This Week at Our House #52

Well, we had Christmas and an enjoyable week of school off. It was cold, but we got the trampoline set up and the kids have been enjoying that a lot. We read together, played games, cleaned, baked, drew, and colored and just enjoyed our last week of our winter break. It's back to school on Tuesday.

We took down the Christmas decorations on Thursday. After everything was done and cleaned up, I sat next to Kate on the couch. Sam walked by, walked into the corner that had the Christmas tree, came out, got our attention and pointed directly to the place where the Christmas tree stood and babbled something in a very questioning tone. It was very cute. He was definitely confused about what happened to the tree. John too, has said more than once that he likes the house better with the Christmas decorations. I suppose it does seem kind of bare now.

Another time this week, I heard Susan and Arwen talking together. Susan disagreed with something Arwen said, so Suzy said, "You are bad, Arwen." Arwen simply replied, "I know I am not bad because mom never says it."

Kate recorded these fun interactions she had with Arwen:
"Arwen recounted the tale of the time that Josh was a little baby and she took care of him and kissed him. When we laughed at her for being younger than Joshua, she change the story to her being the baby. When I asked her if she liked Joshua, she blushed and said, 'Yeah' shyly, 'That's why I kiss him sometimes.' Kids are really fun.

She also asked me if I remember the book I got for Christmas. I asked her if she meant this Christmas or last Christmas. She responded, 'No not last Christmas, there is no last Christmas, there will still be more Christmases!'"
And one more cute story: Susan called Joshua bad. Arwen said that she likes Joshua and Joshua is not bad. I asked Arwen if Joshua was her good friend and she said yes and that she loves Joshua and wants to marry him. but Joshua doesn't want her.

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Stories From Ruth #15

First off: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior! Well this week we had Michael's baptism and confirmation! After three years of investigating the church he finally got baptized! He is going to do so much good! I am so happy for him! I feel blessed that the Lord allowed me to be here at this time to see it. So although it didn't snow here in England it was still a white christmas! This week we had dinner appointments almost every night which was a blessing. We had a lot of minced pies which in England mostly are fruit. They are good with cream. In England they eat everything with fresh cream poured onto it. Every dessert (they call it pudding) they eat with either cream or custard. 

I had the worst and best tracting experience this week. We arrived in Hemel for a dinner appointment an hour early, and decide to tract around the area. We began to knock doors and about the fifth door down we heard a dog. It rammed the door barking madly. Sister Nunes panicked and I was almost excited. I thought getting chased by a dog is something that hasn't happened in my mission and would be a fun story. The owner came and stopped the door. We told him we were missionaries and tried to hand him a card to make our escape from the dog. As we were handing him the card he slipped outside. He was an older man and he smelt drunk. Not to mention he acted drunk. Immediately he began to flirt with me. "Do you like older men?" No. "Do you like gingers?" NO. "I think me and this girl have a special connection." NO! We! And then he hugged me! Ah! I told him no and I tried to move away but he just grabbed me! Gr... We moved as quickly and as angrily as we could from that house across the street. While knocking doors we met this older man and he said he believes in the bible but wouldn't define himself with all the Christians. He then began to tell us what he believed which was exactly what we believe. We testified to him and gave him a pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. He gave us a family card with his number, address, and the name of all his children. Then we called him the next day, but he hadn't read so we agreed to call another day. The every next day he texted said he was reading and would love to talk to us! Yeah! That was a wonderful miracle!

I just got news that Elder Friatag from my district is moving to my old area. It is really sad. He is just like my little brother Johnny, and looks like him too. Haha. Anyway he will say hello to everyone in Cambridge and Bury for me! 

Thank you everyone for Christmas! I love you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We spend our Christmas at Sister Ling who gave us Chinese food and at the Baron's, who is the senior couple here in Watford. It was a really good day and I loved the food. Today or what is known as Boxing Day we went to the Bettridge's and they have one of the biggest houses I have ever been in. It was gorgeous and we had so much food! Bacon  (real bacon!) And crepes with nutella, croissants, sausages, melon, and mushrooms! It was the best Christmas/Boxing Day breakfast ever!  

Christmas 2017

Christmas Eve: Shepherd's Dinner

 We had our traditional Shepherd's dinner on Christmas Eve this year. The original plan was to have a bon fire and have the dinner outside under the star light, but the boys discovered a large fire ants nest inside our fire pit and it rained all day Christmas Eve. We had the dinner inside.

 We had a rosemary lamb roast, homemade naan bread and hummus, olives and pomegranates. We eat these traditional middle eastern foods while reading the account of the Savior's birth in Luke 2 and singing carols.

 Some friends blessed our family with money to buy Christmas presents this year. We used some of the money for essential items, but most went to providing Christmas presents for our kids. Here they are all wrapped and under the tree. The box in front was John's wrapping job. We wrapped on Christmas eve this year, after the little ones went to bed.

 

Christmas Morning

 As usual, the kids woke us up at 7am. We went out together and they opened their stockings.

 Rachel got to open the first gift this year. 

 This is a lego ship Johnny built for Joshua.

 Rachel handed out the lego creations she had made for everyone.

 She did a good job. This is a house she built for Arwen and a car she built for Joshua. 

 Most of the kids got one big-ish present. Rachel and Anya each got a lego set. They were very happy about them and have been shut in their room building and playing since.

 The little kids got more presents because they like inexpensive things such as crayons and dolls. They were happy too.

 Sam really liked his new pacifier clips.

A Christmas Highlight

 Later on in the day, we got to have a skype conversation with Ruth. She looks lovely, and sounds very happy. I loved seeing her and watching her move around and talk and tell us about her mission and England. She got a Chinese dinner lunch from a sister from Mongolia. Ruth loves Asian food the most and she said it was really good. Then she went to the couple missionaries apartment for a meal and to make the calls home. Ruth's companion came in to see all the kids. I think we are a bit of a novelty. We had already had a fancy breakfast of crepes, strawberries, and bacon. The kids taunted Ruth and she was a little jealous of that. But...

We got an email from Ruth the day after Christmas. She was invited over for a Boxing day breakfast and had crepes and strawberries and real bacon!!! (Apparently, most of the bacon in the UK is Canadian bacon which tastes like ham.)

All in all, I think we had a very Merry Christmas full of many blessings and tender mercies.

This Week at Our House # 51

1. John ordered all the Christmas presents except for the 3 youngest. I took care of those.
2. We went to my parents on Friday. They had a bunch of presents wrapped beautifully and waiting for our kids. They also got a trampoline for the kids. They will love that and use everyday. Earlier in the year they asked me when they would get a new trampoline and I said not until after we move, so probably for Christmas. Then John did not find employment in time, so I thought they would not get that. 
3. Ruth is calling tomorrow!!!! We will have to have skype up on our computer. I haven't used it for years, so I thought had to re-establish my account.
4. My mom got Kate an ice cream maker and she is looking forward to making some ice cream. I think the rest of us are looking forward to that too.
5. Johnny and Kate were gung ho with missionary work this week. Since we live 40 miles away from the majority of our ward, there haven't been any missionaries in this neighborhood. So for several days, Johnny made cookies and brought cookies and Books of Mormon to the neighbors. They even went in to someone's home and had a religious conversation. 
6. Adam got a basketball and we have a good basketball hoop. He and I have already used it. We look forward to using it together.
7. Rachel spends most of her days building legos. I think she will be sad when school starts back again and she does not have the time that she has now.
8. Anya stayed with Rachel building legos most of her time. I really didn't feel like I has seen them much this past week because they were shut up in their room so much.
9. Joseph couldn't sleep much of the week. After one night of him waking me up four times between midnight and 3:30am, I decided that after that he would have to do school work and scripture memorization if he was up past midnight. He stayed in his room and went to sleep both nights after that.
10. Joshua was very excited when I brought him in to wrap the presents he made. I think he thought, I would not do so. He did a very good job at making his presents. They are actually pretty nice.
11. Arwen loves Rachel. One day this week, we saw her crying and she said it was because Rachel would not play with her. Another time, we were outside playing and someone came and told her that Rachel wanted her, so she dropped what she was doing and excitedly said, "Rachel wants me!"
12. We went to the ward Christmas party, and Susan went to see Santa. When he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she said, "I want Christmas."
13. Something is bothering Sam. He was quite fussy and clingy most of the week. Sometimes when I held him, he would just scream and not be comforted. Hopefully, it is just his teeth.

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