Merry Christmas

 

We had a very merry Christmas.  We spent a nice Christmas Eve at my parents’ house with Josh & Eliza, Chris & Rebecca and their kids.  We had a yummy meal, sang some songs, read Luke 2 and opened pj’s.  We got home and eventually got our kids wound down long enough for them to fall asleep.  First they had to to set out cookies and egg nog for Santa and oats, celery and apples for the reindeer. 

We tell them they can get up at 7 and wait for us to put the finishing touches together.  Ben and Nate woke up around 5:30 and could not go back to sleep.  They were both wide eyed with anticipation of the wonders awaiting them in the next room.  They kept creeping into our room to look at the clock.  We’d hear them whisper, “it says 6:03” and then run down the hall back to their room.  It was a long few hours, but 7 finally rolled around.  The girls were already awake too, so we just woke Joshua up.  They were all so excited about everything and are so cute to thank us a bazillion times for everything.  All but Joshy, that is, once he discovered a few treats in his stocking he wasn’t interested in anything else. 

I was really touched this year by our kids’ enthusiasm for giving this year.  Abby was constantly asking for extra jobs she could do to earn money to buy her siblings gifts.  We had them draw names, but they all ended up giving something to everyone and then something extra special for the sibling they drew.  Abby worked hard to save money to buy something for everyone.  Nate has a class store at school at the end of each month which they get to spend fake money they earned from their reading minutes.  If they read 200 minutes that month they get 2 fake dollars to go toward things donated to their class store.  He carefully picked something out for each of his siblings.  I was impressed with what he got for everyone.  Anna had money from babysitting and loved picking things out for everyone.  Even Ben got into the spirit by drawing pictures for everyone.  It was all really cute.

Back to that morning, Santa left each child something big and unwrapped, then we took turns opening the other presents.  Lots of happy squeals.

I love these kiddos.

After all the excitement, the big kids reveled in their loot and Brennan, Joshy and I went back to bed.   After naps, we cleaned up and headed back over to my parents’.  It was an exhausting, fun, sweet day.  Can’t believe it’s over!

 

Girls’ Christmas Gifts

The girls always like to do something homemade for their best friends for Christmas.   I looked around online and found an example of a cute ipod cozy made out of felt and knew that was the perfect thing.   I think they turned out super cute, and they actually did it.  I found some cute templates for a bird and an owl, sewed the snaps on and showed them how to get started and they ran with it.  Anna created her own designs for hers.

Here’s Abby’s first one with the owl

Abby’s second one with the bird

Anna’s soccer cozy for her soccer star friend

Her cute flower one.

Other than a fun creative craft night, I had so much fun hanging out with my two darling girls. 

Christmas Card Letter

Just thought this might be a good place to store this, so I’ll have it when I make my blog book.  Here’s this year’s Christmas letter:

December 2010

I can hardly contain my excitement for this Christmas season. The kids are at such great ages, the oldest ones are still young enough to be excited about every little thing and we'll all get to re-discover the magic through our youngest's eyes. I love that we have so many opportunities to teach them about Jesus at this time of year and I love to watch them be baffled when I can't seem to get through one single Christmas book without crying. I hope they'll fully understand someday. What a beautiful time of year!

Joshua will be 17 months old Dec. 6^th. He's a popular guy. His siblings and parents can't resist his chubby, squatty, smiley, grunty deliciousness. He loves music and loves to dance. He loves to run away from me every chance he gets. Every time he walks into the family room he points at the Christmas tree and inhales loudly with his mouth wide open. I can't get enough. We also can't get enough of his manly hearty laugh. We love Joshua.

Benjamin is 4 and is loving his first year of preschool. He takes it very seriously and assigns himself hours' worth of homework. Benny has grown up so much this last year, it kind of breaks our hearts. Fortunately, he's such a sunshine boy and is truly a huge help to me. He's so dialed in and saves Joshua's life nearly every day. My favorite thing of his lately is when he asks to watch one of the “Stoy Tory” movies. We love Benjamin.

Nate is our 7 year old 2^nd grader. He's loving his teacher and has lots of friends in his class. He tolerates homework and chores and everything else in his life as necessary evils but really wants to spend every waking moment talking about, watching, or playing sports. He currently plays basketball and takes Karate lessons and loves them both. Nate has a great sense of humor and keeps us laughing, but his most charming trait is his sincerity. We love Nathan.

Abigail will be 10 next month and is in 4^th grade. Abby is the child that we often wonder if we should just hand the reigns over to. She keeps all of us in line and I'll never need a planner or pda as long as I have her. She's also very entertaining – constantly making up one-of-a-kind dances or cracking us up with her colorful commentaries. This summer she got to be in our little town's summer theatre production of “The King and I” and LOVED it. She stays busy with homework, piano, ballet and socializing every chance she gets. We love Abigail.

Anna is the big 12 and is currently surviving 7^th grade, her first year of Junior High! It's been busy and stressful so far, but she's handling it all really well. She's playing soccer this year and is hoping to do track this Spring at school. She's a fast little thing -- on the field. Not so much when it comes to getting ready in the morning :). She has improved though and misses the bus less frequently. She and her friend, Chloe, are currently busy directing the play “Annie” with some neighborhood kids. They work so hard, and it's always fun to see the end result. She's such a creative, fun, loving girl. We love Anna.

I spend my days chasing Joshua, enjoying his and Ben's company – grateful to still have some at home. When the big kids get home from school things are hopping around here. I love it, but rely on datenights with Brennan, my bookclub, and my girls' nights out with my aunts and cousins to keep me sane, or somewhere close to sanity :).

Brennan never ceases to impress people with his endurance. He can watch college football for 10 hours straight. He feels strongly about every game, it all matters, and don't even get him started on the SEC. Seriously though, he's the best. He does a great job balancing work, recreation and family. He's such a sweet, helpful husband, and an involved, tender dad. We love Brennan.

We often talk about all the people we have come to love throughout the years and how grateful we are for all of you. We are so blessed by our family and friends and wish you each a very Merry Christmas!

Love, the Wrights

Nothing Cuter

Than cousin love…

Amelia, is just about 3 months older than Joshua and I can’t get enough of these two.  They really want to interact but aren’t sure how to, so they grunt and grab and bounce.  So cute!

Here’s a video I filmed a few weeks ago and never got around to posting of another thing that’s hard to beat, a very hardy laugh.

Joshy laughing from Andrea W. on Vimeo.

Rhyming Fun

Tonight the girls and I started to rhyme about getting Joshy a drink at the sink.  We kept finding more words that rhymed and tried to add them all into one narrative.  It was so much fun, we were really pulling out all the stops to give our little rhyming tale our most dramatic telling.  Good times.  Here’s what we came up with:  

I ran to the sink for a…

hmmmn, let me think --

oh yes, a drink,

for my dear little stink.

I handed it over then heard a big clink,

my sanity then was on the brink.

No time to clean up we were off to the ice skating rink.

As we skated our cheeks were so cold they turned pink

and in order to stay up our arms we did link.

Suddenly my neck felt a kink

when someone pushed us – oh what a fink*!

I looked up to see a jolly old man helping us up with a wink.

It's time to wrap up -- my thoughts are gone in a blink,

and I want to make sure I get this tale in ink.

 

*dictionary.com definition #4 said, “contemptible”.  It works!

I Have a Feeling It’s Going to Be One of Those Days

Just a hunch, based on this photo taken at 7:35 am.

 

But then again, while I was dealing with that, Joshy moved on to this:

Update

It’s a breathtakingly gorgeous day today.  The perfect Fall day, the kids have been outside with neighbor kids all day.  We’ve always loved where we live and loved our neighbors, but we haven’t always had a lot of other young kids on our street, and now we have several neighbors with young kids and it’s the best thing ever.  Not only is it wonderful to have happy, occupied kids, but I feel like they’re getting a childhood we thought only kids 30 or 40 years ago g0t.  They run around from yard to yard, building forts, making up games, negotiating their way through the occasional conflict.  I just love those days when none of the kids watch tv, play video games or on the computer – just good old fashioned, wholesome fun.

I am also grateful to be finally getting some relief from three weeks of neck/back and arm pain.  It’s been a long few weeks.  I had been going to physical therapy where they diagnosed me with a muscle strain in my back.  After several weeks of that and still having terrible symptoms, last Thurs. I finally went to a chiropractor.  He took an x-ray and told me the root of the problem was a  pinched nerve in my  neck.  After an adjustment that day my back and neck felt so much better, but my arm was in constant and intense pain.  I went back yesterday and he adjusted me again and for the first time in three weeks I was pain free!  I was hesitant to go to a chiropractor, but I’m SO glad I did.  I have so much empathy for people who live with chronic pain or illness.  I don’t know how they do it!  It’s a terrible feeling to not be able to take care of your kids and basic responsibilities.  I’m so thankful for Brennan and my Dad for giving me a priesthood blessing and for all of Brennan’s help, he’s pulled a lot of extra duty, and my parents helped us out so much at a very busy time for them.

Anna has also been a huge help, watching the little ones for me while I went to physical therapy or chiropractor.  She’s also been really sweet and sympathetic when she could tell I was miserable.   The other night for Family Home Evening, she taught a lesson she’d made at Young Women’s.  It was a really neat object lesson and you should have seen the looks on our kids’ faces.  They were IMPRESSED.  It cracked me up and made me think perhaps we need to step up our usual simple lessons.   Anyway, Anna’s been a little overwhelmed with homework lately, but for the most part still seems to enjoy school.   We’re so grateful for such a sweet, helpful, kind oldest child.  We love Anna.

Abigail is blessed with two darling best friends, Paige and Emily.  They have remarkably little drama and genuinely love and adore each other.   They’re both in our ward too, which makes it really nice.  Whenever she can’t play with Paige or Emily, she’s happy to play with our younger neighbor girls.   She just started piano lessons and I’m so excited for her to be able to love and appreciate music even more in her life.  She’s my right-hand girl, always helping me with Squashy, or tracking down Nate and Ben for me.  We love Abby.

Nate is currently on a basketball team and loving it.  Last week he made his first basket of the season right at the buzzer.  He was so excited.  Tonight he gets to go to an NBA game with Brennan.  He’s still completely obsessed with sports and will talk about them for hours if anyone is willing to listen.  Last week was our primary program and I love to watch Nate sing.  He sings with everything in him.  He’s completely sincere and I have to wonder how many years of that we have left.  I hope a lot, but I’m going to enjoy every chance we have to see him while he’s still not concerned about being too cool.   He is so good to Ben, he sometimes crosses that oh so fine line of playing to teasing or wrestling to hurting with Benny, but can almost always get him to laugh within 30 seconds of his outbursts.  Ben adores Nate, we all do.  We love Nathan.

A few weeks ago, Anna was watching Joshy outside.  She had him in the garage while she searched for something.  She turned her back to him long enough for him to sit on one our plasma cars which he paddles himself forward on with his chubby legs shockingly fast.  He has no fear and went right off the edge of the cliff of our VERY steep driveway.  Ben was down at the bottom of the driveway and saw Joshua and his predicament.  While the older kids watched frozen with fear, Benny sprang into action.  He ran towards Josh and managed to stop the plasma car sending Joshy into the bushes which ended up being a whole lot better than the street, a car or the concrete.    Joshy cried for about 10 seconds and had two little scratches.  That’s just so Ben, he’s always been so dialed in and aware of everyone around him.  Abby and Ben each had a speaking part in our primary program.  I knew Abby would do great, and she did.  I wasn’t sure what Ben would do.  He stood up there and took a look at the huge congregation and smiled.  I could tell he momentarily forgot what he was supposed to say, but one of the teachers prompted him and he did it perfectly, with complete confidence.  We love Benjamin.

The story above is also very telling of Joshua.  The child has NO fear.  If I would let him he would wander off on his own every chance he got, no matter where we are.  He’s not intimidated by strangers or strange places or steep driveways or anything.  He’s such a good-natured, friendly little guy and he has even finally started saying his first word – “uh uh (uh oh)”  He says it a LOT, but we’re not tired of it.  Every morning when he wakes up, we go in to him saying “uh uh” pointing to his binky down on the floor.  He loves animals and makes a funny growl whenever he sees one.  He’s just in the stage of life where every little thing is such an exciting discovery.  How lucky am I to have gotten to discover things like bubbles, ladybugs, airplanes, dogs, etc. right alongside 5 of the cutest kids on earth?  We love Joshua.

We also love our families and friends.  My sister and her husband have been out of town for an entire week and while I’m happy for them, I’ve hated every minute :)  Then my parents went out of town and I’ve realized how spoiled I am to have them both so close. 

An Exciting Night

 

A lot of waiting around

and then finally, the big announcement and celebrating!

Happy Halloween!

Here are our trick-or-treaters all dressed up:

an oh so cute little pumpkin (or squash) loving that whole knocking on doors and getting lots of attention and candy thing.

Little lion boy, Ben.

 

A boxer minus one glove, oh well, all the better to get candy with.

Abby the cupcake.  We added the cream and cherry on top.

The hippie chick

And, that’s not all, Brennan and I actually dressed up this year.  We got to go to a fun costume party and so I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea, but no one got it.  Please tell me someone out there reading this gets it:

Anyway, hope you all had a great one!

Dance Party

Do you remember a few posts ago I showed you all those P’s that Ben worked so hard on, and they were invitations to party he was having?  Well, he was dead set on having a party, and not just any old party – a dance party.  Monday, we had tons of cookies leftover (that was the other thing he was adamant about, we had to have cookies) from Sunday dessert so I told him he could call his friends and have it that afternoon.  Lots of friends came, his and Nate’s.  They went down the basement and danced, for about an hour and then they each got a cookie and went on their way.  It was quite the dance party.

The Trolley

Growing up, my siblings and I, all benefited from the creative, and only rarely evil (remember “hypnotizing” grasshoppers?), genius of our oldest brother, Braden, who always had us involved in something that completely absorbed us.  Sometimes it was a play, or building a village of huts in the nearby empty lot, organizing or overthrowing the village government, preparing for and engaging in battle with the kids down the street, etc.  Our busy and idyllic summers flew by and we always mourned their passing;  however, we weren’t totally out of luck when the weather turned cold.  We were fortunate enough to have a large, unfinished basement. 

If you didn’t mind spiders or a surprise encounter with one of Braden’s latest escaped pets it was a perfect playground for us.  There were two finished bedrooms (mine and Braden’s) and a bathroom, but the rest was all unpainted drywall, cement floors and wooden studs.  A primitive turf, bursting with potential for our active imaginations.   We rode bikes down there, strapped pillows onto our stomachs and rammed into each other on our roller skates, played hide and seek for hours.  We thought had everything, but that’s before we knew what we had been missing.  One year for Christmas (I think it was a Christmas gift, wasn’t it?) our parents surprised us with what we called our trolley. 

Something like this

We had to climb onto something (I think Mom’s old cedar chest?) with roller skates on to reach the trolley then grabbed on and rode it the length of the unfinished room where it gently sloped down enough for our skates to touch the cement floor and skate back to the other side of the room to get in line for the trolley.   We spent many, many hours down there perfecting our rides and collecting blisters from our skates and calluses from the trolley.   Now our basement was perfect.  That trolley was completely life-changing for us.   That’s a gift.  I would love to give my kids a gift like that for Christmas this year.  Any ideas?

Party, Party, Party!

Friday afternoon Abigail hosted her Halloween party.  It was really cute and she really planned and executed it all on her own.  She made her invitations, prepared several activities, cleaned and was a wonderful little hostess.  I made some sugar cookies and got a few things from the dollar store and that’s it.  Abby even arranged for her friend who can’t have any gluten to bring her own sugar cookie to decorate.

The table she set up

 

Pin the nose on the pumpkin

 

Guess how many candy corns?  Notice the special papers to write your answer on.

Some of the cute guests

 

A few hours after Abby’s party we were able to have Brennan’s uncle and aunt, Buck and Jamie, come for dinner.  Buck and Jamie live in Arizona and when we lived there they were so good to us.  They often had us over along with their 3 children and their families for dinners and special occasions.  I always felt so comfortable there, they’re such good, fun, easy-going people.  We hadn’t see them for years and were so excited to hear they were coming to town.  They were good sports to drive an hour from where they were staying to come see us.  We loved every second of their visit.  They weren’t at all shaken by the chaos of our family and were so cute with all the kids.

They recently returned from a mission and brought scrapbooks of their experience.  It was fascinating to hear all their stories.  What wonderful people!

Finally, tonight we had a blast with three of my cousins.  They’re brothers who are all attending a University about an hour South of us.  Their family lives out of state so we thought it would be fun to have them join us for dinner.  We were right, these are three of the cutest, most interesting, intelligent, just plain fun young men in the world.  They were so cute with our kids and our kids are riding high on all the attention they were given.  Daniel, Jackson and Cameron just smiled and reminisced as they watched Nate and Ben roll around the floor wrestling.    What a great weekend! 

Benjamin George

Lately this little guy has been a laugh a minute.  I don’t know why, but a little kid who takes him or herself very seriously is always so hilarious to me.  I guess that since he’s now in preschool he feels like he’s finally achieved some big kid status.  So he is constantly telling us all about the homework he has.  Just so you know, he doesn’t actually have homework assigned, but could not be busier with his pencil or pen and any paper he can get his hands on.  He’s figured out how to write the letter P and this morning he honestly worked for about an hour writing a million letter Ps on sticky notes and then cutting them out. 

Abby is having a Halloween party today and I think Ben decided he was going to host some kind of gathering and these letter Ps are an invitation of sort.  It started out that he was inviting just our family and then expanded to Anna’s friends, Abby’s friend, Nate’s friends and his friends.  I’m not sure what I may have unwittingly agreed to.  He even delivered a couple of these to his neighbor friends.  

He’ll sit and write and draw things, telling us he can’t play right now because he’s got his homework to do.  He’ll often ask me things like, “Mom, what’s 8 plus 8 again?”  LOL. 

Abby was sick the other day so I gave her some ginger ale.  Ben kept asking me if he could have some “gingerella”.  I can’t get enough of that word and say it as often as I can.  He also told me the other night that he was having a horrible time sleeping.  What a nut, we love Benny.

Fall Fun

We had a great Fall break with the kids off school for a few days we headed down South to stay with Brennan’s parents.  Jamie pulled out all the stops and fed us like kings!  We had a great time visiting with them, and Brennan’s brother, Brett, and step-sister, Emily, and her husband, Paul, and their kids.  We went swimming and out to yogurt with our good friends the Hafens .  It was another whirl-wind trip, but really good times.  While we were there my back started causing me some serious pain and I was pretty non-functional for that last day.  Sweet Jamie came to my rescue while Brennan was golfing with his best friend who had driven a couple of hours to meet him.  Thank you so much, John and Jamie, for letting us invade your peace and quiet!  Somehow I didn’t manage to take one photo :(.

On our way home we stopped in a little town about half-way between Brennan’s mom’s house and ours.  It’s the perfect stopping place.   Another step-sister of Brennan’s and her husband and little boy have an incredible cabin right there in a gorgeous mountain paradise.  Terri, Mike and Matthew were so kind and hospitable as they welcomed our motley crew into their home.  They gave us the tour of their cabin that Mike and a few friends built all on their own.  It’s amazing and you can tell how much they love it which makes it all the more inviting and cozy (not cozy as in small, it’s very big).  They have a parrot who speaks Spanish and my kids thought that was about the coolest thing they’d ever seen.  5 year old Matthew is the sweetest little boy who has fought through major health setbacks and illness.  He just sort of wandered around watching all the kids and then would spontaneously hug Abby.  Later he kept doing it to Anna.  It was the cutest, sweetest thing.  He’s a smart boy and evidently recognized that these two girls are sensitive, sweet souls.

After the grand tour Terri, Brennan and Mike divvied up the kids on three 4 wheelers and went for a ride.  Ben was with Terri and I could hear his squeals of delight miles away.  Joshua was with Brennan and evidently he LOVED it.  When they got back he kept trying to climb back on.  So cute.  I finally managed to take a few photos.

We were sad to say goodbye, but were invited back so hopefully we can stop by again.  As we drove home, Brennan kept saying, “What good, good people”.  It’s true, there’s just something special about this sweet family and I was so grateful we got to enjoy their company and home.

Good Times

This evening I went for a run and Brennan was in charge for a bit.  When I took Joshy’s clothes off to bathe him, this is what I found:

One cheek is better than none, right (and quite a cheek it is!)?  Which by the same logic means one sock is better than none.

We love Squash and his Dad.

Ben has had some serious business lately.  He found a book order flyer which he calls his “magzagine”.  This magzagine is evidently keeping him very busy with lots and lots of homework.   Tonight for Nate’s homework we played a math game and then Ben told us about a game he “learned up” from his magzagine (can you tell I can’t get enough of that word?)  He pulled out a little notebook my Mom gave him and told the kids they had to draw a line in between the notebook lines without touching the notebook lines.  We all attempted to play and after each of our turns he’d evaluate our work and usually tell us we had a little bump and had to “skip our turn on the round”.  Abby and Nate were eventually told they had to skip their turns for all the Sundays.  We love Ben.

It doesn’t get much better than a chubby dimpled half moon and a four year old taking himself so VERY seriously and misspeaking at the same time.   That’s entertainment.

Pumpkin Patch and Conference Weekend

What a beautiful weekend.  The weather was spectacular, General Conference was amazing, an intense soccer game, some fabulous food and a pumpkin patch – perfection! 

It was Anna’s soccer game and she scored her team’s only 2 goals.  It was so exciting!  She’s always kind of preferred defense, but this year she’s the oldest on the team and they needed an aggressive offensive player and she has stepped up in a big way.  It’s thrilling to watch your kids perform at something they’re good at.  Keeping Joshy off the field kept me pretty busy, but still such a great game!

While the guys headed off the the Priesthood Session of Conference, we girls and kids met at the pumpkin patch for a tailgate picnic and then to let each of the kids pick out the perfect pumpkin.

Here are most of my kids plus baby cousin Peter

Joshy  borrowing Abe’s drink

Squashy feeling right at home with his own kind :)

Oh those eyes.

 

Belle

We also had “flat Zach” along, my nephew in TN sent a flat version of himself to Grandma for some fun adventures.  It was great to have him.

  Joshy got one look at the maze and just took off.  So the game for the older kids became “who could find Joshua first.” 

 

Baby Peter, wasn’t his happiest right there, but soo soo cute anyway.  Ben is obsessed with him and when Eliza pulled up and he saw she had the babe he said, “Thank you for bringing, Peter, Liza!”

Macy and her Mom and kiddies were able to join us a little later.

Then everyone went to my Mom’s to paint their pumpkins

Belle took this very seriously and painted around 47 coats. 

Thank you so much, Mom!  As you can see it was a fun night, but didn’t end there.  Rex and Lucy came home with us for a sleepover.  They did eventually all sleep :) 

Sunday we got up and after the first session of conference headed back my parents’ house for brunch.  It was YUMMY.  Then we settled in for the final session.  I love Conference and so look forward to it.  Some of my favorite talks were Elder Holland’s, Elder Oaks’ and Elder Uchtdorf’s. 

After that we went to a friends’ house for another amazing meal.  Brennan’s friend, Earl, told the kids he made a mean homemade mac’ n cheese.  They invited us over a long time ago but had to cancel.  My kids never let him forget it so they were kind enough to re-invite us.  It was so nice. 

Also, another video of Joshua.  For FHE we sang our standard FHE song and he really wants to get in on the action, but it always makes him lose his balance. It starts out sideways, but then I remember and turn it the right way. Sorry! 

Joshua Dancing to Sunbeam Song from Andrea W. on Vimeo.