Merry Christmas from The Fredericksens

Merry Christmas from our little family to you! We ask that God bless you and yours and bring you happiness, health, and prosperity in 2012.

With love, Trent, Kendra, and Mattie Fredericksen

Christmas Past

Warning: This post has a lot of pictures, but I kept finding good ones from past Christmases... and they are only from 2006 on. None from when we were little. Maybe I'll get some of those someday :)

Christmas is probably my favorite holiday of them all. I just have so many great memories of Christmases from when I was younger which makes it so much sweeter. In the past couple years, things have changed just because all of us ‘kids’ are growing up and have jobs or are in college or are married/engaged, but thankfully my family is blessed to have great memories to carry on with us. Here is how I remember Christmas growing up.

A disclaimer to my family and others who know how we did things, this is how I remember things – which may be a little different than you remember them or how they actually were. J



With my mom and dad on Christmas Day 2006



From as far back as I remember, we always went to the Schroeder Christmas on Christmas Eve in either Vail or Manning or Westside. We would eat and play a few games and have a little gift exchange. Then, we would leave in time to go to church, which started around 10:30 p.m. When I was young, I just attended church, but when I got old enough to be in youth group, I would be a part of putting on the Christmas Eve Service which was always a fun to be a part of. I love the Christmas Eve service because of the atmosphere and the feeling that was in the air that it was really Christmas Eve! I went to a relatively small church in a small town so it was so great to see people who usually didn’t come to church, come for the Christmas Eve service. It made it seem so much more special.

 

Me with Gma and Gpa Kock after showing off
our presents on Christmas morning 2006

 My favorite part of the whole service was always (and still is) at the end when everyone would take their little candle and get in a big circle around the sanctuary of the church with the lights off and sing Silent Night by just the light of the candles. Doing that every year is such an amazing memory that is ingrained in my mind and I hope I never forget that.

  

WIth Gma and Gpa Jons on Christmas morning 2006

Now, my family loves to talk and we are always the last people to leave any place. I usually don’t mind so much, but when you’re a little kid and it’s Christmas Eve, you’re going to be excited to get home! I had a little saying that I would always recite when I wanted to get going and get home. I’d say:

The sooner we get home, the sooner we can go to bed.

The sooner we go to bed, the sooner we can wake up.

The sooner we wake up, the sooner we get to open presents!

I don’t think that ever moved us along any faster, but it was fun to say.  

My dad likes to fall asleep near or under Christmas trees :)

On Christmas morning, we’d always wake up early and go down to check out the presents under the tree. When we were young, we’d get up really early, but as the years went on, we’d get up a little later and later each year. I remember a few years when my younger brother would be the first one up and come wake us up so we can open presents. Those are fun memories for me. When we’d get up, we’d always have to pry our parents out of bed to come down so we can open presents. We were super impatient people on Christmas morning, and they were slow so we always had to nag at them to get out of bed and come downstairs!



With my grandparents, Christmas morning 2007





We also always had little fights about who got to sit where on the couch and who got to use what blankets and also who had to hand out the presents to everyone else. I’d say about 99% of the time, it was Jared who had to hand out the presents, and he still does have to! J The downfall of that, though, would be that he would hoard presents. We would go around and open one at a time and he would occasionally skip himself. That, coupled with the fact that he usually had more presents than the rest of us, meant that we’d sit there at the end and watch him open present after present. What a stinker!

With Grandpa Jons at the Schroeder Christmas on Christmas Eve 2008

After we got done opening our presents, we would start playing with our favorite ones. Then, all of our Grandparents and sometime my Aunt Doreen (and Uncle Nick in the past few years) would come over and we would take turns showing them all what Santa gave to us. After the present show and tell, we would all have Christmas lunch/breakfast (whatever time it ends up being when we are all done). I’m not sure how long we’ve been having a big breakfast like that or how long we’ve been doing it the way we have the past few years, but it’s the way I remember it now. My mom would make French toast, eggs, butter braids, toast, fruit, sausage, and bacon, and we would have milk, chocolate milk, egg nog and all that good stuff that goes along with it. It’s great! Depending on what time all that gets over with, we will all take naps and/or play with our new toys and then we’d get ready for our next party.

   

With cousin Molly and sister Kellsey on Christmas Eve 2008

In the afternoon on Christmas morning, we would go over to my Grandma and Grandpa Kock’s house. When we get there, we usually snack on food (there’s lots of eating throughout the whole day) and then eventually get all together to open presents. When we were younger, it was a big extravagant thing with lots of presents for my siblings and cousins and all that good stuff. We would open our presents and then spend the rest of the night (late into the night) playing with all our new things and playing make believe and just having an awesome time. As we’ve grown up, there are less presents (as it should be) but there is just as much eating of wonderful food and playing games late into the night! I just love it!



After Christmas Eve Service at Church, 2008

For all those reasons and more, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are two of my favorite days of the year. Although Christmas traditions have somewhat changed over the past few years, we will always have the memories of all the great times of Christmases in the past and I so very much look forward to all the memories we will make in the future and the new traditions we will create!

Merry Christmas! 



Christmas morning 2008

Jared sorting presents on Christmas morning, 2008.

With Gma and Gpa Kock on Christmas morning 2008

Uncle Nick, Gma Jons, Aunt Doreen on Christmas morning 2008

Kellsey showing her stuff to Nick and Doreen

Nap time!

Nap time for Gpa Jons too!

Uncle Dan and my Dad.
Christmas Day 2008

Cousins at Gma and Gpa Kock's on Christmas Day 2008

Christmas morning 2009

Cousins with Gma and Gpa on Christmas Day 2009

Dani and Uncle Dan playing games on Christmas Day 2009

Christmas morning 2010



Playing Games at Gma and Gpa Kock's on Christmas Day 2010

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Today, I am linking up with It's a Crafty Life for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I'm loving that I'm 1 and a half work days away from my "Christmas Vacation" and that I get to see lots of family over the next few days! I love Christmas and all that comes along with it!

I'm loving this blog. In it, she has a Wake Up Wednesday Post that she does every week where she posts a challenge for everyone that reads to try to accomplish that week. Some of her past challenges were things like: Report a Job Well Done, Gather Things You Don't Need and Donate Them, Learn the Name of Someone and Use it While Talking to Them, Be a Patient Driver, Compliment a Stranger, and Call Someone Out of Your Comfort Zone, among others. You can see some of the other readers' responses to how the fulfilled the challenges in this 2011 wrap up post. I think I'm going to join in on this one in the coming year. This weeks challenge (because it's Christmas week!) is to Remember the Reason for the Season. I challenge you to join in as well!

I'm loving these nail polishes by Lynderella. I don't know what my sudden obsession with sparkly nail polish is, but I really want to go get some now! I wish I could buy some of this brand, but they don't seem to be selling any right now. I've heard that they'll be starting again in the new year, but who knows if my obsession will last that long...

I'm loving these Pinterest finds from this week:

I want to find one of these!

Christmas Decor

Way prettier than a towel rack.



Love the gray and yellow!
Source

 


Gray and Yellow again and love the curtain behind the bed.
Source



LOVE Pepperoni rolls from Old Chicago.
I hope these taste just like them!
You can find the recipe here.



And, just like every day, I'm loving my amazing husband.

And our adorable dog, Mattie who's all snuggled up in a blanket in this picture, where I'd LOVE to be right now!

I don't know how she's so good at getting snuggled under there
with just her head sticking out, but she does it all the time and I love it!

Tuesday Update

Last weekend, we went to our first Christmas party at Trent's Grandma's. It was such a great day. Not only was the weather freakishly nice, it was just a fun day with great food and great people. My favorite part of the day was when the kids wanted to go outside, but they had to go out with an adult, so the second time they wanted to go outside, I was the adult that was asked to go with them. (I had to ask the other adults to be sure if I was considered an adult first, though :)) When I told my niece, Taylor, that I would go out with them and went out of the room to get my coat on and things, I heard her tell her mom, "I love Aunt Kendra". That made me smile from ear to ear. I love making her happy and I love being called Aunt Kendra. I'm still getting used to that!

A new doll for Taylor

A new 'laptop' for Jenna

In the late afternoon, we made our way home and just relaxed for the evening. Sunday, I went out and finished up our Christmas shopping and we cleaned up the apartment. In the evening I wrapped up all of the presents and got them ready to go with us to our parents' this weekend. I stayed up WAY too late on Sunday night. I just couldn't get myself to stop finding more things to do to keep myself up. I ended up staying up until about 1:20 in the morning, which made 5:15 even earlier than normal to get out of bed and made Monday a very long day! I'm glad that I did get up to get some studying in, though, because I feel like I haven't been going at it like I should be. I have been doing pretty good on the practice tests I've been doing, though, so hopefully that's a good sign at least!

Monday night, we brought Mattie to get her nails clipped at Petsmart and did a little Christmas shopping for her and Trent's parents' dog, Casey. We found a really cute present for them both that I can't wait to give to them! We also got Mattie a new red collar and when she was done with her nails, they put a pretty Christmas bow on her and sprayed her with cookie dough perfume (weird, I know - but it actually smelt nice). She looked great when she was all done!

In her new collar and bow.
She's not liking that we're making her stay in the room by us in this picture :)

 After we got back from the store, we got our Christmas cards ready to be mailed and then I practiced a presentation that I had to do at work today on Trent. I was SO nervous about my presentation that I had to do. It was the first time that I had to do anything like this at work and wanted to do a good job. It was just in front of about 10 of my co workers but I still wanted them to respect me and think that I knew what I was talking about, so I wanted it to go well. I did it this afternoon, and I think it went pretty well. It's not like any of them are going to tell me I did a bad job, though... I'm just glad that it's over. I feel like I can finally get some other work done because I don't have to worry about thinking about the presentation anymore. Also, only FOUR more work days to go in 2011! How crazy is that!! YAY for holidays and vacation!

I hope you are all soaking in the excitement of the holidays and are all ready for Christmas! I just can't wait to spend some time with family and relax for a few days! Only 4 more sleeps until Christmas!!

The Night Before Christmas

I heard this song below on K-Love the other night on my way home from work and I instantly loved it. It isn't a new song or anything, but it was the first time I had heard it. I'm not quite sure what it is about it, but it stirred up some kind of emotion inside that I can't really explain. It's kind of uncomfortable to not be able to figure out what my mind and body and heart want to feel while listening to the song. It's like I want to cry and smile at the same time and it brings up a mix of feelings of gratitude and happiness and undeservedness. It is hard to comprehend what Mary and Joseph had to go through in their journey to bring Jesus into the world. It's difficult to imagine the amount of trust and faith that they had to have in each other and in God.

This song serves as a wonderful reminder that Christmas is really about the birth of Jesus and how we were all changed forever because of that night when our Savior, Jesus was brought into the world to save us all. We should never lose sight of that.

I hope you can listen to the song and that it stirs up some sort of feelings inside of you as well as you reflect on how the night before Christmas truly changed history in such a remarkable way.

Merry Christmas!

(If you receive this post in an email, the video might not show up. Just click on the "My Lifesong" link below which will take you to the actual blog where you can view the video. Otherwise click here to be taken to the video on YouTube.)

FYI

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Happy Hump Day, Everyone! Today, for the first time, I'm linking up to This Kind of Love for the What I'm Loving Wednesday! What are you loving on this fine, rainy Wednesday?!

I can't believe that it's only 11 days until Christmas! Where did December (and 2011) go? What a year!?! I hope you are all having a fantabulous day! Here's a few things that I'm loving today!

I'm loving that tomorrow is our Finance Department Christmas Party, so we get to cut the day a few hours short to go hang out and celebrate together.

I'm loving that Friday is the Food Day at work. It's a FULL day of eating from breakfast into the afternoon! I can't wait!!

I'm loving that we're heading out of town for our first family Christmas Celebration this weekend. Again, I can't believe it's Christmastime already!

Uhhh... Santa?

I'm loving that things are officially back to normal in our apartment. We have our kitchen table back, so we don't have to eat on TV trays anymore. (After our apartment flooded, the kitchen table cracked down the middle when they were working on getting everything dried and cleaned up so we were without a table for a little over a week after we got moved back in)



I'm loving my new favorite blog, The Small Things. This girl is great! She has a lot of great hairdo video tutorials and crafty how to's and fashion posts and, from what I've read, she just seems like a good person. It is just so fun to read the new things she posts each day. I even did my hair yesterday using one of her tutorials AND IT WORKED! Amazing! This is what it was like (except my hair is long and curly and dark).

To check out how to do this look, click here.

I'm loving this Personal Accents Jewelry from Amway that can be found at kellseymorrison.com.

 

I'm loving these outfits:

I'm loving this purse:

Source

And, of course, I'm loving my wonderful husband!

Flashing back to summertime with this picture!
(Fun Fact: This was taken the week after we got married.)