Let's start with Christmas Eve....

Christmas this year was magnanamous!!! But, to capture it all, I must start with Christmas Eve and the traditional Santa cookies at Grandma's house. All the cousins and their parents met up at Grandma's for a wonderful morning of creating and laughing. What a wonderful memory!!!

  Will begins decorating........

 Cousin Brody creating his Santa coookie.

 Cousin Cooper hard at work.

 Some completed Santa's.

 Cassidy creates her Santa. Little did she know, that three hours later she would be throwing up as a result of a sudden stomach flu.

                   Sarah is smiley as usual!

 This Santa cookie cracks me up. I can't decide if it is Alien Santa or Distorted Santa...hummm

 And here are all the Wiemer siblings... Me, Ryan, Alisha and Becky. Ryan is definitely surrounded by girls!

We had a wonderul time gathering and reliving old memories and helping our children create new ones. Isn't family great????!!!!

Christmas happenings of this week

Right now it is 1:16am and I am about as creative as a crawfish..... so I will just give an overview of some of the Christmas festivities that have been going on in our home. Our life is a little bit different this Christmas, because we have to balance the chemo and the kids...so it goes a little something like this. Some dear sole in the ward will pick up our kids in the morning to take them for a couple of hours so I can get some extra sleep. About 1pm, I am up and running for the day...mostly. And on the flip side of that, I struggle getting to sleep at night even with the aid of a sleeping pill. Hence, I sit here typing with the creativity and brainpower of said crawfish. This morning our fairy grandmother and her sidekick, Papa McAwesome left for California to spend Christmas with grandmother. They have been amazing and almost fairylike in their endeavors to help at the Johnson house. We have felt the love from many sides ...all four sided to be exact! All four sides of our house are encased in love....and that is surely the strongest foundation there is. (and I know a little something about foundations as of late)

Enough of my rant.....on with the show...

 Will helped me make treats for the neighbors in our cul-de-sac this year. He especially loved the "smashing" part.

 And here is the end product. It was a fun project. I made it up and just went with it....

 Also, our cul-de-sac went caroling at the Ole' folks home to bring them some holiday cheer. But the silly cheer seemed to hit us too!!! Funny how that works out!

 And Santa was at the ward party....even if mom was taking a quick nap at home!

   You are soo cute Cassidy. This is the first year that she has felt too old to sit on Santa's lap... but look at that million dollar smile!!!

                                   Sarah has always been my leary, gentle Santa-goer.

 This was great!! On Monday night for FHE, Papa Lund had prepared a treasure hunt for the kids. And here he stands on his "ramiumptom" reading the first clue.

 He has become quite cleaver with his treasure hunts. this clue was a picture frozen in ice...a bit creepy if you ask me....

 And on another occasion, we made Christmas candy trains and had a blast.

                                                            finished product

                                         and another finished choco-train....
So, you can see we are chugging (pardon the pun) along. Making adaptations where needed in our life, so that life is a wonderful experience, even if cancer isn't.

How the Grinch stole the show!!!!

Two nights ago we went to an old friend of the Johnson's. The Malone's from Mesa, in the "way back when" era wondered if Papa Lund would give his annual "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" recitation. If you have never had the pleasure of hearing my father-in-law recite this book, you are truly missing out!!!! I tried to snap pictures that helped explain how good he is.....but someday you will just have to be there in person, it is much better that way.

                                        Here is some of the crowd gathering around....

                                                        ..........and then he begins..............

                                   And his face and body language become slave to the story...

                                           ...............this picture is definitley my all time favorite!!!!

                      And after the story is told, a lot of the kids wanted to gather around him for a picture.

                        ...........can you blame them? Kids are always drawn to Papa Lund!

The Ghost of Christmas Past

We were watching "A Christmas Carol" today as a family and it got me thinking about the "ghost of Christmas past." I looked up a bunch of "ghosts" from Christmases gone by and you know what??? I LOVED what I saw!!!! I am thinking the ghost of Christmas past wouldn't be as scary for me as it was for Ebineezer..... all because of my amazing family!!!! Sit back and enjoy the ghosts of Johnson's past....

                                       Posing for Christmas cards in 2006...

                             It was right before I had Will in February. Oh, the memories!

                                   And here is our Christmas card a year later when Will was almost 1.

                                         ........and watch out for these two jokers around Christmas!!!

 And welcome to Fort Johnson that was built on a Christmas holiday in 2003ish...

                     And Cassidy giving Santa the lowdown in 2005.

                                                     ..........My, how she has grown!

 And one of our first Christmas cards we ever did, we spelled a word as a family. Can you figure out what we spelled?????             (Lund at age 2)

                                                      Cassidy at age 4

                                                         Me, looking about 15..... where did my youth go????

                                                    Morgan looking about 16! Did you guess the word yet?

 Another view of Fort Johnson with the big boys and all their digging!

 Oh, and don't ever give Morgan a snowman for Christmas....

                               ...........you were warned!!!

                      More views of Fort Johnson. Look how big it was. Sarah was just a little sprite back then.

                                Oh Cassidy, see how much you loved your sister back then!

  And Christmas card attempts in 2007 didn't go as well as planned. Sarah wasn't too thrilled......but could her face be any cuter? I think not!

                                          It did perk up from there!

                             And here is Sarah in 2005 after a bad experience with Santa......

               And here is that bad experience!!!!!!!!!!!!Sarah never liked Santa when she was younger.

I think we all need to take a good look at the ghosts of our Christmases past and I think we will find for the most part that they are wonderful memories full of love and caring, and especially family!!!!!! I love you all this holiday season and I feel the love from so many angles!!!!!

The last day of the madness..... A view through my eyes..

Today was a wonderful, yet extremely busy day. First, I slept in... cuz that is just what I do! Then I got the kids ready for school and Will off on his bus. Then I was free to meet some friends for lunch at Wildflower, which is always to die for... (sourdough bread bowl with potato cream cheese soup)!!!!Yumzilla!

Then off to Will's preschool for a gingerbread house making party. Will was really, really happy to see me and to show me what he does everyday.

                                 Such a serious decorator!!

          We really enjoyed being partners working towards one sweet goal!

 And during singing time, I really enjoyed Will getting into the actions. His teacher really likes him and works hard to make sure he is understanding everything. How blessed we are to have her.

 Then later this afternoon, we were back on the road to the other Elementary school to witness the culmination of the 5th and 6th grade class projects for the quarter. They had to make and sell products, and thus learn about money. (While parents of said children learn about losing money...or more correctly stated, "contributing to our child's education)

  Lund and Dominic selling sock snowmen and candy airplanes.

 Cassidy selling snowmen heads....

 And me and the Littles hiding in a corner reading a book while we wait for it all to be finished.

 And by the time it was all over, we were all STARVING.....so we had a healthy (ha ha) meal at Carl's Jr.

p.s. Morgan was not a guest star in this day blog, because he was in Bagdad for work, rubbing shoulders with our loved ones up there.