Boy Update

Oops - guess I forgot the boy update for the week - sorry! Thanks for the reminder Emily!

They flew back to school on Monday morning - their flight left at 6:00 a.m! Thanks to Aunt Teresa for picking them up at the airport in Salt Lake! Thursday night we got an excited call from Logan. He was standing in line to go to the Billy Joel concert in Salt Lake. Shayla had surprised him with an early Christmas present. They loved the concert. Logan sings a Billy Joel song in the Young Ambassador show this year.

Clark and Logan had a double date on Friday - they decorated gingerbread houses - aren't they cute! Both boys are gearing up for finals. Clark enjoyed a little boy bonding Saturday night with a few of his roommates and Halo! Oh yeah - and boys watch for a package from mom in the mail!

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!