Christmas & a New Year

I love being able to celebrate the birth and life of our savior Jesus Christ. During Christmas season it is hard to keep him in our hearts when everywhere you go it is all about spending money and buying presents. It’s all about the ME’s. Granted it is nice to get a gift from someone showing how much they care about you, but for me that is not Christmas. I could live without the presents, the big dinners, the trees, and lights. I love this season for the special spirit it brings, for the wonderful time spent with family, and the peace you feel from Heavenly Father.

This year, I had the fun opportunity to help my parents wrap gifts. We went to walmart to pick up a few gifts for my dad - some things totally random! Then we created the most evil style of wrapping them we could think of. Mom secretly asked Cam and I to "wrap" one for Paige. We told her it was another one for dad and she even helped us do the most evil wrapping techniques yet used.

Later that day we spent Christmas Eve with Brent's Family. It was so much fun, and we got to see our new nephew John for the first time. He is such a cutie. We had such fun playing games and eating really good food and talking to family we don't see often. I enjoyed spending time playing with our cute nephews and niece. They are such funny kids! We didn't want to leave, but we couldn't stay too late because with my dads new schedule at work he needed to be there very early the next morning, and we wanted to do my family's 'Eve' traditions too. 


This year my family traditions were really special to me. Every year my dad reads to us 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' and the nativity story from the Bible. I love listening to my dad read, he has such an amazing voice! And this year, after my dad read, he told us all how much he loves us and how proud of all of us and who we were turning into. How much we mean to him and that we make him want to be better. And yes, to everyone who is wondering, I did cry like a baby. It really meant so much to me to hear my dad say the things he did. It was the best gift!


We all decided to wake up extremely early in the morning before dad left for work to open our gifts. It was hysterical watching Paige realize that the gift we horribly wrapped was for her and not dad. It took her a 1/2 hour to unwrap it and we were all laughing so hard! It really was a wonderful Christmas morning! Later, dad decided to get even with mom and took us all to walmart to find gifts for her. We again wrapped them as horribly as possible and loved watching her try to open them.

Paige and Cam were going to come down for the week, but Paige's ball coach changed that plan. It was so DUMB! But I decided that since I already took the week off that I would stay and spend the time with family again. It has been so great spending so much time with them, but I did miss being with Brent!!! 



Then my family and one of Cams' friends came down to celebrate New Years. We had a lot of fun playing games all night and watching movies. It was a great way to bring in the New Year!


We just want to let you all know how thankful we are for you. Thank you to all our family and friends for the gifts. They were so amazing and are very appreciated! We are so grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives.We hope you all had a very wonderful Christmas and that this year is great one.

Christmas and the start of 2011

This past year has definitely had its ups and downs and really downs, but through it all Heavenly Father has truly blessed us in so many ways. We hope at this time in your lives that you can look back and think of all the blessings you have in your life because of our Savior.

This year for Christmas we were able to spend it with my family. It was so nice to be able to spend the time with them. We got their early enough to help with dinner...which was absolutely delicious! We able to visit my Sorensen Grandparents and some Aunts & Uncles. We had our traditional Christmas Eve storytelling from my Dad while sitting by the fire. Every year he reads "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and the Christmas story from the scriptures. There is such a wonderful spirit there when we gather as a family to remember the true meaning behind this season. All of us kids then camped out in the family room playing games and watching movies way into the night.

The favorite thing about Christmas for my mom is when she gets to wake us up and takes a picture at us all being half asleep. Then we all race up stairs to the the beautiful tree and presents. After presents we all eat blueberry waffles for breakfast. It was such a wonderful Christmas just having fun and spending time with my family. The presents we got were wonderful, but even if there were none, just the feeling the love of my eternal family and from my Heavenly Father would have been enough. It is truly the most wonderful gift we have and will ever get!

For New Years, we stole my brother and sister to spend the week with us. I was able to take most of the week off due to Holiday and Vacation days my boss wanted me to use up (wish I had known that when my Dad was down - oh well). It was way fun just spending all day with them doing whatever. Mom and Dad came down on New Years Eve to spend the evening with us. They were party poopers and went to bed early, while the rest of us played games way past midnight. The best was when we were playing Uno and my sister finally caught onto why it is called Uno! and my brothers feeble attempts to put a blue 4 on a red 2. And our horrible bluffs during Malarky. I don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time. It was such a great way to bring in 2011!

Merry Christmas

Celebrating the Season with...

... work parties and going to the Messiah.

Brent had is work party on the 9th at the Garden House. We played games where we had to guess what song a funny sentence referred to & ate yummy food. I particularly liked the cream of vegetable and chicken soup - it was sooo good! I had my work party at Rusty's Steak House on the 15th. The steaks were so mouth watering good!

On the 14th we went to see the Messiah performed at the Heritage Center. It was a really great experience! The music was so beautiful and moving & gave both Brent and I chills numerous times. The spirit was so strong and it really made me think of our Savior and his humble birth and how grateful I am for him and his gospel in my life. In the lobby of the Heritage Center they had some of the coolest trees! I so wish we had our camera and were able to get some pictures of them. They had a Harry Potter tree, one for Sponge Bob, one for every Disney princess (yes including my favorite - the Little Mermaid!), one that had a mannequin torso on top with the tree designed to look like her dress skirt, one that was all pink, one that was Strawberry Shortcake, and a whole bunch more! It was such a fun and neat experience to go to!

Decorating the Tree

I love the spirit of Christmas, listening to carols, lights on the tree, and drinking wassil and hot cocoa in a cozy warm blanket.

After we got home from Thanksgiving we decided to put up our tree for Family Home Evening. It turned out so beautiful!

Christmas Is A Wonderful Season

Isn't Christmas one of the most wonderful times of the year! I just love the lights and the sounds of this Holiday Season. It is the time of year to remember the birth of Christ. To remember his life and the miracles & blessings he has given all of us.

This year we spent Christmas with my family. It was so nice. Christmas Eve we all sat by the fireplace and listened to my Daddy read. I love it when my Dad reads to us. He read his favorite Christmas book... "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". He even did different voices for all the characters! We also read the Christmas story and a poem about the symbols and of Christmas.

In the morning my parents woke us up (I know, it pretty pathetic when your parents have to wake up the kids on Christmas morning - but that is the way it has always been in my family. We must all really like our sleep) and went up stairs to open our presents. I love Christmas morning when everyone is still groggy and trying to wake up! Their expressions are much more genuine. The tree was beautiful and the presents were all neatly wrapped.

There were not a lot of presents, but everyone was so grateful for what they had received. Brent & I received watches, cd's, movies, clothes, a beautiful picture that Cam drew, and a pair of ducks that my Dad had done for us. They are so beautiful! After the presents were opened we ate our traditional breakfast of blueberry waffles! So yummy!

The rest of the weekend we just played games and relaxed. We did however go sledding. It was so much fun. We got my dad's 2 four wheelers and hooked up sleds behind them. My friend Tim and his friend and Rachel came along too. We drove out to the farm lanes and had a blast. The guys had so much fun trying to dump each other into the snow. Brent got some awesome battle wounds. Paige and I had a great time making Tim fly off the sled we were pulling. We even managed to rip his nice pants. It was awesome!

Below are pictures of our Christmas morning and of Cameron and Paige breaking in their new game. It was truly a wonderful Christmas.

Decorating the house for the holidays!

Sorry I got this post out a little late but I wanted to let you all know about about how cute our little tree turned out. It looks so great on our end table. It was a little tricky getting the tree into the tree stand though. We had to "attach" some of the branches back onto the tree afterward. We bought some tiny ornaments and put a small strand of lights on it. We also put up our big fake tree in the computer room since we had to take it out for our ward Christmas party. Here are some pictures of our trees and decorations. Also I wanted to say thank you to my awesome cousin Savannah. I received the cutest card and pictures from her the other day. I loved it! Wish you all could see it!

Well hope you are all doing well. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sinterklaas

Yesterday we celebrated the tradition of Sinterklaas. Since my maiden name (DeLeeuw) is Dutch, we have tried to incorporate some of their traditions to celebrate our heritage. Sinterklaas or Saint Nicolas, is a traditional holiday figure in the Netherlands. Sinterklaas has a long white beard, wears a red bishop's dress and red bishop's hat, and holds a long gold coloured staff with a fancy curled top. Sinterklaas carries a big book with all the children's names in it, which states whether they have been good or naughty in the past year. "Saint-Nicolas" traditionally rides a white horse. In the Netherlands this horse is often know as Amerigo. Before going to bed, children put their shoes next to the chimney of the coal fired stove or fireplace, with a carrot or some hay in it for Sinterklaas's horse, and will find some candy or a small present in their shoes the next day. Children are also told that if they are really really bad they would be put in the gunny sack in which Black Pete (Sinterklaas's helper) carries the presents, and be taken back to Spain, where Sinterklaas is said to spend the rest of the year.

We celebrated this holiday by making some delicious wassil (so so yummy!!!), ate shortbread cookies, watched some movies and played many games with our friends & cousins, the Sorensens and Brian White. It was so much fun. The wassil was the perfect drink on such a cold day!! We then decorated our christmas tree and the rest of the apartment. My favorite decoration by far are all of the lights! They make everything seem so magical! We set our shoes by the door and went to sleep. When we woke this morning we had presents! Brent got some yummy candy and a speaker-case for his mp3 player, and I got the new Narnia movie on Blu-Ray. I am so excited to watch it tonight!!!