Christmas Chronicles Continue

Because it was so much fun I took pictures of more ornaments, some Christmas cards and my tree skirt.


I beaded 18 of these gold snowflake things around my tree skirt. I don't know why I get myself into these things.

Here's another clip on bird

Taiwan has the coolest Christmas cards. The two following are detail of a card full of Santas eating hot pot and singing karaoke.

These Christmas cards are from our friend Shan who sends us really cool cards every year.

This one has a mini 12 month calendar.

A pretty pink Christmas tree.

A fun church with a bell. Notice it can actually be hung on the tree.

This one is just classy.

Here's a star I made when I was like four years old or something. It's made of cardboard, aluminum foil, glitter and yarn. And it still persists after 30+ years.

More toothpick ornaments.

This one is looking at Bethlehem's skyline through a window. I know, the realism is astounding.

This ornament belongs to a full set of cartoonish Christmas pictures drawn by our friends' (then) 10 year old boy when we were in Taiwan and didn't have any ornaments for our poor little bare tree (these and the origami birds constituted our tree that year). He's pretty dang talented, huh?

My visiting teacher gave me this one last year. It's made of olive wood.

Okay, okay, I won't post anymore pictures of my ornaments. Anyway, they are all put away. Oh, and by the way, Happy New Year. Here's hoping this is the year I get to move back to Taiwan. Yeah, I know, fat chance.

This picture has nothing to do with ornaments. It's just goofy.

Um...I wasn't done

Tip: Pressing control P does not paste your pictures, it automatically publishes your post, whether you are done with it or not.

Here's what I have to say about the rest of the pictures.


These cute snowflakes were tatted by a woman in Grant's home ward and given to us one of the first Christmases we were married. There are various colors. I had no idea that tatting even existed until I received these. I now know that tatting exists, I still have no idea how it's done and what implements are used????

The following two ornaments were crafted when we lived in Taiwan and didn't have my large box of childhood ornaments to decorate our tree with. The origami birds were made the Christmas I was pregnant with Rune and they always remind me of how insanely happy I was that Christmas. The toothpick Star of David reminds me of several Christmases later when I was trying to have a fun crafty Christmas activity with the boys to decorate our tree and a one year old Lily was in the way of everything and destroyed half of what we did.

Lately, Lily and I have been into making these stuffed ornaments. I don't really know why, they aren't really that cool. At any rate we have around 7 of them on the tree.

For the kids' 2008 ornaments I bought these cool birds at JC Penny. They clip onto the tree and appear to be perched. They are my new favorite.

Ornaments through the ages

Here's a small sampling of what's on our tree. The pictures are pretty fuzzy. I still think they look better fuzzy than flashed.

First, a few faves from childhood.

I think I made this Santa in primary? Mom, can you remember? I think he's simple yet surprisingly Santa looking.

This seemingly naked, snowflake carrying fairy with a ponytail was my absolute favorite for many years. She's iridescent.

I have no idea why Santa would be riding in a hot air balloon instead of his sleigh, but I loved this ornament.

It happened.

*sigh*

I miss Taiwan.

Various and Sundry

It's been a while since I last posted and too much has happened to be specific so here are a few highlights of the past month.

First and Foremost...you know that Japanese straightening perm I mentioned before? The one I used to get in Taiwan and am in love with? The one that fancy schmancy American hair stylists charge $500 (!) for? Well, notice my hair in the below pictures. This is my hair after just a touch of blow drying and no straightening with an iron. I repeat . . . no straightening iron was involved! I found the straightening perm on the internet and bought it for $65 and my sister Eileen who has NO BEAUTICIAN EXPERIENCE (gasp) performed the procedure. So, sorry to all you fancy schmancy beauticians out there who insist that the Japanese straightening perm is akin to rocket science and can't possibly be done by the lay person and most certainly cannot be done for less than $500....well....it can. Just admit it, you charge $500 because you can. I'm okay with that. And I forgive all of you because now I can do it myself (okay, my sister can do it herself) and sure, you could probably do a better job, but not $435 dollars better.

Grandpa and Violet at the wedding.

Lily the flower girl and Brianne the beautiful bride.

Me and my hunk (who has lost 45 lbs. since July!)

Violet looking mighty suspicious.

Thanksgiving with the relatives. Grant standing in the kitchen to look helpful, but not actually doing anything.

Felipe and Violet. She looks more like his daughter than mine.

Alma and Helaman pretending it's still Halloween.

Me on the job.

Violet's gorgeous baby blessing outfit sewn by my mom.

The boys showing off.

Grandma and Violet (who is sporting yet another amazing dress sewn Grandma).

And in the middle of all this activity we somehow found the time to make paper hats.

Eliseo and Dad at Elie's baptism.

Whew! It was a fun month of visiting family and I'm sad it's over. At least there is Christmas to cheer me up. Or depress me, depending on which angle I view it from.