Last night I finished reading Words of Radiance which is the second book in the Stormlight Archive. And here I am updating this blog. Coincidence? Maybe.
Also I really just want to get updated before actual Christmas. We are going out of town and it's going to be a lot and so I want to know that this blog is updated before I go.
I'm 11 days behind so we need to rewind to Wednesday December 11th. (I feel like I've lived 5 lifetimes since then.)
Veronica's friend Akeylah couldn't come over when we did our Gingerfriend night earlier in the month. So she came over after school on Wednesday. I had all the gingerbread stuff ready for the girls so they got right to work when they came home.
It was fun to hear them laughing in the kitchen.
Here's Akeylah's house.
And here's Veronica's.
Charlotte and Lydia came home from school. They were going to take Marcia on a walk, but first they went to check on their chickens. They are so good at taking care of those chickens. While they were out there they found a small sparrow stuck in the bird netting that we have over the top of the chicken run area. The netting is up there to keep the hawks from getting to the chickens. So far it's worked. But somehow this little bird got all tangled up.
So they cut it out and then brought the bird inside the house in a box. It was really scared. They gave it a drink and some walnuts. We were thinking it needed to rest so they were getting Whiskers old cage ready for it to spend the night in. But then it started flying around the kitchen. Brandon caught it and we all decided that it seemed find and we might as well let it go.
So after all that excitement, they took Marcia on a walk.
Thursday was a BIG day. We had Living Nativity that night. Brandon's parents were coming up to see it and they would spend the night at our house. So in the morning Brandon and I made sure the house was clean. (The kids had also done some work the night before.)
I worked in the afternoon. I got home at 4:30 after everyone else was home from school - even Derrick. He'd just checked the mail and found a letter from Santa in there. It had a ton of confetti in it. He was so excited about that letter.
We've learned that its just too hard to make dinner on these Living Nativity nights. Fortunately everyone in our family really likes frozen burritos right now. Even Lydia likes them which is always a big deal.
When Derrick was little and not talking much I basically had a policy of if he could ask for something he go it because it was such a big deal that he was using words. That's kind of how we are with food for Lydia. If Lydia likes to eat something we make sure we have A LOT of it around.
Ever since we found out that she likes frozen burritos we make sure we have them. Normally they are just kind of a snack that the kids can eat whenever, but decided they should just be the meal for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It worked really well. The kids could heat them up themselves and Brandon and I didn't have to worry about making a big dinner.
Steve and Jacque were already at the house. They were able to see us as we got into our costumes. Here's Veronica's. This is the same one she wore last year. (And maybe the year before?) It's a little too short so I tried getting a different one for her. But that one didn't fit at all. So I went back and switched it for this one. She normally has a hard time keeping her veil on her head. Which hasn't been too big of a problem when she was little. But now that she's older I figured we should try a little harder. So this year she wore her hoodie under her costume. Then I pinned the veil to the hood of her hoodie. All she had to do was pull her hoodie up and the veil came with it. Problem solved!
Here's Charlotte - with Lydia photobombing. She has her same costume from last year with the really pretty brown dress and multi colored wool coat. It's one of my favorite costumes.
We couldn't find Lydia's costume from last year. So she picked out a yellow one. She still wanted something blue so her veil is actually from Veronica's original costume. Yep there was some switching going on.
And here I am. I've given up on having basically anything resembling a cute outfit and have instead leaned into being WARM. So I'm wearing Brandon's long thermal underwear that he got in the Army. (And never wore because he was stationed in the south.) Then I have on the tan dress. On top of that is a sweater - which you can't see, but it's there is one reason I like this outfit because it gives me more warmth. And then I have a poncho. The effect is that I'm very round and basically formless - but I don't get cold.
I do really like my head scarves. They are fun and colorful. I didn't want a crazy turban this year so I did them differently. I was also trying to hide the collar of the thermal underwear. I think in other years I've tucked it under, but this year I wanted it up over my throat. So I used the veil to hide the collar.
Brandon put on his outfit too, but I didn't get a picture of him. We couldn't find his usual outfit so he was in a new one with a read coat. It looked very nice.
Derrick has more sense than any of us and knows that staying out in the cold for three nights in December is pretty dumb. So he hasn't participated in a few years. He was going to stay home with Steve and Jacque and then go with them to the Living Nativity.
We drove over to Britt's property and parked in the big circular driveway at her neighbors house. Thene we walked to the little village that Britt has on her property. I've started thinking of it as a type of Brigadoon. It's a village that only appears for three nights every December.
The girls really wanted baby goats so I went with them to find them. This is always an adventure. We found them at the very back of the pasture by the stable. Charlotte got a baby goat and so did Veronica. They weren't as young as the ones they had last year, but they were still babies.
Veronica started out putting her goat in a wagon. But it was too bumpy.
Here I am taking selfies. I'm like the worst at getting into character for this thing. I have too much of a reporter in me. I just want to document everything. So during the 30 minutes before the place opens up I have my phone out and take pictures of a lot of things.
Here's Brandon's fish area. That's Lydia in the front. I had the hardest time getting pictures of that girls face.
No one was in the wool booth next to the fish stand so I decided that's where we would be. It had three bowls of dyed wool. The pink one was dry, but the others were still wet. They literally dyed our hands when we touched them. The fourth bowl had a pretty blue rope. But I'm pretty certain it wasn't real wool. It felt different. I spent probably the first half hour just trying to untangle that rope.
Veronica's goat was really heavy for her. So she sat in my booth and held it. Later we moved her chair out in front of the booth so people could pet the goat as they walked by.
She let Lydia hold her goat later when I took this picture.
At 6:30 Mitch Moffet came over the loud speaker. Normally he just starts us off with a prayer. But this year he started off by telling us all the locations of the FIVE fire extinguishers that were on the property. And then he prayed.
There were Roman Centurions on horses. They'd been at the front of the line of people waiting to come in. After the prayer the Centurions lead the people in. It was fun to see them go by on their horses.
Steve and Jacque and Derrick came by around 6:45. I've shared polos about this Living Nativity for the past several years. And every year I hear back from Brandon's family things like, "Oh that looks so fun. We should come sometime." So this year as soon as the dates were announced I got on Brandon's family polo group and said something like, "Here's your reminder to plan a trip to see this." So they finally planned to come.
They said they'd been to other Living Nativities, and they'd seen all the other polos I'd sent over the years. But there's really nothing that prepares you for the Twin Falls Living Nativity.
There are so many incredible layers to this place. There's the market with so many sights, sounds, and even smells. The costumes are beautiful - especially when it's dark. And there are so many details like live animals. Later, after they'd made it over to the stable Jacque asked me, "Was that a real baby as Jesus?" I replied, "Yes!" Steve had loved the Three Wisemen. They both kept saying it was the best Living Nativity they'd ever seen.
Here are some of the pictures they took. This is Veronica with her goat and me in the background.
They got a picture of all of us together.
Here's a wider shot.
And me in my booth.
Oh and I have to mention the weather. It was so nice. The day had been like 45 degrees and it only got down to about 39 that evening. I didn't even need handwarmers.
When we got home we talked with Steve and Jacque about how great it was. They were still gushing about everything.
I went to bed around 10:30, but Brandon stayed up talking.
On Friday when we woke up we found Charlotte sleeping on the living room couch. She'd had a rough night. So she stayed home from school. But she told me that NOTHING would stop her from going to the Living Nativity that night.
We also woke up to SNOW on the ground. It was barely and inch but it was still exciting to see. (It also meant that everything would be wet at the Living Nativity that night.)
I went to work soon after Derrick was on the bus. I got a lot done there. I came home around noon. Brandon was doing a job interview over zoom when I got home. He was in our room so Charlotte filled me in.
The night before Brandon had been like, "Oh by the way I have two interviews tomorrow." He briefly explained them both, but I was so busy with all the costumes and stuff that I just didn't pay attention property. One was for hospital equipment and another was for . . . something. Both were virtual interviewss.
Charlotte told me that the first interview hadn't gone well. They'd somehow expected Brandon to have a lot of experience, but also no experience because they wanted to train him there way. He didn't like the mixed signals they gave him. So that had been a disaster.
But this interview went better. Brandon came out of our room and told me it had gone well. This was for the hospital job. It took a few days for me to figure out what this job was not. It was not the building maintenance like the elevators or toilets. And it wasn't for the specialized things like dialysis machines. But it was for some sort of machinery like heart monitors - I think?
I spent the afternoon making cookie dough. We were doing cookie decorating with Jori's family on Sunday. So I made gingerbread dough and sugar cookie dough. Both needed to chill in the fridge overnight so I made the dough on Friday and would roll it out and make the cookies on Saturday. I was working on it as the kids were coming home from school. Each kid was like, "Mom is baking?" I was like, "Oh come on, it hasn't been that long since I cooked something."
Lydia's middle school had a pep assembly in the afternoon. She and Charlotte hate these so I always check them out early. So at 2:30 I went over there and checked her out. My friend Kerri is the attendance secretary. While we waited for Lydia we talked about the auditions for Cinderella that were coming up. Both of us were planning to audition.
That night Derrick would be hanging out with our neighbor Diantha. I wrote out a schedule for him. In other years I've just left him home alone while we all left. He was fine with that, but I always worried. We usually leave around 5:45 and don't get back home until 9:00. That's a long time to be alone. And this year I wanted to do all three nights. I really didn't want to leave him alone three nights in a row. So I'd asked some friends to help.
Diantha would be busy at 5:45, but she could do later. So I was fine leaving Derrick home alone until she could pick him up. It worked out really well. He had a fun time watching Back to the Future with her.
The rest of us got into our costumes and went back to the Living Nativity. We had to be there a little earlier because this was the night they were filming the video. I spent the time documenting my own things. Here's my booth.
And me with my favorite head wrap style EVER. I'm still not entirely sure how I did this, but it turned out so pretty.
Ivan had been there on Thursday, but I didn't get a picture. He came over to talk to Brandon and I made sure to take a picture of the two of them. This is where it all started.
The competition for baby animals had been fierce this evening. Veronica didn't get her goat (and was super sad about it until she realized that this freed her up to go taunt Ivan.) Charlotte was determined to get her goat though. She'd even brough her own rope to use since she'd had trouble with her goat the night before. So she somehow got her goat and then had the best night playing with it.
I was actually pretty tired and my foot hurt from standing in bad shoes so much the night before. So I went and sat in my booth for the last 20 or so minutes before the people were let in. I spent a lot of time just watching the smoke curl off the incense. It was really peaceful.
The night before I'd played a lot with the dry pink wool. This time all the wool was wet - and smelly. I played with it for about an hour, but then my hands were just too cold.
Veronica had fun running all over. She'd go talk to the people around Ivan and say things like, "Don't go to this man, he hasn't washed his hands in a year!" Then she'd come back and tell me everything. She was laughing and so happy.
Later she was like, "Mom, I've got this. You go walk around and see things." So I left her in charge of the booth. And honestly, she was so much better at it than I was.
My entire thing was just saying, "You can touch the wool." and then pointing out how the real wood felt different than the synthetic. If anyone asked me what how the wool was dyed I'd just reply with "I don't know." or "Probably with Rit." At other booths the people would get really into showing off their wares or how they did things. I wasn't like that.
But Veronica. She was in her element. She'd say things like, "You are probably wondering how this was dyed. I think it was from Wal-Mart. I've never met him."
She also would pretend to fall asleep and then wake up when people walked by. In 10 minutes she gave that booth more energy than I had in a night and a half.
I went and walked around. I was able to see everything. I had my phone with me, but I refrained from taking pictures.
When the crowds thinned out after 8:30 I took more pictures. I was trying to get one of Lydia's face. I followed her around for a long time before she turned around and gave me this smile. She'd spent most of the night helping Brandon with his fish booth.
Here's Charlotte with her goat.
She loved that thing so much. She really wishes that we lived outside of city limits so she could have a goat.
But this will half to do for now.
Here's Veronica pretending to be asleep.
I tried to get a picture of the Roman soldiers as they walked by, but I didn't quite capture it.
We went home and I think I went right to bed. I was so tired.
On Saturday we had our ward Christmas Breakfast. The primary took over it this year and my friend Chandler was in charge of decorating. It looked so good.
Brandon brough his amazing cinnamon rolls. The sign up sheet was so funny. It was a bunch of women's names and then Brandon's.
We ate and then the Primary kids acted out a little nativity. Brandon was the narrator. It was all really cute. The best part was the end when our friend Will who is about 5 and has down syndrome stood up. He was dressed as a sheep. He went the edge of the stage and yelled, "Mom!" It was so cute.
We went back home and cleaned up the house a bit. We didn't have to do much though because we'd cleaned it before Steve and Jacque came.
I worked on my cookies. I got them rolled out and baked.
My foot was killing me by the end. I'd worn my boots on Friday night and all day on Saturday, but my foot was still not happy.
Derrick was on a Godzilla and King Kong kick. He'd had me order the 2014 Godzilla movie from the library and had been asking if it came in yet. It had come in so we went to pick it up. Then we came home and "watched" it together. Actually I just took like 3 ibuprofen and then fell asleep on the couch. But it counted for something.
All day it had been raining off and on. I'd been debating going to the Living Nativity that night. I've never done three nights in a row so I'd been hoping to do that this year. Derrick was supposed to go to his friend Cayson's house.
But as the rain kept coming and as my foot kept hurting I realized that I just wanted to stay home and relax. I was fine with cold, but I didn't like the idea of being soggy.
So I stayed home with Derrick. It was a lovely evening. I read Words of Radiance for like 3 hours straight. I only got up to move laundry (I was already washing my costume.)
Brandon and the girls had a good time. The rain let up for most of the evening. And there were huge crowds of people. This event is getting popular.
On Sunday we didn't go to our church. We went to the Kimberly Christian Church to see our friend Payton in her Christmas play. She was an angel. Kerri and Nate were so happy that we came out to support their daughter.
We stayed for the service after the little play. The kids had mixed feelings about it all. They liked how casually everyone was dressed. When the worship music started playing they were like, "So it's like a concert?" They thought the pastors sermon went a little long. Veronica kept whispering, "Get to the point" At the end of his sermon he quickly said, "Let us pray" and went right into a prayer. Veronica said, "That was the most awkward prayer ever!"
We stayed to congratulate Payton and then went hom.
That evening Jori's family came over for dinner. We had orange chicken and then decorated cookies.
Here are Derrick's.
Veronica worked on hers for a long time. She and Jori's oldest were at the table the longest.
Jori's kids LOVE our house because they love all our toys. My kids have outgrown most of the toys, but we still keep them in bins in the basement. Jori's girls love all the little Calico critters and the fun things like the LOL camper and the airplane. It's fun to see the toys get loved.
It was so fun to have Jori and Tim over and talk with them.
I'd been doing the laundry to wash all the costumes. On the last load the washer started making a weird hammering noise. It was the last load so I told Brandon not to worry about it until Monday. I figured he could get in there and find what was wrong and we'd be back in business.
On Monday we were back to the grind. This was the last week before Christmas Break.
Derrick's teacher sent me this picture. Somehow the school had arranged for reindeer to come visit. Derrick had loved seeing them.
I'd texted Britt about us helping clean up the Living Nativity. She got back to me that it would be great. So after all the kids were home from school we went over there helped clean up.
Mostly we just gathered items from the stalls and put them in front of her prop/costume barn.
I told the kids we'd work for 45 minutes. But the rain started again after about 30 minutes so we only worked for 30 minutes. Still 6 people working for 30 minutes equals 1 person working for 3 hours so that helped Britt out a lot.
I also returned the costumes. But I realized that we'd missed washing Brandon's shoulder wrap. So I pinned a note on his saying that I'd bring it over soon.
Soon turned out to be much later than I thought because when Brandon went to look at the washer he discovered that the transmission was basically shot. (I didn't even know washer's had transmissions.)
We've known this was coming. We bought that washer used after we'd been married a year. It's served us well for nearly 17 years. It handled all the laundry with twins and then two more babies. It washed cloth diapers. It washed blankets. It's only ever stopped working once before.
Two years ago when the dryer died I knew the washing machine would eventually follow. Brandon told me that to replace the part would be expensive and so we might as well just buy a new one. He also told me, "It might be a good time to buy one anyway, I have a second interview with that hospital job."
So we bought a washer. All I can say is that I'm so glad we have emergency savings.
Tuesday was Twin Day at the Charlotte and Lydia's middle school. They dressed alike.
Veronica had her last theatre class of the year. She's going to miss it over the break.
That night Lydia and I walked down to take a picture of a house on our street that went ALL out on decorations this year. They even have a light up tunnel.
Nearly every house on our street has Christmas lights up. None are as incredible as this house though.
Brandon was in Burley at the little graduation ceremony for the Maintenance Technician students. The kids wanted to watch Curious George Christmas. Derrick wanted me to watch it too. So we all watched it together. The kids don't watch Curious George anymore, but they all still love that monkey. So it was fun to watch the show together. It's just so cute and sweet. I'm glad we did that.
At 7:30 I went over to my friend Beth's house for Bunco. I had my luck back. I ended up with 18 wins out of 24. I also had the traveler at the end.
The real crazy part of the night was when I was talking to a new lady named Melanie. She mentioned she was from Farmington, Utah. My crazy brain was like, "Ask her if she knows Kent Dunn." So I did. And she was like, "Yeah, he lived up the street from me. How do you know him." And then I had to explain that I'd started listening to Kent when he was on the radio 13 years ago and I'd just kind of followed him to podcasts. And how I loved his Baconsale Podcast. And how I considered him one of my most long term friendships. And how about 6 years ago we became Facebook friends. And that I was on the podcast about 3 years ago and finally got to meet him.
And she was like, "what? I had no idea he had a podcast?" And I was like, "WHAT you don't know about BACONSALE?"
So that was random . . . but fun.
On Wednesday Brandon had that second interview with the hospital job. It started at 10 and he was told to plan on it lasting an hour.
I went out to the garage and channeled my nervous energy into wrapping presents. I've probably told Brandon about 20 times how much I love this wrapping paper storage box that I bought after Christmas last year. It's hold everything and it so convenient.
We had plans to have Jori and Tim come over at 12:00 to watch Die Hard with us. (I'd been planning to just watch it on my own and then I was like "hey, let's do it together.") At 11:30 Brandon texted me that the interview was still happening and to just start the movie without him if he wasn't home.
So at 12:00 Jori and Tim came over and we started the movie. They hadn't ever seen it so that made it even more fun.
Brandon finally came home at 12:45. The interview had lasted 2 and a half hours. He met with a ton of people and then went on a tour of the whole hospital. All that seemed like a good sign.
We still haven't heard back about this job. Part of me is worried that Brandon is going to be ghosted - AGAIN. But part of me is hopeful that we will have some good news on Monday.
Brandon watched the rest of the movie with us. It was so fun. Then Tim helped Brandon move the new washer downstairs.
That night Charlotte, Lydia, and I went to the Orpheum to audition for Cinderella. We got there at 7:00, when auditions started and there was already a huge line of people there. Line is kind of a strong word. Really it was like a group of people stuck in a hallway. We just kind of kept track of who got their first and made sure everyone went in in order.
We ended up waiting 2 hours and 45 minutes for our turn. But that sounds way worse that it was. So many of my friends were also in line. Kerri, Nate, and Payton were there. Marianne and her daughter were there. Rachel was there. Sarah was there. Heather was there. Avery was there. It was basically everyone I've been hanging out with all every theatre event this year. So to me it felt like a party. I was like, "Oh yes I will stand in this hallway and talk to my friends. I don't care how long we are here."
Charlotte and Lydia were a little board at first. But then Lydia started talking with Kota who was her Shapoopie partner in Music Man. And then another 14 year old named Kellen came over and was talking. Those boys made everything more fun.
We were all really loud which was nice because then we couldn't hear the people who were auditioning the room. But as the crowd thinned out a bit it got a little quieter. Kerri made me promise to keep talking loud during her audition. Avery made me promise too.
I joked that when I went in for my audition I'd be all quiet and shy and they'd be like, "Um Valerie we've heard you talking non-stop for the last two hours - we know you can project."
When it finally was my turn to audition I wasn't surprisingly calm. One reason is that I have very low stakes in this. If I make it into the play - GREAT. If I don't - oh well. I kind of had the attitude of "I'm going you guys a favor by being here. You should be honored to have me auditioning."
The other reason that I was so calm was that the room was also full of my friends. Cami is the music director, Jarod is directing, Lauren is choreographing. They weren't scary strangers. They were people I've hung out with. (And who ADRORE my husband.) Jarod himself sent me the audition facebook event soon after he created it. So yeah, I was nervous, but not much.
Charlotte and Lydia came in with me. They said that Jarod started smiling really big when he saw them. He'd LOVED having identical twins in Music Man. And he'd given them the Ready to Rock and Ready to Roll awards after that play because they just did everything he asked of them every time.
I said, "We are just here for ensemble so we don't want to read for parts." And Jarod was like, "Great." (They had also been there for nearly three hours and were hoping to go home at some point.) So I sang "Lovely Night" I did it acapella because that was simpler. I'd been practicing it for a week and did pretty well - even though I'd been talking non stop for nearly three hours. Cami clapped at the end so that made me feel good.
Then the girls sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. That's what they'd auditioned with two years ago.
Then we did a little 20 second dance. It had been put on the Facebook group the week before, but we didn't learn it until Tuesday. The girls knew it better than I did.
And then it was DONE. There were still 5 people in line behind us. But none of those people had asked for me to talk loud during their audition so we could leave.
Auditions were also held on Thursday night. Then they did call backs on Saturday. The cast list should be finalized by Monday evening. I've been joking with Brandon about who will hear back first. Me about my audition or him about his job interview.
On Thursday morning Brandon and I got the kids all dropped off and then went to the church for a service project that I was kind of in charge of and kind of not in charge of.
About a week earlier I'd been asked by the Ward Relief Society President if I could get 3-5 ladies together to help with stuffing stockings for the Valley House. Some other lady was in charge of all the supplies, I just needed to find the people.
When I texted the lady she said I needed to pick up the supplies, organize them and stuff the stockings and then bring it back to her.
Well I found the people - like 10 of them. And then I realized doing it at my house would not work at all. So I scheduled the church building for 9:00-12:00 on Thursday.
On Wednesday when I texted the lady about picking up the stuff she changed the plan on me. She said that she would bring it to the church on Thursday. I was like, "Whatever, I'm sure she has this all figured out."
That turned out to be a very generous assumption. She was not organized. Like it looked like there had been an attempt, but it was kind of a mess.
I ended up having to shift into "Hammer Mode" to get things moving. I hate when I have to get all forceful and direct - especially when I wasn't the one actually in charge. I was hoping for a fun morning chatting with friends while we leisurely stuffed stockings. Instead it was nearly chaos as we tried to get everything put together correctly.
Later I could joke about it and laugh about how this activity really sorted out the Type A people from the Type B's. The Type B's (like Brandon and my friend Chandler) were like, "Oh this is kind of chaotic, but whatever." The A's (like me and Jori's husband Tim) were like, "What heck is happening! This is such a mess!"
What really saved us was my friend Megan. She is an angel. She took such good care of the lady who was "in charge" of all this mess and made her feel loved and supported and valued. I was glad Megan did that because it really balanced out my more forceful approach to getting things accomplished.
Anyway, the people in my ward who showed up to help really did a great job and in the end it was all done. My friend Jamie described it as "what an adventure."
I texted the RS president to let her know it was done. I told her our ward did awesome, but we needed to vet any other projects coming from this lady before we agreed to help again.
After all that I went to work and got a lot done at Castle Therapy and then Aspen. I actually had a really bad headache by the end of the day so I left and came home and took a long nap.
Thursday night was blessedly empty of many activities. Derrick had a movie night with some of the boys from Young Men's. They watched Home Alone. Derrick was so excited for it that he just walked right into the house without knocking. Fortunately, one of the little sisters had been at the window and saw him so it's not like he entered without any warning.
I spent the evening reading. It was so nice.
Friday was the end of a semester's long marathon. It was good to get to the end. It wasn't until I turned off all my alarms for the morning and the afternoon that I realized just how busy each day has been. We've all gotten used to this whole four kids in three schools thing - but that doesn't mean it's easy.
I worked in the morning and then came home and hung out with Brandon for the last hour before the kids started showing up. They had an early out so they only went to school for about the half the day. Veronica was home first, then Charlotte and Lydia. Brandon took all of them to D&B to buy a Christmas present for Marcia. I was home when Derrick was dropped off by the bus. He was wearing a new coat and had a bag of some new clothes. I guess one of his teachers had bought them for him - but maybe it was also from something through the school - I couldn't quite figure it out.
Brandon had been cooking up a storm and at 4:00 he was done so we started our Christmas Under the Tree tradition. We started with food. I joked that this was to lure the teenagers out of their bedrooms.
Then Lydia helped Marcia open her presents.
We read the Christmas Story from the Bible. (I always back it up to the middle of Luke 1 so we can read about the angels words to Mary and Mary's Marnificat
. I'm like, "She has lines! We need to read them!"
The we watched Poky's Christmas which is a movie Brandon's brother put together when they were like 17. It's really cute.
Then we opened the ornaments that Jacque painted this year. Last year it was a Partridge in a Pear Tree. This year it's Two Turtle Doves.
We surprised the kids by putting two presents under the tree. And every single one of them asked about them when they got home from school. I said they were for Christmas Under the Tree.
They opened them in two groups.
I wish I got Charlotte's shocked expression when she realized what the presents were. But you can see her happy smile here. She was so excited to see that both presents were legos. One was of Santa's Sleigh. She had just been telling Lydia that she wanted to get it, but would probably have to wait until next year.
Here she is with the Reindeer. She was so happy.
The kids and Brandon worked on the legos for a long time. Later it was mostly Charlotte working on everything. On Saturday morning she and Derrick put the gingerbread house together. It was cute to hear them working together.
I called my mom and dad and talked to them for over an hour. When I was done I sent them this picture of the sleigh all put together.
Then we all just hung out in the living room. I think the kids were playing Shell Shocker together. Here's Derrick on his computer.
Lydia on her's and Charlotte on her phone.
Brandon was on his phone, Veronica was on her computer. And I was ready Words of Radiance. (I looked better than this in real life. I don't know what was happening here.)
We were celebrating the beginning of the break so we didn't really enforce a bed time. Derrick and Veronica wanted to sleep in the living room so they made beds on the couch.
On Saturday we slept in until about 9:30. Then we started cleaning up the house. I'd washed Brandon's shoulder wrap on Wednesday after the washer was hooked up, but I still hadn't returned it to Britt. That was weighing on my mind so I made sure to bring it over to the barn and put it with the rest of Brandon's costume. It felt good to finally be done with those.
Charlotte and Derrick finished the gingerbread house lego set and put it on the winter scene that Charlotte was creating downstairs.
I haven't cleaned out the car in a while and I don't know the last time it was vacuumed out. So we spent a lot of time getting it all cleaned out before our trip next week. Brandon and Derrick vacuumed it all out. It felt so new.
Originally I didn't have anything planned for this Saturday. But then Charlotte saw an instagram post about a really cool Straw Maze near Boise. Charlotte doesn't ask for much - especially now that Brandon is unemployed. So when she said she wanted to go to that I was like "YES we will make that happen."
But I was also not so sure about a day trip to Boise. So we changed the plan sightly to go to a different straw maze in Burley.
Around 3:00 we drove out to Burley and found a park by the Snake River to have dinner. When I'd made the menu earlier in the week it sounded so fun to have Hoagie Sandwiches at a park. In reality it was cold and a little windy and half the kids had coughs and sore throats. So we weren't there very long.
Then Brandon drove us over to the school where he teaches. When we got to the school the kids saw a train crossing the road a block away. They were so funny about that train. They were like, "DAD stop we have to watch it." He was like, "What the heck kids, since when did you ALL care about trains. Let's go look at my school." So we drove around the school.
But the kids were still going on about that train - it was like we had a car full of 5 year olds again. The train had already passed this crossing. But it was going slow. So Brandon drove a few blocks further and we got ahead of the train. Then we parked right it as it crossed the road. The kids all cheered with delight.
After that we drove out to the Burley Straw Maze. In the fall this is a regular straw maze. Then they decorate it with thousands of Christmas lights and reopen as "Lost in Christmas."
We got there right when it opened at 5:00. The kids were so excited.
They'd been eyeing the zip line, but I wasn't sure if it was included in the general admission. We were all happy when we found out it was included. The kids went there right away.
After they played on the zipline for a long time they went to see what else was around. Charlotte and Lydia jumped on the teeter totters.
And then Derrick and Veronica joined them.
They also played on this big slide.
Here are Brandon and me watching and enjoying the atmosphere.
Then the kids went on the big slide. I couldn't get a picture of them on it. This was just the end after they dropped down a big drop and slid to the end.
And then it was time to go into the actual straw maze itself. Here's a link to a
video of us walking through it for about a minute.
It was kind of crazy at first, but we soon got the hang of it. We'd go through a bunch of long walkways and then they would open up to rooms. This room with lots of white lights was stunning.
Here's Brandon and I in there.
The tunnels were different colors. It was really fun to walk through them.
We finished the maze in about 20 minutes. Then the kids wanted to pose with this fire truck.
The kids played on the ziplines and then wanted to go back in the maze. We split up and were kind of having a race. Brandon had the three girls and I was with Derrick. But it quickly became apparent that Derrick wasn't interested in winning any races. He wanted to explore every corridor. And he wanted me to take lots of pictures of things.
We both really liked these snowflake lights.
It was fun to see all the little decorations. These also helped with navigation. You'd know if you'd already been in that area before.
This big room had hay bales that were painted to look like characters from Inside Out.
Derrick liked this Snowman.
The maze ended with a nativity scene. Derrick wanted to be part of it.
We'd been there about an hour and a half and the kids were feeling pretty done. So we left and drove home. The temperature had been about 43 degrees all evening. It was really nice. But even with the nice weather the kids were all in various stages of sickness. Charlotte had a sore throat, Lydia and Charlotte had coughs, and Derrick - well Derrick was fine. When we got home we made sure everyone got medicine. Then we had a nice evening at home. The kids watched something and I read the last 150 pages of Words of Radiance.
Today we slept in and then went to church at 10:30. (Charlotte stayed home because her sore throat had turned into a seal cough.) I was kind of bummed because I wasn't in the choir this year. I wasn't really looking forward to listening to other people sing. But then I realized that they were having the ward sing along with more than half the songs. I was like, "Oh we are ALL in the choir." So I was really happy.
The church was packed with people and it was fun to sing together. I had a lovely moment where I just kind of looked around at everyone with so much love and peace in my heart. I love this ward community.
And that gets us caught up. YAY. I'll tell you all about our Christmas in my next post. I hope you have a Merry Christmas.
Thanks for reading!
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