Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

On Christmas Eve, we went to visit my brother's family, and the kids acted out the story of baby Jesus.  Here, Benjamin and his cousin were Joseph and Mary.



  Daniel was one of the wise men.  You can even see the angel in this picture.  I think she's warning the wise men to go home another way.


 
We had a great Christmas morning.  Santa brought the kids all sorts of toys.  Daniel's favorite present
was his K'nex video roller coaster.


 
Benjamin liked his 3 in 1 Smart Sports set.   

 

 For school, Benjamin had to make a list of things about Christmas that start with the letters in the word Christmas.  Here's his list:

C is for Cookies
H is for Happy
R is for Ringing bells
I is for Ice cubes
S is for Soup
T is for Tissues
M is for Making toys (like the elves do)
A is for Apple
S is for Sing

And with those happy thoughts, I think I will finish my blogging about Christmas stuff for this year.

A Bethlehem Dinner



We always have a "Bethlehem Dinner" during the week before Christmas.  Cooking Middle Eastern food is a hobby of mine, helped along by the fact that I know a lady from the Middle East who is kind enough to share her recipes with me.  We ate hashweh, couscous, hummus, dates, figs, olives, pita bread, Greek yogurt, and falafel.  My food is not exactly authentic, but it is really yummy.

A Wedding!

We recently went to the wedding for Wayne's younger brother Daryl in the Salt Lake Temple.  His new wife is named Denece, and she's from Hawaii.  They met in their BYU ward.  She's really pretty and sweet.  I took a few pictures at the wedding, but none of them turned out that great.  It may be time for me to get a new camera.  We got some video, though.  Anyway, the most memorable part of the day for the guests was not something I want pictures of. . .

We dropped our kids off at my parents' house before we went to the wedding.  Yes, they could have waited at the temple.  But it's kind of a pain to make kids come when they are just going to be waiting for a long time.  After the wedding, we considered picking up the kids before going to the wedding lunch.  It turned out to be a good thing that we didn't.

We went to a restaurant called "The Golden Dragon."  Before the wedding, I checked out their menu  on their website at www.goldendragonchinesefood.com, and it looked like a pretty normal Chinese restaurant.  I really like Chinese food.  There was even a kids' menu, with fish or chicken and fries.  So, I was very surprised by what we encountered there.  It turns out that the reason people go there on Saturday afternoon is for the dimsum.  I've never had dimsum, which is essentially a Chinese buffet that is delivered to each table.  None of the food was even recognizable!  There were a variety of meat dishes that included organ meats.  When they brought out calamari, I was tempted to eat it just because at least I knew what it was.  Wayne went so far as to try the chicken feet.  My problem with the chicken feet was that I couldn't find any dishes that had any other chicken parts in them.  So, thank you Daryl and Denece for offering us such an unusual cultural experience.  And I'm sorry I wasn't quite up for the challenge.

Here are some pictures from the reception:


Benjamin liked the treats at the reception.



 Daniel liked seeing so many relatives, especially since he was able to give them mini concerts on the piano in the Primary room.



       And here's a picture of our family at the reception.

Monday, December 28, 2009

A Very Merry Christmas

I have neglected my blog far too long.  I've been too busy having fun.  So, I'm going to recap a few of our Christmas celebrations.  Of course, we drove to see Christmas lights, played in the snow, and attended Christmas parties for work and school.  We had a variety of family parties.  My book club had a fun cookie exchange.  I was thankful for every Christmas activity I was able to participate in, especially considering my broken tailbone.  It doesn't give me very much trouble anymore, except that I still can't sit for more than an hour or two.   The first Christmas party I have to discuss in detail is our church Christmas party because I was in charge of most of it.

Our church party was the week before Christmas.  The theme for the ward Christmas party was "Warm Winter Memories."  Since I knew I couldn't lift hardly anything, I got the Young Women (and a few Young Men) to set up all of the tables and chairs.  The Young Men stayed after to put everything away.  We set up chairs for over 300 people.  To make it look festive, my little Benjamin suggested that we wrap the tables in wrapping paper instead of using tablecloths.  It made the whole room look like a giant Christmas quilt.  Some of the very talented quilters in our neighborhood loaned real Christmas quilts for the night, and my neighbor Machelle (who owns a quilting store) put together an awesome backdrop of quilts on the stage. 

For food, I cooked almost 90 pounds of ham and made about 13 gallons of wassail.  We got rolls, salad, and potatoes from BYU Food to Go.  Most of my committee couldn't make it to the party, but the three who did were great to help out with the cooking, serving, and cleaning. up.  Stacy also put together our service project for the night, which was making cards and notes to send to the missionaries serving from our ward.

We had a program, starting with the women who brought quilts sharing stories about the quilts.  We had stories and songs from a variety of ward members.  I spent most of that time in the hall, along with a couple of other concerned adults, trying to keep the kids in the gym.  Oddly enough, most of the younger kids were sitting nicely with their parents or in the front of the gym on the floor.  But the "tweens" got rather unruly.  I had to keep kicking them out of the kitchen and classrooms, and I had to haul a bunch of boys out of the girls' bathroom.  But after the incidents in Payson hit the news, I was only relieved that we had been diligent at keeping an eye on everyone at our party.  You can read that story at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=9110642.  And at future activities involving children, we will just be watching that much more closely.

The whole party was a lot of work as well as a lot of fun.  And thank you to everyone who helped with it! 

 

Monday, December 7, 2009

A Tale About A Tail

A few weeks ago, we had our Primary Program at church.  That's where the kids sing the songs they learned in Primary this year, and some of them have small speaking parts.  Benjamin was supposed to have a speaking part, but he was sick that day.  I called Scarlet, one of the Primary leaders, to explain the situation, and I offered to have Daniel do the part instead.  I also volunteered to stay home with Benjamin, but Wayne told me I should go to see Daniel in the program.  So, Daniel and I went off to church.

When it was time for the kids to go up to the front, I told Daniel he should sit with Benjamin's class so that he would be near the microphone when it was time for him to do Benjamin's part.  He instead went to sit with his class.  I was trying to quietly get his attention as little children wandered all over the chapel, making their way toward the front.  I gave up and scooted into the far end of my row to make room for more parents to sit.  As I sat down, I failed to notice that my bench was the only one that didn't go all the way to the wall.  I sat down, hard, on the wooden armrest instead.  I yelped a little, but the kids were still making too much noise for anyone to particularly notice me.  I slid down onto the bench, hoping that I wasn't making a scene.

I was joined by my friend Lisa, and I quietly and uncomfortably endured the program.  Much as I wanted to leave, I knew Daniel would feel bad if I wasn't there.  Daniel did join Benjamin's class just before it was time for his part, and he did fine filling in.  All of the kids did a great job with the program.  As soon as it was over, I made sure Daniel went to his class, and I left.

I was crying by the time I got home because I was in so much pain.  Wayne went back to church, and I rested for the rest of the day.  I figured I must have bruised my tailbone badly.  I took a ton of ibuprofen for the next two days, but lying down was so painful that I couldn't sleep.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, I went to see a doctor.  Not my regular doctor.  Because when I called my ob/gyn, the receptionist told me that he doesn't treat tailbones, at least not unless the woman is pregnant.  Figures.  He's never liked me much since I became infertile.  So, I found a new doctor.  I went to a family doctor who took one look at the suffering I was experiencing and decided that my tailbone was probably broken.  Then he took x-rays just to be sure.  Yep, it was broken.  He gave me a week's worth of prescription painkillers and a donut pillow and sent me on my way.




The painkillers worked great.  At least, they put me out of my misery.  I was completely out of it for the next week.  Luckily, I had a lot of help from some fabulous people.  I don't even remember who all helped me out because I was so dazed.  All I can say is thank you to all the people who watched my kids, picked up Benjamin from school, brought us food, etc.  I have fabulous family members and friends.  Wayne was a great help as well, although he got pretty sick at this time, too.  He worked from home for a few days so that he could help out more, and he did pretty much everything to arrange for Daniel's baptism and the big family lunch afterward.

How am I doing now?  Well, I still have a donut pillow, which is a must for car rides and helpful when sitting for a long time.  I managed to sit for the entire hour of sacrament meeting at church this week, a first since I broke my tailbone.  But that was my limit, and I had to go home afterward.  I'm sleeping ok, and I'm still taking lots of ibuprofen.  Overall, I'm healing slowly but surely.  The doctor said it's like any other broken bone--it takes about six weeks to heal.  It's been three, but it sure seems like a lot longer.


You never appreciate the blessing of being able to sit comfortably until you can't do it anymore.  Note the bit of plastic donut peeking out on the right side of the picture.  All I want for Christmas is a healed tailbone.

Oh, my silly Benjamin

Driving through a Christmas light display tonight, we passed by a Nativity scene.  Benjamin said, "Look, it's Baby Jesus!  Goo goo ga ga, Baby Jesus!"  Daniel corrected him, "You don't say 'goo goo ga ga' to Baby Jesus.  You say, 'Hello.' "

Oh, my silly Daniel

Daniel was taking an extremely long time in the bathroom today, and he was singing loudly.  I said to him, "Daniel what are you doing in there?"  He replied, "Singing."  And I said, "Yes, but why are you singing?"  He answered, "Because I can't play the piano in the bathroom."  If you ask a silly question, you get a silly answer.