The First Snowman of the Season…

It is a bit late in coming due to the extreme lack of snow this winter, but Matthew was thrilled that he was finally able to make use of the snowman kit.

Happiness Is...

...having a sister.

Faux Cheesecake Was On the Menu

Yesterday was my birthday.  As seems like the norm lately, Matthew was home sick all day.  But to be honest, it just gave me a really fabulous excuse to sit around in front of the t.v. all day.  We’ve had some expensive purchases in the last few months (a new car, a new camera, and a new ipod) so I wasn’t expecting anything extravagant for my birthday.  However, Kev likes to have something for me to open, so he picked up a little something during a trip to Staples:

For those of you who are aware of my love of red shoes and my office supply fetish, you will understand how awesomely perfect (and perfectly funny!) this gift is!  There is also a wonderful bouquet of flowers gracing my dining table.

So I’m officially thirty-eight years old and to be honest, I don’t feel that old.  When I was a teenager, I scoffed when I heard adults say such things.  Of course, at sixteen 18 is tantalizing, 21 is grown up, 25 is old and 30 is nearly dead.  My perspective has changed somewhat since those years.  Now I find that while parts of my body are beginning to show their age, inside I feel basically the same as I did twenty years ago.  I would certainly hope that I’m wiser, I feel more confident and secure, I’m much more content, maybe even more level headed, but basically I don’t feel all that different.  And now that I’m standing nearly at the gate of 40, I really understand how a person can honestly not feel as old as the years may declare.

In other news, Malia rolled over for the first time yesterday.  I didn’t see it, but Nathan says she looked mightily surprised.  She has been unable to duplicate the rolling so I’m pretty sure it was a mistake, but it won’t be long before it isn’t a mistake which means it is time to start playing bad cop where the Lego is concerned.  I just hope my aging-before-my-very-eyes-body has enough get-up-and-go to keep up with her as she starts to become a mover and shaker.  

Are You Chicken Committed or Pig Committed?

Last week Sunday we were read the letter from the stake president about a special meeting that means ward boundary changes are going to happen.  Knowing that this is going to be a major change, much of what was said in church yesterday was about how to go forward with a good attitude and embrace the changes that are inevitable.  The gospel is, of course, true no matter what ward we are in or how the boundary lines are drawn.  Having change does not change the truthfulness of the message, but it can often be hard to accept the changes, especially when they take us out of our comfort zone or separate us from friends.  Our gospel doctrine teacher, who is a former bishop, put it all into words that I really liked.  He compared the gospel to a ham and eggs breakfast.  Random, I know, but stick with me.  To produce a ham and eggs breakfast, the chicken lays an egg and takes off.  The pig, however, lays down his life for that ham and eggs breakfast.  He then posed a question: are you chicken committed or pig committed?  Do we do our small part for the gospel and then take off when the going gets tough or do we give it our all and lay down our lives for the gospel?  He then reminded us that if we lay down our lives for the gospel, we will be blessed. 

I really like this particular analogy.  I think it can be applied to many different aspects of our lives.  So when the going gets tough, ask yourself, “Am I chicken committed or pig committed?”  And I would surely hope that when it comes right down to it I can proudly say that I am a porker. :-)

As for the results of our major boundary adjustments, the nine wards in our stake were re-organized into twelve wards.  Half our ward plus a street or two is still considered the same ward.  The other half plus a street or two is a brand new ward.  And a small section (our house included) is now part of another existing ward.  We still have the same bishop, but our next door neighbors are no longer in our ward.  Nathan lost a couple of friends to other wards, but gained a few school friends that he is excited about being in the same ward with.  Matthew’s two best little friends from preschool and primary are no longer in our ward, but I’m not really sure he will be affected much.  I’m still friends with their mothers and playing with them necessitates arranging a play date anyway so I really don’t think that he will find it much different.  Kev and I both find ourselves with many friends gone to other wards but a sprinkling of pals still with us.  Poor Daniel is the one who got hit the hardest.  Unlike Nathan, he doesn’t make friends easily and I have written more than once about how grateful I am that he has made a couple of really good friends here.  Unfortunately, his little trio now finds themselves in three different wards.  I cried for him.  And then when Kev and I came home and told him, Daniel cried and I cried some more.

I remember how hard it was being in this situation when a similar change happened before we moved out here.  While I really struggled for awhile over being separated from friends (I was pregnant with Matthew at the time which did not help my emotional stability), the changes presented new opportunities for many people and I ended up meeting many more wonderful gals (several of whom are probably reading this) who will have places in my heart forever.  I hope, for Daniel even more than for myself, that there are friends waiting to be made in this new ward.  And I’ll try all the harder to kick Daniel (who is a bit of a homebody) out the door to go find his buddies.

A Sigh of Relief

I went grocery shopping this morning.  The Walmart has been one big mass of hysteria ever since Thanksgiving.  But this morning it was calm, peaceful even.  The parking lot was nearly empty, there was no cart bashing in the aisles, I didn't even have to wait in line to check out.  I love the holidays just as much as the next person, but it is awfully nice to be able to buy cereal and garbage sacks without having to battle hoards of folks who started their Christmas shopping a week before Christmas.  It's not like the Walmart is ever one of my happy places, but it was a bit nicer this morning.

Happy Noon Year!

For the past couple of years we have planned a Christmas party for the cousins on my side of the family.  This year some of the cousins didn’t get out of school until December 23 and others were headed out of town for Christmas so there really wasn’t time to have a Christmas party.  Instead we had a New Year’s Eve party.  But since all the kids we’re talking about are twelve and under, we had it during the day.  We had a couple of activities and games, party hats and horns.  At 12 o’clock p.m. we went out in the driveway and counted down to noon.  Sort of.  None of us had a timepiece with a second hand so we just picked a start time and went for it. When we got to zero-ish we let the kids scream and yell and blow horns and jump on bubble wrap.  Then we ate party food for lunch: pigs in a blanket, chips and dip, pink 7-Up in plastic champagne glasses, etc.  It was a fun change of party themes and it was much more relaxing scheduling in a party after Christmas.  Not only that, but now I can go to bed early and still feel like I celebrated!

I've Said It Before And I'll Say It Again...

...I'd happily be chubby and near-sighted for eternity if it meant I never had to have another headache.  Especially the migraines that are so bad that I have to call Kev and have him come home from work because I cannot get out of bed without falling down.  Yesterday it was so bad that I couldn't even move my eyes without the making the room spin and my stomach roll.  Good times...not.

For Christmas We Got...

...sick.  The Monday before Christmas, Matthew was sick.  He recovered and then on Christmas Eve Daniel and Nathan got sick.  On Christmas Day everyone was feeling relatively well.  The day after Christmas, I got sick.  The day after that, Nathan got sick again.  It was totally not awesome.

In spite of the fact that so many of us felt gross, we still had a nice holiday.  Having two sick kids meant a quiet Christmas Eve at home instead of having a big Christmas Eve gathering with our extended family.  The boys were all in bed at their normal bedtime and even Kev and I were asleep by about midnight.  Christmas morning brought the normal chaos that usually ensues on Christmas.  The boys were all pleased by what Santa brought and were terribly excited to give the gifts that they had chosen for everyone.  Matthew kept digging around under the tree for things.  At first I thought he was looking for presents for him, but in reality he was trying to find the presents that he had picked out for everyone else.  It was one of those moments when I was really proud of my kids.

Santa brought Matthew a new bike.  Kev helped him put it together the day after Christmas and Matthew has been riding it around in the basement ever since.  He also got a Mack (think Pixar's Cars) truck that can carry Hot Wheels sized cars.  He has been wanting one ever since he played with a similar one at a friend's house at the beginning of the year.  He saw one in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago and got all excited about it.  When he opened it up on Christmas morning he exclaimed, "This is exactly what I wanted!"  Points to Santa for knowing just the right thing for him!

Daniel got a lightsaber (the purple one he has been wanting) and one of the Lego sets he has been looking at online.  He also got a Star Trek calendar.  I think it is funny that the calendar is one of the first things he shows everyone.  He has been working his way through the original Star Trek series on Netflix and has become a bit of a Trekkie lately.

Nathan got a bunch of books (I love that he is so excited by this!) and a big Lego set.  This is his first big Lego set.  He has had small ones, but never one of the great big ones.  He was very excited and spent all his free time on Christmas day building it.  As he completed each section, he would come upstairs and show us.  He had a great time!  He also got a Nerf Dart Tag set. (Daniel and Matthew also got a Dart Tag set to share so that everyone can play.)

Malia slept through the first flurry of activities, but woke up later to discover a baby doll and some new toys that she is developing the skill to grab.  Matthew was especially excited to give her the stuffed monkey he got for her.

Kev got some tools and tweezers to use when he does modeling and he got me a new ipod touch.  (Very excited about that!  When I bought my first one two years ago, I thought 8 gig was more than I would ever need.  Of course, I was wrong and have had to rotate a lot of the content to keep what I wanted on it.)  We also got a new camera.  This was not a planned present, but our camera broke.  Six days before Christmas.  While we definitely feel like we got our money’s worth out of it (8 years), the timing was stinky.  And while we knew exactly which camera we wanted to buy, it is a popular model and it was actually pretty hard to find six days before Christmas.  But find it we did and then we needed to get it up and running in time for all the Christmas festivities.  So while it wasn't actually under the tree, it took pictures of the tree...

Kev's parents joined us for Christmas dinner and brought a few more things for the kids and a wonderful family home evening chart for me.  I had plans to make a new one this year.  Not only did our old one not include Malia, but it is a cheap one made of plastic foam and over the years more than one of my children has decided to write on it or rip pieces off of it.  The one my mother-in-law made for me was exactly the concept I was imagining but far cuter than what I had in mind!  I love it!  But my favorite present by far was...