Party at Uncle Mark's House

Yet another Christmas has come and gone. True to form, I was ready to continue my "the day after Christmas" tradition of taking down the tree. And I did. Just the one in the front room. Honsetly, I was so excited to get the ornaments put away and out of reach of the kids and to vacuum the front room. Yay! And it's not because I'm a Humbug Scrooge. It's cause I celebrate Christmas all year long and I don't need a tree in my house to have the spirit of Christmas in my heart, hah! So there. I'm not a Scrooge. Although I was accused. The kids woke up and were surprised at my efficiency. Kids, I'm really excited for us to get back to achieving goals and "making-something-of-my-life" mode and out of "it's Christmas-break-and-I-can-be-lazy" mode. Before Christmas, Ethan had said that the only thing he wanted for Christmas was to be able to sleep whenever he wanted for as long as he wanted. No waking him up early, like at 10 or anything, no waking him up from afternoon naps. Children, I realize that you guys won't be producctive until you are forced to go back to school, and I will accept that, but that doesn't mean that I can't start to try and kick things back in gear. So, even if you all don't want to say goodbye to December yet, I am okay to take down the tree. (I counted it as my workout today.)

A little more about Christmas Eve - on Sunday, after church, we headed up to Corey's brothers' house for a Wride family party. It was great. We enjoyed a yummy taco bar and other appetizers and desserts. I gave in to the cheese ball which was really tasty with the sweet potato crackers. I'll be getting back on the plant based wagon as soon as the holidays are over. Highlight for the kids was the saran wrap ball game. We played this last year and it was the highlight then too. When Uncle Mark announced it was time, they all cheered.

Daniel was a little curious/confused as to what could be the cause of such noise and excitement.

I took a video, but it was so loud and there was so much screaming (mostly Ethan being obnoxiously loud on purpose) so I'm not uploading that one.

I will, however, share a video of the highlight of my evening - Sophi and Owen dancing their little interpretation Tchaikovsky's nutcracker music. 

It was so cute. I love these little people.

The kids played their musical instruments like last year, and they all gave a go at Karaoke too.

Ethan and Hyrum did an interprative dance to George Michael's "Last Christmas"

You boys are funny. The kids enjoyed time with their cousins and with their cousins' pet lizard.

It was starting to snow when we headed home. Thankfully it wasn't too bad but we did see a few accidents on the way. That would not be fun to be in an accident on Christmas Eve. But the kids were glad to have a little bit more snow before Christmas day, it's been a very mild winter. They are hoping to sled before the break is over. Not much yet though and nothing in the forecast. Unfortunately it's a pretty short break from school this year, they might be out of luck, we'll see.

Christmas 2017

Natalie! You made it! Today is CHRISTMAS!!!! 

Merry Christmas little girl! She's been waiting and counting down the days on the calendar on the fridge for a whole month. Now it's finally here, time to cash in! She was probably the funnest one to watch. We went for the shock and awe with a big present first - one from Costco that earned a lot of bragging rights last year when Sophi got one (Dori last year) - a big coloring set with crayons and markers - Disney princess this time. Natalie and Sophi both got one. They were the "biggest" presents, so they were quite pleased. This should keep them busy for a week or so.

So, Corey and I didn't head to bed until 5:30 this morning, so we slept in and kept ignoring requests to get up until 10:45. When we came out, they gave us their presents from under the family tree in the front room, where they slept. That room was trashed - wrapping paper, MnM's, you name it all over the floor. Then we headed into the side room where the gifts from Corey and I were. Since we didn't get around to putting names on them last night/this morning, the kids picked up presents one by one and formed a line by Corey and his laptop, where he informed kids who the numbered gift was for.

Me on my 8th trip out to the garbage can. Daniel wants me to hold him. 

Another highlight of my Christmas was watching these two play with their wood cars and floor mat.

Cute cute little guys, you can hear them zooming and vrooming their cars - too cute.

Lots of art kits for kids, papers and pens and markers. A few electronic things. A Forks Over Knives cook book for me from and a subscription to Purple Carrot, which I'd never heard of before, but he said it's like Blue Apron, but plant based. Cool! I'm excited

After all the opening was over, Daniel was just laying on the ottoman in an almost drunk-like stupor

It was like he was just basking in the overdose of it all, made me laugh.

The kids did their best to find an open space on the floor where they could park and spread out their loot.

Front room and side room are trashed, but the girls found an open spot in the kitchen. It's getting hard to walk around here...

Daniel found someone's chocolate from their stocking - I held him at arms length until he was safely in the tub to be properly un-chocolated. Sorry, don't mean to make you sad, but don't touch me!

So it's just been a big messy Christmas explosion all day, which I guess is how it should be. Kids are happy, no one feels slighted that I'm aware of. I think a great Christmas memory was delivered to our family with help from lots of Christmas angels, you know who you are, thank you. I think the kids would all say it was a good day.

Christmas Eve Tradition

I'd say that one tradition that we are consistent with is that of sleeping under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. (You can see Natalie there telling Ethan to go to sleep so Santa can come...)

Sleeping around the tannenbaum isn't something that Corey or I did growing up. But the kids did it in 2007 and they're the ones that deserve the credit for keeping it up through these past 10 years. Here are those little kids in 2007 - 

Sophi ready to have visions of sugar plums dance in her head.

This year they wanted Owen to join them. And it was a lesson learned. Sure, he seemed to snuggle up fine, but it did not work out well for Santa's helpers.

Note to self for when they want Daniel to sleep over with them next year: Just say no.

 

It is now 3:00 a.m. Christmas morning and we're not done yet going through gifts or wrapping them. Owen was still awake at 1:30 (cute little face) and so was Wes. 

Wes was reading but said Owen was the one to blame for keeping them both up. 

Owen liked Lily's dog Bunky Bunky.

Lily! Go to bed! Taking one last picture at midnight and saying goodnight for the last time (I wish) 

So at 1:30 I took Owen upstairs and we lay down on the floor with him in our room. (He doesn't want to sleep in the crib anymore, so he's kept with the toddler tradition of sleeping at the foot of our bed on the floor - like Sophi and Natalie.) I set an alarm for 20 minutes, enough time for Owen to fall asleep and for me to not be too deep in sleep and unable to get up and finish our Santa work. Corey is still wrapping things and taking photos and putting them on the computer. We both bought stuff, he took it all and wrapped it at his parent's house, and took photos along the way then put post-its on the presents. He's almost done wrapping I hope, and then we'll go through it all and make sure things are equally distributed.

Update - Picture taken at 4:45 a.m. At 5:30 we were finally done and headed to bed. 

Corey asked if I thought we should go through and take off the post it notes with numbers and replace them with the kids' initials or name. I said no. That would seriously have taken us another hour. Let's just go to bed.

I hope we work out a better system for next year, cause I'm too old to pull all-nighters. Unfortunately Santa had to resort to the sugary carbs via the plate of cookies left out for him to keep his energy up until the job was finished.

I hope we get a nap tomorrow. To all a good night.

Melodie is 17!

We had a really fancy party for Melodie's birthday tonight. We sent out invitations and everything. The dress was formal.

Just kidding. That wasn't for a birthday party. The kids had a concert at the school tonight. They are a good looking bunch, don't ya think? For the real party, most of the kids were gone, but Mel was home. My mom came over with gifts, so we sang and she enjoyed her cake with the little kids before Mel had to leave for rehearsal. Her younger siblings were glad it was finally cake time, cause they had already been waiting ALL day. 

Natalie his very - pink cake! 17 candles Mel... you're getting up there! Happy birthday to you! Natalie wanted a better view and even helped blow out the candles.

I love Owen's little head. I had given Mel her birthday present from me 10 days early - an academic planner.

Yes, those are technically for mothers, but Mel is a mother at heart. And she is smarter than me, cause she just puts white out over the pages of things she doesn't need and makes them into something that is helpful to her. She received money and crafty things and I think was a good birthday. Lucky Mel is finally going to get her drivers license! Her driving test is scheduled for next week. She's almost ready to launch. Hope you had a good day Mel.

My day was good cause I took care of some tasks that had been bugging me. I took Natalie with me to Home Depot and got a tree stand and a toilet handle for the two current things that made me feel like our life is falling apart. Bugging me item #1 - our tree that won't stand up. One of the legs of the stand broke last week. I tried to fix it with hot glue. It worked for about 24 hours. When we came home from church on Sunday (after I was already feeling a little miffed at our not together life) we walked into the house to see the tree crashed over again. Joseph was behind me and saw it - "Mom, the tree is broken..." and I replied "Just like our life..." I had noticed it myself, but as each kid entered the house from the garage door, they each saw it and then made it a point to seek me out and make me aware. "Yes, thank you, I know." "Yes, thank you." So, I left it leaning again the wall on Sunday, then that night took it apart in half and attempted to gather the scattered ornaments.

There already were/are ornaments scattered everywhere in our house. May I introduce culprit #1 -

And the rest of his posse -

I'm sure one of these little kiddos is the reason the tree fell apart anyway. So today I got a stand for a real tree at Home Depot. Sophi helped me get it ready, while Owen pretended to help do something on the tree.

I broke off the rest of the legs of the tree to before my first try at fitting it in the new base. Unfortunately, the thin trunk of the artificial tree did not fit in this base made for a real tree. So I had to get creative. A few sports balls from the dollar store and I sawed some small blocks of wood, and voilà, we have an upright tree, yay.

The second thing that had been bugging me for a few months was our broken toilet handle. It didn't to back down to plug the tank, so for a few months we've had to remind the kids to fix the handle. This past week, it totally broke and we couldn't move it, so I had to take off the tank lid and any user of the bathroom had to pull the chain. The little kids found the inside of the tank very interesting. But they didn't want to touch it. So I've been walking in to find a bunch of unflushed stuff. I'm glad I got that checked off now, I finally fixed that today, thank you YouTube. Good bye old handle.

I also looked around Home Depot at the dishwashers. We've needed a new one since we moved here and it's really gotten pathetic the past few months. I think it's gonna happen soon. 

I'm excited to have buttons on top where our button and dial happy baby Daniel can't reach it. He likes to turn on the dishwasher. Also, if we cook something at the stove top, we have to put on the handle and take it off after turning on the gas, cause Daniel has a radar antennae or something and always goes straight for it. He's turned the gas on a few times, isn't that right Daniel?

Yeah, you messy sticky freeze dried strawberry boy. One last thing, it's been fun to get cards and surprise treats from neighbors, like this one tonight. We have many blessings.

We haven't done it for a few years but I hope to make Christmas popcorn or to get something to give out this year to share our love.

Decoration Distractions

The kids have continued to get out Christmas decorations. Abi recently put a big sconce thing on the dining table that has a lot of plastic ornaments in it. Daniel and Owen love to get the ornaments off the tree and throw them around like bouncy balls, so the big sconce is just a big temptation. Owen was getting on the table this morning to get ornaments and throw them. "No, Owen..." and he'd look at me and smile and reach for another one. So, I took it off the table up high where he couldn't get it, and he started to fuss for it. I then thought a good distraction for him and his little friend. One that I wouldn't mind as much as ornatments all over the floor: easter eggs! So now instead of a sconce with ornaments, we have trick or treat pails full of easter eggs for Owen and Daniel to play with.

Natalie is liking it too. We're having a big holiday mix-up around here!

A neighbor recently gave these to us. She was getting rid of them and remembered how much Natalie was admiring her daughters pink pumpkin bucket this past Halloween. Very thoughtful of her. So that's what the kids have been playing with today. Eggs all over in every room.

The house is a mess, but that's okay. December is a beast all it's own and I'm not fretting about being on top of the housework until the tree and all it's clutter is put back away. I'll probably put it away on December 26 or 27th. Does that make me a scrooge? I need to try a little harder to get into the Christmas spirit.

What else? One more thing - last night Corey shared this 60 minutes video with me and the kids, about a man from South Africa named Brett Archibald who fell overboard during the night when he was sea sick and he was lost at sea for 28 hours before being rescued. Corey's story for the kids was about how he faced the things that were obstacles to him. First a reef shark showed up and was checking him out. His first reaction was one of fear, but then he thought - "A reef shark! It's going to swim back toward a reef! I'm gonna grab him and ride him back to the reef where I will be able to stand up and wave for help!" As it was though, he was just a small head bobbing in the ocean that no one could see. As he was floating on his back later, some seagulls came upon him and started going after his eyes. At first he was just trying to fend them off, then he decided to go on the attack - I'm gonna catch one and I can drink it's blood for food. So, Corey's story for the kids was - when problems come at attack us, don't hide from them, but try to be like Brett and think of how you can use those problems to survive. (Though not sure how to face jelly fish?) Great interview here - Part 1 and Part 2 - "We all worry about the wrong things. Friends, family and faith - that's all that matters." Incredible story.

It goes along nicely with some things I learned during the courage challenge about fear. Holly had a little acronym that I liked - Fear can mean two things: Forget Everything And Run! ...or... Face Everything And Rise. And one more talk about fear was this BYU devotional talk given by BYU President Worthen in September titled "Fear Not". It was excellent! I especially liked the story about Sheri Dew and trying out for the basketball team - under point #3.

Of course, might not be the best analogy for us (business wise) cause neither of those plans worked out for Brett anyway, doh! And he was like an hour from death (from salt water and swollen tongue). It really was a miracle he survived. It will be a miracle when we get out from under the weight of this business burden. Though it was very appropriate that last night we were talking about seagulls and it was just one year, again on December 6, after we discovered the BLR Yoda Seagulls video. Now when I think of Seagulls poking at yoda's head, I'll think of this guy.  Darn seagulls, stop it!

O Christmas Tree

Abi wanted to put up the Christmas tree last week after Thanksgiving. I told her we couldn't do it yet... it's got to either snow or atleast be December before the tree goes up. There hasn't been any snow, but since it is now December, I had to give in. So the kids brought up the tree and put it up. We also have a white tree that we usually put in the side room, but I told the kids we have to wait on that until we fix the overload of furniture in that room which has been there since Corey moved out of this office two months ago. Wow, time goes by quickly. Anyway, the little kiddos are super excited! Natalie has already been sleeping under the tree in her room.

We put some mini trees in their room earlier this week. Natalie slept under that and in the morning there was a present - a toothpaste box, unwrapped, with a note that said "To Natalie From Santa (aka Lily) Ho ho ho!" Inside were some plastic gems that the kids have been playing with. Natalie was excited. Today she was asking if it was Christmas yet.

Santa is not coming yet sweetie. But atleast we're "ready" now! So you little kids can put your minds at ease!

We'll see how long the ornaments last - they have to make it through a whole month of being down within toddler grabbing reach. The kids pull them off and play catch with them (little kids) or break them for no reason at all other than seeing if their powerful hands are strong enough to crush the glittery plastic ball (Ethan). Corey is working late tonight, I went to the temple and struggled to stay awake the whole time. I just can't sit still or the battle with weariness begins. I'm find during the day cause I stay up and moving. But sometimes I have to slap myself or call a friend to talk if I'm driving cause I get drowsy. And definitely no sitting still in a room with the lights off like in the temple. Ugh. 

Business wise - probably shouldn't share this here, I don't know, but it's the truth of our life - Corey took out a loan yesterday with horrible interest to pay for some business bills. I said successful/rich business people are successful cause they know when to say when, when their efforts have been enough and they need to stop giving more. But Corey said he's not doing this for the money, he's doing this cause he's tired of making excuses - giving excuses as to why he's not paying bills and employees. So the answer again is more debt for us. I really do feel like we're stuck in the ocean, waiting to die a slow and possibly painful death with no rescue ship in sight. Yeah, I'm sure we'll still be alive as this holiday month ends and another calendar year begins, cause that's what's happened every other end of the year. And I think that someday this business won't be the source of stress and worry. But still, ugh. Maybe that's why I'm feeling like such a scrooge. Hard to focus on giving when I'm all stuck in my head with worry and wondering how we'll get by. I know I need to get outside of myself and help lead our children in giving of ourselves (but that's kinda all you do as a parent for your kids all day every day anyway...) and I want to do the Light the World thing, but it's probably going to be just simple things cause we're just getting by - with $, time management, and previous commitments. Happy December, we'll see if we can make it one to remember and not just one of surviving the holiday. :/

Breaking the Rules

This morning Wesley made a blueberry smoothie for breakfast. Melodie, who was finishing her homework by the computer in the study, asked Wes if she could have some. Though it was against the family rule, I, the enforcer of the "no food out of the kitchen" rule, took a cup of the shake outside of the kitchen and gave it to her in the study. I handed it to her and told her to be careful. I assumed she ate it, she finished her homework, and then they got in the car and I took them to school. I returned home again and carried on with my day. This afternoon, shortly after Daniel woke up from his nap, I was in the kitchen milling wheat into flour (using food storage). The kids were walking around the main floor playing with toys and bouncing little balls and doing whatever it is that toddlers do. I was left uninterrupted for over 15 minutes, which should have been a warning in itself. And then Daniel toddled in to the kitchen to greet me. He had blueberry on his face, his feet, his hands.... Oh drat. I grabbed him in a way that he couldn't touch me with his mess. I walked to the study to survey where the damage was and what was the cause. Ah! It was Mel's blueberry smoothie! Up to the tub Daniel goes. I gathered my supplies so I could begin clean up after Hyrum was home to help watch the kids. So that is fun. I shared a polo video of this with my family. My mom and sisters were all worried that the shake had been spilled on the computer, so they were relieved that it was just the carpet. And I wasn't too bad to clean it up. I'm not finished yet, but it looks pretty good considering it's dark purple juice on a cream colored carpet. I'll give it another scrub in a bit after I vacuum the messy room... cause the study is Mel's job and she's a bit overbooked with her time, so it hasn't been getting done. Daniel helping me scrub after he got out of the tub...

No, actually he came with freeze dried blueberry slobber on his chin to remind me what he's capable of, then he took my scrub brush and fled the scene.

Cute little guy. One more thing, this morning was able to go to study group. Owen and Daniel and Natalie were all being noisy in the room, so after trying to take them into the nursery several times, I eventually gave up and went into the nursery with them, where they nicely played. A good friend, who knows the details on most of our business drama, came in to offer to watch the kids so I could go in to the discussion, which was so nice. Instead the two of us talked for a bit and I got some perspective and ideas for how we can best go forward. We continue to search and pray to hopefully, somehow, get ourselves to the mainland and "rest of the blissful shore", whether that's by abandoning this sinking ship or if we're able to somehow make it seaworthy. We'll see. Hope we get something figured out before Christmas or we're gonna be having a repeat of Chile. ...which wasn't bad by the way. The kids' Chile wish list, Chile Tree, Chile Christmas Eve, Santa at work, and Christmas morning  ... That is probably one of their more memorable Christmases. It's all about creating low expectations, ha, which should be pretty easy for us right now.