A Post Featuring Snow

I've decided that "a dark and stormy night" has nothing on "an icy and foggy morning."  I had to fill a prescription early this morning and about lost my way in all the murky blackness.  I drove achingly slow and smiled to myself imaging the drivers behind me cursing their luck when they saw my license plate, "Sheesh, you'd think they'd never seen fog in Arizona."  Well, actually I haven't.

For those of you wondering if we're still in Joplin, we made it Michigan right on schedule and have been Christmasing ever since.

My kids remembered the joys of snow, but not the cold.  I think the last time we went sledding in Flagstaff we all shucked our coats half-way through the day and ended up sunburned.  It's been a bit of an adjustment.  The first day here there were a few tears about how "freezing" it was, but eventually they figured out the science of layers and the necessity (and brilliance) of gloves.  Boots are also helpful.  We had to go buy a couple pairs when we got here and had to go to four stores before we finally found some.  I asked David, "What do you have to do to find boots in this town?"  Apparently the locals have long since bought what they needed for winter and the stores are about to start stocking flip-flops in anticipation of summer. 

 You can tell they're from Arizona because shovelling is play...

 

and I had forgotten about the beauty and charm of icicles.

We had a lovely Christmas, but for me the best part happened on Christmas Eve...

"For unto us a son is born, unto us a son is given." 

The Universal Language of Craft

I do not know Japanese.

But apparently, craft, is a universal language.

Because I figured out how to make these:

 

I know.  Can you believe how unbelievably sweet they are?

To add to your amazement, let me just remind you that the instructions were in Japanese.  I asked David a dozen times last night, "Can you believe how amazing I am?"  He said he cannot.  And when he asked how long it took me, I cleverly changed the subject.

I have been without a car the last couple of days (and again today), and I'm finally making some progress on my homemade gift list.

The dolls are going to have a memorable Christmas.

(I blindfolded her so as not to spoil the surprise.  Seriously, look at that kiwi.)

And to add to all this joy, this was the view as I was taking David to work this morning.  Incredible clouds for this part of the country. 

Christmas Stories from My Digital Elph

In an attempt to dump my brain, I am dumping my camera instead. Bear with me. It's about all I can manage in the middle of the holiday season. 

Here are our gifts to deliver around the neighborhood. Gorgeous, no? All ready to deliver. Then just as we were eating that chicken pot pie in the bottom of the frame, two separate families came around and delivered the exact same gift. Really. So we had to start over. For the record I wanted to make Lelly's "House Sparkle" in the first place.  David scrunched up his nose at the idea. When our friends delivered the second bottle I told David that this never would have happened with "House Sparkle." He said there was a reason for that. I ignored that. We ended up making a Christmas CD which was a far superior idea anyway and only took us another three or four days (heaven help me) to make the mix, copy the CD's, figure out how to print CD covers and then finally deliver them.    

Olivia had her Christmas viola recital last weekend. She was beaming at her chance to wow the world with "the Can Can" and "Ode to Joy."  We were all sufficiently wowed.

David and I finished up most of our Christmas shopping last weekend.  I snapped this picture of David in a store that we have never shopped in and are unlikely to ever visit again.  I've said it before, there are a million little universes out there.  How we ended up in this one is a mystery of the season. 

Amy and Kelly and I went to dinner on Wednesday night.  And then Kel and I did some (mostly window) shopping.  Here she is expressing her outrage at the sight of this anatomically correct cologne bottle.  Whatever happened to public decency standards?

My nephew, Luke, had his first birthday party on Saturday, and we played at the park with him and all his other fans.  My kids were good enough to open all his presents for him, and, bless his heart, he didn't seem to mind a bit.  (I think Ethan has secret designs on his Christmas presents as well.)  We had a great time and I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

This one is by far my favorite.  I snapped it as the girls and I were leaving the Nutcracker on Friday night.  After a night of gorgeous dance and costumes and music, they are whispering about the magnificence of the Sugar Plum Fairy and picking the parts they want to play next year.  They oohed and ahhed through the whole thing, gasping at just the right moments.  They even raved about our "great seats" up in the balcony.  And here they are reviewing all the best moments:  "Olivia, weren't those gingersnaps soooo cute?"  "Oh, Savannah I think next year you could definitely do the Russian dance."  We hummed and pirouetted all the way to the car.

The stories that my Canon Elph could not tell this week (either because they were too sacred or too sad) include a multitude of car problems (for both cars), the worst of which is that David's car needs a whole new engine, and will have to be replaced.  So I am shuttling him to and from work and making due until we can do that.  And meanwhile, I am secretly enjoying this extra time with David every day.  

After grudgingly (yes, even petulantly) making my way through the first couple weeks of the holiday season, I have finally caught the spirit of it.  On Saturday night we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and I started bawling at the drugstore scene with Mr. Gower and never really stopped.  And then last night we had dinner with some friends and went to a Christmas concert at our church.  (Caleb and Olivia both sang in it too, Olivia with significant feeling all over her face.)  The music was gorgeous, and suddenly I caught the Christmas spirit, and I belted out "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" at the end as loud as I could.  Today is cold (a first this year) and overcast (rare), and it finally feels like Christmas.  David said we could light a fire tonight after Caleb's violin concert.  I think if we open the doors we really can.  There will be hot chocolate.  And marshmellows.  And more Hark-the-Herald-Angels-belting with "significant feeling."  And Dicken's "Stave One" in which we shall meet Marley's ghost.  It's finally Christmas at our house. 

December, Four Days In

So here's the thing.  The longer I go without blogging, the less I have to say.

It's true.

And now I just wrote a whole post, ready to publish and everything, and it disappeared into cyberspace.  Which is vexing.  Austen never had this problem.  All that cleverness gone, me the only witness.  Like I said, vexing. 

Anyway, we've had a bit of a rocky start into December, but the end of November was quite nice, so I will start there.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving, thank you very much.  I think my favorite part was the little place cards the girls created for everyone at the table.  The big dilemma was whether the person in question was more of a "pilgrim" or more of a "Native American."  My place card was a Native American, "even though I like church" (their words).

  

We played hours and hours of games over the holiday, much to Caleb's delight.  We even finally read the directions to "Dutch Blitz" and were soundly beaten by David.  Caleb ruefully pointed out that he got the game for his birthday (in June!) and this was the first time we had played it.  The height of tragedy.

We had a little party on Saturday night with my brothers and their families.  We had dinner and played a new game called "Say Anything" which turned out to be a lot of fun.  A couple of them even commented, with surprise in their voices, how fun it was and how we ought to do it more often.  Amen to that.

And now for a few snapshots of December, four days in:

1.  Caleb had his big aerospace challenge all day on Tuesday.  He competed against 100 teams and did not win.  Not even an honorable mention.  We were sad, and me doubly so to see his palpable disappointment.  He really did do great though.  His team was visited by 10 teams of judges, all looking at different elements of the project.  My favorite moment happened when one of the judges asked Caleb about how big the space station was.  Caleb immediately replied, "The area of the torus is 42,223 meters squared."  The judge could not help grinning and neither could I.  We had a little bit of downtime between judging groups and once one of Caleb's friends asked where he was.  I said, "Pacing," and pointed to Caleb walking the hall talking to himself, going over figures in his mind.  I spent the whole day nearly bursting, alternating between pride and anxiety to see all his earnestness.

2.  The first of our Christmas string concerts is tonight and Olivia is delirious with anticipation and giddiness at the thought of "performing on stage" (which she says with dramatic emphasis).  She asked me what I thought performing would be like.  I said seriously, "Amazing."  And she said dreamily, "I thought so."

3.  Ethan came home from school yesterday with a note from the principal that he had been fist-fighting on the playground and she wrote specifically that, "he had to be pulled off the other student."  I know.  We found out later that it was a student who was three grades above him.  Heaven help me.  I told David that we're going to have to ban "A Christmas Story" from our holiday movie library. 

4.  I cleaned out my sewing room yesterday.  Found a home for my new disco ball motor and 16 wooden dowels with various-sized holes drilled through them.  (Apparently their story will never be told.  This is probably for the best.)  David is still smarting a bit from the jamba juice incident (as I like to refer to it), and shaking his head at how stubborn a person has to be to let perfectly good jamba juice melt into mush.  And I have no good answers for that.  I can only say that for me somehow "stress" is always connected inevitably with "distress."  Which is unfortunate.   

5.  Olivia left for school today clutching Caleb's copy of Fablehaven.  When I questioned her about the book choice she told me that her friends had told her that it was good and she was "desperate" (her word).  Fablehaven is about the exact opposite of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but she has been increasingly forlorn without something to read and I'm waiting for Christmas to introduce her to Anne with an "E".  She looked down at the book skeptically and then up at me and said, "Mom, I don't think I'm going to make it to Christmas.  And I mean it."

As an aside:   The kids were playing a game in which Olivia had to pick her favorite place to go on vacation...she chose Wisconsin (Laura's childhood home) over Hawaii and Disneyland and even Michigan.  David was flabbergasted.  I, however, completely understand this romantic non-logic.   

6.  We had our first gifts of the season on Tuesday night.  (It was supposed to be Monday, but we're not going to talk about Monday night.  Ever.)  This led to a sweet, spontaneous moment around our tree, which included singing a couple of Christmas hymns, all of us off-key but Olivia.  I'll admit I shed a few tears and finally felt a bit of Christmas spirit.  I always get a late start on holiday cheer, but I make up for it in the end.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

My Native American and I have plans this afternoon to

make 6 pies (pumpkin and apple),

and laugh our heads off watching Elf.

And then my other darlings will be home

and we're going to eat chicken noodle soup

and 1 pumpkin pie

and laugh our heads off watching Elf again.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Halloweening. And How.

(The results of our Thursday carving party.  Spooktacular.)

I talked to one of my friends this morning who told me she already had her Halloween decorations down.  I smiled because mine are too.  Of course it took me about 20 seconds, since it's only one little quilt and a throw pillow.  I always dress the house for fall, but just can't get too excited about bats and spiders and all that.

Despite my reticence, we halloweened with the best of them.  We went through the costume box a few weeks ago to see what we already had on hand.  This year I only had to buy a whip and a tube of green face paint.  Not bad.

Caleb went as Indiana Jones.  Very cool.  My favorite part was make-uping the scruff and the chest hair.  And catching him pulling his hat down and to give himself suave looks in the mirror.  Seriously good fun.

A few weeks ago Olivia told me she wanted to go as something "unexpected," like a storm trooper.  I told her that would definitely be unexpected.  [She confided that she wanted "to keep her friends on their toes." (her words)]  A day or so after that I had a dream that she went as a boxer with this darling black eye, and I tried to talk her into that, but she was only aghast at this suggestion.  I reminded her of her wish to be unexpected.  She said, "Not that unexpected."  She ended up going as Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is not at all unexpected, but is so Olivia. 

Savannah was the only one of them to dress "spooky."  She was a bit hesitant about the green face paint, but once I got going, she completely embraced her wicked-witchiness.  The girls dressed their dolls for the holiday as well, and even went so far as to fill their little buckets with a few pieces of candy when they weren't looking.  Charmed, I'm sure.

 

Ethan vacsillated between all the super heroes, but finally settled on Batman.  He has the other ones scheduled out in his Halloween plans until 2013.  This year David and I had few panicky moments where we lost our fearless bat during trick-or-treating.  He was moving so fast between houses we could hardly keep up.  

 

Love you, darlings.

My favorite part of Halloween night is always our neighborhood party.  From here it was off through the neighborhood to trick-or-treat.  And eventually wind our way back home. 

Boo til next year.

The 4th Day of July

Happy Fourth of July!

We'll spend the day at the lake, eat and swim and waterski (though honestly, I may be too out of shape for that!), and then watch fireworks over the water.  Real fireworks, as we're in Michigan and not out west where they ban everything but party poppers, even sparklers. 

(Arizona law bans anything that contains more than twenty-five hundredths grains of explosive compound.  What the? The law goes on to point out that sparklers are included in the ban and that actually sparklers account for many burn injuries to children.  Oh, really.  That's my government at work.  Protecting me from sparkler burns.)

But, there will be sparklers tonight. 

This is one of the best days of the year.  And after Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.  I'm off to make a pasta salad.

From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam,

God bless America, my home sweet home.

Overdue Easter Thoughts

The thing I love most about Easter is that, for us, it is almost entirely simply a spiritual holiday.  I love that the world and all its materialism hasn't got its meaty little hands into this part of my life.  It is really just about remembering our Savior and all that He did for us.

My parents do an egg hunt in their gorgeous backyard...they always set up and provide the egg-coloring (my mom boiled 5 dozen eggs!) and the hunt.  I don't even have to boil an egg or remember to buy vinegar.  This year Ethan surprised everyone with his competitive angst over finding eggs.  This was no surprise to us that live with him.  He just hates to lose.  At anything.

On Sunday morning I awoke early to attend the annual Easter Morningside that our stake holds for the youth.  This is held every Easter morning at the temple.  An unbelievable way to start this sacred day.  Every year as I arise in the dark and dress, my mind is drawn to Mary Magdalene.  And as I dress, I see her doing the same and in the quiet dawn making her way to the tomb.  It is a powerful moment for me.  And then we spend an hour in front of the temple, remembering that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be saved from death and hell and sealed together for eternity.

At church I taught the young women's lesson and gave each of the girls their own copy of the March Ensign which is all about our Savior.  We read parts of it together and sang hymns between readings.  

My favorite moment of the weekend came as we sang the closing hymn together at sacrament meeting, Christ the Lord is Risen Today.  Though none of us can really sing, my family nevertheless really FEELS the hymns soul-deep.  This one was no exception.  As I looked down the bench at my family, they were all singing "Al-le-lu-ia!"  at the top of their lungs.  I was completely undone watching Ethan belting out his joy along with the rest of my children.  And I thought, "Yes, sing!  Sing!  Because of Him you are mine forever."

After church we had a very nice Easter dinner with Tim & Christine, my parents, and Emily and David.

Before I close this post and my Easter season, I thought I would leave something I read last fall, but has stayed with me ever since.  I think of it often and maybe it will bless your life as well.  It was given in a talk at BYU by Thomas B. Griffith.  He said:

In the last revelation Joseph Smith received before he was permitted to organize Christ’s Church on the earth—in what was the capstone of Joseph Smith’s preparation to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ—the Lord gave the only first-person detailed account of the suffering He endured so that we would not need to suffer the full effects of our disobedience:

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; . . .

Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— [D&C 19:16, 18]

There is something curious about this narrative. Verse 18 ends with a dash. The Savior did not complete His thought. Why? I don’t know, but I am persuaded by the explanation that the Savior might have cut short His description of what He suffered because it was too painful for Him—some 1,800 years after the event—to complete the description (see Eugene England, The Quality of Mercy [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992], 52). Now what kind of a God do we worship? An awesome God who wants us to know that His love for us is infinite and eternal. A God who wants us to know that His love for us gave Him the strength to suffer for us. Knowing this ought to be enough to move us to submit our lives to Him in obedience and gratitude.

I can hardly bear to think of it and I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me.

Word of the Week: Nonplus

nonplus /vt. /  to put at a loss as to what to think, say, or do.  bewilder.  to render utterly perplexed.  puzzle completely.  baffle.  astound.  dismay.  daze.  boggle.  flummox.  

nonplus  /vt./  1.  I almost didn't go on Spring Break.  The to-do list almost won.  Given the perfect time we enjoyed and the joyful decompression that occurred, I am completely nonplussed as to how this can be.  How can I let any "list" win over this kind of joy...and yet it seems to more than I would like.   I am nonplussed at this obvious character flaw.

nonplus  /vt./  2.  We drove to Santa Barbara on Wednesday,  arriving in LA about 1 or 2 in the afternoon...well out of the "rush hour traffic" window and yet, I was nonplussed to find myself in the midst of this:

nonplus  /vt./  3.  Last night I watched Masterpiece Theatre's version of Emma.  And was nonplussed to find that I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I had planned to.  I think I just really and truly dislike Emma herself and am nonplussed at how and why Mr. Knightley falls in love with her.  And then this morning I found this: "Prior to starting the novel, Austen wrote, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.'"  Job well done.

nonplus  /vt./  4.  The weather is starting to heat up already here and that means the scorpions are starting to reappear, nevertheless I was still nonplussed to see this one scurrying across my kitchen floor yesterday morning...it had been so long since we had seen one I was beginning to think we had them all eradicated.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  (Kel, in case you were wondering, this is one for the "con" column.)

nonplus  /vt./  5.  My washer has been on the fritz lately.  It washes just fine but then gets confused when it's time to rinse.  In its confusion, it stops and wonders what to do next.  In order to get my laundry done, I figured out a way to trick it into thinking it's washing when it's really rinsing.  This means a whole little "protocol" that has to be followed in order to do a load of laundry.  Annoying, but clearly cheaper than calling the repairman.  Then this morning, I was utterly nonplussed to discover that the washer has overcome its confusion and was cheerfully running through all the cycles with no problem whatsoever.  I am all bafflement at this happy and fortuitous turn of events.

nonplus  /vt./  6.  The only bad part about our California roadtrip was the price of a gallon of gas.  (Not to mention the price of 78 gallons of gas.)  I was nonplussed at the cost to fill my tank, but luckily this was offset by the benefits of filling "my other tank."  Nevertheless, after 1100 miles, the rest of my March budget is clearly a bit nonplussed at what's left.  Budgets rarely understand psychological needs...they are somehow always ridiculously consumed by the physical needs of food and shelter and clothing.

nonplus  /vt./  7.  Olivia has been lately begging to "do some knittin" (her words).  Somehow this little activity has never made it to the top of my to-do list and so last night after Easter dinner, my mom got out the crochet hooks and patiently taught the girls how to chain.  Though this has resulted in mostly nonplussed expressions and piles of knotted yarn, the girls are loving their new "talent" and have grand plans to knit their American Girl dolls scarves and sweaters for the coming summer.

 

nonplus  /vt./  8.  I think our bunny, Pepper, was nothing but nonplussed on Saturday afternoon when the girls dressed her for the Easter egg hunt at my parents' house.  Oh the humanity.

Actually it could have been worse.  Luckily for Pepper, they were nonplussed to discover that their little doll shoes wouldn't stay on.