A Very Event-Full Saturday

Saturday, December 14th was a special, busy day for our family.  It happened to be a day that THREE major events fell at the same time.  Actually a couple of other events were planned for that day as well, but we could only go to three.  Luckily for us, one event was in the morning, one event was in the afternoon, and one was is the evening.

In the morning, the three older kids and I went with our extended Smith family to Salt Lake City to watch the Utah Symphony put on a kid-friendly Christmas concert.  Everyone went last year as well, but we missed it because we were in Idaho.  This was our first time.  I tell you, it was magical!

A big THANK YOU to these cute people, who got the tickets for us!

We parked at City Creek, so we posed for a few pictures on they way to Abravanel Hall.

What a good looking bunch!

Nicki's such a ham!

Abravanel Hall is so lovely!  This glass sculpture is pretty amazing.

As you can see, Josh is probably still a little too young to appreciate the fine arts. 

Nicole was the only grand kid who waited in line to sit on Santa's lap.  Of course, she asked him for something that was a total shock to me. 

We had fun looking over the balcony.

Sisters.  Katie decided to stay home.

Gotta love when your mom photo bombs you.

The concert was fun!  They didn't allow cameras in the concert hall, so I can't show you how beautiful it was inside.  But it really was!  They played lots of fun Christmas songs, had a sing-a-long, and even invited Santa to conduct "Sleigh Ride" (Santa's got some MOVES, I tell ya).  It lasted about an hour.  Perfect for a kids introduction to the symphony!  As I said, Josh was a little young.  He had to go potty during the first song and got bored by the third.  Still, he was quiet.  He just sprawled out across Grandpa's lap and made him scratch his back the whole time.

While we were at the symphony, David and Bronson rode the Front Runner train to Salt Lake City.  In Bronny's words, it was "weewy awestum!"  They met us at the City Creek food court, where we had a loud, fun lunch.

McKenna and Nicki look like they're plotting something.

We strolled back through City Creek on the way to our cars.  We only got sucked into one store.

And when we came out of that store, the kids swarmed Grandma Smith.

She bought a bunch of gourmet caramel apples from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  She had them cut up into pieces so we could all share.  YUM!

So that was our first exciting event of the day.  We drove straight home after that.  We only had about an hour to rest and get our clothes changed before event number two.

Alison's Choir Experience

Alison decided to join the 5th and 6th grade Holiday Choir this year.  I am glad she did.  It wasn't always easy getting her to rehearsals before school multiple times per week (Alison' not much of a morning person), but she had a good experience, so it was totally worth it.  She performed for her school and at a couple of local nursing homes.  She also went to some fun festivals to perform.

Her first performance was at Layton High School.  Several elementary school choirs performed, followed by the Christmas lighting ceremony in a nearby park.  We got to sit in the balcony.  David met us there as soon as he finished work.  He was hungry and Bronson was sick, so they didn't stay for the Christmas lights.

Layton does a great job with their Christmas lights!  It was really fun to be there for the countdown and the flipping of the switch!  We probably would never have done that if it weren't for Ali's choir.

Alison liked the Pegasus.

Nicki liked this moose.

Everybody liked going through this tunnel.  The lights change colors and patterns all the time.

Josh loved this serpent.

This dragon was cool too.  I thin Ali is bugging Nicki in this picture, and Josh is being a dragon.

Another performance was at the Kaysville Tabernacle.  After the performance, we perused hundreds and hundreds of nativity sets on display.  They were amazing!  All shapes and sizes and colors from all over the world/

They even had a dress up nativity for people to be in.  Alison and I were the only family members to attend this event so she posed as an angel with no one to share her glad tidings with.

Another great performance was at the Festival Of The Trees in the South Jordan Expo Center.  This time, I was really sick, so David took her.

David said he felt bad that I wasn't the one to go because it was more my kind of thing than his.

He let Alison get her face painted.

Jingle Kitty!

The Halls Are Decked

I really love my green and red Christmas tree!  I look forward to seeing it all year long.  When it's up, it makes me smile on a daily basis.  My girls, however, don't feel the same way.  They remember when they were young and we had different looking trees each year.  They miss the home made gingerbread and dehydrated orange slices tree.  They miss the silver and gold tree.  They want VARIETY!

So, being the wonderful mother that I am, I relinquished my dreams of the treasured red and green designer tree this year.  I let the kids do something a little different.  We pulled out the ornaments that I bought when I was a newlywed getting ready to deck our very own halls for the first time.  I bought a roll of fancy ribbon and a few extra snowflake ornaments, and I embraced the idea of having a different tree.

The kids did all the work (post lights and ribbon).  All I had to do was sit on the couch and hand out ornaments.  They did a great job.  We have a very lovely tree this year and you know what?  It makes me smile on a daily basis too!

A Holiday Season To Remember, But For The Wrong Reasons

Ewww!  What a nasty month we've had in the Gee house!  We've been one sick little bunch for a LONG time!

Bronson seems to be sick the most often of any of us.  I honestly believe that's because he still has his tonsils in.  Josh was the same way until he had his surgery.  Anyway, Bron got a cold in mid November and held on to it for a couple of weeks.  The rest of us seemed to be okay, until Thanksgiving.  While we were eating our turkey dinner, I noticed a tickle in my throat.  As the evening progressed, I felt worse and worse.  By the time I went to bed, I was pretty sure I'd caught Bronson's cold.

What a doozy it was too!!!  I was very VERY ill for almost two solid weeks!  I had a stuffy/runny nose, a horrible cough, a splitting headache, and fatigue/body aches.  Being pregnant, I couldn't really take anything to relieve the symptoms (nothing that actually works on me at least).   It was a long, painful week or two filled with lots of last-minute sandwich or can-of-soup dinners and more television watching than I'd care to admit.

This illness certainly put a damper on my holiday spirit.  Christmas is always a very busy time of year, and we did as much as we could, but we missed a lot of events and split up to go to others.  I think it was four or more weeks that only part of our family attended church at a time.  And shopping?  Fahgettaboutit!  If it wasn't for online shopping and late night shopping trips by David, we wouldn't be HAVING Christmas presents this year!  Let me back up a little:  Its not like we're ALL sick ALL the time - we take turns.  Only one or two of us is really bad at any given moment.  And the bug either changes a lot or we've had three different bugs because we keep thinking we're finally getting better, but then someone gets sick again.

About six days behind me was Joshua.  He missed a full week of preschool, and I probably should have kept him home a little longer than that.  He missed playing outdoors, but the cold air/exercise sent him into coughing fits.  Just when we thought Bronson was getting better, he started coughing hard enough to make himself throw up.  Then, he developed a fever.  I took him to a doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, but they're not really working.  Unfortunately, this is a virus.  I picked up on the coughing-until-you-vomit trend as well.  I throw up multiple times per week.  The other day, I threw up WHILE I was driving!  Not fun!!!  I pulled over, but man - it was frightening!

Alison and David are always slightly sick because of allergies.  It's hard to tell when they're really bad.  However, this past week, it's been clear that Ali's got our bug.  Poor girl!  That really just leaves Nicole.  I tell you, Nicki has an iron immune system!  She is NEVER sick!!!  It kind of makes her sad that she's so healthy because she never gets to stay home from school.   I am usually ultra healthy too - I blame this last bout on my body being preoccupied with the baby.  I sure hope Nicole can keep resisting this junk, because we have plans to go to Idaho after Christmas and I don't want her to get sick then. (update:  She threw up all over herself in her sleep last night.  Ugh.  Dave had to take care of everything because I was too nauseated to help.  Just livin' the dream.)

Somewhere in the middle of this mess, my mom braved the quarantine and brought our family a pot of home made chicken noodle soup and a couple of loaves of bread.  She SAVED us!  Seriously!  I told my kids as we ate it that chicken soup shortens the life of colds.  No one knows why exactly, but it seriously does.  I felt a lot better the next day and I am SURE it had a lot to do with Mom's soup.  While she and my dad were at our house, I had them take a couple of pictures of our miserable bunch.  Then, I put one on a family Christmas card.  It was the best I could do this year!

As I write this post, Christmas is five days away.  I think we're getting better.  Of course, I've thought that a couple of times already.  Everyone still feels a little bit yucky, but the kids are acting like they're fine because they don't want to miss all the fun activities that are coming up.  We'll see how things go.

Before I Forget

I've been meaning to write this story down for a while.  It happened months ago.  I just keep forgetting, I suppose.  But I don't want to forget it forever, so here goes.

We all love Bronson's way of saying things.  He's come a long way in his speech over the past six months or so.  For a while, he only communicated with grunts and hand signals.  He is still hard to understand sometimes, but that doesn't stop him from chattering away almost ALL the time.  He seriously talks to me all day long.  And he either begins or ends each sentence with, "Mom" (sometimes both).  ie: "Mom?  know what mom?  I'm weewy big boy mom.   Mom, I weewy good at dis, Mom.  Whassat, Mom?  Mom, Wassat?  (what's that) Can I have one, Mom?  I like dat, Mom.  Mom, I like dat a bibblebit......"  and so on.  It's very cute, most of the time.  It's not quite as endearing when he says, "Woo mean, Mom!  Woo ahways mean!" which he seems to say more than any other sentence in the world.  I'm mean when I want to change his diaper, if I limit his food intake, if I call on anyone besides him to say a prayer, or if I don't let him lick a knife and put it back in the peanut butter jar, etc. I suppose by those standards, I AM always mean.

Anyway the story: A month or two ago, I was getting Bronson dressed for the day, when he said, "Mom.  I wike woo, Mom"  I was so touched.  I said, "Ohhh!  I like you too, Bronson!"  He gave me a totally bugged look and said, "No!  I wike you MOM!!!"   He meant he likes my mom, Grandma Smith.  Oops!  My mistake.  I forgot - I'm "ahways mean"!  You know, sometimes the language barrier is a good thing.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2013 was truly a time to be thankful for!  What a great day we had!

We originally planned on spending it in Idaho because my parents were going to be in Chicago with my brother's family.  We would spend the holiday with David's parents, and Shawn and Jodi's families.  We were so excited!  The girls talked about it all the time.  I even heard Nicole explaining how awesome it was going to be to little Bronson.  However, a week or so before Thanksgiving, Jodi's poor family came down with Fifth's Disease.  Fifth's is like a cold or flu, accompanied by a red, patchy rash.  It's not a terribly horrible sickness, but it's easily spread and not easily gotten rid of.   If you're pregnant - and Jodi and I both are - it can pose dangers to the baby, especially in the first trimester.  After talking it over for a while, and consulting with my doctor, we decided that it probably wasn't too big of a deal, but we still didn't want to knowingly go into a place carrying sickness.  I've got enough on my plate right now without adding sick kids to the mix.

Once the decision to stay home was made, it actually felt good!  In spite of our excitement, there were a few things that weren't ideal.  For one, David was a bit worried about how to handle a whole weekend off his diet.  Alison had a choir performance on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which meant we had to come home early.  I wasn't sure how to handle Black Friday away from home, etc.  Plus, once we looked into it, we learned that both of my sisters could come to our house!  Katie was so ridiculously busy that she couldn't do a whole T-Day dinner by herself - she was planning on taking her family to Chuck-A-Rama.  Kristin, who had a work injury and is probably going to have her third back surgery some time in the near future, got an epidural shot on the day before the holiday.  Even if she could have pulled off a big feast, her oven had died a week earlier and her kitchen was in the throes of a remodel.  So I was very excited to be able to host my first EVER Thanksgiving feast! I have always wanted to do this!  I got my first set of pots and pans for Christmas at the age of 15.  Cooking is my thing!  Granted, any other year would have been easier pregnancy-wise, but a little planning and a lot of help made things go super smoothly!

I happened to read one of David's cousin's blogs right when I was planning my dinner.  She had some great ideas for Thanksgiving entertaining, and I stole a few of them.  Thanks, Jen!  I was very blessed to feel good for the week leading up to the holiday.  I'd say that I felt less worn down and hurt than I have for weeks!  I think part of that was due to the fact that I didn't even try to exercise.  Maybe I've been overdoing it a bit, because I don't hurt as bad when I don't jump around as much.  I still move like a turtle in quick sand, but I just plugged away all week at little projects like paper piles that were getting out of control or dirty fingerprints all over the doors, etc.  By Wednesday, things looked pretty good.  I love having company because it forces me to clean the house a little better than I normally do.

The kids were out of school on Wednesday, and I put them to work.  We spent the morning planning our to-do list, then executing it together.  We worked hard, and like a well-oiled machine (more or less).  By lunch time, the house was pretty nearly perfect.  In the afternoon, I cooked.  And then I cooked.   Then I cooked some more.  The kids helped a little (mostly Bron, and mostly he just ate a lot).  I sent them outside to play as much as I could so that the house would stay clean.  We had pizza for dinner that night.  I hear the day before Thanksgiving is rivaled only by Super Bowl Sunday as the busiest pizza day of the year.

On Thanksgiving morning, I was awakened by a cheery little voice saying, "Mom!  It's Tanksdidding!  Can I eat a woll now?"  Poor Bronny was ready to eat all the food he'd helped with the day before.  I told him he had to wait a little while longer, but we did have a yummy breakfast of oatmeal with bananas and brown sugar.  Then, we got to work with all the last minute preparations.  With so many helpers, everything really did go very quickly and smoothly.  I even had time to sit and read for a while before the guests arrived.

The grown-ups' table

The kid's table - in the front room where we still have the old carpet.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a kids table, or mix everyone up.  But in the end, I decided that they'd be just as happy as we were to have their own place.

The girls helped make these cute place cards.  The flowers in the background were a steal!  I got them at Hobby Lobby for 80% off.  The fish bowl and pine cones from the neighborhood were free, so that whole beautiful thing cost me $4.00!

 

Kristin's family came first.  They came about a half hour early so that they could get the slush served and help with anything else.  Katie's family arrived at 2:00.  After a few minutes of preparation, we were ready for the feast to begin!  And what a feast it was!  We had more food than twice as many people could have eaten.  Everything was made from scratch (even the cranberry sauce - and I LOVED it!) and everything tasted great - of course, nearly everything had butter or cream in it, so what did I expect?  Do you want the menu?  Probably not, but I'm gonna give it to you anyway:  Turkey - very moist!  Mashed potatoes and gravy - the potatoes were whipped with half and half and a lot of butter, and the gravy was 100% from the pan drippings - totally delicious, but a little fatty!  Sweet potato casserole from Amy's recipe - my all-time favorite sweet potato recipe.  Ruby red Jell-O with cranberries and pomegranates - the BEST!  Two different kinds of rolls - Parker house and a heavier, more dense kind that David loves.  Creamed peas and pearl onions - delicious!  Green bean casserole - yum.  Home made cranberry sauce - unbelievable!  I may make it year-round for sandwiches, meatballs, ice cream, whatever!  And a relish tray in the shape of a turkey - perhaps a new tradition.

Finishing up the preparations.  Bad lighting in this picture, but it's the only one I have of the food.  I wish you could see Katie because she has her hand on her hip just like Kristin and I.  

The turkey tray.

By the time David came to take a picture of the kids' table, they were long gone.  

One of our biggest concerns was how Adam was going to handle the noise and newness of my house.  We  really had to think about how to keep him from escaping out one of our many doors and bolting into our neighborhood.  We all prayed that he'd be happy and that Katie's family could stay for a while.  Just in case, Katie and Scot drove separate cars so that some of them could stay if Adam hated it and needed to go home.  In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, he stopped eating.  Anything.  At all.  So we were praying that he'd eat when he came too.  I was so thrilled when he came because he did so well!  Katie said he did much better than she'd hoped for!  We had a couch blocking one door, a hope chest blocking another, and a sliding lock on our garage door (plus, we unplugged the garage door opener just in case), so we didn't have to worry about him leaving.  He wandered around a little bit, but he wasn't upset or anything.  In fact, he ate!  He ate a whole bunch of Cheerios and a bag of Doritos!  Hooray!  What a blessing to be thankful for!  I think he was at our house for two hours or more before he started to act concerned.  Scot took him home early, but Katie and Megan stayed a while longer.  I was so happy that he ate here - I hope they bring him back again if he won't eat at their house!

Adam's Thanksgiving feast!

After dinner, the kids ran off and played while the rest of us relaxed on the couches and read the Black Friday ads.  We visited and filled out our "So Blessed" wall hanging.  Then, we busted out the desserts.  We had four types of pies and a pumpkin roll.  YUM!  Josh ate a slice of ALL FIVE KINDS!!!  What a kid!  It's pretty impressive how much he can eat.

Just relaxing.  The couch Kristin is laying on is usually in the other room, but we moved it in here so that we'd have plenty of room for the kids' table.  Plus, we could block the back door. 

In this picture, Bronson is trying to pick up Uncle Brian.  Payton's helping.

I made a sign (pathetic!  I'll do better next time)

And over the course of the day, everyone filled it up with the things they are thankful for.

From the bottom, clockwise:  Pumpkin, Chocolate Silk, Brown-bag-apple, coconut cream, and pumpkin roll.

Everyone left around 5:30 or 6:00.  Katie took some pie to Scot, and also dropped some dessert off at Grandma Church's house.  I wish she would have come too, but she ate at Uncle Mike's house.  If I'd have known how early she got home, I would have BEGGED her to come just to be with us, even if she wouldn't eat.  Anyway, Katie and Megan left, followed by Kristin's family.  I loved Bronson - as we were saying goodbye to Kris and Bri (for the third time - they kept remembering things they'd forgotten like boxes or their children.  Hee hee) Bronson said, "Bye!  It was so fun when you came to our house!"  How cute!  It really was, though.

Well, this bird's done.  Guess the party's over.

After everyone left, I loaded the girls up in the van and we ran over to Shoe Carnival to get a great deal on boots.  We were home by 7:00.  And that, my friends, is ALL the Black Friday shopping I did.  I didn't even miss it this time.  I was too stuffed and content (and a bit tired and sick) to even care!

More Outdoor Fun

Last week, we had a huge windstorm.  Actually, our neighborhood had it pretty easy.  The news forecast was for terrible winds. Everyone to the north and south of us was feeling it, but we were in the eye of the storm.  Not a single leaf stirred all day!  Then the sun went down, and the winds picked up.  Boy!  It was a doozy!  One of our quaking aspen trees in the front yard blew over (luckily away from the house, but it was a  little bit on the road).  Dave and our neighbor/home teacher braved the winds to get it out of the road and off of the sidewalk. While they were out there, another tree started to fall over, but it stopped at a forty five degree angle.  They decided to get it over with and pushed it the rest of the way down.  Then they had to cut it in half to get it out of the road, too.  After all that, they took the rails off of the fence in case any more trees came down.  Dave said it was kind of fun in the dark with the wind blowing at 70 miles per hour.

The next morning, I surveyed the damage.  It wasn't too bad.  We were the only ones with downed trees.  I think Dave's "good winter soaking" backfired a little bit.  If only the storm had knocked out all of the aspens!  They send out little trees all over our lawn!  I don't think I'd miss them.

Saturday morning Dave went out to cut up the trees, but all the kids playing on the trunks begged him not to do it.  He waited until the afternoon and then put the kids to work stacking the logs for firewood, and the branches and twigs for...something...  I don't know what.  Alison wants to keep them for snowman arms, although it would take an army of snowmen to use up all the twigs we've got.  We're set for snowman arms, magic wands, swords, and anything else you can do with sticks for quite a while.

Later that afternoon, many of the neighborhood kids put our twigs to use by building a HUGE birds nest under the Hughes' pine tree.  I'm sure they were thrilled!  We made the kids clean up when they were done, but for a while there, it was pretty impressive.