Merry Christmas!

I haven't felt like it's Christmas for a long time now. But hopefully Lorien and Vanessa can feel how special it is. And maybe building our own traditions I'll eventually be able to feel it again. We've been reading scriptures about Jesus' life each night. I got a candle, with dots to show how far to burn it each night, and the list of Scriptures from our RS President. We bring out all my candles so we can read by candle light. And of course we have to have hot chocolate. So yesterday Vanessa found where I kept my candles and brought them out to me and put some on the table. It was so cute! She learned how to blow the candles out so maybe that's what she wanted to do.

I've also been very busy sewing Christmas dresses for the girls. (They've tried to deter me so many times, but I persevered!) Finally I got them finished two days ago so we went to see Santa yesterday. Yesterday morning Lorien came to me and with a worried voice said "Mommy! I haven't written Santa a letter yet!" So I got her paper and helped her spell out the words. It was very precious! She drew a picture of Santa and herself on the back, and on the envelope she drew hearts! So we went to our local mall, which is always way too expensive so hopefully I'm not encroaching on any copyright laws, but for how much this pic cost it should certainly be allowed to copy it a million times! So Lorien was sooooo excited! She said "my belly can't wait to see Santa!" It was almost heartbreaking how impersonal Santa was! He was probably grouchy at having to sit there for so long. We should have found out when he got there and went right at the beginning. So she gave Santa her letter. He opened it and handed it to me and said we'll ask mom to e-mail the list to me. I was so sad. I wanted him to tell her what a good girl she was and thank you for the letter and maybe discretely hand the letter back to me or Jimmy. Oh well. Next time I'll coach Santa through it. That or go to a different Santa! Enough of that!

So Lorien can write really well, she can read easy words. I love it when she tries to sound out words. Makes my teaching much more endurable! She loves her preschool most of the time. She thinks she knows what the word "Bored" means and says "Mommy, I'm boring."

Vanessa loves to torment me. She is constantly getting into things. She's the one who unrolls the whole roll of toilet paper! She isn't trying to talk. She just yells grunts and sometimes she says "goltiegoltiegoltie". Oh yeah, she started doing the sign for "more" but Jimmy suspects she means "want" when she does it.

Jimmy is working at Costco still as a forklift driver. His other interest right at the moment is coaching wrestling with his dad and brother. He loves it beyond all reason. Before wrestling he was working with a start up company (not paid) on a video game. We need to get him new parts for our desktop to make it fast enough to really get going on that project.

I am continually trying to clean the house, keep the kids fed and happy, serve in my calling as ward choir director and Enrichment Leader, and finding time to spend with Jimmy's family and my friends!

We love you all and hope next year brings great blessings and strengthens your testimonies as well as ours!

Love,

Jimmy, Anne, Lorien and Vanessa