Temple. We were glad they invited us to go up and join them. (We were slightly nervous though, because we didn't make the one day trip up for Thanksgiving - and here we are making a trip up for 'non-family'.) We had Karla's daughter ride up with us who is one of Shannon's best friends and we also took Jeff so Uncle Alan could look at an ingrown toenail. Along the way we had to stop and play in the snow. They are all throwing at me right here and if you pull up the picture you can see all of their snowballs. Allan's hit my camera. Shay and Shannon's snowman. A little help was given by Doug and Allan too.


Allan needed a potty break along the way. At the Snowflake Temple. Doug goofy. Ever since we moved into this ward Greg and Shannon have had this friendship. It's been fun to see him help her grow up with his unconditional love for her. Thanks Greg for helping us to raise her!! Grand kids on top of Grandpa's truck. Can you tell we're not in Snowflake anymore? Shorts, no shirts, barefoot. I love Mesa winter weather.
Shannon's Christmas Concert. Katie couldn't stay out of the camera shots.
Our ward Christmas party was this past Friday. Here are a few of the items we worked on for the dinner. These buckets came from a story I read called 'The Red Buckets'. They represent service and giving to others. The whole month before the party I had asked the ward members to secretly do service acts to family or neighbors, teachers, etc. We made 150 of them. Also, we wrapped 200 packets of silverware.
I have also been taking a sewing class for my serger machine. It is on Fridays and last Friday, the 10th, I was really thirsty so I broke down and bought a water. There are drinking fountains around the school, but I decided to spend $1.25 for a water just to have with me in class. My water came out and I heard clunking from the machine and I was thinking it was just setting itself up for the next customer, but, no, another water came out. Bottle #2. And wait, yes, more clunking and bottle #3 appeared. So, there you have it. 3 water bottles for $1.25. I felt better about my splurge. A sad story to my class though - I had a final I had to take on Friday, the 17th. Our teacher said it would take less than an hour. I had gone down to the church to finish decorating and realizing that I needed a few more things for the party I got to running around and completely forgot about my final. I'm hoping that I'll at least get my credit hours for attendance and the projects I had to make. I guess I'll see. Fog on Friday.
My heart findings coming up next.

P.S.

I can see that part 3 of my Thanksgiving story fell between 1 and 2. That is because I wrote it before I wrote part 2 and the computer saved it and put it in that order. I just thought I better let you know that Allan's swimming happened DURING the warmest part of the day and we didn't do it after returning from our part 3 activities.

Thanksgiving Day Belated - Part 2

Our trips to Snowflake for Thanksgiving have always had mandatory (again) volleyball playing. Before, After, Next Day - 24/7 if we could, of Volleyball games. By not going up this year, we knew we would be forfeiting that joy. Early in the day, as we were fixing our feast, Alan or Linda, I don't remember who, sent a text-photo of a snow covered backyard lawn and saying, "Wish you were here"!
What? - No volleyball this year! At least we felt a little better about being here in the valley, however, in return for their picture text - we sent one back to them also stating "No, Wish You Were Here!!!!
Please enjoy our adventure at getting just the right shot.Where's Shannon? Now where's Allan? Oh, here he comes! Sweet! Everyone get ready! Wait somethings not quite right. It's 58 degrees outside. Hang on everyone - I'll be right back. There, this is better.Okay, lets get some posing for our picture - text.

No this doesn't feel quite right. And in for the dip. To make it authentic of course of how warm it is here.

I can't remember what shot we eventually sent them, but it really doesn't matter, because I can just see all 45 of them up there trying to squeeze around Uncle Alan's phone getting a glimpse of Allan in a speedo.