The Morris Family Faux Christmas Letter 2008

I thought I would post our Christmas Letter on my blog because I didn't get a chance to send it out to everyone this year. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas Family & Friends

This year was much like the previous years, a few changes, but pretty much the same.

Let's start with our youngest, Brie Ashely. Brie is doing somewhat better this year. So far she hasn't been sent to the Principal's office at all this year. That is already a BIG improvement from last year. Jade and I are so relieved that we haven't gotten any notes from the teacher saying that she is in trouble for doing arm farts or for lifting up her shirt! So, you know, that's a blessing right there.

Zachary is 12 now and a Deacon. Jade and I are really happy that he hasn't dropped the sacrament tray, yet. On the first day of summer he was out back practicing casting and got his fishing line stuck in the telephone lines. There's still a floater up there. We were just grateful it wasn't the power line. We haven't had to take him to the Emergency Room all year. That's another blessing!

Josh is 13 and seems to have all the answers to EVERYTHING. Jade and I wish were were as smart as him. We are convinced that he should to into LAW. He is so great at arguing. Truly a marketable talent. Another talent Josh has worked on and gotten really good at this year is "sulking". He really rocks at sulking.

Brandon is out on his mission. It's a darn good thing, too because he was such a pain in the butt that I told him he was outta here by Feb 13th one way or another. I also let him know that if and when he came home from his mission he could stay 2 weeks here and not a day longer. No more mooching off the parents. I have plans for that bedroom.

Brittanie graduated from BYU in April and Jade and I were THRILLED! I bought a new Tahoe a week before she graduated. Now that we weren't paying for tuition I could afford something for ME! (ME,ME,ME,ME!!!)

Jade is still working non-stop. He has been working a lot in Vegas. I wonder sometimes, though. He ALWAYS comes back a little more tan after each trip. He says it's from having the top down on his car, but I'm not convinced. He is still a High Counselor and so he's in a lot of meetings. He still has a problem staying awake when he sits on the stand at church. In the pew I can at least nudge him. He always appreciates it when I do that!

Me, well I'm doing great, as always. This year I finally got to use reading glasses. I've always wanted to wear a pair of glasses that I have to keep putting on and then taking off. One of the highlights from this last year for me has been realizing that I have entered into a new "category" in life. I have now entered the category of women who are called, "Mam". I'm hearing this a lot lately. I look around to see what "old" lady is by me and then I realize that they are referring to me. And then of course I got to go and have that swell Sleep Study done not once, but TWO times. Yeah, that was definitely a highlight from 2008.

Well, as you can see, we are all doing just the same as always. Hope that you're doing the same, too.

Merry Christmas!

The Morris's

Gymnastics Holiday Show

Brie at her Holiday Gymnastic Show
Here she goes...



Brie with her cousin, Hazelyn

How would you like to be this limber?

Two cutie pies

First Place!!!

Camarillo Second Ward Relief Society Proudly Presents...

Christmas Dinner with Joseph and Emma Smith

Sarah and Bill Haisman as Emma and Joseph

Sara Galante and Allyn Sisson as Mary and Hyrum Smith

Our Steamboat Captian, Devon Hansen and Marnell as Lucy Mack Smith

Marnell as Lucy Mack Smith

Dean Martin as Porter Rockwell and Rex Henderson with Mitch Tao as the "Bouncers" for the evening

Our dancing entertainment and instruction provided by Jonathan and Kirsten Kent

Two of our beautiful singers; Shelsi Stolworthy and Margo Ingram.

Margo sang, "Oh Holy Night"

Shelsi Stolworthy sang "Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella"

Not pictured is Cari White who sang a beautiful rendition of "Still, Still, Still"

and our men's chorus who consisted of Devon Hansen, Jonathan Kent and Kawika Tupou who sang "Oh Come All Ye Faithful".

Our cast: George Knapp, Kevin Billings, Mitch Tao, Bill Haisman, Sarah Haisman, Allyn Sisson, Sara Galante, Dean Martin, Rex Hendeson, Jonathan Kent, Kirsten Kent, Devon Hansen, Marnell Hansen, Margo Ingram, Shelsi Stolworthy and R.S. President, Linn Evans

Delicious dinner provided by Karen Chavez and her food committee. Lala Troxel was a wonderful right hand assistant.

We had an amazing dinner of Roast Pork, stuffing, gravy, garlic red potatoes, green beans, homemade applesauce, homemade oatmeal bread and for dessert we enjoyed berry cobbler with cream.

Our waiters and kitchen staff were priceless: Rex Henderson, Mitch Tao, Dean Martin, Jade Morris, George Knapp, Kevin Billings,

Beautiful table settings


Devon, Marnell and Linn

George and Bonnie


Jade & Debbie

Porter Rockwell a.k.a. Dean Martin

Joy To Everyone

Please click on this link to view a beautiful Christmas message.

I'M MARRIED TO CLARK GRISWOLD

My husband LOVES Christmas-especially the part that involves decorating the house with Christmas Lights. Over the years we have collected all kinds of Christmas paraphernalia; we have a HUGE plastic Santa that sits on the top of our roof every year, Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus sit on our lawn, we have had large plastic Christmas candles that lined the walk up to our house, a Santa on a stick by the front door, a HUGE "Welcome" mat, and lots of poinsettias. But the icing on the cake is the lighting. Jade takes great pride in making sure ALL the lights are in working order, that they all face the SAME direction. He gets up early, puts on his work clothes, pops "Carpenter Christmas" in the CD player, drags out his ladders and extension cords and gets to work. He never complains. It's kinda like a crusade for him. He has extension cords running in and out of windows, across eves, through the plants, across the roof and down the side of the house. He is very artistic and so we have lights around each window, around the posts on the front porch, lining the garage door, the front door, on ALL the eves of the top and bottom story, the chimney and just for good measure we have LIGHT NETS for the plants in the yard. (Who knew?) He likes to put them all on timers so that they come on early and go off late. We want to share our Christmas Joy with EVERYONE. His FAVORITE lights are the "old school" large ceramic bulbs that each run on about 5 watts a piece. Guess what our electricity bill runs during the month of December? I have tried to encourage him to cut back the time the lights are on. I say, "Honey, this year, instead of running the lights for 7 hours a night, lets share the power with the ENTIRE neighborhood and only run them 5 hours." This year I FINALLY succeeded in trying a little experiment. With the economy in the state that it is in I said to my dear husband, "Honey, why don't we go green with our Christmas lighting this year?" Oops-I forgot, Jade has a VERY strong dislike for "Inconvenient Truths". So I quickly rephrased my question, "Honey, why don't we save $100 this month and use LED Christmas lighting?" I was surprised that he agreed. So I ran to Costco and purchased the colored LED strands of 100 lights before he had time to reconsider. The entire strand uses 8 watts! After he hung them I could tell he was VERY sad and disappointed. Gone were his beloved 5 watt old-school lights and instead were these miserable, wimpy, feeble energy saving lights. So I dedicate this blog post to my dear, sweet hubby who I lovingly have nicknamed,

"Clark Griswold".
(click on link "clark griswold" above)
These LED lights are so weak that they don't even show up in the photo!

Not only that, but they look BLUE!

What NOT To Get the Wife for Christmas

A friend emailed this to me and it's too good not to share!

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~SAAWHEAT!

WOW! Who knew there was such a thing as an award for

"Fabulous Blog"?

Anyone who knows me well knows it doesn't take much

stroking for me to purr!

I want to thank all 3 people who actually follow my blog,

(with my prompting, of course).

Extra Special "THANKS" to my wonderful daughter,

Brittanie

who nominated me for this prestigious award.

She is my inspiration!

My 5 fabulous addictions are:

1. Shop for deals, deals and more deals!

2. Mr. Darcy, Pride & Predjuice of course and most "Period" Films.

3. Decorating-anything! Just ask my very tolerant hubby.

4. Going to the beach.

5. Keeping up my son's Missionsite-Elder Brandon Morris

Blogs I LOVE to Follow:
1. Out of Small & Simple Things
2. The Stott Family
3. Greener Grass
4. THE HAGERS!
5. Tales of an Ordinary Housewife

The rules of this award are:
1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.
Instructions: On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then "add image" it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the "picture" gadget. Also, don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

What Do You Get When You Cross A Missionary With a Mildly Neurotic Mom?

I can't take credit for the creativity of this project-I have my good friend, Linn Evans I can blame for that! She's the most artsy and truly creative person I know. But I am really, really good at copying great ideas!!!! So copy I did!
So here's the concept: Cut out 5 foot paper in shape of Christmas Tree. Decorate with "garland" and laminate. Visit family and friends of Missionary and photograph them holding a sign that says, "Merry Christmas Elder Morris". Take enough photos that the Missionary has 25-one for each day in December until Christmas. Develop the photos and then mount them onto cute scrapbook paper. Cut into ornament shaped photos. Roll tree and mail with ornaments. For extra pizazz throw in a pine scented room freshener and a strand of 100 multicolored tree lights.

I couldn't have done this without so many helpful friends and family!

THANK YOU!

THANK YOU!

THANK YOU!