Christmas 2008

Well, I guess I ought to do what everyone does and post some pictures of our family Christmas. (I will try not to be too cute about it.)

On Christmas Eve, we had a Mexican feast with our good friends, then came home to open the "soft presents" from Grandma Larson. She always makes the kids pajamas that they open on Christmas Eve, and it is fun to see what her creative juices have inspired. This year, each of the kids' jammies were different, but as you can see, they still matched. Pepper's and Luke's were a bit large, but I'm sure they will fit them by next Christmas!



I love this picture of Luke. He was delighted that he could finally open something under the tree!

After the jammies were opened and put-on, the kids grabbed their stockings to lay out for Santa. When I was a kid, we always put our stockings somewhere in the living room where we wanted Santa to put our gifts, and that is what my kids do now. Luke was a little confused by the purpose of his stocking. As you can see, he took "stocking" very literally!

Christmas morning 2008 - quite a haul!

Later that night, Jeff and Jodi and their family came over for Christmas dinner. We agreed to keep it simple so we Moms could have a nice Christmas day, and it was perfect.

All the kids at the Kids' Table.

And the grown-ups at the Cool Table.

After dinner, a few rounds of Guitar Hero.

Brad and Jeff had a very intense round!

All in all, a fantastic Christmas! Merry Christmas to all!

How do you say "I'm Freaking Out" in German?

Yes, I am freaking out. We found out on Thursday that Brad's company has approved a promotion for him that will take our family to Berlin, Germany for the next 2-3 years. I KNOW!

We have known for a few weeks that he was being considered for the position, and that he was a top contender, but along the way we kept being told it probably wouldn't happen because it is so expensive for the company to have us in Germany. They will pay for our housing, car, and school for the kids, as well as various travel expenses for our family. It is not cheap for the company to have an American in this position, but apparently they have decided that Brad is worth it. Of course I am so proud of him, and he certainly deserves it, but I was relying on the lousy economy to keep me here in the States!

They are saying they want Brad to start in February or March 2009, so this will happen quickly. The plan for now is for me to stay here in our house until the kids finish school in June. Then, we will make our yearly trek to spend the summer with family in Utah. From there, we will head to Berlin. Of course, these plans may change as we get more information, but for now that is what we are thinking.

I don't know what we will do about our house here. The company is encouraging us to hold on to it, as we will be coming back after a couple of years, but we may try to sell it. We have been wanting to put it on the market anyway because we are starting to out-grow it, and this may be a good opportunity to let it go. Then when we return, we could get into a bigger house. Although, it is a no-brainer that whatever we would buy, it would have to be in the Clarkston Ward!

I can't even think about saying good-bye to our friends here. As soon as I start to go there, I can feel the bottom going out of my world, so I have to quickly start thinking of something happy. I plan on using this denial method for a while.

I need lots of chocolate.

The Twilight Before Christmas

I mean no disrespect to Twilight lovers (I am one of them!), but this is funny!

click on the partial green box at the bottom right

(you may want to pause the playlist at the bottom of the page)

What time? Seriously?

Yes, I am a Utah girl, and so of course I attended released-time seminary when I was in high school. Basically, the hardest thing about it was sometimes I got rained-on as I walked the 20 feet from my high school to the seminary building. Other than that, seminary was pretty painless, almost enjoyable at times. It just meant I had one class that I didn't really get graded on, so the occasional test or assignment was very low-key. Sure, the teachers were cool (or goofy, which is its own brand of cool) and I managed to complete the four years of seminary with very little effort on my part. It was just sort of something that everyone did, so I went with the flow.

When I went to BYU, I met kids from out of Utah who talked about some craziness called Early Morning Seminary. They said they met every day at some insane hour like 6:00 a.m. so they could study the scriptures before school. They talked about it like it was No Big Deal, so of course I blew it off like some silly rumor. I figured if anyone got up at that ungodly hour for seminary, they must be ready to be translated or something, and these people seemed pretty run-of-the-mill, so clearly they hadn't really gone to Early Morning Seminary. I figured it was some Mormon myth that un-Utah members had created to make it sound like they were more spiritual than us.

Well, then I moved here, and people in my ward started talking about seminary. I knew the high school kids in our ward wouldn't have released-time, so logically it made sense that they must be going to that weird phenomenon called Early Morning Seminary, but in my heart I wasn't convinced. Some of my friends were even called to teach it, and they talked about it openly, but secretly, I still believed it was all a myth. I mean, it sounds crazy, right?

Well, this year I have learned just how crazy it really is. I have been called to teach seminary in our ward, and yes, we do meet at the ungodly hour of 5:55 a.m. every school day. This, however, is the only painful thing about it. I must say that after three months of teaching seminary, I think this is the BEST calling I have ever had! We are studying the New Testament, and I have loved, LOVED studying about the Savior's life and His teachings. (I know I sound like those crazy people who say they love the scriptures, but I really do!) And even though it is time-consuming to prepare the lessons, the time I have spent studying the scriptures has helped me feel closer to the Holy Ghost, and I think I am happier now with all aspects of my life than I have ever been. I am truly enjoying my children, husband, and home like I never have before. (Oh yikes - I am sorry this sounds like a seminary video. Maybe I am spending too much time buried in the materials...)

Well, for the benefit of all my Utah family and friends, you who attended released-time seminary and secretly believe that Early Morning Seminary is a myth, here are pictures to prove that it is real:


This is my teaching partner Mary holding up the Scripture Mastery scripture of the week. We teach our class in Mary's home, and we alternate weeks that we give the lessons. Mary and I both attend the class every day, but it is nice to have a week off preparing the lessons, because that can take over your life. Mary is awesome in every way, and it has been delightful teaching with her. (This shot is obviously very posed. I think I should submit it to the New Era, though, because isn't it the very picture of Caring, Cheerful Seminary Teacher Encourages Willing, Spiritually-uplifted Student?)


This one is more realistic. I think Allie and Danielle actually blinked, but Travis's eyes were probably already closed.


Candelaria was kind enough to open her scriptures and look enthusiastic for the picture, but the boys' slouchy posture is a better indicator of the true level of excitement at this hour of the morning.

Again, Lowell is putting on a good show, but one look at Krissy's face should tell you how they really feel.

These kids are amazing - it literally took my breath away the first morning I arrived and saw them all sitting there waiting for seminary to start. I can't believe they come back, morning after morning, and they are so nice to us, too. I know many of them are "strongly encouraged" by their parents to come, but not all of them are, and that makes me have a huge respect for them. Sure, they are tired and probably sometimes really bored, but they are also very spiritually mature and can say the wisest, most profound things. I honestly enjoy spending my mornings with them in seminary, and when I see them outside of class, it is all I can do to restrain myself from picking them up in a big bear hug.

OK, sorry for the gushing. I just thought I ought to include something about seminary, since it has been such a big part of my life these last three months. I am just glad I have this chance to see that Early Morning Seminary is NOT just a myth!

All I want for Christmas. . .

. . .well, I think you can finish the song.

Merry Christmas.

Ward Nativity

Years ago, someone in our ward made a bunch of costumes for the Primary children so they could put on a live nativity at Christmas time, and now it has become a yearly tradition. Yesterday was our ward party, and true to tradition, it included the live nativity. We had a brunch this year for the party, so all this happened after a big breakfast of quiches, ham, and doughnuts.



A couple read the Christmas story from Luke 2, and we all sang hymns as the kids entered the stage at their appointed times. The oldest girl and boy in Primary always get to be Mary and Joseph, the stars.



Adam was a shepherd, which you can see he took really seriously.

Pepper was one of the wisemen. Unfortunately, all of the wisemen's robes are really long, so all three of them tripped as they climbed the stairs to get onstage. Once they were seated, it was much safer.

Here is the whole group, singing the Nativity Song for the finale.

Now that she is in Young Women, Jessica is so beyond doing the Nativity. Here she is watching the show with her cute friends Elizabeth, Savannah, and Braedyn.

Laundry room redo

So, other than eating turkey and watching dreamy vampires, I spent my Thanksgiving weekend redo-ing our laundry room. As usual, I was too anxious to start the project to remember to take "before" pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it that the laundry room was dreadful.

Here are the "after" pictures:


I put up this wood on the wall (it's not really paneling, so I don't know what to call it exactly), and painted it white. I also painted the rest of the room a pale yellow color - it is the same color as the half-bathroom downstairs that Lois and I painted a few months ago.


When we had the wood floors put in the kitchen, we purposely didn't do wood in the laundry room. This room gets a lot of foot traffic, and during the winter, this is where the kids dump their boots, so the floor can get pretty grungy. So, we found a vinyl floor that we could lay ourselves. It looks like a tile, but it comes in 3'x1' strips that stick to each other. It took a little thought, but it was simple enough for me to lay by myself one day while Brad was at work and the kids were at school. I already like that it is dark enough to hide all the dirt that gets tracked in. The floor in here before was white vinyl (dumb, I know), so this is much better.



I did two horizontal strips of wood so we could put up a double row of hooks. This is where the kids hang coats, backpacks, etc, and now we have enough room for all their stuff.



On the whole, I think it is much better. This was the only room in the house that had the original builders' flat paint, and it was looking pretty drab. Since this is the way we usually enter the house, it is nice to come in and not be assaulted by the ugliest room in the house.

Someday, when I have my dream house, I will insist that the laundry room be separate from the mud room. It doesn't take much for this little room to get really cluttered, especially on laundry days. And before, when we didn't have enough hooks for all the stuff, the floor would be covered by fallen coats, etc, which we would have to wade through when we came in from the garage. For now, though, I think this little project will make living in this house a bit nicer.

Turkey + Vampires = Perfect Thanksgiving

Well, as long as I'm talking about Thanksgiving, I ought to mention the delightful day we spent with Jeff and Jodi and their family. Jodi was kind enough to host our Thanksgiving Feast (she promised me that she wouldn't have a baby on this holiday!), and as you can see from the pictures, she is truly Martha Stewart.


The tables were all set up and decorated when we arrived on Thursday afternoon.


Look at the cute turkey nut cups Jodi/Martha made!


Let's eat!

Perhaps the best part of the festivities was that after dinner, when the dishes were done, the kids were in the basement, and the men were watching football, Jodi and I snuck away to watch the "Twilight" movie. It was actually the second time I'd seen it, and I must say that I liked it better the second time. So fun - although Jodi was right when she said we should have brought pie to the theater. That would have perfected the Thanksgiving/Twilight Experience!

I love having a sister that lives close!

Joy

OK, so a couple of Sundays ago, Sis. Hofer in our ward did a cool thing for the Relief Society lesson. As each person entered the room, she had them write down something that gave them joy, and then she taped all the papers around the room. The lesson was from Pres. Monson's last conference talk "Finding Joy in the Journey."

Well, I liked her idea of filling the room with joy, so the next night for FHE I had each of our family members write down ten things that bring them joy, and we taped them all over our family room. Even though having 60 slips of paper stuck to the walls with blue tape is hardly a decorator's dream, I liked being in there and reading what everyone wrote. It was especially nice to see them over the Thanksgiving week, because they are all things we are thankful for, too.

I just took all the slips down, and in honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share what all of us wrote. In random order, here is what brings us joy:

Brad -
Adam, Pepper, the Gospel, Bear Lake, Friends, our home, Jill, golf, Jessica, Luke

Jill -
my comfy bed, going to Utah, my 4 children, watching Dancing with the Stars, our warm home, Brad, going to church, my testimony, cars that run, eating dinner together as a family, seminary

Jessica -
Grandmas' houses, Luker, Mom, Dad, family, Bear Lake, friends, FHE, riding horses, Pepper

Pepper -
Jessica, Mom, Luke, friends, Adam, school, Dad, playing, Thanksgiving

Adam -
friends, toys, TV, Luke, books, sharing, snow, family, Jesus

Luke - (yeah, he can't write, so we guessed at his)
choosing which jammies to wear, toys, Star Wars, nursery, juice, candy, chocolate milk, Dora, Mom & Dad

"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy." - Guilaume Apollinaire

Happy Thanksgiving.

Halloween Duds

I am calling this post "Halloween Duds" for one of two reasons; either I will be describing what my family wore for Halloween this year, or the "Duds" refers to my lame attitude about Halloween. I will let you be the judge...

This year, we didn't carve pumpkins until the night before Halloween. It seems like every time we planned to spend an evening carving pumpkins, a major school project was discovered that was due the next day. So, we would have to spend that time frantically putting together a science project or social studies presentation. The good news is that the science project earned an A, and the social studies presentation got a B (which was very good considering this one was actually a day late - remember when I said "frantically"?)

So anyway, on October 30, we finally dragged the pumpkins off the front porch and got them carved for Halloween.

Our pumpkin carving nights usually go something like this - Mom cuts the tops off and gets pumpkin grime up to her elbows scraping all the guts out while the kids wrinkle their noses over how slimy it is.

Then, each kid takes a marker and draws the scariest/funniest/silliest face they can design on their pumpkin.

Finally, Dad sweeps in with the knife and carves their design perfectly (and gets all the credit).

Here are Adam's and Pepper's jack-o-lanterns...


...and Jessica's and Luke's. They turned out all right, don't you think?

The next night, of course, was Halloween. Jessica spent the night with her friend Braedyn, trick-or-treating and all, so I didn't even see her in her costume. I hear she was a gypsy. Pepper also went trick-or-treating with a friend; he was a football player, so if you will refer to my "Why I have no life" post, you will see him in his Halloween costume (I was very supportive of his desire to simply wear his football uniform for Halloween this year.)

Adam was a vampire, and Luke was a clown. Both costumes came straight out of the Halloween box in my basement - oldies but goodies. Adam will want me to mention that he did win the prize at our ward Halloween party for "Scariest Kid", so that is our triumph this year.

I managed to get one picture of Luke in the nose, and one picture of him in the wig, but sadly, no picture of him in both. I think you get the idea.

Brad took the two boys trick-or-treating with some friends of ours while I stayed home to pass out candy. My night actually consisted of giving candy to 3 trick-or-treaters and chatting with my neighbor over Diet Dr. Pepper. Then, we ate pumpkin pancakes with the above-mentioned friends while we watched a Brian Regan DVD. Delightful, actually!

Happy Halloween.

Chi-town

This past weekend, Jessica and I went to Chicago for a "Girls' Weekend" with Brad's family. His mom and sisters and sister-in-law all flew out to Chicago for a couple of days, so Jess and I drove over to meet them. We had a truly delightful trip!



Jess and I arrived a few hours earlier than the rest of the group, so we got tickets for "Wicked" the first night we were there. It was quite different than I expected - a much darker tone than "Wizard of Oz" - but we both really liked it. Whenever I see a professional play, I am just blown away by all the talent on stage, and this play was no exception. Such amazing singers, and the sets were unbelievable. It was the perfect way to spend our first night in Chicago.



Brad's sister Becky is morally against eating in chain restaurants while on vacation - she feels strongly that when you are visiting a city, it is lame to eat in the same places you can eat in at home. So, on Friday night when we only had time for a quick burger at McDonalds, I had to get this picture of her at a fast food chain in the middle of Chicago. Sorry Becky.



The reason we had to hurry through dinner on Friday night was because Lois had gotten us tickets to see "Jersey Boys." Yay! What a delightful show! We were all taken aback by the "authentic New Jersey profanity" (in the words of my friend Mary), but the music was so great! The show is about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and how they rose to fame in the early 1960's, so the soundtrack is all their best do-wop hits. It was all I could do not to sing along through the whole thing! The guy who played Frankie Valli just blew my socks off, too. He sang almost non-stop for an hour in this amazing, high tenor voice. He must have to go home and put ice on his throat after every show. Jess didn't like this show as well as "Wicked" because she didn't recognize the songs, so didn't it didn't have the same nostalgic value it had for me, but I easily could have sat through another two hours. It was like a Broadway Musical Biography, which in my opinion is the perfect marriage of my two favorite forms of entertainment. So fun!



We finished off our stay in Chi-town on Saturday at Gino's East Pizza. There was a long long line of people outside waiting to get in, but because we had a big group, they let us right in and sat us down. We felt like celebrities!



Writing on the walls was encouraged, so Jessica documented our visit on the window.



This is what the pizza looks like at Gino's. You can see that it is about an inch and a half thick - imagine an inch and a half of gooey, yummy cheese, sauce, mushrooms, and sausage. Oh yeah...

Saturday night, Jess and I drove home and listened to the "Wicked" CD we bought at the play. I think we got through the whole CD three times, so it was like watching the play three more times, although I must admit we listened to a couple of favorite songs many times over so we could memorize the words ("I'll make you pop-U-lar"). It really helped the five-hour drive fly by.

Thanks Lois, Haley, Kim, Becky, and Katie for letting us join your Girls' Weekend. It was the perfect mini-vacation!

More than he bargained for

Right now, Luke is really into shoes. The other kids leave their shoes by the front door, and he loves to find them and try them on. Well, this morning, he found Pepper's heelies, which are those crazy shoes that have wheels in the soles. I think they were more than he bargained for!

Luke is also cracking us up lately because he has his own way of saying Adam's name. For some reason, he can't get both syllables out, so instead of Adam, Luke says "Ass" (pardon his French). As my neighbor says, hopefully this nickname won't stick!

(you can pause the playlist at the bottom of the blog to hear it)

Why I have no life...

I feel like September has just flown by in a fog! This Fall, we signed Pepper and Adam up for flag football and soccer, respectively, thinking that one sport per child was reasonable. What we didn't count on was the amount of time each team spent practicing and playing games. I have honestly been driving to either a game or a practice every day, Monday thru Saturday, since September 1st. While it has been crazy, it has been fun, too. It is nice to spend a couple hours each day outside in the delightful fall weather. We have had a couple coooolllddd nights, but mostly it is around 65 degrees and pleasantly crisp.


We signed Adam up for a soccer league in a neighboring city because our town plays their games on Sundays. While the extra drive time was a drag (30-plus minutes to get there from our house, and nearly 90 minutes for Brad to get there from work), we really liked his coach and the other parents.

Even though this was his first time playing in a soccer league, Adam did very well and established himself as a star player. He scored the first goal of the season for his team, which in fact was the only goal of their first game (they won 1-0).

He didn't like playing goalie or defense much because he preferred running and chasing the ball.

Adam's last game was last night, so he will have a break until Spring Soccer starts in April. The season ended just in time, as last night was pretty cold, and it was nearly dark when the game ended.


Pepper is playing flag football and it has been a real learning experience for him AND me! He plays right tackle (I think), and I wasn't prepared to watch my little boy shoving and getting shoved so much.

That is Pepper with the blue thing over his jersey in the center of the picture. Even though it is flag football, they wear all the pads, which should have clued me into how rough the game is.


Pepper has spent a lot of time working on being aggressive and ready to move when the ball is snapped. Here he is in his little 3-point stance (is it wrong for me to think he is so cute?).


Pepper is #20. During the games, I look for the #20 jersey, or I can also tell it is him by his saggy bum in the football pants.


Don't hurt my boy!


My favorite football stud.


Watching all the sports this fall has been a dream-come-true for Luke. Pepper left his football gear out one afternoon, and Luker decided it was his turn to play. He is also quite good at squatting down and calling "Hike!" in a very macho voice.


I guess with three boys, I should get used to spending my time at various sports games. Jessica is also busy with her ballet classes, but that is easier for me to relate to. I'm glad I have at least one daughter I can live vicariously through...