Category Archives: CHRISTMAS

Simply & Savor the Season | Review & Giveaway


Ready for the holidays? Would you like to be?

This year, organize and re-energize with Simplify & Savor the Season, a three-part holiday planner to help you savor the celebrations!

I was recently given a copy of the book and it’s companion workbook to review and while I am not quite done with the book yet, I am already a big fan! It’s definitely helping me to really focus and set the intention of our family’s holiday season this year.

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With this book you can get ready for the holidays by brainstorming what’s needed for each of the Big Four—Halloween (I know this one is already over but it can give you ideas for next year), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Then detail the to-dos, including menu and gift planning, with quick tips on how to lose the unnecessary and focus on the essential. Keep all your notes in this book or its workbook companion, Simplify & Savor Take-along.

Then, after all the organizing is done, you can sit back and enjoy the season with “5 Holiday Juicers”—tips that teach how to keep life joyful, not stressful. And curl up and relax with “Savory Suggestions, Snippets, and Stories,” a collection of laugh-out-loud anecdotes including “How the Real Halloween Fright Happened the Next Day,” “Thankful for Warbling,” and “Let Go of the Cookie-Cutter Christmas.”

One of my favorite quotes from the book is, Consider how much holiday stress you’ll eliminate by focusing on those who matter most and not on how someone might perceive you or your item, event, or decor.” – Connie E. Sokol 

I love that this book is all about deciding what feeling and focus you want your holiday season to have and then planning accordingly, eliminating and saying no to things that do not match up with that focus. Connie reminds all of us that our focus shouldn’t be on having a “Cookie Cutter Christmas” and “keeping up with the Jones’s” but about spending quality time with those that matter the most to us.

If you find yourself not looking forward to the holiday season and already exhausted just thinking about your To Do list for the rest of the year, then this book is definitely for you! It will help create a game plan for the next two months that you actually look forward to rather than dreading! 🙂 

Want to win a copy of this book and the workbook that goes along with it? You can enter using the Rafflecopter shown below…


Don’t want to wait for the giveaway? Purchase your copy of “Simplify and Savor the Season” right now by clicking here


Or, there’s also the opportunity to join Connie for her first “Virtual Book Club”. Do you want to work personally with Connie to set goals, get feedback and read her book together? Email Connie at (http://conniesokol.com/about-connie/contact-connie/) and put BOOK CLUB in your message. She will be choosing 8 women to participate! 

    December at The Parkers | Part 2

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    All right, time for Part 2 of December! Up first is our visit to Temple Square with all of my siblings and their families. As usual, our attempt at getting a photo of all three of us is, well, interesting to say the least. These two can never quite be serious in photos! LOL

    The nativity at Temple Square 

    Salt Lake City Temple

    All the cousins checking out the reflecting pond. 

    …and our quick detour to the Macys windows. It’s so cool to see what they can make out of candy! 

    Ti with his gift from the Watkins Family Christmas Party. He was so excited about getting Mickey and a matching cape! 

    A Jamba Juice and a Christmas movie on the Hallmark Channel. Pretty much how I wanted to spend every night. 🙂

    Getting our craft on! 

    Toward the beginning of the month our elf surprised Titan with a basketful for projects he could do through out the month. This basket was a life saver during the day when Broc was at work.

    One of the nights Broc had to work late we busted out a Gingerbread Train Kit. 

    Ti putting the finishing touches on the train! 

    My main craving all month, the smothered bean and cheese burrito from Guadalahonkeys. I SO wish they were here in Colorado as well! 
    My work Christmas party this year was held at Fleming’s Steakhouse at the Gateway in Utah. The night of the event my mom raced home from work to watch Titan for us and we made our way down town for the dinner. Come to find out, I had written down the wrong time for the dinner and we were an hour early! Looks like I’m already starting to develop a “prego” brain.
    Of course,  there are far worse things than to have an extra hour to spend walking around the Gateway. 🙂 Being there early did allowed us to sneak into one of my all time favorite home decor stores Z Gallery. Oh the fun I could have in that store if we weren’t still on our med school budget!

    Another thing I managed to fit in while we were in Utah was a quick trip to the Brick House Spa & Salon for a facial and mani/pedi. My work gave me Spa Week gift certificate back in May and I had yet to use it. Every time I went to schedule something other plans got in the way. So I finally told Broc that I was going to use it in December…no excuses!

    Turned out, my mini spa morning turned into a fun girls day with my mom. She picked me up after my appointment and we went to dinner, grabbed ice cream at Coldstone and then saw The Book Thief and Philomena while the boys hung out together at home.

    Gotta love family parties! At our Trost Family party everyone brings a $10 gift and then we do a big gift exchange. Broc ended up becoming the proud owner of a new Duck Dynasty Hat and duck call. 

    This is a totally random picture but it was a big part of our December! LOL We turned in Titan’s passport info at the beginning of November and were told we would have it in plenty of time for our trip to Puerto Rico on December 27th. We ended up getting the passport literally two days before Christmas! A mini Christmas miracle indeed! Apparently the passport office will only give you info 72 hours before your trip and then you have to give them your whole life story in order for them to ensure it gets to you in time. 😉

    Baking Christmas Sugar Cookies with cousins!

    Ti in his reindeer antlers he made at Christmas Eve Camp with all of his cousins. (Basically Christmas Eve Camp is where we get all the cousins together and do lots of Christmas projects with them to help pass the time…)

    Titan apparently takes Christmas BINGO very seriously.

    Making reindeer food to put out on the lawn!
    And it’s Super Titan! Christmas Eve we ended up seeing Saving Mr. Banks and Frozen with my parents and my brother’s family. It was super last minute, but ended up being really fun! Titan saw this photo op in the lobby of the theater and just had to have a photo.

    Titan all dressed up for Christmas Eve. Cutest Christmas Elf ever! 🙂

    Titan and all his cousins on Christmas morning waiting to go downstairs to see what Santa brought! I can’t believe how big all of these kids are getting!

    Looks like Santa did indeed come! 😉

    Titan trying out Uncle Conner’s Christmas Elf Hat. 

    After opening everything from Santa and having breakfast, it was time to open gifts from family. Let’s just say someone’s a little spoiled! 🙂

    …and Baby Parker received their first Christmas present. A DVD with family history on it from Great Grandpa Kimball. (All the grandkids received one and apparently Baby Parker didn’t get left out.) 🙂

    Ti looking through some fun books he got from Grandma Cindy.

    My contribution to our Christmas lunch. 

    Last but not least, my boys! Both very excited that Broc got Munchkin for Christmas! Turns out we didn’t get any photos of all three of us together on Christmas, but I was just happy to make it through the day and that we got the photos we did.
    And, that about sums up our December. Later on Christmas day we had dinner with Broc’s family and then we left Utah super early on the 26th to drive back home to Colorado so we could pack for our cruise and be to the airport super early on the 27th. We also had to be back in Colorado Springs by 5:00pm so that we could get my prescription for Zofran before we left to go out of town again…something about they can only prescribe 30 days at a time. I don’t think I’ve ever been so worried about getting home in time in my life. I was so worried we wouldn’t make it and then I would be super sick for our entire cruise! Luckily, traffic, weather, and time were on our side and we made it with 20 minutes to spare. Then, we had plenty of time to unpack our car, unpack our suitcases and pack everything back up again, but this time with summer clothes and cruise gear! 🙂

    December 2013 at The Parkers | Part One

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    YAY! I finally got around to going through all of our photos from December this weekend! Looking back through the photos I can’t believe how much we actually fit into one month! No wonder it went by so fast…
    As I mentioned before, we stayed in Utah from the day before Thanksgiving until the day after Christmas. So we definitely tried to fit in as many Utah activities as we could! Especially since we knew this would probably be our last year being in UT for more than a few days right around Christmas. 

    Up first was our Elf Breakfast to celebrate the return of Sonic the Elf. The Elf on a Shelf is a thing we do all month and it’s really more about having fun than the elf watching for bad behavior. Our elf is even known to bring some fun surprises like new Christmas pajamas to wear all month or ingredients to make Christmas cookies! 🙂

    Titan loved looking through some of the goodies that Sonic brought. It was definitely a great way to start off the month. 

    Later that same Sunday all my siblings and their families came over to my mom’s house for their usual Sunday Family Dinner. My dad spotted these Duck Dynasty cookies at the store and decided they might make a good dessert. Of course, we had to get a photo of them with the biggest Duck Dynasty fan in the family, my brother Conner. 

    After dinner all the grandkids helped decorate Grandma Cindy’s Christmas Tree. She does a Disney themed tree and so the kids have a lot of fun putting all the Disney ornaments up. 

    …and of course, the night wouldn’t have been complete without getting new Advent Calendars from Papa Scotty (my dad). Ti kept asking for one of these at the store and I kept telling him that Papa Scotty would have one for him. Sure enough, he delivered!  

    One of our favorite things to do when we are in Utah is to go see lots of movies with my mom’s “Magic Card” as Titan calls it. My mom, dad, and three of my siblings all work for Megaplex Theaters in Utah. So we definitely spend a lot of time at the theaters whenever we are there. This time around we were lucky enough to see Frozen (Ti actually ended up seeing Frozen 3 different times!), Saving Mr. Banks, Free Birds, Ender’s Game, Catching Fire, Philomena,  and The Book Thief! 

    Ti loves spending time with his cousins! 

    One of the many snow storms that hit while we were in Utah! 

    Our elf having breakfast with Tigger! 

    Ti and Broc playing tic-tac-toe during one of our many outings to Guadalahonkeys as their smothered bean and cheese burrito’s was one of the only things sounding good to me!  

    Our elf playing tic-tac-toe with the Yetty! 

    …another morning our elf brought some Dove chocolate so we could make our favorite Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies! 

    Yum yum! 

    I was so excited we were able to fit the Festival of Trees in this year. 

    Broc and Ti weren’t too thrilled by the trees but Ti had fun with his cousins and Broc was a good sport and humored me. 🙂

    Ti and his cousins found the perfect seats to watch a performance at the festival.

    Ti making snow angels during one of the times we tried to get outside and be a little more active. 

    The Alpine Live Nativity 

    This was by far one of our most favorite activities. I had never been to this live nativity before and so I had no idea what to expect. Luckily, it was incredible. So well done and definitely worth the 30 minute drive out to Alpine. They had live camels, demonstrations like wood carving, basket weaving, etc. and so much more. 

    Of course there was the most important part of the nativity which was Joseph and Mary with Baby Jesus. A great reminder of why we celebrate Christmas! 

    if you are ever in Utah when this nativity is happening, make sure to hop online and grab free tickets for your family! 
    Since I wasn’t feeling to hot all month long (gotta love morning sickness), Broc would come home from work with treats most days. Fountain DC and a Snickers ice cream bar…it doesn’t get much better than that! 

    One of the days my mom had off work we made our way downtown to City Creek! My mom needed to stop in the Disney Store to pick up some things and of course, we weren’t complaining. Ti loved walking around that store! 

    Notice, Archie the Scare Pig in his hands. Spoiled little man ended up convincing Grandma to get it for him! 

    Enjoy the Frozen music videos that were playing. 

    We loved walking around seeing all the decorations City Creek had up. 

    Plus, we just had to have lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and then grab some eclairs at Kneaders for dessert! Ti was excited about the elf sucker he got for finding the elf hiding in Kneaders. 

    The pretty sunset on our ride home from City Creek. 

    I’d say someone loves his Archie the Scare Pig! 🙂

    The chocolate orange my mom surprised me with. She knows I sometimes have a hard time finding this exact brand in stores. So the first time she saw one, she grabbed it for me! 

    Since I wasn’t feeling so well all month we spent a lot of time during the day watching our favorite shows like “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and doing lots of Christmas projects. 

    The little man hard at work! 

    Some of the finished projects! I love all the fun and easy craft projects you can find in the Target One Spot and at the Dollar Store. 

    Ti has been asking us the last few times we were in Utah if we could go to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. This time around we were finally able to make it happen. We went with my sister ,  Ti’s cousin Courtland (her son), and my mom. 

     If we lived in Utah, I would so get a membership to this place! Ti loved the Tinkering Exhibit they had open as well as the Dinosaurs! 

    Checking out some real dinosaur fossils. 

    Having fun with all the hands on activities they have in the museum. It seriously is such a perfect place for kids! 

    Of course we just had to get a photo with the shark! 

    …and then it was time to get dirty exploring for fossils in the sand pit! 

    And Ti just “had” to get his souvenir penny. He got one of these pennies at the Mayan when it used to be open and now asks to stop whenever he sees a machine. 

    That night after the dino museum my sister and I decided to also attend a class at Cardio Barre in Sandy. I had never been so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but the class ended up being awesome. Plus, they had free child care on site. So Ti got to spend even more time with his cousin while we worked out. Win win for everyone! 

    Last but not least for this post, Breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Clause at the Legacy Crossing Megaplex Theater. 
    My brother puts on this event every December at his theater and it is SO much fun. The kids get to talk with Santa and Mrs. Claus. And they serve a yummy breakfast followed up by some crafts and a Christmas movie! 

    Ti with Papa Scotty during breakfast! (As you can see, my dad and I are the DC drinkers in the family. My dad showed up with two ice cold DC’s, one for him and one for me, knowing it was an early morning.) 🙂
    Ti working on his reindeer craft. 

    Before the movie Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story to all the kids. Then we got to watch some Dreamworks Christmas Cartoons in the theater like the Madagascar Christmas Movie! (This isn’t the best photo, but in a dimly lit theater, you get what you get a phone camera!) 
    …and that is all for this post. Stay tuned for Part 2!