Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Matheson Thanksgiving Pre-Dinner

When I was growing up, Grandma Jeanne would provide the 12 Days of Christmas. Sometime in early December, a HUGE cardboard box would arrive in the mail that we would open and it would have dozens (6 dozen to be exact) of wrapped presents inside. We would open a card that would tell us which wrapping paper was ours and we would pile our 12 presents up under the tree. We would start opening on my birthday - December 14 - and keeping opening until the day we celebrated Jesus' birthday - December 25.

Imagine the joy of being Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Vernile's granddaughter! So fun. Some other memories I have of Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Vernile were raspberry milkshakes in Morgan, Utah; Grandma's dollhouse in the back yard; HUNDREDS of different kinds of teddy bears; hearing awesome rivalry stories between grandma and her neighbor over the University of Utah and that other blue school (one time grandma made them a cake as a peace offering covered in blue frosting and then when you cut into it, it was blood red cake); whistling together while we were walking down the street and then when I got home realizing that I got my whistling habit from my grandma; horses in the back yard with grandpa.

These grandparents are the real deal. And now, they bring the 12 days of Christmas joy to my children. So we hosted the Matheson Thanksgiving Pre-dinner. It's our second year, and although it was minus the Wii, I think it went splendidly. Thanks to everyone for bringing everything to make a true stress free pot luck. Thanks to our grandparents for giving away fun presents.

Here's how it worked. Grandma and Grandpa come in with many cardboard boxes filled with UNWRAPPED toys. They pile them on the table for all to see.

After many Christmas seasons of being instructed not to touch wrapped presents, Isaac was thrown off by the new rules.
Isaac (to Trey, his first cousin, once removed): I can't believe we actually get to touch them. I'm so nervous!

Then Grandma puts everyone's name in a bag and when your name gets pulled out of the bag, you get to CHOOSE your present. Genius, people. Pure genius. Grandma lets everyone go around 3 times and everyone walks away getting exactly what they wanted from the table.
Hanging out after present distribution.

The siblings - Sterling, Grandpa, Grandma, my mom Teri, & Kristen.

Some branches of the extended Matheson family tree.

My cousin, Miah, holding my daughter Evelyn. According to wikipedia, they are first cousins, once removed.


Miah hanging out with Weston.

The big picture (my favorite part is Nigel upside down)

It was a fun way to start the season of celebrating together. And let me reiterate the importance of being together over being together on a certain day. Who cares about November 26 or December 25? Time is measured only unto man. It's the creative man that invents new holidays and gathers the family together so instead of missing out on celebrations, you only create more time together as extended family members.

And by the way, it's awesome to have kids that are too young to care about what they choose because then you get to choose books for them! Thanks Grandma Jeanne & Grandpa Vernile! We love you.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Happy Birthday, Johnny Quattro










Johnny boy,
You are my Joy! I can't help but tell you that every day. Because every day you do something that brings me joy. On your birth day you pretended to be a dog for 10 minutes straight. Licking, barking, rolling over, shaking, and fetching. You even took your presents by biting them and shaking them. You would not use your hands. When the jacket was out of the box you bit it and carried it around. You do something that makes me laugh and smile every day. You are the best boy a dad could ask for.
I love you.
DAD

Craft Mania

Post WiP, Camille Anderson and I got together every day and sewed. It was sew fun. Every time someone said so anything (so fun, so happy, so excited) I could not keep myself from smiling because in my mind I was thinking sew fun, sew happy, sew excited. I am a geek in the largest sense of the word. I love working with my hands. I love trying to think of something funny and cute and clever. We made quiet bags. Here are mine: Piano bag with theory finger puppets (because I ALWAYS skipped the theory work each week), Monsters in the closet with finger puppets, Car bag with cars, Star bag with crossword puzzle & Gumball machine bag with coins.

Young Women in Excellence

Working with the Young Women has been so fun. It makes me think of Mimi Larsen and Karen Fife and Nece Capron - women who helped to mold me into the woman that I choose to be today. They served with love and care, trying to guide me toward developing my own testimony. I am grateful for their dedicated service and love. When I serve, I think of how they served and try to do the same. They truly followed the example of the Savior in teaching and doing.

Young Women in Excellence was an evening at mutual last week where all of our girls got to showcase Personal Progress projects they have accomplished. I was happy to see the variety and personality that came through in the projects - freezer jam, cooking, cheerleading, sign language, honor roll, babysitting for temple night and lots of other great projects. These girls are darling, anxiously engaged in good things.

Our evening focused on a super hero theme with the girls being featured as the super heroes. So I made each of them a super hero doll. It was a fun project post WiP. It was fun to sew different pieces of fabric together and come up with this.


The girls are future mothers and future young women presidents and future everything. When I interact with them, I try to keep in mind something I saw in someone's family mission statement. "We treat people according to their potential". Isn't it true that we judge others on their actions and ourselves on our intentions? Remember adolescence? Wow. Looking back, I could see myself turning out so differently. I'm so glad the way I turned out and it's because of those wonderful leaders, along with my own mom. Thank goodness for people who look outside of themselves to lift others and please let me be one of those people.

WiP, yeah you know me

Women in Philanthropy is an organization of philanthropic minded women working under the direction of United Way of Utah County. They hold one fundraiser a year that is an auction/dinner to help raise money for programs sponsored by United Way that exist to benefit women and children.

For the past 3 months, my sister Camille Anderson, and I have been working on the auction item committee gathering items for the event to be auctioned to raise money. It has been a lot of work, but happily less work than we originally had planned for. And we raised over $50,000 on our end of the deal, which is happily more than last year's gala.

It was very fun to serve with women. I am impressed by the overall gender. Not to put down the other gender, just that it was fun to feel the power of dedicated women. It was cool to learn about different leadership styles and different followership styles and hopefully take the best of all the examples and do better in my future leadership/followership roles.

Carlie Sue was there that night volunteering and doing what she does best - working hard and working right - and that's when my favorite part of the evening happened. Someone realized we were all sisters and complimented us as the Davis girls. I LOVE being a Davis girl. It means so much about what my parents taught me about working hard, about following through, about doing a job correctly the first time.


And although the event was held November 7, it is just now that I am feeling back in the normal life groove - doing things that I normally should have been doing but somehow completely neglected for the past 3 months. And you might think I'm exaggerating, but I know the truth is I only cleaned my house and did the dishes when absolutely forced to because someone was coming over to my house and I did not want them to see my messes. I did TEN loads of laundry last week to catch up after only doing the basics to get by.

All I have to say is that I am the queen of imbalance in my life. I like a HUGE project going on and while I have one going I might as well take on two or three more because once you've gotten past a certain point of crazy, you can't get any crazier, so you might as well. Although I am excited for a holiday hiatus of superfluous crazy where I can just enjoy normal crazy with my family.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloween 2009

Legend tells of a legendary family whose kung-fu skills were the stuff of legends.

They traveled the land in search of worthy candy. I see you like to chew. Why don't you chew ON MY TOOTSIE POP?

Their foes would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness.

If you have any respect for who we are and what we do. YOU will be gone by morning.

Quit. Don't quit. Noodle. Don't noodle. You are too concerned with what has been and what will be. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

Were you pointing at me, Master?

Who can be entrusted with the secret to limitless power? I don't know.

We do not wash our pits in the pool of sacred tears.

Can I punch through walls? Can I do a quadruple back flip? Will I have invisibility?

No extra charge for awesomeness or attractiveness.

My girl

I love this girl. She is so sweet and mellow and a complete team player. She loves playing with the diaper wipe bag. It's plastic and crinkly and has a fresh aloe scent. What is not to love. She has chunky cheeks that just beg to be kissed. She is drooling a lot and chews on anything she can get so we're expecting teeth any second. Her eyes are a gorgeous blue that we hope will stay. She loves to fall asleep with something touching her face. She will smile at every interaction. She is our joy.