We Win!

I have a friend here in our ward named Stormi Winscot.  She's quite an amazing person, actually accomplishing more in a set amount of time than even I can accomplish :-)  If you want to see what she's done for me in the past, check out this birthday cake.  Seriously, she's one of those women that just amazes everybody--she serves, she loves, she's talented, she's creative--and she never asks for anything in return.

For those of you who received a printed copy of "Letters from Home--An Advent Book", you will have read her story.  She has a serious problem with waiting to open her presents on Christmas morning.  She will do anything (and has done everything) to find the hidden gifts, open them completely to see what they are, and then rewrap them and put them back (only to open them again on Christmas day).  It seems that suspense just isn't her friend because she can't even read a book without turning to the final chapter and reading it first, before she reads the book in its entirety.

Knowing this, and knowing that I was giving her family a gift for Christmas, I knew that I would need to be creative.  A couple of years ago we bought a "Talking Toucan".  It's a bird that repeats anything it hears.  Glo still loves to pull that bird out and it gives us a good laugh, so I figured we would give it out at Christmas this year.  I must admit that I think it's more fun for us because we love music.  There are some crazy sounds that we can create on that bird, using our voices or instruments.

Knowing Stormi and her unwrapping "issue", we wrapped the toucan (in his box), then wrapped it in bubble wrap, then wrapped the bubble wrap in packing tape.  Mark thought it would be funny to add a picture of MC Hammer and the quote "You Can't Touch This" which he did.  More packing tape on top of that.  When we handed it to Stormi earlier this month, she was delighted.  Turns out, she was quite the MC Hammer fan back in the day :-)  I was amazed to watch her handling the gift, running her thumb under the few open seams of the bubble wrap.  I wasn't sure that we had actually secured it well enough. On Christmas Day, I received the following email (with photos):

Dear Kennedy Family-

What a fabulous interactive gift that we all have thoroughly enjoyed today and have laughed so much playing with it!  We love the higher pitch of our Toucan and the kids can't get enough of it and thought of very creative phrases for him to repeat all day!  Thank you for your thoughtfulness and I say the most creative gift wrap I have ever seen and the most difficult unwrapping I have ever experienced. You win!!!! 

The original wrapped gift (notice that Stormi is strategically sitting behind it)

"Creative Unwrapping"

Since I can't figure out how to get all of these pictures in one email, I'm going to send you 3 more of Rick's response to Talking Toucan!  I think you'll enjoy it!

"Rick's Initial Response"
(I can't help but laugh when I see this!)

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a very relaxing day!

Love,

Stormi

Being the competitors that we are, and knowing how competitive both Stormi and Rick are (both being musicians), it's good to know that we win.  In fact, she couldn't have given me a better Christmas gift than that.