Month: December 2008

We got to church 15 minutes early, and I was feeling like I was on top of everything. Diaper bag was packed, everyone was dressed, all hair in place, even curled. We sat down and a deacon came and asked Danny if he would help pass the sacrament. Our ward is short on youth and the men help out the young men every week. The bishop asked us if we’d give the opening and closing prayers… So things had gotten a little busy, but everyone was being pretty good. Anyway, Danny was gone and the wrestling with Alyssa began. She wiggles, climbs up on the bench and down, and then up and then down, I think you get it. She is on my lap, off my lap, up down, on, off etc… After the opening song I get up to go say the prayer trying to get Emma to take Alyssa and my shoe catches on my skirt, like the whole shoe wrapped in the skirt, I knew if I took a step my skirt would come down. So I hop out of the row with my foot stuck, and holding onto my skirt for fear the jarring of my foot would pull my skirt down. Finally I get out and and try to keep my composure not sure what my skirt is looking like in the back, but walk up and say the prayer. Then back to my wrestling match. Danny finally joins us and church finishes up with me feeling a bit over stimulated. Danny gets up to say the closing prayer, and Alyssa decides she has a booger, and sticks her finger up her nose. So I quietly pull it out and she yells pretty loud, I can’t get my booger, over and over through the entire prayer. The lady in front of me has lost it and is laughing hysterically, finally I just let Alyssa get her booger, Danny finishes the prayer and it’s off to primary for me to sing with kids… YIKES. I know there is a reason I go to church, sometimes though I forget, and I just go into survival mode. The fun of little kids, I can barely control the 4 I have, do I really have any business having another one. More fun is all I keep telling myself. More fun!

Sharing some pictures of our Christmas morning.

Our PERFECT children

Our REAL children…

The news reports snow, but we never see any of it. We’ve had the cold temperatures, the high winds, but NO snow. This morning, we woke to a dusting of the white stuff. Everyone was excited and had to go play in it. Looks like it might be a white Christmas, but that sun is shinning awful bright, I’ll bet the snow will be gone by lunch. Sigh…

We got hit with a large storm last night. It was the most annoying kind of storm, the wind blew and blew hard, but no snow of any kind to show for it all. I really thought that the windows were going to break and it just wouldn’t let up. Aubrey and Tanner, my sleepers slept right through it. Alyssa and Emma joined me in my room from about 1am until 3:30ish. I don’t know how the others slept through it. The wind is still blowing this morning.

We lost sections of fence, and the trampoline was picked up and thrown against our play set. 4X4’s were snapped right in half, so Danny will be spending his afternoon reconstructing a fence. The neighbors, will probably want to hire someone to fix it, but we wont want to pay for that, so I’m sure Danny will be fixing it, and soon since we both own a dog.

A few weeks ago, Tanner came home with a book order. We have all seen these book orders, they are identical to the ones I used to bring home 25 years ago when I was in grade school. Yikes that number scares me. The kids bring these book orders home all the time, and occasionally I look at them and even less often I actually order from them. This time Tanner showed me the book order and said he had found the perfect gift for Aubrey, I listened, I’m not sure I really listened though, and I agreed that Aubrey would really like Curious George’s Christmas book and left it at that. A week later, he asked me for the money for the book, and I brushed him off and told him it was almost Christmas and I just didn’t have the extra money for extra things right now. I guess this was more important to him then I had realized, and in hind sight wish I’d taken the time to really listen to him and understand how important this was to him. Anyway, Friday he came home from school with a surprise for Aubrey. I assumed it was popcorn that the kids have been buying at school on Fridays. He called me into his room and pulled out this book, holding it like it was gold. My first instinct was to be upset but he told me that he had paid for it with his own money and would like me to help him wrap it for Aubrey. He couldn’t wait to give it to her for Christmas, so he wrapped it in some paper from the printer that he drew pictures on for her, and taped a bag of popcorn to it, and took it out and gave it to her. He then sat her down and read the story to her. Of course she loved it, I think Aubrey and Curious George have a lot in common. His little act of kindness truly touched me. I thought about giving him the $3 for the book, but he was so proud of himself and I didn’t want to take that from him. What an example of what Christmas is really about.
I’ve seen many examples this week of sweetness from my children. I spent the day wrapping presents. Aubrey was my official carry the present to the tree person, and she was really getting into the sprit of it. Aubrey came in and started wrapping up pieces of gum. Now if you know Aubrey, she loves gum and ocassionally I give in and let her pick a pack of her own. So she was wrapping her prized possession for everyone. There was a part of me that was screaming, don’t waste the paper, bows, tape etc. but she carefully wrapped up gum for everyone. She wrote her own tags with the kids names, it was hard to be patient spelling out the names for her, but I could tell it was important. Like a typical kid, she couldn’t wait so we all opened pieces of gum tonight, but it was her little way of sharing.
I have seen a kind older sister take a little sister into her room just to keep her out of trouble. Emma has been so helpful, she helped me fold laundry for over an hour this morning, while we talked, laughed and watched a Christmas movie. That there was one of the best gifts she could have given me.
I love my kids, and my sweet husband.

There is so much to say, I’m feeling so blessed tonight. I love this time of year, especially when everyone is content, and enjoying themselves. Tonight for FHE we watched Mr. Krueger’s Christmas. That movie is a classic, and the kids get all squirmy with feelings, and I must admit I find myself hiding a few tears when I watch it too. It’s not overly sad, just stirs the feelings.

Danny took Aubrey and Alyssa over to the table to start making Gingerbread cookies with them without the interference of the older kids who have a tendency to take over. Aubrey and I made the dough yesterday after church as a reward for her behavior at church. All they had to do was roll it out and cut it. (Aubrey has been struggling in church lately, I suspect it’s because I’m in primary and she knows there isn’t a lot I can do when I’m leading the music. So I have been doing a system with her, where she takes 5 quarters to church and it costs her 2 quarters to do something special with me after church. She has to have 2 quarters left when we get home or she loses that privilege, and Sunday she came home with all 5 quarters. Now back to FHE.)

The kids had so much fun making the cookies and decorating them. Danny started by making a cyclops gingerbread man. We’ve been reading the Percy and the Olympians series, and it inspired him. There were lots of jokes about biting the heads off of the gingerbread men, and everyone had a great evening. Alyssa loved every moment of it all. She decorated one side of her gingerbread man, and then turned it over and decorated the other side. One cookie lost its head coming off the cookie sheet and Danny couldn’t resist putting red frosting at its neck dripping down to look like blood. There was a Santa bread man made, creativity was flowing all over the place.

Good times, good kids, I love them, and I love the easygoing feeling that was in our home tonight. Now to go clean up the mess…

Aubrey and Alyssa worked out a system, Alyssa would take the unbaked cookie from Danny on a spatula and hand it to Aubrey to arrange on the cookie sheet.

The Cyclops Cookie

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One last picture. Thursday night we went to the Carson City tree lighting celebration. Now if we could just get some snow, I might feel like we are ready for Christmas.

I drive Emma and Tanner to school every morning. There is a bus, but I enjoy the extra time I have with them and I really don’t mind, it breaks up the morning a little. But for the last 4 months that I have been driving them they run out to the van and fight over who HAS to sit in the front by me. They both want to sit in the back. So today Tanner lost and had to sit in the front, so I asked him why don’t you guys want to sit with me in the morning. Man when I was a kid we used to fight over who got the front seat. And very innocently Tanner says, we fight over the back because whoever sits in the back gets to sit in the front on the way home, and we like to be the first to talk to you on the way home from school. Gosh, sometimes they can be so sweet.

The ever popular Christmas decorating FHE was tonight. The kids have been bouncing off the walls all night long and just getting through dinner was a challenge. We are such awful parents we even made them listen to a lesson and sing some Christmas songs, then we let them go crazy and decorate the tree. Grandma T even got crazy with us and let the kids dog pile on her for a picture. The tree, although not the perfect Christmas window tree I always envisioned, the ones with the coordinating colors and beautiful ribbons, but a tree with many memories. There were many discussions of who made what ornament, and I remember that ornament. I used to think I might have one of those professional trees someday, but now I think that I will miss all of my old ornaments and all the memories that are associated with it.