Christmas Festivities

The Christmas Season is in full swing! We are making the most of it and loving every moment!

• Decorating our Tree- We had our Christmas music playing and pine candle going. It felt and smelt like Christmas. Sage of course is still a little young to put the ornaments on the tree but she was a good little helper handing each ornament to us as we put them up. She enjoyed playing with her nativity set as we decorated. 

• City Creek Macy's Candy Window Displays- We bundled up and walked around City Creek. The candy displays in Macy's windows are pretty neat. We also went and said hi to Santa. Sage did not like him, but afterwards kept saying "ho ho." We ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.

• Gardner Village Elf Displays- Our good friends the Averyts joined us. The Elves are kind scary looking. Sage enjoyed looking at them anyways. We got a peppermint frozen hot chocolate which Sage just loved. Mmmmm mmmm. She also got to sit on the horses. The Averyts came over for dinner and we watched the game.

• Live Nativity- We bundled up and went to the Draper Live Nativity on Tuesday night. It was cold and there was a huge line. We didn't make it all the way through, but it sure was neat. It was a nice way to start the Christmas season. 

• Heber Valley Railroad Santa Train- We went on a 45 minute train ride, which played Christmas music and Santa came through. Once again Sage was scared. We are hoping by the time we want her sit with him she will have warmed up to him... We saw deer on our ride, which Sage of course loved! 

• Christmas Party- Sage's grandma and grandpa Fenton have a party for all the kids at the beginning of the month. We eat yummy food, visit and Jeanne always plans fun games for the kids. They also give the kids a couple early presents- Christmas jammies, a Christmas book and this year they got the Three Wise Men and the shepherds to add to their nativity set that they got last year. They also got adorable hooded towels. Sage got the cutest elephant and Harper got a cute little frog. 

• Christmas Advent Calendar- We have started our advent calendar. Each day has a little activity to do together. They are simple things like sing Christmas songs by the Christmas Tree or make hot chocolate. We watched a few bible stories of Christ's birth and acted them out with Sage's nativity, gone to the library to check out some Christmas books, stirred hot chocolate with candy canes and also checked out the window displays at the Grand America. 

Storage Limit Reached

I keep getting a message telling me I have reached my storage limit and I can't upload any more pictures... Weird, huh? It's not like I take a million pictures! Anyways,  we are in the process of making sure everything is backed up on the external  hard drive so we can delete some pictures and free up some room. Until then, we are here, happy and getting in the Christmas Spirit!

A remarkable woman

Yesterday we celebrated the life of Taylor's beautiful grandma who passed away on November 15th. It truly was a celebration. I am so grateful to have known her; she was a remarkable woman and always so loving and supportive.  How grateful we are for the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation. We know we will see her again, but will greatly miss her in the meantime! 

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Helen Jeannette Greene Sargent

       1918 - 2012

At ninety-three years of age, our beautiful mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend quietly completed her earthly mission on November 15, 2012 and returned home to be with her beloved husband. A quiet peace and tender sadness surrounds her family as we say goodbye to this remarkable woman.
Helen was born December 14, 1918 in Akron, Ohio, a daughter of Benjamin Harrison Greene and Florence Livingstone Greene. She graduated from Iowa State University in June 1941 with a degree in Home Economics and Food and Nutrition.
She married David L. (Lee) Sargent, Jr. December 20, 1941 in Des Moines, Iowa. Their marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple in May 1952.
She was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where she filled positions of leadership in the Primary and Relief Society organizations. She served with her husband in the LDS Hospital Branch and served as an ordinance worker in the Salt Lake Temple for a number of years.
She enjoyed many years of association in Ladies Literary Club, Pioneer Theater Guild and Dinner Set Group.
Everyone that knew her loved her. She made friends wherever she went with her gifts of conversation and love. She had an unfailing optimistic attitude in life and always wore a smile. She had a phenomenal memory and a wonderful sense of humor that kept her children laughing up to her final day. The things she treasured most were her life, her husband, her family, the gospel of Jesus Christ, her friends, work, and the beauty of the earth. Her first concern was always for the comfort and happiness of others and she was always generous with her time, talents and means. She supported everyone in all of their activities. She loved to entertain and was a gracious hostess. She loved to bake and take her delicious breads, rolls and cookies to family, neighbors, friends and to those who least expected it.
She is survived by her children, Lynn (Steven) Haslam; David Pearson, son-in-law; Anne Haslam; Cathie Manwaring, daughter-in-law; Jeanne (Tony) Fenton; Steven (Helen) Sargent and Lorrie (Jeff) Allen, 29 grandchildren and 54 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband and daughter Mary Lou Pearson and son David L. Sargent, III. 
The family would like to express heartfelt appreciation to the medical staff at LDS Hospital and Curo Hospice Services for the tender care they provided. In lieu of flowers, please donate to a charity of your choice or to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Humanitarian Fund. On-line condolences may be shared at www.larkincares.com.
Services will be held at Larkin Sunset Gardens Mortuary, 1950 East 10600 South in Sandy, Utah on Monday, November 19, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. Friends and family may visit Sunday, November 18, 2012 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Larkin Mortuary, 260 East South Temple, and from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. on November 19, 2012 at the Sandy location. Interment will be at Larkin Sunset Gardens Cemetery.

Lucky Girls

Taylor is enjoying working for E*Trade. He has been in training this past month and studying for the Series 7, which is a common license in the investment industry. Yesterday was his big exam day. He has worked and studied so hard that we were confident he would pass. Not only did he pass, but he got one of the highest scores in his group! We are so proud of him! I arranged for a babysitter and surprised him and took him to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, which is one of our favorite restaurants that he has been begging to go to for weeks. It was nice to get away for a couple hours and celebrate. Sage, Harper and I are pretty lucky girls to have him!

Sagey Girl

• Sage's favorite song use to be "Popcorn popping", but these days it is a close tie between, "Oh Mr. Sun" and "If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops." She dances around with arms in the air for the sun and loves the "uh uh uh uh uh uh uh" part in "If all the raindrops..." 
• Likes to walk backwards and and then have us say, "ready, set, go!" and she runs forward and then walks backwards down the hall again to get in position for her sprint forward... again and again.
• Constantly is saying, "cheese" sounds more like "eeeese" to have her picture taken.
• Is slowly adding words to her vocabulary. She still signs most of the time and if you ask her to say something she will do the sign instead. She knows about a dozen or so words. (For our own record: mama, dada, hi, bye, no, yeah, okay, amen, cookie, more, papa, poo poo, come on (sounds more like "mon", happy, uh oh, cheese, up, dip. She tries to say some other words here and there with a lot of coaching, but those are the words she uses most often)
• She no longer says "amen" after a prayer, but says "okay."
• favorite food: pasta
• Still loves her bottle. She only gets it at nap and bedtime and we have been putting only water most of the time. Sometimes she gets mad and we add a splash of milk. Somehow if it is white, even if it is just a splash in 4 ounces of water it makes all the difference... 
• Always calls our for "mama" when she gets up from nap/bedtime. She calls "mama mama" over and over again and louder and louder until we get her out. 
• Loves to look at her books and for us to quiz her where certain things are in the book so she can find them and point them out. 

An eventful weekend

We had an eventful weekend. Friday night we were happy to have Taylor's cousin Michael over for dinner, a game of speed scrabble and to chat. We enjoy hanging out with him. Saturday morning, Jill and Dan watched Sage for us so Taylor and I could go to the temple. After picking Sage up the three of us went to lunch and home for naps. We were able to watch a couple episodes of The Walking Dead, which is a new series we started on Netflix. When Sage got up we went to Emergency Essentials and finally got a 4 person 72 hour kit. It is something we have done a lot of talking about for almost three years now and decided we can't afford not to have it. We also went and got Sage a few pairs of winter jammies, since all the winter jammies I had bought for her after winter last year are still way too big. We then met up with the Peterson's for some bowling. It is always fun to have the kids get together and have the dads with us too. We all had a lot of fun. When we got home we assembled our 72 hour kits, had dinner and got Sage to bed. Our friends Andrew and Julie came over for dessert and games. They are so fun to hang out with. Taylor served in Mongolia with Andrew and he was recently married and lucky for us, him and his bride moved close by! We look forward to spending a lot more time with them. We are grateful for such good friends.

Success

It has been a long few months leading up to this presidential election. Our good friends Jeff and Ashley drove up to get dinner and watch the election with us. We thought it was going to be a long night and it was. I was wrong about how the election was going to play out. I think a lot of us were very hopeful and very surprised by the results. I have never followed politics, but with a husband who is passionate about it and now bringing little souls into this world I am concerned. However, after almost a week of lamenting about it we have come to terms with the results. We are saddened that our country will never know what good Mitt Romney could have accomplished and saddened that our country is so divided. However, we find comfort in the following quote taken by one of the leaders from our church, President James E. Faust in his address in 1990, "The Greatest Challenge in the World- Good Parenting."