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!