Christmas 2014

Like all holidays, 2014 has been mixed for us.

There were some highlights:

The annual Orange Ball golf tournament lives on, though this year it was just Dan, Aaron, Poppy and Uncle Phil. Aaron and Uncle Phil won, though I'm told a good time was had by all.

Having dinner at the Ninja with Sarah and family and Bubby and Poppy for Andrew's birthday celebration and watching the kids enjoy different kinds of sushi. Even Oliver wasn't too horrible (he was busy eating most of the time).

Tuesday, the big kids got invited to a tea party with Bubby. By all accounts, they enjoyed themselves. Oliver got to run errands with me--but at least the errand included a stop at DQ to order a cake for Andrew's birthday and an ice cream for Oliver.

Andrew turned nine! We had a special birthday breakfast (crepes and sausage) and he got one last surprise present (a Pokémon wii game)--he opened most of his presents last weekend so they wouldn't get lost in the Christmas rush. (And, in keeping with his current mood, I have no pictures of him from his actual birthday).

Watching Lydia take her turn as Mary in the live nativity. Usually her big sister does this, so it was clearly a thrill for her to be the star. And in general, the Christmas Eve program was lovely, especially Jake's piano solos. Lydia deserves points for trying to play  her song without any music. (There were some minor hiccups--see below).

Having a lovely breakfast Christmas morning (bran muffins, breakfast casserole) at Dan's parents home and then opening presents in turn. The kids were mostly patient and gracious about waiting their turn, and it was fun to watch their excitement.

Evelyn helping Oliver with his stocking.

Evelyn apparently really loves the stuffed wampa Santa gave her. (We just watched the first part of Star Wars Episode 5 with her, and her response to Luke in the wampa cave was not, Scary! Get out of there, Luke!--but "Oh, poor, poor wampa.")

What was Santa thinking, giving A & E both nerf guns?

Oliver also likes Evelyn's wampa--when he can get it.

 

Sledding with the kids on Friday morning. We hit the local hill just right--only a few people were there when we arrived and they left soon after, so we had the hill all to ourselves for nearly an hour. And we managed to get there before the cold front really moved in.

Swimming on Saturday morning. The kids (Andrew) wanted to go sledding again, but as the temperatures were in the balmy teens, Dan and I said no. So we went swimming instead--which doesn't sound much warmer, but the aquatic center kept the pool nice and warm and the kids, especially Oliver, had a blast. Oliver's only problem is that he thinks he's invincible, and he keeps marching into water that's over his head.


But there were also some "low" lights:

I got released from my calling in the Young Women today. I'm going to miss the girls terribly--though I won't (probably) miss the weekly Tuesday night activities. One thing that does make the transition easier was the distinct impression during church today that the "mantle" has passed--the authority that goes with a calling is real, but the transmission of that authority is also very real, and I felt it today. Also, I don't think I could have asked for a better group of women to replace us. That doesn't mean it won't hurt sometimes.

Andrew was a little under the weather (at least, I hope that's all it was), which made him grumpier than usual. During the live nativity on Christmas Eve, he volunteered to be the donkey--and then tried to do his donkey kick while he was at the manger with Mary and Joseph. He also spent a considerable amount of time rolling around on the floor while we were trying to sing Christmas hymns. Neither Dan nor I was impressed. And the grumpiness continued the next day--he actually told me he was "disappointed" in what Santa brought for his stocking. (We'd made a conscious decision to scale down the stocking gifts. I guess we succeeded.) I think next year we're going to have to focus more on gratitude and less on gifts.

This is one of the pictures I shot Christmas morning. He was clearly excited by everything. (Actually, he did enjoy most of the day. I think.)

In the holiday mood

Some weeks I feel like the week slipped through my fingers like sand and I didn't catch much in passing. Anyone else?

We had a couple of sick kids this week (here's hoping this means we get a miss during Christmas). Andrew had a stomach bug that sort of kept him home from school: sort of meaning he went to school on Wednesday, but called within an hour because his stomach hurt. He came home, rested, threw up, rested some more, and claimed to be feeling better on Thursday. (I think the fact that it was his week to be "leader" at school influenced this claim. Sometimes, he's so clearly my son it makes me sigh a little. Ask my mom about the time I went to school with a burst eardrum without telling her . . .) Thursday he lasted until noon before coming home. But he did seem genuinely better Friday and (knock on wood) we haven't had any other incidents since then. His being sick did mean we had to reschedule a small birthday celebration we'd planned for him and a close friend.

Oliver started acting odd Tuesday night: he wouldn't eat at dinner--instead he sat on my lap and cried. He wouldn't calm down or tell us what was wrong. Suspecting maybe something hurt, we offered him some Tylenol, which he refused (also something he's never done). In any case, I took him in to the doctor's in the morning, and I'm glad I did---turns out he had a double ear infection! No wonder he was so uncomfortable. He seems much better now.

Outside of that, Dan and I both submitted our final grades, so the semester is officially over. I had a little snafu--I entered my grades and thought I'd hit submit ("thought" being the operative word), until I got an email from the registrar's office the  next morning informing me that now the deadline was past I needed to submit a change of grade form for each student. Sigh.

A week or so ago I asked the kids what sort of things they wanted to do for the holidays. They came up with things like making paper snowflakes, decorating gingerbread houses, baking sugar cookies, sledding, etc. With the exception of sledding (I don't have much control over the serious lack of snow), we've done several of them.

One of the things Andrew wanted was to make chocolate pretzels--I was confused until I realized he meant he wanted to use our chocolate molds with the giant pretzels. I convinced him that this easier project would work just as well (melted chocolates drizzled back and forth over pretzel sticks). The pretty ones are mine and Evelyn's. The globby ones are the ones Andrew insisted on doing himself.

Oliver didn't make any, but he ate more than his fair share. (Sometimes I forget how easily he can reach stuff on the counter).

The kids reading. We showed Andrew and Evelyn the first Harry Potter movie this week. Evelyn is gamely trying to read book 1 (I think she's about a chapter in). So far this week, Andrew has read the first four books. He read the first three during the two days he was home sick, so I guess that's his silver lining! I was a little worried about book four being too dark for him, but while he said it was scarier than the others, he seemed to be okay with it. We'll see how he handles book five.

Monday, I made gingerbread for the first time--real gingerbread, that we rolled out and cut and cooked into walls for the houses. They smelled divine, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't have been easier (and ultimately cheaper) to buy the prepackaged kind. (Excuse Evelyn's hair--she was just out of the bathtub).

Oliver was in bed when we started, so he got to decorate his own "tent" house the next day. I think he was more interested in the candy.

One of the great things about being two is that no one has told you yet that there are "boy" things and "girl" things and everything is equally delightful. Oliver and Evelyn had a great time the other day running around the house in pink outfits and pink fairy wings.

Here's wishing our few faithful readers a very merry Christmas this week. My hope for you is the same as my hope for myself: to be more caught up in the reason for the celebration than in the accumulation of things.

Recovering

So, just in case you didn't follow up on my semi-cryptic post from last week, I have a literary agent! Josh Adams from Adams literary and so far (a whole week in), it's been great.

In family news, life moves on. Dan and I survived finals week--his grades are done. Mine are . . . not. I suppose that's what I get by giving my students until the end of the week to submit their final. I had approximately one student submit early.

The kids continue to do what they do best: make life chaotic and wonderful at the same time. Evelyn was thrilled to go to a Lego Ninjago party this week for the little boy who's been crushing on her for the past two years (according to his mom). Andrew reads an astonishing number of books (at least one a day, most days), and Oliver continues to make messes faster than I can clean them up. This past week or so he discovered electrical outlets. He now knows how to turn on the Christmas tree lights. A couple of days ago, I was washing dishes and heard a horrific noise from the other room. I dashed in, to find that Oliver had swiped the hand-held mixer from the cupboard (sans beaters, thank goodness) and had plugged that into the wall. Yikes. Sometimes it amazes me that so many toddlers survive childhood.

Otherwise life is good. The kids have another week of school before Christmas. I finally put up outside lights--only one string, around the door--but it felt like a victory because a) Andrew has been asking for them forever and b) I don't think we've had outside lights up since we lived in Pennsylvania.

In other completely random news: this is my 667th post on this blog. Although I'm not normally superstitious, I'm glad I didn't see that last week was 666 until today.

Updates

I apologize in advance that this particular post is going to be a little me-centric. That's sort of inevitable, since all the posts about our family are written through my personal filter, but this week has been a particularly stressful one for me, and that stress (even if it was good stress) occupied a lot of my thinking this week.

Many of you know that I'm a writer (or aspire to be one): I've written articles for LDS church magazines, published some academic articles, write regularly at the Segullah blog, and so forth. But what I've really longed to do, since I was old enough to realize it was an option, is write books.

I wrote a lot of fiction in junior high and high school, less in college, and almost none in graduate school. A few years ago, I picked up writing again. I wrote a middle grade novel that didn't go anywhere (but taught me a lot) and then I wrote a historical fantasy young adult novel.

This one is finally starting to go somewhere. It might not ever get published, but it has gotten me one step closer to publishing--finding an agent. If you're not familiar with book publishing, let me just say that anymore, if you want to publish a book with a major publisher, you have to have an agent to submit your work. And finding an agent is a little like finding a job in a super-competitive market: you send a cover letter describing your book and your qualifications (with sample pages, if the agent asks for them) to an agent. If they're interested, they'll ask for more pages to consider. If not, they'll pass. And a typical agent (even a new agent) receives about 200 queries a week, from statistics I've seen. (And maybe takes on 5 new clients in a year, unless he or she is new and actively building their list).

Like I said, it can be competitive. I've been lucky this round to have a lot of agents request to see more pages. And even luckier that an agent offered to represent me. Actually, more than one, which is what made this last week so stressful--I spoke on the phone with several different agents, considered their offers, researched their publishing track record, thought about our personalities seemed to fit (for the record, they were all a pleasure to talk to), and tried to make a decision. I'd told the original agent I'd have a decision by Friday, and I did, but it was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make, because I was deciding between several good offers, but also making a major decision for any career I hope to have as a writer.

So that's where I am. It's not official yet, which is why I don't have a name, but I will be announcing it sometime this week on my writer blog, if you want to keep an eye out.

In other news, we've had a fun weekend with cousins: Sarah's oldest was in a swim meet this weekend here in town, so while the adults watched the swimmers, we hosted the girls at our house. The kids seemed to enjoy each other.

Last night was our ward Christmas party. Dan seemed happy enough to leave early with Oliver (to put him to bed), but I enjoyed watching the kids sing in the program and visiting with friends in the ward. As hard as it can be dealing with crowds sometimes, I do like these communal events because they remind me that we live in a bigger community.

Here's hoping for a relatively painless end of the semester--and a considerably less stressful week than last week!