Siblings United!!!

In February my three sisters and I went on a trip!!!  On Thursday we all gathered from our various homes into the most central airport, and then flew for four hours to our big brother's home.
A kind stranger snapped this photo for us - it was midnight when we arrived - but we weren't tired!!!

Sis#3, Sis#2, Big Brother, Sis#1 (me), Sis#4

(No names for privacy reasons.)

Sis#3 made the pink name tags for us, just so big brother and his family would remember who we were - we hadn't been together since 2007. 

So after our initial greetings, big brother turns to me and says, "You got a new coat - very nice!" to which I replied, "Thanks!  Hey, you got a new coat too!" In my mind I'm wondering how he knew my coat was new - but then I remember big brother's sense of humour!  For the next four days we would joke about things that were new (obviously we had no clue what was new or not!).

Friday was spent together playing and chatting and eating - just having fun getting to know each other again.  My two nephews had grown up a ton since we last saw each other five years ago.  And then we had the joy of meeting our new niece - which was the whole purpose of the trip. . .

On Saturday morning, we all went to the temple together, along with  many others, and she was sealed to her new family.

A Forever Family

I love this picture of mom looking at her daughter!

Two things stand out in my mind from this morning - nothing huge, just special little memories.  The first happened while we were all in the waiting room, waiting to be taken to the sealing room.  This beautiful girl appeared in the doorway, looking like an angel, with the most joyful smile on her face.  She looked radiant and so happy that this day had finally arrived!!!  Then we all followed her up to the sealing room, where her grandfather was able to do the sealing.

The other little memory was on the car ride back to the house.  I was in the car with  my sister-in-law, niece and a nephew.  We were down the road a little ways and carrying on other conversations, when my sweet niece said from the back seat, "I'm so happy!" and she repeated it two or three times.  It just touched my heart and I was so happy for her.  I was happy that she was happy, and happy that she is now sealed to a loving family.  A very happy day!!!

My good-looking and fun-loving niece and nephews!!!

My brother with his family on one side and sisters on the other.

{And yes, if my boots hadn't had heels, I would still be the shortest!}

Yeah, it's us again!  We had so much fun together!

And then there was another wonderful surprise!!! 

We got to see our Aunt in the temple, and then we were able to visit with our two cousins for a little while outside the temple.  They were so awesome!!!  I've only seen them about 2-3 times in my life, but they were just super!!!  I could have spent days with them!  But at least we have Facebook to help us stay in touch!!!

After the special morning in the temple, there was an Open House at big brother's home with tons of people sharing in their joy.  Their family even sang a song "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars - it was really cute.  And they told the whole adoption story - very special.

On Sunday it was great to attend church with them.  So many people had connections to my little town, and I came home with a big list of people that I had to say Hi to.  I even recognized one of the missionaries in their ward as being the enemy - a basketball player from one of the other schools nearby, who used to play against my nephew here at home! 

Sunday evening we basically played and played and played and laughed and laughed and laughed, oh and we ate and ate and ate.  There were some pretty wild games going on too.  And we were able to squeeze in a few games of Settlers of Zarahemla too!

Hanging out in the family room of their beautiful new home.

On Monday we had to say our Goodbye's to the kids when they left for school that morning.  It was so great to get to know them better.  They are talented and amazing people and I just love them!  And again I'm glad for Facebook to help us stay a little more connected with their lives. 

Our flight didn't leave til 4:00pm so we had quite a few hours to be with Big Brother and his wife.  She took such great care of us - such a loving and hospitable person, looking out for everyone's needs.  They even rented a car so we could get around.  It truly was a wonderful visit and very hard to say Goodbye (I seem to have a very high water table these days!).  Luckily we're planning a family reunion for August!!!  The cousins will have such fun together!  Adults too, of course!

Alas, all good things must come to a close.  Brother took us back to the airport and shipped us away on a plane.

Did I even mention that we had these two little cuties with us?  Sis#2 and #3 each brought a little guy - around eight months old.  They were both so good.

And here we are on our trip home (I'm behind the camera!).  We're glad no one sat in the third seat on each side - nice to have a spot for the little guys and toys.  Because of oxygen masks (or lack of) we couldn't have two babies in the same group of seats.  On our flight out we had three seats together with Sis#2 right in front of us (this was lucky because we hadn't prebooked our seats).  Coming home we prebooked 24 hours in advance so we could be together like this.  And it was daylight too.

This picture is to prove that I really was on a plane!!!  (If it's on my camera, it's proof, right?)

I can think of a few courageous things about this trip!  The first was getting in a plane and flying almost 40,000 feet above ground.  Not that I'm afraid to fly, but I do like my feet planted safely on solid ground!

The second was leaving my family for five days!  They are so wonderful that I just miss being around them and sharing in their lives.  I even missed Jas being asked to Grad the first night I was away.  Before I left I wrote them all little love notes and left them on their pillows.  And yes, I cried saying goodbye to all of them!

The final one was being in a vehicle driven by Sis#4 in all that crazy traffic and huge freeways!  Actually, I think she was the courageous one being willing to do it!  I was the navigator!!!

It was an absolutely delightful trip and one that will be a special memory forever! 

My Word for 2012

The word I chose to guide me through 2012 was Courage.

"Be strong and of a good courage . . ." (Joshua 1:9)

You can read all about why I choose a word for the year by clicking here.

Last year my word was Delight. 

I started this blog (notice the title!!!) and tried to end each post with something I delighted in.  This year I'll try to end each post with some reference to this year's word - Courage.

I'm confident I can do this (how's that for courage?) lol



Boxing Day

On Boxing Day Monday we packed up and headed northward to Rebecca's house.  Grandma and Grandpa would be there and so would Kathryn and her family.

This is the group of cousins we had in the house!

Crazy bunch of kids!!!

Kenzie and Josh were the cutest - stealing hugs and playing together.

The 6 year olds - Taylor, Katia and Marina.  Nope, these girls didn't have any fun together - none at all!!!

The 10 year olds - Jenna and Savannah.

Jordyn, Olivia and Carlee.  Cousins are so much fun!

And then there's the older bunch - Kathryn, me and Rebecca, with Mom in front.

We left on Wednesday morning because Chelle had to get back to her job.  It was a short visit but lots of fun, as we played games, visited and, as usual, ate way too much.  It's so nice to have those little get-a-ways, especially for the cousins to have lots of playing/bonding time. 

This brings me to my last blog entry for the year 2011 - my first full year recorded in web-log style.  Now to attempt to get it printed into a book!!!

I've enjoyed thinking about things that I delight in over this year because delight was my word for the year, and the name of my blog!  Sometimes it was easy to think of things, sometimes it was a stretch, sometimes I just wanted to delight in the same things over and over.  So over a year of thinking about things that I delight in,  I would have to say that my family and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are the things that I delight most in.

Delightful, eh? 

Christmas Day

I'm not sure why, but I never seem to take many pictures on Christmas Day - probably just too much good stuff going on.  Mackenzie is giving Christmas Day two thumbs up!!!

Munchkin was first to open her stocking.  We all get up at 7:00am and open them together - and of course some of the girls have been up earlier checking things out {I know I always did!} but if they took anything out of their stockings, they sure packed them back up exactly the way Santa did.  Which leads me to believe that they've never actually peeked too far down in their stocking - but they'll tell me the truth some day!

Kenzie took about half an hour - well, maybe not quite, but it sure seemed like a long time when I was so anxious to look in my own stocking!!!  She was so excited about each thing and had to thoroughly examine everything.  She would only dig in for more if we told her to. 

 Little ones at Christmas are the best!!!

Katia got new mittens!!!

Jenna got new hairbands!!!

Carlee got a water bottle!!!

Jordyn in thrilled with a gluten-free cookbook!!!

Jas gets a water bottle too!!!

Chelle and her favourite candy!!!

Mom with her lifeline for the next year - the Polestar Family Calendar!!!

Dad with a King Arthur movie - and battery powered socks there on the chair.  He'll never have cold feet again!!!

After playing around with the stocking stuff for awhile, we open our Gifts From the Savior that are humbly wrapped and laying under our Nativity Tree.

You can read more about these gifts here.

This is one of my favourite parts of Christmas Day.

After this we all worked together to prepare our big Belgian Waffle Breakfast.  Actually, this year Dad did a lot of the work as many of the ladies had to start getting ready for church.  It was delicious as usual!

I enjoyed Christmas on a Sunday this year - it was wonderful to rejoice through music and the spoken word as we celebrated the birth of our Savior. 

The last time Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, we didn't go to church, but instead we were in the hospital with Jordyn who had just been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. 

Here we all are after church.  We had 1:00pm church so Christmas morning wasn't rushed.  The girls decided that they wanted to wait until after church to open gifts - mostly because we take hours to open our gifts and they didn't want to stop part way through for a church break!  The girls are always so thoughtful and creative in their gifts to each other - we can't rush through that!

So we opened gifts, and then pigged out again with another meal similar to our Christmas Eve dinner.

I think this year was the earliest we've ever gone to bed on Christmas.  This is what the family room looked like at about 9:00pm . . .

. . . sleeping bodies all over the place!  Christmas can be pretty tiring!

Have I mentioned before that I delight in Christmas?

I really, really do!

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve celebrations always begin with the meal.  I love this meal because we get to eat some special things that we only eat once a year, such as bacon wrapped water chestnuts and wiener wraps {kid's favourite!}, quiches and meatballs, cheeseballs and wraps . . . 

I've noticed that December 24th is the one day of the year that I don't mind being in the kitchen!

So here we sit, ready to indulge!

We put the second leaf in the table and very comfortably fit Gramma and Grampa around the table too.  See the piece of red yarn under the plate in the empty spot?  That's for our little pre-dinner game that we play every year.  We each have a piece of yarn in our spot and we all pull them at the same time.  One piece has a button attached, and the lucky person with the button gets a little gift.  The gift is always something to do with the nativity - like a chocolate bar wrapped in a nativity wrap, etc.  Just a fun little thing to kick off the meal.  This year's winner was . . . drumroll please . . . . Chelle!

After we all stuffed ourselves as much as we could, it was time for the pageant.  We drew papers from a hat to see what part we would be playing.  Then we put on the costumes that the girls had thoughtfully prepared for us.

{The Mary and Joseph parts were previously cast.}

The scene begins with Mary and Joseph on the long walk to Bethlehem on a poor, old, tired donkey.

"Can I be the donkey?"

"Dad is always the donkey!"

"He's a better donkey." 

{Based on Kid History, but a true conversation in our home too!}

Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus.

Mary played her part so seriously, and Joseph was very doting and kind.

And the Angel appeared . . .

. . . to the shepherds, with good tidings of great joy!

And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts, praising God and saying . . .

"Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill toward men."

{Oops, missed a part - that's the Innkeeper on the left of the couch, and she is also our Narrator.}

The shepherds {with their flock of one!} decided to go with haste and visit the Christ child.

Wisemen from the East . . . .

. . . followed the star and came to worship Him, bringing gifts of . . .

. . . gold, frankincense and myrrh {which strangely resemble a wooden box, candle and Webster's Dictionary!}

{Love the wiseman in the fedora!}

Then it was time to be joyful and triumphant as we . . .

. . . sang Christmas songs.  Each person chose one song so that meant eleven numbers.  Lots of fun because we all love to sing.

Then we played Christmas Bingo and some other Christmas games and stories.

Then it was time for the girls to figure out their secret identities for this year.  Each year we give them a new identity that gets written on the gift tags - that way they have no idea which gifts are theirs until now.  This year's theme was males.  So we gave them a few clues like:

"Chelle is not Tiny Tim or Innkeeper" and

"Jas might be The Grinch or Wiseman #2".

It didn't take these smart girls too long to figure it out.  It was fun to see their charts and listen to their reasoning.

Richelle was The Grinch,  Jasmine was Innkeeper, Jordyn was Joseph,  

Carlee was Micah {the only Prophet who mentioned Bethlehem as the place of the Savior's birth}, Jennafer was Ebenezer Scrooge, Katia was Tiny Tim, and Mackenzie was Wiseman #2.
{Does my underlining help you see how I chose who was who?}

So now that they knew which gifts were theirs, it was time to . . .

. . . open their new pajamas!!!  The oldest five got fleece pajama bottoms and the littlies two got complete outfits. 

Now they're all ready to go off to bed and fall asleep within minutes of their heads hitting their pillows, and dream of sugarplums, til they all wake up at the crack of 8:00am!!!

I delight in traditions!!!  There are so many that we look forward to at Christmas time.  Some seem to stick and we have to do them every year, or it wouldn't seem like Christmas.  Others come and go.  As great as righteous traditions are, we need to be flexible too.  For example, a few years ago, right before Christmas, we learned that Jordyn couldn't have gluten anymore.  Well, there went most of our Christmas Eve dinner!  So we tried something new - a fondue - so Christmas would be different for all of us that year and not just her.  We've since learned how to adapt our regular meal so that she can eat most of it too, but that first year it was a little overwhelming.  I mean, I find so much delight in Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts, why would I want to change that tradition!

I feel a song coming on . . . "Tradition".