Christmas Toys and Christmas Joys

December has been a month of pure joy!!  The kids have their Christmas Lists written and mailed off to Santa :) and Hailey's Birthday came and she turned 10 years old!!

 Our cute little Elf, Herbie, left a pretty nightgown for Hailey!!  (she really never wore it though :(

 Spencer had a choir concert at South Valley Jr. High and he did an awesome job!  He loves to sing and has such personality when he performs!

 Here he is with his friend, Conner Prusse.

My mother flew in early to be with us which was so much fun!  We performed together at a Christmas Nativity Festival put on by another stake.  She and I did our organ/piano duet "Joy to the World" and it was so beautiful.  Tom sang some gorgeous songs and it was just an incredible way to start the holidays!

 Hailey had her choir concert and she too, did an amazing job!  Her choir is the Gilbert Youth Choir and we love her director, Rikki Wamsley.  She uses live accompaniment, violins, harpsichord, piano, etc. and her concerts are always first-rate!

 Here is Hailey with her friends Sydney Aker and Isobel Andersen.

 Suzi Everton asked Tom if he would dress up as Darth Vader for her Family Christmas Party.  His costume looked SO real!

 Oh no!  Our elf, Herbie, was naughty and got into the frosting!!!

 We also went to see "A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Theater---a family tradition now that we love!

 Grandma Marshall and Hailey love putting puzzles together.  They worked on this one for a while!

 We even got to hear Hailey's class presentation.  Doesn't my mom look pretty?  She just got her hair done and I think she looks so pretty!  Three generations all together . . . pretty cool!

 Hailey celebrated her birthday at Polar Ice this year!  We all went out and skated and it was so much fun!

It's Christmas Night and the kids are all playing with their toys (well, Kelsey is sleeping because she has to be at work by 7:45 a.m. tomorrow morning).  What a glorious day we had here in the Chamberlain home!  It all started with a peek and a run across the balcony to see what Santa brought followed by a short devotional about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  After our family gathered for prayer, Hailey said, "Well, there HAS to be Christmas music playing before we run downstairs, dad!"  So, Tom quickly ran and got the music playing for the grand entrance down the stairs!

Santa left some AMAZING toys and clothes for these kids!  The living room was filled to the brim with presents and we all felt so blessed to be together and live such a comfortable life.  Some of the big presents were Spencer getting a tennis ball machine, Hailey got a bike that was way too big for her, and Kelsey got a nice TV for her future college apartment.  The kids got presents for us and each other and that is always fun to watch when they get excited about giving.  I wrote the children and Tom a letter about what "I Love . . ." about each person.  They all read their letters aloud to each other and that was a really special moment in the day for them and me.  I gave them each a Gilbert Temple pin along with the letter to remember it by.

After breakfast we had more present opening.  We got done around noon and then enjoyed playing with all of our toys and reading some books we got.  Tom had fun putting together his drone, which I'm sure we will fly around tomorrow!  Hailey got a vespa scooter, Spencer his x-box one (finally!) along with Star Wars Battlefront, and Kelsey got a beautiful 14K heart necklace and Nikon lens which she really loved.  Gifts were in abundance and so were the smiles!!

Around 2:30 we ran over to the Peterson's home to say hello to Keaton on his mission in Peru.  He looked so happy and super shocked to hear Spencer's voice SO low!  Then at 3:00 we got an email that Kohler was on the computer ready to go so we got the computer all set up and were able to talk with him.  THAT has been the highlight of my Christmas both last year and this year.  He smiled with that infectious smile of his and was so much fun to talk to!  Yes, I cried once, telling him how proud I was of him and how much I loved him.  He told us that he appreciate our support and love and that it meant so much to him.  He said he felt the "Lord had his back" in all that he did and that he has seen people change in ways that he can't even describe.  We all could tell that he wanted to say more but had his companion right there along with a member of the church wandering in and out of the room so it wasn't as personal as other phone calls have been.  But, he did tell us that his release date is June 21 and he really wants us to come and pick him up in Argentina so we will definitely do that.  My mom and dad were in town for Christmas so they were able to come over from MaryKay's home to talk to him today.  His face lit up when he saw them come through the door!  It was really cute to watch!  I am so thankful that my father served a mission as well as my husband so that they could both give him advice and counsel from their experiences.  I loved talking with him and can't believe it will be another 5 more months until I can talk to him again.  He has been out 541 days and has 178 left.  Only for the Lord would I give up my precious child for that long.  It's a sacrifice that brings forth incredible blessings!

After the Skype call, we ate more holiday junk food and played more with games.  At night, we watched the new Cinderella movie which I slept through most of it because I am exhausted.  The family room is cluttered with presents and toys still and I actually love it that way.  Tomorrow we will clean it up but for now, it stays messy.  It's been a fabulous Christmas and I'm forever grateful for the blessings of health, my testimony, and my family.  Thank you 2015 for being such an inspirational year!

Book Launch and Christmas Around the World

 Early in December, I flew up to Utah to meet with some of my favorite people, my folk dance peeps!  Ed and Vickie Austin, my artistic director and his wife, Jeanette Geslison (current director) and my good friend who performed/toured with me back in the day (we also went to graduate school together) and her husband Mark, then Brent and Maria Lewis (the past alumni president).  Ed offered me the position of alumni president and I gladly accepted.  Even though I am Relief Society President, and was nervous about taking on such a huge responsibility, I called my mom and she gave me the great advice to accept the position because if I wait too much longer, the people I danced with may be retired and new folks may come in who don't know me at all.  It was great advice, because little did my mother know that in just a few months I would be released from being RS President due to a ward boundary change and this new position would fill that void for me.

That week I also got together with my friend from my childhood, Cinda Callister Taylor.  It was so much fun to connect with her and catch up on our kids.  She has a son serving a mission in Bolivia and I have a son serving a mission in Argentina.  She is so sweet and it was a lot of fun for me to have lunch and talk about our families together.  

After lunch, I headed over to my brother's house to pick up my books that were shipped there.  It was the first time I was able to see the book in its final form and boy, was I SO happy!  This is a book that took me over 8 years to write and publish.  Now to have it in my hands was pure joy!

 Tom flew up a few days later with the kids and we were able to go see our house that was being built in Draper.  It had windows which was awesome!!  We played the "elimination game" to see which carpet we would decide on.  We wanted something that would wear well and not show a lot of dirt.

 As a family, we wanted to write on the "bones" of the house, the framing, and leave our testimony, happy thoughts, anything we wanted to write on the very core of the home, hoping that this place will be a source of great joy to our family for many years to come.

 After, we headed down to California Pizza Kitchen to meet my brother Steve and his cute family for dinner.  It was so fun for us to see their little girls!

After dinner we headed over to the Marriott Center to meet Ann Christensen and her husband, Eric.  Ann is my dear friend and illustrator of the book and as soon as I saw her we just burst into tears and hugged each other!!

 We couldn't stop staring at the book and how pretty it was!  It was like magic how it all came together.  It all started in 2013 with me finding her book "When I Serve a Mission, Where in the World Will I Go?" at Sam's Club.  I bought it for $10.00 because I liked the title and the illustrations were really cute.  When I came home, I googled her name and found her greeting card business online with a contact email.  I had the great idea to ask her if she would be willing to illustrate my children's book.  When I got her enthusiastic response back with a request to call her I couldn't believe it! I immediately phoned her and we talked for over 1 hour!  She then told me that she was a folk dancer herself about 8 years before me!  She had worn most of the costumes I had written about in my book and knew many of the dance steps and movements.  Her knowledge and experience on the team became absolutely invaluable!  We had so many things in common and we both knew that Heavenly Father had led us to each other.

 My kids were SO supportive of me!  They would walk up and down the concourse reading the book and saying, "Wow, this is such a great book" out loud for others to hear.  We sold 130 books that weekend!

 It was such a cool experience to be able to sign books for people.  They were all very kind and had nice things to say about the book---many bought multiple books for their grandkids!

 This guy was my very first folk dance partner in 10RB.  His name is Ken Richardson and it was SO fun to see him there at the alumni reunion!

 Of course, Mary Bee Jensen came and Ann and I were thrilled we were able to show her the book.  She especially loved the American page with her portrayed as the square dance caller, red boots and ALL!

 Mary Bee is turning 99 years old this May and what a treat it was for us to present a book to her!

(Here is my pallet of books that we get to store in our garage . . . somewhere?!)