Pre- Christmas Fun

At church today the bishop read the Christmas Story over the pulpit. Of course, I'm familiar with the story, but today I realized I relate to this story in a different way than expected. 

Luke 2:1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.

I got distracted from the story with just that first verse.  The whole world should be taxed!  I can't even imagine what it was like to have to try to collect taxes for the whole world (or at least the whole Romen Empire.)  I work in the county Treasurers office and it's a huge process to collect the property taxes for just the county - and that's with computers and 10 key machines to help. Taxing the Romen Empire 2000 years ago had to be a bureaucratic nightmare. 

Property taxes were due December 20th so taxes have been a huge part of my life this Christmas Season.  Payments came pouring in through the mail, over the phone, and at the counter.  The questions and complaints came in as well. I felt like I did three times my regular amount of work each day.  And each day I came home pretty brain dead.  

I did make time for Christmasy things with my family so don't think tax collecting was the only thing on my mind this month.  Rather than bore you with the stories of trying to balance my till every night I'll tell you about the fun things we did as a family when I wasn't at work. 

Veronica's daycare/preschool class was invited to watch the final for a drama class at the university on Thursday December 13.  The college student did a readers theater performance of some Fables and James and the Giant Peach.  It started before I had to go to work so I went along and sat with Veronica during part of the performance.  She liked having me there.

 That night was the Relief Society Activity for my ward. In prior years they've done a Progressive Dinner in December, but I felt like December was a bad month to be driving around to different houses. Plus it's already such a busy month.  So way back at the beginning of the year, when I was just a committee member I suggested moving the Progressive Dinner to September.  So that's what we did. 

Later I was called to be the Committee Leader and since I knew I'd be so busy with work I didn't want to plan a big activity in December.  The easiest thing I could come up with was Caroling.  We announced that we'd meet at the church, go caroling for a little while, and then come back for Hot Chocolate.  Charlotte and Lydia wanted to go caroling so I decided that the activity would be open to what ever family members wanted to join in. 

We've had small attendance all year long so I honestly didn't expect many people to make it to the caroling activity. I was not surprised when we only had one other person besides committee members show up.  My two committee members each have physical reasons that prevented them from caroling.  They stayed behind and warmed up hot chocolate while Charlotte, Lydia, Kelly and I went caroling to some people that live near the church. 

Of the 5 houses that we went to only 3 of them were home. But honestly we had a really good time.  Charlotte and Lydia didn't know the words to a lot of songs so we just sang Jingle Bells at every house.  And the people who we did visit enjoyed seeing us.  The best part of all was when we walked back to the church and saw the brightest shooting star I'd ever seen.  It was like a reward for the 4 of us for trying to spread some Christmas Cheer.

Back at the church we drank our hot chocolate, chatted a minute, cleaned up, and then went home.  Seriously the easiest activity ever.  I have big plans for 2019, but I'm glad that 2018's activities could end so easily. 

Friday was Brandon's last day of Fall Semester.  He got all A's again.  Earlier in the week he passed the last FAA test he needed to take in order to be a licensed Air frame Mechanic. He is so happy to be done with those tests.  I feel like he's been studying for them for ever. He basically could go get a job right now.  But he is also working on the stuff he needs to do to be a licensed Power plant (engine) mechanic.  He's studying that in school and will take the tests in the Spring. When he's done he'll be a certified A&P Mechanic. 

And then a whole world of opportunities open up. 

And I do mean WORLD. 

There are so many places Brandon could work.  He could work in aircraft assembly, he could work for airlines, he could work in avionics (the passenger TV screens), he could go back to the military as a civilian contractor (if we really wanted we could go right back to Fort Rucker), he could work on crop dusting plans for farmers, he could work in general aviation for people with private planes, he could get a job where he works out of the country for two weeks and then is home for two weeks out of every month, he could work for life-flight helicopter places, etc.  The possibilities and locations are limitless.

It's been a little daunting to try to figure out what Brandon actually wants from a career as an A&P.   

We've started by deciding what Brandon's DOESN'T want to do. 

He doesn't want to work for airlines, or the military.  He doesn't want to be away from the family on a regular basis. He doesn't want to do assembly line work. 

He IS interested in working on the General Aviation side of things. This is where people/organisations with their own planes operate. Think of it kind of like mechanic shops for cars.  He'd do inspections and scheduled maintenance and repair work on airplanes that are brought in. 

So that's what he's looking at right now. 

Even with that slightly more narrow focus there still is a huge amount of opportunity. So the next few months are going to be full of decisions for us. 

One decision revolves around where we want to live this summer. Our options are on something of a spectrum. 

The Responsible Side of the spectrum has Brandon getting a job that starts right after he graduates. He moves to that job and stays in an extended stay hotel while the kids and I finish out the last three weeks of the school year (and our lease) in Pocatello. Then we all move to a new home as soon as school is over.

The Irresponsible Side of the spectrum is where Brandon gets a job but doesn't start there until July.  The kids finish up school and then we put all out stuff in storage for the month of June.  We'll go on a month long road trip to the East Coast to visit my brother in New York, Brandon's brother in Virginia, my sister in North Carolina, and then finish it up with Brandon attending (and winning) the SKILLS Club competition in Kentucky. 

I LOVE the possibilities on the Irresponsible side, but there are some cold hard facts that make me shy away from that side of the spectrum.  1. Our Honda has over 210,000 miles on it and I don't think it's wise to take it across the country.  2. After two years in school I think we should focus on an income rather than an epic vacation.  and 3. A&P Mechanics are in huge demand.  Potential employers are looking for Mechanics that can start yesterday.  Not July. 

So we probably wont be going on a big road trip - at least not this summer.

The Responsible Side has some flaws too.  I'm worried we won't be able to find a decent priced place to live that quickly. I don't want to rush into something just because we need somewhere to live.  And from what it sounds like, most of the employers start their new employees out at a lower wage and then gradually increase the wages over 6 months.  So Brandon will start out with a lower income than what we are expecting.  Sure it will get larger, but we wouldn't have it at first as we are applying for places to rent (or possibly even buy).

As Brandon and I talked over these possibilities for the billionth time I tossed out an idea for a plan that falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.  "Why don't the kids and I just plan to stay in Pocatello for the summer?"

It started out as just a throwaway comment, but quickly I turned the idea over and over again and found it to be a pretty solid plan.  It makes a lot of sense for several reasons.

1. We have a pretty great deal on our house right now.  It makes sense to stay in this house while looking for another.  That way we don't have to rush into the first rental house that we think might work for our family.

2. We have a great support system in place in Pocatello. We know a lot of people in our neighborhood.  We have a good ward at church.  And my parents are here.  I don't love the idea of having Brandon be away from us, but with help from family and friends we could get through it.  We've done it before and we can do it again.

3. We know Pocatello well.  I planned on staying home with the kids this summer and doing "Mom Adventure Camp."  At first I imagined this would happen wherever we moved and we'd explore our new community. But now I'm loving the idea of hanging out with my kids in Pocatello.  Thanks to last years Adventure Camp we know lots of great things to see and do.

4. It feels right.  As in it spiritually feels right.  Ever since we signed our 10 month lease last August I've felt so uncomfortable about leaving Pocatello at the end of May.  I just kept thinking of all the things and people we'd miss.

I thought at first that maybe that uncomfortable feeling was a prompting that Brandon should somehow find a job here in Pocatello so we could stay forever.  I've been praying a lot about that, but so far there haven't been any job offers. 

As soon as I started tossing around the idea of staying through the summer I started to feel much more at peace.  It reminded me of when we found out we had two extra months in Alabama, or when I stayed in Texas for two months when Brandon went to WOCS.  Two extra months may not seem like much, but both in Texas and Alabama I found that I was able to make a difference during that time.  There must be some reason I need two extra months in Pocatello too.

I know one reason already.  As I said earlier I have plans for Relief Society Activities in 2019.  So many plans in fact that I typed up a schedule for the whole year and handed it out at church.  At the time it felt really daring to say, "here's the plan for next year."  When I only planned to be here for the first 5 months.  But I felt that's what I needed to do.  A few days after I handed out the schedule was when I realized it made sense to stay.  Now I'll be here for 7 or 8 of the activities and be around for more of the planning on the later ones. 

Okay, enough about the future.  Let's pull back and talk about last Saturday, December 15th.  We had a lot planned for this day.  The main thing on the calendar was to take the kids to the dollar store to by presents for each other.  The kids love doing this and Charlotte make sure to write it on the calendar.  I thought she'd write it as, "Go to Dollar Store" but instead she wrote "Go shopping for each other."  As we've done in other years Brandon stayed in the car with the kids while I took each child into the store one at a time.  They'd pick out a gift for the other three kids.  The store has a fun selection of Santa hats so I let each kid pick out a Santa hat for themselves too.  They all were so happy about their hats. This was the best picture I got of all the kids in their hats.  They were way cuter in real life.

When we were done at the dollar store we went to Fred Meyer and picked up ingredients to make goodies to give out to our friends and the kids' teachers.  We wandered all over the store and and the kids were so good.  I think it was one of our best family shopping trips ever. 

Back at home we wrapped the presents and started making the treats. We did chocolate covered pretzels, muddy buddies, and these pretzel hugs from my friend Amber's Blog Dessert Now Dinner Later.  I always like doing these and I'm happy to give them out.  My only complaint is that I can't give a treat to everyone.  I have to limit the list and that makes me sad.  So if you are reading this and you didn't get a treat it's not because I don't like you.

My parents watched the kids on Saturday evening so Brandon and I could go do some Christmas Shopping.  

 This week was crazy busy at work.  Thank goodness Brandon was done with school.  He stepped into his role as head elf and took care of the last of the Christmas shopping, the grocery shopping, shopping for his own presents (because he is hard to buy for and I just didn't have the time or mental capacity to figure out his gifts), and a couple non-shopping projects he's wanted to do for a while. 

Derrick had a Christmas Program at school on Monday.  I had work but Brandon went. We'd all been really curious how much Derrick would participate in this program.  He'd had mixed reactions during the practices.  His teachers were great with him and made sure he knew what to expect.  He wore headphones during the program and didn't sing.  But he didn't cause a scene either.  He had trouble with the clapping, and was taken out early, but honestly it sounded like a success to me. 

On Tuesday I didn't have work.  I'd signed up to make 2 dozen cookies for some widows baskets my ward does.  I'd partially planned on Brandon making them for me, but I'd put so many projects on his shoulders that I figured I should do the cookies.  Veronica and I had so much fun making them together, but I must have missed a step because the cookies turned out terrible.  They tasted good, but they were flat, flat, flat.  We were out of butter and I figured that rather than go to the store and buy butter I should just go to the store and buy bakery cookies.  So that's what I did.  I learned that it's not a good idea to bake during tax time.

My favorite memory from the past week is from every evening.  We'd put on Christmas music on the radio and listen to that while cleaning up the dinner dishes with the kids.  Then we'd leave the music on and listen to it until bed time. The music set the tone perfectly. I loved that I didn't have to rush out to buy presents. 

Brandon went through the kids toys one day while he was home.  I came home on my lunch break and helped him with the final bit and then took a big box of old toys to the DI.  Now that those toys are out of the way the kids have noticed the toys they still like.  They have been playing with them all week. 

 Charlotte and Lydia made a stable for their big horses.

 They love playing together.

 Lydia is also really good a drawing dinosaurs.  Here's one of her latest drawings.

 In the evenings, after the kids were in bed Brandon and I worked on Christmas projects.  On Monday night we painted these jewelry/treasure boxes for the kids.  I'd ordered the boxes from Hobby Lobby's website. 

 On Tuesday we stenciled the kids' initials onto the boxes. 

 This is what they look like on the inside.

On Wednesday my first post for Idaho Falls Mom's Blog was published. I wrote about telling the truth about Elf on the Shelf to my kids.  The post had started out as a comment on a friends facebook post, but as I typed it I realized I had some pretty strong feelings.  I erased the comment and turned it into a blog post instead.  It was so great to read something that I wrote on a website that I didn't maintain. 

That night Brandon and I wrapped presents.  Brandon laughed at me as I pulled all the presents out of their hiding places.  I've had them cached in all sorts of places in our room. 

Thursday was the day Property Taxes were due at work.  It was a LONG day.  Made longer still by the fact that I couldn't get my stuff to balance at the end of the day.  I was at work until almost 7:00pm.  The kids were in bed by the time I got home.

I wanted to just watch a movie after work and fortunately my requested copy of SOLO finally came through at the library.  So Brandon and I watched that.  Sadly the movie started skipping halfway through and so we just went to bed. 

The kids finished school on Friday.  Derrick has been counting down the days for about two weeks so he was so happy that it was over.  I made it home from work on time on Friday, and we were all excited to start our Christmas Under the Tree tradition. 

We started out with mini pizzas for dinner.

 But we also had an assortment of snacks.

 Later we moved the snacks into the living room so we could be nearer the tree.

 Brandon read the Night before Christmas.

 In other years we've given the kids new pajamas at Christmas Under the Tree.  But this year we have plenty of pajamas.  So the kids just wore last year's Christmas Pajamas.  Instead Brandon and I bought everyone slippers.

 Charlotte and Lydia got unicorn slippers, Derrick got "scary fish" slippers, Veronica got puppy slippers, and Brandon and I each got memory foam slippers.

 We read the Christmas Story in the Bible and then opened some more early gifts.  The daycare made these ornaments with the kids pictures for us. 

Brandon's mom had sent us her hand painted ornaments for the year.  This year they were trains.  Derrick was so excited about his.

 All of them were painted a little bit differently. 

 Mine was a gingerbread one and I love it so stinking much.

 In other years we've just made beds on the floor and slept there, but this year we have a couch bed.  So of course we pulled that out.  The kids were so excited. 

 As fun as all of this looks, I was pretty brain dead and quite done for the week so I was very happy when we put on the movie The Santa Clause for the kids to watch.

 My computer worked just fine for the movie. 

 After the movie was over Charlotte moved over to a bed she'd made out of our ottoman and the piano bench.  I was certain she'd fall off, but she never did.  Derrick slept on a little bed made from the couch cushions.  Brandon and I slept on our King Size Pillowtop Mattress.

I wish I could say that Saturday was the epitome of Christmas Cheer and happiness, but honestly it was kind of a blah day for me.  I was tired and cranky most of the day.  (Side effects of a long and demanding work week.)

But there were a few happy moments. I went on a walk with Charlotte.  We needed powdered sugar and I thought a walk would get me out of my funk.  It helped a little bit and Charlotte and I had fun talking.  

Another happy moment was making gingerbread houses with the kids.  (This is why we needed powdered sugar.)

 We made them out of graham crackers and they turned out really well. Derrick had just finished watching the Polar Express so he was adamant that Brandon help him make a train engine instead of a house.  Good thing Brandon is good these types of things. 

 Another good part of Saturday was that my request for Avengers Infinity War came in at the library.  I've wanted to watch this for a while, but Brandon and I were a little behind on our super hero movies so we had to catch up before we could watch it in the theater. And then I heard that it ended sad so I wasn't interested in paying money to watch a downer movie.  So I was just fine waiting for the library copy. 

Actually the movie surprised me.  For how many characters and plot lines were involved the story was well told.  I enjoyed it a lot.  The ending was as sad as expected, but we had the benefit of being able to pull up the trailer for the sequel as soon as the movie was over.  Plus we watched How it Should Have Ended which was a good way to get rid of the somber mood. 

After being tired and grumpy all day I was suprised to find that I didn't want to go to bed. Brandon was up working on projects so I just stayed up til midnight too.  I regretted it this morning thought when Derrick woke us up right at 7:00.  Soon I had all four kids crowded around me.

 They took turns putting their cold hands and feet on me.  They through it was so funny. 

We went to church which was just sacrament meeting today.  YAY!  I sang one song with the ward choir and the kids sang with the primary. Other people in the ward played instruments and sang sons.  It was really good. Brandon always says our ward should record a CD. The bishop read Luke 2 and I thought about taxes.

After church we came home and the kids changed their clothes.  Brandon loaded up the car and soon I was saying good bye to him and the kids.  They are going down to Utah to spent the night at Brandon's parents before the big Christmas Eve party tomorrow.  I have to work (we still have tons of mail to get through) so I'm sticking around for that and then heading down to the party after work. 

Well there we have it.  I'm all caught up on the blog again.  I hope you have a wonderful Sunday and a Very Merry Christmas. 

Brandon's birthday and the first part of December

 The past two weeks could be summed up this way:

Work, Day off, Work, WORK, WORK/Birthday, Christmas Decorations, Church, 

WORK, Day off, Work, WORK and fun, WORK, a Christmas Party, Church.  And done. 

I'm kind of tempted to just leave it at that.  

But there are some fun stories I want to share too, so I guess I'll elaborate a bit. 

Obviously I worked a lot the past few weeks.  Property Tax notices were mailed on Monday the 26th and ever since then work has been busy.  We can always tell when the notices start showing up in people's mail boxes because the phones start ringing off the hooks, we get multiple people at the counter, and a ton of mail starts pouring in.  

It's busy, busy, busy. 

I'd planned to work on Tuesday the 27th, but I realized that tax time is a marathon and not a sprint.  I needed to make sure to take a break when I could.  So I didn't work that Tuesday.  And I wont work any Tuesdays during December.  I'm pretty happy about that.  

When the kids got out of school on the 27th I picked them up and dropped three of them off at my parents house.  Then Charlotte and I went to an appointment with an eye doctor.  Lately I've noticed Charlotte seems to be struggling a bit more with reading and math than Lydia.  I started to wonder if she needed glasses.  So I made an appointment with an eye doctor.  

I was just kind of randomly googling places to go when Alameda Vision sounded familiar.  I realized I knew Dr Anderson who is one of the optometrists there. He and his family were in our Fort Hood ward for a few months when we first lived there. I've been friends with his wife Amanda on Facebook ever since then.  I distinctly remember her saying, "We are building a house south of Pocatello and we'll never move again." When we decided to move to Pocatello I messaged her to get some general info about the area.  But I haven't really kept in touch other wise.  Anyway, I decided we might as well go see Dr Anderson since we have history together.  

I made a good choice because he was really nice and treated Charlotte well.  I told him that we'd known him in Fort Hood. He said he recognized my last name (it is pretty memorable.)  He said we'd made a good choice when we decided to move to Pocatello.  

It turns out that Charlotte does need reading glasses.  So we will try those out for a while to see if they make a difference with her school work. 

On Thursday Charlotte woke up and told me she felt sick.  This is a rather common complaint from the kids and usually it's nothing.  So I was just going to send her to school.  But I did my due diligence and looked at her throat with a flashlight. She had a white spot which had me worried.  Before I could make a final decision she had a coughing fit. That convinced me she was sick. 

I texted my parents and told them what was up and asked if Charlotte could spend the day with them.  They said yes.  (I'm so glad my parents live close by right now.  I really don't know what I would do without them in situations like this.)

I got the other kids on the bus and then came back to the house.  It was 7:30 so I called the drs office to see what time we could come in for a strep test.  They said the techs were usually there after 8:15.  I took a super fast shower, got Veronica ready, packed a lunch, and we were out the door by 8:10.  We dropped Veronica off at pre-school and then headed to the clinic. They swabbed Charlotte's throat and then we waited 10 minutes for the results.  It came back positive and I was so happy!  I know that sounds weird, but it was nice to know that I hadn't overreacted. 

I took Charlotte to my parents and made it into work at 9:20.  Whew!  What a morning.  

At lunch I picked up Charlotte's antibiotics and took them to Charlotte at my parents house. Later Brandon picked her up when he was done with school. 

Friday was Brandon's birthday.  

I'd thought that it was a good thing that Brandon's birthday was on a Friday. What could be better then celebrating at the end of the week?  Well it turned out that Friday was the first day we got slammed with incoming tax payments.  I was pretty brain dead by the time I got home from work. 

Fortunately I'd baked Brandon's cake before work on Friday so I felt like I'd contributed that way. He wanted the kids to help decorate it however they wanted (I think this was a ploy to get more candy on the cake) and so he and the kids did that while I was at work. 

 We had home made hamburgers for dinner.

 Followed by cake.  Brandon wanted his candles to spell out 36 in binary.

Here is the video of us singing happy birthday - filmed by Charlotte

After cake we went downstairs to watch one of Brandon's birthday movies - The Rocketter.  I laid on the floor and fell asleep for most of the movie.  But the kids all loved it.

It started snowing that night, so we woke up to a winter wonderland on December 1st.  Oddly enough, the first snow last year was also on December 1st.  This year was much better than last year though because we didn't have to get the kids ready for school.  Instead we stayed inside and got ready for Christmas. 

First we played a round of the cleaning game.  Then we got the Christmas Decorations out.  We had a lot of fun putting up the ornaments on the tree and finding places for everything else. I'm so glad we redecorated the living room over Thanksgiving.  The tree looks so good with the new curtains.

And I'm so glad we have a couch again.  My favorite thing to do is sit on the couch after the kids are in bed.  I've discovered that I love writing on the couch.  I've had a bit of writers block for a few months.  I thought it was because I can't write when I do so much math every day.  But now I think the real problem is that I hate writing at my desk after sitting at a desk at work all day.  Writing on the couch, with a Christmas tree to keep me company, is much more relaxing. 

After the tree was up the kids wanted to go outside and play in the snow.  Getting them ready literally took two months.  I'm serious about that.  I started checking thrift stores for snow pants and boots back in October when I was shopping for Halloween Costume accessories.  Then I had to make sure the summer things like hats and flip flops were put away and the winter things were ready to go.  

And then on top of all that I had to help the kids put on their boots, and gloves, and take off the boots so they could put on their snow pants, and then put the boots back on.  And then zip up coats because the kids couldn't do it with their gloves on, and there was no way we were taking those gloves off because it took 2 minutes just to get all the little fingers into the correct finger spot.  

I HATE winter gear. 

Finally everyone was ready and I took this victory picture and then took a nap.  

Actually before the nap, Brandon and I took a minute and made sure the hooks by the back door were ready for when all the wet winter clothes needed to be hung up.  Brandon even put up more hooks so they kids could hang their wet gloves on them.  And I rearranged the entry way a bit to make the winter gear more accessible in the mornings. You have to be strategic about these things when you have to worry about 4 coats, 4 snow pants, 4 scarves, 4 hats, 8 boots, and about 36 gloves.  

That night we relaxed by watching Elf.  Our old DVD had a scratch in it so we surprised the kids with a new copy.  They were so excited. 

While I was at church on Sunday I felt like I should invite my parents over for dinner that night.  So I called them up a little before they left for their ward.  I invited them over and my mom said that was just what she needed to hear.  She'd had a rough day on Friday and said that she needed hugs from her grand children.  

So they came over for dinner.  Charlotte and Lydia entertained us with the hoods on their pajamas. Here's Charlotte's deer.  

And Lydia's owl.

Lydia wanted to make cookies for her primary teacher so we made gingerbread men.  I gave Derrick a bag with icing in it and was planning to help him, but he surprised me and did a near perfect job with the face, three buttons, and some arm decorations.  He was so careful and had such good coordination.  After I tried decorating a cookie I realized that maybe Derrick could teach me a thing or two about decorating.  Mine looked bad.  Here's my best cookie next to Derrick's. 

We decorated the cookies while watching/listening to the Christmas Devotional for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints online.  When it was over Lydia and I took the cookies to her Primary Teacher. 

My parents hung around and talked with Brandon and I after the kids were in bed.  We haven't really done that yet, even though they've lived here since September.  But now that we have a couch its a lot more comfortable to stick around and talk.

On Monday it was back to the marathon.  And it was in full swing.  I like when work is busy because the days go by fast, but its also tricky to get everything done. 

I was so happy that I didn't have work on Tuesday.  Veronica and I ran errands in the morning.  When the other kids came home from school I made a really yummy stew for dinner. 

Wednesday was George HW Bush's funeral.  A lot of federal offices were closed including the Post Office.  That meant we didn't have any mail, and that meant I had a chance to get caught up on things.  I think a lot of people assumed that the county court house was closed along with the federal court house so we had less people in the office.  It was nice to get a breather. 

On Thursday I took a picture of the wasps nest that we'd noticed in our neighbors tree while we were walking to the bus stop.  I don't know what we'll do about this in the spring, but right now it's cool to look at.

After work on Thursday I drove up to Idaho Falls for an evening with the Contributors of the Idaho Falls Mom's Blog.  That's because, I'M A CONTRIBUTOR TOO!

The Idaho Falls Mom's Blog launched back in August.  My friend Sarah was one of the contributors and I loved reading her posts. (Here's the link to her writing, you're welcome.) I started following the Facebook page and noticed when they put out the call for new contributors in November.  At first, I had no intention of applying, but with Jen's campaign for treasurer ending I felt like I needed something new to focus on. So on a lark I submitted an application and writing samples to the Mom's Blog.  

A few days later I got an e-mail saying I'd been accepted as a new contributor!  I'm thrilled about this.  I'm excited to contribute to the information that is out there about Southeast Idaho.  

Being accepted as part of the blog also helped give me motivation to write.  I've felt a little stuck lately, but now I'm feeling the urge to write again.  

Anyway, I drove to Sarah's house and then rode with her to the meet up.  We had such a fun time together.  I loved getting to know some of the other ladies. Here I am with the other new contributors. 

 It was amazing to be in a room with so many talented and passionate women. I needed this evening so much.  Honestly, I felt like I'd found my tribe again.  I haven't felt part of something like this since we left Alabama and the military.  

I have a 6 month commitment with the blog, but right now I'm feeling like I want to be with it forever.  And Idaho Falls is back on the top of the list of places where we want to live after Brandon graduates.  (These a different top city just about every week.  I have no idea how we are going to decide where we are moving.)

Friday was another busy day at work.  But all day I had such a happy feeling in my chest from the night before.  Still I was pretty tired by the end of the day.  When I got home we had dinner and then watched another movie and I fell asleep on the floor again. 

On Saturday we pretty much did nothing.  And it was great.  In the evening we went to the church for our ward Christmas Party.  It was Polar Express Themed and we could wear our pajamas. 

The tables had these cute "North Pole" center pieces on them.

And they were decorated to look like train engines.

They served pancakes, eggs, and sausage for dinner.  And we could make our own hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was in giant 5 gallon coolers full of hot water.  When I went to get a refill I noticed one of the spiggots was leaking.  A brother in the ward tried fixing it while I went to find cloth towels.  All I could find were paper towels, but they weren't doing a good job of soaking up the water.  The primary president noticed the problem and came over to help.  She touched the spigot and suddenly the whole thing shot out and hot water started pouring all over the floor!  I grabbed a garbage can to hold the water until someone came and picked up the cooler and took it out.  Then someone else grabbed a mop and got the water off of the floor. We all had a good laugh about it.  

The Gate City Singers from Pocatello High School came to sing us songs.  They did a good job. 

But do you know who did an even better job?  Derrick.  

Last year he (and I) had some sensory problems with the way the room was laid out for the party.  We ended up out in the dark hall so he could settle down.  He refused to go back into the cultral hall to listen to the singers.  This year he did just fine with the dinner part (it helped that things were laid out much better this year.)  When the singers came he was upset by the noise and wanted to leave.  Brandon took him out to the hall - or so I thought.  A little bit later I was surprised to see them calmly standing by the wall.  Derrick made it though the whole performance. When it was over he wanted to buy the CD so I gave him $5 and Brandon went with him to buy a CD.  Derrick was so happy to get that.  

The Primary Chorister dressed up like the Polar Express Conductor and read the book to us.  The kids kept saying, "He's from Primary!"

When he was done everyone in the ward got a jingle bell.  The kids were so excited about those. 

We drove back home and decided to look at Christmas Lights before going home.  That turned into driving over to my parents apartment and doing some surprise caroling to them.  We sang Jingle Bells and shook our bells during the chorus. It was just as adorable as it sounds. 

Then it was back home and the kids went straight to bed.  Brandon and I have been watching Season One of Arrested Development on the weekends and we finished that up.  We've enjoyed it. And yes, we are super behind on pop culture.

Today was another relaxing day.  I'm expecting this week to go WORK, day off with lots of errands, WORK, WORK, WORK so I relaxed while I could.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though.  Not for me, but for Brandon.  The semester ends on Friday and then he gets three weeks off before starting his final semester.  And the kids only have two more weeks of school until they have two weeks off.  We are all living for Christmas break at this point.  I don't get much of a Christmas Break, but it will be nice when I don't have to get the kids out the door by 7:30 each morning. 

That's all for now. 

Enjoy your December and be patient with your county employees.

A Rare Thanksgiving at Home

Today's post is going to be a little out of order from usual.  Normally I talk about everything in chronological order.  But this time we are going to start out with the pictures I took today and then well go back in time about two weeks.  

Brandon and I are going to get rid of a lot of our stuff before we move in a few months. One of the things we decided to get rid of was our wooden round table.  I've had the table for 12 years and most of the time I loved it. It even served as our dining room table for about 3 or so years.  But lately it seems like it's just been a clutter dump. Brandon's parents have always loved the table so we decided to see if they wanted it.  They said yes.  

We'd moved the round table out of our living room to make room for the Christmas Tree last year.  So we decided that it made sense to give the table to my in-laws before Christmas this year.  They came up for a visit last weekend and then they took the table home with them when they left.  

None of us knew it, but we'd just set off a chain reaction that would end up completely redecorating our living room.

The first thing that happened was that the room felt off balance.  So I decided we should move the long green table with the radio on it over to a side wall instead of the wall you look at right when you enter the house.   

After we did that I looked at the corner by the piano and though that looked like a pretty place to put the Christmas Tree.  So I started to try to figure out new places to put the piano.  

I also realized that I was DONE with our green arm chairs.  I've had these chairs for 12 years and they were definitely starting to show their age.  I also decided that it was no fun to try to read or snuggle with the kids in an arm chair. Brandon and I had planned to replace the chairs with a couch when we moved, but I decided we couldn't wait another 6 months.  I wanted a couch ASAP.  

On Monday I got onto Craigslist to "take a peek" and just see if there was anything that interested me.  I ended up finding the perfect couch for only $50.  I jumped on that deal right away and Brandon and one of our ministering brothers picked it up that night. 

I was in love with the couch instantly.  I forgot how nice it is to have a place to lounge in your living room.  I've been reading in bed at night, but having a couch made me want to spent time in the living room in the evening.  That meant that we needed better curtains over the entryway windows so people wouldn't be able to see into our house as much.  So I moved the living room curtains to the entry way.  And that meant I had to look for new curtains for the living room window. 

Later in the week I decided that I wanted to move the piano and put the couch in it's place.  So Brandon and I did that Friday night.  (That also reminded me that I really don't want to move with the heavy piano again so we'll be finding a new owner for it before we move.)

On Saturday I checked a few thrift stores for curtains and ended up finding four of the most perfect curtain panels for only $6 a panel. I wanted curtains that had grey in them, but that would still match my blue couch and green other furniture.  The curtains I found are grey, AND, green, AND blue.  It's like they were made for my living room.  

As a final touch I painted the unfinished wood frame that Brandon made for our big wall quote.  I wanted it to be grey, but it ended up darker than I wanted so it's almost black.  Still it looks AMAZING.  

Oh and Craigslist helped me find a new owner for the chairs.  A lady who reupholsters furniture came and got them.  I'm glad they are going to a new home and I'm glad they are out of my house.  

Okay so are you ready to see my new living room?

TA DA! Here it is:

Here's what it looked like when we moved in.  It's like a whole new room now. 

 Here's what it looks like looking the other way. 

 And here are my pretty curtains.  50 percent of my conversations with Brandon the past 24 hours have involved the phrase, "I love those curtains!"

 Here are the other curtains around the entryway windows.  They look pretty great too.

 And here's our big quote.  That frame looks so great.

 And let's take a moment to appreciate the couch.  Long time readers of this blog might notice that this is almost exactly like the couch Brandon and I used to have.  That's one of the reasons I wanted to buy this one.  But it's actually even better than our old couch.  I never was a fan of the purplish brown color of our old couch.  And our old one had two Lazy-Boy recliners built into the couch.  We hardly used them and the metal framework of the recliners actually made the couch uncomfortable to lay on.  This couch doesn't have recliners.  Which means it has removable cushions which are much more comfortable. And under those cushions is a couch bed! The kids think it's the coolest thing ever. 

So yeah, that's our "new" living room.  

One reason we were able to focus on the living room so much this week was because we didn't have to travel for Thanksgiving.  We stayed here and had a nice relaxing long weekend.  But that's getting ahead of the story.  First we have to go back to the other holiday in November - Veteran's Day.  

I had Veteran's Day off of work, but no one else in my family had it off.  Normally that would be great, but I just had a whole month off of work so it didn't feel very special.  I ended up going on a mini clothes shopping spree for Brandon and me. It's been a while since either of us got new clothes so it was very needed.  

At noon I went to the elementary school to help Lydia's class with Art Mom's and Dads.  The lesson this month was on pointillism.  The kids painted pictures using que-tips. Lydia did a fish. 

 The rest of the week was busy, but not very picture worthy.  The kids had follow up dentist appointments on Tuesday and Derrick had therapy on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday Brandon's program had their annual Thanksgiving Dinner at the Airport Hangar.  I couldn't go because I had work, but my parents and Brandon's parents were able to go.  My dad took this picture of Brandon by a jet engine.

Brandon's parents stayed over night at our house.  In the morning we took them for a walk around Main Street in Old Town Pocatello.  The stores all had their Christmas decorations up.  Those were fun to look at.

 Then we went to the Student Center to go bowling.  It's been over a year since we went bowling.  I can't believe it's been that long because the kids love it so much.

 We had two lanes and it was so fun to see the kids bowling at the same time.

  Like I said, Steve and Jacque took our round table home with them when they left. Within 72 hours I'd replaced it with a couch.  This was the first time I'd been able to relax on a couch in my own living room in over 2 years.

 Monday was also important in ways that didn't relate to furniture.  Brandon took the
FAA written Air frame test and PASSED it.  He's been studying for this test for the past forever 3 months so it's nice to finally have that out of the way.  Now he just has to take and pass the written
General Test and he'll have the A part of an A&P mechanic license.

Brandon didn't have school at all the week of Thanksgiving so after he passed the test he was done with all his school responsibilities for almost a week.  He was super happy about that.  He started making pies for Thanksgiving and it seemed like every time I walked into the kitchen he was making more pies.

I spent the first three days of the week of Thanksgiving at work. My office was closed for Thanksgiving and the Friday after. That's great and I love having the time off, but since I'm technically a temporary employee I don't get paid holidays.  So to keep my hours (and my paycheck) roughly the same as other weeks I worked from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm on Monday and Tuesday and from 7:00 to 3:00 on Wednesday.  Since Brandon didn't have school he could take care of getting the kids onto the bus in the morning and watching Veronica on Tuesday. I felt like I barely saw my kids from Sunday night to Wednesday night.

I did find time on Tuesday (after the kids were in bed) to deodorize the couch.  The couch was in great shape an didn't smell at all, but I figured it was a good idea to give it a thorough cleaning.  So I sprinkled it with a homemade carpet/couch cleaner.  One of the ingredients is cloves so the couch smelled very Christmasy when I was done.

 Brandon had finished his final pie and then went somewhere for a little while.  I was in the kitchen admiring the lovely lemon meringue pie when I started to notice all the pies around the room.

I wish I'd filmed my reaction as I started counting how many pies there were.   First there was the pie on top of the kitchen cupboard.

 Then there were the pies on top of the fridge.

 And the pies on the can shelves.

Plus the one in the fridge and the one in the freezer.  

All in all there were nice pies total.  Brandon had made a banana cream, mincemeat, lemon meringue, and two pumpkin pies.  He'd brought an apple pie home from Airport Thanksgiving.  He'd bought a pecan pie and a berry pie because those were cheaper than buying the ingredients.  And Derrick had brought home a pumpkin pie as a reward for his class winning a fundraising contest at school.  Nine pies.   

At work on Wednesday I told my co-workers about pies and joked, "So you'll all understand when I come in wearing Yoga pants on Monday right?"

The kids had Wednesday off of school.  There was a movie scheduled for the ELC kids that afternoon so Brandon was going to take them to that.  But it ended up getting moved to the morning and no one told us.  So the kids missed the movie.  They weren't too sad though.  They were so happy to be out of school for a while. Here they are jumping off the furniture because they were so happy.

My co-workers and I were all happy to get off work at 3:00 on Wednesday.  I think was also super happy because I didn't have to travel for Thanksgiving.  It's been a while since we could stay home. Last year we traveled to Brandon's parent's house in Utah. The year before that we moved across the country in time to make it to their house for Thanksgiving.  The year before that we traveled from Alabama to my sister Emily's house in North Carolina.  The year before that we hosted Thanksgiving at our home in Texas.  The year before that we traveled from Fort Hood to my sister Lindsey's house in Houston Texas.  And the year before that I was in Utah with the kids and Brandon was in Basic Training in Georgia.

Since we weren't going anywhere we had a pretty normal Wednesday night planned.  Derrick had therapy as usual and then we had family training.  Generally Christy, the therapist, just brings a craft for the kids to do together.  This time they made these adorable gingerbread men.

 The kids put them on a cookie sheet and pretended to cook them.  Later Veronica played kitchen for a long time with them.

 After Christy left I laid down on the couch for a minute.  It was only about 7:30 but I was so tired.  I ended up falling asleep. I woke up and moved to my bed around 10:30.  I thought I'd wake up unable to sleep around 3:00 AM, but instead I slept until nearly 8:00 the next morning. working 25 hours in 3 days certainly took it out of me.

Everyone was so excited for Thanksgiving.  We usually watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but usually we are at someone else's house.  And those someone elses usually have broadcast TV.   We don't have broadcast TV (or maybe we do, but we've never bothered to check) so we tried finding the parade on the internet.  We could have watched it live from the NBC website, but we had to sign in with our tv service. And that's something else we don't have.  I ended up finding a live stream on Youtube provided by Verizon so we watched that. We could see the balloons and we didn't have to watch a bajillion Macy's commercials so everyone was happy. 

 We were having a "small" Thanksgiving this year.  My parents were the only ones joining us.  But Brandon was not letting that change his cooking style.  He was hard at work making enough turkey, potatoes, rolls, and stuffing to feed an army.  And he was loving every minute of it.

I put myself in charge of setting the table.  The kids and I thought it would be fun to made edible name cards for everyone.  So we printed out everyone's names and put them under wax paper.  Then I traced over the names with chocolate.  I think I added too much coconut oil to the chocolate because they ended up melting super easily, but they looked cute.

 When I was a kid I never liked Thanksgiving when we had to do it at home because it seemed like a lot of work for nothing.  We'd spend HOURS in the kitchen just to sit down at our same old table in our same old spots, and eat off our same old dishes.  I realized that we were in danger of repeating that this year so I told Brandon to buy some fun dishes for Thanksgiving dinner.  He found some really cute fall leaf themed stuff at the dollar store.  I had fun setting it all up.

 Charlotte put signs on the dinning room door that said, "Keep out." and "parents only."

Things got kind of silly while we waited for my parents to arrive.  Charlotte showed off her flexibility.

 We had music on and all the kids danced.  Here's Derrick showing he can dance like a grown up with Lydia.

 The kids were glued to the window when  it was almost time for my parents to arrive.

We were all so happy when the food was ready.  My parents had brought green bean casserole and yams to go with the bounty that Brandon had prepared. 

 About 4 years ago Charlotte made up a Thanksgiving Treat she calls Sunflower Carmel.  We put it together and had it on the plates along with the name cards.  We'd also made napkin rings out of string and pony beads.  Everything looked fantastic.

And then we got to eat and eat and eat and eat.  I was in love with the green bean casserole.  If I'm ever in charge of Thanksgiving it's just going to be pizza and green bean casserole.

After dinner I took care of the part of Thanksgiving that makes sense to me- I did the dishes. I don't know how Brandon juggles all the food to have it come out hot all at the same time, but I do understand how to do dishes.  And it helped that all that plates were paper this year.  

Later it was time for pie.  Back on Sunday I'd invited a family of 8 to join us for pie.  This was back when Brandon was planning to make 4 pies.  I thought 4 was too many for our little group so I that's why I invited the other family.  But Brandon thought we needed more pie.  Which is how we ended up with nine.  

 Brandon was happy to share all his creations with the Porters.  And they were happy to help us eat the pies.

Still we ended up with so much leftover pie.  I put this on Instagram the next day.  

Here's a story problem for you. You have nine whole pies. 16 people come over and eat an average of 1.5 pieces each. What do you have left?

You have breakfast. That's what you have. A really yummy breakfast.

 We had leftover everything and that's what we ate for the next three or so days.  Add that to the leftovers we'd already been eating from Airport Thanksgiving and I've basically been eating Thanksgiving food for over a week.  I'm done with Turkey for the year.

Friday was a super laid back day.  I spot cleaned the couch and that was probably the biggest thing I accomplished all day.  In the afternoon the kids and I went over to my parents apartment to watch the movie Babe.  We all proudly wore our pajamas over there. Brandon stayed home and enjoyed doing nothing important without anyone around to interrupt him.

In the evening the kids put snow pants and coats on over their pajamas and we walked over to Main Street in Old Town for the light parade.  Last year we went to a light parade in Ogden.  I was excited to see our town's parade this year.   Derrick had tons of energy so we went for a walk up and down Main Street.

 Then we joined the other kids at our spot.

Veronica wanted to sit on my lap while we waited. 

 The parade started at 6:30, but it was about 7:00 by the time the parade made it to our spot.

 The kids loved it.  I was especially impressed by Derrick.  Last year at the Ogden Parade he'd freaked out from all the noise and light.  I'd had to wrap my scarf around his head to filter out some of the stimulation for him. And then he'd gone nearly catatonic on me.  This year he was just fine with all the noise and light.  He was participating in everything right along with the other kids.  Things liek this remind me that  he's made a lot of progress in the last year.

 Our favorite float was the entry by Idaho Power.

 They even had real line men hanging from poles.  They threw out candy from up high.

 The kids were really excited to see Santa come in on the fire truck at the end.

Then we packed up our stuff and walked home.  I'm going to miss living within walking distance of Main Street.  

On Saturday morning Charlotte decided what she wanted to buy with her Lemonade Stand/Birthday money.  She wanted the "Animal Rescuer Barbie set."  So we went to Fred Meyer to buy that.  Lydia came along and bought a fingerling toy with her money.  And I stopped at DI on the way home and scored my amazing curtains that I love so very very much.  

We came home and picked up Brandon, Derrick and Veronica and went back to Main Street.  The shops of Old Town had put together an event in honor of Small Business Saturday.  We went to our favorite building, Station Square, for the events there.  The kids were all able to write letters to Santa. 

 And then put them in a mail box to be sent to the north pole.

 After mailing the letters we stood in line for a chance to take a picture with Santa.  The kids had fun posing for me while the line moved through the building.

 Here's Charlotte  in front of a tree.

 And Lydia.

 And Veronica.

 And Derrick.

 When it was our turn all the kids happily crowded around Santa for the picture.  This was the first year we've done this where they have all smiled.  I hadn't expected much from the kids so I didn't put much thought into what they were wearing.  Derrick had practiced what he was going to ask Santa.  All week he'd been saying, "I'm going to ask Santa for a fishing pole."  Only he says ask as ax.  So it kept sounding like, "I'm going to ax Santa."

The zoo had sent an employee with an owl and the kids liked looking at the owl.  

 Then we went and found the stop for the free trolley rides. We enjoyed our ride around Old Town.

 We also spent some time walking around Main Street.

 Our final stop was a cookie decorating place in the Yellowstone Hotel Building.

 The kids had fun with that.

 We were parked by Station Square so we walked back through there on our way to the car.  I love that building so much. 

Back at home we enjoyed more laid back activities.  I painted the picture frame. And then Charlotte and I figured out how to make a Christmas Tree for her Barbies.  

 In the afternoon my parents came over to watch the kids while Brandon and I went Christmas Shopping.  We were happy to have a date together.

And that catches us up to today.  I go back to work and Brandon goes back to school tomorrow.  The kids don't have school tomorrow.  They get to go to a pajama party at the day care.  Property tax bills get mailed out tomorrow which means the rest of the year is going to by busy for me.  I'll try to keep the blog up to date, but I can't promise anything.

Thanks for reading.