White Christmas

According to the internet, the last real White Christmas in the Dallas area was in 1926! What a wonderful blessing for us to have one, especially as we have been missing snow.

You can see our footprints all over the front lawn where we played in the snow the night before!

We had a wonderful quiet, and peaceful day. The snow was beautiful, the kids were pretty well behaved, and outside was cold! We opened stockings, ate breakfast, did presents, then relaxed and played in the snow (Esther built her first snowman!), and then cooked up a storm for dinner. Nathan was so thrilled with his dump truck!
Esther is our horse and pony lover and was so excited to add more to her collection.


I decided to go really simple and natural with our table decor this year. And I found mini Martinelli's for our guests to take home. After bowls of Italian Wedding Soup, we had a big salad with hard salami, sharp provlone, and tomatoes.
Roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes and steamed carrots with butter and dill.
Simply the best Italian Wedding Soup I've ever made. Pretty, huh?
Stuffed turkey breast - stuffed with green olives, sausage, proscuitto, and chestnuts.

And for dessert - spumoni filled cannoli shells, biscotti, and Italian nougat candy. What a tasty feast!

Christmas Eve

First off - it's snowing!!! We are honestly having a white Christmas - in Dallas!! As Roark's family was getting ready to leave, the kids were all running in the 2 inches of snow on the ground. Esther got knocked down on accident by two big cousins who were wrestling and she got her first taste of snow down the shirt and all over the face. Laura, a true Texas child, screamed out in awe, "This is the deepest snow I've ever seen!"

We made five pizzas, but I only remembered to take pictures of three of them. We made mozzarella, tomato, and basil; ham and pineapple, meat lovers, chicken zucchini alfredo, and veggie.



Then came our Nativity pageant!






Have a very Merry Christmas!!

Hallelujah!

Who says Mormons can't have fun? Check this out!

Peanut Butter

Nathan discovered a new use for peanut butter - shampoo and face wash! He was "eating" a bagel with peanut butter and had already made a huge mess on his plate. Then he proceeded to rub the plate all over his face and hair. You have to wonder why in the world that seemed like something fun to do, but hey - at least I got a couple of adorable pictures out of it.

The Christmas Spirit

Enjoy this video my church put out recently reminding us of the true meaning of the holiday.

Cute Craft

I made this for Esther's room yesterday. I made a bigger one for our bathroom that is similar but the letter is a "J" and is made of metal. If you'd like to learn how to do this, let me know! It's very cheap and very easy.

Christmas Decor

Here are pictures of our Christmas Decor. I've been loving the simple elegant Christmas theme - it really helps keep my mind focused on the beauty of the season and the true meaning of Christmas. I have a Nativity set that I just purchased off of Ebay that has a place of honor waiting for it. I'm really excited to put it up and listen to Esther tell the Christmas story to me.

Gingerbread House!

I was extremely lazy this year and purchased a pre-made house at the grocery store. Then we decorated it with candy we picked up. I learned a few things about doing this with two very small children.

1. Get a smaller house. Their attention span isn't long enough.

2. Nathan LOVES M&Ms! He snarfed down a few and then asked for more - again and again and again. And since the house still wasn't done, we unwisely kept giving them to him.

3. Esther loves to eat candy more than she likes to decorate with it. All day she's been asking when we can eat the gingerbread house.

4. I love to eat candy more than I like to decorate with it.

5. Nathan is not a huge fan of marshmallows unless they're covered in chocolate and throws them half eaten across the room.

My favorite people in the whole wide world

Snow!!

I went to get the kids dressed this morning so I opened the blinds in their room to let in some more light when all of a sudden I noticed there was fluff dropping down from the sky!


It snowed for about 45 minutes but since the ground hasn't even frozen yet, it didn't stick for long. I ran outside to get a couple of pictures just to prove it actually happened. Then within minutes, it was gone. But it was pretty while it lasted and that combined with the 50 degrees we've got today, it's actually "beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"

Nutcracker

This year, Esther and I began a yearly tradition to go see The Nutcracker together. It was held in the beautiful new opera house here in Dallas. We had a wonderful time and Esther sat pretty still nearly the entire time, absolutely enthralled with the dancing. Yep, we have a little ballerina on our hands. She even recognized a few of the steps that she has learned in her dance class. Afterwards, we went out to dinner together at a little hole in the wall where we were rather overdressed. What a fun outing! I can't wait to do it again next year!

Highly Recommended

The other night Daron and I watched the movie Arranged on the recommendation of his parents. It is about two first year teachers at a public school in New York City who, despite their differences in religion (one is Orthodox Jew and the other is Muslim) become friends. They find that they are both experiencing having their future marriages arranged by their parents. The movie depicts their struggles through the process of not only dealing with the arrangements, but finding the need to defend their faith.

There is a strong theme of striving for world peace in the movie, which is important, but truly the religious aspects is what impressed me the most. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I have often found myself in the same predicaments as the two main characters. Like the Orthodox Jews and the Muslims, we live by strict moral laws. We don't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea; we don't have intimate relations before marriage; we don't smoke; we dress modestly, etc. Many of these things are looked upon as being restrictive and not allowing us the freedom to have fun or live life to its fullest. I choose to follow what I've been taught. I find freedom in choosing to follow God's commandments. There is joy and peace in doing so that I will never find elsewhere.

Granted, these are fictitious characters, but there are people like this out there. I just wish that more people would stand up for what they believe and not be afraid to follow their religious convictions - even if it means standing out like a sore thumb. What a better place our country would be!

Well, I digress. It was a wonderful movie and it was definitely worth watching. Let me know your thoughts. We found it on YouTube, but I'm sure you could get it from NetFlix, your local library, etc.