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.