New Year's Eve, 2011

We played games:

(Dominion. Which we got for Christmas.)

Talked:

(Megan went to a dance later.)

Set off poppers:

(Alas, fireworks are illegal this time of year.)

And opened cans of soda:

(Not wanting to open the sparkling cider)

And then said goodnight to grandparents, put the girls to bed, and stayed up watching Captain America.

We know how to party! Happy New Year, everyone!

Things I Want To Remember About Alison's Baptism

That she was so very excited beforehand, bouncing off the walls in anticipation.

That the water was so very cold, and Alison being all skin and bones, it was hard for her to get in the water and be dunked, but she was brave and did it. (And kicked her feet up out of the water late enough that it counted, and she didn't have to go under again.)

That it took her a long time to get warm. She was very grateful for the sweater on her dress.

That her sisters all participated at your request, and did so willingly and happily and well. Megan and Caitlyn both said prayers, and Kristen got up in front of everyone and sang "I am Glad for Many Things".  It's wonderful that you wanted them to be a part of the day as well.

That Brother Bruce and Bishop Bazzelle gave very nice talks, and Alison actually listened to them, not being goofy or interrupting one bit.

That both grandparents came to see her do this, and were very proud of her. As are her parents.

That it was gorgeous weather, sunny and only slightly windy.

It was a beautiful day, in so many ways. I'm so glad she made this choice, and was so excited about being baptized. It's quite wonderful.

Russell's Big Day

So, in the midst of Christmas, vacation, grandparents coming, and a baptism, Russell managed to turn another year older. The big 43, which is not as cool as 42, but still must be celebrated. Kristen was the mastermind behind the celebrations this year: she drew some pictures, noticed that he didn't have many presents and insisted we get more. She was also the center of the celebrations. She loves her daddy!

So. Russell had a good day. He went golfing with his dad -- he's never gone golfing on his birthday before! -- and enjoyed the beautiful 60 degree weather. Then, we opened presents; something that's becoming a tradition is getting him a new Murder Mystery party so we can use it the following summer.

Blew out the candles on his cake (yellow with chocolate frosting; I'm still looking for a good chocolate frosting recipe):

And then the adults went out to a very posh restaurant, the Larkspur, so Russell could hear a former student of his on the jazz piano. It was lovely to sit and talk with our parents, eat the pretty good food, and listen to good music.

A good birthday!

On the Ice

We took advantage of both the break and the $2 Tuesdays at the local ice rink and got together with some friends to go ice skating.

Kristen (who forgot socks, silly girl!) lasted longer than the last time we went skating and got pretty good, actually. But eventually, she got bored with going round and round, and wanted to actually play with her friend Sarah. So, she turned in her skates and spent the rest of the time running around on the seats.

Megan actually went skating, and is quite good -- she only fell once, and has the bruise to show it -- but being the resident teenager got ahold of the camera between Tuesday and today and deleted all but this picture of her. Ah, well.

Caitlyn had a good time with her friend, Hannah (she brought the doll, but didn't actually last terribly long on the ice with her), and kept up skating for quite a long time.

But the real enthusiast was Alison: she's been working on roller skating for the past year or so, and it took her about 10 minutes to adjust to the differences on the ice, and she was off like a shot! The only downside is that now she wants ice skating lessons.

The general consensus was that we ought to go more!

Christmas Morning

Bradley Fair Carriage Rides

Why yes, we did finally get around to standing in the cold (well, 34 degrees, no wind) for over an hour for a five minute carriage ride.

Don't remember why they were playing the rejected orphans...

Two crazy girls.

Having some fun with the ornaments on the HUGE tree.

Ice! From the pond.

So, the younger girls didn't hear the "Look at the camera!" message

The question is: what did they notice that I missed?

Three cute girls.

Saying thank you to our horse, Annie.

I don't know why this tradition is so much fun, but it is.

From Our Home to Yours

From the New York Sun, September 21, 1897:

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus!... There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished... You tear apart a baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

Merry Christmas!

Storynight

We had our friends the Chavezes over for storynight this year, and with 13 people in the house, it was quite crazy. Fun crazy, though.

We didn't make our homemade hot cocoa this year; with the laptop being in the shop, so we opted for some fancy Godiva hot cocoa. Not as good as homemade, but good. Then we gathered up all the crazy kids to read stories.

Alison and Bekah sang/read The Twelve Days of Christmas to start us out.

Have I mentioned that I picked up this absolutely gorgeous version of that carol this year?

Then Kristen and Sarah started their retelling of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie. With handmade puppets/cutouts. And details. And distractions. We eventually had to pause it and move on....

To The Little Drummer Boy. We all sang, they played drums.

Then, after I read Virginia, Yes There is a Santa Claus (the pictures are all blurry), we unpaused Kristen and Sarah's story so they could finish.

Caitlyn finished with The Grinch, and we called it a successful story night.

One last shot that Megan took, of our German creche, which we actually got to spin this year!

Random Cuteness

2011 Nativity Play

I suppose the real question is: how long are we really going to keep this up????

That Weird Purple Thing

Is a wax sculpture that Caitlyn made in Science Olympiad class. Any ideas what to do with it?

Twas the Week Before Christmas

And all through the house...

Kristen and Alison are screaming, because it's SO exciting that Christmas is ONLY a WEEK away. They are also bickering because it's a week until Christmas, and it's a rule that we must bicker the entire week before Christmas.

Caitlyn is complaining, again and still, about an upset stomach. She's been sick on and off all week, and managed to be home not one, but two days. (Kristen ended up with a mild version of the bug; she threw up once and was perfectly fine, but had to stay home from school because she threw up at school.)

Megan is talking about looking forward to sleeping in, because she doesn't have to take finals (she has straight As again) and Monday's her last day. Seminary in pj's and then back home to bed. The girls will be glad when school's out on Wednesday.

Russell is messing with the TV -- a friend of his sent us a digital converter (the same friend sent us an old cell phone because he's offended that Russell doesn't have a cell phone; Russell's resisting activating it), and we finally got an antenna so we can use it. I'm wondering if having TV is really a good idea. Do we really need to watch all that? On the other hand, Castle on Monday... Hmmm...

I'm breathing a sigh of relief; after three 20-hour weeks (granted, two of those weeks, I called in sick one day to stay home with two different sick little girls), I only work 10 hours this week. I think I'm most looking forward to going to Zumba on Tuesday. It's the little things.

In other things, we made gifts -- granola this year -- and delivered them. Braved the stores yesterday to pick up a few little odds and ends, and a local little ceramic shop to paint ornaments (which will be done just in time for Christmas, and to put them away), and enjoyed 60 degree weather. Though, I think the weather's going to break, and it's supposed to rain/ice/snow on Monday and Tuesday. The girls are hoping for a white Christmas, but I don't think that's going to happen; it's supposed to warm back up on Thursday. Alison and Caitlyn both had concerts this week, both on the same day, unfortunately. I took Kristen to Alison's; Russell went to Caitlyn's. Both were very nice.

Today at church was nice. I had no faith that the choir Christmas program would come together; our new director is overly ambitious, and we had hardly practiced one of the pieces. And yet, the whole thing turned out really nice. I suppose I should have more faith in our choir members. And the Primary kids were literally bouncing off the walls; I'm just glad I didn't plan anything really serious for them to do. On the other hand, I need to work on losing my voice by the end of the day. *sigh* It always comes back. For now, anyway.

That's about it. Have a great week, and a Happy  Christmas. (I"ll probably write next week, though. What else does one do on Christmas when it's on a Sunday?)

P.S. A note on the lack of pictures up here: one of our daughters, who shall remain nameless, carelessly tossed the upstairs laptop onto the table last week. It missed its mark, falling unceremoniously to the floor, after which, we could no longer get the plug to stay in. We took it in, and it's still being fixed. We have been told that it's going to cost at least $150, and the hard drive is currently unstable as well. Since it's where I keep all my pictures, none will be going up (or coming off the camera; I have three movies to upload!) until we get the laptop back. Here's hoping it's before Christmas. (There are also new rules about the laptop, as well as a new home for it.)

Sick and Tired

Sunday morning, and that is exactly how I feel.

Sick: because a stomach bug has been ripping through our family. Alison came down with it first, Tuesday night. (As a result, I had to call in sick to work on Wednesday...). And then Megan got it. Russell and I have a similar bug -- not throwing up, but, um, yeah -- and haven't felt well all weekend. We're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Caitlyn and Kristen to get it. *sigh* Isn't wintertime so much fun?

Tired: Because, even with being sick, we had a lot to do. It was birthday week for Alison; we had a small family party on Monday, and then a friend party on Friday. She doesn't have very many girl friends (she says), so she wanted to invite boys. Whew. Boys are... well... not girls. And I guess I'm used to the whole girl-drama-tears-thing, because the boys were loud. Very loud. And violent. And slightly destructive (though nothing important got broken, and no one really got hurt. But seriously: the brooms are brooms. Not swords or javelins.). I thought my girls were loud. And they are. But this was a whole new level of loud. Alison had a grand time at her party (as did most of the guests, though people kept saying "this is the loudest party I've ever been to" and "it's going well, except for the screaming") though I think the rest of us were glad when everyone was gone.

Kristen had a party on Friday, too, which made her incredibly conflicted. It was her best friend, Sarah's birthday, and Kristen wanted to go. But she also wanted to stay and have fun at Alison's birthday party. The compromise? She went to Sarah's party, but we saved cake and a couple of the crafts for Kristen to do on Saturday. She was also very sad that she doesn't have as many ornaments as Megan when we put up the tree on Wednesday. We tried to explain it's because she's 5 and Megan's 15, but it really didn't help...

Megan's band concert was this week. It was nice -- I took the younger two girls, since Russell wasn't feeling well (see above) -- and while it was a nice concert, it wasn't fabulous. I do wish our high school orchestra and band director (it's the same guy) was more enthusiastic about the whole thing. (The low point: they played Sleigh Ride, which I was excited about when I saw it on the program, without the brass and woodwinds. Seriously. *sigh*) She also went with the Young Men and Young Women to volunteer at the local night with Santa. It was a huge undertaking, but Megan said she had a good time (she ran the cakewalk with a couple of her friends), and she got a free t-shirt out of it. I'm glad she had the chance to serve and help during Christmas time. Oh, and she took the ACT yesterday. She said it was easier than she was expecting, but she didn't quite have time to finish every section. We'll see how she does. (Her gifted advisor wanted her to take it this year for practice and as a benchmark. Speaking of benchmarks, she got 194 out of 240 on the PSAT. 20 more points next year and she'll qualify for the National Merit Scholar. Which is really cool.)

Caitlyn spent the weekend with friends: she had a girl scout party on Thursday, and then escaped Alison's party on Friday by sleeping over at Merry's house. She didn't come home until 3 on Saturday... she is quite the social butterfly...

And Russell and I took our sick selves to his department Christmas party last night. It's a good group of people, and we always enjoy going. They adore my hot spinach artichoke dip, and joke that if Russell ever leaves Friends, we'll be required to come back once a year and bring the spinach artichoke dip. Anyway. They have a white elephant gift exchange, and we came home with a very Tribble-looking duster thing which Kristen has named Fluffers. And a bag full of cloth napkins. We laughed a lot, as well. I like that Russell works with some good people. It makes his job better. And I like that they include me -- I was one of only 2 spouses there; one was sick, one is unmarried, and one's spouse lives in Arkansas -- in their discussions. It makes going to these parties less of a chore.

And today? We'll eventually get moving, and do our Nativity puppet show (movie to come) before church. Afterward, the stake is putting on a musical program (choirs sing, congregation sings, we eat pie if we're feeling up to it), and then we're off to race through another week.

Here's hoping we get more sleep at nights. Only two weeks until Christmas!

The Tree, 2011

I have decided that it's a tradition to not only put up the tree, looking at all the ornaments, but to actually bicker and fight and cry about who gets how many ornaments (actual tantrum thrown by the youngest who has 5 about the oldest who has 15), and who's put up more, and who gets to put the snowflake star (actual complaints about the snowflake again this year. Why can't they just accept that I like the snowflake??) on the top of the tree...


And here I sit, calmly sorting ornaments, putting hooks on the ones that need them, and trying to keep everything breakable from getting stepped on.

I have decided that it's just best if I stay out of the rest of the fray.

The end product's not too bad, though. (Though this year, the tree has "arms". If you look closely you can see them; we put a couple of branches in the wrong spots...)