The Holidays Begin!

We are in full holiday mode here at the Wilkes house! The house is decorated and most of the presents are bought and we had a week of fun holiday activities.

For Young Women's this week we put together a 12 days of Christmas for one of the inactive girls in our class. Thursday and Friday was my Creative Memories holiday Open House. I turned the house into a Creative Memories store. Jim was out of town for two days and came home to find his office taken over by my Open House. We had snow warnings all week and had a few flakes on Saturday morning but it was all very disappointing. Supposedly a big wind storm was on it's way too but so far all we have had is ALOT of rain and I mean ALOT!!

The girls both had several babysitting jobs this weekend so were kept busy. Saturday was a crazy day! As soon as my Open House was over Friday afternoon we put everything away and I started cooking. I hosted my annual First Line Creative Memories brunch Saturday morning - with raspberry cream cheese coffee cake, cinnamon coffee cake, a chili egg dish, spiced bacon and baked grapefruit! (I'll post recipes on my other blog later this week - www.yourhomebasedmom.com) It was a fun morning with my team. As soon as they left we cleaned off the table and reset it for my Beach Babe Holiday tea that afternoon. I started cooking again - tomato and basil soup, tomato tarlets, ham and cheese palmiers, banana bars, and pecan tassies and more. Let me tell you that was a lot of cooking! We enjoyed a nice tea and book exchange and had fun catching up with each other - we have known each other for 18 years so have a lot of history together. Jim was my expert dishwasher and there were a lot of dishes to wash.

Tessa had a mega dance rehearsal on Saturday - she was there from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and was a tired little girl when she got home. Jim, Cali, Jameson (cali's friend) and I went to the BYU/Univeristy of Portland Basketball game Saturday after all the parties. 90 percent of the fans at the game were cheering for BYU. It was fun even though it wasn't much of a game - BYU won easily.

On Friday our garage door decided it was tired of going up and down and decided to stay in the down position - with the car inside! Jim called the garage door repair people and they said they could fix it but not until next Tuesday - 5 days later. Well - we still had two other cars so we were o.k. but then Saturday during my tea party Jim was backing his car out of the driveway and didn't see my friend's car parked to the side, he turned out of the driveway a little too soon and hooked his bumper on her wheel well and proceeded to rip his entire front bumper off his car - so two cars down!! The tow truck will come tomorrow to haul his car to the body shop. So 3 drivers - 1 car, should be interesting......

Today after church we went to an Advent service at one of the large Episcopal churches in town. I think it was the first time the girls had been to any other type of church service. They have a wonderful choir and the acoustics in their church are incredible. I only recognized three of the carols they sang and the girls weren't sure about all the standing and sitting through the service. We went with our home teacher Gary Nees who had told us about it. We really enjoyed it, even though 4 1/2 hours of church in one day was a lot!

Happy December everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday - the best part of ours of course was that the boys are home! Monday and Tuesday were busy days getting ready for the boys. I had some major grocery shopping to do - a trip to Trader Joes, Costco and Winco were needed! I also had a meeting with the Stake Relief Society to help plan their big RS meeting for February- guess I have been drafted to help with the dinner again! Tuesday was my Shade Open House and some cleaning and the boys arrived home 10:30 p.m Tuesday night - yeah!!

The girls had school on Wednesday so I got to hang out with the boys. We did a little Christmas shopping and errand running and Wednesday night Grant Monson joined us for dinner and then the 4 boys had a great time at a Blazer's game. I spent the evening preping food and getting ready for Turkey day. Tried a few new recipes that I will share. I started feeling a little queasy that evening but kept on cooking.

With all my kitchen helpers (see photos) we prepared a wonderful, yummy dinner but by the time the food was ready my stomach was feeling worse and so a few bits of jello and a roll were all I enjoyed of Thanksgiving dinner this year! After an excellent kitchen clean up job the boys spent the rest of the day watching football (surprise,surprise) and I spent it on the couch! By 3:00 a.m. Thursday night or Friday morning I had a full fledge attack of intestional flu - yuck!!

So on Friday I spent the entire day in bed! Thank goodness for a What Not to Wear Marathon and the Food Network. The rest of the gang worked hard - the kids did their favorite pre-holiday job - getting all the Christmas boxes down from the attic. Since there are 35-40 of them it is a bit of a job. This year Logan lost and had to be the one that crawled up into the attic and handed the boxes down. Since it was a beautiful sunny day the boys and Jim also got the holiday lights hung on the house. The tree is half way set up waiting for me to feel better to "fluff" it!

Clark went to play in an alumni football game at Westview and the rest of them went to the movies to see "August Rush" and they highly recommend it - I of course was in bed with Clinton Kelly and Stacy London of "What Not to Wear"!

Friday night was the quarter finals for the high school football playoffs so the gang went to the game while - guess where I was - in bed! Unfortunately Westview lost so they are now out of the play offs. Everyone (but me) went to our friend's the Jensens for a "tailgate" party before the game.

Saturday I felt a bit better so ventured out with the kid for a quick trip to the mall(I know where all the bathrooms are!) to pick up a few Christmas presents and we were late getting back to watch the BYU game because the girls spent over 2 hours in Forever 21(o.k. this is not what I wrote but Clark got in and made a few changes to my post - it was not TWO hours!!) - go BYU! The boys were in heaven that day as they also got to watch the BYU Basketball game that night!

Thought I would be well enough for church today but after a bit of a set back Saturday night I stayed home. Four days without food now - Gatorade is getting old!

The boys fly out at 6:00 a.m. Monday morning - I'm glad Jim is in town to take them to the airport!! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Two days and counting.....

We can hardly stand it - only 2 more days and the boys will be home! Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. to be exact!! We are excited and getting ready. Clark has already emailed me his list of "requested foods" per my request. This will be the first time in 5 years that we have all been together for Thanksgiving!!

It was a busy week - I felt like I was running full speed all week. With the holiday on Monday, the week really started on Tuesday so we were already one day behind! Tuesday was Book Club - this month we read "Driving over Lemons" - an OK book about a man and his wife's adventures as they moved to rural Spain. That evening was genealogy class and then Wednesday I taught an appetizer class for Relief Society. It was a fun, food packed class. I showed lots of different ways to create different appetizers using tarts made from pie crust, phyllo dough and puff pastry. They ate everything so I guess they enjoyed it!



For Young Women's this week we had a joint activity with two other wards and had an "Amazing Race" activity. We divided up in cars and drove all over the area following clues. I drove a group of kids but had to make them promise not to tell their parents how crazy Sis. Wilkes drove!

What we didn't realize as we were on the race was that there were service opportunities at each stop - the trick was to see if we would notice them and do something about them. Our car didn't do too well - we were so focused on the race that we only noticed one of the service opportunities (a lady lying on the ground under her car) We did ask her if she needed help but we didn't see the others (someone with a spilled bag of groceries at the grocery store, a lady dropping her books outside the library, a lady with her hood of her car open) or I am sure we would have helped! It was a good lesson for us all -most of us would ask to help if we saw someone in need, the problem is many times we are all so focused on our own agenda that we just don't see them! Cali loved the activity because she got stuck in a car full of deacons!



Jim flew to Salt Lake on Wednesday and has business there and in Idaho Falls so he got to spend the night with his parents. He returned to Salt Lake on Friday and was able to have dinner with Logan and Shayla before his flight left for home - he got home late Friday night.

Thursday, Cali and Tessa went to a concert for a local alternative band - "Stars". I decided there was safety in numbers and they went with a large group of kids from school. It was a late night though - getting home at 12:30 so I let them sleep in the next morning and miss their first period class (I"m getting soft in my old age - I'm sure the boys would tell you I NEVER would have let them do that!!) I had a unit meeting that night with a computer webinar so I got to run the meeting in my pajamas!

Tessa's big news of the week is - she got her hair cut. She looks darling! We're including a picture so you can all check it out! It was a big dance week for Tessa - she had class/rehearsal on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and all day Saturday. They had a New York choreographer in town to work with the kids Her feet were very sore by the time she got home Saturday night!

Friday night Cali and I went to the play at Westview - they did the drama "Anatomy of Gray" They did a great job and it was a thoughtful play.

Saturday - was house cleaning day - it had been sorely neglected with the busyness of the week! Cali left for a weekend birthday party. They were going to stay at the Skamania Lodge - a beautiful resort in the Columbia Gorge for her friend's 18th birthday - what a life!

Jim and I went to the high school auction Saturday night. I was the food chair for the committee so figured I better show up to make sure the food was o.k. - it was delicious. A prime rib and salmon dinner. We had great restraint though and didn't end up with any purchases although Jim was tempted by the courtside Blazer tickets!!

At church today it was our Children's Primary Sacrament program - a little different than the one we saw last week at the branch at the beach. The kids did a great job but the program ran 35 minutes past the time Sacrament usually gets out!! We kept thinking they should have had an intermission! The kids did an amazing job though sitting still that long - I was having a hard time though!!

Cali had her Ecclesiastical interview today for her BYU application so she has the process rolling - her goal over the Thanksgiving break is to get her essay written!

Boy Update:
Logan and Clark had a double date this week - Saturday they both took dates (Logan and Shayla of course) to lunch at Los Hermanos. The boys then went and played a round of golf together. And of course they are both very excited to come home!!