Traditions

The song, "Tradition," from "Fiddler on the Roof" is on repeat in my head. Hopefully it's stuck in your head now too. Both Andrew and I come from families that make the holiday season special with established traditions.

DITTO TRADITIONS

ABH Premier

The "All Brothers Hike" has been going on for over 20 years now. Although I don't get to go (darn! Camping is life),  Kelly puts a video together with footage of the hike each year. The kids think their dads are celebrities when they see them on the screen.

We were happy to be in WA for the ABH premier earlier this month. To start the night off strong, we typically do a "pizza potluck." This is right up my alley. Everyone brings pizza to share. You can find all the toppings your heart desires (although, why you would want anything other than pepperoni is beyond me?) and people bring pizza from a variety of places, so if Domino's isn't your jam, there are plenty of other options.

Favorite Things Gift Exchange

The adults in the Ditto fam do a favorite things gift exchange for Christmas. I always look forward to it and ponder all year what to buy. This year, I gave Lehi Mills blueberry muffin mix and a candle from Bath and Body Works. As I mentioned in my book post, Andrew gave the book "Project Hail Mary" for his favorite thing. I came home with such a variety of things from our gift exchange-- earings, makeup, food, a journal, and more.

DENNING TRADITIONS

Chips and Salsa

There are always so many sweets around Christmas time. I've been guilty of throwing away perfectly good plates of cookies because I simply can't stomach another sugary dessert. I love that my parents give out chips and salsa to their neighbors. Having something salty to even out my palette during this time of year is needed. All of their neighbors look forward to their salsa each year and we have quite the assembly line going to get the salsa making done as effectiently as possible. I'm usually in charge of filling bags with tortilla chips.

Christmas Eve

This day involves opening matching jammies, acting out the nativity in full costumes, PIZZA, wrapping presents for each other in the same room, usually a Christmas movie of some sort, and games. Yes, you read that correctly. We wrap our gifts for each other all together. It makes it kind of like a game and you'll hear, "Jenna, don't look over here because I'm wrapping your present," and see a plethora of afghan blankets covering gifts. We do our sibling gift exchange that night and thinking about it warms my heart. My siblings are so thoughtful! 

NEW TRADITIONS FOR MY LITTLES

Wrapped Christmas Books

This is a common tradition and I finally jumped on the bandwagon. I'm so happy I did! I didn't have 24 Christmas books, but found a good deal and bought more. I wrapped the Christmas books and placed them under our tree. Each night, the kids traded off opening one story that we read as family. While listening, the children got to eat a piece of chocolate from their advent calendars. This was hands down the best time of day. I'm now quite proud of our Christmas book collection and am avoiding putting it away.

Themed Wrapping Paper

Instead of labeling our kids presents this year, I wrapped their gifts using wrapping paper that I thought they would like. It was pretty obvious which gifts were for James and which ones were Izzy's.

Family Sleepover

To change up movie watching this month, we did special things. The most-liked by far was the family sleepover. We put an air mattress in our room and the kids got to watch, "The Grinch." Who knew this would cause so much excitement!? I don't think they'll always want to sleep near us, so I'll take it while I can. Adding to the extravagence, we went to the movie theater and bought popcorn to eat at our house. Izzy had 3 large bowls of that buttery popcorn. It's hard to stop eating that goodness once you start.

Obviously, we kept some of our old traditions like seeing Santa, decorating a gingerbread house, buying each other presents at the dollar store,etc. 

Can it be December 2022 already?? Experiencing the magic of this time of year is amplified surrounded by children.

2021 in Books

According to Goodreads, I've read 32,048 pages this year and 98 books so far. 100 is a much more round number and I'm sure I'll get there, especially after the long road-trip we're going on.  As someone who has devoted a lot of time to reading, let me share some books I've liked. I forced myself to rate every book I read this year which was challenging for me. Some consider me a harsh critic. 

5 ***** BOOKS

• "Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of Life Uninterrupted" By: Suleika Jaouad--This is about Suleika and her cancer journey. She writes on her blog during this difficult time and connects with people throughout the country. It is heavy, but the message is beautiful. 

• "The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less" By: Terry Ryan--Don't judge this book by it's cover or title. It's about a family of 12 trying to get by. Their alcoholic father makes paying bills nearly impossible, but their ingenious mother writes poems and jingles to earn prizes and extra cash. It's also a movie.

• "The Midnight Library" By: Matt Haig--I have thought so much about this book since reading it. It's all about what would have happened to Nora if she had made different life choices. This was relatable. I often second-guess my life decisions. It you want to avoid the f word, don't read this.

• "Other Words for Home" By: Jasmine Warga
• "When Stars Are Scattered" By: Victoria Jamieson
• "Nobody Will Tell You This But Me" By: Bess Kalb
• "Book of Mormon"
• "Doctrine and Covenants"

 4 **** books: 
(I didn't include all of the books I gave 4 stars to because there are too many.)

• "The Last Thing He Told Me" By: Laura Dave-- I couldn't put this one down. It won the Goodreads award for the best mystery & thriller this year. Well deserved.
• "The Chilbury Ladies Choir" By: Jennifer Ryan
• "Encylopedia of an Ordinary Life" By: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• "The Exiles" By: Christina Baker Kline
• "Project Hail Mary" By: Andy Weir--Goodreads winner and I can see why! This book is science heavy. I still found it to be worth my time and read it aloud with my husband who chose this as his "favorite thing" to gift his siblings this year.
• "The Mother-in-Law" By: Sally Hepworth
• "The Holdout" By: Graham Moore-- One chapter is worth skipping.
• "The Inheritance Games" By: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• "The War I Finally Won" By: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley --This is the sequel to "The War That Saved My Life." Both books are fabulous.
• "The Four Winds" By: Kristin Hannah
• "Better Than the Movies" By: Lynn Painter--This book has language. It's a charming YA romance book. I immediately made a playlist of all the songs listed throughout the book.

The "Naughty" List 
(Books I enjoyed, but they have language or content, so I don't recommend them to everyone.)

• "The Guest List" By: Lucy Foley. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. That being said, there is language and sex
• "The Rosie Project: By: Graeme Simsion. Watch out for strong language, but this will have you laughing out loud.

The "Nice" List
(Self improvement books I read.)

• "The Self-Driven Child" By: William Stixrud
• "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" By: Dale Carnegie
• "The Gifts of Imperfection" By: Brene Brown

It's important to note that not everyone has the same taste in books and that's okay. If you hate one of my recommendations, I understand and I'm sorry. If you're all about Fantasy, get in touch with my husband and you can chat about Brandon Sanderson for hours. Different books ring true to different people. I have not finished every book I've started this year. It's freeing to finally decide to give-up on a book. One of the books I stopped this year just won a Goodreads award, so clearly it's good. I made it halfway through "The Firekeeper's Daughter" before giving up. 

Another book I stopped is "Cloud Cuckoo Land." It's sometimes painful to quit books. I had such high hopes for this book. At over 600 pages, it requires a lot of time. I finally gave up on page 141. This is a hot book that I've been on-hold of for awhile, but oh well. The jumps between characters, time periods, and genres was too much. I didn't have the energy to devote to reading this at the time and that's okay! 

I'm now a part of 2 book clubs! Lucky me. Last month, my UT county book club read, "Lovely War" By: Julie Berry which I enjoyed and recommend.  My SL county book club read, "Apples Never Fall" By: Liane Moriarty. The family dynamics in the book were spot-on, but the last 70ish pages of the book blew it for me. 

I'm always looking for book recommendations, so shoot me your favorite titles and I'll add them to my road-trip list. I'll be reading, "The Out of Sync Child" By: Carol Stock Kranowitz because there's always more to learn about parenting. Here's to hoping that my kids are entertained on the drive for hours on end and let me read to my hearts content. 

Online Shopping

Call me a millenial, homebody, or even go as far as using the word lazy, but I do a lot of online shopping. It's so convenient. It has its drawbacks though.

Might I suggest refraining from ordering wrapping paper online? I've had two mishaps. My first online wrapping paper order didn't even come on a roll. It was wrapping paper folded into a rectangle instead. Why did I even attempt to buy more wrapping paper, months later? Because it was cute. Guess what happened this time though? Fortunately, the paper actually came on a roll, but it was mini. It was half the size of a regular sized roll of wrapping paper. This was probably stated somewhere, but clearly I didn't notice. It has been an adventure wrapping items with such short paper and honestly, it would have been worth the hassle to just return it.

I do have one success story buying wrapping paper online from a couple of years ago. I found a killer Cyber Monday deal and purchased wrapping paper in bulk. We delivered the wrapping paper to neighbors for Christmas. It's good to know I'm capcable of buying functional wrapping paper. From now on, I'll be hesitant before ordering any "cute" wrapping paper and read all the size descriptions. You should do the same.

Grocery shopping online has been a game changer for me, even pre Covid. Managing 2 rascals and pushing a heavy cart, all while trying to stay underbudget, is nearly impossible. To be fair, my online grocery buying habits started pre-kids. Teaching full-time is exhausting and grocery pick-up seemed like the answer. Ordering groceries online helps my budget stay on track too. Those impulse buys while strolling through the aisles don't happen. I'm able to see my total and adjust my cart without having to embarass myself in front of a cashier. 

My biggest complaint with grocery pickup is that someone else picks out my produce for me. Some of my personal "shoppers" are thorough and choose just what I would. Others don't even bother to put apples, onions, or other produce items in the special clear bags. They're simply tossed into a regular grocery sack. This is disappointing.

The best perk about online grocery shopping is the substitutions. If Walmart is out of an item, they always give you a better brand than the one you originally asked for. For instance, this week, "Great Value" spaghetti noodles were sold-out, so instead, I got the "Barilla" brand--fancy. Additionally, Walmart gave me 2 packages of noodles instead of just the 1  I asked for, due to the inconvenience. Walmart, you can substitute my items anytime! Well, scratch that. One time I ordered 6+ cans of enchilada sauce, and instead of mild, hot sauce was substituted. No thanks! It took months to get through those cans and I think I eventually donated them. Could I have just said no to the hot enchilada sauce substitution? Yes.

After unloading groceries once, I noticed my milk was missing! I drove back to the store to pick it up and the worker told me to pick out anything in the store because of this error. Obviously, the first thing that came to mind was my favorite candy bar. If only I'd asked for a new 60 inch TV. Lesson learned. 

Last week in my grocery pickup order, I bought Crisco among other things. When I took the Crisco out, it was mini. Seems to be a theme! Did I intend to do buy such a small amount of Crisco? No. I can maybe make one batch of cookies with that much Crisco. Online shopping is making me re-train my brain. I can't always go for the cheapest item! I have to consider that it's probably so affordable due to the size. 

Let me show off my latest online shopping find. I couldn't be more pleased with it. Thank you, Black Friday for saving me over $300 dollars on this beauty. She's a keeper and adds the perfect pop of color in my home. Seeing the kids reaction to this new rug was unforgetabble. Izzy elegantly danced and twirled on the rug and James pulled out acrobatic moves I didn't know he had. We can now kneel again for family prayer, pain-free. 

The rug is from Wayfair

I seem to have a love-hate relationship with shopping online, but I'll take it. The good in this relationship far outweighs the bad. I'm eager to begin my next search for light fixtures all while in the comfort of my pajamas and warm sheets.