Christmas Eve

We had our traditional family Christmas Eve party last night, and it was so much fun.  We invited the missionaries over to celebrate with us.

We had the usual pizza dinner for the kids, and then sent them all to the basement to play while the adults sat down for a fancy dinner.  

We had our usual cousins Nativity pageant, and we like to keep it real.  Like when one angel was mouthing, "Blah blah blah," while the narrator read the angels words from Luke chapter 2, or when Mary and Joseph BOTH wanted to hold the baby, or when a cute little angel was doing this.

 Then we had some musical numbers.  The missionaries even performed for us.

One of the missionaries is from France, so I made a Bûche de Noël.  I had never done this before, and I failed the first attempt, but the finished product from my second attempt was fantastique.  The Frenchman gave it a thumbs up.

The cousins ran around and played and ran around and played some more.  It was a super fun evening with lots of love and lots of family.

What Christmas means

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.

I have written before (basically every Christmas) about how we don't do Santa at our house.  We watch the movies and sing the songs.  Our kids know from the moment they can talk that there is no such thing as Santa, because Santa is just one of the many symbols of Christmas and selfless giving.  The kids get plenty of gifts, but they all know that Mom and Dad worked hard, saved and sacrificed to give them those gifts because we love the kids so much.  The kids also know that we can work together to do kind things or buy things as surprises for others to make the spirit of Santa come alive.

And just as I don't like people judging me or getting mad at me that my kid told their kids that Santa was not real, I never want to come across as judging people because they DO  Santa.  Christmas for every family should be celebrated in the most meaningful way to them.

Actually, I do judge people when they use Santa as a threat.  As in, "If you don't do this right now then Santa will not come," or my personal favorite at the store, "Put that back or Santa won't bring you any presents."  I think that is just wrong.   My parents did Santa in a very fun way, but never used it as a threat.

So we are weird.  What else is new?

One thing about my Zack is that he spends every spare minute drawing or making some other crafty thing out of whatever he can get his hands on.  He is an artist.  I found these drawings on the kitchen table recently.

Another thing about Zack is he is the biggest sweetie pie in the whole world.  Christmas to Zack is about Baby Jesus and angels.  When he writes about Christmas, it is always about how much he loves it when his cousins come over. The party is not about the food or the presents--it is about playing with his cousins.

Waiting for snow

There is a line from the movie "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" that reminds me of myself when I was a young girl.
"When I was a girl, I had glasses, I wore my hair in a ponytail, and I was totally obsessed with weather. Other girls wanted a Barbie, I wanted a Doppler Radar Turbo 2000. All the other kids made fun of me."

Except for the glasses....

But I was totally obsessed with the weather.  And I did dream of my own Doppler radar.  I had to settle for a dial barometer/anemometer/thermometer weather station for Christmas is 1983.  After all, a portable, full-color weather station was something totally something from my dreams.  Fantasy.  It could never happen.

But dreams come true.  Now every day I sit down on my laptop, go to wunderground.com and weather.com and check out the doppler.  I look at satellite images, radar, and all kinds of weather maps.  I have my sweet Davis Pro2 weather station to know the precise weather data at my house, and I love to check out the different graphs it gives me showing me the trend of whichever data I want--air pressure and wind speed are my particular favorite graphs.

I am dying to have some snow here at my house.  I keep watching my weather station for a drop in air pressure and temperature.  I really, really want some snow.

As Phil Connors asked in Groundhog Day, "Did you want to talk about the weather, or were you  just making chit-chat?"  I will seriously think you want to talk about weather if you bring it up.

Best Christmas present ever

Last year we gave Savanna a Cricut for Christmas.  Some people told us that it was a silly or frivolous thing to give a little girl.  I didn't care what they thought, because I knew that crafty girl would make good use of it.

Just so you know, she still uses it at least once a week to make something magical.

This weekend she made these beautiful snowflakes for our house.

The Little Red Hen

A favorite story of our family is The Little Red Hen.  I have read that story to the kids at least 1000 times.  Sometimes when I am feeling crazy, I will read La Gallinita Rosa to mix it up a little.  We have tried to teach the kids the value of hard work and that if you just sit on your butt while everyone else works hard, you will pay the consequence in the end.

Perhaps I have taken this a little too far.  On Sunday I said, "Who will help me grind the wheat?"  I expected the kids to roll their eyes, or to say, "Not I." But instead the kids all said, "I will help you grind the wheat!"

And so a small project became a big project, but they helped me grind some wheat.  They still can't get over the fact that wheat becomes flour.  It is magic to them.  I am glad that Mark got his camera to document the exciting event.

And then my Z buddy got out the broom to clean up the floor.  He knows the end of the story.

Mon Beau Sapin!

When I was in 7th-9th grades, I took French.  Our teacher was very fun, and she taught me a lot about grammar, conjugations, and vocabulary.  She never taught us about pronunciation, though.  Everything I learned about French pronunciation is from the awesome records she would have us listen to and sing along with.  To this day, I know every word of La Marseillaise and several chansons de Noel.  One that I always have stuck in my head Mon Beau Sapin.

So here are some pictures of our family decorating Mon Beau Sapin this year.

 

 

Witness

Joel and I drove to Albertsons this morning to get milk for breakfast.  As I was waiting to turn left, I saw a car coming from the opposite direction speed through a red light, turn left, and hit a woman who was crossing in the crosswalk.  A man she was walking with was able to jump out of the way, but she took the hit from the car, and then hit the road really hard.  It was horrible to see this happen, but it got worse.  The car slowed to a crawl and then suddenly took off FAST!  The driver absolutely knew she was leaving the scene of the accident.

I was too far away to see the license plate, but there was a guy in a van who saw the whole thing and was able to take off and chase down the green BMW who had hit the woman.   I made Joel call 911 and promise to stay in the car.  I finished my left turn and pulled over to the side so that I could help the woman until help arrived, and also to let the police know what I had seen.  It was very scary.

The guy in the van returned about 10 minutes later.  He had called the police with a description of the vehicle, and stayed in pursuit.  He said that the woman in the BMW had noticed him following and flashing his lights at her, and after about a half mile, she decided to pull off onto a side street and give up.  The police came and took her into custody.  Hopefully she is rotting in jail right now.

I am not sure what happened to the woman who was hit.  She was coherent, but couldn't move and her breathing was very difficult.  The helicopter arrived to take her away, and I headed home after I talked to the police.

It was just a good reminder to always watch out for pedestrians--and runners!   I still nearly get hit every morning when somebody turns right without stopping at a red light.  I have been very lucky.

It was also a good reminder that I should not be embarrassed when Mark dresses up like a Christmas tree when he heads out on his run every morning.

And so it begins...

It's the holiday season.  We are ready.

Yesterday I spent the day running errands.  One thing I had to take care of was buying a one gallon jug of molasses.  We really do go through it pretty fast around here.

I subbed Monday and Wednesday this week.  Today I basically got paid to do my bookkeeping and other business on my computer.  Monday was more interesting.  I had three language arts classes full of kids from refugee camps from Africa and eastern Europe.  They can speak English, and read at about the 3rd grade level, but they need to be able to pass the state tests, so they have their own specialized class.  They were awesome kids.  They laughed at my stupid jokes, and loved every fable of Aesop's that I could pull out of my head.  Thank goodness my dad was such a good bedtime story teller!  Then I spent the afternoon teaching science to small classes of struggling students.  That was very fun, too.  It's always a good time when a high school kid first learns the word homogeneous.

Aubrey got the idea last Friday that we needed a new Christmas tree skirt this year.  We have been using the very amazing one that my mom made for us right after we were married.  I love it, but it is made for a normal-sized tree.  When you put up a tree that is 18-feet high, and the bucket on the stand is 12" in diameter, you just need a bigger skirt.  We bought some fabric, and Aubrey designed a very cute patchwork skirt.  She stitched all the pieces together, and then I assembled the skirt and added the amazing border.   Pictures coming soon.

Tonight I finished the shopping, altered a dress for someone to wear to a wedding on Friday, started the Frog Eye Salad, got breakfast ready to go for the morning, did a little laundry, and organized the cleaning and chores list for the kids tomorrow.  I've been staying up way too late this week, and tonight is no exception.  My goal is to lay down on my pillow before midnight.

It's been a busy week, and my feet are tired, but tomorrow will be worth it.  Lots of cousins are coming to have a big party and I can't wait.

Slowing down

I think my emotions are in check and I've come to grips with Abram being gone and Zacky in 1st grade now, and I am not trying to find a sub job every single day.  I can handle being home alone in my empty house all day.  I actually find it quite refreshing to have some quiet time to get things done.  And trust me, there is a lot to get done after spending so much time in the schools for the past few months.

Last week was pretty great.  I had 2 full days and 2 half days of subbing.  Government, physical science, spanish, American history.  The best day was when I got paid for a whole day of doing my bookkeeping.  The teacher I subbed for has a student teacher who is in charge of everything.  The deal is that there must be a licensed teacher in the room with the student teacher, though.  So I brought my laptop, bills, statements, etc. and spent the entire day catching up on some of the finer things in life that I have been neglecting.

Today I was in my kids' high school.  I love spying on them, and eating lunch with their teachers.  You can learn so much about your kids that way.

Tomorrow I am teaching a government class all day.  I'm crossing my fingers that I don't have to watch the same movie over and over and over again.  I hate sub days like that. 

Girls Weekend in St. George

This is the weekend I look forward to all year long.  Lots of laughing, lots of good food, and such fun girls to share it all with.

I flew to SLC a day early, and after a day full of visits (my parents, grandparents, Abram, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephew),  I headed down to St. George for the party.  We basically spent the whole time sewing.  Usually the ladies craft and I bake.  But this time they were sewing, which is totally my kind of a craft, so I joined in.  I only made one batch of cookies and one pie the whole time we were there!

The girls gang for 2012.

 This year's project was Christmas aprons.  Before I left town, I found the most amazing fabric at Joann's with little nativity matryoshka dolls on it, and so we took a trip to Joann's there to find the same fabric for everyone else.

 We found the same fabric....and lots of other very cute Christmas prints.  We all got busy sewing!

 You can see how excited I was to be turning and pressing the ties for another apron...  Not my best expression, but doesn't Betsy look so cute keeping me company?

I brought home this cute apron, and fabric to make a few more.

I didn't sleep much that weekend.  It is so hard to go to bed when  you are afraid you are going to miss something exciting.  It's even hard to go take a shower when there is so much fun going on.

I returned home to find a clean house, and lots of people who missed me.  It's nice to know they can survive without me for a while, but also nice to know that they miss me.

Can't wait for next year.

Halloween

Last Tuesday I got the kids all ready for Halloween, and then I took off before I could see them all in their full glory.  I just got back from an awesome girls weekend with Mark's aunts and cousins in St. George.  I got to spend Halloween visiting my grandparents, having lunch with Abram at BYU and then going to a family party that night.  I spent the entire evening snuggled up with my cute baby niece.  I didn't share her with anyone.

Back on the homefront, Joel was Fred.  All I had to make was his red cravat.  The rest of his costume we found at the Goodwill.

I made Jacob a green v-neck for Shaggy, and we found some brown pants at Goodwill.  I created this Scooby Doo costume out of another pattern I had .  It turned out pretty dang cute.

 
Savanna dressed up like ME again, and Zack was a baby penguin.