We Wish You A Merry Christmas

We had an excellent Christmas this year with all of our boys at home.  Daren was home after being away for two years. We love having Rod and Steph close by.  Reed is still around some of the time and this is the last Christmas with Scott at home for a couple years. This may be the last year that we have that opportunity.  We received a lot and especially enjoyed the giving.  The best part is just being together as a family.  It can’t get much better than that. 

It was nice to have Christmas on a Sunday this year.  Our Sacrament Meeting wasn’t until 1:00, so there was plenty of time for opening gifts and having breakfast.  Then we attended church as a family.  What a special time to celebrate the reason for the season – CHRIST! It was a nice meeting filled with Christmas music.

Reed had worked all night and so he was a little sleepy. 

Schwieder Christmas

With the family getting increasingly larger and scattered, Grandma and Grandpa decided to have several mini-parties to accommodate everyone’s schedules.  Each family scheduled the day and then Grandma and Grandpa Schwieder were invited to attend.  Our family decided to have our get-together on Sunday, December 18th.  We had dinner that evening and then watched one of the new church Bible videos of the birth of Christ.  I had prepared a gift for everyone to open.  It contained a framed family picture and socks.  This was to symbolize our family goal of being a forever family with our Heavenly Father.  I wrote a little poem to go with it.

 

 

 

 

 

Grandma and Grandpa also had presents with a thought. 

 

Then we played the money game.  Grandma started this a few years ago with Grandpa’s loose change that he would empty from his pockets into a bowl in the drawer.  The family sits in a circle and each player has five coins.  You can shake one dice for each coin.  If a 1,2,or 3 is shook, you get to keep the coin; a 4 sends the coin to the center; for a 5 you pass the coin to the person on your left and a 6 sends it to the right.  The last person with a coin gets to have the money from the center.  This year we used Doug’s saved change and each person started with 5 quarters.  Stephanie was the final winner of the $12.50.  Maybe next year we will sweeten the pot and start with $5 each.  That would get their interest.

We enjoyed the small, intimate time to spend together as a family.  Family time is my most treasured gift!

MORE GOOD NEWS!!!

On Saturday, December 17, 2011 we combined the celebration for the birthday of Doug’s mom and the Rockwood Family Christmas Party.  We had all of the siblings in attendance and many of the grandchildren and great-grands.  There were a total of 65 present.  It was a wild, fun time for everyone.  We held it at the Iona City Building and there was plenty of room to eat, visit and play. 

Every year the kids look forward to playing “The Candy Bar Game”.  Several years ago we started the tradition of putting candy bars in the center of the floor and if you shake a 1 or 6 on the die you get to choose something from the middle and put the item in your paper bag. Later they had a few minutes to continue shaking the dice, but they could steal an item from someone else IF they could remember where it was.  It has expanded to more than candy bars.  This year there was a huge heap of toys, candy, money, stuffed animals and more.  The kids were all excited to see what they could claim. (we discontinued the stealing part, since some of the little ones have a hard time parting with their favorite item).  As I put all of the spoils in the middle, I noticed one wrapped box and commented to everyone that Grandma had included a surprise package this year.  The game proceeded as usual and everyone had stuffed paper sacks filled with goodies. 

Soon after the game, one of the little girls came and handed me a small plastic ornament that had “Give to Ann and Doug” written on it.  I thought, “Oh No! I put Doug’s mothers gifts in the middle of the game. I soon learned what had happened as I opened the small globe.  Inside was a folded paper that contained the following message.

Sitting across the room were Rod and Stephanie grinning from ear to ear.  We are sooooooo excited to be grandparents.  Now it will just be hard to wait.

Rockwood Family Christmas

The annual Rockwood Family Christmas Party was held December 17, 2011.  This is also Grandma Venna’s birthday, so it was a double celebration.  We partied at the Iona City Building, which was a good thing since there were 65 in attendance. We were happy that some of Sandy’s family was able to join us this year.  Sandy, Ray, Arianne and family, Brittany and family, Ethan and family, and Tiffany made the trip to be with us.  As always there was food, the candy bar game and Santa made an appearance.  I was so glad that Ray took some pictures since I forgot my camera.  This is one of my favorite pictures along with some other snapshots of the day.

More Remodeling

Doug and I decided that for our Christmas gifts this year we would make some changes in the house.  We have been wanting to get new countertops for quite awhile and decided to make the move to granite.  We were pleasantly surprised by the quote and so Doug said I could get carpeting as well (another item on my wish list).  I didn’t wait for him to change his mind. 

The granite has been installed.  It was interesting to see the process. Doug did the tile work for the backsplash area.  I LOVE IT!  It has made quite a difference already.

The next step was replacing the carpet throughout most of the upstairs. This carpet has been down since we built onto the house 15 years ago. Again the decision is hard to make from a small sample. I was a little concerned when they first started rolling out the carpet that it was too light. Now that it is laid and fluffed, it is looking much better and I am enjoying it. It is always fun to have something new. We took some of the old carpet and carpeted the stairs and living area downstairs. It makes a difference to have that changed as well.

The carpeting was installed at the beginning of December.  It postponed the Christmas decorating, but it was worth the wait.