Merry post-Christmas 2013!

The photo above is the kick-off to celebrating Christmas Eve - with Tony's family coming to share our traditional Christmas Eve candle light dinner. Such a happy sight! Calvin got his first haircut so it seemed only fitting that he be upgraded to sit at the kid table instead of in the high chair. We had Dennis's red Jello and my funeral potatoes (I made funeral food!) with grape juice and 7-up, just like my Grandmother Nan used to make for us, and of course the traditional macaroni and cheese in honor of the Sweat family tradition - just makes me smile! I bought shrimp for an appetizer and Harmon's also had little single crab claws for 58 cents EACH! Oh my goodness. So I bought six. Reagan even tried one (she's not a fan). The first photo below was taken BEFORE everyone arrived to fill the table with life; the second is a shot of the beautiful blue sky day that we had and you can see the Santa plate that has a cookie with each of the grandkid's names on it that Angie gave us a couple of years ago: and the third photo is a selfy I took just for the blog because I wanted to convey "Hey - a newlywed should be stuffing this celery - not me!"

The photo below is a wistful glimpse of the two place settings that were set aside and we didn't get to use that night because my mom had a scare and hurt her ankle and they ended up at Alta View hospital having it checked out for Christmas Eve (thankfully she's doing fine) but boo on that, and we surely missed them! (and the shrimp and crab missed being enjoyed by Grandpa Hiatt!).

When Tony and Cindy and the kids arrived,  we told them we were starting late because Dennis was helping my mom and dad get situated, so  they hurried to Walmart (2.5 minutes away and YES it is sweet to have it so close) and bought their live Christmas tree at half price to put in their new house so Santa could find them that night. (they camped out on the floor of the new house - nothing but sleeping bags and a live tree tied with a rope to the ceiling vent to hold it up).  The kids and I munched on snacks and watched part of "Elf" and knew that soon the festivities would begin! Calvin entertained us and dressed up as potato head Santa.

We had the nativity - and Lauren bless her heart even dressed up in an angel costume. The photo of Reagan wearing a black nose makes me laugh. I hadn't noticed it until I uploaded it for the blog. Jane has traditionally been a sheep every year and she has a white woolly lamb's coat and wears a black nose that we save from year to year. This year she graciously accepted the invitation to play the part of Mary because at the last minute Calvin wanted to be a sheep. However, at some point he reconsidered and changed his mind and wanted to be the shepherd (could it have been that the staff looked inviting?) so Reagan switched from shepherd to black-nosed sheep. I hadn't even notice that she wore a nose!

Calvin spent his short time as a shepherd wielding his staff in unrighteous dominion, so we had to make that part of the program short and sweet!

 

My favorite part of the evening came next, when the girls played their violins. The house was squeezed tight with warmth and the night outside was crisp and cold, so we opened the front door and the beautiful music spilled joyfully out into the empty Christmas Eve street. It felt to me just like a little choir of angels. Because we believe! The little kids shook jingle bells and we sang everything from "Silent Night" to "I'm Gettin' Nuthin' For Christmas" at the tops of our lungs. Loved it.

And then the fun of watching excited hands tearing into presents, sweet faces of grandchildren opening presents. We had a wonderful night. 

We love you all and although we have an ache inside missing each of you who live so far away, especially at this time of year, the joy of being a family and loving each other with all our hearts,that's what really matters.

Now I'm off to make tacos for dinner. I hope we never OD on tacos or spaghetti - or we'll be in dire straits.


Love, Mom

Today I worked (I'm working Tuesdays and Fridays for awhile). It's too good to be true to be at work with people I've known forever, and already know the drill for everything but have zero responsibility or pressure. I just answer the phones, file, and make name badges. There are about 850 employees and since they're re-branding the company with a new logo and colors (and it needs it after all of the pock marks it has from the last five or six years) everyone needs a new badge. Here is what the screen looks like that I sit in front of all day, and click on like 20 different fields for EACH BADGE. I told you this would be fascinating stuff. To the left you can see the lovely paper cup/pencil holder I've added.  Actually, three paper cups are shown here. One is the pencil holder, one has water in it, and one has a zip of Coke that I stole from Lynette's Big Ol' Coke. . . . one zip, that's all I need. Puh dee doo dah!

And speaking of Lynette (aka my "sister wife"), here she is modeling her Santa hat with a tiara on it! She was taking somebody's photo for their name badge the other day, and they wanted "Queen" as their job title. Lynette said she wanted a tiara too. So today they came in and brought her a Santa hat with a tiara glued on the front (if you look closely you can see it) It's the little moments of joy like this that help me feel the Christmas spirit every year, and that little moment made it feel like Christmas today! And you can see Lynette's big Coke that I swiped a zip out of too!

And finally, I made gingerbread men tonight (no photos - I just made three and we took them to our neighbor Heather Miller for her birthday). Dennis is her home teacher. Last time we tried to go home teaching to her unannounced, and as we were walking carefully up the stairs in the pitch dark, we almost knocked her and a guy she was having a serious conversation with off the porch. It was pretty awkward but funny too. I have no idea whatever happened to the guy either! He told her he would wait for her outside while she took us in to see her little boy Leo who had just had surgery. But when we went back outside, the guy was GONE! Heather looked all around the block and he'd vanished. She said he was bad news anyway so good riddance.  Heather wasn't home tonight so we left the gingerbread men on her porch. When I came home I emailed her and wrote "There are three guys on your porch tonight." She has a good sense of humor....I hope...

And speaking of making gingerbread men, I wanted a little bit of royal icing with which to glue on the chocolate chips. The directions said to beat it for 5-10 minutes so I hauled out my Kitchenaide (registered trademark). It was working its magic when Dennis happened to get up and walk into the kitchen right as the Kitchenaide (registered trademark) was "walking" off the edge of counter ready to do a header onto the floor! He literally caught it mid-air. Okay, he caught it right before it was mid-air. Here is my re-enactment of the pivotal moment. Amy, please notice that I have not yet put away the chess set that we took out when you guys were visiting for Thanksgiving! And spoiler alert for the next photo - I am totally stealing Angie's thunder here. I will not do this in the future...but I just HAD TO!

ETHAN WILLIAM HALLSTROM is the newest Eagle Scout!! He passed his Board of Review tonight. Ethan receiving his Eagle Scout, is in the lore of Sweats and Hallstroms, akin to the first great-grandfather graduating from college, or the first pilgrim stepping onto Plymouth. HE IS THE FIRST! He is the man! Way to go Ethan. You rock. Here's a photo of Ethan and Ang sitting on the BYU campus when they came college hunting this last July. I love that photo. And I LOVE thinking of Ethan at BYU. If nothing else, because I know how much he'd love their library. Nobody loves a good library like Ethan!! .

And now, as I trundle off to bed, here is a photo of the kitchen with all of the lights off except for the under-counter lighting that Dave installed while they were here at Thanksgiving. It's soo fun!

Christmas house on a sunshiny Utah day last week.

I can change the font! I can make it large! Oh bless Steve Job's heart for giving us options.

So,today I made a double batch of lasagne, using Kim Guerney's recipe. You remember Kim of course, they lived down the street in a big blue house (Hodsons live there now). For some reason today after 30 years of using her recipe, I decided to add the 2 tsp. of salt that I've never added before to the cottage cheese mixture. Bad move. The other dayI also took some photos of the house all decorated for Christmas (downsized version this eyar) with the sun shining in the rooms - sans people, so it's not half as interesting. Hmmmm, I sat here and uploaded 16 photos, highly artistic sunshiny photos, and the only thing that is showing here is my lasagne! I'll keep trying and maybe do some design work! Oh what fun!
Mom

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I just made a blog? This is a question, not a statement or announcement. Let's see if I can upload a photo!

Goodness!! I did it!!

Here is a gorgeous gaggle of grandkids watching Netflix in my bedroom when everyone was here for Thanksgiving (which I'm counting as my Christmas this year!). I think this is totally awesome! I am going to post this and then download a couple more photos and do post #2!!