Monday night we did another fun Christmas tradition:  making gingerbread houses.  Many years ago I would bake real gingerbread.  It was an ordeal for me.  Finally I decided it was just not worth all the stress, time, and effort.  Especially after the time where I sneezed for an hour straight because I got some flour dust in my nose.  So now we use graham crackers. My husband constructs the houses.  He takes 3 full-size graham crackers and cuts them in half using a knife.  Then he takes 4 halves and uses a glue gun to make the base of the house.  Then he glues the other two halves together to make a roof.  He then glues the roof onto the house and then glues the whole house on to a paper plate.  Obviously they aren't edible houses with the glue on them but are any gingerbread houses edible after they've sat out and gotten rock hard?  Plus using hot glue means we don't have to come up with little milk cartons to construct the h...

By pure luck, our family was able to begin the Christmas season in one of the best ways I can think of.  In October, we got tickets to see "Sacred Gifts" at the BYU Museum of Art.  Our tickets just happened to be for November 29, which was Black Friday.  So we took our family out to eat (a Black Friday tradition) and then we went to the exhibit.  I think my children generally liked it, especially with the Ipads we rented at the exhibit which gave additional information.  My husband and I really enjoyed it and hope to go back without them sometime.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the exhibit but here are some I got online: The exhibit featured works from three European artists:  Carl Bloch, Heinrich Hofmann, and Frans Schwartz.  They were late 19th century artists specializing in religious paintings, particularly paintings of Christ.  This quote, taken from the  website says, "Most of these works have never before been o...

I have to admit that I don't particularly enjoy the preparations for Christmas.  The list of things I need to do seems so long.  I worry about disappointing my children with their gifts on Christmas morning. I worry about buying things that will really be useful or enjoyable for all the people on my list.  Do we really need more junk in our house?  Once I decide what I'm going to get, then I have to find it at a price I'm willing to pay and soon enough to get packages shipped to relatives living far away.  It all seems so complicated. Because there are four birthdays in our family during December (two boys and two in-laws), I have tried to do a lot of my shopping in November so I don't get completely overwhelmed.  But this year I rebelled and worked on other projects.  Now I'm paying for it and it's a little stressful. But I don't really want Christmas to take over November as well as December so how do I solve this problem?  Hoping for a f...

Last night we decorated our Christmas tree.  As we did it, I thought to myself that this is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  I love to make lists so here is a list of the reasons it's one of my favorites: 1.  We have a set time.  We do it the first Monday night in December.  That's the date we decided worked the best. Monday night is Family Night so we already have that time open when everyone is there.  When anyone wants to put up the Christmas decorations early, I have a date to tell them.  I don't feel conflicted about putting it up earlier because that's the day.  And personally, I think that Christmas should not start taking over the month of November too. 2.  We have a fake tree.  This makes putting up our Christmas tree so much quicker.  If you have to go buy a tree, you've already doubled the amount of time it takes to put it up and decorate it.  I admit, real trees are lovely and nicer than fake t...

Recently I read Thanksgiving:  A Time to Remember by Barbara Rainey, published in 2003.  I am so glad to have come across this book, courtesy of my mother who shared it with me.  The purpose of this book is to share the story of the Pilgrims and the miracles that allowed them to survive and eventually thrive in this new land.  Included in the book is the story of the Pilgrims to be read aloud to children.  I hope to do that in the days leading up to Thanksgiving--maybe after dinner for a few minutes on our less-frantic nights.  I started last night after dinner.  My children weren't sure if this was some new punishment or what, but the first chapter only took 8 minutes so I don't think it was too painful!  It should take less than an hour total to read the story aloud.  Also included with the book is a CD of Thanksgiving songs and music, which I haven't listened to yet, but hope to. The author says, "I was determined that my children wo...

Something weird about me is that I really enjoy keeping track of our money.  It is actually my favorite household task (except when I have to call people about questions with bills--not fun.)  Every Tuesday, I do the finances.  That means collecting all the receipts from the depths of my purse and writing them down in my little financial notebook where we keep track of our budget, figuring out our checkbook balance, paying the bills, etc.  I won't say I love all the numbers that show up when I do the finances but it gives me some kind of feeling of control over our money.  Don't we all want to feel in control of our money instead of the other way around? So it's probably not too surprising that one of my goals in life is to teach my children how to be responsible with their money.  I'm not sure how successful I've been but one of the things I've done is to have a lesson on our family finances.  I've done this maybe two times over the last 15 years...

Recently I've been reading a book called One Thousand Gifts:  A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp.  I'm not sure if I recommend it yet or not.  The book is written in a poetic style that's hard to read, so I've been doing a lot of skimming and I'm not done yet, but I like the idea of feeling gratitude all the time and finding joy in all aspects of your life. The author found herself being very unhappy with her life, for various reasons, until one night she had a very vivid dream in which she was diagnosed with cancer throughout her body and was told she would die shortly.  The nightmare wasn't true but it was a pivotal moment for her because she realized that someday she would die, as we all will.  Her question was "Which road through this brief land?  What is all most important?  How to live the fullest life here that delivers into the full life ever after?...How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?" (p. 28-29)...