this christmas

"This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again."

Howard W. Hunter, "The Gifts of Christmas," Ensign, Dec 2002

i bet your dentist...

doesn't deck the halls of their office quite as much as dr. pham.  i am not kidding there were wreaths and trees everywhere i looked.

and i bet your dentist doesn't give you a christmas present for coming in for your semi-annual cleaning.

she may be totally crazy, but she's the nicest dentist i've ever met.

(also, the hygienists keep bringing up your referral Jenna!  when are you getting that free tooth whitening?)

what? we have doors?

after 1 1/2 years in our house we finally have cabinet doors in the dining room!  it was the first project i started and it was a disaster.  my brother re-made all of the doors and had them shipped to us a few months ago.  we finally had someone come in and do the hard work of hanging them and getting and putting in the hardware.  david installed the stained glass panels.  i couldn't be happier!  i love looking in the dining room and it not feel like a construction zone anymore.

cabinet on the left

cabinet on the right 

i'm still working on my christmas table-scape.   i really tried to downsize, last year was a little out of control!

also noteworthy:  we have real doors for all of the rooms and closets in our house!  come visit and check those out.  (i take back every comment i made about david and laura not having doors, seriously, why is it so hard to get doors hung up??!).   i'm not going to lie-- i don't miss the hippy lifestyle at all.

the christmas tree that almost wasn't

every year we go to the same christmas tree farm to chop down our own christmas tree (and by we i mean i pick it out and david chops it down).  of course the only saturday we had available to pick out our tree it was pouring rain! 

driving out to the noble fir section of the farm

after sloshing around the farm for a while getting soaked we decided that maybe something from their pre-cut selection would be easier.

it was and they had some great freshly cut trees to choose from.  the nice guys that worked there were kind enough to get it all tied to our car even though it was raining.  i think they were just having a slow morning because no one else was dumb enough to try to pick out their tree in the rain.

we got our tree home and now it is finally decorated.  i love christmas and having the tree lit up.

it didn't take quite as much time as i had allotted for decorating, so i finally made one of those ornament wreaths for my front door.  i figure this is a wreath i am not that attached to, so i don't care if it gets ruined in the snow.

kind of dr seuss-y, but hey, it's christmas.

Thanksgiving 2011... Raw Turkey and Turkey Tourneys

thanksgiving was as usual the most sleepless 4 days of the year.  we arrived at late thirty wednesday night at LAX (nightmare!) then stayed up for hours gabbing (waiting for amber to get home, turns out she was asleep already...) oops.

before we knew it it was time for thanksgiving breakfast.  we woke everyone up early to enjoy chocolate, pistachio and almond croissants from le rev... it was quite a task getting a dozen croissants from milwaukee to cypress, but it was a success!

yum-o

as soon as the last crumb was devoured it was time for christmas crafts!  typically that means that my mom and i direct david on our vision and get frustrated when it doesn't turn out exactly right.

this year was no different!

 david hard at work on shaping our wreath forms
                                                                     andie showing off what we were attempting to recreate

turns out you need about a billion ornaments to make one... so, it's 1/4 completed, maybe we'll finish it by christmas.

then david and i headed over to grandma mazie's for a little visit.  always great to see her!

next up thanksgiving at grandma mary's.  you know, we do this almost every year and i'm pretty sure this was the year she called it quits.

appetizer table, pretty sparse...

noticeably missing: chicken chili and dorritos... don't event get me started.

also missing: weird flavored flat sodas.  something is up!

also, this one was kind of a surprise... dinner was no where close to ready when we showed up.  so time for portraits to kill time.

my favorite part of this picture?  that pomeranians and jesus have the same level of prominence at grandma's house.

pyramid of hungry guests.

 david2 and mae conversandan en espanol.  grandma scootin' around getting in someone's way and tara trying to keep that broccoli casserole warm.

my favorite matching newlyweds + mikey

 finally after hours of waiting grandma's turkey looked done enough for her to believe we could start eating (surprise surprise, you have to turn your oven on for it to get hot?!)  luckily my mom prepped an 18lb turkey breast so we at least had some turkey to eat.

i'm pretty sure the girls are trying to figure out which gravy was safe to eat... you never know when there are two different dishes of gravy...

carma went all out and out did herself this year with 2 different cranberry offerings to choose from.  we're all just glad she's off her crazy diet from last year.  that pumpkin weight watchers 0 points trifle was a disaster!  way to go for full sugared jello and marshmallows!  these were keepers..

and mom's fruit salad was a masterpiece as usual.  she really fancied it up with some pomegranate seeds.  the seeds also were the reason for tyler's 4 outfit changes before we even left the house.

grazin'

of course we had our regular hilarious dinner conversations.  nothing quite like thanksgiving at grandma's.

i can barely remember friday!  all i know is we ate a lot and we did 0 damage to our credit cards.

first stop was an 8am soccer game for tyler, i was the only one awake, so i went with my mom while david was visiting with our nielsen grandparents.

then when everyone woke up it was time for lunch at lucielle's (david2's fav).

group shot!

tyler looks pretty stoked for some pre-game tri-tip

andie and brent... maybe he'll order better next time?  who gets the hot link platter?!  srsly.

birthday buddies!

tyler lovin' on some ribs, andie is still looking homeless and brent is really hating trying to choke down his nasty order.

sisterz.

couples!

it must be a hansen thing.

then we walked around to all the best shops lbtc has to offer.  not shockingly, we came home empty handed.  but i applaud anyone who found something worth waiting in the hour line to save $4 on. 

ambie and i did find some shorts that were definitely worth trying on.

just some sisters sharing shorts

we even got them buttoned and zipped.  i hope whoever fits in these shorts never buys shorts.

of course it was time to get in the christmas spirit with thanksgiving over, so we headed to not one, but two christmas tree lots to pick out the tree of mom's dreams.

i'm not even sure if this is the tree we bought.

the whole gang headed to tyler's next turkey tourney game.  it was a nail biter and brent was doing his best coach taylor impersonation while we were all screaming and jumping up and down.  so fun!

 of course our fun was put on hold when grandma called us and let us know she had fallen down.  bummer, wish i had some pics of this though... but that just seems disrespectful.  we left my mom to handle that one and headed to the airport to pic up dave and made a b-line for cafe rio!

andie kind of looking like a character from oliver twist...

these guys love their queso

cafe rio cuties

david still hates pics.

the next morning it was time for another early soccer game.  andie, brent and i went to this one with my mom.  this one was rough... pretty sure we lost it, but it didn't matter because blue crush was already on their way to the finals.

soccer mom, ghost of christmas future.

we swung by chik-fil-a on the way home from the game so tyler could re-fuel.  dropped him off, picked up and amber and david and headed to irving spectrum for a little birthday shopping and fun for amber. it was definitely speed shopping because we had a few other places to get to.

namely, lawry's carvery for birthday lunch!  so delicious.

nothing like begging for pickles.  what?

then we headed over to godiva for some birthday decadences and pictures by south coast plaza's poinsettia christmas tree.

best chocolate shake ever.

just the girls.

pics by another christmas tree.

smiling with no teeth.

hating every second of the picture taking.

then it was off to airport to head back to milwaukee.  when we arrived we slept for like 15hrs straight to try to make up some of the sleepless nights.