Letter - Christmas, Trip to Snowflake

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

It’s New Year’s Eve.  This date has many fond memories for me, but it is also a somber day of sadness.  Eleven years ago today I found out that the baby I was carrying, Joseph, would not survive past birth.  That was a hard day, but I made it through that process and have been able to help others through it and there have been many blessings along the way. 

I’m a few days late writing this week’s letter because I’ve been a little sick.  My eye started bothering me on Sunday and today since it wasn’t better I went to the doctor and found out I have pink eye.  I got some antibiotic eye drops now and have already seen and felt some improvement.    

Last Monday, Dec. 23^rd, Chad had the day off.  He and the boys played basketball all morning.  That afternoon we had our scripture of the month club year end party at Flip side.  Kari and Alden brought Trigger down from Snowflake so he could join us and Amy brought her kids over.  It was so much fun.  I’m glad the kids worked so hard at memorizing their scriptures each month so we could have such a fun celebration.  If your kids start memorizing the scriptures they can come to next year’s party!  I’ve chosen  the scripture of the month for Jan. 2014, since our Gilbert temple open house is next month I chose Psalm 24:3-4 for next month’s scripture.  (Speaking of the Gilbert temple open house, if my family and friends from out of town would like to come to the open house, you are welcome to spend the night at my house so you don’t have to drive down and back in one day.  We live just five minutes or so from the temple and we love house guests!!)  Monday evening for part of our FHE we went caroling to the residents at Puring’s care home.  It was a nice day.

Tuesday was Christmas Eve.  Chad took Karalee on a double date with Karalee’s friend Sammy Washburn and her dad.  They went ice skating.  Chad said Karalee did well and learned to skate by herself without holding on to him.  

For dinner on Christmas Eve we went to Chad’s parent’s house and had their traditional Around the World Christmas dinner, and then we had sumo wrestling and the nativity.  It was fun.    

Christmas day was nice. We had a fun day here at home.  All the kids slept in Chad’s and my room, which is a tradition.  We told the kids they couldn’t get up before 6:30.  However, I was so excited I was having trouble sleeping, so when I heard Bryant and Spencer whispering to each other at 6:00 I told them that we could go out to the family room while we waited until 6:30 to wake up Chad and the other kids.  We read the nativity story in Luke 2 while we waited and it ended up being a special moment.  Maybe we will do it again next year.  The kids were happy with their presents and spent the day playing with them.  That evening Crystal, Tyler, Wynn and Rend came over for visiting and dinner.  It was fun to see my nephew Rend and his wife Michelle and their kids again.  We’ve missed them since they moved to North Dakota.    

Last Thursday I took the kids on a field trip to the State Capitol so Spencer could finish his last requirement for of the citizenship in the nation merit badge.  We had a nice tour of the old Capitol building; we got to see the silver service that was taken off the USS Arizona (they knew they would be joining the war at some point so it was removed before the bombing took place), we learned about the gratitude train that France sent to the US after the war, and we learned several other facts about AZ trying to become a state.  It was nice to have a personal tour with just me and the kids.  After the tour we went to "visit" Grandpa Flake.  By visit I mean we saw his picture from when he was Speaker of the House hanging in the House of Representatives.   I love his smile in it.  We wanted to see the statue of him in the Senate building but the Senate building was still closed for Christmas.   I also showed the kids the office I worked in before I had Spencer and they got to meet Jan, my former co-worker.

 Friday evening we went to Snowflake.  We had a nice relaxing stay there and it was just us and my mom.  My kids were kind of sad their cousins weren’t around, but we still managed to have a good time.  I read a good book while I was there, we took Spencer to the Snowflake temple and he and Chad did baptisms while I did sealings, we went up to Show Low to see the movie Frozen, we played phase10 with my Mom, and we had fun building fires upstairs in the kitchen fireplace and in the basement fireplace so the kids could stay warm while they slept down there.  I love to build fires.  I’m a bit of a pyromaniac.  We got home from Snowflake on Sunday evening around 5:30 and like I said I wasn’t feeling well.  I went to bed early, at 8:00pm. 

Yesterday I still wasn’t feeling that great but not too bad.  In the afternoon I went shopping all by myself.  Chad was working from home, Tilly was asleep, and none of the older kids wanted to come with me.  I made a few returns and then got some stuff at Walmart and Costco.  It was kind of nice to get so much shopping done without the kids. 

Tonight we have a New Year’s Eve party at our friends the Wilcox’s.  It should be fun.  They are a fun family. 

Karalee is loving her Rainbow Loom.  She wears all 11 bracelets that she's made.

I have two quotes for today from Boyd K. Packer’s 1987 Conference talk, Balm of Gilead. 

·         “Obedience is powerful spiritual medicine. It comes close to being a cure-all.”

·        “Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds;

You can call back your kites, but you can’t call back your words.

‘Careful with fire’ is good advice, we know;

‘Careful with words’ is ten times doubly so.

Thoughts unexpressed will often fall back dead. But God Himself can’t kill them, once they are said!

It is painful to be the victim. But have you not yet learned how much more painful it is to be the offender?”

Love,

Mindy

Letter - Dec. 22, 2013

Sunday, December 22, 2013

around 4:00pm

Happy Birthday today to my nephew’s Porter and Ryan, my cousin Jon, and my friends Jessica, Mistie and Kristie and it seems like I’m missing someone else.  Dec. 22^nd is a popular day to be born!!

On Monday I realized I forgot to include some important milestones in my letter so this paragraph is a P.S. to last week’s letter.  Spencer passed the sacrament for the first time last Sunday.  He did a great job and even passed the sacrament to the Stake President who was visiting our ward.  I thought it was kind of cool to see the newest Deacon passing to the Stake President.  Spencer also played the piano for the Priesthood opening exercises.  In the past, they haven’t had anyone who could play the piano for that meeting.  I’m so proud of Spencer.  I remember playing my first time in Young Women’s.  It was very scary.  Spencer can’t play from the regular hymn book just yet, but he took his simplified hymn book and played “We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet.”  Chad said he did well and didn’t mess up, except for one spot in the introduction.  We’ve been working on him being able to accompany the singing of hymns for several years in his lessons.  I’m very pleased with him and glad that my children are being useful in the church.

Monday morning I got a haircut, just a trim.  Monday afternoon I took a nap!!  It was wonderful.  I stayed up too late last Sunday night writing my letter so I was worn out enough to actually fall asleep.  Usually I can’t nap because I can’t fall asleep.  For FHE we had our lesson in the car on our way to see the temple lights.  We went to Organ Stop Pizza before we went to see the lights.  It was my first time ever eating there.  It was FUN!  The organ was so cool and the organ player was awesome.  The pizza was pretty good too.  Better than the $5 pizza’s we usually get.  Christmas time is a good time to go there because you can hear them play Christmas carols on the organ.  It was fun to go to the temple lights with the kids.  We haven’t been for a couple years.  The weather was great, not too cold.  We saw Teresa’s Mom and several of her sisters there.

Tuesday morning Marlee had a preschool party at Bounce U.  Tilly and I stayed and joined in the fun.  Tuesday afternoon was Puring’s first member discussion.  That evening I delivered my nursery children’s Christmas gifts and Bryant had a pack meeting where he got his pinewood derby car. 

Spencer finished his "famous person report" this week.  Can you guess who he was assigned?  Albert Einstein.  Spencer and all the other sixth graders got to dress up like their person and have wax museum for all the other kids at school on Tuesday.  

Chad had a Christmas party for his loan officers on Tuesday and he gave each of them his favorite treat.

Chad got this "Mortgages for Dummies" book at his Christmas party white elephant gift exchange.  I thought that was a funny gift to give mortgage loan officers.

Wednesday I taught Spencer’s class art masterpiece at 9:00am while the girls went to Grammy days.  That was tricky getting ready that early.  For lunch on Wednesday I invited my sisters-in-law on the Sanders’ side of the family over for lunch while the kids played.  I picked up Costa Vida and it was nice to eat yummy food and visit.  I would like to do a lunch with the women on the Flake side of the family too, after the holidays are over.  Wednesday afternoon and evening Chad had anouther work party for the lending managers this time.  They got to go to a go-cart race track where the go-carts are really fast.  Chad had fun.  Then they went out to dinner.  Chad texted me and told me they were eating at Joe’s Crab Shack.  Chad really, really dislikes seafood and the smell of seafood.  I laughed when he sent me the text.  That’s kind of mean of me, but it was kind of funny.

Thursday I don’t remember much of that day, but it was Chad’s last day of work until after Christmas so that night we had ice cream to celebrate.  Oh yeah, I also had another nap on Thursday afternoon.  Two naps in one week.  I told Chad his sleeping skills are rubbing off on me … that or I’ve been staying up too late.  (Chad can pretty much sleep anywhere, anytime.  Sometimes I’m jealous.)

Friday the kids had a half day of school.  I went to the temple since Chad was home.  He picked the kids up from school then went over to his parent’s house to play and visit with all the family members who are home for the holidays.  I went over to his parent’s house too after I was done at the temple.  I love spending time with family.  It’s my favorite part of every holiday and special occasion.   After visiting for a while we came home to make and decorate sugar cookies, which is our tradition for the last day of school before Christmas.  I am horrible at cutting out sugar cookies.  They either stick to the counter and I can’t get them up to put them on the cookie sheet or they are too floury and taste gross.  Oh well.  I have other talents.  Maybe someday I’ll get it right.  Friday night for date night Chad and I went out to eat with Jennie and Trever, Heather and Elliot, and Chad’s dad.  We ate at Casa de Mina in Queen Creek and I got their yummy “Francisco’s Carne Asada.”  It’s my favorite.

 Yesterday we went to our friend Cambree Moore’s baptism.  She’s a little girl in our ward and we’re good friends with her family.  Chad is also her family’s home teacher.  It was a nice baptism.  Our Wii broke yesterday.  The boy’s both asked for Wii games for Christmas so I was adamant that we get another Wii before Christmas.  I found one for $30 bucks on craigslist and I was supposed to meet the seller at Cooper and Elliot so I could pick it up.  As soon as I drove over there, I got a text saying, “Sorry I can’t sell it anymore.”  I was kind of mad.  I almost texted him back telling him that he was a jerk, but I controlled myself and texted.  “I just got here.  That wasn’t very nice.”  Oh well, shortly after that our friends the Moore’s texted me and said they have two Wii’s and would sell us one after seeing my post on Facebook that said I was looking to buy one. Yesterday evening we went to our neighbors, the Hick’s, annual Holiday party.  The Hick’s really put on a nice party each year with extraordinary pulled pork and yummy appetizers.  We look forward to it.  We have wonderful, kind neighbors.  

10:47pm

We got back about an hour and a half ago from Chad’s parent’s house.  We had a yummy Sunday dinner and played pounce and scum.  Today has been a nice relaxing Sabbath day, which is something that I treasure.  Mom, I’m happy to report that I’ve been working on some of the pointers you gave me about organ playing.  Today I changed up the stops during my prelude music to use more sounds of the orchestra.  Trigger called me this morning to pass of Matt. 5:16, the scripture of the month.  He sang it again.  His 4 year old little voice is so cute.  Marlee passed it off today too so not all my kids have memorized it, except Tilly.  Mary and Josh tried to call me to pass it off but I wasn’t home.  I’m looking forward to our party at Flip Side tomorrow afternoon. 

Winding down for the night.

Spencer loves to ready.  He recently started reading the first Work and the Glory book.

 My quote for today is from Elder S. Gifford Nielsen’s talk Hastening the Lord’s Game Plan!  “We need to be engaged as never before to match the excitement of our leaders and the commitment of our full-time missionaries. This work is not going to move forward in the Lord’s intended way without us! As President Henry B. Eyring has said, ‘Whatever our age, capacity, Church calling, or location, we are as one called to the work to help Him in His harvest of souls.’”

Love,

Mindy