Catch Up Part 2

December also found us going to Calista’s first dance recital.  Other than the fact that we had to wait for 14 songs to see her dance, it was fun.  She and her classmates danced to the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and the class was asked to dress like Cindy Lou Who from the Jim Carey version.  With Calista’s long hair I had fun coming up with the crazy hairdo. 

FYI, there is a plastic muffin in her hair to make the lump on top. 

And here we are at the recital.  She loved the attention and being the star for the night.

The recital was held at Westlake High and was my first time being in an indoor High School.  It was weird thinking that this one big building was the whole school.  My High School had probably 15 buildings.  Anyway, moving on.

I guess the last thing to catch up on is Christmas.  The girls were very happy with their gifts.  I was too.  Mark surprised me with a Kindle this year.  I have lots of reading to do now.  The idea of having hundreds of books at my fingertips whenever and where ever I want is pretty cool.  Mark was happy with his new golf bag, golf shirt and golf towel (do you sense a theme here?) and his new 007 Wii game.

This is what I got from Piper when I said smile.  At least it’s  good picture of their Christmas jammies. 

 

Téa finally got a bigger bike.  It was the one thing she absolutely wanted.  Santa pulled through, thankfully.  Notice the lack of snow in this picture.  Lame, right?  We didn’t get a white Christmas this year.  Mark and I can’t remember the last time we didn’t have snow on Christmas.  And the tiny piles don’t count.  My last snowless Christmas was when I lived at home.  Mark’s was probably on his mission.  

Maximus even got in the Christmas spirit by hanging out in one of the boxes.  He didn’t know what to do with all the commotion that morning. 

The rest of Christmas day was spent making French bread and lasagna and then heading over to Leslie’s house for games, food and fun. 

I want to write this down so that when I’m re-reading my blog next year around October and November I’ll see this:  My goal is to get the majority of the Christmas shopping done before December.  I totally lost the Christmas spirit and somewhere along the way it became a chore and I forgot the real reason we celebrate it.  President Uchtdorf gave a really good talk at the Christmas Devotional last month.  If you get the chance, you should read it or listen to it.  He says that we know Christmas is a time to reflect on the birth of our Savior, a time for celebration and generosity.  But we get focused on gifts and parties and the stress of getting things done.  What I got out of it was that I need to change my priorities during the holidays.  I came to the conclusion about other things as well, but that’s for my own personal journal.  So, I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and had a few moments to ponder the meaning of it.