Dear Santa

Dear Santa -

Thank you for the Star Wars toys you gave Rachael. She is enjoying them, and has not asked me to play purses since they arrived.

Ryan

Flashback Friday

Here are pictures of Rachael's holiday dresses from the last four years.

Traditions

Christmas traditions start right after Thanksgiving dinner is over: we watch 'A Christmas Story' every year on Thanksgiving night.

We usually get a live tree every year, this year we went to Baldwin Farms and cut one down ourselves. (Well, Dad cut it down. Rachael and Mom watched.)

Of course we trim the tree!

Another new tradition this year: Rachael and Mom went to the Richmond Christmas Parade.
(Dad stayed home because he had a cold).

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a visit to Santa!

The last two years now we have gone to see Southern Lights at the Kentucky Horse Park. We love to see the lights and Rachael especially loves the petting zoo.

A little religion - the choir program on the Sunday before Christmas.

A tradition since Rachael joined the family: we take Rachael's picture in her beautiful holiday dress, in front of the Christmas tree.

Making sugar cookies is a family tradition in both families. So is eating them.

Our Christmas Eve feast: we eat appetizers and finger foods instead of a sit-down meal. This way we can snack all the way through Christmas Day. (This picture is from last year).

We usually read the scriptures (Luke Chapter 2), the past couple of years we have used the New Testament Stories book because it has pictures. We also watch "Joy to the World."

What are some of your family traditions?

Merry Christmas

Please enjoy our annual Family Christmas Letter.

(Pop a comment if you would like me to email you a PDF version.)

Christmas Photos

This morning, after Kristin left for Choir, Rachael and I took some Christmas pictures. In the past it has been quite an ordeal. This year she was rather excited, dancing around while repeating over and over again cheese!

Flashback Friday

We visited both my parents in Tremonton, UT and Ryan's parents in Shelley, ID for Christmas last year. Some highlights, aligned from left to right (well, sort of):

• My Grandma Jensen's Birthday (Rachael's great-grandma)
• Ryan & Rachael both got "fishing" books
• Love to take pictures of Braden & Rachael together - she's four inches shorter, about 10 pounds lighter, and three weeks older than Braden
• The Family Ricks (minus Lynne and her boys)
• Grandpa R reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas'
• Scooter Guy and Sleeping Beauty
• The Family Jensen (minus Lesley & Chad and their girls)
• Ricks Family dinner
• My little traveler - she loves her rolling suitcase
• Jensen Family at Temple Square
• Uncle Declan's handmade sledding hill (it was awesome)
• Christmas at Jensens
• Making cookies with Grandma
• Ricks cousins
• Making cookies with Nana
• How we fly
• Going for a tractor ride in the snow
• The Page family party - Rachael got to take a whack at the pinata (it took my 25 year old brother to smash it open)
• Making snowmen at Nana's house
• Burning letters to Santa with Grandpa (a Madden family tradition we learned last year!)
• The swans in Idaho
• My pretty princess
  

Dear Santa

Please bring me and my Daddy some spaceships or trucks to play with. He has been a really good boy; he loves me and plays "My Little Ponies" or "purses" or any of a number of girly things. But I think he is getting a little tired of being my best girlfriend. (I'm good to share. Look! I have him the pink one with sequins!)

He likes to play with Legos, Tonka trucks, or anything Star Wars. Please bring us some toys that will make my daddy happy and wipe that unfortunate look off his face.

love,

The Gingerbread House

Our Gingerbread House for this year is complete! I went with a traditional house this year, thinking that would be easier and more fun for Rachael to help. However, because of several transgressions on her part, she didn't get to help much. She has admired it greatly, though. This house features Pez, M&M's, Skittles, licorice, star marshmallows, and especially a Necco wafer and gumdrop roof. We used to use Neccos when I was a kid, and I love the look.



New for this year are the "stained glass" windows. We cut out the windows on the gingerbread before it was baked, then crushed Dum Dum suckers (that is what we had on hand) to fill in the window. It worked really well! We have one red window, one green window, and one small blue window in the back.

Another exciting feature this year is what appears to be the doorbell. It's actually a light switch! Ryan rigged up an electric tea light with a switch, and I cut out a hole in the gingerbread with a screwdriver. It looks pretty cool at night. He's thinking maybe we should try roof lights next year.

Here is what it looks like in the dark. Sort of. I should really put the camera on a tripod.

Sunday is a Day of Rest

7:30 am Get dressed and ready for church.
8:00 am Wake up Ryan, get Rachael ready for church
8:30 am Leave for church
9:00 am Usually play the organ. Then take turns with Ryan wrestling an obstinate and irritating 3 year old.
10:10 am Take Rachael to nursery, run back downstairs (our nursery is upstairs) and play the piano for Primary. Because it has been 5 months since anyone has been called to the pianist.
10:50 am Run back up to nursery, take Rachael to the potty, then sing songs with the nursery kids.
11:10 am Play the piano for Relief Society. Or conduct the meeting. Or both. Or sometimes teach.
12:00 pm Begin the long process of trying to exit the building.
12:45 Arrive home. Inhale food since nobody has eaten yet all day.
1:00 pm Crash.
3:45 Leave for choir practice
5:20 Arrive home from choir, help get dinner on the the table.
Any given evening, go back for another choir rehearsal, a baptism, a fireside, whatever.

No wonder I am so wiped out by Monday morning.

Rachael's Perspective

Earlier this week we went to a birthday party for Rachael's friend Alex, who turned 2. At one point Rachael decided she needed to take some pictures, so I gave her the camera with instructions to take pictures of everyone. She did pretty well; most of us are even in the picture. I particularly like the picture of my nose.

For the group shot, Rachael had to stand up on a chair. She was hilarious: "Say cheese everybody!"

Flashback Friday

Our Gingerbread "house" from 2003. It's a fairly decent representation of our popup trailer!

And you would not believe the number of boxes of Fruit Roll Ups I had to buy, because I was stuck on only using red and green.

Weekend Recap

Ryan caught a cold this weekend. Or, as Rachael would say, "Daddy is catching a bad kind of cold." The bad kind is when you are sick. The good kind is when you only sneeze. We had planned to go to the parade in town as a family, but Rachael and I wisely decided that Daddy was in no shape to come with us.

It was so cold! I think the temperature was 22 degrees. Brrrrr!! We bundled up and had a great time, though. I think Rachael got as much candy at the parade as she did at Halloween.


Saturday Rachael and I went over to the Recital Information Day Pizza Party at her dance school. We had pizza, made an ornament with a monkey on it, and got pumped up for the recital. We saw pictures of the darling costumes her class will wear for their number in the recital. Then we found out both the dress rehearsal and the recital are on Sundays. Oh well. She can still have fun at dance class. Plus now I don't have to shell out $60 for the costume.
On Sunday Daddy was still sick and had laryngitis. He came to sacrament meeting with us, then went home. Rachael is used to going to church with Daddy, so she cuddled up to him before church and announced that Mommy could go by herself and she would be going with Daddy. (We live about five miles from the church, but we almost always take 2 cars. We are crazy). Daddy didn't really have a choice at that point!

He doesn't look it in the picture, but Daddy is always happy when his girls are cuddly.

Flashback Friday

Three Years Ago

Rachael was almost 10 months old
And she was teething
like crazy.
But her eyes were still blue!

Grocery Shopping

Rachael was all ready to help with the shopping today. She even read me the grocery list... until I realized that none of those items were on the list. And I still can't figure out what 'fried pee-nees' is.

Click here to go to YouTube.

The Family Tree

Tonight we decorated our family tree. I donned my festive footwear, untangled the lights - actually, opened new boxes this year - and found the ornament hooks.

Rachael was so excited to decorate the tree she ate three bites of dinner, then announced she was finished and ready to go. We totally took advantage of her enthusiasm by making her clean up all her toys before we started.

She had so much fun! She even did a pretty good job of spreading her ornaments out. I figured they would all end up on one branch. After almost every ornament she would come running back and say, "Daddy, I did it!"


And the bottom two feet of the tree has never been so well decorated!

The Day After

I am sitting here the day after Thanksgiving, following our tradition of Ryan and Rachael watch Star Wars for two days while Kristin decorates for Christmas. I am still stuffed from yesterday's meal.

Reading through Kristin's post yesterday, I just have to say she is being modest. The turkey was incredible, easily the best turkey I have ever had. And the rolls - well, she made two large pans. They are almost all gone this evening. I should polish up the rest tomorrow, probably sometime between Episode V and Episode VI.

Thanks Kristin, for an excellent Thanksgiving. And thanks Rachael, for being my Star Wars buddy.

Thanksgiving

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving with just ourselves this year. Ryan made stuffing again this year that was very yummy. I fixed mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, cranberry relish, and a pink fruit salad for Rachael. It was all very yummy!

The best part this year hands down was the turkey, which Ryan and I fixed together. We bought a brine mix from Williams-Sonoma and brined the turkey on Wednesday night. We have done brine before but this was a first with the mix, and it was so tasty! This is also the first year we cooked the turkey without an oven bag. We used Alton Brown's recipe for Roast Turkey and we were both thrilled with the results. It was crispy, juicy, and very delicious.

For dessert I made pumpkin pie. We invited our friends Bishop and Louan over to share pie with us. They are kind of Rachael's Kentucky grandparents - they have one granddaughter, Rachel, who is just a bit older than our Rachael. She lives in Arizona. So they play with our Rachael and have fun with her just like she was a granddaughter, too, which pleases Rachael just fine. Ryan and I are wondering how long before we can leave Rachael overnight with them...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Family Home Evening

We had our lesson on prayer, which seems to be a frequent topic in our house. I'm sure we'll do it again, although Rachael's prayers are pretty cute most of the time. If she holds still.

Earlier in the day Rachael got to pick some Little Debbie Christmas Tree treats and we had those for dessert. Can you imagine anything better?? She thought they were great.

The highlight of the evening was reading the Book of Mormon. We started reading one ore two verses back in March, having Rachael repeat the words back. A thrilling milestone tonight: we finished 1 Nephi chapter 1! At this rate it will take us 159 years to finish... we better pick up the pace.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho

A PIRATES' Life for Us

My favorite ride was Pirates of the Carribean. The first time we went on it, Rachael spent the entire ride with her face buried in my arm.

The second time, I waited until the part where there are some girls all dressed up to get her to look. Right after that comes three sets of a woman chasing a man around in a circle (hilarious if you're 3) and then of course, "Yo Ho, Yo Ho."

By the third time we went on the ride, she was dying to go!

The Rides

We went to Disney at a great time of the year - the lines were really pretty short and we didn't wait long at all for most of the attractions. To start our trip, we went on what Rachael has christened "The Dancing Teacups." It was her favorite ride.

Her other favorite had to be the Barnstormer, or Goofy Roller Coaster (it's in Toontown). She rode it first with her dad, and as they were climbing up the first hill, he told her she could scream as much as she wanted on a roller coaster. From there it was her second favorite ride. She and Daddy went lots of times.
We loved the flying rides, too. Aladdin is fun because we can all go together. Watch out for the camel - he spits!

The Carrousel (yes that's how the ride is spelled) is fun, too. The difference between a merry-go-round and a carousel is that all the horses move on a carousel.

Time for more fun on the teacups!

The Dumbo ride is a flying ride, too, like Aladdin. However, each elephant only holds two passengers, so I chose to take pictures. It's a race... the first Dumbo all the way around wins.

Ryan and I really enjoyed the safari ride in Animal Kingdom. It's a great ride; they have done a good job of making it look very natural. Look - a baby elephant!

With morning Magic Hours, we got to be first in line to The Seas with Nemo and Friends at Epcot. It's really a fun ride! Here is Rachael totally not appreciating how cool it is to be first in line.

Did I mention we liked the teacups?

Not technically a ride but definitely a Disney experience: Mouse Ears. If you haven't been to Disney in awhile the selection is staggering. And yes, her name is emboirdered on the back.

Also not a ride, we happened to catch the parade one afternoon completely by accident. Rachael, of course, was riveted.

For our last ride before we left... we you expecting anything less?
We can't wait to go back! I wonder what our first ride will be...

The Food

I'm pretty sure we can't have a trip to Disney and not blog about the food. The princess lunch was fun! The princesses obviously were lots of fun, but the food was fun, too. Ryan and I had regular adult food, but Rachael got Mickey ravioli. They're pretty serious about the Mickey Mouse theme here.

Dessert was good, too!

Even the kids' meal plate is shaped like Mickey.

One night we all had burgers. Nothing quite like bacon double cheeseburgers at a theme park to raise your cholesterol about a thousand points. It was yummy, though!


One night we stopped at our hotel for a treat before we went to bed. Rachael got a cookie with sprinkles. Which she then proceeded to pick off all the sprinkles - which are, you guessed it, shaped like Mickey - and eat them. Even the ones off the bottom. Didn't touch the cookie.


My very favorite food is always the Patisserie in France at Epcot. I had chocolate mousse and Ryan had an apple tart. Yum!