Christmas 2016

Last Christmas we threw away our artificial "Charlie Brown" tree because we knew we would be moving and it was looking pretty sparse. So I was thinking of getting a new but nicer artificial tree, but I ended up picking up a real 7'-8' one at Lowes. The worker there was really helpful and he tied it to the top of our van and everything. I was glad we got a real one. It's fun to walk through the living room and get a little whiff of the pine scent. We even got the tree up two weeks before Christmas (which is early for us).

Our lights were also a little messed up. One of the lights on the string broke, and unfortunately it was one of the important ones, so it made a whole segment of the string not work. But the replacement bulbs in the package were the blinking ones, so we had one part of the lights blinking while the rest just stayed on. I swore I would never have Christmas tree lights where part blinked and part didn't (before I had kids and responsibilities), but last year I decided I didn't care and we just used them. But this year I wanted a pretty tree with white lights, so I bought new white lights and a roll of silver ribbon, and the end result was so nice! I really enjoyed it.

I try really hard to keep the presents hidden, but our kids think a locked door means, "Come in." I even put a sign up on the door that said, "Do not enter unless you want to ruin your surprises," while I was wrapping presents. Heidi took it very seriously and cried hysterically when Ann Marie pulled off the sign. Kevin thought the sign was hilarious and kept trying to come in.

I did a pretty good job of getting the presents wrapped earlier this year. I even made some presents for my primary class (a candy cane and a small picture of a temple--I found the pictures as well as some postcards [for birthdays] at Nephi's Bookstore by the Columbia SC Temple).

I know I shouldn't, but I get stressed about Christmas presents. I want everyone to be happy and get something fun that they will enjoy. It took me a while to figure out what to get for everybody. We don't do a lot of Christmas presents because even with only three kids the amount of stuff adds up fast, but I did want each of the kids to get something fun to play with. To add to the complication, Kevin was figuring out the secret of Santa Claus, so I was trying to keep things hidden because I didn't want him to say, "Mom, I saw that under your bed, so it's not from Santa," and ruin it for Heidi. I'm not even sure how much it would ruin things because we don't make a big deal out of Santa, but still.

I love being involved in music during Christmas time. This year I sang Away in a Manger with four other women at a Relief Society activity, and we had such a great experience that we decided to sing again for Sacrament Meeting. We ended up singing an arrangement of The First Noel/Pachelbel's Canon, which was beautiful. I also really enjoyed choir practice and I was really looking forward to singing on Christmas Day.

Then a couple of days before Christmas I started feeling sick, which really put a damper on everything. I love having good food for Christmas, but I wasn't really enjoying food much because my throat was irritated and I was coughing. But I stubbornly persisted in making and eating the treats because it was CHRISTMAS, and I was going to have some TREATS. But then they weren't as enjoyable because I was sick, which made me disappointed. Next time I'm sick on Christmas I'm just going to postpone making the good stuff until I feel better.

I still haven't really figured out what we traditionally eat for Christmas Eve/Christmas dinner. I always make Grammy Jenna's cheeseball and Wassail because they're fantastic and they're traditions from when I was growing up. This year we had egg rolls too because I don't buy them much, so they're a treat. And I found a recipe for fried chicken that I decided to try (it was good--I omitted the hot sauce and added salt). Then I thought if we were having egg rolls that meant we were kind of having a Chinese theme, so I made Chicken Lo Mein (which I liked, Ryan ate some, and the kids didn't touch). So it was a really weird combination of food, but at least it was enjoyable, right?

Kevin monitored the wassail (which was awesome to have for my cough/sore throat).

While I was cooking Christmas Eve dinner, the kids worked on their pictures for our Christmas journal. When we were married, somebody gave us a journal, and two years ago we started a tradition of writing our testimonies of Jesus Christ in it every Christmas.

This little girl has learned to dress herself, and I have a hard time keeping her fully clothed. I also have a hard time keeping up when she changes her clothes by herself five or more times a day.

We got out the pretty table runner and my pretty dishes. (One broke the next day when a child was trying to help put away dishes. :'(  )

The kids acted out the nativity while Ryan read from the scriptures. Heidi was Mary, Kevin was Joseph, and Ann Marie was a shepherd (although she wasn't especially cooperative according to Kevin and Heidi's standards). I played appropriate hymns throughout the nativity and attempted to sing.

The kids went to bed after putting out reindeer food on the lawn (oats and glitter--they brought it home from school), and I started stressing more about presents. I hadn't bought any candy for the stockings because I was planning to have fudge and cookies made, but that didn't happen because I had been sick. So then I had the idea of making caramels "from Mrs. Claus." The caramel was very tasty, but for some reason it never got hard enough to cut into squares, so on Christmas when we were eating it we ended up sort of eating blobs of it or dipping apples into it.

Also, the smiley face on the note looked like something from Nightmare before Christmas. :-D

Despite all my stressing and worrying, the kids were delighted with their presents and had a nice Christmas morning.

Ryan and Ann Marie playing with the new Turbo Twisters (remote control cars):

We ended up with a lot of new legos, which the kids play with all the time. Kevin got snap circuits, Heidi got a Barbie, and Ann Marie got a Little People farm. I was so glad the legos ended up being a family gift--I was planning to give them to Heidi, then decided against it and got the Barbie. When they kids all opened up the legos together, Heidi said, "I hate legos." Whew! (She has ended up playing with them just as much as everyone else, though.)

Ryan got me a laminator, and I gave him a circular saw (meaning, we went to Harbor Freight and I told him to go pick the one he wanted). My mom and dad got me a couple of gifts that I love, including a big skillet that I use almost every day.

Then we got ready to go to church. Our ward combined with another ward and had a beautiful music program.

The Thursday before Christmas I was still sick and I was so worried that I wasn't even going to be able to go to church, let alone sing with the choir. That night in my prayers I begged Heavenly Father to help me get better because I wanted so much to sing. I told Him I had complete faith that He could do it. On Christmas I wasn't 100% better, and my voice wasn't where I wanted it to be, but I was well enough to go and sing, so I was very grateful. One of the songs we sang was Oh, Holy Night, which honestly is not my favorite Christmas song (it usually ends up sounding depressing instead of hopeful), but our choir did a nice job, and the soloist had a very sweet voice that really invited the spirit. When we got to the line "He knows our need," I burst into tears. At that moment the Spirit witnessed to me that God knew how much this music had meant to me, and He knew that I needed to be there that day, so He answered my prayer and helped me to heal enough to be able to sing.

This Christmas program was one of the most inspired ones I have ever participated in. There was quite a variety of music styles too. The choir director and another sister sang I Believe in Christ with guitar accompaniment, and I loved it. We often sing the sing with a very grandiose style (which is also fine), but this version had a more light and happy style, which I really enjoyed. We had a piano/cello/violin do the Piano Guys version of O Come Emanuel, which was beautiful.

After church we went back home and just relaxed and spent time together. I think I made potato soup or something for dinner.

December

Kevin and Heidi are getting very interested in jokes. Sometimes their jokes are very odd. Sometimes Kevin asks a science question and gives the answer and thinks it's a joke. (What is a satellite and goes around the earth? The moon! Get it, Mom? Because the moon is also a satellite!) I saw a blog post with a bunch of Christmas-themed jokes, so in the weeks leading up to Christmas I put a joke in their lunch boxes. I think Heidi was embarrassed at the attention she got when people noticed her joke, so she told me to stop "putting strips" in her lunch, but Kevin enjoyed them and asked me a few times if I had remembered to put a surprise joke in his lunch.

Kevin found a dead lizard outside and buried it in our front yard, complete with this stone he found under the shed:

We got some new rugs. The gray one is for our room and is wonderfully plush. The blue one is for Kevin's room.

Heidi sang with the other kindergarteners in a Christmas music performance at the school. I wasn't able to get a good picture, but she is in the front row wearing white jammies.

They started with a very cute song from The Nutcracker where they clapped and moved plastic plates to go along with the music:



Heidi sang this song at home so much that Kevin and Ann Marie learned it too. You can kind of hear Ann Marie singing along in the video:



It was such a cute and fun program. Kevin never did anything like this at his old school. Other than the fundraisers we are really enjoying being part of this school.

Ann Marie is showing increased interest in toilet training, but she's not quite there yet. She has her own big girl underwear now that she likes to wear sometimes, and (unfortunately . . . ) she often tries to change her own diaper. I think it will be a little longer before she figures it out, but we're getting there. And I think I just need to get rid of that Froggy Potty because none of my kids have really used it.

Kevin was invited to a roller skating birthday party. At first he was really discouraged, but he kept trying, and I think it helped that he wasn't the only kid who had never been roller skating before. By the end he had made a lot of progress.

One night, Ryan had cub scouts and I told him I really didn't feel like I could make dinner. Kevin heard me and eagerly offered to make french toast. He did it almost completely by himself and it was good. It was such a help to me. As he gets older he's starting to be more and more capable of being helpful. (I love the weeks when he's in charge of putting away the dishes!)

I got Kevin the Faber Primer Level Christmas Book and he enjoyed learning a few songs. Yes, I know he's not counting right on Jingle Bells, but he didn't believe me. What he said at the end of Jolly Old Saint Nicholas cracked me up!

Thanksgiving

In past years we have mostly had Thanksgiving with friends. One year we drove to Amy and David's house and another year we had Thanksgiving with Jared and Kristi because they lived close by.

I worried a lot about what to do for Thanksgiving. I thought about inviting somebody over, but I felt shy about it. But I also didn't want to have Thanksgiving alone because a lot of the fun for Thanksgiving is being with people you care about.

One day I decided to pray about it and asked that we would be able to have Thanksgiving with someone. The very next Sunday I saw the missionary calendar (which was interesting because we weren't usually getting the calendar in Primary) and the sisters didn't have anyone signed up for Thanksgiving yet. I felt like this was the answer to my prayer, so I signed up.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving I noticed that two other people had also signed up to feed them on Thanksgiving, which left me really confused, but the sisters had already confirmed they were coming. So after debating for a while I finally decided that if they were going to have three Thanksgiving dinners that was their problem, and I just planned on them coming and didn't say anything. I'm still not sure why they had three people signed up to feed them that day.

Since we had always had Thanksgiving at other people's houses, I had never made a whole turkey before. I was planning to buy one of those bone-in turkey breasts because I've done those before with good results, but when I went grocery shopping I could only find whole turkeys, so I bought a small one and got on Facebook to ask for tried and true recipes. I ended up doing a dry brine the day before by rubbing salt, butter, and spices underneath the skin (next time I'm getting disposable gloves because after rubbing all that salt in my knuckles were raw). I used the spices from the Herb Roasted Chicken recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

On Thanksgiving I started the turkey cooking in the morning because the sisters were coming around 2:00 and the package said I would need 3 1/2-4 hours based on the weight. I checked it occasionally and it was doing fine. But it ended up being fully cooked a lot earlier than I expected, and we still had a couple of hours before the missionaries were coming, and I had a lot of cooking left to do, so that put me in a bit of a panic. But I covered the turkey in foil and asked the sisters to come in an hour, then started cooking like crazy. It all worked out. I did ask the sisters to make the stuffing when they got to our house (I just bought Stove Top stuffing because I knew homemade rolls and the turkey would already be a lot of work), and while they worked on that I took some time to fix my hair because I like to look nice for Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a yummy dinner. The turkey tasted great, and it was still warm for dinner. We also had homemade rolls, candied yams (which Ryan made), mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (which I didn't like as much as I remembered), and the stuffing. Ryan made a yummy drink with frozen crushed pineapple and Sprite. I was fully expecting the kids to just eat rolls, but they all actually tried and ate a good variety of foods. It was nice to get to know the sister missionaries. After we ate dinner they showed us a video about the Church's #LightTheWorld campaign for Christmas.

The sisters left soon after dinner. I think they must have been planning on pie at another house because they didn't seem interested in taking any with them. Kevin begged me to make my berry pie, but then once Thanksgiving came around he decided he didn't like pie and just wanted whipped cream. I also made two pumpkin pies, which made a great breakfast for the next couple of days.

I think next year if we have Thanksgiving alone I won't feel so bad about it. We had a nice time together at home.

The can opener unexpectedly broke in the middle of all the cooking too. I had to borrow Ryan's pocket knife and use the can opener thing on it to open the last couple of cans.

Kevin and Ann Marie enjoying their whipped cream:

November

First, a couple of quotes:

Ann Marie: "Bobby, I gotta go . . . " (The kids have been watching The Apple Dumpling Gang.)

Heidi and Ann Marie's dolls were nameless for quite a while, but Ann Marie has christened her doll Bucky and Heidi's doll Daisy. (We figured out that Ann Marie probably means Becky.)

The day after Halloween, Ryan found Ann Marie in Kevin's closet stuffing her face with his candy.

Some pictures Ryan took on campus:

Learn to read (not really):

A very dirty Heidi:

Ryan started dismantling the waterfall (some of the railroad ties were falling apart and it was becoming a hazard) and used the rocks to make a stone path along the back fence. There are a lot of rotting railroad ties in the backyard, and he's thinking about removing them and making new walls with stone or bricks.

Another dirty Heidi. It's a side effect from having a backyard.

Ann Marie got a perfect handlebar mustache from a chocolate pie.

On election day, Kevin and Heidi were out of school, so we all went together to vote, and then after dropping Ryan off at work we went to the Savannah Rapids to walk on the trail. It was a beautiful day.

Piggy back ride:

On Veteran's Day, the second graders gave a fantastic performance for the veterans. Ann Marie and I were able to go and we really enjoyed it. I wasn't able to get great pictures, but Kevin is in blue on the back row. He had his outfit planned a couple of weeks in advance and he was planning to wear a white long-sleeved shirt, but unfortunately he got food on it before school and I made him change. He was a little upset with me that I wouldn't try to scrub the food out and let him wear the shirt, but I knew this was going to need a stain treatment. Apparently he got over it, though, because he sang and seemed to have a fun time.

Here is a video of one of their songs. I was impressed that the music teacher was able to teach them to sing the two melodies at the same time. She seems like a really good teacher. I never want to leave this school district!



We visited the Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake. The kids enjoyed collecting the clam shells on the beach.

Ryan had a birthday. We had a yummy lemon cake with cream cheese frosting and invited some neighbors over to share it. 1/4 of it is still in the freezer. Ryan wanted a drill with bits for his birthday, and I ended up letting him do the research and buy the one he wanted. One day I came home from something and he said, "Thanks for my present. I love it." (He had just ordered it from Amazon.) He's enjoyed using it to fix/build some things.

Heidi's class had a Thanksgiving feast. I still remember the Thanksgiving feast we had when I was in Kindergarten and I was excited that Heidi's class did it too. Ann Marie and I came to the party to help and had a fun time. I had volunteered to bring rolls. I was shocked that most of the kids didn't touch their roll. They didn't even try it. Granted, there was also popcorn, animal crackers, and veggie straws, plus there were also cupcakes and cookies after they were done eating, but our family of five usually devours an entire batch of my homemade rolls in one dinner, so I was surprised. Part me died a little inside seeing how much food we threw away. But other than that it was a nice little feast, and it's fun to go see Heidi in her classroom.

Sometimes I do good mom things. Kevin wanted to make blueberry muffins, so I put him in charge (with some guidance from me--he hasn't learned fractions yet). He read the recipe and let his sisters help him measure the ingredients. He spooned the batter into the muffin pan by himself. The girls had their own muffin pan, and considering how much they licked the spoons and tasted the batter I suspect there was a lot of spit in their muffins. The top two pictures are the girls' muffins, and the bottom two are Kevin and his muffins.

Heidi was asked to give a talk about reverence. She composed it all herself.

We got a coupon for free Bo-berry Biscuits from Bojangles, so Ann Marie and I went on a little date together and redeemed our coupon. We had a nice time.