Monday, December 31, 2007

Ten Years!

Yesterday, December the 30th, marked a big day for Troy and me; our 10 year anniversary! we decided to actually do something to celebrate. Most years we're so wiped out from Christmas and New Year's and stuff that we will MAYBE go out to dinner or something. This year with the kids being a little older we had them sleep over at Margaret's house (THANK YOU!) and we went for a sleepover of our own at the Hotel Monaco. It was super fun. Indian food from the Himalayan Kitchen downtown, (not quite Bombay House, but pretty good) and breakfast at the Emigration Market cafe, and most importantly a snuggly soft bed with no kids in it or anywhere near it. Sleeping in. Fantastic.

I just want you to know that I have the greatest husband on the planet and I'm not quite sure how I lucked out enough to marry him, but somehow I did, and it's been the greatest blessing in my life. I love you, Troy. There, now it's recorded for posterity.

Christmas!!!!!.....is over.

Isn't it amazing how you take at least a month or two to carefully prepare for this holiday? We shop, we decorate, we plan, we pick carefully the gifts to give our children, our spouses, our neighbors. It takes some serious effort, you know? And come Christmas morning the family has it all torn apart in about 30 minutes! 45 if you're lucky. We did have a good time, though.

Christmas Eve was a fun day with delivering gifts to the neighbors and making cookies. We spent the evening at my sister's house with everyone except Adam's family. We enjoyed our traditional Mexican feast of posole, fresh tortillas and black bean salad. Other years we've gone all out with sopes, homemade refried beans and fire roasted vegetables and great stuff like that. We just didn't feel like going to that effort and mess this time, which was fine. We really enjoyed what we had. Our kids were so wiped out that we left early and put them to bed early. What better Christmas present is there than that? I had some new Christmas jammies for them as well as a book, "Snowmen at Christmas." I think a new children's book every year is a great idea. Anyway, Bitty was falling asleep so fast and hard that I could barely get her to open the gifts. Stomper was in bed with his eyes closing before I remembered that we hadn't set out any cookies or milk for Santa. Me being me, I made him get back up out of bed to go with his dad to set them out. Troy and I then enjoyed a lovely evening by the fire watching Christmas movies, drinking eggnog, wrapping a few remaining presents...doesn't that just sound perfect? It was.

Christmas morning began for us at four a.m. when Stomper came in our room to let us know that Santa had indeed arrived and delivered presents. And it was time to open them. We convinced him to wait at least until dawn. He climbed into our bed and Troy went and got into his. I dozed between to floppy kids for another couple of hours before giving up. Stomper was up again at 7:30 or so, and it was quite the struggle to keep him from opening his gifts before Troy's parents came and Bitty was awake, but we managed it. I had this idea that we should enter the living room all together for the first time, but Stomper was not to be stopped. Finally the grandparents came and we woke up Bitty so the paper tearing could commence. Nice morning. It's so hard every year to find that balance between giving the kids what they want and what would make them happy, and giving them just too much stuff. I think we did well this year.



The really magical part of Christmas Day came later at my parent's house (that would be day FOUR in a row of parties with my family, by the way....) when we went at noon for an omelet brunch. We were lazy and sleepy on the floor for a while, but then we whipped out the sleds and the fun began. Luckily I have managed to gather some really great snow clothes for my kids. Seriously, the trick to fun in the great outdoors is good gear, because if you're cold and wet, no sledding is fun. Both the kids were warm and dry, and my parent's yard provided the absolutely perfect sledding hill, a foot deep in fluffy powder. The hill down is steep enough to be fun, but not so long that the kids won't climb back up it without getting exhausted. We had so much fun, and the real champ was Stomper. He had an inflated sled with handles, and the kid must have made 50 runs. He would climb up the hill to the top and immediately jump right back on the sled, sitting or flopped on his belly, and go screaming down again. He never cried when he tumbled into the snow, he never had to be carried, he just went around and around and around. Bitty did well too, though she only got on a sled a few times. She was packed into this great big purple-checked snowsuit I found at Kid-2-Kid, reminiscent of Randy in A Christmas Story, but she was as happy as a puppy just rolling around in the snow. We were out there for at least an hour and a half, and then when we came in Troy stayed out for another hour perfecting a banked curve to make a turn from the very top of the hill. Great sledding. Unfortunately, my brother has all the pictures so I'll post a slideshow when he sends them to me.

We ended up staying at my parent's house until the night. The kids and I bundled up on the bed downstairs and watched A Muppet's Christmas Carol and we all played Cranium...I'll tell you, my brother Adam and I have an almost creepy ability together at games like that. We're a good team. Anyway, it was a fantastic day and I'm so grateful for wonderful friends and family that surround us.

The rest of the week and weekend cruised by with more festivities including a trip to the aquarium with the Grundvigs, more cousin time and more sledding. We also held the annual Preslar family Saturday-after-Christmas gathering with MORE presents (holy loot - time to be done with new stuff for the kids!) and good food and fun together. Stomper received from his Grandparents a giant rubber t-rex that is about two feet tall. It's huge. We need to build an addition for it. We had all of the grandchildren together for the first time in a very long time.


At the Aquarium with the Grundvigs


All the Preslar cousins...not a great photo, but it's what we've got!

So I hope all of you have a wonderful New Year - I am compelled to again express my deep and humble gratitude for all the fantastic people in my life, especially my family. I am so blessed and feel much love for life.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Catching Up

Here we are, on Christmas Eve, and all I want to do is blog! We've had so many fun things going on the past couple of weeks and I just can't seem to find a time to sit down and type a little bit. Partly that's because I've been up to my eyeballs in projects that I shouldn't have been doing (as per usual) and I finally got them all squared away.

The first item on my agenda is to rename my children. I'm really sick of this "CTP" and "RAP" stuff, so I've decided to come up with some nicknames for them. From now on, my 5-year-old son, formerly known as CTP, will henceforth be known as "Stomper," due to his adoration and constant imitation of dinosaurs. And my 2-year-old daughter, formerly known as "RAP" shall be dubbed "Bitty," because that's what I call her all the time. There.

I wanted to post some funny videos of Bitty. The first one is of her having a conversation with Troy's t-shirt. He's got this t-shirt with a flaming skull on it, and I think one evening while I was gone and she was upset, he distracted her by putting his hand under his shirt, making the figure bounce around and talking for it. They named him "Edgar the Friendly Monster," and now every time he puts on the shirt she'll go chat with Edgar for a minute. The second video is of her telling a story, and it's just cute. She's been really into stories lately - especially one about jingle bells being stolen by a dinosaur and taken to his castle. Love it.








A funny Stomper story from the week - he's gotten really into Godzilla. I guess his buddy has a couple Godzilla books he was showing him and they both just got sucked in. I guess it's a natural progression from dinosaurs to superhero monsters. Coincidentally, Troy was flipping through the channels and found the Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick that was made a few years ago. Stomper was of course immediately enchanted, and we let him watch it. Well, in the old stories Godzilla is a good guy who saves people. I guess. That's what I remember from the Saturday morning cartoons - Godzilla and Gadzooks! Remember? Anyway, in this movie, Godzilla is just a big destructive monster and everyone is trying to kill him. Stomper was rooting for Godzilla the whole time, yelling for him to bust through walls and stuff. Sadly, at the end, I believe Godzilla gets wiped out. The last two or three minutes were cut off, so I don't quite remember, but all we saw was a dead Godzilla. Stomper turned to me, quivering lip and brimming tears, and said, "I didn't want Godzilla to die." And then he started sobbing. And sobbing. I just rocked him for a long time. Remind me to never let him see Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern grows. He was so sad!

We had a great storm this week. I have been so excited this month because we have had a pretty snowy December, and it's just so Christmassy! But last week the snow started melting a lot, enough for me to do some raking of all the leaves that got trapped under the snow. Our favorite weather man Kevin Eubanks kept predicting snow, and once even wore the white coat, indicating snow the next day, and it didn't happen. He wore it on Thursday night again, and we were doubtful that any snow would really show up. Friday was this super warm and windy day, and when I went to the pharmacy at 4:30 in the afternoon I could see blue sky. Admittedly the line at the pharmacy was pretty long, but I was shocked to find when I left that Kevin's predicted storm had arrived, and how. It was like we got hit with a baseball bat. The temperature totally plummeted and we started with a hail storm of mighty fury. Then in settled into a nice long snow that gave us at least five or six inches to coat our town in white again. It's been cold ever since, keeping the branches packed. And what I'm really excited about, especially now that both of my brothers and their families have arrived safely in SLC, is that we're to get another 2-4 inches this evening. A snowy Christmas eve! How fabulous!

It's been such a busy month, plus dealing with Bitty's sleeping, meaning that I never let her nap so she'll go to bed before the next day, I'm a little disappointed that we haven't been able to do some of the things that I wanted to for Christmas. I of course wanted to take the kids downtown to see the lights at Temple Square, and the lights at the zoo, and the fun stuff going on at Wheeler Farm like Santa and wagon rides and hot chocolate and stuff. I just couldn't make it work with the freezing cold evenings and napless days, and being up to my eyeballs in a teddy-bear project. I'm sad, but you know, I think we'll live. We're all still excited about the holiday and are really enjoying our family, and what's more important than that? Next year will be better for all that stuff because our kids will be bigger but not too big yet, you know?

Last night we had a really fun party at my parent's house. My entire family was there, which hasn't happened for at least two years. It was so fun to have us all together. Adam and Whitley and Peter and Sheri got to meet each other's babies for the first time, we had Kent Miles, a really great photographer, come and take pictures of our family, we had really great food (I made it, so what else could you expect, right?) and we exchanged gifts. The winner gift of the evening was an evil plot developed between Adam and myself where we orchestrated for his son and Stomper to receive mini-marshmallow shooters. Adam and Margaret and I did a lot of pre-party laughing as we imagined my father's reaction to the shooters - you load them with mini-marshmallows and the pump them up and they fire the things all over the place. Dad's reaction lived up to our expectations. He was not so excited about them. I didn't actually see any veins in his forehead pulsing, but it was close. But really, the little kids gobbled up the marshmallows as fast as Smith and Stomper could fire them. Here's Dad:



And here's the gunmen:



We really had a fun evening, enjoying our family. Tonight holds more family time, as does tomorrow, and I'm sure by then we'll be about familied out. Merry Christmas to you all, with much love and gratitude.

Here's some more pix from the evening:





Saturday, December 15, 2007

Joy to the King's Singers

I am such a lucky girl. Every year the Mormon Tabernacle Choir puts on a huge Christmas concert in the conference center, and invite some fabulous guest to join them. A few years ago it was Angela Lansbury, and two years ago I got to go hear Audra McDonald, whom I adore. This year the featured guest was the King's Singers - a group of six male vocalists, founded in 1968. Of course none of the original people are still in the group, but they have managed to keep the same sound with all of the changes over the years. Anyway, I really really wanted to go hear them sing, but it's super hard to get tickets to this concert. In years past you've had to wait in long lines or sit on the phone for forever, but this year they decided to make a lottery - you enter in your email address and preferred date of attendance, and cross your fingers. I was not one of the lucky winners. Neither were my parents, in fact, but they seem to have a lot of connections because they did manage to get four tickets through a friend who couldn't use theirs. Yesterday morning Mom came over to help me with the kids for a bit, and asked if we knew anyone who would like two tickets because they couldn't find anyone to go with them. HELLO!! ME!!!! Troy offered to watch the kids so I could go with a friend. I never did find anyone who could join me, so I ended up having an evening with just me and my folks. It was so fun. And the concert was lovely. Beyond lovely. It was gorgeous. The conference center was totally decked out, the stage set up like a miniature Christmas village, dripping in poinsettias and lights. The music was other-wordly - I can't wait to buy the cd next Christmas.

I guess my parents' ticket connection is a big-shot because we were in the front and center section, seated about 20 rows behind President Hinckley and his family, and right next to the new member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Cook. Wow. Talk about great seats. The best part of the evening for me was spying some dear friends a few rows ahead - friends who lived in our neighborhood a few years ago and ended up moving to Texas for school, whereupon we lost touch with each other. I spied them just as the lights were going down and I waited patiently through the whole concert, though I was wanting to leap out of my seat and climb over the people in front of me to get to them. When the show was over I really did almost knock down a few people on my way forward, but luckily no one was injured and I enjoyed a fantastic reunion with my dear friends, the Binghams. I just love them. And the best part is that they're back in Utah, so we are hoping to reconnect again after Christmas. Moments like those just make me so grateful for my life, so richly blessed with friends. And the heavenly music we heard sent my soul flying into happy Christmas-ness.

Here is a video of The King's Singers with all of the same members that I heard last night:

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Shopping Nightmares

I had several ideas for the title of this post like a possible headline, "Heroic Dad Leads to Serious Nightmares," or perhaps what you already know, "Rachel is still crazy." I couldn't decide. Here's the story.

Hail to Troy! Yesterday he took a day off, the first of many, I think, due to the fact that he has a ton of PTO left and he wants to keep working on our little house. He decided to give the first day to me. All to me. Isn't he fabulous? Of course I had images, dancing like sugarplums in my head, of movies or a nice long nap or bath, but I forced myself to let them go and face reality. What I wanted most was to check off as many things of my uber-list as I possibly could, most importantly finishing the Christmas shopping. In the morning we all kind of hung out together, Troy entertaining the kids while I did the filing and stuff like that. I think I checked off like four things...joy!

One funny moment of the morning was CTP informing us that he would not be going to preschool that day due to the fact that Miss Valle, one of his two teachers, had yelled at him. Upon our questioning as to why she had been yelling, he got very sheepish and didn't want to tell us. The poor kid hung his head and slunk away like a little dog. We talked to him for a while, and he finally confessed his major transgression. "I tweaked Caleb's nose." Does this strike anyone else as being extremely funny? It did us.

Anyway, in the afternoon I did take C to school to help him do a little presentation about our family's favorite Christmas traditions, but after that, I had hours to myself to shop. I still had a glimmer of hope in my head that it wouldn't be too bad, that I'd have time to take a book into Paradise Bakery and sit down for a while or something heavenly like that. It was not to be. I'll just say that when any shopping trip involves trips to two separate Walmarts, you know you're screwed. The Romney family is doing some sub-for-santa gifts this year, and I was doing quite a bit of the shopping, and had a real problem locating some of the gifts. Does anyone know what a "matchmaker" is? One list just said, "matchmaker" and I can't find, even on line, what that is. And it's hard to randomly choose clothing for someone you've never met before. I know, I'll be okay, but I was going to a lot of places to try to find what these little girls wanted.

I have been shocked at the crazy-ness of the stores this season. Every time I've tried to nip in a store, in the middle of the week in the middle of the day, every place I've been has been packed. Yesterday I was going a little nuts waiting for parking spots, getting stuck in traffic (no kidding!) and being in long long lines behind little ladies who want to apply for credit cards to get the extra 10% off. I remained grateful to be doing the shopping without my kids, but my mood did slide downwards all afternoon until finally I was about to lose it. I realized that I wasn't thinking about Jesus very much as I was racing my shopping cart down the isle and hurling things into the basket, or as I was speeding down the street starving and finally giving up on my dream of a pleasant solo lunch, pulling a little too quickly into the drive-through of the first fast-food place I could find. I tried to breathe calmly and remember why I was racing around like this, and I felt a little better.

That is, I thought I did until I woke up nearly screaming from a nightmare this morning. Does anyone besides me have "out of control" nightmares? In my dream our family all woke up this morning and it was suddenly Christmas morning. We went into the empty living room, whereupon I panicked, realizing that I hadn't wrapped a single gift. I told Troy to distract the kids while I ran upstairs to wrap stuff. That's when people starting coming over - like some know-it-all guy who watched me try to wrap gifts and yell at the kids at the same time as they kept coming upstairs. His offerings of useless parenting advice about made me crazy. More and more people came, friends & strangers, and just sat and watched or wanted to talk or wanted me to feed them. No one wanted to help, which would have been nice because none of the tape would come off the roll, none of the wrapping paper was big enough to go around the boxes, and my children insisted on continually coming upstairs to see what I was doing... Please tell me you have these kinds of dreams too. It was similar to the Easter Dinner dream I had where Oprah was with me in the kitchen to "help" but spent the whole time tasting my cooking and making witty comments to her camera crew, as more and more people showed up for dinner, the only food items they brought being things like a dish of olives or a box of toothpicks. Also the ovens didn't work. Stuff like that.

I don't know what else to say now that I have further revealed my mental problems. All I know is that I'm getting the wrapping done this week. Now that the shopping is done, I can do that. Thanks again, Troy. Next year, I'm shopping in June.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Gingerbread Adventures

I think we have started a new tradition that I hope we do every year. Last night was the second annual "Evening of Gingerbread Mayhem" with our dear friends the Mayfields. Last year Misty was just a week or so away from delivering their fourth child, and spent the evening vomiting, due to the stomach flu. Good times! This year we each had two gingerbread projects, she with a train and a house, while I had a tree and a house. We made many jokes about not wanting to let our kids help and thus ruin everything. We did manage to let the kids get into it a little bit, but with their "help," a crying 1-year-old, chatting dads, plus one large trumpet/kazoo in RAP's mouth, we decided to cut the evening a little short. We really did have a good time, though. Next year I think we'll let the kids totally do one house, glopping it up with as much candy and frosting as they want, symmetry be damned, and then then Misty and I can stay up late all by ourselves and make our perfectionist little houses just like we want to. Is it a plan, Mist?



By the way, my mom gave us a cool advent calendar a couple of years ago that is a Noah's Ark scene, and every day one more animal gets hung up on it. CTP is loving it - it's been one of the only things that is helping him understand when Christmas is actually coming. What I love is that he never forgets each morning to place another animal on the ark. He'll often get up first and take care of it quietly before any of us even know about it. It's not very ceremonial, but a little job he thinks about each day. He never tries to put up more than one animal, either. It's been really fun this year. I think I'll try to find another one for RAP next year so they're not fighting over who gets to put up the animal each day. Or I guess I could try some parenting and encourage them to share, take turns, all that baloney.

This week has been INSANE - packed with morning and afternoon playdates, school-time playdates for R, church parties, gatherings with friends - literally like 4 or 5 things a day. I think C is starting to show the strain, and I'm looking forward to a quieter weekend. We don't have that much going on next week either, but knowing me, I'm sure to pack it in. What it's all making me think about is how blessed we are in friends and family. We don't have enough time in the day to spend with all the people we love, and all the ways we want to celebrate this beautiful season. I couldn't be richer if I had the world. I'm so grateful for the people in my life.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Best Tree EVER

Every year Troy and I go out together to buy our Christmas tree. We love the kind with really sparse branches so you can see the ornaments. Troy found out this year that the kind of tree is called a silver-tipped fir - just so you know! Anyway, every year we go out together to buy it and are generally horrified at the price of the trees, and we end up talking each other out of a tree that would fit the size of our living room ceiling. The ones we bring home always look big at the lot, and then we get them in our living room with the 10-foot ceilings, and they don't even go up half way. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Well, yesterday, Troy was headed to a friend's house, CTP in tow, to help out on some construction. I suggested they pick up a tree on their way, which they did. C picked it out. The thing, according to Troy, did not look that big on the lot, but when we tried to set it up this afternoon, we had to snip off six inches on the top to make it fit. It's huge! I totally love it.

We set it up this afternoon and then had to let it drip-dry for a couple of hours because it got so packed with snow after sitting on the roof of the car during a blustery evening last night. The kids were appropriately wound up about it, and tried hard to be patient, so when we finally busted out the box of ornaments they got right to it. Really sweet, dont' you think? I must say, it was so quaint. Picturesque? Troy built a fire (it's still going...ahhhhh) and I made cocoa. There was Christmas music and the kids were fighting over the candy cane ornament...everything you'd expect from a festive evening at home, decorating the tree! Actually I'm very proud of C, he's trying so hard to be generous and patient. He's starting to think about others' feelings. In the past if I have ever asked him about a gift he'd like to give to someone else, be it a grandparent, sibling or aunt, he of course couldn't imagine that they'd want anything but a dinosaur. But this week he got quiet and thoughtful for a moment and then asked what he could give to Daddy for Christmas. When I asked him what he wanted to give, he said, "A new saw. And I want to give Romney a talking Dora doll." Not that we need another battery-operated noise-maker around here, but how sweet! I was really touched.

Friday, December 07, 2007

1:30 in the morning, Matthew on the mind

Hello friends. You'll have to forgive this rambling, as it is occurring at a very late/early hour, but I'm feeling inspired. I have just spent a joyful and sorrowful evening with women whom I love. We gathered to support our friend, who is only 3 1/2 weeks past losing her baby, Asher. He was due on Dec. 30th. I felt so glad to be a friend to her. Losing Matthew was not easy, but I am grateful to be able to have helped my friend and welcome her into this strange little club of people who know a very tender kind of loss. I guess I am writing this entry to celebrate the fact that for the first time in seven months I've been able to write some feelings about Matthew that I haven't been able to. I'm supposed to be asleep but instead I'm at the computer writing and writing about him and it feels wonderful. A poem, which has been lodged in an unreachable place is finally taking shape in a way that feels very true. I'm grateful for that. I'm not ready to share it, but I wanted to document the satisfaction and catharsis of writing. I thought that because it didn't happen right away it might not ever happen, that the more time passed the less I'd feel. I guess the pot of emotions just needed to settle and clarify a little. I'm so glad, and grateful for my life, my husband, friends, my beautiful children. I know I write a lot about parenting frustrations, and I need to say that my children are darlings. Okay, this is kind of a weird entry. That's what you get for being privy to my journal, I guess.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

This IS the Place!


Our stake did a great thing this week and put on a Christmas party for all stake leaders and held it at the This is the Place Heritage Park - the pioneer museum-group-of-buildings across the street from Hogle Zoo. Somehow Troy, who is the ward mission leader, ended up on the invite list - I guess that's a stake calling around here. Anyway, Troy was in Denver, but it looked pretty fun, so I took the kids up by myself. The park puts on a great Christmas activity each year, and it was really neat for our church leaders to have the party there. By the end of three days without Troy I wasn't sure I was up to a big evening outing, but I thought it would be a shame to miss it. Besides, little R had a nap that day, so what else were we going to do to kill time until midnight?

We had a nice little dinner in the upstairs of one old buildings. I was so proud of little C, who insisted on dishing up his own food from the buffet. Much to my shock and delight, he filled his plate with vegetables and fruit. Did you hear that? VEGETABLES and FRUIT. This is unlike my child. Okay, there was also a small mountain of meatballs and a ham sandwich on the side. The most amazing part is that (are you ready for this?) he ATE all of it. I credit his delightful little preschool with the progress in the consumptionary arts - every day I ask him what the snack was and is always something like squash, cucumber and oranges; things he regularly rejects at home. But I digress. I was happy to see at dinner a good friend in our neighborhood, Ben Behunin. He's a guy I met in junior high, and who became an incredible potter. He's lived in the 'hood for several years and we've worked together a couple times for church stuff, and I just have to say, I think he's a great guy and a fantastic potter. I guess I was thinking of him and his wife fondly because I talked to him right when we lost Matthew and he tried to help me out with some jewelry. I hadn't seem him since then and it was nice to connect. Neat family. Okay, moving on.

The park has a very festive holiday scene going on - we had a great time. We rode a "train" (it had rubber tires, but did have an engine-type thing up front and made all the appropriate whistles and 'choo choo' noises, so it was all good) and we made Christmas ornaments. There was a St. Nicholas-type guy (C didn't really buy it) and story tellers. Ever heard the one about the Christmas spiders? Yeah, it was a new one for me too. There was a live nativity in a barn with some extremely real (smelling) cows, sheep and even a donkey. Joseph and Mary were kickin' it with some hot cocoa, but can you blame them? It was cold! We went in the Brigham Young house where the prophet himself was there telling stories and showing us around. A fun surprise was seeing an old missionary from my parent's mission, Alex Bigney of Kirkmount fame, playing the harp in the parlor. If you need a good Christmas CD, check theirs out.

Anyway, it was a really fun evening. At least it was a great distraction for my son who continues to pepper me with "Hey Mom, it's Christmas day now, not Christmas time, right?" type comments from sun-up until sun-down. I keep trying to help him feel the joy of anticipation but it's like reigning in a thoroughbred stallion all day long. I remember December taking as long as every other month combined when I was a child, crazy with excitement, and so I am trying to be patient with him. I bet I drove my parents NUTS. My memories of Christmas don't hold any specific feelings of irritation and exasperation radiating from them, so perhaps C is not picking up on mine.

By the way, our family recorded what I think is to become a new Christmas traditional show for us - Shrek the Halls. It was hilarious! And pretty true - basically saying that everyone experiences feelings of chaos and failure during the season, but that's all part of it. As donkey says, "It isn't Christmas until somebody cries!" How true is that? I had some low moments today but have perked up in time to stay up extremely late working on projects I don't have time for but have committed to do anyway. Why am I blogging? Avoidance, really. See how I keep on typing even after I have nothing left to say? It's a tactic I've been working on.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Goodbye, Fall!

What a lovely fall we had. Really. I got to do so many fun things - hiking in the mountains, doing lots of Halloween stuff, collecting leaves...I feel like I thoroughly enjoyed the fall this year. Sometimes it just seems to rush by too fast. Or it stays summer-hot too long and then suddenly it's snowing. Not this year. It was great.

There was a big storm that came through Utah this weekend. On Friday I swore to Troy that I heard on the radio something about "4 to 8 inches" of snow. He thought I had it wrong and that it was the mountains that were really going to get it, which is great. On the news that evening the weather report didn't say much about snow in the Salt Lake Valley, and we got the impression that we might get a few flakes but mostly rain. This didn't sound too bad, after all, we still have piles of leaves to rake and hoses to put away and stuff like that. Well, at what...three in the morning? (whatever time RAP needed a drink) I was up and looked out the window to see rain quickly turning slushy and fat. By the time we got up there was already at least an inch on the ground and it just snowed all day. I think we got around six inches. It was so fun to get the white stuff on the first of December! I was even in the mood for Christmas music. What I liked best was hearing a favorite tune, Let it Snow! without being bitter that there was no snow in sight. We had a very lazy Saturday puttering around, baking, playing, and I ventured out for a little shopping. I have such a good husband. Saturday is always a big day for him to get stuff done on the house, but he needed a lazy day as much as I needed to get stuff done, so he spent a ton of time with R (CTP spent pretty much the entire day at a friend's house). Little R does love her daddy.

On another note, I was driving the kids around today on one of the seemingly 1368 errands I did. It was almost the end of the day, thus it was almost the end of my wits. CTP just gets so chatty and I guess super curious. I never thought I'd try to stifle my child's curiosity, but after 90 minutes of a constant stream of nearly unanswerable questions I have to put a cork in it somehow. I think my favorite question of the day was this:
"Mom, I know everything. Is there anyone else who knows everything?"
I replied, "You know everything, huh? Okay, what's the square root of 29?" (Not very a very nurturing response, I know.) He calmly answered with total confidence, "St. George." Well, I guess you got me there, kid.