Santa Train

A few years back, two elderly men decided to put together a Santa train for children on Signal Mountain. It's become a tradition up here. The Santa Train gets put up the weekend of Thanksgiving every year. It's the first thing you see when you reach the top of the mountain.

Let me just say now that I am a big jerk. I've been kind of rough on the Santa Train in the past. It drove me nuts because there were a few parts to the display that were totally out of scale. How are a couple of baby blocks bigger than a giraffe? I'm very picky about things like that.

This year, Charlie was old enough to go, so we had to take pictures. John was reluctant, because he is an art school grad after all, and had the same feelings of snobbery I had. When I got up close to the train and got to look at all of the amazing handiwork, I was really touched. These men put in so much time and craftmanship, that is really is impressive. There's a board on the side that lists dozens of donors that made the train possible. It's just a really neat thing that you can only get in a small town. It made me proud of my little hometown!

Oh, and one thing. You will notice some, er, rubble in the background. There is a background of painted pine trees behind the train. The night before, there was a terrible rainstorm, so some of the background is sort of collapsed. Just ignore it and look at the cute kid!

The Best Gifts . . .

Growing up, my parents always told us at Christmas, "Don't spend money on us. Just make us something." I thought being a parent must be completely lame. But this year, I think homemade gifts were the most memorable.

The Flynns draw names each year. This year, Brian got John. Ana (Brian's wife) made us his amazing painting of the temple. It looks like tiles, but she actually coated the painting with tons of polyurethane to look that way. How amazing is this? For you former Savannah-ites, Ana actually painted that huge Pioneer mural in the Savannah Stake Center! Thank you so much for all of your hard work, Ana!

John's sister Laura did something pretty amazing this year as well. She made a picture book of all of the Flynn cousins. There are 18. And she made a book for each and every cousin. What's 18 times 18? Oh wait . . . not to mention she did it for the Smartt side, too! They have 27 kids over there, I think she said. Um, yeah. I have no idea how she did it, especially with 3 kids. Just another one of those amazing people that makes you want to just give up. Or beat the living pulp out of her. Love ya, Laura!

Now, to a few things I made. I drew Scott's name and he wanted a massage . . . okay, that came out wrong. I wanted a gift certificate for one. I knew that Scott is a big "Seinfeld" fan (as am I), so I had to make him a funny card. I just printed out a card with this picture on it:


If you're a Seinfeld fan, you know what this means.

Finally, I can reveal the gift I made for John . . . the gift in which I endangered my very life:

A candy jar for his office. I etched the Georgia logo on there myself! I put contact paper on the jar and cut out the "G" with an exacto knife. Then, there's the scary part. I brushed etching cream onto the exposed part of the "G" stencil. Etching cream is acid. When I opened the bottle of cream, I was almost knocked over by the fumes and I was wearing a mask! Anyway, I was so pleased with the results. For you super picky fans, yes, I realize on the official logo, there is an extra line surrounding the "G." Well, I'd like to see you cut that tiny line out with an exacto knife! Close enough. Close enough . . .

Well, and I couldn't talk about gifts from the heart without mentioning my family's tradition. My siblings and siblings-in-law have a tradition where we each buy a $1 gift and play Dirty Santa. After this year, I think we may have to change the name to "Dirrrty Santa." Or "Durty Santa." a sampling of the loot: raccoon urine (Ethan admitted this was $2, and not $1), portable toilet paper (I kinda wanted that) and, well, this is a family blog so I better leave that last one out.

Thanks again, everyone!

Gettin' Jewwy Wit It

I've got a lot of catching up to do. I've got tons and tons of great pictures to post, so it'll take awhile . . . but hopefully I'll be caught up by next week. So here's a start to the holiday recap . . .

Okay, I know. The title of this post is unforgiveable. It kind of takes me back to my Senior Thesis class in college . . . we were reading The Merchant of Venice and we had to do an in-class exercise. We had to come up with a title for a paper about Shylock (a Jewish character) and religion in the play. I came up with "The Thin Jew Line." You think that's bad, the guy next to me came up with "How Jew Doin'?" At least mine made some sense . . . but I digress.

Okay, so we're not Jewish. But my brother Nathan thought it would be fun to play Dreidel in honor of the Hanukkah. And, just a note. The hobby stores in Chattanooga are AWFUL. One store hung up on my brother when he asked if they had any Hanukkah stuff. He had to get some from a rabbi. And I thought being a Mormon in the bible belt was rough . . .

Anyway, John and I played with Nathan, Mari and their girls, Annie and Caroline. If you haven't played Dreidel before, it's tons of fun. Basically, you start with piles of candy and you spin the four-sided top (the dreidel). How much candy you win (or lose) depends on what symbol you land on . . . Nun: nothing happens and the next player spins; Gimel: the player takes the entire pot; Hey: the player takes half of the pot; Shin: the player puts two markers in the pot. We redistributed the candy often, to make it a little more fair for the girls. Traditionally it's played with gelt, or coins (or a lot of times, chocolate gelt), but we played with fun size candy bars. Annie wound up winning the pot, and as you can see below, she was pretty psyched about it.


Here's Charlie with his Reese's peanut butter cup yarmulke! He was feeling festive . . .

GIMEL!

Oh, and one final hilarious note. Nathan also brought a smoked makerel. The Polish eat those at Christmas (Nathan went to Polish-speaking Chicago on his mission - he was feeling nostalgic). My niece Morgan was absolutely horrified by the thing. So Nathan decided to do what any caring uncle would do. He cut the fish's head off and left a note for Morgan in its mouth.

Well, until next time, l'chayim!

Christmas Odds and Ends

Here's Charlie hanging his ornament on the tree. We're continuing my family's tradition of getting each kid a new ornament every year. Last year's was a baby shower gift and it is a gorgeous Winnie the Pooh one (from Sis. Mendenhall, of course). This year's is a Cars ornament. Charlie loves Mater. We have a "Mater and the Ghost Light" book that John reads to him (BTW, John does a spot on Larry the Cable Guy voice, so it's hilarious). In fact, Charlie can say "Mater" but has yet to say "Grammy." My mom is not pleased. We got him the ornament because we got him a giant Mater that he can ride on for Christmas this year. It talks and everything!

Despite the cheery start to this post, I'm so ready for the holidays to be over. I'm just not a Christmas person. I've been super busy with a lot of projects and Charlie and I are still sick. He's doing a little better, at least. Most of the week, he's been taking nearly 5 hour naps every day! But yesterday he was back to his normal sleep schedule. I'm still battling, though. I think I might get a sinus infection for Christmas this year. Wouldn't be the first time . . . .

Yesterday, I hemmed a pair of Charlie's pants. This pair of pants is part of his Christmas outfit for church on Sunday. He is still sick. He had BETTER be better by then, or else I'm dragging him to church with a snotty nose. I didn't go all Tim Gunn for nothing!

Then, I took my life into my hands to make John a special gift. I wanted to give him at least one thing that wasn't on his list and that was "thoughtful." Well, me and my big ideas . . . I just get something into my head and I have to do it. Since the Hub reads this, I can't divulge what it is I did. I'll tell you this much: it was a craft project (duh, it's me) and it was extremely dangerous. I'm not kidding. I had to dress up like Michael Jackson (long sleeves, gloves, mask, the works) just to open the bottle of "stuff" I used. The bottle said it was only for people 18 and up. Uh . . . never seen that on a craft project. Scary. But . . . I came out alive and the project came out AMAZING. I'll have pictures in a week. I'm so excited about this one!

Today I made some more cookies. My mom (believe it or not) was just released as Activities Chairperson and now she's Relief Society president. So, yeah . . . it's been a rough month for her! I made some cookies for her to take to some needy families. Yeah, I know I'm awesome. JK . . . these cookies were a little harder for me to not taste. Okay, I did take one taste. A chef always has to taste her dish, right? Well, I'm paying for it with a stomach ache right now . . . Anyway, they were chocolate and butterscotch chip blondies. MMMMM . . . See, I can pass up cake and most cookies, but I LOVE chocolate chip cookies. The best pastry chef in the world could offer me the greatest dessert in the world, and I would still pass it up for a good chocolate chip cookie. In my opinion, it's really hard to find a good chocolate chip cookie (although, the giant ones at the Vine Street Market here in town come pretty darn close to perfect). My favorite version of one is the blondie recipe I made today. It's best the day after you make it. Another good CCC is if you substitute one of the cups of chips (most CCC recipes call for 2 cups of chips) with vanilla and butterscotch chips. It's sooo good.

We took Charlie to the Christmas train today. For those of you not familiar with Signal Mountain, these two guys built this Christmas train for kids to take pictures on. It's really cute . . . I'll post those pics later.

Sugar, Sugar, Sugar

I've been making a lot of Christmas treats lately. Today was the second time in a week I've made Spritz cookies for the fam. Unfortunately, I cannot partake. But I do enjoy decorating them. Sort of.

This past weekend was our branch's Christmas party. My mom was (she was called to be RS President Sunday-ha!) the Activities Committee (literally, she was the only one) and so I helped her with a lot of stuff. A LOT OF STUFF. The theme was "Christmas Around the World." I made up 36 cards to put on the tables . . . each one described a foriegn country's Christmas traditions. Yes, I made 36 different ones. At the party, I realized that we probably could've just done the same 3 countries at each table and no one would know the diff. Nice thinking, Mom!

Friday night I had started to feel a little sick. I've had some major allergies (leaf mold) for the past month or so. But this was different. By Saturday, I felt horrible. I decided to just lump it and go to the party anyway. I originally agreed to lead the music, but I told my mom I just couldn't do it. I told her I'd take care of the Primary, but that was all.

It was a potlock, so I brought a Sugarplum Cake. My mom found the recipe. Now, those of you familiar with plums know that they are pretty bland. You can't cook with them. So, if it's a "plum" cake, it's really made with . . . prunes. That's right, kids. I brought a prune cake to a church function. All of us Mormons could use a little laxative now and then, right? Anyway, the recipe called for baby food prunes. Sounds disgusting, right? It is delicious. I'm not kidding. I'm not the biggest fan of spice cakes, but holy cow. I could only have one bite, as per my diet, but wow. I got a lot of compliments on it. And here's all that was left!

Since I'm the Primary Music Leader, I had to lead the kids in singing "Stars Were Gleaming" at this function. I'm big on treats, so to reward the kids for singing, I set up a hot chocolate bar in the kitchen at the end of the party. I gave them all hot chocolate and a choice of toppings: whipped cream, marshmallows, mini chocolate chips or candy canes. I thought it was a cool idea. I meant to take pics, but I was up to my elbows in marshmallows. It was pretty fun, although I probably gave those kids all kinds of cooties since my nose was running like mad that night.

All in all, it was a really good social. The decorations were cool and I heard the food was good (sigh--all I had was bread!). Here are some extra pictures. Charlie's shirt says, "I do it all for the presents!"

Yeah, he wasn't too happy in this picture. Charlie has bronchiolitis AGAIN. So, we are the proud owners of a new nebulizer. Hooray. I knew it was bound to happen eventually. Hopefully he'll outgrow this asthma . . . as for now, he is strapped to his baby hookah three times a day.

So this past weekend was the worst weekend to be sick. I woke up Sunday morning feeling like death. Charlie woke up early, so I decided to drag us all to church anyway. If I stayed at home, I'd keep Charlie home, too. But since he was awake, I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep. I came home after Primary to nap. Then, all my family got together to bless my brother's adorable new baby girl, Eloise. Mari's dad works for the church building temples in South America, so he only had this weekend to come up. Since it wasn't Fast Sunday, we just did it at home. It was very spiritual. As soon as the blessing was done, Eloise's 4 year old sister, Caroline cried, "That was a long prayer!" Hilarious. The rest of the day I pretty much spent in bed. Now I'm feeling a little better. I've still got that sinusy, head stuffed with cotton feeling . . . and the sinking feeling none of this post made any sense . . .

To Charlie . . .

I love this picture of you. You look so serious and grownup. I'm so proud of you and how far we've come in the past year. Maybe it's just a mother's imagination, but I think I can see a glimmer of the great man you'll become . . .

Then I look at this picture and realize we've still got a long way to go.

A Little Christmas Spirit

I've been thinking about Christmas a lot lately. I'm the Primary Music Leader (I love love love my calling, BTW) and we've been learning "Stars Were Gleaming" for the past few weeks--we're singing at the Branch Social next week. The past few years, I've been a Bah Humbugger. I had one really bad Christmas, so I haven't had the Christmas Spirit for a while. I mean, obviously, I do love the actual meaning of Christmas (my favorite thing is the First Presidency Devotional), but I haven't enjoyed the traditions as much as I used to. But this year, I'm starting to get it back. I think Charlie has brought it back for me. We've been putting up decorations and he just points and smiles at them. Obviously, he doesn't understand it all, but he knows something is different.

This is a Christmas card and envelope I made for my visiting teaching people. I designed it on Photoshop. I used two vintage images from these books John's mom got me a few years ago. I combined the images and used this quote from A Christmas Carol: "It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself." I'm really happy with it. Now, I've got the scrappin' itch back. I have a ton of pictures I'm dying to scrap. Maybe I can get John to give me a day to myself so I can get some stuff done . . . )hint, hint, Dear . . . )

You guys from up North and out West are just going to laugh at this. It never snows here this early, so a little snow on December 1st was really cool. It's just enough to get me in the mood for Christmas. I didn't think it was enough to play in . . . until my niece came over. She made a snow angel and a snowman on the deck. Morgan and Paul (her dad) literally had to scrape every last flake of snow to make it happen, but it was impressive just the same. I didn't play any . . . I just walked around in the snow. I love that cold, sinking feeling under my feet. I can't wait until we get a really good snow. The last time we had one of those, I was pregnant so I didn't get to play.

This is Charlie's first taste of snow. This was a tradition I was unaware of, but my sister insisted. At first he didn't like it . . . then he finished the whole thing. He really liked it . . . it probably helped that he's working on a killer molar right now.

John was a little jealous of the snow since he's in New Orleans on business this week. Well, I was jealous because he's been eating at fancy-schmancy restaurants all week! See, originally Charlie and I were going to come along. But, there were too many problems. First of all, the hotel his work booked for him was not kid friendly. It also doesn't help that Charlie is in a phase where he loves to scream for no reason. Secondly, John only had the rental car for so many days. We would have to take the eight hour trip all at once. Yeah, right. Finally, I didn't know how I would work out my food situation. I really can't eat out. I've got to prepare my own food because of my IBS, so that wouldn't work either. Sad, but oh, well. The week is half over, and John will be home soon. The sooner the better!

Finally, I've got to share these two pictures. I'm thinking I need to update the blog "logo" and here are two candidates. I think they both perfectly express the idea that Charlie is definitely in charge. The one where he is maniacally grinning was taken yesterday. I caught him pulling wipes one by one from the wipe box and he thought it was extremely funny. The other one was the other week. I came into the room and he was just like that: laying on a pillow, shirt half up, watching "Yo Gabba Gabba."

By the way, "Yo Gabba Gabba" happens to be the coolest kids' show ever. It's like "Sesame Street" meets Breakin' meets Colico Vision meets Teletubbies meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's like the acid trip I'll never have! Any show that has Biz Markie teaching kids how to beatbox is okay by me. If you haven't had the pleasure of watching "Yo Gabba Gabba," here's a taste. And we can't have a discussion about "Yo Gabba Gabba" without mentioning poor Nathaniel, who's killer dance stylings on the show have made him an internet star. I bet his mom is regretting letting him on the show . . .