Visiting my beautiful Mother's grave on New Years Eve

Almost all my life we have gone to the Cemetery on Christmas day to visit the graves of my Dad's mother and brother and my Mom's brother.  It may seem strange, but we loved it.  We enjoyed running up and down the hills of Forest Lawn. It was fun putting flowers on the graves.  I guess it was a good tradition for my Mom to set.  I never dreamed I would be visiting her there at my (relatively) young age!  My sisters have been here visiting my Dad and I for the past few days, so we all went out and put flowers on my Mom's, my two Grandma's and my Uncle's graves.  It was beautiful.  We even brought flowers from home, flowers my Mom had planted and loved.  I miss my Mom more than I can express--but I am happy for her.  She is in paradise and is happy and pain free.  I know I will see her again.  Afterwards, we all got dinner at Porto's, a delicious Cuban bakery and deli.

A Beautiful Christmas Day

We had a perfect Christmas day.  The big girls woke up super early.  (Even before Ceci who usually is the first to wake up.)  Santa had filled the stockings and had also left some wonderful wooden fruit, veggies, and a cake!  Yay!  We were happy to see Santa had eaten the cookies we left for him.  Craig and I gave the girls carriages and a stroller for their new dolls.  Grandma gave the girls rainbow capes, crowns and a little tin tea set.  We made a bacon and egg casserole for a late breakfast.   We needed it to balance out all the chocolate we were eating!!  We tore open presents from Susan and Uncle Jeff which were crayons, stickers, coloring books, and puzzles.  The girls were in HEAVEN!!  This allowed Craig and I to sleep for almost the entire afternoon.  Next thing we knew it was dark!  We had a pot roast for dinner and then we finished the day by watching the Living Scriptures animated nativity story.  What a great day.  Way too much See's candy though.  

P.S.  The girls pj's are from Hanna Anderson and are organic cotton. (and they were WAY on sale!)  I can't tell you how delicious the fabric is!!  They are of course, our favorite pj's!!

Our Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve.  I had spent all day making dresses for the dolls I had made for the girls.  Craig ran errands and delivered cookies.  Grandma Ginny slaved over a hot stove making our delicious dinner.  She made her famous meatballs and pasta.  It was soooooo good!  We were so grateful for her effort.  Craig helped her a lot too.

After dinner, we went into the living room, started a fire in the fireplace and made some hot chocolate.  We then gave the girls their dolls that I had spent three solid days making. (shhhh! . . . they're still not 100% finished!)  I had promised them that they would be their Christmas present so I HAD to get them done.  The girls LOVE their new dollies!  I am so glad they do.  If you want to learn more about how I made them, check out my other blog. (suzysfairypath.blogspot.com) Anyways, they were dying to have them, they wanted to sleep with them even when they were just a bag of wool and some fabric!

After this, Grandpa read the nativity story from the scriptures while the girls and I used our Little People nativity set to present the story.  We sang primary songs and hymns at each proper place.  It was really nice.

After a quick bath, Craig read " 'Twas the night before Christmas" to the girls.  They were really tired!  The last thing we did, was leave some cookies for Santa!!

Our Christmas Dinner with Beloved Friends

Tonight we had a Christmas dinner with our friends, Chris & Brenda Peay, their daughter Finley, George & Amanda Ramirez, their boys Forrest & Riley, Chuck and Lorell Schofield, and their kids, Abbie and Seth.  We had a WONDERFUL time!!  We got to light our fourth and final candle on our Advent wreath together.  We sang "Away in a Manger."  It was fun to share that with our friends.

We had tacos, rice, beans, salsa, guacamole, and CHEESECAKE!! (Amanda makes THE BEST Cheesecake!)  The adults and the kids alike had a great time just hanging out.  Knowing my girlfriends would LOVE a craft, we made some fairies together!

Family Christmas Pictures

Today after church I made sure to take a family picture and some pics of the girls in their Christmas dresses.  I am very proud of these dresses because they are made of 100% organic cotton.  I am trying really hard to support the organic clothing industry.  I actually had to make a lot of alterations on these dresses, so I also kinda feel like I made them!!  Anyways, aren't they pretty?  The girls, AND the dresses!

Decorating our tree with the ornaments we made

We've spent some time the past couple weeks making our ornaments.  There's something really cool about making it yourself and especially using things from nature.  We made fairies, painted and glittered pine cones and dried orange and apple slices.  My favorite are the orange slices!!  They look gorgeous with a light shining behind them.  We had a great time decorating, especially since we had made all the ornaments ourselves.  The girls had also taken a ceramic class and had made some ornaments there, too.

The Story of Stuff

Today I saw the most amazing movie.  Its called the Story of Stuff.  You have to see it--it was so mind-opening, entertaining and positive.  You can see it at:  www.storyofstuff.com.  Its 20 minutes long.  Please take the time to see it!  You'll be glad you did!  It might change your life.  I hope it does.

Crafting and lighting our third candle

Tonight we got to light the 3rd candle on our advent wreath!  We then worked on the poinsetta fairy ornaments we are making.

The Eco Gift Expo

Today I got to attend the eco gift expo.  I had SO MUCH FUN!!!  (almost as much fun as I hear the Beehive Bazaar is) It was at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and it was filled with vendors that are eco-conscious in one way or another.  Some people sold clothing that was made from recycled fabric, (leftover remnants or old clothes) others made beautiful clothing from organic cotton, bamboo, silk, and hemp.  Almost everything was handmade.  There were towels, robes, sheets of bamboo. (Bamboo is a very renewable resource and grown without pesticides.)  There were vendors selling beautiful things from various countries that were fairly traded.  There were delicious heath foods, such as raw nuts, dried fruit, (wolf berries!) tea, nutrition bars, CHOCOLATE!  All organic!  There was also delicious organic prepared food-- soup, veggie lasagna, raw food.   I ate so many yummy and healthy things!!!  And there were so many beautiful things!  I could have bought the whole place!  I contented myself with the things pictured here (and a few other items!)  I LOVED this bag that says "Paper NOR Plastic."  The guy selling them called it "the inconvenient bag" because the convenient one is the one they give us at the store--  the inconvenient one is the one we have to remember to bring in.  We try very hard to bring in our cloth bags when we go shopping.  I'm hoping this cute bag will help me better remember.  I bought the Klean Kanteens because I want to stop buying bottled water.  In LA, we already have to buy purified water, and we use 5 gallon bottles that we refill.  In the past, we have used a lot of bottled water but I hate using so many plastic bottles even though we do recycle them!! (and I hate drinking from plastic!) so I bought each of us a stainless steel bottle so that we can minimize our use of bottled water.  The beautiful batik t-shirt was made by a very old friend of mine, Victoria, who I met at the Saturday Market in Eugene, OR back in 1991.  She and I both had booths there.  She has been consistently batiking ever since!!  I was thrilled to get one of her beautiful t-shirts which, are made of 100% cotton and made by American Apparel, (USA made and sweatshop-free.)  Victoria uses beeswax and low-impact dyes.  Isn't that wonderful? I highly recommend that you look up all of these things to learn more:  www.ecogift.com, www.theinconvenientbag.com, www.kleankanteen.com, and www.victoriabatik.com. 

We put up our lights!

In spite of being sick, (and having to buy lots of new ones because so many had broken!) Craig finished putting up our Christmas lights tonight.  The girls LOVE them!

Lighting two Candles and Stringing Popcorn

Tonight we got to light two candles on our advent wreath.  We ate our pizza dinner by the candlelight.  We then had some fun stringing popcorn and cranberries to decorate our tree.  The girls were so good at it!

Our Ward Christmas Party

We had a great time at our ward Christmas party.  I spent the first half in the kitchen helping make food and dish plates, but I got to enjoy the second half with my family enjoying the dinner, watching a puppet show and enjoying Santa's visit!!  The girls had a blast, except Ceci.  She's been a bit of a grump lately, and obviously, she didn't like Santa!!  We had to appease her with a candy cane.