Just a Little Food for Thought

So, I finished the Book of Mormon on Saturday and was planning on just starting it again yesterday. However at ward conference, our Stake President challenged us (along with the entire stake) to read the Doctrine and Covenants this year and gave us some neat promises if we did so. Since I'm not nearly as familiar with it as I am the BOM, I decided to use with it an old D&C student manual that I think I inherited from one of my siblings. In it is an excerpt from President Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness that I found really thought-provoking. Maybe it's no coincidence that this is coming immediately after my post about our new car and as we've been looking at houses out in Alabama. It made me stop and do some reevaluating of my and my family's priorities as President Kimball pointed out some things in such a way that I'd never thought of before. He certainly doesn't mince words. Any thoughts?? (Sorry about the spacing. I can't figure it out and it frustrates me to no end!)

"Idolatry is among the most serious of sins. There are unfortunately millions today who prostrate themselves before images of gold and sliver and wood and stone and clay. But the idolatry we are most concerned with here is the conscious worshipping of still other gods. Some are of metal and plush and chrome, of wood and stone and fabrics. They are not in the image of god or of man, but are developed to give man comfort and enjoyment, to satisfy his wants, ambitions, passions, and desires. Some are in no physical form at all, but are intangible.

"Modern idols or false gods can take such forms as clothes, homes, businesses, machines, automobiles, pleasure boats, and numerous other material deflectors from the path to godhood. What difference does it make that the item concerned is not shaped like an idol? Brigham Young said: 'I would as soon see a man worshipping a little god made of brass or of wood as to see him worshipping his property.'

"Intangible things make just as ready gods. Degrees and letters and titles can become idols. Many young men decide to attend college when they should be on a misison first. The degree, and the wealth and the security which come through it, appear so desirable that the mission takes second place. Some neglect Church service through their college years, feeling to give preference to the secular training and ignoring the the spiritual covenants they have made.

"Many people build and furnish a home and buy the automobile first - and then find they 'cannot afford' to pay tithing. Whom do they worship? Certainly not the Lord of heaven and earth, for we serve whom we love and give first consideration to the object of our affection and desires. Young married couples who postpone parenthood until their degrees are attained might be shocked if their expressed preference were labled idolatry."

Me, a Mini Van Mom???

It may very well be that Hell has frozen over because I now drive a mini van. With this third baby coming, getting a bigger car was a must as our little Sentra definitely couldn't fit three carseats in the back seat. We've known we'd need to up-size since we found out we're expecting and have been diligently looking for acceptable vans for the past couple of weeks. Well, on Saturday Danny put his negotiating skills into action and got a sweet deal on this 2006 Honda Odyssey. We picked it up yesterday and had a nice long first ride in it from up in Tucson. We are thrilled about the space, and hope it will last us for a lot of years and a lot more kids.

Good-bye Arizona....Hello Alabama!

We officially heard word today that our next rotation will take us to Huntsville, Alabama. We are SO EXCITED and have wanted this location for a very long time. I, as the tag-along in this whole moving-every-8-months thing, have never been to the South, and when I heard that there was a spot down there as a possibility, I really wanted to try it out. I kept putting a bug in Danny's ear. For whatever reason, I think actually living there would be so much fun. And hey, it's only for eight months. If it stinks, then we only have to stick it out for that long, right? From Danny's perspective, he's also wanted to try the South. Plus, after talking to another Raytheon guy who recently finished his rotation in Huntsville and to his would-be supervisor down there, he says the job sounds absolutely fantastic (in his opinion, the best job that any of the business units have available). We'll most likely move in late February and will be there till late October. We're hoping to head out there for a house-hunting trip in the next couple of weeks. Alabama, here we come!

New Year's Resolutions (and an announcement)

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I'm not really one for setting New Year's Resolutions. I'm not all that goal-oriented like a lot of people I know. My brother-in-law, Ben, has really made a ton of personal improvements over the past couple of years that are incredibly impressive to me. My sister-in-law, Emily, has made a very long list of things she'd like to accomplish in the next few years and she's admirably checking them off left and right. Half the time I feel like I can barely survive the daily tasks of motherhood and homemaking let alone find time and especially energy for personal introspection, etc. However, I've had some things on my mind as of late that I'd like to improve on this year and the ball's already rolling on them. For my birthday, Danny got my old violin repaired per my request and I'm going to start playing again. For Christmas, one of my gifts was to get my hand-me-down Singer fixed up. That's right, I'd like to start sewing. I hardly know the first thing about sewing, despite the fact that my grandmas, my mom, my sister, and my mother-in-law are/were incredible seamstresses. I never took advantage of their skills and knowledge, but now I'd like to try my hand at it. Both playing the violin again and learning how to sew are a matter of me actually prioritizing them into my life. I'm hopeful, yet doubtful at the same time. We'll see how far I get! An additional resolution (if you could call it that) that I know I can keep for certain (barring any unforeseen tragedies) is having another baby! We're expecting baby #3 in mid-July. We're thrilled and can hardly wait for another little one to join our family.

Christmas Vacation

We spent a two-week Christmas vacation in Mesa and it was wonderful. We stayed with both Danny's parents and my mom while we were there. We ate tons of good food, played lots of games, stayed up late, took naps, and just enjoyed being with family. Here are some of the highlights.

My mother-in-law had heard about a free model train display in her neighborhood, so we decided to check it out. It was the most amazing thing ever. This super rich guy with a huge house and even bigger back yard had a gazillion model trains. The whole backyard was landscaped around several tracks with trains actually running on them. He had four or five hired hands with walkie talkies coordinating where the trains were going as to avoid any collisions. It was beautifully done and we all liked seeing them.

My mom is really good at planning fun activities. This is an especially good skill when it comes to all of us getting together because there are so many of us and there's such a huge range in the ages of the grandkids (age 22 down to 3 months). My mom planned two evenings before Christmas that were a lot of fun. One night was a home evening complete with dinner, six or seven different Christmas games (including dressing Danny and Uncle Brian up as reindeer), and pretzel dipping. The next one was on Christmas Eve. Our long-standing tradition is to have a variety of soups (eaten from mugs) and rolls. This year's menu consisted of my mom's to-die-for minestroni, my French onion, chicken tortilla, potato, and split pea. They were all soooo tasty. Then all the kids participated in acting out the Nativity. Emily was a wiseman and Dallin was a shepherd. That was followed by hot cocoa for dessert with lots of fun trimmings. I really enjoy seeing my kids interact with their cousins. Both evenings were very creative and very fun. Well done, Mom!

We stayed the night at my mom's on Christmas Eve, and thus had Christmas Morning Round 1 with her. Both Dallin and Emily enjoyed opening up their presents. Emily was the ultimate "helper" and had a hand in opening everyone else's gifts too. We got Dallin some good, sturdy boyish toys since he's pretty much surrounded by girl stuff. Emily, on the other hand, got TONS of princess stuff and was in heaven.

We headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Dixon's for Christmas Morning Round 2. Once again the kids got to open lots of presents - toys, books, and clothes. Everyone was really great and got Dallin some more boyish toys. To Emily's utter delight, she opened even more princess gifts. Even Danny and I got spoiled over there. It was a really fun morning.

We spent New Year's Eve at my mom's with her, Jennifer, David, Brian, and Heidi. Our standing tradition is to eat all sorts of different appetizers about halfway through the evening. Meatballs, nacho cheese, chips and salsa, guacamole, artichoke dip and crackers, bruchetta, taquitos, and a vegetable platter were on the menu. They were all so good, but this picture doesn't really do it justice. Before we ate, we had sort of a game-off where we played one or two hands of five different games: 5 Crowns, Nertz, Go, Mormon Bridge, and 7 Up. I was crowned victor. I was not planning on staying up till midnight, but of course I got sucked into it.

Our First Nativity

We did our Christmas lesson for Family Home Evening the other day since we're not going to be at home for any more Mondays this month. We decided to try acting out the Nativity. It was kind of a last minute idea, courtesy of Danny (we're trying to be better at planning our FHE lessons more in advance) and it was a pretty simple and crude version. At the same time, the kids had fun and we did well inspite of our small numbers. Introducing the cast: A doll represented Baby Jesus; Emily was Mary; Dallin was Joseph; I was the narrator reading from Luke 2 and Matt. 2, the inn-keeper, and the angel; Danny was the donkey, a shepherd, and the wisemen (he wore three different tiarras at the same time to represent the three wisemen - very resourceful, if you ask me). We then sang a few Christmas hymns and to conclude, we watched the church video "The Nativity". It was a good, meaningful Home Evening we felt.

Notice Mary is "great with child" thanks to her stuffed pig.

In our version, Joseph got to ride the donkey too.

In the stable with Baby Jesus in the manger.

Thanksgiving, Birthday, and Other Stuff

This post is so overdue, and really should be several posts, so I'll try to be concise (yeah right.).








Thanksgiving



We spent most of Thanksgiving with my fantastic in-laws. The whole family was together, which was great.












Of course the weather was pleasant enough to spend lots of time outside.








Dallin hamming it up.

For weeks, Emily had anticipated playing Duck, Duck, Goose with everyone. It was pretty funny watching the grown-ups play.

Emily and Dallin got to help decorate the tree, the thing Emily said she enjoyed most of the whole weekend.

Unfortunately, Emily's pants tend to sag a little and her undies usually go down with them. Hence, the bum crack. But a cute bum crack at that.

We got a family photo one morning. This is everyone waiting to get started.

Grandma and Aunt Stacy kindly helped the kids decorate a gingerbread house.

I think Dallin ate more candy than he actually put on the house.

Emily loved the gumballs that came with it.

Danny and I were not present for this whole thing of decorating the house. Apparently, this is what grandmas let the grandkids do when their parents are gone. What you don't get to see is the whole string of action photos taken before this one that show Dallin climbing up on the table, crawling toward that bowl of candy, and plopping himself down to have complete reign over it. All the while Grandma's in the background laughing instead of intervening. Nice one, Grandma! We caught you on this one! :) Oh well. What's a grandma if she doesn't spoil the grandkids?

Participating in the Dixon tradition of toffee dipping. Here's the double assebly line where everyone has one of the following jobs: throwing the bare toffee into the bowl of chocolate, covering the bare toffee with chocolate then throwing it into the bowl of nuts, covering the chocolate-covered toffee with nuts and placing it on the cookie sheet. I was doing none of those jobs, just eating the bare toffee. Besides the toffee, we (I use the term "we" loosely as I was a minimal participant) made all sorts of other goodies like fondants, fudge, turtles, and almond joys. Yes, my mother-in-law is an accomplished chef and loves to make anything and everthing. Luckily, I'm the benefactor in much of what she makes.

Dallin and Uncle Ben. Dallin's job was throwing the toffee into the bowl of chocolate.

As was Emily's job.

Dallin and Aunt Emily hanging out.

Birthday

I celebrated my 29th birthday on the 30th. To celebrate, all of us Dixons went out for breakfast at Crackers (yum!!) on Saturday morning and then Danny and I went to Cheesecake Factory (yum yum!!) with some of my siblings and their spouses that night. Sunday was my actual birthday so we had cake at the Dixons and opened gifts that evening. I got some money (some of which I've already on some shoes), some new clothes and earrings, my old violin repaired, and my own copy of These Is My Words, my favorite book. Not bad, eh?

Dallin withGreat-grandpa and Great-granny Dixon.

Other Stuff

This past week or so was spent in Mesa while Danny was in Boston for work. We stayed some days at my in-laws' and some days with my mom while she tended my brother's kids. I was able to get some good Christmas shopping done and it was fun to stay up late talking with my mom before bed.

My kids got to take part in another Dixon Christmas tradition: Bratzle-making. Bratzles are flat, little, Swiss cookies you cook in a special iron (similar to a waffle iron) that imprints the cookies with pretty designs. They are oh so delicious and the kids had a good time helping.

This, unfortunatley, is not a good representation of either Danny or the following little incident. So, the last morning we were in Mesa, I got out of the shower annoyed with myself for not having turned on the bathroom fan (the mirrors were extremely fogged up). Dressed only in my garments at that point, I turn on the fan and when I do, it makes a weird buzzing noise for it's first couple rotations. I didn't think to much of it, other than the fan had never done that before. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see something fall from the fan, a thin, brown something - like a stick, and I hear a couple of little thuds. When I peered over to the space between the toilet and the tub, there on the floor was a lizard! It was just the one of the regular lizards we see all the time her in AZ, about 4 or 5 inches long. I'm not scared of lizards per se, but I certainly wasn't going to try to get one that big, so I called Danny in to do it. It didn't move much, but it was alive (Personally, I suspect it brain damage after falling from that high, ricocheting off the toilet, and landing on tile floor). We let it go in the backyard and eventually it ran away. So, that was a pretty surprising thing that we all laughed about.