Christmas 2012

For weeks before Christmas, I kept wanting to write posts about our upcoming trip and my anxieties about it.  Three small children in a sedan for twelve hours (assuming all goes well), staying in unfamiliar houses where my children may or may not sleep well, and then twelve hours back?  It was a nightmare to think about.  I ended up not posting anything on fb or here, because I’m paranoid about the internet and who might figure out that my beloved little house was going to be empty for a week and a half?  I couldn’t risk it.

And now that I can post about the trip … well, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.  In fact, it turned out rather well.

We started Christmas early by opening presents from my Grandma and Grandpa a week before Christmas.  This way, I figured, they would have time to play with and appreciate the toys before I packed up the car and left them behind, only to get shoved aside when we came home with the rest of the new presents.  It was a stroke of brilliance on my part.  For four days the girls played with their books and J played with his digger, and they thought they’d already had a wonderful Christmas!

Then we loaded up.  I’m happy to say we made the trip to C’s Dad’s house as quick as anyone has crossed the state of Wyoming in the winter.  When we got there, we found:

My sister in law, with her beautiful new baby!!!  (I just love this picture.  I hope she does too!!!)  We got to be there when he was blessed on Sunday afternoon.

The kids had all their cousins on their Dad’s side to play with, and play they did!  I was impressed at how grown-up my two girls are, when they are surrounded by older kids.

My in-laws were wonderfully accommodating.  They don’t do Santa in their families, but they did this time, for my kids.

Santa just fills stockings in our family, little treats and toys, and I love the look on L’s face when she got this umbrella she’s been begging me for.

We had a white Christmas, but we didn’t bring boots or snow clothes with us, so we didn’t actually get out in the snow.  We did have L’s favorite breakfast, though, French Toast Bake.  Yum!

J was pleased with his haul.

S was her usual, adorable, self.

We opened our stockings, then ate breakfast before lining up to open the rest of the presents.  Here are all of the cousins in one picture … from two months old to 16 years!

I even caught C holding the baby! 

Then we went to a plane museum!  I do enjoy airplane museums … but I think it’s mostly because it reminds me of my own childhood.  My mom will tell you how we used to complain, “Not another airplane!!!  Can we go yet?!”  Now it makes me happy to see my kids get all excited about planes and asking questions.

It also makes me glad to have a husband who knows the answers.  I can’t name more than two of the planes in the warehouse, but C can rattle off stats like my dad.  He’s a great teacher.

J was a little wary of the planes.  He wanted an adult with him before getting too close, hence, his two sisters lined up nicely for the picture, but he refused to get any closer without Daddy.

But the Earth wasn’t frightening.

The kids got to go skydiving …

And fly the Wright Brother’s plane …

They raced around the museum for hours without stopping, which is why this “would have been perfect” picture is blurry … they wouldn’t stop moving.

And by time the camera was ready to take a second picture, this was all that was left:

The legend is that this B-52 was landed on accident at Lowry AFB, and the runway was too short for it to take off again.  There it stayed, and now it’s part of the museum.  I really hope it’s just a legend.  I’d feel bad for that poor pilot, landing it there and putting it out of commission.

The trip back wasn’t as nice as the trip out, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, either.  We arrived home safe and sound to find our bunny still alive and our house unmolested (as my overactive imagination told me would happen).

And to finish off the Christmas Season we let the kids demolish the Gingerbread house when we got home.

A Christmas Concert

I know this is horribly politically incorrect, but I’m going to say it anyway.  I’m tickled that we live in a school district where they still have a “Christmas” Concert.  Not a “Holiday” or a “Winter” concert, but an officially entitled “Christmas Concert”. 

Now before anyone jumps down my throat about how awful that is, they also sang Hanukkah songs and even a few songs in Spanish.

As only first through third graders participate in this concert, this was our first experience.

The lighting was awful, and as I’m not a photographer, I didn’t know how to compensate with my camera.  I will say that they did a good job of keeping it relatively short and sweet.  The high school auditorium was just barely big enough to hold everyone.  It was a little bit crazy, and to be honest, it made me a little nostalgic. 

If you’ve got good eyes, you can spot my little girl, to the right of the teacher, half covered by the other little girl in pink.

She spent much of her time like she is in this picture – her hand up to her forehead to block the light so she could look for us in the audience.  We forgot to tell her not to bother trying to find us. 

But she did a great job, and we’re awful proud of her!

Driving

My girls never did this ... :-)

 

We did have Thanksgiving

Ok, so maybe I get a little obsessed with NaNo during November… We did have Thanksgiving, and I never got around to putting up pictures.

I’ve had a recipe for a maple pumpkin pie for years now, and It’s my absolute favorite.  (I’m pretty sure that once you can make your own pumpkin pie, store bought ones never taste good anymore.)  Because of the maple in this one, the recipe calls for little maple leaves around the edge of the pie crust.

See?  I had to take some pictures when the dough was raw, because I wasn’t so sure how it would bake up.  This is the first year that I have had a tiny maple leaf cookie cutter (who ever thought of making a maple leaf cookie cutter?) to do the crust right, and I was so excited!

My pie dish holds two recipes of pie filling, so it takes an eternity to cook.  I finally got tired of checking every five minutes and started checking every ten … hence the slightly overdone pie.  Still, it was yummy!

And the little maple leaves … came out perfect!

This Thanksgiving was the first time my family ate off china.  I recently “inherited” (I’m not sure it’s called inherited when they’re still alive) my mom’s china.  She taught me growing up that there’s no point in having china unless you use it, so I set five places, gave each of my kids a set, and we managed to make it through the entire holiday without breaking anything.

I didn’t realize the blue dishes clashed with my gold tablecloth until I was setting the table, so we didn’t exactly have a picture perfect setting this year.  Oh well.

And you know what I spent my day working on, since I only managed pictures of the table and the food.  We were there, too!  L especially enjoyed this Thanksgiving, because they’d been learning about it in school.  She sat down at the table, surveyed the food, and started pointing out what we were missing.  (Sorry, sweetheart, with just the five of us, I refuse to make every single side dish known to man.  Who would eat it all?!)

Anyway, happy belated Thanksgiving to y’all!

Crossing the Finish Line

I knew when I started writing this month that I was pushing myself.  I’d done NaNo, and managed to “win” three times before, but I also knew how much work it was.  I was right.  Writing 80,000 words in a month averages out to 2,667 words per day. 

I don’t set out to do NaNo with the illusion that I’ll have a finished novel at the end of the month.  I see it as a writing exercise and a way to improve.  There were a few things I learned this month.

1.  I can write 1,000 words in about a half hour, if I know what I’m writing, and I’m excited about it.  One night I even found myself thinking, “Oh, I’ve just got 1,000 words left to hit par for the day.  I’ll just whip that out, and then I can make dinner.”

2. I’m not always thrilled about everything I write.  Sometimes my characters seem flat and dull.   Sometimes the story seems to be dragging on and on.  Sometimes I think I ought to delete the whole word file and try again next year.

3.  BUT … even when it’s rough going, I still find little gems.  A character does something unexpected, I write a sentence I’m particularly fond of, or I get to use the term “fluid dynamics” in my novel, and it makes me smile.

4.  Now that I have a novel (not this one, a previous one that wasn’t a NaNo project) that I have cleaned up and am ready to start submitting to agents, it’s easier for me to cut myself some slack.  Yes, this novel as it is, all 80, 559 words of it, is a horrible piece of junk.  It needs major revising, two characters need their backgrounds (and their attitudes) adjusted, and I need to add a number of scenes in the middle and at the end.  But I have hope.  It can be done.  It will not always linger in the miserable state it is now in.

I leave you with a character sketch I wrote before starting the novel.  May I introduce my antagonist, Enez Bozwell. 

Enez felt his body hit the water. It swallowed him whole, lapping over his limbs and head to encompass him. It was cool, and after the beating his pale skin had taken from the sun that day, it was almost a relief. Almost.

Enez panicked. His lungs burned and begged for sweet air, but reach as he did for the light glinting off the surface of the water, he couldn't lift himself up. He didn't know how to swim. His body drifted slowly downward, the light receding. Enez opened his mouth to curse his mother, but only a bubble escaped. He closed his lips against the rush of water and wondered how long it would take him to drown.

It was his mother's fault. His father had met her on a trip to the mainland, and she wasn't used to the ways of the people of Ao'Ha. She'd watched them swimming in the canals that flowed like streets through the city and shuddered. No child of hers would swim in filth. And he never did. But try avoiding the water in a city that rises and falls with the tide. Every bridge crossing, every boat ride, every glimpse of the blue expanse beneath him sent icy fear down his limbs. The water would be the end of him, Enez always knew it. And today, the end had finally come.

Enez watched the light dwindle, feeling the water pressing down on him. He didn’t leave much at the surface. His mother was long gone, and his father had stopped speaking to him more than a decade ago. He'd never had friends, only a few people who didn't mock him outright in school, or now at work. His students would dance under his memorial, if anyone bothered to put one up for him. No, he had no love for the world that had shown him little kindness.

Enez stretched his arms to his sides, as if to embrace the end. His heart burned with longing that equaled the craving in his lungs. He'd been rejected, but he yearned to bask in love, hungered for praise and admiration. Alas, his end had arrived.

The deep blue of the water flickered with a green glow. Enez wondered if it was a trick of his mind, the pressure beginning to turn his brain to mush. Now a shape appeared in the center of the lights. A woman. Enez had always wanted to find a woman … This one was beautiful. She swam with an unnatural speed and grace. Her hair streamed behind her as she swam, but as she stopped, floating in front of him in the water, it floated in a halo around her face. She smiled. Her arms reached out and took his hands, bringing them together and cupping them in hers.

Enez's hands grew warm, and the tingling pain from lack of oxygen seemed to seep away. The warmth traveled up his arms. It reached his chest, then spread into his legs and up into his head. Enez stared into the green woman's eyes. He found himself smiling back. She reached up and stroked his face tenderly. A song echoed in the water, calling, and the woman turned. One glance back and she dropped his hands. She disappeared back into the darkness.

Enez watched her go and took a deep breath. Water flowed into his lungs, warm and tingling, quenching his hunger. Enez stared after the woman in wonder. Where had she gone? And what had she done to him?

We’ve been sick

They sat on the couch like this for the entire movie.  They didn’t budge.  Their blankets stayed tucked up to their little necks, and only their baby heads were left sticking out, their sad eyes peering at me. 

J had it first, then me, then C, then S, and finally L.  Now that we’ve all gotten through it, I’m hoping we’ll have a few weeks of health.

Also, J learned how to climb on his crib.  I knew the day was coming.  He’s older than either of the girls were when we moved them to beds.

 

I don’t like to put my babies up in a bed when they’re just going to fall off, so I throw down a mattress on the floor for them.  J is so thrilled to have a big bed.  The girls immediately jumped onto it.  C quickly reminded them, “Do you let J get on your bed? No? Then get off his bed!”  The girls couldn’t argue, and J now knows he can kick his sisters off his bed.

Oh, and J finally fits into a shirt my grandma gave me when he was born (Thanks, Grandma!).  It says, “I wanna grow up to be a BYU Cougar”, and it has a little cougar on it.  Adorable.  He loves it. 

Scarves and Poodle Skirts …

SO, last Friday, L was sick as a dog, puking and lying around the house like she was ready to die.  Her teacher called me to let me know that Monday (today) was going to be the 50th day of school this year.  The first graders were celebrating with a 50’s day.  Since she wasn’t at school to get a flier, she called to let me know.  I thought that was very nice of her.

I didn’t have a cardigan that fit L, and I definitely didn’t have a poodle skirt.  I also had a jam-packed Saturday.  I figured, probably only a few kids would dress up anyway, no big deal.  L would be a little disappointed, but she would live.

Fast forward to this morning.  I was 4 min into my workout on my treadmill, just starting to break a sweat, when the phone rang.  It was L’s teacher.  L was the only girl who wasn’t dressed up.  At first she said she’d be okay.  Then she came back, tears in her eyes, and asked her teacher if she could call me.

Break my heart!

So …

Pink Rick Rack …. $1.79

XL White Poodle Applique … $3.59

1.38 yards Pink Felt …  $4.85

(Not to mention breaking the world’s record for fastest poodle skirt crafted from scratch – less than 30 min!)

Putting a smile on my baby’s sweet face … Priceless!