Things I'm grateful for while I'm sick

I've been sick for the past couple days. So sick it makes me cry. I haven't been this sick in maybe 20 years. And I don't deal with pain very well. At least not sore throat pain. Can't swallow, can't eat, can barely drink - only do it because I don't want to get dehydrated. Nothing tastes good. My head is all stuffed up, my jaw hurts, I have some massive tension headaches, dizzy, nauseus, and my whole body hurts. Basically have the flu I think. But these are the things I am thankful for this weekend:

1. Advil
2. Tylenol
3. Sudafed
4. Chloraseptic - spray and lozenges
5. Kids that are helping out and being nicer to each other than normal because I am sick.
6. Friends that are picking up the church assignments that I was supposed to do this weekend.
7. A husband that is picking up the slack on this very busy weekend, even though he has a ton of his own stuff that he needs to do. Including helping one forgetful son with his science project that was due two days ago but wasn't paying attention and didn't do it over Thanksgiving like he was supposed to; taking Hazel to have breakfast with Santa; and then to a birthday party at one of those inflatable bouncey places.
8. A big bathtub.
9. Two water heaters.
10. A kind husband who was willing to bring 5-gallon buckets of hot water from the bath upstairs to my bath downstairs when my hot water ran out halfway into filling the tub. (They are on different water heaters.) That was the icing on the cake.

Lights

I thought ahead a little on this one. I heard that it was going to be a bit chilly the day after Thanksgiving, so I decided to put up my house Christmas lights on Thanksgiving Day morning. I didn't want to have to freeze my fingers while trying to hang lights. And I figured that I was only one day early. So I did!

Sadly, my lights are slowly dwindling in number. This year I lost a whole strand due to burned out bulbs. Unfortunately, they don't even sell the size/shape of bulb that I have. So this will be the last year for them. In the week since I hung them, 5 more have burnt out. I guess next year I'll have to bite the bullet and buy new ones. But for now, the outside of the house is lit and decorated.

Great Deal for Me

Have you heard of Groupon? Did you hear about Oprah's groupon for Nordstrom Rack? Basically I paid $25 and got a $50 gift certificate to use at the Rack. So this is what I found for me! Franco Sartos. I love a good deal.

Trimming the tree

The tree is trimmed.

There are even presents under it already. One of my children is really excited for Christmas and is really on top of things.

This year's advent activities

Here's my list of advent activities for this year. Mostly they are the same every year. And this year I kind of started right after Thanksgiving. And there are a few activities that are traditional for after Christmas too. So there are more than 24. But anyway, here's a list.

1. Cut down a Christmas tree.
2. Decorate the tree.
3. Decorate the house.
4. Put up the lights.
5. Make snowflakes,
6. Write new lyrics for Christmas carols. These tend to be really silly. But it's the boys' favorite activity.
7. Isaac's band concert
8. Aspen's band concert
9. Sing Along with the Austin Symphony Orchestra.
10. First Presidency's Christmas Devotional
11. Breakfast with Santa (this is really just for Hazel. The others don't want to go.)
12. Jingle Bell Run. (I may end up doing this in our own neighborhood this year since the races around here are either on Sunday or in towns kind of far away.)
13. Nate's work party
14. Watch A Christmas Story
15. Watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
16. Bake cookies
17. Make Candy
18. Put together goody boxes and deliver to our neighbors.
19. Advent Sundays with friends over to sing carols.
20. Listen to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever as we drive to Utah.
21. See A Christmas Carol at Hale Center Theater
22. Go to visit Grandma and Grandpa Kerksiek at the cemetery
23. See the lights and nativity on Temple Square.
24. Go sledding.
25. Go ice skating.
26. Go skiing.
27. Decorate gingerbread houses.
28. Make cardamom bread and pigs in a blanket for Christmas morning.
29. Visit Nate's family in Utah.
30. Go see movies that come out during Christmas time (not necessarily Christmas themed) this year will be Tron and Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
31. Will probably watch some other Christmas themed movies on our drive to Utah: Grinch, Home Alone, Elf, Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas.
32. Write thank you cards.
33. Send out holiday cards.
34. Hot chocolate and fires in the fireplace.
35. Read Davey's First Christmas on Christmas Eve.
36. Have a little family talent show.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

We cut down a Christmas tree at the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm on Saturday. I don't usually get our tree up so early in the season. But since we are leaving for Utah in 2 /12 weeks, I figured I'd enjoy it now.

It was a beautiful 60 degrees afternoon.

We rode the hay ride out to the field to find our tree. I love this place, they provide the saws for for cutting your tree, and the twine for tying it to the top of your car. In addition, they'll shake the tree to get rid of any loose stuff, or squirrels, and bag it up for you. They are a full service tree farm.

So we wandered around, up and down the rows of trees looking for just the right one. Unfortunately, the last few years of droughts here in Texas weren't too great for growing trees. Pickins were a little slim.

But we found one. Everyone got their 15 seconds of cutting the tree down.

And rather than wait for the wagon to come around again, we (or mostly Nate) hauled it back to the front of the farm.

We tied it on to the car, and that was that.

Christmas is officially underway!

New Thanksgiving Tradition

I started a new Thanksgiving Day tradition with my family this year. I read about it on some blog somewhere. (I can't remember which one - I follow waaayy to many.) But I really like this idea.

I got a big blank sketch book. Each year I plan to put it out during our gathering and have everyone sign it. Even little kids. Each person can write a line or two to say what they are thankful for. Or just sign it. Then I'll take a group picture of everyone in attendance and place it in the book on the pages signed for the year.

This way, I'll remember who was there every year. And have a record of how things change and/or stay the same each year.

So I started this year. I don't think I got all the kids to sign that were there. But I got most of the adults. And of course my family. The group shot was minus a couple sister missionaries that left before I knew it. As with all new things, it will take me a bit to get the hang of it. But I am excited about this new little memory book for Thanksgiving.

Now I've just got to remember it next year.

The Candy Game

Blue asked about the candy game. So I'll explain a little more. This game was the highlight of Thanksgiving when I was a kid. My Grandpa hosted it every year. Basically, there is a board with numbers between 2 and 12 on it. But there is no number 7. Some of the other numbers appear twice. There are prizes on every square. Mostly they are $1 store prizes with some candy thrown in. Stuff like pencils, beads, glow sticks, handcuffs, tape, coloring books, stickers, etc. But for the end, Grandpa usually had a grand prize he would put out on numbers 2 or 12 (because those are typically the hardest to roll). To play, you roll a pair of dice. Whatever number it lands is the number of the prize you get. If you roll a 7, then you are out of luck. This is so sad for the little kids. They don't get it. And if it keeps getting rolled, there are sometimes tears. But usually it's still fun for everyone. Then you roll until all the prizes are gone. As a kid, the grand prize was a giant Rambo knife for a couple years. And, inevitably, a little girl would win. Then the trading would begin. And the boys would just about trade everything they had for that awesome knife.
The candy game was always a fun distraction between dinner and pie. Try it for your next family get together. I think that sometimes some members of my family play it at Christmas with their families. It's definitely lots of fun with lots of people.

Movie Marathon

The kids decided to watch all the Harry Potter movies in a row. SoFriday they watched the first 4 movies. Saturday they watched the last 2 after cutting down the Christmas tree and doing some Christmas Recital practice, some shopping and some eating. They finished around 9 pm. So Nate packed up the older 3 kids and took them to the late showing of Harry Potter 7. They didn't get home until 1 am. But it's pretty cool to watch the whole story at once. I guess I'll have to go some other time to see it for myself.

Thanks and Feasting

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We have had a wonderful long weekend of feasting and relaxing.

We joined our friends for dinner. We brought this fabulous turkey to deep fry. (Our host roasted one as well so that we would have in-bird stuffing to enjoy.)

I asked Lester at the meat counter at HEB to find me his biggest turkey. This was it. 23 pounds. It barely fit in the fryer.

Right as we got to our friend's house, a cold front blew in and so we had to set up a little lean to in the back corner of the yard to fry the turkey. Of course, all the kids wanted to watch.

It was a beautifully crisp on the outside, moist on the inside turkey. Ready in just over an hour. Beats getting up early to put the bird in the oven. We actually fried two turkeys. I signed up to bring turkey to the ward Christmas party next week. So I just cooked another one at the same time. Just freezing that turkey for the party.

I had planned to do three. But the one that I tried thawing in the refrigerator was still frozen when we left for the party. So we roasted that one today. Nothing like a second Thanksgiving dinner to enjoy again.

Inside, Marie and Johanna were finishing the last preparations for dinner.

Jed was carving the oven roasted turkey. Nate carved the fried one.

Then everyone loaded up.

We had lots of pie. I made 7 pies. Bought 6 more. Marie made 3 more. We didn't come home with much: 3 out of the 16. Those disappeared the next day.

We played the traditional Kerksiek family candy game. All the kids had fun.

This is the group shot. The sister missionaries were there too. But they left before I could snap the picture.

It was a great night. We went and saw Tangled afterward. Kind of late, but the theater was pretty empty.

I missed my family. But I am thankful for good friends to fill their place.