Christmas Morning

We had a very merry Christmas and hope you did too. Here are some moments we captured.

Waiting anxiously in the hall.

Waiting weirdly in the hall.

Breakfast for Ben.

New horsey!

New skateboard!

New doll!

New doll!


Abby's Christmas surprise, new room!

Anna's Christmas surprise, new room!

Merry Christmas!

Wow do I have a lot to do still. However, it's okay I'll get it done and I'm not even uptight (I have my moments of panic, but generally speaking I'm actually fairly calm.) You see I came up with the idea to surprise the girls with doing their rooms for their main Christmas gift. They moved downstairs shortly after Ben was born and have been wanting their rooms decorated ever since then. They won't be completely finished as far as things to hang on the walls and lamps etc., but the walls will be painted, and some new bedding, headboards and some recycled furniture painted and new to them.

It's been a lot of work and I'm exhausted, but I think the main reason I'm not completely anxiety ridden is because I just feel so grateful. As I was stripping a wall-paper border in Abby's room a neighbor bailed me out by lending me her steamer. It saved me hours. My Dad has spent hours prepping and painting both rooms for me. My Mom helped prep walls for my Dad and paint furniture with me. My cousin shopped with me to help me finalize the color schemes and bedding and gave me 2 darling headboards! Brennan spent 3 hours yesterday at our neighbors cutting one of the headboards from a full bed size to a twin. This neighbor refused to do the quick cheater way and worked and worked until it looked just right. He even refused to quit after cutting himself! Brennan has run countless errands, pulled extra weight with the kids and overlooked a neglected house and the constantly expanding budget for this project. We told the girls that we had to resolve some fumes in their rooms and grandpa would be helping me do that during the week. They have been troopers sleeping on the living room couches!

I'll post pictures of the finished product as soon as soon as they're finally finished hopefully tomorrow afternoon!! Even though it's been crazy and I've never worked so hard and I'm completely exhausted, I've loved it. It's forced me to cut out a lot of the unnecessary busy work I typically create and I've been so touched by all the service I've received. Merry Christmas!

Brennan v. Mice

We've had a couple of mouse sightings in our garage. I didn't love this, but felt certain that none had ventured into the house. The last few nights we've heard strange noises in the walls. Brennan opened a vent and saw one. Those stupid vermin found an opening from the garage and scurry around inside the wall. I'm still hoping they haven't been inside. To the degree I am in denial about it is the degree Brennan is obsessed with it. Each night he takes the vent off and tries to catch one. He sets traps, and listens and waits.

After an unsuccessful mouse watching night, he came to bed. Sometime in the night I rolled over and my hand brushed his hand. Suddenly, Brennan shot up while yelling. I stared at him. Upon realizing that it was only me and not mice attacking his hand he looked at me with crazed eyes and said, "What the #&%@ are you doing?" Then he went instantly back to sleep. Now, I must admit it's not unheard of for Brennan to swear, but he never swears at me. I was seized with the giggles and as he snored I lay there and laughed myself to sleep. I love crazy, which is good because we have it in spades around here.

BTW, Eliza lent us these magical blue pellets that the mice eat and then makes them go outside in search of water where they die. No mice sounds anymore. I think Brennan is kind of bummed.

Keeping up with Ben

Lately, I've felt like my damage control duties have suddenly increased. I was having a hard time putting my finger on what exactly made Benjamin instantly so much more destructive when it finally dawned on me that his world just got a lot taller. He's discovered the chair. Kitchen chairs that he can slide around to any counter top destination such as a jar of sugar, or syrup or who doesn't need salt and pepper sprinkled all over in the silverware drawer? He's also discovered new access to the light switches, the advent calendars, and the drawer of knives, etc. Good times.

O Holy Night

My favorite Christmas song, in fact one of my all-time favorite songs is "O Holy Night." For me, it's the song that captures most closely the majesty, the wonder, the miraculousness and the pure joy that results because our Savior, Jesus Christ was born. Last night I had the opportunity to hear it sung by the men of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the King Singers. I don't know if I've ever had a more sublime musical experience. First of all, I love men's voices, and the subtle yet powerful strains of the men's choir behind the perfectly harmonized, flawless voices of the six King Singers was just too good for this world. It honestly felt like we had been transported some where far away from the cold, sometimes brutal, mean world we're so used to living in. I felt a new gratitude and level of understanding of the glory of God and the divine gift of His Son to each one of us. O Holy Night, indeed. Merry Christmas!

Update

Anna is my festive child lately. Each day she adds some festive little flourish to her outfit. She almost completely mutinied because in our Christmas card picture the kids were not wearing red or green. We had a serious battle of the wills and I forced her to wear her new darling pink and gray dress. She did, however, sneak a little gold bell into the photo as a touch of Christmas.

On Sunday she wore a black dress and then tied gold ribbon around her waist and then added a little silk poinsettia flower. She taped her little belt together but then during Church took it off. After wrestling Ben and creating two gigantic holes in my nylons I stood up to take him out and stepped on the tape part of Anna's homemade belt. So there I was holding a crazed LOUD baby, two big holes in my knee dragging a gold ribbon stuck to my boot. Perhaps that was my punishment for forcing her to wear something so positively un-festive for the photo. We love Anna.

Ben has done fairly well with our Christmas decor until suddenly last night he suddenly grabbed an ornament and threw it against the tile smashing it into a million pieces. We were all startled and as he watched us coming for him he started grabbing for more and throwing as fast as he could. He managed to throw three, two of which were obliterated, before we got to him.

Whenever I put my shoes on or Nate's trying to get his clothes on Ben will grab the one item I'm not holding and with an impish grin say "MINE!". He then runs as fast as he can (which is actually pretty fast) and hides behind the Christmas tree. Each time I say, "Ben", he says, "Whaaat." If I say, "Benny, come here" He answers with, "Why?" It cracks me up. He honestly thinks he's 8. We love Benny.

Nate keeps asking me if I think his stitches are "inducted." I'm pretty sure he means "infected". I told him I had to run into a store to see if they had any headboards for the girls' beds and when he asked what that was I explained, "You know that shelf thing at the head of your bed where you put your stuffed animals?" "Mom, you could never carry that!" Such a typical male, so sure his mother was too weak for the job at hand. It caught me off guard and I laughed hard, because I really hadn't considered how and where I would get it into the car if I did find one. We love Nate.

Brennan has been out of town and poor little Abby dissolves into tears about every 20 minutes or so. She definitely has a dramatic bent, but she does genuinely hate for any of us to be apart for any extended period. Each time one of the kids refers to Dad, she tearfully and dramatically says, "Could you please not mention his name?!" I'll find her in a corner hugging her stuffed bunny that he bought her before he left. "Mom, I miss Daddy!" We love Abby.

Man Cold

I know this is such a stereotype, but so true at our house. Brennan freely admits it and we both laughed hard at this clip that Davis sent me.

1st Grade Love

Tonight Abby told us that there are lots of boys that like her. I said, "how do you know, Abby?" Her response, "I just know, you can totally tell when a boy likes you. And for SURE, Austin likes me because when Paige said, 'Who loves Abby?' He raised his hand."

Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde

My little Benny has recently added two new words to his vocabulary. It's very cute and I can't get enough of it. I'll try to get it on video so you can all experience it, but for now I'll just have to describe it. For all his charms, patience isn't something super high on that list. He squawks impatiently at me for whatever his heart desires at that second. Sometimes he'll be on the floor pitching a fit, but the INSTANT I hand him what he wants he stops and in the sweetest most polite little voice says, "Tae too" (thank you.) It kills me.

Our Weekend

Friday I got to go see Josh, Eliza and their new darling baby girl! She is so cute, tons of dark hair and the cutest little face. I can't believe they have two kids! Anyway, after a fun visit with them I headed out for my maiden voyage of Ikea. Wow, it's HUGE and kind of overwhelming, but once I got my bearings I loved it.

That night we drove out to a nearby town to check out a house we'd heard about that was completely decked out with lights. When we first drove up, it was a lot of lights but not anything super unique until we tuned our radio to the station on the sign out front and watched this complete choreography of lights to the music. It was actually really cool. The kids LOVED it. We stopped and ate dinner together and then headed to a neighborhood party. It was one of those parties that instead of doing neighbor gifts we all come and enjoy each other's company and donate the money we would have spent to a charity. I was there at the end (surprise, surprise) when they counted the money and it came to $2,000! Pretty great, huh? Anyway, I had talked to my friend, the hostess, earlier about whether or not it was a family affair or just more couples. She told me either way. We had already promised the kids the lights and just didn't pull it together to get a sitter so we took the whole family after the lights and dinner.

It was pretty clear we made the wrong decision from the minute we got out of the car. Brennan and I struggled up their huge driveway trying to carry Nate (can't walk on his stitched up foot), Ben, a tray of cookies, and another big tray I was returning to my friend. Upon finally arriving at the front door we walked into very large, very jam packed house. There were all the nice beautiful adults of our neighborhood talking and laughing in little groups and there we were, the whole fam feeling very much like the Clampets in Beverly Hills. For a minute we saw no other children and really felt tacky, but discovered some downstairs where we quickly ushered ours. The kids were great downstairs until someone discovered that on the main floor there was a ladder up to a kids playroom on the second floor and a fire house type pole to come back down. I caught Anna running upstairs a few times and sternly ordered her back downstairs.

When I thought they were once again settled inconspicuously downstairs I went in to mingle. Suddenly I heard very loud crying and realized it was Nate. He was mid ladder and full volume. Evidently he suddenly got nervous because he didn't know where Brennan or I was so he just started crying a really scared really loud cry. I shoved through the crowd and grabbed him wondering how on earth he had climbed with one foot. As I was in the process of calming him down I heard a big thud. I knew immediately that someone, some child had attempted sliding down the pole and basically fallen straight down. As I turned around I just knew I was going to see Abby lying there, it wasn't. Whew. Still, when kids start dropping down from the ceiling you know it's time to go.

After making a few more scenes we finally managed to leave, drive home, tuck the kids in bed. Brennan kindly encouraged me to go back so I did. I went back to the party and had a lovely time.

Today was really nice and really mellow. The kids played outside in the snow. The girls each built a snowman. I spent 20 minutes bundling Ben who stayed out for about 10 minutes. I think it was a little too deep for him. I bundled Nate up and he crawled around for awhile, poor kid. They all came in with rosy cheeks and sat on the heating vent to warm up. Brennan built a roaring fire that had us toasty warm all day. We cleaned the house and then finally got a lot of our Christmas decor up. We had a few Ben related ornament casualties, but all in all a nice night.