Sorkville - Gingerbread Model

A pile of candy, bowls of frosting and a fantastic plan in our minds.  That is how the 4^th annual Sork gingerbread house competition began.  OK, so it wasn’t so much a competition as it was an organized family activity.  This year we actually used real gingerbread rather than our traditional graham crackers.  We found it to be a bit less forgiving and a bit harder to work with, but that just added to the challenge.

The theme this year was gingerbread village.  Mom and Dad were in charge of the town square complete with giant Christmas tree, bubbling brook and walking bridge.  

McKenna built a quaint little gingerbread cottage which was bordered by Austin’s Town Hall and Carson’s Candy Shop.  

The most unusual contribution was Tanner’s church and graveyard complete with tomb stones and stained glass window.  It took about twice as long as everyone else’s and he was ready to be done at the end.

The aftermath was a mess.  Frosting everywhere and on everything.  But the experience was fantastic and helped make our Christmas holiday traditional.

Families Are Forever

One of the activities we like to do as a family during the holiday season is attend the temple.  We have planned a family temple trip for several years now during the month of December where we go to the temple baptistery and provide the needed ordinance work for our family members who have died without the opportunity to complete these ordinances on their own.  We believe that in completing these ordinances for them, our ancestors will have the opportunity to accept our work on their behalf and live with their Heavenly Father and those they love forever.  I like to view it as my personal invitation to my ancestors to join me for a big family reunion in the next life.  It is also my way to thank them for the rich heritage they have left me and my children, just a little something I can do for them in return.



This year, 2013, was a special year; all my children are old enough to participate in this temple ordinance and we were set to go as a family.  Something we have all been looking forward to for a very long time. Unfortunately, McKenna was too sick to go and Carson could not find his temple recommend so he ended up staying home to nurse his sister back to health.  Maybe next time we will all be there together.

It was a nice trip.  Going to the temple always helps put life in the proper perspective, especially when you are there with the ones you love.  It is as close to heaven as you can come on earth.

Christmas Traditions New & Old

Written by:  Carson and Mom

               

Christmas Eve we kept a long time family tradition alive and spent the evening at Grandma G’s as a family. We sang carols accompanied by grandma with her new piano, and new-found piano skills. 

We also ate LOTS of good food (Grandma always makes sure everyones favorites are on the menu), and had a white elephant gift exchange (last year it was socks which started us on a happy sock fettish, this year it was gourmet hot chocolate flavors).  We exchanged our family gifts and spent qaulity time together.   

Of course we had to change into our Christmas Eve PJs before heading home so we would be ready for Santa.  They were so comfortable that the next day we didn't take them off and went to the matinee of frozen in them.  Everyone in the theater thought that was such a good idea.  We even heard one little boy say to his mom, "See they didn't have to change."  After a fun night at grandmas, all the kids had our slumber party in Austin’s room and dreamed of how great Christmas morning would be!

This is one of the Nativities we saw at this year's Festival of Nativities.
It is the Holy Family with the "The Family:  A Proclamation to the World" inscribed on it.
A great way to remember that because of Jesus Christ, families can be together forever. 

First thing Christmas morning we woke up and read the Christmas Story like we do every year as a family in mom and dad’s room.  It is one of the things we do to help us remember the meaning of our celebration. 

Then, we went downstairs and opened stockings. This year each of us was able to play Santa as we drew a name of a family member and were responsible to fill up their stocking. We each got 30.00 and were told to get as much fun stuff as we could afford (or fit in the stocking!!) For FHE one night we all went to Walmart and got into little groups and filled each other’s stockings. There were some pretty creative stocking stuffers and some very thoughtful, some very funny. 

Tanner got some little spoons in his stocking from Mckenna because he had no tablespoons at college to eat his cold cereal with.  McKenna got a HUGE spoon from Tanner, just because...and Carson felt that Dad needed a machete to add to his scouting/camping gear collection.

Now McKenna knows what Tanner felt like at college!  Good thing she got him those spoons.

  Next we all opened up all of our individual presents, which I’m sure everybody loved! My favorite part of Christmas this year was being able to have the whole family together again with Tanner back from college. I can’t wait for next year, and I look forward to all the fun traditions and family time in store next Christmas!

A Little Christmas Cheer

Written by: Austin

Around Christmas time our family always puts on a Christmas program for a retirement home. My friends, the Clarks, just recently moved into Emeritus Living and weren’t enjoying their stay there too much. In an effort to brighten their holidays we performed at their new assisted living home. 

We had countless performers including family friends such as the McKague family and all of my mother’s piano students whose skills ranged from a simple rendition of “Jingle Bells” to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. We had a fabulous time and performed for all of the residents with a special welcome to our friends the Clarks, the guests of honor, who sat right in the front row. 

I sang a song entitled “The Savior of the World” all about how Jesus, who atoned for all of our sins, was once a baby, just like you and I.

 McKenna and Dad brought tears to the eyes of many residents as they performed a father daughter version of “Baby its Cold Outside” and Danced during musical interludes. They had practiced for a long time and it turned out perfect! 

Carson, the child violin prodigy, performed a wonderful piece with the vibrato that he’s been practicing so hard to get down. 

All in all it was a great program and we were glad we had the chance to bring a little Christmas Spirit to the residents at the retirement home. 

Carson's Soccer Season

This past year I have been playing left defender for the Cheetahs recreational soccer team.  Once in awhile I would get to play mid field or forward too.  I had fun. We were all buddies and had a good time playing together.  Coach Robert is an awesome coach. 

 We made it to the state championships.  It was great until I couldn’t go to the semi-final and final championship games because they were on Sunday. We finished second in state.

A corner kick right over the top of the goalie...

...to Carson for a header...

...and a SCORE!

In October Carson's team followed other major league teams and
went pink by adding arm bands for breast cancer awareness.

Gizzy

Poem by McKenna (In bold)

Journal Entries by Mom

Us kids can't remember a time before we decided a dog would make great company.

The kids since very young have done report after report on why we should have a dog, what expenses it would entail, the work they would need to do for upkeep and what type of dog would be perfect for our family.

Our parents refused all our pleas and our cries, at least until Gizmo came into our lives.

Austin brought home his girlfriend's (Mandy Temple) dog for us to dog-sit over Thanksgiving.  It was then we knew Gizzy was the perfect dog for our family, a lhasa apso-shitzu mix, well trained, and a personality that just fit.  

We fell in love immediately.

Gizmo was gentle, he never did scratch, and soon both our parents became quite attached.

Enough said.

They loved him too much, he was so well behaved and for Christmas 

their arguments finally caved.

The Temple family wasn't as attached to Gizzy as we were and they were looking for a home where he would be loved and well cared for.  Austin asked to dog sit Gizzy again over Christmas break.  After having him at our home again for a few days, I called Sherry Temple  and asked if they were really looking to place Gizzy in a new home.  She said they were and I told her we would take him and give him to the family for Christmas.  She was great and helped us with all the arrangements so it was a BIG surprise on Christmas morning when the kids unwrapped a box 

with a new collar and tags for Gizzy.

They gave us the dog we'd been wanting to get; we promised to bathe him -- to never forget.

They did everything they had promised in all their reports from baths to poop scooping. Gizzy was the best cared for,

 most loved dog in the world.

We took our new pet to adventure the world before all our eyes came the mysteries unfurled.

We took Gizzy with us everywhere he could possibly go. He loved riding in the car while I ran the kids all over the place, he would go on my walks with me, the boys would take him backpacking, he loved to go hiking.  He knew lots of tricks:  sit, shake, roll-over, play-dead.  He would play hide and seek and fetch.  We had lots of grand adventures together.

His paw became injured on one of those times, we bandaged and cleaned it to

keep out the grime.

We noticed a sore about two weeks after Christmas which he started to lick incessantly.  We thought it was just him adjusting to his new home and a comfort issue (like sucking a thumb) so we put socks and bandages on it to try and get it healed. We thought we had it healed but a few months later he started licking it again.  We took him back in and they said it looked like there was something festering in there.  They performed a minor surgery to see if they could extract whatever it was and relieve the pressure.  They couldn't find anything, but thought that draining it might have washed anything out.  So we bandaged him up and gave him a good round of antibiotics for the infection.

His paw slowly worsened, we went to the vet to see what the doctors could do for our pet.

My parents weren't worried, we followed their lead and finished 

out summer the way we'd agreed.

  Again another few months went by then we started seeing a lump where they had performed the surgery.  We went back in and they took a biopsy. It was going to be a week or so before we had any news.  Yes, I was very worried, but knew that worrying would do me no good and be even worse for the kids.  We had planned a camping trip to the beach  and weren't sure about taking Gizzy with his sore paw, but opted to continue with our plans and enjoy being together.  

And during our trip to the beach, the vet did call to tell us our puppy had no time at all.

They said he had cancer, we tried not to cry, the treatment was thousands of dollars to buy.

I took the call in the tent from the oncologist.  I can't tell you how long I sat in there and cried, trying to find the courage to go tell my family.  We were told that the cancer was aggressive and without surgical treatment and chemotherapy he would have 2-4 months left. 

Too late we all realized we couldn't afford to spend that much money on Gizzy's accord.

 We opted to give him medication to help lessen the symptoms and ease his pain.  We wanted to enjoy the rest of the time we had with him knowing it would be too short.

We watched our dog struggle and did slowly accept he couldn't do much, 

he just ate and he slept. 

  After a few weeks of the meds it seemed all his symptoms went away.  We were given false hope that maybe it was mis-diagnosed or that we had our own little miracle, but about a month later the 

symptoms returned with a vengence. The decline was quite rapid.

And when he did pass we all knew he'd return back to where he belonged in the heavens.

I'm sure for such loyalty he will be praised and Heavenly Father will sure be amazed.

Gizzy was a very loyal friend.  Austin had a very rough year with his own sickness and Gizzy was always at his side comforting him.  When Austin would be throwing up Gizzy would tear through the house barking at me until I acknowledged that something was wrong.  He truly was a blessing to our family and especially to Austin.  

His patience and love will bring angels to shame all the heavenly hosts will be calling his name.

And sure he'll be lonely up there in that place, we aren't there to play with, 

our squirrels he can't chase.

I had to take him in to be put down about two weeks before Christmas.  That was a very tough trip.  The kids all said their good-byes before they left for school and made me promise he wouldn't be there when they came home, because they couldn't go through that again.  I am grateful Lani accompanied me on the errand.  I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't know just how hard.

But when our time comes, he'll be there at the gate to welcome us home, not a moment to late.

We will miss Gizzy, he has a place in our hearts forever.