January 6, 2012

We finished up our Christmas traditions.  I did a post on our family blog about them.  We did the Springs Preserve, Chocolate factory, made fudge and christmas cookies and candy trains.  I loved that we weren't going anywhere this year.  It made it so much less crazy.

Christmas eve we went over to the Deans and had a big dinner and acted out the Nativity.  Then we came home and opened sibling gifts and went to bed.  Christmas morning we got up at 6:30.  The boys got an arcade type basketball game and the girls got a big doll house.  The three oldest got new scooters and Danny got a BMX bike that he wanted so bad. Seth and Aaron got remote control cars that they loved.  They were all happy and had a good Christmas.

Bob only worked 3 days of the whole Christmas break.  That was so great.  We had lots of family time.  We got things done and played games and hung out.  My birthday was great.  Bob takes such good care of me and works hard to me to have a nice day.  I slept in and when I woke up Bob had gotten krispy kremes.  I rode my new Spin bike Bob got me for Christmas. We were going to go to a movie, but our babysitter, Lexi, couldn't come.  So we had Danny babysit and went to dinner then came home and rented a movie. 

On New Years Eve, we went to the Aliante Buffet for breakfast with the Deans.  And had them over that night for a new years party with food and games and fireworks.  I was the only one who stayed up until midnight.

Then New Year's Day we celebrated Kwanzaa. Rachel learned about it at school and was telling me about their celebrations and that one was a family work project. That sounded like a great celebration to me. So we told the kid "Joyous Kwanzaa!" We're cleaning the house together.  We went room by room and worked together to dejunk and organize everything.  It took about four hours.  We worked for 2 hours and then Bob took the older kids to the gym at the church while the little ones napped.  Then we worked for 2 more hours and then we all went to the movie theatre and saw "Rise of the Guardians".  I think kwanzaa will become a regular Christmas break tradition.

That night my mom and dad and Kristal came to visit.  It was nice to have them to ourselves.  It's been a long time since I've seen my mom without everyone else around.  My dad was here for 2 days. Our trampoline broke so he went with me to return it and get a new one.  And he babysat one day while we went shopping.  And they took us to see "O" at the bellagio.  It was really good.  Then Friday we went bowling and Saturday we went sledding at Mt. Charleston.  We had great weather and everyone loved it.  We left Ruby home with Kristal, so that helped a lot too.

I'm working on reevaluating my focus and how I spend my time.  My new motto is going to be "enough".  I need to do enough in all the areas I think are important. In a scripture I found, I can't remember the verse, but it's in my scripture journal so I'll transcribe it in here sometime, another word for enough is "expedient". In some areas that will make me step it up and in some areas I need to slow down.  I'm hoping to relieve some stress and help me do a better job with the things that really matter.