Abundant Recompense Copy

Waiting while Dad checks to see if Santa came. He came! Let's go! Stockings first. Addison got a mousetrap marble in his stocking. One morning before school, he swallowed the old one. We got an xray, he digested it completely, and left it as a souvenir for the lucky person to follow him in the Kohl's bathroom. (I guess he tried repeatedly to flush it, but those things weigh like 3 pounds!) Thanks for rendering our Mousetrap game useable again, Santa. Then Dad forced us all to eat breakfast. No pictures because we were in a hurry. Then present time! We take turns and try to make it last as long as possible. Minecraft This was the crafting triumph of the century! Thanks to Nate, Meg, Sam and Jenna for sharing their designing, cutting, hot-gluing, Coke-buying and staying-up-late skills to make it all happen. I love it. Excuse all the photos, I just have to show it off. Side Other side (designed by Jenna) Back (designed by Nate) Front And I might add that we had a white Christmas. ...

Nate and a coworker recently got interviewed about the Joseph Smith Papers website for a podcast called "Mormon Channel Daily." Check it out! http://www.mormonchannel.org/listen/series/mormon-channel-daily-audio/interview-with-joseph-smith-scholars-january-13-2015

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. Magic and excitement in the air, time in the kitchen with the kids, and it is wonderful to hole up and quit the world for a couple of days, and Christmas Eve is the beginning of that. And as though that weren't enough, it's also my birthday. I turned 30 this past year! Here are some pics of our wonderful Christmas eve. A really, really cute girl brought in the birthday cupcakes. Bryn stole Dad away for a minute to go to the store and pick out some flowers for me. My favorite color, even! Presents! I will not deny it, I totally cleaned up. Each of the kids had food assignments for our Christmas Eve dinner.  Addison got to do the cheesy potatoes. It was his first time cooking on the stove, and he felt cool. Leah was in charge of fruit salad, and Bryn helped too. Aaron and most of his gang came over for dinner and the evening. We had so much fun with them. We had dinner, played, and decorated sugar cookies. Then we all crowded into the...