December Christmas 2018

Tony and Cindy and the kids came to Ashford during December and helped us celebrate Christmas with my mom. We took advantage of one of the family sitting rooms and it was a perfect spot to show our love to Great-Grandma Hiatt. Ashford is so pretty and serene and brand new too. You can't beat brand new (unless something is really, really old and that's even cooler).

I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for all my many blessings, especially for each of my children and grandchildren near and far. We are fortunate that we get to have Tony's family with us for Christmas Eve each year.  Pictured here are Dennis, Tony, Cindy, Lauren, Reagan, Jane, Vivian, Eli and Calvin, but in my mind's eye I can see Truman (where was he?) Angie, Forrest, Ethan, Elise, Jonas, Wyatt, Andrew, Andrea, Brandon, Whitney, Caroline, Amy, Dave, Jack, Macy and Carly. I can picture each of you celebrating the Savior's birth and the joys of Christmas wherever you are.

I was working on my Sunday School lesson today and there is a wonderful scripture in Matthew 6: 21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
I treasure each individual in our family, and it's where my heart is. And I know it's where your heart is too, so even though we may be far apart, our hearts are knit together in love.

Other little things in this photo that make me reminisce: the napkin rings made by my grandchildren; the Mr. and Mrs. Santa Clause salt and pepper shakers that are either my own, or my mom and dad's. It was one of those moments when going through my parents' things when we moved them to assisted living I saw these salt and pepper shakers and thought "oh my gosh, we both bought the same item independently!" (or for all I know they bought mine for me many years ago); the traditional flimsy red and green tablecloth flecked with strands of gold that is pulled out every year; the crystal goblets that were given to me by Grandma Ranquist, so I'm pretty sure they're "real"; the butter dish that's a piece of my wedding stoneware, which I still love, and which we saw in a Parade of Homes a few years ago so they're still relevant!; Cindy's homemade rolls; the makings for grape drink with 7-up which I only make on Christmas eve and my Grandmother Nan introduced me to 60 years ago; the candles burning and all the lights turned off for just a minute only on Christmas Eve.

This year I thought I'd try having the Christmas Eve program in the basement since we had Grandma Hiatt's piano down there. Eli is still plugging away at learning 100 hymns/Primary songs (but he gets an extension beyond age 14 to earn his $100 just because I decreed it :-).

Beautiful Vivian playing a Christmas song

Fully focused Calvin playing for us.

And speaking of Calvin, the man of 1,000 faces and easily as many emotions, here he is as a shepherd AGAIN, giving us his harumphhh-ness about the whole thing AGAIN..........which brings back fond memories of yester-year......

....HARRUMPHHHH...........and Jane, SWEETJane, still is game to be the sheep!

...ever beautiful and goofy at the age of 16!

Only Reagan can be the angel with this much spunk!

As she commanded the attention of the entire nativity community!

And Tony and Cindy were fully clothed in nativity attire too.

Calvin was very focused and interested during the scripture story in Luke.

Reagan here represents the joy of openings gifts from one another!

 

And speaking of gifts, holy smokes, look at the American Girl dreamhouse Tony built for Vivian! We always go down to the Springville Sweat's house on Christmas day; bleary-eyed from the crammed activities of the holidays, and they are in their matching Christmas pj's all the live-long day. That's the BEST!

Angie gave me this beautiful plate collection for Christmas. She found it at an antique shop. Each picture is of a mother with her children - and she found one plate representing each of the months that she and Andrew and Tony and Amy were born. It's so beautiful!

I could listen to these girls play duets all day.

Vivian took this photo of my Christmas village, and added this filter with the sparkling lights!

The kids stayed over night with us on New Year's Eve. Can you guess what they're depicting here?

And they dutifully banged pots and pants just like my kids did when they were little.

This kills me  Calvin made it - it says 2019 and all along the sticks he has the months written, and it's so intricate and wow, he might be an engineer some day.

New Year's Eve Countdown!

Visiting Aunt Denny and Uncle Joe and their new puppy whose name I can never remember....It still with an "M"

I decided to try Sock Olympics for probably the last time ever. But it was great fun! Here is Truman and grandpa playing "throw the sock over the half-wall into the front room and pray it doesn't knock over a vase!" The two photos below are from my phone or something, anyway I can't write anything below them, but I think they look quite noble on the Olympic podium!

And to wrap up 2018, here is a random hilarious photo - Angie and Amy both commented that they watched the popular Tidying Up show on Netflix with Marie Kondo and that one of the episodes had an Asian man who looked just like Dennis. Dennis was a good sport and let me take a picture of the two of them for evidence and a good chuckle. I also watched the show and tidied up - using some old Stake Women's Conference posters to divide my sock and garment drawers into two sides, which has made me happy every single day when I reach for my bottoms and/or tops and they aren't intermingled!

Here's to a productive and happy 2019!