We made sandwich sushi in Iowa with Elisabeth and Miriam! Oh yeah! Uh, don't write that, okay? No don't write that, Mommy! No, don't write that! That's all I want to say! Okay, stop writing mom. BACKSPACE!
(this post was told by Solei and transcribed by Mom. Obviously.)
Back in February my mom came to visit us to cheer up our winter. YAY! And shock of all shocks, I had my camera handy!
Solei made a phone thingy. Can you hear me now?!
Mom helped us make Valentines. I really like the feel of a handmade Valentine - not that they were all that fancy, but I like Solei sitting down and making something for her friends. I snagged the idea off Pinterest - hearts that you fold up into envelopes.
Jared and Forster supervised.
Solei decorated and addressed, Mom wrote the "Happy Vatentine's Day" and I folded.
Cute, huh?
I kind of hate the major influx of candy at holidays, so we played it cool by decorating a piece of sugar-free bubble gum and slipped it inside.
Then they took a well deserved rest.
Another marvelous thing about Mom's trip was how much time she spent tickling, wrestling and loving on Forster. If you've spent any time with him you know the way to his heart is touch and play, and Mom gave it to him in spades. He walked around in a happy daze for a week and for the next week every time he woke up from a nap, he stood up and begged for Gamma. She needs to visit again ASAP!
I miss her too!
And one more random picture - I walked in on Solei reading Calvin and Hobbes to Forster and he was riveted! He'll even sit down and read it to himself now, yelling "Oh no!" and pointing to Calvin's wagon riding disasters. These kids are too dang fabulous! I MISS YOU MOM.
So the last few months have been an insane ride. There has been a pretty nasty storm brewing at Jared's work and he has been looking and interviewing everywhere like a madman. Honestly, one big frustrating part (for me) was that we just moved here 2 years ago, and at that time the company seemed stable, but it has been bought and sold a few times since then and things have changed dramatically. Ugh.
Anywho, our biggest preference was to head back to Atlanta. We do dislike moving and selling houses - although our last 7 years would dispute that claim - but we were more than willing to do it to get out of the crazy situation and back to my band, family and the familiar. But after a few offers, a LOT of prayers, Jared accepted a job in Madison. The commute isn't good, and we are staying in Wisconsin, both things we don't really dig, but we are trying to follow the Spirit on this one.
One tender mercy was the fact that this was the mildest winter we've experienced since we moved here. A good portion of the time there has been no snow at all! I know this was a blessing just for me. I've been a wreck, but not feeling like I'm trapped in a white tomb for 4 months has been seriously uplifting.
So now it is VERY March (for Colorado weather) - very windy but without a speck of snow. Solei begged to go outside with the kite yesterday and Jared humored her. As I watched them walk across the street, I felt very thankful for our home. We live on a lovely street right across from a park with huge soccer fields. It may not be my ideal place to live... far from it... but in the few sunny months, it's wonderful for the kids. As I went snap happy, I felt deeply grateful for our bit of real estate, and also keenly aware of the love our Heavenly Father has for our little family.
I'm posting this because I owe the internet. Just about every activity I attempt in my church callings is the result of googling, sugardoodling or Young Women pinterest boarding until I find someone else's great idea and run with it. But as I researched for our New Beginnings program, handbooks and experts kept reminding me that the girls should be in charge of the planning. So I let them at it - and their idea was nothing short of spectacular.
Their first great idea was to invite the Activity Days girls from Primary. Really, they were going to do all this work for themselves and the one incoming Beehive? Nope, they wanted an audience and the AD girls were SO excited to be included. It was adorable!
The 2 themes of the evening were first, this quote from Bonnie D. Parkin:
"If we are in tune with the Spirit, if our dream is to return to our Father in Heaven, the sweet moments will come."
... and the other idea that sprouted from that was CandyLand. A perfect match!
I'll walk you through the evening. First, we opened at the back section of our cultural hall. There was a prayer, a few words of welcome from yours truly, and then the YW stood and recited the YW theme. We wanted to give a brief overview of the organization, so I had my counselors and I tell the girls about the 3 classes. We each spoke about what the class was, as well as had the member(s) of that class stand so we could also brag on them and tell everyone why they were such fabulous examples. They didn't know we were going to do that, but after all that hard work we wanted to give them a little sugar :)
Then we invited the Activity Day girls to pick up one of these super fancy baskets I whipped out of paper plates (here's a super easy tutorial) and had them follow the YW into the next room...
A bit of advice: glue gun. It was fast and easy. I'm not sold on the ribbon, but definitely use a glue gun.
Like the Candy Land motif? It was all their idea and a 3 hour effort. The girls did a fabulous job, n'est pas?? We worked like dogs that afternoon to get it all together. The room was meant to look like a game board, with 4 tables set up as "lands." The girls came up with their own titles for their lands too - the only one I can remember now is Gummy Bear Island but they were all hysterical.
Each YW was assigned 2 of the values to introduce the Activity Day girls to in some creative way in about 5 minutes. They came up with the ideas all themselves too - there were some silly multiple choice questions, one girl did a blindfold activity to talk about faith, and another printed out these sweet handouts for Individual Worth.
The AD girls rotated around to each "land" and at each one, they were given different candies to put in their baskets. Their purpose came up in the last room where we had our closing.
Here in the last room we had cupcakes and a few other lovely decorations, including a picture of Christ (an original painted by my fabulous mother-in-law) and 3 framed pictures with the definition of each class (go Jenna!). I explained that as they had gone around the game board and learned about the YW values, they'd earned these yummy treats that we would then take our plain cupcakes and decorate them to make them even sweeter! As in life, we learn that by learning about and following our YW values, our lives are much happier as a result. We encouraged them to seek for the sweetness that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings to all our lives. Then we had a closing prayer and the girls got to decorating - and were allowed to eat them AFTER I took a picture first. Maybe at some point I'll actually get them on the bulletin board :)
this is the after picture - the cupcakes had been attacked. But you get the idea.
Jenna demonstrating the perfect way to eat a cupcake - a cupcake sandwich!!
Very tired, but very happy presidency.
I added this last picture because the girls and the scouts that were also loose in the building cleaned everything up while I was puttering around the RS room - I'd expected to be there all night cleaning up, but within minutes this was the scene. I LOVE OUR YOUTH!!
Through this I gained an even deeper appreciation for our girls. I also LOVED the way the AD girls were so excited and looked up to them. They are worth looking up to.
Also, if you are wanting to do something similar, there's a lot of candy party decor inspiration here.
OKAY INTERWEBS, NOW WE'RE EVEN!
P.S. Also, we are not a ginormous ward from Utah. We're in Wisconsin and we're superduper thrilled to have 4 girls. It was 2. Some days it's 1. You do NOT need a big thriving program to throw something crazy cool. Just crazy cool girls :)
I'm not gonna lie, I woke up Saturday morning and wondered if I should just call this Christmas a wash. We hadn't had the cheeriest week and I didn't know if all four of us home together all weekend would just end in disaster, holiday or not. So out of curiosity, I decided to document all 48 hours just to see in the end if our Christmas this year was a fail or not. I started bright and early on Christmas Eve morning (and yes, this WILL be the longest, largest post in the history of blog posts):
Jared was off helping some poor Brasilian motorists so breakfast was up to me - and the kids. Red and green chocolate chip waffles, anyone??
The kids ate while watching Thomas the Tank Engine and sitting at the kitchen table like Irish Setters.
For me, hot chocolate. Breakfast of champions.
Then I decided to take some pictures of our tree ornaments to remind me of the some of our great Christmases past.
Wedding ornament. Less than a month until year seven!
A Brasilian keychain a bunch of random kids gave to me after meeting me in a park.
My leprechaun from Mr. Howard Williams of the Border Collies.
Our first married Christmas, we made Jared's family make us ornaments for our nekid tree. Most of them have survived! These are Danny and Anna's contributions.
The kiddos then decided to go play in the half inch of snow in our front yard (a Christmas miracle - there aren't 18 feet of snow out there!!).
The fact that we can get Forster in all that gear - heck, even a HAT is a miracle. And the result of massive amounts of therapy (for him) and prayers (from us). I teared up while slipping on his mittens - while I knew he didn't like it or feel comfortable, he was determined to do whatever it took to "GO OU-SIDE!!"
We managed to get a picture of them in all their gear, which I was super proud of. And then I realized you can SEE how we managed to get the picture. Hi there!
Jared came out about halfway and took some pictures. I'd been playing with the camera settings to get good lighting indoors and had forgotten to switch it out of manual, so the pictures came out super artsy.
See what Forster is doing there? He spent almost the entire time eating the snow off his gloves. I think he ate half the yard.
Then, lunchtime! We'd done all this last Saturday too, so as we were going in Forster kept yelling "HOT DOG!" He knew it was pigs-in-a-blanket and picnic time!
Oh, and also time to go for a wee jaunt in Daddy's snow boots.
Then without any prompting from me, Solei got out her violin and decided to do some fiddling around. With only minimal amounts of me begging her to use smoother bows.
Then there was an incident involving playing a game on Daddy's new tablet and Solei's hatred of losing anything.
Was I going to let this be the final thing to derail our happy holiday? NO! You know what solves almost all ills?
Nail salon! And also, playing with the camera timer!
There was a snack of popcorn...
... covered in industrial strength cheese powder. There was also some pie bakin':
And we bundled up to head for Christmas Eve dinner with some friends.
We had to hurry home for my favorite part of all Christmas - Christmas Eve and the retelling of the nativity story.
Of course after the part about the Wise Men, it's Solei's favorite part... one present each.
Does Solei know her brother or what??
Curly Temple! Thanks, Gamma!
At this point, everyone was wiped so we prayed, snuggled, called it a night and vacated the premises to give Santa the space he needed.
Forster woke us up repeatedly all night, not because of anticipation. So when I finally got up at 5:30am or so with him, I made him snuggle with me so Daddy could get a few more zzzzzzzs. And when Solei woke up, she was sweet and didn't race downstairs, she just snuggled up to us on Forster's couch until Daddy came out and checked downstairs to see if Santa had stopped by. It was a wonderful way to start Christmas, at least for me!
And then the mayhem began...
.... except there was no mayhem. They were so excited to play with their first presents that there was no frenzy to get to the next one.
Oh, and one cool thing - Forster saw the unwrapped presents and said "open!" and actually ripped the paper off! He's getting this present thing down!
We had to kind of rush them though - we had to get breakfast and all dolled up for church.
Blueberry muffins - breakfast of champions!
There was time for a good snuggle before church, though. Forster was a little tired what with yelling at us all night.
Church was lovely. The loveliest part was no 7:30am ward council and no other meetings besides sacrament! Jared narrated the program and I played violin and wrangled the kids in between. Then it was time to head home and continue the madness.
First up, throw on pajama pants I MADE!! And then try to get a picture of the kids wearing them....
And when that fails, try at least to get one of each.
Jared played on his new toy...
...and then taught Solei about chemical reactions with yeast...
... and her nifty new science kit. I'm glad no one asked me to try and explain anything to her.
That's where I took a power nap. It was awesome. Also awesome? This was/is the front yard.
That's December in Wisconsin. YESSSSSS!!!!!!!
So the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. There was MoTab on the telly:
... science that involved a magic wand and patient Daddy....
... Forster playing with his car track and cars ALL DAY LONG..
... super yummy home made pizza from Daddy...
... Skyping with people we super like....
.. getting help from Daddy but mostly making potholder all by herself!...
... still more playing with the cars (he's doing it right now, actually!)...
... feeling incredibly blessed to get to spend the holiday with the people we love most....
.... and feeling relieved and wonderful that we survived another Christmas season. Together.
And now we're going to have Sarah and Alex here in a matter of minutes to play for a few days!! We'll leave you with the video we made of Jared's mom's artwork with Solei and my recording of For Unto Us A Child Is Born. Thanks to our wee Christmas album we recorded as a family, it was easy and thrilling to keep the reason for the season close to our hearts. And hearing your 5 year-old belt out Handel - and then your 2 year old start up - is reason enough to celebrate. Merriest of Christmases to you!!
