Christmas Day

Christmas Day started with the boys upstairs stomping on the floor. They were not allowed to come down until Ben went up to get them, so we told them to stomp on the floor (right above our bedroom) when they woke up. But it had to be light outside!
They actually didn't wake up until 8:00 AM which was very decent of them. :-)
I was feeling horrible, but I parked myself on the couch and Ben brought the boys downstairs. I had thoughts of having a short devotional before the madness of presents, but I was barely holding it together, so I told Ben to just let them go for it.
So the hits?:
Schleich Castle-- I knew this would be a favorite. The boys have several Schleich knights they've been collecting over the past couple of years to go with it.
Leapfrog Talking Globe-- Ben wasn't so sure about this, and no one really got into it until the day after Christmas or so, but it's been sitting on our kitchen table getting played with many times a day. Ben and I have just as much fun with it as the boys. We're all going to be geography whizzes soon! The one we got is the same as the one I linked to, but we sure didn't pay that much for it!!!
Haba Blocks-- We seriously have SO MANY blocks. But they get played with every single day. This was Brigham's favorite gift (no surprise there).
Watch-- Joseph got a $10 watch in his stocking, and that has ended up being by far his favorite gift. Go figure. :-)
Webkinz-- We have a lot of these, too, but Mosey LOVES them and they do get played with all the time. And all the boys can navigate and play on Webkinz World all by themselves now! (yay!)
DVDs: Scooby Doo, Blue Planet, Harry Potter, Evan Almighty, Polar Express. We've been watching them all.
Legos: I don't need to say any more about these!
K'nex: Ditto! Our relatives know my boys very well.
Transformers (thanks Naomi and Dave-- now, Dave, do you think you can come to our house and tutor the boys on how to get them back into their original positions? I'm seriously not smart enough...)
Ben got me a new set of pots and pans. We just threw away all our old ones. :-) We never had any good pots and pans to begin with-- just cheapo ones we bought at Walmart when we were first married 12 years ago, plus an assortment of Goodwill pans. They were all just awful. I love the new ones. He also got me a car battery charger. Romantic, huh? :-) Actually, I requested and love both of those gifts, they're exactly up my alley. The boys gave me slippers, scrapbook paper, and jewelry cleaner.
I wasn't very creative with Ben this year. He wanted a leather computer case. The boys and I searched diligently but never found anything even close to what he wanted. Ben finally found one he liked and so he just bought it himself. And he bought himself some clothes. I'm the most unromantic one of all! But at least I wrapped them! :-) The boys gave him a ceramic bread pan, flour, and cologne (it was so much fun shopping for cologne with them-- watching them smelling each one and discussing what they thought Ben would like).
Joseph got Brigham and Mosey each a Webkinz.
Brigham got Joseph and Mosey these helicopter spinner thingies and these cool and gross squeezable brain ball things. I can't explain!
Mosey got Joseph and Brigham plastic soldier-type figures (actually policemen and firemen he is quick to point out), plus a blanket for Joseph and The Polar Express movie for Brigham (with mom's help).
So, needless to say, we certainly did our part in stimulating the U.S. economy this Christmas season. :-)
The boys played and ate Lucky Charms and Christmas candy all day. No one changed out of their PJ's. The boys built a great big block and castle city around the Christmas tree, making it pretty much impossible for me to get around in my wheelchair. Which was ok since I stayed in my room trying to sleep as much as possible. The only thing that has any effect in getting me to stop throwing up is to sleep.
We didn't do our Shepherd's dinner because I was too sick.
Anyway, it was a very fun day! I wish I had taken more pictures! It was pretty much all I could do just to keep it together laying on the couch, though. I did take a few in the evening when I was feeling a little more human.


Oops, I guess Mosey did change out of his PJ's into one of his sweaters he got. Here he is playing with his Transformer and eating cinnamon toast and Lucky Charms.



Mosey helping put together the Schleich castle.



Joseph got all of our knights and set up a whole siege scene. After I took this picture, he took my camera and took about 50 more pictures detailing every part.



Joseph playing with Transformers and sporting his new watch which he hasn't taken off for 6 days now. He was thrilled that I was taking his picture.



Brigham beginning what ends up being a gigantic block city with train tracks running through and around it all.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve dawned bright and COLD!! A cold front blew down from somewhere. I heard the wind howling all the night before as it always does when a change in the weather comes our way.
Ben took the boys shopping for moi in the morning. Then in the early afternoon Ben and I went to Walmart for stocking stuffers and last-minute things. Wow, Walmart was busy! It was fun to be together and wander the aisles. As convenient as it was sitting in Ben's office leaning over his laptop perusing amazon.com, it's just fun to be together, discussing each boy and deciding what they would like best. When we came out of Walmart, it was actually snowing!! Really just a few flakes floating around, but boy was it cold.
When we got home, it was later in the afternoon, and time to go shopping for our Shepherd's dinner! Every year for Christmas dinner, we have a shepherd's dinner. We have food the shepherds might have eaten 2,000 years ago. We spread blankets out on the floor and turn off the lights and eat by the light of the fire. It's a tradition from my childhood, and one of my most favorite parts of Christmas. Plus it really beats slaving over a stove for all of Christmas afternoon.
We bought dried fruit, nuts, flat bread (the Naan bread at our HEB is really good), juice (in lieu of wine-- the boys each got to choose their favorite kind), cheese, hummus, and this year we bought some lamb. Did shepherds eat lamb? It seems a little weird for shepherds to eat lamb, but it probably was a pretty common source of meat. Usually I will roast a chicken, but we decided to mix it up a bit this year.
Once home again, I locked myself in my bedroom to wrap presents while Ben made dinner. Almost all of our packages from Amazon came in time for Christmas! Only 2 things didn't make it, but they were minor little toys, anyway. It was ridiculous the amount of packaging we piled up, though. Amazon.com has its "ship these items faster" option where each item is shipped separately as it becomes available. So we had a LOT of boxes.
After dinner it was time for our Christmas Eve program. When I was growing up, our Christmas Eve program was a very big deal. The oldest child at home was responsible for organizing it, and it was always a surprise for our parents. We had "Sunday club" starting right after Thanksgiving in which we would plan the program, choose, write, and practice our Christmas play, and otherwise plot and plan away from the watchful eyes of or parents. In my family growing up, we had the numbers and demographics to really put on a great Christmas program. My little family is different, and they weren't really ready to plan their own program. In fact, Ben has always resisted a tiny bit against having a formal, scheduled Christmas Eve program. But I think he's starting to see the light. :-)
We started off singing some Christmas carols, and then Ben graced us with "Silent Night" on the violin. He played violin for a year in 1st grade. But what he lacks in technique and tone, he makes up for in enthusiasm!

Joseph played a carol on the piano.

Then Mosey and Brigham and I sang "Away in a Manger."
Mosey read "This is the Stable."


Then Brigham accompanied us in a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells."

My mom sent us these cute nativity hand puppets, so instead of a traditional nativity play, we had a nativity puppet show while I read the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke.
After that we had our annual Christmas Eve dance party! Fun times.


(if you fast forward to about 2:30 you'll see our cat who thinks we are all totally crazy)


Then it was time for the opening of the first Christmas present (a stuffed animal for each boy to help them sleep), and then bed. We gave each boy a Benadryl tablet to help them sleep. Isn't that terrible? But they did actually fall asleep!

Then Ben and I went to work finishing the wrapping and staging of the living room.
I started feeling not-so-great as the evening went on, and by 10:00 or so I knew I had Mosey's stomach bug. Ugh. At least we were able to finish all our Christmas Eve festivities.

The Days Before Christmas

The past week and a half or so have been sooo busy, I have had no time for journaling at all. So it's time to make up for it a bit.
On Thursday the 17th, I realized that Ben and I were not going to have any time for Christmas shopping. Sad, but true. December has been crazy busy! So Thursday night I stayed up until 2:00 AM or so, putting everything I was thinking about into my Amazon.com wishlist. Friday morning I drove down to Ben's work for my H1N1 vaccine, and afterward Ben and I collaborated in his office and decided on our final purchases. Whew! All done!! Wow, I adore online shopping. Plus you can see all the reviews for different items on Amazon.com.
Last week I put the boys in a gymnastics camp Mon.-Wed. from 9:00-2:00 every day. It was a Christmas present to myself. :-) There were some things I HAD to get done, and I needed the boys away. It was glorious to have the peace and quiet. I adore my boys, but with homeschooling, I don't exactly get much time to myself. :-)
Monday I got all my Christmas cards stuffed, stamped, and in the mail!
On the way home from picking up the boys, I got pulled over. :-( I haven't been pulled over in... almost 8 years! The officer came to the window and asked if I knew why I got pulled over. I said, "I think because I stopped over the line at the stop sign back there?" He said, "No, your driving was perfect. But your inspection sticker is expired!" Yep, it expired back in August. Oops. He was nice, though, and let me off with a warning. The boys and I went straight to a Pep Boys and got that inspection done! I'm good for another year.
Then we went to the mall to try to find some presents for Ben. He ended up meeting us there for dinner at the food court, and he took the boys into some cheap toy stores to buy presents for each other, and I was able to take the boys to get presents for him. Mission accomplished! I don't love the mall.
Joseph and Mosey were being stinkers about going back to the gymnastics camp the next day. "I'm not going!" "You can't make me!" Etc. I said, "You're right, I can't make you. But you know what I can do? I can take all the Christmas presents we've been getting right back to the store!"
They are not used to being in big groups of kids, and there were a few things that really rubbed them the wrong way about the camp. When I came to get them, Joseph saw me and ran out to get in the car. Then the director called him in and told him something. Joseph came back out in tears and said I had to park and come in and sign them out. I should have known they would need me to do that. So I parked and got myself in with my crutches and signed them out. Joseph and Mosey were both upset by this and didn't understand why they couldn't just come out the car. I told them they had to make sure the kids don't go with the wrong person, and that I would have been upset if they hadn't made me sign them out! (Not really true, but I was certainly going to side with the gymnastics place on this one!) Also, they all had to get in a line and go to the bathroom, whether they needed to or not. I know, the horror, right?! I talked to them about how these are how things have to be done with big groups of kids, and if they were in public school, they'd be ordered around all the time! :-) Anyway, Joseph came around and said, "Ok, I guess I'll go tomorrow and Wednesday, but I'm NOT going after that!" Fine with me, since I didn't sign them up beyond Wednesday! :-) But he got to keep face, and that's important.
Tuesday after I dropped them off, I came home and worked on a big project. The twins both have scrap books of their first (and second) year. I had started Mosey's using a computer scrapbooking program, but never finished it or printed it out. I was determined to finish it and print it out and give it to him for Christmas.
When I picked up the boys, they told me they had a great time, and they wanted to go again! And maybe even go next week! Wow, what a difference an attitude change makes. In the morning I walked them in, and the lady at the front desk was very apologetic about the day before. I guess she felt bad when I came hobbling in on my crutches. She said she'd bring the sign-out book out to my car next time. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about taking special privileges because of my disability. But usually not. :-)
Tuesday afternoon and evening was spent making pints and pints (and pints) of homemade applesauce for Christmas treats. My friend Traci and her son Joseph came over and we had a good time. A good, sticky time. :-)
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Mosey woke up vomiting. Oh, great. Ben was my hero and took care of him all that night while he threw up every 30 minutes. I took Joseph and Brigham to gymnastics in the morning, and Mosey pretty much slept all day. Ben stayed home to work. I got Mosey's scrapbook finished.
And that brings me up to Christmas Eve! Which will be another post.

If you have to get sick...

Christmas day isn't a bad day to choose.
On Tuesday night, Mosey started throwing up and he was sick all day Wednesday. Last night after we got the boys down, I started feeling it, too. Happily, Ben and I finished all the wrapping and preparations before the worst of the sickness hit. I dragged myself out of bed this morning (the boys slept in until *8:00*!!!) and lay on the couch to observe all the Christmas present-opening festivities, and then hit the hay for another 5 hours. I'm currently feeling *okay* after not eating anything for about 22 hours. I hope I'm the last one to get it.
Merry Christmas everyone!

It's the tree that does it

The boys have been looking forward to Christmas, but I haven't seen a lot of the super-excited silliness that I remember from being that age. I was worried we'd somehow lost the magic. But this afternoon we finally got around to buying our Christmas tree, and ever since then, it's like the Christmas light got turned on inside each of them.
When we got home from the ward party tonight, they all 3 ordered Ben and I into our bedroom because they "needed to have a secret Christmas meeting" in the kitchen. So cute!!
They're getting excited about buying each other presents, which also makes me very glad.
Ben is at the store buying more Christmas lights (we wrapped our lights up veeerrrry carefully last year in plastic, and STILL, after sitting in the box for a year, 3 of the strands don't work anymore. Why is that?! Anyway, tomorrow after church we'll decorate the tree and make our gingerbread house.
Only 5 more days!!


Here are some recent pictures.

Last Wednesday as I was driving the boys home from art, the clouds in the sky were so unusual. You can't see as well in the picture, but it looked exactly like the surface of a wavy ocean, but inverted. The clouds were in this really unusual undulating pattern. Yes, I took a picture as I was driving down the freeway. But as you can see, there really wasn't anyone else on the road!




Being down South, we don't get the beautiful changing leaves on the trees like other places. Heck, more than half of the trees here won't even lose their leaves! But there are a bunch of these particular trees here and there in Austin, and they are really breathtaking. Every time we pass one, the boys want me to take a picture, so on Thursday, I did! I don't know what kind of trees they are, but they sure are pretty.

A Christmas Carol

We took the boys to see A Christmas Carol tonight (the 3D Disney movie). It was sooooo good!
Audible.com offered a free download of the original Charles Dickens version, and we finished listening to it about an hour before the movie started. I was really impressed because nearly all the dialogue in the movie was word-for-word from the book.
3-D animation is getting so good. This was the first CGI movie I've seen in which the characters were rendered in a realistic way. It was really incredible. And I love the 3D. It's cool to be in the middle of a big change like this-- kind of like when movies went from silent to sound, or from black and white to color. 2D to 3D is the same.
Go see it if you haven't yet!

shopping...

This month has just flown by. Ben and I haven't had a moment to go Christmas shopping together, and I'm not sure when we will! We've had things going on every weekend since Thanksgiving. Ben was gone to Utah all last weekend. Tomorrow night I'd like to go get a Christmas tree (yeah, we haven't had a moment to do that either), Saturday night is the ward Christmas party for which I've been recruited to help. Week nights are too hard-- Ben doesn't get home till 6:45 or 7:00, and the boys have to get to bed and there's always so many things I need to finish up with at night.
So tonight I got on Amazon.com and I now have $690 worth of things in my shopping cart. I'm not buying them all!!! I basically just put in everything I was thinking about, and hopefully tomorrow during the day Ben can look at it all and we can collaborate and get things ordered. I don't think there's really going to be any time at all for us to go to actual stores before Christmas, so this will have to do.
I love Christmas time. I haven't really been stressed, just extremely busy! I wish I could somehow squeeze in another 2 weeks before Christmas. How can it really be in just one week?? Too bad the boys aren't a little younger. I might try to con them into thinking Christmas is really on the 31st. :-)

worried

Brigham went to play at a little neighbor boy's house tonight while I took Mosey to speech therapy. When I picked him up, he told me that he told J about our church. I was a little surprise and asked him more about his conversation. I'm a bit worried about how he came across. Brigham can be a little zealous in his 8-year-old way. We were reading about the "great and abominable church" in our scripture study this week and when I asked him what he thought that church represented, he was quick to say, "all other churches except ours!" Which led to a (I hope) productive discussion on exactly what the great and abominable church is *not*. (i.e. NOT other churches, but instead people and institutions that do not care about God's laws and think that trying to be good is silly.)
He said that he told J that he really needed to go to church and that after he died he would be really embarrassed when he realized that what Brigham had been telling him was right. **Cringe**.
Anyway, I tried to strike a balance between praising Brigham for being a missionary, and also gently giving him some pointers on how to talk to other people about religion.
I sent this email to J's mom, hoping to calm any ruffled feathers that might have occurred. From what Brigham told me that J said, they do not go to church, but they read Bible stories as a family.
Hi M,
Thanks for having Brigham over tonight, he had a good time.
He told me he and J were having a conversation about religion while he was at your house. Brigham tries very hard to be a good boy, and is definitely my most devout child. :-) He's never brought up such topics with other friends, so I was a little surprised to hear what they were talking about.
We have a religious home and so we frequently speak of religious things. I'm not sure how he came across to J, but I know that Brigham can be a little intense about many things, whether about Harry Potter, or multiplication, or God. :-)
It sounded like their conversation was very interesting-- what do angels look like, where is Heaven, what do you do there. I was entertained to hear what some of his answers were. They were not 100% representative of LDS church doctrine. :-)
But I really hope he was not inappropriate and that he did not offend J. I told Brigham tonight that the most important thing to keep in mind when talking to other people about God is to be very sensitive and not say anything that might make the other person feel bad or sad because the thing God wants more than anything else is for all of us to be kind and loving to each other. I told him that he should remember that any time he talks to anyone else about God, his goal should be to make the other person feel good so that he'll want to talk about God again! Brigham said, "I don't really think J will want to talk about it anymore," so again, I'm hoping he wasn't too inappropriate.
Anyway, I hope you understand! Brigham likes playing with J and I will remind him to cool it on the God talk a little in the future.

Was that ok? Too much? Not enough? I would feel terrible if this ends up alienating their family...

reerrereererererererererererererererererererereeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeerrrrrererererererer

Singles wards

I went to the Austin singles' ward this afternoon to play a duet with a friend of mine for their Sacrament Meeting Christmas program.
It is a very talented ward!! Several very good pianists, lots of really good vocalists, an amazing violinist, a beautiful oboist... Really, the talent was extraordinary. Is it just a Mormon thing? If we got another randomly selected group of 20-30 year olds, would there be as much talent?
I was thinking the whole time how glad I am not to be in singles' ward. I was able to really enjoy the beauty and spirit of the program today. I was able to appreciate the talents of others without feeling envious or self-critical. However, had I been one of the single girls in the audience today, I know what I would have been thinking about.
"That girl is more talented than I am."
"She's skinny AND has a good voice."
"Why don't I practice so I can be as good as she is?"
Etc., etc.
I hope the young women in that ward are not as insecure or prone to comparison as I was.
I hope everyone there was able to feel the spirit and enjoy the talents of other people without descending into that dark place of comparison and self-doubt. I hope they're all way more mature than I was. :-)

So yay for not being single! :-)

Let it snow!!

We had a crazy couple of days of weather here in Austin. A cold front blew down Thursday night and Friday it was literally freezing! The forecast even called for some snow flurries. So Friday morning the boys got up and dressed for the day. All the boys put on 2 pairs of pants, Joseph had on 2 of his shirts, one long-sleeved shirt of Ben's and a thick jacket. Brigham had a ski cap on, and all the boys got bandanas/dishtowels for me to tie over their nose and mouth to protect from frostbite. :-) They were so funny.

There was no snow in the morning and I didn't think we'd see any, but sure enough, a few flakes started to fall around lunchtime. I knew there was no point in trying to continue lessons when snowflakes were falling, so I told the boys to go on out. By that time they had shed some of the winter gear they had been wearing, but that didn't stop them from running outside and enjoying the "snowstorm" for the 20 minutes or so that it lasted. Joseph even gathered enough snow from our trampoline to make one whole snowball! :-)
I know the snow is hard to see. But look reeeally hard, it's there! It was a veritable blizzard for Austin! :-)
Thank goodness it warmed up again today. I'm just not a snow girl...

sick day for mom = fun day for kids

We've been passing around a stomach bug around here. Brigham and Moses had it on Sunday, Joseph had it on Monday, and I woke up with it early this morning. Nothing serious, just a serious case of the queasies. No one lost their lunch.
But I am also fighting off a cold, and between the two viruses, I was down and out for most of the day. Which meant no lessons for the boys. Except for piano practicing. That is non-negotiable.
And still, Joseph had the NERVE to say tonight, just before bed, "I didn't have any time to do anything fun today!"
Yeah. Take a look at the playroom right now and you'll see what a big fat fib that is! :-)
I'm feeling better now, though, so tomorrow we pick up that ball again.

I'm working my way through our Thanksgiving pictures.


Here's Miles eating a snack on the riverboat. I love this kid so much.



Mosey and Mara sharing a joke. Aren't her little braids cute?



Another one of smiley Miley. He got this soccer ball and spent about 5 minutes trying to stand up with it. He finally did, then plopped back down, lifted it up, and tried to eat it. Rosalynde and I cracked up, thinking about what must be going through his little mind: "Hmm, maybe I can fit this in my mouth if I try reeeeal hard!"



The two brothers, Jack and Miles. These two look the most alike of Rosalynde's four kids.



Rosalynde's oldest, Elena. She has the most beautiful blue eyes, the exact shade as her shirt. She is so affectionate and volunteered to come to our house as a stand-in-daughter so I could practice my french-braiding.

No solo picture of Mara, she's at that intensely-allergic-to-cameras stage. I took a few family pictures, and when those were done, she was D-O-N-E.