Kelly Times Two

Earlier today, we spent the afternoon helping Lindsey organize her closet, and went through everything in it before making a run to Goodwill before their 9 pm closing, for a year-end, last-minute tax deduction to donate the unwanted clothing. We did the same with Christopher's closet last night and had the Pathfinder filled with several bags and boxes of things that they had either outgrown, or never liked, or that they never wear. We also threw away several bags of toys, notebooks, and all kinds of "spoeletjes" that were buried away in their closets. Lindsey and Christopher liked that both their parents were working to help clean and organize their rooms. Lindsey has had these L-I-N-D-S-E-Y letters of her name since we lived in Colorado, and finally I found a way to hang them up--using sticky strip on the backs of them. They're so sticky, that I'll remove the paint if I want to remove the letters from the wall, so we're now committed to this green color for t...

This was our first time since we moved to Austin in March, 2000, to not go to Colorado for Christmas. It turned out to be wise since there was a huge blizzard while we would have been traveling there, and there was another snow storm today, the day we would have been driving home. I was really happy to stay home for once because I love Texas and I enjoy being at home, although Kelly's parents always try to make everything fun for us when we head to the Rockies. Christmas Eve was on Sunday, so we were able to participate in our own ward's church services for once, with Kelly and Lindsey singing in the choir. It was a nice program and then I taught the adult Sunday School class for the first time. It was scary, but it went fine. Then in Relief Society, a few people had volunteered to bring their own nativity sets from home to display. My friend, and co-counselor, Shauna, brought hers. I brought mine too, and displayed it with the nativity sketch that my niece, Morgan, had drawn...

I just love this picture of Christopher and Kelly and wanted to post it. They have such fun together playing their computer and Nintendo XBox 360 games. I just don't get into those types of activities, but am glad that the two of them get to enjoy quality time doing something like this together. This sweet photo was taken the night of Lindsey's choir concert during intermission.

What a busy season it has been for my kids' first full week out of school for the winter break. I feel like I have so many more things I would like to do, and I'm trying to make this time enjoyable for them, our first time ever to spend Christmas in Texas. Thank goodness we missed the blizzard in Colorado! We would have been stuck somewhere in Kansas had we gone. On Monday morning, I volunteered to cook for the Hyde Park Seniors who meet there daily for lunch. I was essentially their entertainment and prepared Streusel Berry Tart . They are so sweet. It's been a couple of years since I did this. I brought the thank you note along with me that they had sent me from the last time I visited and read it to them. It was so sad because three of the people who had signed the card the last time have died and I felt bad that it had been that long since I came back. I hope to return soon. Tuesday night, I went out to the Melting Pot to celebrate my friend, Adele's, 37th birth...

Here is our upstairs Christmas tree, which my daughter assembled and decorated exclusively. Christopher added candy canes, which, as you can see, are no longer there. The candy canes have either been given away to their friends or eaten. The gifts under the tree were sent from Kelly's family in Colorado. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Debbie and Uncle Mike, and Aunt Brenda and Uncle Joel! I still need to wrap all of ours.

We got together earlier this week at Conni's for a chocolate fondue party in our jammies to celebrate November and December birthdays and watched Johnny Depp, I mean " Chocolat! " Actually, the movie was practically half way over by the time Johnny Depp appeared, but it was a fun one to see again.

Today was my kids' last day of school for the calendar year. Yay! As the homeroom mom for Christopher's third grade class, I was in charge of the party. I made this little snowman and had the kids play "Put the Nose on the Snowman." Each made his or her own carrot nose then put the Santa hat down over their eyes, and a scarf around their neck, then aimed for the snowman. I then took a picture of each child. Here's Eric, who is Christopher's buddy, our neighbor who lives two houses over from ours. He's a great kid. Christopher and Mrs. Jordan ham it up for their picture together. She's such a delightful, well organized, friendly teacher. The party was entertaining for the students. I also had the kids wad up sheets of white paper to make snowballs, then they did a snowball toss into into my new snowflake bowls from Crate and Barrel, which I got from Shauna, and they also played a third game of "throw the snowballs at the cans," wher...

Lindsey and Christopher got to see Santa, who mysteriously appears every December at the home of one of our neighbors. This time 117 people RSVP'd on the evite for the annual shindig. Later that evening, we were privileged to go to Lindsey's first high school choir concert. What a difference it was from her middle school concerts! It was a fantastic show with a variety of music and I loved the Christmas carols especially. Christopher and Kimberly, a girl that is his friend, we certainly cannot say "girlfriend," pose NOT together at the party. Christopher and I whipped up some "Thin Mint Pretzels" as a snack to take to the party. Kelly and I were in the audience at the choir concert and Christopher took this picture. During intermission, Lindsey came out in her Christmas casuals to greet us. The formal half of the concert, she wore the long black dress choir uniform while the boys wore tuxes. What a couple of angels. It's hard to believe Lindsey is si...

On Thursday night, as the enrichment counselor in our ward, together with our enrichment leader, Conni, we planned and executed our quarterly Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment meeting for the women in our church, our Relief Society organization. Conni is an amazing, committed, compassionate enrichment leader, which makes my job more easy. We had a wonderful event with approximately 40 or 50 women present. We planned a progressive dinner that started at Conni's house, where we had Potato Cheese Soup and Caesar Salad, and a reading by Monica, who told the story, "Santa, Teach the Children." At the end of the reading, everyone could open their little gift bag, which was a memento from the story with a little card, talking about certain symbols of Christmas that have a deeper meaning than just the fun aspect. Here's the summary. If you want the full story, email me and I'll be happy to send it your way. The Star: A heavenly sign of prophecy fulfilled long ago—the...

How lovely are your branches! Too bad you cannot see our tree in person because these pictures don't come close to portraying its beauty, with all the ornaments that we've collected. And since the tree is rather tall and there's not a good place for me to stand to capture the view, I put together a couple of shots that give some idea of how it turned out. I have a red and white theme, with some hand-made ornaments, some Santa ornaments, a few snowmen, some etched glass ornaments, some red tear-drop shaped ornaments, and a few wooden snowflakes. I just love Christmas. Look for another post soon with Lindsey's tree upstairs, plus I'll get a picture at night of our lights outside and hope that it will turn out. I'm not that great of a photographer, but what I lack in knowledge and skill, I make up for in abundance. I take pictures all the time!

The day after Thanksgiving, we traditionally start gearing up for Christmas. Lindsey and I dragged the organ from the entryway staircase, inch by inch, and moved it into the family room. Our muscles ached for two days afterwards. We put our big pre-lit tree, which is somewhere between 11 and 12 feet tall, in the foyer, and another tree upstairs in the gameroom that Lindsey decorated by herself. This is a precious pose by Christopher, just before we headed out the door to our ward Christmas party on Saturday night. Kelly played the piano while we sang Christmas songs. He also accompanied Juliann as she sang Oh Holy Night . Just before leaving their house for the night, we took a couple of quick photos on Thanksgiving with Sherrie and Chris and their kids. It was a fun gathering and a delicious dinner with our friends.

Kelly works for a high-tech company, and like the rest of them, they use code names for projects that they work on. There are a lot top secrets in the industry, not quite like the "if I tell you, I'd have to kill you" sort of thing, but that he's not really supposed to talk about. For example, in public, they should not discuss which companies they are working for, what they are designing and what kind of chips they are making--and I'm not talking about Ruffles or Lays chips either. Now that they are celebrating that something is done, I can reveal the name of their recent project, which is Moab . I don't really know if the code name itself is confidential, because sometimes he tells me things they are doing because he knows I won't have any idea what he's talking about or what means, and that I will not be passing any tips on to their competition. In any case, when we were in Moab, Utah, this past summer, Kelly bought plenty of Moab stickers, a c...