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.