Nutcracker Ballet

Aaron and I went to Ballet West's Nutcracker performance on Friday night in SLC. I absolutely loved it! I saw the Nutcracker for the first time last year and now I'm hooked. It's going to have to be a yearly tradition from now on. This time while I watched I smiled to myself when it occurred to me how much I've felt like Mother Buffoon lately. I love how she comes out in her giant dress and all her little children pour out from underneath her skirt, dancing and flipping all around. And when it's time to go all of the children obediently run back underneath her skirt and Mother Buffoon dances off the stage. I imagine that Mother Buffoon has her hands full, but diligently keeps all her little buffoons in line. Sometimes I too feel like a miniature form of mother buffoon with children running and tumbling all around me. And here I am adding to my brood, another little buffoon on the way to dance and twirl around the house. And yet, just like Mother Buffoon, my hands are full despite the fact that my kids are obedient most of the time. Mother Buffoon dances around with an air of confidence about her, and perhaps a bit of pride in her children. I wonder if it's all an act. Maybe she falls apart at home and total chaos erupts! Either way, Mother Buffoon is a devoted mother, certainly has a sense of humor, and dances with her children! What could be more important than that!

We hope you are enjoying the snow as much as we are!

Oh the Hyprocrisy!

We used to have a tradition of hunting for the perfect Christmas tree; not in a store, or in a lot, but in the snowy Idaho mountains. We would drive up in our truck or my aunt's 4-wheeler and hike, saw in hand, looking for the perfect tree...one that wasn't too bushy or too bare on one side. But the perfect Christmas tree was never really perfect. We always chose one that looked like it needed a mother to love it, a little shabby and sparse. We always chose an orphan tree, and that was the perfect tree for me. When we got it home we always gave it time to defrost in the garage and then eagerly brought it in, and decorated it. I loved the fresh smell! I loved our silly, not-at-all-fancy ornaments, mostly made by our kids. I loved everything about our fresh-cut orphan tree!!!

When we moved to Utah we found it hard to know where to go to cut down our own tree without driving for hours. We didn't even know where to go to get permits. So we settled for buying a tree from a lot. It wasn't as much fun to circle the trees in a lot. Usually they were bound up and impossible to know what they looked like without unwinding all the twine. After unwinding as many as we had patience for we would end up settling for a tree that was too bushy, not at all fresh, and lacked the orphan-appearance I yearned for. When we got home, we squeezed the tree through the door, leaving a trail of dry pine needles all the way to where the tree stood to be decorated. More and more needles fell as it was decorated. I worried that our new tree was combustible and would suddenly burst into flames at any given moment. And the only pine smell came when I vacuumed up all the dry needles. Needless to say, I was disappointed in our Utah selection of lot trees.

So this year I put off buying a Christmas tree week after week. One day as I was cruising hobby lobby I saw their FAKE Christmas trees at a 50% discount. Never in my life had buying a fake tree ever crossed my mind. It's against my upbringing to do such a thing! Later I asked Aaron what he thought about it. He told me to do whatever (I think he's adapted to living with a preggo once more and knows to just let her do "whatever" and everyone will be happy). So I went back to the store and bought my favorite one. It's far from orphan-looking. It's very symmetrical, but it does look like it came from the forest and it is a little shabby looking, but on purpose. And it still lacks the fresh pine tree smell, so I bought a candle that smells like a fresh pine tree, too. Last night we finally got to decorating a Christmas tree, a few weeks later than normal, but at least it got done. I put on our Kenny G Christmas CD, set out the ornaments, and lit my pine-smelling candle...and we decked the tree! And yes, I am happy with it. I hope in the following years we'll have a chance to cut down more trees in the snowy mountains, but if we can't we will bring out our fake tree, light a pine-smelling candle, and call it good enough.

Our little decorators :-)

High-waters

Today I noticed that Rylie's pants that I bought her at the beginning of the school year were already too short for her. I told her she needed to stop growing right this instant! She told me she couldn't help it, that her body was doing it all by itself. Then she quickly corrected herself, "NO, it's Jesus who is doing it!" I thought that was so funny.

Little Tumblers

Kaeli and Rylie had their gymnastics performance on Monday night. They did AWESOME!!! They both love to tumble for a crowd :-) We were 30 minutes early and were still up in the nose bleed section so I didn't get any non-blurry pictures during the performance.

A Must Read!

When you have the time, sit and read these chapters about Stephanie (nie nie). This is the most detailed and most touching version of her story I've ever read!

Part ONE: (Chapters 1-4)
Part TWO: (Chapters 5-10)

Sara's First Haircut!

OK, so this wasn't nearly as dramatic as you may think. I only trimmed a few inches off, but still this was Sara's very first haircut and she's three years old! You may think that's a long time to wait before a trim, but I've been in love with Sara's golden locks for the longest time and couldn't bring myself to trim them off. With that said, I knew Aaron would have a harder time with even the slightest trim (he loves his girls w/ long hair) so I quickly did the job when he wasn't home. He was just fine with the results and was grateful it was just a trim and not a chop :-)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And here she is before church yesterday morning:

She still has a little bit of curl (phew):

And while I'm on the subject of Sara, I have to tell you the funniest thing. Last week we were planning a quick trip to Aaron's work to meet Santa. I asked the kids what they were going to ask Santa for Christmas. Sara ran into her bedroom and grabbed a yellow stuffed duck and said, "I'm going to ask Santa for this duck!" I explained to her that she needed to ask for something she didn't already have, but she insisted that she wanted to ask Santa for a duck. When we showed up at Dannon, Sara's excitement in seeing Santa was through the roof. She just couldn't wait to sit with him. Indeed we heard Santa ask her what she wanted for Christmas and as expected she said "A duck!" The funniest part was when we heard Santa's confused response as though he didn't quite hear her right, "A duck?"

Acting Debut!

Last week Sam performed in his very first play/musical called "Bugsy Malone"! He played the part of Dandy Dan's butler, and he was adorable in his butler suit and bow tie. They performed for 4 nights in a row. I was bummed when we went to go see it because they asked that we not take any pictures or record it in any way for copyright issues. I would have loved to get a picture of Sam twirling another little girl (just his size) around in their finale dance. It was really cute.

I snapped this picture of Sam on the set right afterwards:

Turkey Day!

We had a total of 24 people at our home for Thanksgiving dinner! Of course I was a little stressed that something might be forgotten or the turkey would get scorched...or not cook at all! But of course my mom was there, so I had nothing to fear!

Here are the MEN doing what MEN do on Thanksgiving...carve turkeys:

And of course the "grown-up table". My living room turned into an extension to the dining room:

The kid table, over the TILE, not over the carpet :-)

Oh and our BOUNTY of PIES!!! I was worried about having enough so I made assignments to my sister and sister-in-law and they dutifully brought even more than I asked of them! Each and every one was delicious! Even my 10 year old niece, Lindsey, brought some chocolate pies that she made herself!

The KIDS! There were 14 in all. Will is the one missing. And yes, this was the best picture I could get :-)

We bravely road the UTA Trax up to Temple Square in SLC to see the lights (because finding a place to park would be impossible). It was soooo CROWDED that we spent most of our time trying to stay together and work our way through the mob.

The Salt Lake Temple is always so pretty. It's a special place for our family because that's where my parents were married and sealed for eternity:
All in all, Thanksgiving was a success! It was great to have all my siblings and their families and my parents under one roof.