Merry, happy Christmas season!  Master D had Ari for christmas gift exchange this year.  When we bought this car a year ago, I kept saying -hey I’m taking the Ford – but B’s car is a Ford too and that was a problem for me, so I started searching for a different name to call this car.  Also at the same time I was binge watching “Mad Men” and I was thinking it was funny that the main characters’ last name was Draper,  The mistreated wife’s name on the show was Betty Draper and I was thinking about Betty being such an old name and then I thought of Betty Ford – so I decided to call her “Betty” (Draper-Ford).  Ari HATES that we call her Betty, especially now that she drives it on a regular basis.  So Master D put this license plate frame on her car in the beginning of December unbeknownst to her.  Of course, she was absolutely convinced I did it, she even asked me and then told me I was answering in “my lying voice”?  I wasn’t lying and I don’t believe I have a lying voice but I did get an awful lot of pleasure out of it…too bad she noticed it pretty quickly after he put it on.   December 10-13

I went on my annual Christmas shopping trip to LA with my friends.  We solved the world’s problems, saw three movies, drank chai, went to Neptune’s Net, shopped and enjoyed each other’s company so much that the only photo I snapped was of my chai.  There’s a weird correlation with photo taking and the next generation’s desire to take photos or not….  I’m grateful my kids and friends think to take photos and have a camera with them at all times. At least right now I am.  Thank heavens some of my friends snapped some for me on this trip.  I generally hate the way I look in most photos, but I would like to prove that I existed in these adventures, so I’ve decided to suck it up  .. and we proved Santa exists sighting him flying over the Grove.   ahhhh at least two of my kids weirdly missed me

On December 15th

I had tickets for the six of us to see “A Christmas Carol” at the brand new Hale Center theatre.  When TT found out that he was going to have to give up his Friday night in order to be hung by his toenails and whipped about the ears while watching a Christmas musical with his family – well he just fell apart.  I mean F.E.L.L. A.P.A.R.T and hung us by our toenails and whipped us about the ears for a solid two hours.  So I gave him a choice between doing all of the Sunday dishes for three weeks in a row (ya know since I spent a lot of money on his ticket) or going to the play.  I really wasn’t sure which one he hated more, but the decision was to go to the play.  It’s official, he hates dishes more than musicals with his family.  December 21st.   I took the girls with my friends and their girls to our annual Nutcracker – which they really do love! even though we’ve had many a grinch episode with witchy people.  This year I bought grinch ornaments to hand out to those particular grinches and I had a speech planned to tell them that if the grinch’s heart can grow, theirs can too.  But we didn’t have a single grinch.  We did have someone pull the fire alarm and they moved us all out of the theatre and we waited until they figured out there was no fire and we went back in.  They have all new costumes and new sets, which are absolutely beautiful!!  I think I’ll take TT next year. (But I’m pretty confident he’d end up with the Grinch award)

We went to lunch first at City Creek and because the restaurant took so long to bring out Kelly’s food, they gave her free dessert.  The girls were very excited about this chocolate covered brownie sundae so they videotaped all taking a bite at the same time.  Much to their surprise, it was NOT chocolate covered but balsamic vinegar covered brownie sundae.     Aub arrived on Friday night Dec 22nd.  We attempted to go to dinner at a new place out in Saratoga Springs before going to see Jumanji.  It’s called Seven Brothers and there’s one in Maui but right after we ordered they locked the doors and told people they were out of food.  So we sat and waited for 30 minutes until they came out and told us they couldn’t even make our food.  They gave us our money back and a gift card and we ran into JDawgs and shoveled down a hot dog and barely made it to the movie.  B and I went in with reeeaaaalllly low expectations and actually laughed at a good portion of it. I also ended up at City Creek three days in a row and Aub grabbed a boomerang of herself in front of the cool tree – but since I don’t know how to add a boomerang to the blog, I just added the snapshot in the middle.  

For Christmas eve, we made enchiladas (much to the boys dissatisfaction who wanted lamb kabobs) and then me, B, Master D, Aub and TT walked over to Draper Park with the doggies to check out the tree of life.  Lelu and Ari were on dogs-that-are-treated-better-than-humans-sitting/housesitting and had to go over and let those babies out and play with them for a bit. I have to say it was magical going over there, it was lightly snowing and the temple was glowing and in that moment life was mostly perfect only ..missing Lelu and Ari being there with us.  It was a definite “God Moment” for me.    Then we made trains, opened our p.j’s and watched old family videos laughing our heads off.  We didn’t stay up super late and I only forgot about 3 things that I didn’t get into the stockings and nobody opened the wrong gifts.  But I didn’t get this blog printed in time for Christmas.   Christmas day I thought went really well.  But then I found this concerning photo:

Then to end the night we over to Gma and Gpa Sorenson’s house to celebrate Gpa’s birthday and hang out with Becca, Scott and Family, Sherisse, Lyle and Family – saw Darbi who just got home from her mission.  And the only photos we got were of Ari and Lelu with cute baby Owen. I love all of the Christmas cards and it makes me kind of sad to take them down every year, so this year I snapped a photo to be able to walk down that memory lane again – with a magnifying glass if you are looking at this printed.