Hello everyone,
Well another week has gone by and I have only one present left to buy before my Christmas shopping is complete. Of course that will be crammed in with writing a christmas letter, addressing and mailing cards, making treats for our friends, washing clothes and packing for our trip, but that still leaves plenty of time for holiday cheer.
This has not been a fortuitous year for outdoor Christmas decorations in our family. We bought icicle lights to hang on our house several weeks ago. We went to hang them and realized that we needed gutter clips. No problem, except Target was out. So was Home Depot, Fred Meyer, Lowe's and any other store I could think of in our area. After weeks of fruitless checking back to see if any store had gotten them in, I finally returned our icicle lights and figured we'll try again next year. However, we still have our inflatable Santa and light-up candy canes to spread holiday cheer. Because we unplug our inflatable Santa each night, he deflates and when we inflate him the next evening, he is in varying degrees of tipsiness- looking like he has had a bit too much of another kind of Christmas spirit. The first few days I went out and adjusted the stakes holding him up, but eventually I tired of it and figured we could have a tipsy Santa Claus. Then, last weekend we had a huge windstorm that completely took Santa down, so now when we inflate him each night, he is face-down on our lawn, looking like he really did get run over by a reindeer. Several of our candy canes were knocked down in the storm, too, but I haven't had the time or inclination to fix either one. We have had better luck with our indoor decorations, although Jared unwittingly discovered that cute train-shaped stocking hangers can turn into dangerous flying projectiles.
Last Saturday we celebrated the weekend's arrival by going to our ward choir christmas program run-through at 9:00 am. There was a thick layer of frost on everything, so it almost looked like snow. As we were going around the traffic circle to leave our neighborhood, Dave wanted to prove to me that Oregonians don't know much about REAL winter weather- this little of frost doesn't make roads icy. So he purposely took the turn hard and slammed on his brakes... and we started sliding, right into the curb. Luckily the curb was low and we weren't going very fast, but Jared was sufficiently impressed. "Dad," he said solemnly, "this is our first crash." If only Jared knew.... As soon as choir was over, I ran off to play in a piano quartet/quintet at a friend's piano studio recital. Then I came home and took the kids to a birthday party. After the birthday party we rushed home, made treats and left for the ward Christmas party.
While we were at the Christmas dinner, they had lots of people from the ward playing or singing background music. One of our friends came up to me and asked if I would play "Mary's Boy Child" for her to sing. No problem. I went to run through it with her in the other room and she said, "You know, this is kind of high for me tonight. Do you think you could play it in a different key?" and proceeded to hum a key that was nine half steps lower than written. Being the dumb prideful piano major that I am, I responded, "Sure." After all, I had to play every hymn in every key in my Keyboards of Death class. So I started to run through it with her, and while I could get the right chords out, I was stumbling my way along, and not even remotely getting the melody. Given that Dave had looked at the piece and said it looked easy, it suddenly occured to me that if I went out and stumbled my way through it, nobody would know I was transposing and so I would look REALLY dumb, so I told her she was going to have to sing it in the original key. Thus, pride of not wanting to look stupid conquered pride of wanting to look amazing and all was well.
Our ward choir program on Sunday went pretty well. I got to use my multi-tasking skills: I played piano for two songs, sang in the choir, sang in a trio, played the organ chimes (YES!! I've always wanted to do that!), and sang a teeny solo. Dave also sang in the choir and gave dirty looks to Jared and Camryn (sitting by themselves with the person on the row in front of them keeping an eye on them...) if they started to get up from their seats.
Tuesday we started making treat plates to take to our friends. I thought the kids would get a kick out of making marshmallow-cornflake holly and I wanted to make fudge in addition to the treats we were already making, so we set off to Target in search of Christmas-y paper for our christmas letter and the required ingredients. After a quick 45-minute browse at Target, and purchasing $30 of stuff, we determined that Target was out of two of our required ingredients and had no christmas-y printer paper. So we went to Albertson's in search of sweetened condensed milk, cornflakes and a bag of chocolate chips. We resolved to be fast and stick to our list, so we came out an hour later with a total of $45.71. Chocolate chips are getting expensive...
After multiple hours of intense labor (and two evenings of eating either scrambled eggs or frozen pizza for dinner), we successfully finished our treat plates. So yesterday morning we went to deliver some of them and while we were driving around Camryn barfed. We immediately returned home and got her to bed, but that left us with a dozen or so treat plates undelivered. They are, at this very moment, getting more stale by the hour, as I still haven't had the courage to take Camryn out to deliver them again (and Dave got home from work after 9:00 pm last night). The good news is that Camryn seems to be feeling better today and nobody else has gotten sick yet (knock on wood!).
Jared and Camryn are so excited to go on an airplane to visit Grama Susan. Jared made a list of all the people he is going to see in Bountiful and put an X next to their names: Trevr, grama Soozin, Broos, Jen, Leesu, Shon, Madisin, popu, Sweed, Cordr (Trevor, Grama Susan, Bruce, Jen, Lisa, Madisyn, Papa, Sweetie, Carter).
We hope you are all doing well and have a great Christmas this weekend.
.......
Notes written by Jared
"Fon iz Brokin" (Phone is broken)
"Weer Closd" (We're Closed)
Quotes of the Week:
Jared: (We have a rule that you can't draw at the kitchen table- you have to sit up at the counter) "If you draw on the table you have to go to bed, even if mommy says to give you another chance. That's called a consekence."
Jared: (We lost Camryn after church last week and found her sitting outside the door to the church) "What were you doing Camryn? Were you basking in the sun?"
Jared: "It's really hard work... I have to exercise, make notes for people, make stuff. It's really hard work."
Camryn: "It's okay to barf. It's just an accident."
Camryn: "I'm sick, so I can't have big marshmallows. I have to have little marshmallows."
Me: "What's you're favorite part about Christmas?" Camryn: "Going to Grama Susan's house."
Me: "What's your favorite part about Christmas?" Jared: "First, eating lots of candy. Second, opening presents. Third, getting lots of toys. Fourth, eating lots of candy. Fifth, playing with the Christmas decorations. And the feast. I also like, hmmm, decorating the tree. I also like the candy canes and the opening presents."
Well another week has gone by and I have only one present left to buy before my Christmas shopping is complete. Of course that will be crammed in with writing a christmas letter, addressing and mailing cards, making treats for our friends, washing clothes and packing for our trip, but that still leaves plenty of time for holiday cheer.
This has not been a fortuitous year for outdoor Christmas decorations in our family. We bought icicle lights to hang on our house several weeks ago. We went to hang them and realized that we needed gutter clips. No problem, except Target was out. So was Home Depot, Fred Meyer, Lowe's and any other store I could think of in our area. After weeks of fruitless checking back to see if any store had gotten them in, I finally returned our icicle lights and figured we'll try again next year. However, we still have our inflatable Santa and light-up candy canes to spread holiday cheer. Because we unplug our inflatable Santa each night, he deflates and when we inflate him the next evening, he is in varying degrees of tipsiness- looking like he has had a bit too much of another kind of Christmas spirit. The first few days I went out and adjusted the stakes holding him up, but eventually I tired of it and figured we could have a tipsy Santa Claus. Then, last weekend we had a huge windstorm that completely took Santa down, so now when we inflate him each night, he is face-down on our lawn, looking like he really did get run over by a reindeer. Several of our candy canes were knocked down in the storm, too, but I haven't had the time or inclination to fix either one. We have had better luck with our indoor decorations, although Jared unwittingly discovered that cute train-shaped stocking hangers can turn into dangerous flying projectiles.
Last Saturday we celebrated the weekend's arrival by going to our ward choir christmas program run-through at 9:00 am. There was a thick layer of frost on everything, so it almost looked like snow. As we were going around the traffic circle to leave our neighborhood, Dave wanted to prove to me that Oregonians don't know much about REAL winter weather- this little of frost doesn't make roads icy. So he purposely took the turn hard and slammed on his brakes... and we started sliding, right into the curb. Luckily the curb was low and we weren't going very fast, but Jared was sufficiently impressed. "Dad," he said solemnly, "this is our first crash." If only Jared knew.... As soon as choir was over, I ran off to play in a piano quartet/quintet at a friend's piano studio recital. Then I came home and took the kids to a birthday party. After the birthday party we rushed home, made treats and left for the ward Christmas party.
While we were at the Christmas dinner, they had lots of people from the ward playing or singing background music. One of our friends came up to me and asked if I would play "Mary's Boy Child" for her to sing. No problem. I went to run through it with her in the other room and she said, "You know, this is kind of high for me tonight. Do you think you could play it in a different key?" and proceeded to hum a key that was nine half steps lower than written. Being the dumb prideful piano major that I am, I responded, "Sure." After all, I had to play every hymn in every key in my Keyboards of Death class. So I started to run through it with her, and while I could get the right chords out, I was stumbling my way along, and not even remotely getting the melody. Given that Dave had looked at the piece and said it looked easy, it suddenly occured to me that if I went out and stumbled my way through it, nobody would know I was transposing and so I would look REALLY dumb, so I told her she was going to have to sing it in the original key. Thus, pride of not wanting to look stupid conquered pride of wanting to look amazing and all was well.
Our ward choir program on Sunday went pretty well. I got to use my multi-tasking skills: I played piano for two songs, sang in the choir, sang in a trio, played the organ chimes (YES!! I've always wanted to do that!), and sang a teeny solo. Dave also sang in the choir and gave dirty looks to Jared and Camryn (sitting by themselves with the person on the row in front of them keeping an eye on them...) if they started to get up from their seats.
Tuesday we started making treat plates to take to our friends. I thought the kids would get a kick out of making marshmallow-cornflake holly and I wanted to make fudge in addition to the treats we were already making, so we set off to Target in search of Christmas-y paper for our christmas letter and the required ingredients. After a quick 45-minute browse at Target, and purchasing $30 of stuff, we determined that Target was out of two of our required ingredients and had no christmas-y printer paper. So we went to Albertson's in search of sweetened condensed milk, cornflakes and a bag of chocolate chips. We resolved to be fast and stick to our list, so we came out an hour later with a total of $45.71. Chocolate chips are getting expensive...
After multiple hours of intense labor (and two evenings of eating either scrambled eggs or frozen pizza for dinner), we successfully finished our treat plates. So yesterday morning we went to deliver some of them and while we were driving around Camryn barfed. We immediately returned home and got her to bed, but that left us with a dozen or so treat plates undelivered. They are, at this very moment, getting more stale by the hour, as I still haven't had the courage to take Camryn out to deliver them again (and Dave got home from work after 9:00 pm last night). The good news is that Camryn seems to be feeling better today and nobody else has gotten sick yet (knock on wood!).
Jared and Camryn are so excited to go on an airplane to visit Grama Susan. Jared made a list of all the people he is going to see in Bountiful and put an X next to their names: Trevr, grama Soozin, Broos, Jen, Leesu, Shon, Madisin, popu, Sweed, Cordr (Trevor, Grama Susan, Bruce, Jen, Lisa, Madisyn, Papa, Sweetie, Carter).
We hope you are all doing well and have a great Christmas this weekend.
.......
Notes written by Jared
"Fon iz Brokin" (Phone is broken)
"Weer Closd" (We're Closed)
Quotes of the Week:
Jared: (We have a rule that you can't draw at the kitchen table- you have to sit up at the counter) "If you draw on the table you have to go to bed, even if mommy says to give you another chance. That's called a consekence."
Jared: (We lost Camryn after church last week and found her sitting outside the door to the church) "What were you doing Camryn? Were you basking in the sun?"
Jared: "It's really hard work... I have to exercise, make notes for people, make stuff. It's really hard work."
Camryn: "It's okay to barf. It's just an accident."
Camryn: "I'm sick, so I can't have big marshmallows. I have to have little marshmallows."
Me: "What's you're favorite part about Christmas?" Camryn: "Going to Grama Susan's house."
Me: "What's your favorite part about Christmas?" Jared: "First, eating lots of candy. Second, opening presents. Third, getting lots of toys. Fourth, eating lots of candy. Fifth, playing with the Christmas decorations. And the feast. I also like, hmmm, decorating the tree. I also like the candy canes and the opening presents."
When my husband comes home, if the kids are still alive, I figure I've done my job. -Roseanne Barr
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