Daily Tender Mercies

Wow, I have a minutes to write until the year is officially over. I didn’t really make plans to stay up for New Year’s… it just sort of happened. We went to Rachel’s parents tonight. I was going to back up and reformat Ken’s computer, but I had some problems with the back-ups and so I’ll have to finish tomorrow. Rachel and I spent about an hour going over the budget and paying some bills. I’ve been concerned with how much we’ve been spnding on our new house and for Christmas, but after doing the budget, it seems things are not as bad as I thought they were, and that was certainly a relief.

Nolan has learned to kiss. It’s pretty funny. As we are watching TV, he’ll run up to us and give us a smacker, then run away. Sometimes (mostly with Rachel) they are a big open mouth kiss. It’s pretty cute. It’s also funny that it has to be on the lips. He will hold your head in his hands until he can get you right on the mouth.

We had a fun family night tonight. After dinner we had a brief lesson about what to do when we get paid, now that the kids are getting paid for doing certain chores. We taught them to give 10% for tithing, put 10% in savings (for mission or college), and the other 80% is theirs to spend. I don’t think they really get the math, but hopefully they get the principle and they will catch on as we continue to do this week after week.

After our church today I drove to our old ward to hear Sam Fallows speak. He was a young man we taught in Sunday school. He had just returned from his mission in Brazil. It was a very good talk. I enjoyed being there. It still feels more like home than our new ward. I miss the old ward already. I hope I come to love our new ward as much as I love the old ward. Those that I talked with were very friendly. One man that I home taught came and said hi, and that he missed me. It felt good to hear.

We had a party with Rachel’s friends tonight. We were having a good time playing rock bank. Rachel was singing (don’t ask me how they convinced her) and I was playing guitar, when the game was paused because our friends child was hurt and Gehrig was getting hysterical because he got in trouble. I couldn’t calm him down to even talk to him, so we just had to leave and I just put in him the car. When we all got in the car Gracie asked if we could say a prayer. So she said a prayer. Gehrig kept screaming half the way home. When we finally got home and got his pajamas on he started talking to us. We still don’t know for sure what happened, but he said he was playing airplanes and that is how he got hurt. Once he was settled down he was very sweet. It’s amazing at how his temperament can change so suddenly. I’m glad that he was able to settle down and talk with us and I hope our friends son is okay. He had a pretty good goose-egg and cut on his forehead.

Even though it is not a holiday in the USA, we celebrated boxing day today. That is, we took down and boxed up all our Christmas decorations. It seems we also spent a good deal of the day shoveling snow. I’m afraid I might have a sore back in the morning!

Later in the afternoon we went outside and went sledding. We are pretty luck to have a pretty good sledding hill in our front yard. Chris, Emily and Brielle came over. Chris and Brielle went sledding with us. We eventually came back in for some hot chocolate. We then played a board game with Chris and Emily. It was a game I learned to play yesterday called “Ticket to Ride”. It was a lot more fun today because I actually won.

After they left we put Nolan to bed and we watched The Princess Bride with Gracie and Gehrig. Gehrig got it for me for Christmas. That is my all-time favorite movie. I was surprised that Gracie and Gehrig sat and watched the whole thing.

It was a fun Christmas morning. The kids loved the new bikes that Santa brought – especially Gehrig. He wanted to put all his snow clothes on so he could go outside and ride it. We probably have about 18 inches out there right now.

We spent the day at Ken & Laura’s house. We played a few games and ate a lot of good food. It was a fun day.

I wasn’t feeling very well today. I didn’t sleep well because of stomach pains. I woke up around 4:00, still quite tired, but unable to sleep. I think I had a stomache flu. I was pretty nausiaus all day. Rachel went over to her mom’s house around noon and was there until about 6:00 helping her bake all sorts of cookies. Once she got home she said her dad was putting together some bicycles, so I went to help out. He said he heard that I was home sick and taking care of kids so he thought he’d try to help me out. It certainly was nice to have him do it. He was practically done when I got there.

I am so glad that Rachel has the tradition of leaving cookies and milk for Santa and has passed it on to our kids. Because I’m quite certain that Santa enjoyed the cookies and milk

We had a family party of sorts again tonight. This time it was with my mom and Harvey and his kids. We had a room reserved at Red Robin. I’m sure we got a discount because that is where Alex works. It was a fun night. It was especially nice having that room so the kids could run around without disturbing everyone else.

Last night Rachel created some chore charts for the kids. This morning when I came up for lunch Gehrig said, “Dad, come look on my door!” I didn’t bother going there and just said “what is it?” He said, “I did my jobs. Mommy was so proud of me!”

It was a pretty fun day. It snowed all day long! I took a break in the afternoon to help Rachel finish shoveling. When Gehrig and Gracie were playing in the snow while she was shoveling. After we go done I went sledding down the hill in our yard a few times with Gehrig. When we got done. Gehrig said, “I had such a fun day, Daddy!”

For family home evening, Rachel made a cake and we celebrated Jesus’ birthday and talked about the nativity. We then finished the night off by watching Polar Express. I love the holiday season. I can’t believe it is almost over.