The days leading up to Christmas

For me the month of December flew by at rapid speed! I had so much going on in the days leading up to Christmas that the weeks seemed to be almost non-existent. On the 11Th in addition to all that I have recorded in the previous post that night Kefford and I went to the Bishopric Christmas dinner. It was a lot of fun to interact with the other members of the Bishopric and their wives. We had a really delicious dinner prepared by Bishop Whieler and his wife and then after we ate we had a white elephant gift exchange. I have to admit that the gift Kefford and I brought was by far the best gift there. We found a pair of pajama bottoms at Fred Myer that were designed to look like a pair of pants with chaps. They were awesomely repulsive. I was embarrassed walking through the store with them on the way to the check out, that is how bad they were. But they were the life of the party and got stolen twice to end up belonging to the Bishop and his wife..so fun! After the silliness they gave us each a gift bag that had a little treasure chest with three bags filled with Gold painted rocks, frankincense and Myrrh. It was given to us to help us remember the true meaning of the season and to bring a little bit more life to the Christmas story when told in our home. It was a really special gift and means a lot to us.





The next day which was Sunday I got the lovely job of speaking in church. It was the Bishops wish that all the wives of the Bishopric members to take a turn giving a talk. My topic was "Finding peace and joy while going through adversity". I thought alot about it and figured I could use alot of my Moms experiences because if anyone knows about finding peace while going through adversity it would be her. I thought that would be a good direction to go but in talking with my much older yet very, very good friend who told me that I was just as qualified to talk about my own experiences as anybody else I decided she was right and i could do this on my own. So I did and it was great. I felt really good about the talk I had written and given and I got massive amounts of compliments from the members of our ward. :0)



Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat and I felt achy all day long. Not good. I had the Relief Society Christmas dinner that I was in charge of the next night and I could not afford to be sick. So despite the pains I delivered all of the food that needed to be cooked to the willing volunteers and I went to Costco to get the things I needed for the dinner. Tuesday morning i woke up again feeling yucky along with the sore throat but I got myself up and over to the church to get the tables and chairs set up. Luckily my friend Lanette came to help and when I expressed how I did not feel good she volunteered to put together the cake that I was supposed to do. The dinner turned out really great and the program and everything came together perfect and for that I am thankful. It was alot of hard work putting these things together and I was glad to have it over with. The bad part was because of my sore throat every bite of food I tried to swallow felt like knives going down my throat. Not a good feeling.



Wednesday morning when I woke up yet again with the sore throat I knew i needed to get to the Dr. Here is a funny story. I went into Primary Health feeling horrible and looking it I am sure. Luckily it was not busy at all and they got me in pretty quick. One thing that was super annoying was the receptionist asked me all kinds of questions about my insurance, medical history, and even me. She also took my insurance card and Drivers license and scanned them into her computer. Yet even after doing all of that she made me fill out a form with all of the same things she just asked and entered into her computer. I did not appreciate the repetitiveness! So the nurse took me back and she said they needed to do a swab test to check for strep. I thought all they were going to do was swab my cheeks but she took this mile long q-tip and without any warning shoved it into the back of my throat. I was not prepared for this and I started gagging and instinctively my hand went up and pushed her arm out of my throat. I was a little embarrassed acting like a two year old and I apologized and told her it caught me by surprise. She said it was OK but she didn't get what she needed and had to do it again. At that point I wanted to act like a two year old and tell her no way but my two little girls were in there with me and I don't think they needed to see their Mom acting like a baby so I had to let her go in again. After what seemed like forever with me gagging and her probing in the back of my throat she finally pulled free. I started coughing from the gagging and I totally coughed right in her face. Once again I was so embarrassed and I kept apologizing and she said it was fine but once she left the room I could totally hear her scrubbing like mad. I felt like the biggest dork! The Dr. finally came in and told me I had strep, I started crying for some reason, and he hurried to give me a prescription and then he ran out the door. Man I am such a baby. I am glad that I got it taken care of and that I got the drugs which kicked in later that day to help me feel better. All I could think about though was how I was at that dinner last night infecting all the ladies of the ward. I felt horrible that I might have gotten someone sick and so I prayed long and hard that they would all be protected from my illness. I have not heard of a strep epidemic going around our Ward so I know my prayers were answered! :0)

And the finally, at the end of this long week we had our Ward Christmas Party to go to. The dinner was fine, the decorations were fun and the entertainment was mostly great. :0) Each auxiliary was in charge of putting together a little musical number for entertainment. The primary had the cute primary kids get up to sing a couple of songs. They were so cute and it is always fun to see my kiddos perform!

Avynlea half hid herself but I still saw her!

The Bishops wife decided I needed to set a better example since I was the only one of the Bishoprics wives not wearing anything festive so she stuck the reindeer antlers that you can almost see in this picture on my head. I wore them willingly and did not feel too silly!

Rylee did not want to be left out of the entertaining so she snuck on the stage with her sister!

Then it was time to meet Santa. You know what is weird. Every year there is a lady whom I have no clue who she is and she is always in the back with Santa taking pictures of each child sitting on his lap. I assume she is the wife of whoever is in the costume, that also I do not know. But anyway I always think that it is cool that someone is there to take a picture for us but not once have I ever seen any of those pictures. I think it is a little odd and I have to assume that she is taking them for her own personal photo albums. It is weird. Luckily I never rely on others to do what I am quite capable to do myself so I do get pictures of my kids with Santa.

I gave Rylee a taste of my apple pie and after giving it a lick she decided she did not like it and would not try anymore.

Santa gave the kids a bag of treats which included an orange, a candy cane, silly bands and various random candies. One of the candies was a sourbomb and I managed to capture Rykers face as he tried his!
The Beehives and Deacons of our Ward were in charge of being Santa's Helpers for the night. After waiting until almost no more kids in line Kenedy and her friends decided to get in line to take their turn with Santa. I caught Kenedy flirting with a couple of the Deacons but the only picture I could get was her looking the other way. It made me laugh to see her and her girlfriends giggling it up for the boys!