On Friday night at the temple, I snapped this picture of Meagan and I just love how her spirit shines in this picture! To me it just looks like she's saying "hey everyone- look at me, I am a child of God!"
If you've ever been to my sister-in-law Amy's blog, you've seen her amazing gingerbread houses.. Well, I've got some competition for her!
Last Sunday evening, some of my YW had a stayover at one of the girls houses, so they could all attend an early morning devotional on Christmas eve! To keep busy and out of trouble, they made ME a gingerbread house. See my ginger bread house below... hmmmm?!??!
Click here to see Amy's gingerbread house! http://tannerjia.blogspot.com/
They almost look identical, don't they? Yes, this is the "finished product" exactly how they delivered it to me..
Remember that movie Christmas Vacation, when cousin Eddy shows up at Clarks in what looks similar to a motor home? Well - this year, he showed up at our house!
As the days get closer to Al P. leaving, I keep thinking about baby Alex, big boy Alex and not as much about grown-up Alex. Maybe it's because I miss him already! He's so busy and the days are counting down - according to his mission website, as of today, he has 60 days until he leaves for the MTC. I guess in some ways it's a good thing I never see him, maybe it helps me prepare?!??! Plus - when I do see him - he's so nice to me! On Tuesday night he was here for about 15 minutes and our paths crossed in the hallway, and he grabbed me and gave me the biggest hug ever! As I was enjoying - a thought came to my mind... I wish he were a brat- then maybe I'd be glad to see him "git". Not the case though - I still cling to every moment...
Tonight Alex came home and he had purchased a giant, enormous Mexican Flag to hang in our house! Where, you ask? In our dining room of course!
So - He gets it home, and takes it out of the package and it is folded into a million parts, so it's pretty wrinkly. He said - "i'm going to go iron this" and headed upstairs! First of all - I was shocked that he headed in the right direction - I didn't know he even knew where the iron was kept! When he got upstairs - I remembered that I had put the ironing board and the iron away for the housekeeper, so I said "I'll come up and set it up in just a minute", to which he replied... "can't I just set it up?" I was like "ummm sure". So he set up the ironing board, and even plugged the iron in! He turned the temperature to synthetics and was on his way to his first "ironing event". I should have taken a picture. Anyway - as he was ironing, I was thinking "I should be ironing it for him!" Can you believe that? I'm still over-indulging and he leaves in only 72 days. He was almost done, when he dropped the water bottle on the floor - he looked at me and said "I guess I'm still a rookie". I'll have you know that I resisted the urge to take over and I let him finish the entire job all by himself! I'm such a proud Ma!
Be prepared.. this story is both sad AND pathetic.
On Saturday, I went to Missionary Emporium. I needed to pick up some "flags" for the cool little flag stand that Alex has all of his friends state and country flags in. 7 of his 10 friends have their calls so this is our little way of paying tribute and remembering where they are.
Anway - I went into the store, sort of browsed through some Christmas books and then was walking toward the "flag section" of the store, when a plaque caught my eye. This was a painted wooden plaque with vinyl lettering on it. The lettering said "Soy un Hijo de Dios". I, of course, had no idea what it said, but earlier in the day - I rememberd that I had seen the word Hijo and I thought I remembered it meant "son" or something. So I walked up to the clerk at the store and pointed at it and said "what does that say?" She looked at it and said "it says I am a Child of God". In my head I was like "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, here come the tears" but my mouth just said "ok thanks" and I walked away. By the time I turned around I was bawling - you know - the type of tears that just pour and get your shirt and coat all wet in like 30 seconds!
I walked toward the back of the store without making direct eye contact with anything in the store, for fear of making it worse. Which, was a bad idea - the entire back of the store is where the keep all the mission stuff - the "Mexico Flags", "Mexico Shirts", "Mexico Key Chains", "Mexico tie tacks", the Spanish Hymnal... well you get my point.
I basically went running out of the store - crying for my big sister - I called her when I got to the car, and we agreed that me going into those stores unsupervised for the next 6 months is probably not a good idea!
Kenyon gave me a big hug (and condolences) when I got home and when Alex came home 1/2 hour later -he was none the wiser! I'm so brave!
Kenyon, Alex and I went to the Billy Joel concert on Thursday, November 29th. It was so good! Alex got a ticket to the concert for his birthday, so his seats were on the floor, but we didn't get tickets in time to go - but luckily, the day of the show, Kenyon got an e-mail from someone on his Porcurpine Cycling team asking if anyone was interested in the tickets. The guy that bought them had to work that night, and he was selling them buy one, get one free! Our seats were great!
