Christmas Break Happenings

My little Cannon wanted to test out his new scriptures.  He's six and a half and we have a pretty lofty goal for he and I to read the Book of Mormon together all the way (separate from our family reading) through before his baptism in June 2016. 

I feel quite confident that we can do it, but even if we don't meet our goal, I will treasure time spent reading with Cannon.

George going to sleep with his new blanket.  And his Kitty is going to sleep with its new pillow and blanket courtesy of Faith and her new sewing machine.

The teen gang playing games.  May I draw your attention to Clark.  He is looking angry and has food hanging out of his mouth.  This is his lastest "thing" in many of his recent pictures.  Charming, isn't it?

The adults doing Christmas crackers.  Abe and I do Christmas crackers for Christmas Eve dinner, but we didn't know that the proper method was doing it hand-over-hand in a circle.

We did a "Favorite Things" gift exchange.  Abe picked a gift first.

Whatever could it be?

So beautiful! 
Have you ever watched little kids do a gift exchange in which they can steal something someone else has already opened?  It always ends in tears.  Always.
Abe didn't get to keep the quilt because someone stole it from him.  I really wanted to cry.

The little kid gift exchange.  Let's not mention how Andrea saved my parenting bacon by dipping into her on-hand supply of gifts because I forgot/failed to bring little kid gifts.  I don't know what my problem was.  I think that because the party was after Christmas I had used up all my present planning powers and I had nothing left.  Even still, shame on me.

Big kid gift exchange.  I think everyone was happy-- no thanks to me.

Today I helped organize and execute my first funeral luncheon as Relief Society president.  It was remarkably easy to do considering the wonderful women I work with and the women who stepped right up to bring food with very little notice.  The luncheon went very well and was very nice for the family of the older gentleman in our ward who passed away.

Abe and I went to see Unbroken this evening and what there was, was well done.  However, I felt that in the book, when Louie left the Japanese camps at the end of the war, he was kind of broken.  I mean, he was alive, but he was angry and had major PTSD.  It wasn't until he was healed through Christ and forgave those who had hurt him that he was unbroken.  Also, the movie was full of so many true, but really horrible events.  I needed more of the forgiveness and redemption at the end to make all the awful parts worthwhile.  A few words on the screen at the end were not enough to bring up out of the depths of the sadness of the previous two hours.  It made me want to read the book again, or at least the last 1/3.