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  This Christmas shopping season was a pretty typical one.  After having made a LOT of money this past semester (yea!!!!)  I was able to purchase everybody some fun gifts.  However, when I asked my mom what she wanted, she didn't suggest a thing, she suggested things we could DO...cleaning the baseboards and cleaning the chandelier.  Cue suggestion of guilt....:-)   I was able to find a nice gift for her that I thought she would enjoy, but the entire Christmas season I knew that I really couldn't just get her a gift. Instead, I had to do one of these service-oriented things that would make her really happy for Christmas.  Hannah, Glo, and I hatched a plan to make some of those Christmas projects get finished.   We knew that it wouldn't really be a Christmas present unless she found it Christmas morning.  On Christmas morning, we got up at 5:15 AM and went downstairs to clean.  Doing everything we could to avoid looking at the Christmas gifts under and around the tree, H

I opened a bag of worms this Christmas, and I have a feeling that it is going to become a Christmas tradition:  we went shopping at midnight on Christmas Eve.  This isn't the midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, because as everyone knows, that's when Santa comes.  This is the midnight between Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve. I had just a few last minute things to get (mostly food), and I didn't want to fight the crowds at the grocery store on Christmas Eve.  So, I told everyone that I was going to go shopping at 4 a.m., and would Johannah like to come with me?  John rolled his eyes which basically communicated to me that he thought I was crazy.  Glo was sad to not be invited, and Ethan just looked at me with disbelief.  The plan was set. It was Sunday evening, and with no new episode of The Walking Dead (horrors!), we pulled out a game.  When we finally finished it at 11:45 p.m., John turned to all of us and said, "We should go shopping now."

I like having older kids for many reasons.  But a really great reason is because they feel guilt.   In fact, if I were to say that Santa left me a gift this year, it would be this. I'm not talking about guilt if they do something wrong--they left that feeling behind when they were 12.  I'm talking about the guilt they feel when they are slugs on the couch and I'm working. And believe me, I use this to my complete advantage! Two days ago, Pennsylvania got dumped on.  Several inches of snow in just a couple of hours.  I hadn't quite realized how much snow we had gotten until I tried to head down the driveway.  This isn't usually a problem, because the driveway descends as it leaves the house. The problem was when we came back home after a couple hours of shopping.  Not surprisingly, the snow was still covering the 1/4 mile long driveway, and in order to get to the house, we needed to go up the driveway. I had great hope in my faithful steed, Greenie.  In fac

Everyone in the family will agree:  the best Christmas gift we received yesterday was talking to Mark on the phone from Russia!  Here are a few things I took away from the conversation: 1.  Mark is happy .  Like really, really happy.  He tends to "unload" in his emails home which is fine--we're happy to be his sounding board.  However, he tends to sound stressed/worried in those emails.  Listening to him on the phone though, he's still his happy, optimistic self, thank goodness. 2.  Mark is a worker .  Like a really, really hard worker.  He spoke of how frustrated he feels with the majority of missionaries who are not working.  That says to us that he's working his tail off! 3.  Mark is speaking Russian!  He doesn't think he is, and he frequently writes about his lack of ability, but he is definitely speaking.  In fact, he speaks everywhere and has absolutely no fear.  He doesn't understand why other missionaries don't do the same as him :-) 4.

Each year, as the Christmas season approaches, I hear talk of finding "the true Christmas spirit", or "the true meaning of Christmas".  This usually references setting aside the trappings of the season and focusing more on Jesus Christ. I used to feel terribly guilty, wondering if I was one of those people who was misdirected.  Was I really making the season about the Christ child?  What more could I do to share his love, to be an example of all his life embodied? I gave some serious thought to this a couple of years ago and (surprise, surprise) looked introspectively at my own heart.  I made an interesting discovery that I hope will give relief to many of my Christian-hearted friends: Because my life, and the lives of my family members, are focused on the Savior on a daily basis, Christmas isn't a cause to act any differently. Does that make sense? Let me explain.  John has valiantly led our family to become everyday Christians.  There are many moment

Before my boys left on missions, I hoped that they would be made Assistants to the President at some point on their missions.  I knew little about missionary life, and that seemed like the pinnacle of success for a missionary. Fast forward to Ethan serving a mission.  I quickly came to realize that while the assistants certainly get a lot of recognition, they aren't the backbone of a mission.  The glue that holds missionary work together is just that...work...and the missionaries who work the hardest are the most admired in my mind. For Ethan, training was the best part of the mission, and in fact, the two elders that Ethan trained became his best friends on the mission.  There can be something beautiful between that new trainee and the person who will help him acclimate to his new life. Today, we received the most surprising news in Mark's email home.  After only being in Russia for two  and a half months (or 12 weeks), he is being made a TRAINER.  As in, he will be trai

In our family, we are firm believers in powering through anything, a "show must go on" mentality.  I will never forget when John spoke, from the pulpit in stake conference, and told everyone, "Sleep is highly overrated.  You can sleep when you die."  It got a big laugh, but little did people know how true that is for us. When I look back on all the things I did after my back surgeries (I needed the second one because I was running again one week after the first one), and my ankle surgeries (only Mark will remember me "booting" it all over Northwestern's campus...in the snow), I think I was fairly insane.  I mean honestly, there are days when I wish I had time to sit around and just watch TV, or relax, and those were perfect opportunities.  But no!  That's not how we work. This idea holds more truth in regards to performances.  I look at it from the point of view of the audience or the organizers of events:  they are counting on us to perform,

Tonight, I received notification (through Facebook) that my paternal grandmother, Margaret Elinor Parsons, had died.  She was 104 years old. Margaret, or "Gram" as she called herself, was married to Lawrence Clarke Apgar, the brother of Virginia Apgar (who developed the APGAR score for newborn babies).  They were the parents of my father, Richard Apgar, who was the youngest of their three sons. My father, Rick Apgar, died in 1984 in a glider accident.  My uncle, Peter Apgar, died just months ago from complications with diabetes.  Both men were kind and quiet people as was my grandmother. Larry and Margaret (Parsons) Apgar I have a very blurry memory of her from when I was around five years old after my parents had divorced.  I don't know if my grandparents were in Albuquerque where my dad was living, or if they were driving me back to Lubbock (Texas) where my mother lived.  However, I remember sitting in the back seat of the Volkswagen and singing with her.  In

My bet is that you didn't know I have a part-time job.  I do, and boy, it fills up my life. My childhood plan was to become a concert pianist, or a doctor.  When I decided to have Ethan, those plans went out the window.  Since then (and since my children have become school-age), I have wondered when I could finally enter the job market. Thank goodness I didn't pursue that dream, because I'm already busy with my part-time job. My health. Until I was 35 years old, I never had a health problem with the exception of monthly colds/flu.  Turns out, I was suffering from chronic sinusitis and never knew it.  All those "colds" were actually bacterial infections and should have been treated with antibiotics.  Since they weren't, they would return after a few weeks.  I could still function through it all, and mocked those people who used illness as an excuse to not do something. As I hit age 35, my body just fell apart, and it has been a humbling experience.

For our family, finding the perfect Christmas tree is usually combined with Thanksgiving dinner.  However, because we were on the cruise this year over Thanksgiving, we were forced to WAIT!  That's right--we gave up seven days of a decorated house and all-around merriment for the cruise, but I can't deny that it wasn't totally worth it :-) So, Ethan promised to come home the following weekend.  It wasn't hard to convince him, considering he has missed out on Kennedy family festivities for the past two years.  He arrived home at 2 p.m. Friday afternoon, and we headed out 20 minutes later. I remember when the kids were much younger (as was I), and we would go hunting for the perfect tree.  For some reason, my memories are filled with exhaustion .  It felt like we would have walked five miles by the end of it all.  Kids were frozen, tired and cranky (as was I).  Just tying the tree to the car would be a monumental task.  Then, when we got home, we would discover that o