Forgotten... ?

Oh now don't let the title worry you, it is not me who is forgotten.

Well, in fact we should worry.. The person I am talking about is Jesus Christ.

I respect people and their choices in religion and non religion, but I would like respect for mine as well.

Now Christmas has become more and more commercialized.

we want this and that... people competing for the best gift to give or receive.

Now I am not saying I am not one of those people.. I LOVE Shiny new toys and presents.

But what I am saying is less and less do we hear about why we celebrate this time of year.

It doesn't matter that the reason is in the name itself.

What Christ came to earth for and died for way back 2000+ years ago are the same reasons today.

He didn't do just for them.. but for us too.

I guess that is why I can't stand seeing people put up signs, or write down X-mas.

They have literally just crossed Christ out of Christmas.

Now maybe it is just me... we all know I have these crazy strong opinions,

but that seems a lot like people are disrespecting my religious beliefs, and many others too.

I also understand there are many religions that don't.

However the big difference is I am not out advertising to the whole world my lack of respect for your religion.

Maybe they don't even mean too.. how many of those that believe write down "Merry X-mas!" in your cards because you in a hurry?

Anyways, I am raising my kids to remember why we celebrate this time of year.

A few years back we had a relief society get together where they introduced me to the Little White Stocking.

How small and precious it seemed, and simple... what could be more simple.

Here is the poem that I received at that same time:

THE WHITE STOCKING

It wasn't that anyone had really been forgotten,

no children had been slighted or made unhappy and

no adult had been left unremembered.

The presents had all been distributed and all the stockings

were beautifully filled, all that is except one;

It was the stocking intended for the child of Bethlehem.

Of all the people belonging at that Christmas gathering,

only he had been forgotten.

Only he had been left out of the festivities.

This didn't seem quite right,

inasmuch as it was His birthday that was being celebrated.

This year, the little white stocking

will be hung in a special place in our home.

On Christmas Eve, we will gather the family together

And each of us will write on a piece of paper,

A gift for Jesus to be placed in the stocking.

It will remain in the stocking

Until next year's Christmas Eve,

When we will reach into the stocking

and pass out the papers from the year before.

We hope that you will enjoy beginning this

Holiday tradition in your home.

We started up this tradition that year and have done it ever since.

It reminds the kids what we celebrate the season for and to be kind to each other.

Not because you won't get your gift from Santa but because Love is the best gift you can give anyone.

It is amazing how much that has helped change their focus.

Oh don't get me wrong, my kids still ask for toys... A LOT of toys,

BUT they also know why we give gifts and that the cost and amount received doesn't matter really.

We also listen to the Forgotten Carols by Michael Mclean.

What a power story and songs to have as a tool to help us remember the real reason for the Christmas season.

I have a few of my favorites that just make me feel better and remind me of the true meaning of the season.

You truly need to listen and everything from the beginning as it is an amazing story that has a stern nurse and crazy old man.

Something for everyone really.

I thought I would end this late night post with a share of one of the songs from The Forgotten Carols.

Check out the other ones as well, but this just goes along with what my little head is not letting me shut down for now.

Here is I Can Not Find My Way. 

The Coat: A Story of Charity

I LOVE this story.. but the non verbal presentation in this video makes the story hit you and you can't help but want to give to others.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!!

Santa Arrives in Style!!

OK first of all I must say that this was the HARDEST secret I have ever had to keep!!

The elementary school that 4 of my kids go to was blessed with a new principal this year.

We are always a little leery when someone new comes in because that means changes and if you have read any of my other posts you know a couple.. ok maybe just one of my kids really don't like change.

Well we really like him!

He is great with all the students and has brought and approved so many wonderful ideas that more and more kids are getting involved with the school activities.

Well at our PAC meeting in October he informs us that he has plans to bring Santa to the school by HELICOPTER!

I guess he use to do it at his old school and the kids loved it so he wanted to do it with ours.

But it had to remain a SURPRISE for them.

Do you have any idea how hard it is NOT to share that kind of exciting news with your kids?

So as a bonus I offered my services to do the photos with Santa after he arrives.

It frees up the teachers to work with the excited kids and I get good experience and possible clients.

So here we are the day of his arrival...

Its a clear but slightly over cast day.

Low to no wind and fresh snow from the night before to create the perfect look.

The kids have just had a very yummy pancake breakfast at the school

and they are lined up out side having no idea WHY they are outside when Santa always just walks into the Gym.

They suspect something but have no idea.

It must be something big because the TV people are there and that is exciting on it's own.

I had arranged for Ben to have the Day off of school so he could help but he first had to go and take a major Chemistry test. He cut it close and as we were waiting he came running across the field.

The minutes tick by...

some are kicking snow..

others are testing the safety rope to see how far they can push it until someone notices...

all wondering what is going to happen.

Then it comes..

faint at first..

then louder..

they all look up and see a helicopter in the distance and think it is cool

It must be headed somewhere exciting.

then they realise it is getting closer..

closer still..

wait a minute it is getting lower too!

Well did you know that almost all kids LOVE Helicopters?

They are excited, this is so cool and then it happens..

Santa leans forward and waves out the front window and kids start SCREAMING!!

Santa is in the HELICOPTER!

It got soo loud!

Then it landed in a cloud of snow and it was hard to see for a minute

As the snow settled everyone watch as one black boot after another stepped out and onto the snow.

Now for even more fun, Santa was not ALONE!!

Who do you think would make such an exciting trip with him?

Why Mrs. Clause of Course!

This was truly an amazing event.

The kids crowded around the visitors as they watched the helicopter take flight again.

Santa was here to stay.

He hugged the kids as they walked into the school to where he would be seated for the next few hours as over 140 family groups of siblings came to have their picture taken with him.

Mrs. Claus stayed for about half the photos but as the Elves like to play and get side tracked really easy and the reindeer needed food she had to head back Home but Santa Stayed to finish out the day.

It was really a day worth Cherishing.

Who knew that Santa could be so cool and I am sure the reindeer enjoyed the extra rest they got for the up coming trip they will be taking in one week.
Check out the local news broadcast about the event and Hope you Holiday is just as exciting.

Christmas Concert 2011

So we had our school Christmas Concert (yes they still call it a Christmas Concert) this past week and I thought I would post the highlights from my crew here for all of you that could not make it.

So please grab a snack and enjoy (in order) Sam, Tommy, Matt, Jordan and Josh in a musical Christmas :)

 

Twilight, The Kitty

So back in July we brought home 3 little kitties from my brothers house.

One was to be my sisters, but she decided that she was unable to care for the little one until her oldest cat passes.

One was to be mine but he got out one night and found the sweetest teenage girls and kept following them. they brought him back but he just loved her. After she fell in love too she called her mom and he went to a new home Happy.

The last one was for Cloe so she had a friend that would grow with her as the older cats we have are not fond of her trying to get them to dress-up or do tea parties. He was named Sir Climbsalot when we got him but she changed it to Twilight... I suspect some influence from her brothers there but his 1 white whisker and 4 strands of white hair on his chest made it so the name fit.

He has quickly grown to be one of the family members and just so darn loved.

He always wants to be arond the action and who didn't want this cute ball of fur purring around them?

He even tried to go to school with the kids on their first day back... I had both a sad kitty and kids when I did the Mommy ogre thing and said no.

He is now almost 6 months old and getting huge... he reminds me of the children's books, Clifford the Big Red Dog... we will have Twilight, the Huge Black Cat.

We have been trying to set up our Christmas tree for almost 2 weeks now and he LOVES it....

Yep Loves it so much that he has broken it. He is so big and heavy that when he climbed the tree he toppled it over and snapped the legs to the stand.

Now I love the kitty, but I think he has hung around my boys too much because he is starting to not listen to me.

We have a few things we are going to try and convince hm that the tree is not for climbing, but in the meantime when you come to visit and you see wires nails from the wall to the tree and no decorations on it.. know that we love our kitty we really do.

Sam's Articles

So today's post is not really mine... Just sharing what Sam wrote for the school newspaper.

Please enjoy these 2 pieces of Sam's Work.

I know I did.

Top 10 Christmas movies according to Harwin students         

Written by Sam Lybbert

With the Christmas break coming up soon I wanted to make a list of movies I wanted Harwin students to check out. I turned it into a survey and these are the top 10 results starting with number 10.

10. The Santa Clause Series

9. Nightmare Before Christmas (This is the one I thought would be number 1!)

8. The Muppet Christmas Carol

7. Elf

6. The Night before Christmas

5. The Polar Express tied with Charlie Brown Christmas (I thought Polar Express would outrank Charlie Brown Christmas!)

4. Snow/Santa Buddies

3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas

2. Shrek the Halls (This one was winning when I got to the 1^st grade class, so I thought it would win or tie with Nightmare Before Christmas!)

1. Home Alone Series

This list surprised me a little but it is still a great list. As a special note to my sister I also recommend checking out Barbie’s a Perfect Christmas, she really loves it. Have a Happy Holiday Season and good movie watching.

 

*************************************************************

Arthur Christmas Movie Review

Written By Sam Lybbert

Did you know that the average size of the elf is 26 inches? Or how about that Santa delivers 2 billion presents in one night? You can find out these things and other stuff when you watch Arthur Christmas. This movie is about Arthur who is one of Santa’s sons who is awkward but lovable. He ends up going on an epic adventure trying to deliver a present that gets left behind. I feel that it is an awesome movie that shows even the clumsiest person can be a hero and everyone should watch it. While you are watching the movie, be on the lookout for these and other fun stuff: narwhals, C.N. tower, a satellite, and an apple core.

I give this movie 4.5 smiley face people out of 5.  AAAAD

Also currently playing at Famous Players 6 Theater

Happy Feet 2, Puss In Boots, The Muppets, Twilight; Breaking Dawn Part 1

Coming this month:

The Adventures of Tintin, Alvin and The Chipmunks; Chipwrecked!,

We Bought a Zoo

And if you are looking for a little something different to munch on while watching the movie I recommend checking out the MiniMelt machine, little dots of

ice-cream goodness.

 

 



Little Drummer Boy

My friend Erin posted on her facebook this morning a video of a young man from Winnipeg singing littler drummer boy.

We clicked on before the kids went to school as a fun way to get the day going.

Well I was expecting a homemade video of an average singer and we could listen and watch once and be on our way...

To our very amazing surprise it was AWESOME!

The kids replayed it so many times that they were almost laste for school.

So I went and paid to have the song added to our Christmas playlist and will surprise them with it when they get home.

Supporting great up and coming talent is important and this guy is worth supporting.

So without anymore from me I present to you one delightful version of Little Drummer Boy.

A Gift to the World

So tonight we enjoyed a Great potluck at the church that lead up to watching the First Presidencies Christmas Devontional.

It was during that always amazing presentation that they shared this beautiful video and I wanted to share it with all of my friends and family as well.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Season.

Faces of the Nativity - A celebration of Jesus Christ

I Love Christmas!

I love the decorations.

I love the warm tastes and smells.

I love the gifts.

But mostly I love the special spirit and feeling that come over so many people around the world.

I get annoyed at people changing things around and taking the reason for the season away.

I may be politically wrong here but really, if it were not for us religious people that celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah and other such things there would not be a "Winter Holiday" so please stop taking it out of the school system and such.

I Love that the school my kids go to still says we are having a Christmas Concert and such.

We don't leave anyone else out but it also keeps us at our roots of why we have this season.

So in helping to keep the Spirit of the Season our Wonderful Church as put together a display that  helps us remember that feeling of peace and love.
We have almost 500 Nativities from all over the world set up for anyone who wants to come and see.
It is free because we don't want to make this feeling something that excludes people.
It has a spiritual reverence about it that bring about the spirit of love and giving.
I used that amazing place to create this years Christmas card picture.
Want to know more about what it or where we are check out our  Facebook Page
And for those who are unable to come due to distance or illness I took a few pictures to share.
Enjoy.

 

Festival of the Trees

So Last week PG started off the Christmas season with their annual Festival of the Trees.

Even though we have lived here for 6 years this is only our second year going to it.

Sam and Jordan volunteered with their leadership group at school 1 day during the week.

I was able to join in with Sam for a while on his day to make sure he would be ok.

He did great during the morning that I was there.

It also meant I got to have some time to check out the displays with no kids around.

They were all breath taking!

I was able to take a few pictures while I was there

Here are a few of my favorites.

Mike took the boys down on Thursday and enjoyed some Dad time with them.

Ben spent Saturday Volunteering there as well.

The best part of this event is that all the money raised goes to support Northern Health and we get a better heath care system up here just for enjoying some beautiful Christmas trees :)

How do you start the Holiday Season?

Crazy Saturday

This past Saturday was truly what I call a crazy day.

It is the reason I called this blog My Crazy Life.

Josh had to leave by 9:30 to watch a friend at a hockey game

I had Sam, Matt, and Tom who had Primary Presentation practice at 10am that finished at 12:30

Claudia had her first Dance recital at 11am but needed to be there for 10:30 and it didn't end until 12:30

Ben needed to be organized to head down to the Festival of the Trees for noon for his volunteer time of 4 hours he needs for his Leadership camp application.

Yeah, if you can't guess I felt a little like a chicken with it's head cut off that morning!

After I picked everyone up... Sam and them a little late, thank goodness they were late getting done I had 1 hour to get ready to take Sam down to the movie theater so he could watch his first movie for his article in the school paper.

Mike got home from work just a few minutes before we had to leave so that was a little stressful.

of course in between all that I have to feed these 6 hungry kids and make sure they have the energy to make it through all these activities.

Man the life of a mom with kids involved is really tiring!

I really enjoyed Cloe's dance recital but next time I need to make sure someone comes with me because trying to record a video with one hand and take pictures with the other resulted in not great versions of either.

But I did get something and that makes me happy :)

I really enjoyed watching Arther Christmas with Sam and watching him take notes during the movie for writing his review was cute!

I will post his articles after the paper comes out.

In all it was a good day and makes me feel great to be a MOM!

My kids were happy and what more could I ask for?

Enjoy the video I took of the dance recital (Cloe is the white blob with a blue flower in her hair) and some of the slightly blurry but fun pictures I took in the other hand :)

 

Men's Hearts Shall Fail Them

This video really made me think about how would I feel in that same situtation?

Would I be able to stay calm or would my heart fail me out of fear?

Am I ready to meet my Father in Heaven?

 Are you?

My Daughter, The Artist.

Cloe has been going to daycare now since July.

It is a wonderful place with great teacher that have brilliant ideas for fundraising.

This latest fundraiser is so amazing.

They had all the kids make Art work that they put into a gallery on the wall with only numbers on them..no names.

The parents then came along and voted for their top 3 pictures.

Those 3 pictures would then be auctioned off and the money would go into the funding.

Well trust my daughter to be the one to break the rules.

A lady for some business (no idea which one) LOVED Cloe's picture.

They went to the coordinator and asked if they could just purchase her picture instead of chancing it would go to auction and they might get it.

They of course had to come to me to ask for my permission to do this.

OF COURSE I SAID YES!

So Cloe's picture was purchased before they even found out who the top 3 were.

So I took a picture so that we would have a copy of it and I thought I would share it all with you.

I also took pictures of the top 3 that were picked 2 days later.

Enjoy!

Some Photo Fun

I have been having fun with photos lately :)

Photo shoots for Christmas, pictures of my kids, and lately Pictures for the school.

Sam and Jordan have joined the Journalism Club that was just started up.

The amazing kids in this club have published their first paper and I have to say I LOVE what they named it.

The Harwin Lions: Actually Interesting News

It is a newspaper for kids written by kids and I am a fan.

Well I thought I would share with you the passes I made for Jordan and Sam.

I whited out some of the info but please enjoy.

 

Some Green Screen Fun

So I have been busy lately between Kids, Tax Class,  and Many other things including my photography.

The most fun I have been having is the Green Screen photos I took at the Church Halloween party on October 29th.

It takes a little work to change out the background and I got better at it the more I worked on the photos.

I miss it now that I am done them.

I would like to thank Google Images and those amazing talented people out there that helped find some fun backgrounds to use.

So I thought I would Share some of my favorites with everyone here.

Enjoy!



A Book of Mormon Story

Happy Halloween!

It has been a crazy week and half and I will catch-up with that tomorrow

but for now I would like to share some Halloween fun.

This is Sam and the Leadership kids at his school doing a dance mob to "Thriller"

Weigh In Wednesday and Getting Back On Track

So it is that time of the week again and even though I didn't do everything I planned to do last week I started getting my self back on track.

What does that mean?
It means I paid more attention to what I was eating and the amounts but I didn't track them on the computer.
I did a little more for exercise but didn't put my heart into it fully yet.
What does that mean for this week?
Well I went to the pool this morning with a friend and have plans to go again tomorrow.
I have set up a friend to come and be my personal trainer and kick my bum out of the house 3 days a week to get some serious exercise in instead of what I think is serious exercise.
And I will cut back even more on the sugar and actually work harder towards writing what I eat down.
What did last week do for me in terms of weight loss?
Well I am back down to 307.4!!
YEAH!!
Love seeing that I am headed in the right direction again!
If I work hard enough this week I will be back out the 300 club by next Wednesday.
How has your week been?

And to end this post today enjoy a peek at what we made last night in RS.
This picture might be all I have left after Cloe finds them.
She loves these little projects so much that they become part of her play games with her dolls.
I love getting all crafty. Wish I had more time for it at home.

MMMMM Make Your Own Pizza Night

So we have been getting more serious about making our meal plans and I had each of the kids tell me what some of their favorite meals were so we could have something on there that everyone would enjoy.

Well 3 of my kids put down making their own pizzas and using my handy dandy bread maker Mike put on some pizza dough earlier in the day

Oh yes Bread makers make it so that hubby's can join in on the baking fun now with no excuses ;)

Then when the dough was ready I pulled out our little pizza pans and let everyone have at it.

They had so much fun!

Here's a few pictures from our Night.

What do you have planned for dinner tonight?