Weekly Review December 25 '10

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We had a nice, quiet day together--playing and eating.

Here's Frank "canoeing"--playing the new Wii game we got from Mom & Dad. It's really quite funny to watch three people wildly "paddling" in the middle of the living room!

Seth loves his new pots & spoons! (We'll hope these ones don't end up in the oven!)

We got a little bit of snow...but just a little bit.

The older boys play X-box 360--that's all they wanted, and that's about all they got, too!

More pots & spoons...

Scott checks out Wii sports resort.

Seth loves his airplane, too.

Snickers sniffs his treats.

We played video games, we played a new game called Scribblish, Seth played with play dough, I read some and watched a movie on my computer, and we just relaxed and enjoyed the abundance of treats and other yummy food that filled the kitchen. Christmas day never seems to last long enough!

As for the rest of the week, I don't think there's much point in going into great detail about our busy days, which were jam-packed trying to get everything ready for Christmas. I guess I didn't do a very good job at simplifying, although I really did try! The presents got wrapped, the cards got mailed, and most of the candy got made. The cookies did not get made (although I made the dough and it's still in the refrigerator) because on Tuesday I noticed I was getting a sore throat and by Thursday afternoon I had a full blown sore throat, chills, and fever. So I just couldn't face making cookies! Frank was busy making dinner, taking care of the kids, and generally keeping the household running, so he was too busy to make cookies also.

Well, Christmas came anyway...even without the cookies! And actually, we ended up with cookies after all because some very nice people (don't know who they are) left a big box of goodies (including cookies) on our doorstep Thursday evening. The labels said from "Walkersville Ward friends", so we know it's someone from church, but that's all we know. The box also included a pineapple, peanut brittle, apple cake, oranges, popcorn, hot chocolate, blueberry muffins, and even some buckeye candy, which is the other thing I hadn't had a chance to make before I got too sick. So the box was perfect, and it really cheered us up, besides. It's nice to know that someone was thinking of us!

Besides Christmas preparations, I also had a lot of Primary stuff to do. This is a very busy time of year in Primary, preparing for the new year. On Tuesday I got together with one of my counselors to put together binders for all the teachers with their new lesson manual, class list, etc. It took longer than I expected; I was shocked as we were finishing up to discover that it was nearly 3:00. It was about that time that I remembered that Scott was staying after school to get some help with math and he had both the cell phone and the house key, which meant Tanner was locked out with no way to call me. Thankfully, he is a big boy who can take care of himself--he just went over to one of the neighbors to wait until I got home.

We took time out Wednesday night to enjoy one of the wonderful things about the Christmas season. We went down to the temple to see the lights and attend a concert--in December they have a concert at the visitor's center every night. This particular night, a family in our ward was participating in the concert. They are originally from Guatamala and the concert was for the Spanish speaking members of the community, so the concert was all in Spanish, but we still enjoyed it. The music was familiar, even if the words weren't! We also saw several people from our ward and stake that we know. The lights were very beautiful, as always. Here are a couple of shots that I got--not the best, because I have not learned how to take good pictures at night yet, but hopefully you can get an idea of how beautiful it was. Both pictures were taken when we were on our way back to the car. I would have taken more, but after we got there I discovered that the camera batteries were dying and I didn't think I was going to be able to get any pictures at all. I was thrilled when I managed to squeeze in a few shots before they died for good.

I didn't even realize I got the moon in this shot until I looked at it later. It's not so good of the temple or the lights, but I think the moon looks cool:

Friday evening was very nice also, although I wasn't feeling well at all. Frank made our nice Christmas Eve dinner without my help. We turned out all the lights and lit lots of candles to enjoy our meal. Then we watched the church's Joy to the World DVD. Seth was exhausted and being quite disruptive through most of it--I think he did that last year, also! But I was still amazed at how much I felt the spirit while we watched, and I was grateful for that, in spite of the interruptions!

I found myself this year often thinking about how much we have. I am grateful for all the little things that we get to enjoy this time of year. For example, as I was putting a container of egg nog into my shopping cart earlier this week, I thought how much I love egg nog and how truly blessed we are that we can indulge in little treats like that. I know some people (many people) in this world don't even have enough to eat, and yet here we are with plenty and to spare--and lots of extra treats on top of that. We are so very blessed! I know I need to find ways to share more of what we have.

We hope you all have a good week and a very happy new year!!

Weekly Review December 18 '10

Before I forget--because I forgot last week--Happy Birthday to Hans! I did think about you last Saturday, but forgot to mention that here.



The photo above is a picture of the other project I made at our last RS meeting (besides the advent calendar). It looks better in real life--it's hard to photograph in the dark! If you can't see it very well, it's a sillouhette of a nativity scene on a glass block, lighted by white Christmas lights. I tied that bow on top myself--I'm proud of that because I stink at tying bows and crafty things like that. Anyway, it looks great and adds a beautiful glowing touch to our holiday decor.

We started out this week with a really nice event--a Christmas concert given by the Mormon Choir of Washington DC, held at our stake center. Frank stayed home to get Seth to bed, but the three older boys surprised me when they announced that they wanted to come with me to the concert. It turns out that this choir is really good--comparable to the Tabernacle Choir, I thought. The music was so beautiful that I was in tears more than once. After the first song, Jared looked at me and said "Wow!" In addition to the music, they also had a narrator that shared some great thoughts and stories and the director had the audience join in on two songs, which made it really fun. It was an awesome way to feel the spirit of the Christmas season!

The rest of Sunday was really busy--for me, it started with a 7:00 am Ward Council meeting followed by regular church meetings (I had sharing time), choir practice, and a visit to a Primary child. Then dinner and family night before leaving for the concert. I was tired and it was miserably cold, so it was tempting to just stay home but I'm really glad I made the effort to go to that concert!

I am convinced that I am stuck in some kind of a time warp. When school started this fall, I would take Seth to school and then have plenty of time to get things done before it was time to pick him up. Then we would have a lot more time before Tanner and Scott arrived home. Now I take Seth to school and before I've had time to turn around, it's time to pick him up! We come home, eat lunch, I read him a story or two, and before I even get really started on whatever work I need to get done that afternoon, Scott and Tanner show up. It is crazy!!!

Scott had an upset stomach on Monday so he stayed home from school. I had a visiting teaching appointment in the morning. The dishwasher repairman showed up that afternoon and lucky us--not only did he figure out what was wrong, but he actually had the part we needed on his truck!! (Last time the part had to be ordered and took another week or so to arrive.) So he was able to fix it right then. As I suspected, it was the same part as last time. This part seems to have a life span of only about 7-9 months--not too good! Monday afternoon / evening was busy because I made dinner for another family in our ward; the mom just had back surgery. I got that delivered (took longer than we planned because we had just got to an intersection when a couple of fire trucks pulled up and blocked the entire intersection for about 15 minutes while they cleaned up after an accident) and then came home to make dinner for our family. I usually just make enough for us when I take dinner to someone else so that I don't have to make two complete meals, but this time I was asked to do it last minute, so had to go with what I had on hand.

We got a small ice / snow storm Monday night, and the wind was howling. I woke up in the night (for a couple of hours, unfortunately) and could hear the wind blowing and small pellets of ice knocking on the windows. I felt so grateful to be sheltered in a warm house! I wasn't too surprised when school was delayed two hours the next morning. That meant Seth didn't have school at all. I had book club that day. We discussed the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder. I managed to finish the book late Monday night--not because I didn't like it, just because I've been too busy lately to do much reading. It was actually a pretty short book and an easy read, and although I didn't love it, I think it is well worth reading. Pretty profound and very well written.

I went shopping and worked on Christmas cards on Wednesday (I'm hoping to get the cards sent out on Monday). That evening was busy--the boys had YM, we all had tithing settlement, and I had visiting teaching appointments. We also started our annual secret service. Instead of doing 12 Days of Christmas, we decided to focus on a different family each of the 12 days, which has allowed us to focus on some families that we normally wouldn't pick because they live too far away to make a trip to their house every night for 12 days running.

On Thursday we got another small snow storm similar to the one we had last Friday, only we got a little more snow from this one. It started mid morning again, and by the time Seth was out (at 11:30) they had decided to release school 2 hours early. My car pool boy, Javvy, had gone home sick, so this time when I went to pick up Seth I decided to just pick up Jared also. I didn't really want to go back again an hour and a half later, and it looked like the roads were going to get worse instead of better. (They did.) The boys were thrilled to get out of school early, of course, and I know they were all hoping that school would be cancelled Friday also, but it wasn't. They did have another 2 hour delay, though, so Seth didn't have school again and all of us got to sleep in!

Friday I had a presidency meeting /project session. We dipped pretzels to give to all the teachers for Christmas gifts and planned how we are going to do our bulletin board for next year. Actually, it was just me and one of my counselors--the other had sick kids. Friday evening Frank and I went to the temple. We did sealings, since Frank has a cough and didn't want to cough through a whole endowment session. It was very nice. The sealer took the time to share a lot of thoughts and scriptures with us, which doesn't happen all that often. We really enjoyed that! We stopped at a mexican restaurant on the way home.

Scott had been watching Seth for us; the other two boys had gone to spend the night with Ryan & Bryson. After we got home, Scott went to spend the night with his friend David.

Today Frank is working because he had a project he had to do when no one else was at the workplace. All the boys have arrived home now and I need to take Jared to buy some new shoes, so I'd better get this review posted and get out the door.

One final note: Shellie sent us a link to the news story about the Provo Tabernacle burning down; we were really sorry to hear about that! I have a lot of good memories of singing in concerts there. It was a beautiful building and a historical treasure also. However, Frank and I were also remembering one stake conference we attended in that building (while we were in a married student ward at BYU) where we were unable to focus on the meeting because of the hordes of wasps flying around us. So our one consolation is that maybe all the wasp's nests burned up, too! We hope the tabernacle can be rebuilt or replaced with a building that looks the same. Downtown Provo just wouldn't be the same without it!

Weekly Review December 11 '10

I guess I'll start with today, while it's still fresh in my mind. I had four things I needed to get done today before noon: make sweet potatoe casserole & some fudge for our ward Christmas dinner, sweep & mop the kitchen floor, have Scott work on the paperwork for his Eagle project, and take photographs of the boys. I am pretty proud of myself that I really did manage to get all of those things done in time. Here is one of the silly photos of Scott:

And another silly photo:

Seth wasn't being very coopertive either, so I had to promise him that he could take a picture of me if he would let me take his first. That seemed to help! Before that, he was wiggling around and making funny faces. I love this little series of photos I took of him--they tell the story! In the first one he is upset because Scott (who was holding a book wrapped in foil nearby to try to help improve the light) got impatient and flicked him on the head:

In this one Tanner was trying to help get him to smile, and instead he laughed:

Here he is just making a silly face:

This one was almost perfect--for a split second, Scott got the lighting just exactly right and Seth smiled a beautiful smile, but right as I snapped the picture, Seth moved a little bit and his facial expression changed. If only I had been a second quicker!:

Then I got this one, and decided it was about as good as I was going to get:

I'll save photos of Tanner and Jared for later.

I wanted to get all of that done by noon so I could take Seth to see a few places for the annual Museums by Candlelight. The older boys didn't want to go. I took Jared over to hang out with Bryson, and then Seth and I went two places. The first was the Mt. Olivet Cemetary, where Francis Scott Key is buried. Did you know that Francis Scott Key was buried in Frederick? Well, he is. There is a statue of him and a little memorial chapel for him in the cemetary, which we visited. The chapel has beautiful stained glass windows, but I didn't get any pictures of them because unfortunately the camera battery died. In the chapel there was a display of artifacts recovered from a time capsule that was buried in 1898 and opened in 1998. Unfortunately, when the time capsule was placed, the box was smashed a little and so the seal was broken and water ran through the box for the next 100 years, so most of the papers were ruined. A few objects and a very waterlogged looking newspaper survived! Seth enjoyed running around the paths in the cemetary for a while.

After we left the cemetary, we went to the library where there was a model train on display that Seth enjoyed watching. After that, Seth had had enough, so we came home for a few hours before it was time to go to our ward Christmas dinner. Frank helped do the cooking for that, so he was gone all day--from 10:00 on. Jared came with Bryson's family to the dinner and we met him there. The dinner was nice--there was plenty of good food. They had a short program also. I missed most of that because Seth wouldn't sit still so we ended up in the nursery where he was able to play. Now on to the rest of the week!

For those of you who are not on Facebook, I am happy to report that I have a new computer and all the data from my old computer has been transferred to the new computer so I am back in business! I am trying not to feel too guilty about the expense. Especially since Frank managed to get my old one working again Thursday night! (It's still having issues, so we decided it may not last much longer anyway.) Frank and I have only purchased one computer our entire married life--the year Scott was born. So I shouldn't feel too bad, right? All the other computers I have used were "new to me" computers that were "cast offs" that Frank picked up from work. I've gone through 3 or 4 of those. It is really nice to have a brand new computer that is all mine. Frank even thought to get me one with a keyboard that has a number pad on the right, so now I can enter budget information super speedy--it rocks! He also set up my background so that it switches to a different beautiful nature scene every 15 minutes or so, and my screen saver displays various family photos. Very nice! I am not used to having all these little "perks".

Now here are some pictures I took last week when Tanner had some friends over to celebrate his birthday:

The cake looks good!

Blowing out the candles

On Sunday I had both of my counselors there which was nice, and my new secretary got called too although she wasn't there. I sent a long list of calling needs to the bishopric last week and when I met with the counselor over Primary on Sunday he said they had discussed it and decided to go with all my suggestions--how awesome is that?! Now if only everyone they call will accept, I'll be in business for the new year. Sunday afternoon was busy with choir practice, fast offering collections, family night, and the 1st Presidency Christmas devotional. I loved the devotional--it was wonderful! I think the boys really enjoyed it also. While listening to one of the talks, Scott said "maybe getting Black Ops (an X-box game) for Christmas is not such a good idea." I was amazed! The game probably isn't all that bad, but the fact that he would say something like that makes me realize that he really is starting to figure out what is most important in this life (and it's not "things").

Scott got to go to the temple on Tuesday evening to do baptisms. It was just the Priests and Laurels that got to go, along with some new members from our ward. He really enjoyed that, but they didn't get home until 11:00 and he had Seminary the next morning. He took a nap before leaving, but he has been very tired lately so it was hard on him. I think his body is ready for the Christmas break!

All the boys had basketball practice and then YM on Wednesday evening. Frank has been asked to help coach the team this season, but he was not able to go to the practice--he had work to do. He's had a very busy week also!

There isn't a lot for me to say about what I've been doing. I have had so many different tasks to do every day that I have found myself getting distracted all day long and jumping from one thing to another, which I'm sure is not very efficient! Lots of Primary stuff, the usual housework, visiting teaching appointments, and Christmas preparations. Oh, and the dishwasher quit working again--so lots of dishes to wash by hand. Thankfully, the dishwasher is still under warranty, because I had a feeling I should extend the warranty when I had the chance last spring. I'm glad I listened to that feeling! I have never purchased an extended warranty on anything before. Anyway, I "blitzed" the Christmas shopping this week and I'm all done except I need to figure out a few more things to get for Frank. He is so hard to shop for, and he hasn't given me a list yet. I'm hoping Frank will not go out and get me anything. I think a new laptop is quite enough for one Christmas!

In spite of being very busy, I've been enjoying some of the wonderful Christmas spirit. When I've been home going about all my tasks, I've had Christmas music playing and the tree lights on. That has helped me to feel cheerful and happy!

Frank hurt his left wrist on Thursday evening. He was playing with Seth--crawling around on all fours while letting Seth ride on his back. Somehow he managed to "roll" his wrist when Seth shifted his weight suddenly. It is just sprained, probably, but it's painful. He is glad it's his left wrist instead of his right!

I had to take a picture of Snickers on Thursday night, he was sound asleep and "playing dead"!:

He doesn't ususally sleep in that position.

Yesterday we got a surprise--a small (very small) snow storm. Only an inch or two, but since no snow was predicted, we were quite shocked. The snow started coming down around 10:30 and by 11:30 it had mostly stopped. That is about the time I had to go pick up Seth from school, and the roads were extremely slick. I felt the Expedition slide more than once on a turn or a stop, and a car turning onto a road right after me did a complete 180 degree turn. Frank was also on the road at that time, and he said he saw numerous accidents. Then he was in one himself--but wasn't hurt at all, thankfully. He was with his boss in his boss's car--his boss tried to stop and the car just kept going. They were nearing an intersection, so he opted to drive off the side of the road and hit a tree in a yard. His car was damaged, but neither of them were hurt. They were on their way to a client's in south DC--his boss called the client and said "we'll come on Monday instead!" Anyway, when I picked up Seth from school a lot of parents who had older kids were picking up their older kids also so they wouldn't have to come back and get them later. I couldn't do that, since I have a carpool child to pick up on Fridays, and as it turned out the schools did not close early and by dismissal time most of the snow had melted and the roads were fine.

Last night Frank was at the Washington DC Temple grounds all evening, helping to direct traffic and parking for the festival of lights. He does that every year, and it seems like he always manages to sign up for an evening that is extremely cold and miserable! (This year wasn't as bad as last year, though!) This whole week has been rather nasty, as far as weather is concerned. We've had temperatures 10+ degrees lower than usual, the humidity has been high (which really makes the cold seep into everything), and a couple of days we had high winds to boot. Brrrrrr!!! I've been wearing slippers and a sweater in the house all day long, and when I have to go out I don't bother to take the sweater off--I just throw my coat on over the top. Even though I am still cold in the house, it is days like these that I am truly thankful to have a house--and one with heat!

Seth doesn't mind the cold nearly as much as I do. Here he is yesterday afternoon, playing in the snow out on the deck:

And smiling at me through the back door!:

He was having a great time, and couldn't figure out why I didn't want to come out!

By the way, thank you to all of you who have been praying for Seth. It's working! He did fine this whole week--no crying when I dropped him off for school at all. Hopefully, he is over that stage!

Oh, and did you know that there are monkeys, gorillas, and mud puddles in the Book of Mormon? Well, there are--when Seth gets his turn to "read" during family scripture study, he tells us fascinating Book of Mormon stories that we have never heard before!

One other great thing that happened this week--Frank's car got fixed! One of the guys he works with is a welder and he was able to weld the main exhaust pipe back together. No more car that sounds like a race car! I told Frank that now I won't have any warning that he is coming home--rats! :) We are very grateful this guy was willing to do this for us.

Only 2 more weeks until Christmas! We hope you are all enjoying this season of joy.

Weekly Review December 4 '10

This week's review is coming to you from Frank's computer; hence no photographs. My computer quite working this week, which has really cramped my style. Frank is working on getting it fixed, but no luck so far. He has tried a couple of things but hasn't figured out the problem yet. In the meantime, I am checking email online but I don't have access to any of our photos, our budget spreadsheet, or any of my Primary documents, which is making my life difficult. I didn't realize how much I depend on my computer until now!

My planner can attest to the fact that I had another busy week. There was some fun mixed with all the work, though. Besides my computer quitting, I had a couple of other unexpected things happen that complicated my life and / or took up a lot of time. The first was that on Monday a pen left in someone's jeans pocket "blew up" in the dryer. Of course, all three of my new pair of jeans were in that batch, along with jeans belonging to just about everyone else in the family. At least it was jeans and not whites or light colors, though. Even though all the jeans had several small ink spots scattered all over them, the spots didn't show up too much. I checked the internet and found a lot of ideas for getting ink off of clothes as well as ink off of the inside of the dryer, and tried more than one. After two attempts at cleaning the jeans, I can still see spots on them, but they have faded a lot. I tried a couple of different things on the dryer drum (I made a special trip to the store to pick up different cleaning items for both the dryer and the clothes) and finally had some success with a product designed to clean graffiti off of different surfaces. Then putting bleach and water soaked towels in the dryer and running them through the spin cycle a couple of times seemed to get rid of the remaining ink. I can still see some ink spots on the drum, but after running a batch of towels and another batch of jeans through the dryer without any spots appearing, I felt safe doing lights and whites and they all came out without a single spot. Another thing that took more time than it should have was getting Tanner's ADD medicine refilled. I'll spare you the details, but after a couple of phone calls, a couple of trips to the pharmacy, and a trip to the doctor, I was finally successful. The Expedition's oil light came on this week also, so we had to get it in for an oil change.

Sunday could have been very complicated, but thankfully turned out fine. One of my counselors was out of town and then the other one called me Sunday morning because she had a sick child and wasn't going to be able to come to church. It was my secretary's last Sunday (she just moved to another ward--I will really miss her!); thankfully she made it to church, though! My new secretary was supposed to be called that day but wasn't for some mysterious reason (hopefully that will happen tomorrow). I didn't make it out of the Primary room since I was conducting and doing sharing time, but my secretary was great and took care of any problems that arose (such as none of the Senior nursery workers showing up) and all the teachers that were out of town had called substitutes before they left, so things went pretty smoothly. Oh, and I also had two teachers and one activity days leader let me know that they needed to be released either immediately or at the beginning of the year. Yes, three people "quit on me" in one day! The fact that this news did not phase me too much nor the fact that I did not go into complete panic mode when my counselor called that morning goes to show that I have been in Primary a long time, and have changed a lot since I first started serving in Primary!

We were busy the beginning part of the week getting caught up on things from vacation, and the later part of the week starting Christmas preparations. Add in all the normal errands / shopping / housecleaning to that as well as Christmas shopping (I got a lot done) and we were going all day long every day.

Scott stayed after school nearly every day--most days he was getting some tutoring for math and one day he was helping with a project for his business class. Tanner also stayed after one day to make up some work he missed on the days he was sick right before Thanksgiving.

Tuesday we had the missionaries over for dinner, Wednesday I had a long presidency meeting, Thursday I helped at the school library and Frank had a dentist appointment, and yesterday we put up the Christmas tree and all the other decorations. I also kept very busy with Primary tasks--did some shopping for bulletin board supplies (we're planning a new one for the new year), sent a lot of emails, and made phone calls to some teachers. I am trying to plan next year's "line up"--who is going to teach which class--and figuring out what callings need to be filled. One thing that has been cool about that--my counselors and I sat down and discussed who we thought needed to go where and who might need to be released and so forth, and so far as I have talked to the teachers the feelings that they have expressed to me have been right in line with the feelings that we have had. So we must be on the right track, and we are grateful for the inspiration!

Last night Frank and I were invited by one of my counselors and her husband (Tammy & Alvin Van Orden) to come to their house to play some games. We had a lot of fun, and after our busy, stressful week it was really great to get out of the house for a few hours and enjoy the company of some other adults! The game we played took longer than we expected, though, so we didn't leave their house until nearly midnight! We got home to discover that the boys had put Seth to bed and all gone to bed themselves, just like we asked them to--nice! Everyone was sound asleep. Alvin is Tanner's Seminary teacher, and he told us that Tanner gave a very nice devotional last week and that Tanner is trying to encourage others to take devotionals more seriously when it is their turn (Tanner is in charge of assigning the devotionals). It is nice to hear that he is taking this responsibility seriously!

Last night we drew names for our secret family service and today we took everyone to the store to get a few treats for their secret person. The boys also shopped for gifts for us and for each other. This afternoon Tanner met at the YM secretary's house to make some brownies for a YM activity next week. I had arranged ahead of time to pick up the other boys from there (there were only three of them) along with Tanner and bring them back to our house to play games, eat pizza, and have Tanner's birthday cake. They all seemed to have a fun time. Now Scott is at a party for his Seminary class at his teacher's house.

Seth has still been struggling with separation anxiety. He did ok on Tuesday because he had show & tell (which he always gets excited about) and on Thursday because I was staying to help take him and some other kids to the library, but the other three mornings he cried. It's very perplexing! We are just hoping he works his way through this stage soon. Please keep praying for him.

That sums up our week. We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and that you are enjoying the Christmas season now!