december and january- mark and linda

Happy New Year to everyone! It is COLD and SNOWY in Iowa and we are enjoying our fireplace every night.

I didn't realize i never posted about December and now i can hardly remember it!
Here are a few highlights:

December:

We had a fun gingerbread party. I made 3 houses for everyone to decorate. Afterwards we had a hilarious white elephant gift exchange- mostly due to the microwaveable socks that all the girls wanted and the unmentionable items that Jeff brought!!!

This is what my cookie plates looked like this year:

 Maple yule logs, raspberry ribbons, Andes surprise packages, peppermint snowballs, peanut blossoms, Patsy's sugar cookies and mint chocolate delights...a new fave!

 Mom and i went shopping and out to lunch.....to Panera's for soup.

We had our Bethlehem Supper on Christmas Eve. It was fun to have Eileen's mom Yolanda here for all the holiday activities. Afterwards we made and raced santa's candy sleighs for our annual derby. I won this year!

Mom spent the night with us and we had a nice morning together. Breakfast was donuts and for lunch we had yummy potato/bacon soup.

After lunch we drove to Omaha and exchanged our gifts with both families. James treated us to a fabulous steak dinner. Mark left me there to babysit while he worked in outstate Nebraska. 

I had a different winter theme for each day i was there. Some of the activities included: decorating pop stick snowflakes, making snowflakes with marshmallows and toothpicks, stuffing sock fish for a penguin toss game, curling the fringe on fleece scarves, painting bread mittens and toasting them, and having a snowman wrap. This last activity escalated into a full blown TP snowball war....thanks Lindsey!!!! What a mess!

January:

I was SUPER busy with Primary things. I made "I am a child of god" dog tags using my metal stamps which we are giving out for birthdays. I also made the theme banner for over the chalkboard and the january poster. Then there were scouting issues and the pack committee mtg which i had to lead since i am the "chair." And on top of all this i had Sharing Time for January. And of course i can't do anything simply. So i made tons of new visual aids  including this poster for teaching the pre-mortal life. Dont' freak....i told the kids we don't know what heaven looked like but we assume it was a beautiful place. So i was not teaching false doctrine and i hope the kids don't think that heaven looks like a forest! Really....i took visual clues from a CTR 4 manual picture that shows mountains and shrubs etc. The  Heavenly Father and Jesus piece is separate as well as the spirit children piece. They are both backed with foam board.

 Anyway, i did a fun detective activity for Senior which included secret mission envelopes and stick-on moustaches. I did a Plan of Happiness puppet show for Junior and a reader's theater for Senior, and a bingo type game for another week. 

For the grandkids i did a new flannel board set for "Jesus heals a woman." Here is what it looks like: (The top pieces portray the customs of washing feet, welcome kisses and oil for hair. The 3 men on the right are for the story of the man who forgave 2 debtors. Their IOU's are removable.)

Here is where i store all my flannel board sets so i can keep track of figures and colors etc. It's a giant foam-type board i found at Home Depot years ago. I put it up on the wall in my walk-in studio closet and the pieces are pinned to it.

I worked so hard on Primary that when all the sharing times were finished i HAD to do something creative. So i made a little scrapbook to celebrate the grandkids and the new one to come.

This LO of Sarah makes me giggle because she loves wearing fake glasses. I thought Kathi would get a kick out of seeing this old apron she made YEARS ago for Julie. I love using my silhouette for these popular cut out titles.

I just finished another little book called "Before i was  your grandma." I wanted the littles to know that i have not always been old!There are pull-out tags with a little explanation for each page. ("I have a grandma too!" and "I went to Primary just like you. I am still a happy Mormon girl.")

Last weekend we had Kaitlyn and Keira here and had a fun time. Here they are eating polar bear sandwiches while watching Winnie the Pooh.

 Today i am catching up the Halloween book for 2011 (!) and starting a new one: "Teacher @ Heart."

Hope you're all off to a good year and have some great resolutions to work on. Good luck!
Also...
Congrats to Packers...baby Ella is adorable!
Congrats to Bryce and Amy! 
and Welcome home Sam!!! It was fun to see pics of him in this NL.
Bye!!! We're off to Thailand in a week.