Happy Holidays, Part 2

A few days ago Lucy and I were reminiscing about our recent Las Vegas Christmas trip. I prodded, "Where did we stay?"

Lucy said: "At Gramma Truman's! And, she had a room for us!"

And she did! We three Truman travelers were so grateful to find room in Grandpa and Grandma's Inn this Christmas!

Ah, so many merry Christmas memories...I hardly know where to begin!

I wish I could upload the delicious smell of my mother-in-law's orange rolls baking in the oven, the musical sound of Lucy and her Gram giggling all through an afternoon "nap" together, the warm feeling of a one-on-one, more-than-just-small talk with my Father-in-law. A pity those things aren't anywhere on my hard drive. But they're in my heart.

I can show you Lucy sitting at her Great Grandma Bowler's feet. (Bonus points if you can identify Lucy and/or Grandma Bowler in this sea of darling faces =)

I can show you Grandma Truman's lamp-turned-Christmas-tree. (Can you tell it's really a lamp? So clever is Wes's cute momma!)

And I can show you Lucy swinging away Christmas Eve afternoon in her Aunt Suzy's backyard. (You can play me all the Bing Crosby in the world, but I tell you: now that we're back home in our Utah winter wonderland - we're dreaming about our warm Christmas in Vegas!)

It really was such a wonderful, wonderful holiday! Lucy had a ball.

Every visit to Uncle Mark and Aunt Maria's toy/cousin/love-filled home ended with Lucy mourning, "I just want to stay at this house!"

Every day at Grandma's was packed with play time in the "forest." (curtain-enclosed room)

And although Lucy is still just beginning to understand the Christmas concepts of Christ's birth and of Santa Claus, her awareness this year was keen enough to give me the treasured memory of tucking her wiggling, wide-eyed little self into bed on Christmas Eve.

Oh, the anticipation!

And the sweet innocence.

When Wes and I, full of Christmas Eve excitement ourselves, bid her good night and reminded her, "Santa will come tonight!" Her excited, "Yes! And Heavenly Father!!" was a particularly poignant reminder to us.

And...Christmas Morning! What fun!
Lucy had been practicing the "stocking moment" all December long. Our rehearsal sounded something like this.
Mom: "Do you think Santa will visit us on Christmas?!"
Lucy: "Yes! He will! And he will put toys in my stocking, and I will look inside, and I will say, 'Ahhhhh!'"

"Ahhhhh!"

Santa did, indeed, bring all kinds of goodies, but I think Lucy's favorite gifts were the Little Pet Shop birds that Uncle Rog and Aunt Andrea sent from Ohio. No offense, Santa.

At least Dad and Grandpa liked Lucy's presents...

MMmmmmm. What else to tell...What else to remember....
We made the Gingerbread house that Uncle Brent and Aunt Tonya gifted us. (And I tell you, I'm all about pre-made =)



And, let's not forget the Fitz's Christmas party and the leg lamp! So fun to see so many friends! (But Ry, in retrospect, we're feeling a little jipped that we didn't get to go and hear you order your "usual." We'll have to rectify that problem sometime in the future!)

THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA, AND ALL OUR LAS VEGAS FAMILY!!

We had such a wonderful time!!!

Happy Holidays, Part 1

We interrupt our regularly scheduled December programming to bring you:Our Thanksgiving Trip to Ohio.

(It’s true. I could have posted about this trip earlier. I actually have a pretty valid excuse for the delay, but I don't feel the need to justify myself.   Judge at will.  I'm not ashamed.)

Question:  What do you get when you pile four adults and one two year old into a small sedan and commence a cross country drive? 

Answer: A heaping harvest of laughter!

Lucy:  

“I need to watch Marry Poppins!"

"Shu we watch Mary Pops?”

“Mom, can you draw Marry Poppins?” (This last request was followed by mom's sincere attempt to comply and then by Lucy's tearful, “No mom! Draw her nicely! Make her beautiful!” So much for my career as an artist!) 

Needless to say, Marry Poppins was love at first watch.  

And the dried Mangos we packed, love at first taste.

Lucy: "I wannanother Mango!"

Daddy: "OK, honey, just a minute and I'll get it."

Lucy:  "No.  I jus wannit faster!" 

Lucy also loved the Midwestern farmland we drove through for days. 

(“Do you see the silo, grampa? Do you see the silo?” Repeated 100 times.) 

And she loved the homemade sewing cards and the construction paper turkey feathers and all the Thanksgiving books that occupied so much of our traveling time.
My favorite Thanksgiving book this year:...but even after all the reading and talking we did about Pilgrims and Indians, ships, farms, and feasting, Lucy still answered my question, “what will we do on Thanksgiving?” with a resounding, “I will be a turkey.” (We must have done Halloween really well. It’s infiltrating all other holidays.)

The Backyardigans were also an en-route hit.  But if anyone dares to sing the theme song in my presence…

All-in-all, it was a wonderful drive. Lucy did great! We were so proud of her! (And we had a good laugh on Thanksgiving day when one relative was kind enough to make conversation with Lucy and asked her, “Where do you live?” Lucy’s unhesitating response was, “In the car.”)

Our initial stop in Ohio was Kirtland.
We had cold hands and cheeks as we walked among Kirtland's homes, stores, fields, and temple, all of which were dressed up in their feathery autumn finery. We had warm hearts as we huddled in the rooms, hallways, and stairwells that were the backdrop of so many Restoration miracles, visions, and revelations. The stories and sights we took in combined into a hearty harvest of testimony. Next on the travel itinerary: visits to Lucy’s Packer cousins, Ryan, Haley, Justin, Eli, Tiana, Jaren, Alyssa, Pounce, Princess, and Lucky. Those last three being cats, you will believe me when I tell you that Lucy would be content to live out her days at Uncle Rog’s “kitty house!!” and the adjoining 8 acres.What a harvest of memories! Lucy’s morning trips to the barn (pajama clad and sleepy eyed) to feed the cats, beautiful walks and beautiful talks in the quiet Ohio countryside, tons of cousin play dates, a “grown-ups-only” restaurant outing (it still gives me a special little feeling inside to be included in those!), of course a holiday movie (Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium: Lucy's first, conscious theater experience.)Ah, what else to say?? We played games and listened to impromptu talent shows. We ate delicious food. It was a traditional Thanksgiving celebration in every way, probably not very different from yours. But it was a personal soul-feast. My very own harvest of love.

Lucy waiting to 'be the turkey' at our Thanksgiving table...

And I could have eaten her right up.

The Moon's a Fingernail

Wes proposed to me one beautiful night about five years ago. The evening was planned to perfection and masterfully executed by his very capable "Thunder Committee."

It was so perfect, I can hardly describe it. Even so much of what I can describe will have to be sacrificed for some amount of brevity.

It involved a series of significant places that evoked meaningful memories. It involved everything ridiculously, suspensefully, so sincerely, and so thoughtfully romantic (flowers, food, parks, poetry, jewelry, candlelight...). It spanned an afternoon and evening's worth of time - time spent reminiscing, time spent dreaming.

It remains perfectly preserved in my memory.
It was, I tell you, perfectly planned.

And yet, there was one thing that was perfectly unplanned: Our engagement sky was decorated with a delicate crescent moon. Sure, moonlight is romantic for everyone. But this was our fingernail moon. The moon from our song. The moon from Sting's Ghost Story.

...The moon's a fingernail
and slowly sinking
another day begins
and now I'm thinking
that this indifference
was my invention
when everything I did
sought your attention
You were my compass star
You were my measure
You were a pirate's map
of buried treasure
if this was all correct,
the last thing I'd expect,
the prosecution rests
its time that I confessed
I must have loved you.

We walked hand in hand that night, under our moonlit sky, softly humming Sting's haunting, oh so familiar melody. Only minutes later we left the moonlight for the dim, after-hours light of a meaningful BYU classroom. But the same music - the same song - still surrounded us, this time dancing from a real disc in the corner of the room. Wes proposed. I accepted his proposal. And as we walked home, we were serenaded once more by the light of our fingernail moon.

I was so starry-eyed and in love that Wes could have proposed on a garbage heap and it would have been wonderful. But the moonlight coincidence, that was perfection - a beautiful, unplanned perk that we were still smiling about five months later when we were married amid the glowing magic and mistletoe of Christmastime.

And we still smile about that fingernail moon today.

I guess it's not too astonishing to declare that I love Wes more now than I did that night he lassoed and gave me the moon, more even than the day we linked hands over a sacred alter to make significant covenants with each other and with God. I guess that's just how love works: exponential increase over time.

And even though our five years together as man and wife have been laced, littered, strewn with, sometimes overwhelmed by the unplanned, they've been perfect. Perfect for our growth, perfect for our testimonies, perfect, most of all, for our relationship. It's almost as if that unplanned sliver of a moon in our engagement sky five years ago was a silvery promise from a wise Father that there is, often, purpose in the unplanned.

Just a few weeks ago, we spotted a fingernail moon in the sky while we were driving with Lucy in the car. We pointed the moon out to her and explained that it was just like the special moon that was in the sky when Daddy asked Mommy to marry him. On a whim I said, "Maybe you chose the moon that night, Lucy!"

"Yeah! I did!" she agreed, happy to be included in the story.

Several days later, Lucy was in her high chair waiting to be fed. I was cutting a bagel for her. When I handed her the crescent, half-bagel shape she was overjoyed with recognition.

"Like the moon! Like the moon that I put in your sky!"

Maybe Lucy did have a hand in our fingernail moon five years ago. Maybe not. Regardless, she most certainly does put the moon in our skies today. Every day. The love we celebrate this anniversary is so much stronger because she is a part of it. I love Wes more and more as I watch him love her.

And so this Christmas season, sweet for it's own sake, is sweeter to us because it marks another anniversary of our eternal family.

You may not hear much from us in the next few weeks, but you can be sure that we are celebrating: celebrating the birth of our Savior; celebrating the longevity he gives to the love we feel for each other; celebrating our Father's perfect plan for his children; celebrating how that plan blesses us - in ways that our own plans never could.

Happy Anniversary, Wes.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Friends!!

Picture a Christmas

Grandma's Gumdrop Cookies...

Lucy's First Ponytail...



Aunt Laurie/Aunt Maria's Sugar Cookies...recipe here

click here for some real domestic inspiration (and for the best oatmeal carmelitas recipe around. )

"GLOWING Lights!!" with Uncle Brent... Lights Before Christmas (Dec. 1-23, 2007, dusk-11pm) at Layton Commons Park (437 N. Wasatch Dr.). FABULOUS lights for little ones...small park, tons of lights, not many people.

A twirling, whirling Christmas Dress...


And "a little baby Jesus..."
who remains, "Lord of all this revelling."

Merry Week-before-Christmas!!

I posted the meatball recipe mentioned last week here, for those interested parties.

For Lucy

Today we ate our cereal on the couch in front of the TV (which we never do) and watched Dragon Tales (which you like, but which I cannot stand). I chewed a piece of gum instead of brushing my teeth because I left my toothbrush at Gram and Gramps.

We didn't leave the house or even open the blinds today until 4:00pm.

Around 12:00pm, you sat in your high chair and concentrated on peeling clementines (probably your favorite pass-time of late) while I prepared you a gourmet lunch of string cheese. Instead of complaining, you ate it up, all the while singing silly songs about "goat cheese" and "When Orange went to Bethlehem." I was never quick enough with the camera to capture your really, really funny lyrics- or your jazzy jingle bells/Primary songs medley.

Sufficiently nourished by our pseudo lunch, we invited Mary Poppins into the living room and she took us climbing over a few "roof-tops" and "chimneys." We pretended to know all the words of "Chim-Chiminee" and "Step in Time." Every jump off of the tallest chimney was followed by bursts of your silly laughter.


At 3:30pm we gave up roof dancing and headed for the bathtub. All of that soot! We were cleaned up in no time, ready to chat with a few RAs, and ready to finally emerge from our little fortress.

We went to the "dinner place" for some Daddy time.
And then we went to Target where you didn't hesitate to let all the customers within earshot know that you "don't like the toilets at Target! But I like this part! ($1 aisle)"
Sigh. Indeed, you do not like the toilets at Target. Our visit ended, like so many visits to Target end, in a mad dash to the car and through the night to get you home in time. You made it. (You always do.) We were both relieved. And now I have a toothbrush.

Right now you're asleep, in your pack 'n' play that is two inches too small to accommodate your two&ahalf year old self. But you don't complain. You just sleep.

And while you sleep, your Dad and I look through the gifts we can't wait to watch you open on Christmas morning.

(We even open up a present of our own! We know that you'll love the lamb and manger "anniversary" additions to our Christmas Nativity. Bless your heart, Wes!!!)

Finally, we close your door so that the the sounds of Voldemort and Dumbledoor dueling down the hall won't disturb you.

Good night, little angel. See you in the morning!