Grandkids are the best gift at Christmas

Christmas Traditions

I have some fond memories of some of our family traditions. Staying up on Christmas Eve to open our presents at midnight. Who doesn't like staying up all night to open their gifts, anyone, anyone?....

Our mom would make us our Christmas stockings filled with treats and oranges, and nuts, we loved it! I also remember being in the kitchen making tamales with mom, my sisters, and any other woman in the house. We would all have our jobs, pressing the masa, filling it with meat, wrapping it up and putting it in the pot. But my favorite was all the talking and singing and dancing. It was so much fun.

Since becoming a mom I have my own traditions that I have started. Now because it is so time consuming I have not picked up on the tamale making and my kids let me know they are not happy with that. Oh well, what can I say...

I did stockings a little different, I put cute little gifts in them and had our kids open them up on Christmas Eve. I would also usually buy a game and that would be the one gift they could open Christmas Eve as well, and we would play that night, so fun.

One tradition that I enjoy is finding new ornaments for the tree. I like to add something new, so every year I pick something out that might have special meaning to us.
I also love that Sky and Solee contribute to our growing ornaments, for they send us something homemade, and I love it! Thanks Wendy and Malen for that gift.

I hope now that our children are grown with their own families that they will find their own traditions to add to our families.

Though this past month has been pretty stressful, I love this time of year. I am reminded why we celebrate Christmas. Our Savior's birth...

I hope that with all the stress of shopping, driving in this awful traffic, wrapping that last gift, or forgetting to eat cause we were just too busy, that we take some time to reflect what this season is really about. The love, the joy, the peace...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Take me as I am or not, I can only be me...

I find that I still have to fight to be who I am. There are some who don't try to even get to know me, not the person they see in front of them. But the woman I really am. I guess that is why I relate to this song so much.

Anita


Take Me As I Am lyrics
Mary J. Blige


[Verse 1:]
She's been down and out
She's been wrote about
She's been talked about, constantly
She's been up and down
She's been pushed around
But they held her down, NYC
She has no regrets
She accepts the past
All these things they
helped make to make she
She's been lost and found
And she's still around
There's a reason for everything

You know I've been holdin on.
Try to make me weak,
But I still stay strong.
Put my life all up in these songs
Jus so you can feel me.
so you can get the real me

[Chorus:]
So take me as I am,
or have nothing at all.
Just take me as I am,
or have nothing at all.

[Verse 2:]
Now she's older now
Yes, she's wiser now
Can't disguise her now
She don't need
No one tellin her
What to do and say
No one tellin her
Who to be
She's on solid ground
She's been lost and found
Now, she answers to G-O-D
And she's confident
This is not the end
Ask me how I know
Cause she is me.

You know I've been holdin on.
Try to make me weak,
But I still stay strong.
Put my life all up in these songs
Jus so you can feel me.
so you can get the real me

[Chorus:]
So take me as I am,
or have nothing at all.
Just take me as I am,
or have nothing at all.

[Bridge: 2x]
So it's all or nothing at all,
All or nothing at all
Don't you know I can only be me.
(I can only be me, yeah)

[Chorus:]
So take me as I am,
or have nothing at all.
Just take me as I am,
or have nothing at all.

Take me as I am.
Take me as I am.
Said it's all or nothing at all
Said it's all or nothing at all

Just take me as I am,
or have nothing at all. (This is me)
Just take me as I am, (take me as i am)
or have nothing at all.
Just take me as I am, (take me as i am)
or have nothing, nothing at all.
Take me as I am.


Found here:
http://www.elyrics.net/read/m/mary-j.-blige-lyrics/take-me-as-i-am-lyrics.html

Puts a smile on my face...

Been Thinking

...about how things can change when you aren't looking. I look in the mirror and see a different woman looking back at me. I have grown and changed so much in such a short time.
I am doing things I have been afraid to do, I am reaching out and finding I don't always fall...
I am learning to be the woman, that Father in Heaven sees in me.

I am realzing that it's okay to fail sometimes. That I don't have to be perfect for you or for me, it's in my failings that I learn and grow.

I am feeling...confident about who I am and what I can do...

Hmmm,what a feeling!

Me

Remembering Brave Women

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Women's activists have marked November 25 as a day against violence since 1981. On December 17, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Resolution 54/134). The UN invited governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize activities designated to raise public awareness of the problem on this day as an international observance. Women around the world are subject to rape, domestic violence and other forms of violence, and the scale and true nature of the issue is often hidden.

This date came from the brutal assassination in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961). After the assasination of these 3 women, a revolution started from the village which then made Rafeal Trujillo turn over his power and resign by giving it to his brother.

There is more information about the history of this day, and UN publications relating to violence against women, at the UN's Dag Hammarskjöld Library. The UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) also has a regular observance of the day, and offers suggestions for others to observe it.


Information used from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_to_Eliminate_Violence_Against_Women

I Am Thankful...

I am thankful for a home that keeps me warm, and provides shelter and comfort.
I am thankful for a working car that gets from one place to the next in style.
I am thankful for a loving and hard-working husband who has a job and provides for the comforts of our home.
I am thankful for my amazing family who seem to challenge me at every turn. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I am thankful for old friends who know me and still love me.
I am thankful for new friends who support me and are willing to extend themselves.
I am thankful for my daughter's who bring laughter, love, and their own talents and gifts to our diverse family.
I am thankful for a son who served his country and can now take advantage of going to school and continually grows.
I am thankful for my daughter-in-law, Emily, who loves and supports Christopher.
I am thankful to my son-in-laws who love my daughters, who cherish, who cares for them, and nurishes their talents.
I am thankful for my husband who loves me just the way I am, for his support, his kindness, for his generous heart, for just being there when I need him
I am thankful for the gospel in my, it has truly saved my life on numerous occations.
I am thankful to my Father in Heaven who loves and knows who I am.
I am thankful to my Savior who died for me, who comforts me, who loves me.
I am thankful for a Prophet who guides and councels us in these trying times.
I am thankful for the scriptures in my life and the comforting wisdom they provide.
I am thankful for the temples, I am thankful for the peace I feel within those walls.
I am thankful for my life, I have an amazing life, I have so much to be thankful for not just today, but everyday, not just during this time of year, but all year round.I know some people might think I don't have much of life, but I have what is most important to me, and that is all that truly matters.

Let's try to remember that there are those out there who have less. Those who have nothing.
This year the Food Bank has had less donations than ever before. There are more people out there who need their servies more than ever. And most of these families have small children to care for, to feed, and no means to do it.
I hope that despite what our country is going through, economically and otherwise we will remember there are still families out there who still need our help. Please remember to donate what you can in your area.

What’s in It for Me?
President James E. Faust
Second Counselor in the First Presidency

Excerts from this talk:


I have learned that selfishness has more to do with how we feel about our possessions than how much we have. The poet Wordsworth said, “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” A poor man can be selfish and a rich man generous, but a person obsessed only with getting will have a hard time finding peace in this life.

Elder William R. Bradford once said: “Of all influences that cause men to choose wrong, selfishness is undoubtedly the strongest. Where there is selfishness, the Spirit of the Lord is absent. Talents go unshared, the needs of the poor unfulfilled, the weak unstrengthened, the ignorant untaught, and the lost unrecovered.”

I recently spoke with one of the most generous people I have ever known. I asked him to describe the feelings of fulfillment that have come because of his generosity. He spoke about the feeling of joy and happiness in one’s heart from sharing with others less fortunate. He stated that nothing is really his—it all comes from the Lord—we are only the custodians of what He has given us. As the Lord said to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “All these things are mine, and ye are my stewards.” 8

Sometimes it is easy for us to forget that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” 9 The Savior warned us, as recorded in the book of Luke: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

On September 11, 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were hit by terrorist-controlled airliners that caused both towers to collapse. Thousands of people were killed. Out of this tragedy have come hundreds of stories of courageous, unselfish acts. One very poignant and heroic account is the Washington Post’s story of retired army Colonel Cyril “Rick” Rescorla, who was working as vice president for corporate security of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

Rick was a very experienced ex-military combat leader. He was in his office when “the first plane struck the north tower at 8:48 a.m. … He took a call from the 71st floor reporting the fireball in One World Trade Center, and he immediately ordered an evacuation of all 2,700 employees in Building Two,” as well as 1,000 more in Building Five. Using his bullhorn, he moved up the floors, working through a bottleneck on the 44th and going as high as the 72nd, helping to evacuate the people from each floor. One friend who saw Rick reassuring people in the 10th-floor stairwell told him, “Rick, you’ve got to get out, too.”

“As soon as I make sure everyone else is out,” he replied.

“He was not rattled at all. He was putting the lives of his colleagues ahead of his own.” He called headquarters to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.

His wife had watched the United Airlines jet go through his tower. “After a while, her phone rang. It was Rick.

“ ‘I don’t want you to cry,’ he said. ‘I have to evacuate my people now.’

“She kept sobbing.

“ ‘If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life.’

“The phone went dead.” Rick did not make it out.

“Morgan Stanley lost only six of its 2,700 employees in the south tower on Sept. 11, an isolated miracle amid the carnage. And company officials say Rescorla deserves most of the credit. He drew up the evacuation plan. He hustled his colleagues to safety. And then he apparently went back into the inferno to search for stragglers. He was the last man out of the south tower after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and no one seems to doubt that he would’ve been again last month if the skyscraper hadn’t collapsed on him first.”

Amid the great evil and carnage of September 11, 2001, Rick was not looking for what might be in it for him; instead he was unselfishly thinking about others and the danger they were in. Rick Rescorla was the “right man in the right place at the right time.” Rick, “a 62-year-old mountain of a man cooly [sacrificed] his life for others.” 20 As the Savior Himself said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” 21

Most of us don’t demonstrate our unselfishness in such a dramatic way, but for each of us unselfishness can mean being the right person at the right time in the right place to render service. Almost every day brings opportunities to perform unselfish acts for others. Such acts are unlimited and can be as simple as a kind word, a helping hand, or a gracious smile.

The Savior reminds us, “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” 22 One of life’s paradoxes is that a person who approaches everything with a what’s-in-it-for-me attitude may acquire money, property, and land, but in the end will lose the fulfillment and the happiness that a person enjoys who shares his talents and gifts generously with others.

I wish to testify that the greatest fulfilling service to be rendered by any of us is in the service of the Master. In the various pursuits of my life, none has been as rewarding or beneficial as responding to the calls for service in this Church. Each has been different. Each one has brought a separate blessing. The greatest fulfillment in life comes by rendering service to others, and not being obsessed with “what’s in it for me.” Of this I bear witness in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.



http://www.communityactionprovo.org/

Anita

Randomness....

Friends, family, my sweetheart, my girls, rockin' shoes...

Flowers, Sky, new car, me and my sweetie, and Oaklie...

MOTHER

I loved this! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

One of the Many Reasons Why I Love Utah

I was afraid with the weather we've been having I wasn't going to get my favorite kind of photos. I love the colors of fall, when things look like they are on fire, or like a sea of sunshine....

Seriously!.....

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Peeping Tom Alert

This really just pisses me off! We can't even try on cute clothes without the fear of being violated! AGH!!!

Whip It

Tiffany and I saw this movie this afternoon. It was so good! I loved it! It was so fun to watch, it was funny, and moving. Relationships between mothers and daughters can be so complicated, but it doesn't have to be.

Lee's Twin/ Photo Update

I kid you not, the actor they have chosen for "Where the Wild Things Are" seriously looks like Lee when he was young. I will have to find a photo so you can compare. Can't wait for this movie to come out, I loved the book.


This was the only photo I could find of Lee that comes close...What do you think?

Just Because

I really enjoyed playing with the apeture settings...

Nebo Loop

Lee and I had a wonderful time Saturday on our ride up Nebo Loop. It was so beautiful and nice and cool.
We also saw a fire up Spanish Fork Canyon.

Family

Misty, baby, and country fair...

Bev and dad got a new little puppy, Misty, she is actually really sweet and Oaklie was a little ticked off about some new pup in her territory...you had to be there...Lee and I were laughing so hard, too cute

Our friends Cambell and Rebecca had their sweet little boy, Grant Wesley Christensen. He is such a good baby, and his mom and dad are such good an loving parents, we love them a lot.

Our stake put on a Stake Country Fair for preparedness this year. It was a lot of fun. There was homemade Rootbeer, that Lee, my husband made, people submitted pies to be judged, that I got to dish up, the Key Lime was my favorite. There was homemade ice cream, popcorn, watermelon, dutch oven cooking. There was so much to see and do. It was a ton of fun...