Category: Family Time

Weekend

Thanks to Sarah and Bryan, we were able to attend the Christmas concert with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Alfie Boe, and Tom Brokaw. Squeeeee! (That was for you, Alfie!)

IMG_0092Joe and Stacy sat with us. My parents were there, too, but our seats were in different areas. We had a great dinner in downtown Salt Lake City with my parents, Joe, and Stacy. I love living here.

I liked seeing Gail Halvorsen, aka The Candy Bomber honored at the concert.

Paige, Gail Halvorsen, and Richard, 2010 at our church in Sahuarita. We were members of the same congregation for a few years.

We got a good 8 or 9 inches of snow. This means we spent the morning clearing snow and trying to make our way to piano lessons. Tricky.

We shot our Christmas music video with our adorable kids.

Mark said to me tonight, “When we were making that movie, I felt like I was in Hollywood.”

When I asked how that felt, he said, “Pretty good!”

The 2009 Christmas video is the one to beat. Wish us luck.

Temple Square Christmas Lights

My mom took the boys on a quick, impromptu tour of Temple Square since she had an appointment downtown.

True, the lights are beautiful, but as my Mom explains, the real beauty is the temple.

 

Mark really liked the scale model of the interior of the temple that they found in the visitor’s center.

The big photos were taken by Timothy. He was proud of this photo of the Christus statue.

Thanks, Grandma, for taking them to Temple Square! It was Timothy and Mark’s first trip to see the lights and probably the first trip that Daniel can remember since he was only two years old when he first saw them.

The Family Dinner Table

I believe in the family dinner ritual. Unfortunately, most nights we are missing one or two people, but I don’t give up. Having everyone around me, being nourished and sharing is the highlight of my day.

Empty chairs make me sad.

Dinner is not always a special occasion. My cooking, our moods, and The Schedule get in the way, but I think that the “dinner time at the table ritual” is special because you can count on it, not because it’s always perfect or fun. My family knows that there will be a meal and that I will expect them to answer a few questions about their day.

Richard fixed two of our broken chairs so we have enough seating for everyone. I love that he did this. I love these old uncomfortable chairs.

I served some leftover baked ziti to the kids around the dinner table last night. My first surprise was that they engulfed it. The next surprise was the conversation that happened as we ate.

We were all feeling comfortable and happy. Mark said, “Mom, our family is different than any other family because our handwriting has monkey tails (I taught the kids to write D’Nealian style), we go to Spring Lake where we have a dinner bell, and we say, ‘Is everybody happy?’ ‘Well, I should say!'”

And so our conversation turned to things which define our family.

Tim added, “We don’t have DS or PS3 or XBox or anything like that and we get really excited about seeing our extended family.”

Daniel said, “We study really hard and we are good students.”

We were interrupted at this point, but I would have added, “We try really hard to make dinner time a good family time.”

I need to remember this little dinner scene to help me press on and keep trying to find ways to sit down together at this table.

I read someplace that the family dinner table is like an altar in the home. It’s a place to teach, train, gather for prayer, and grow in love. It can help families stay together. Amen.

Thanksgiving weekend

The house feels really empty today after spending 5 great days with these people. The boys had their first Thanksgiving in Utah. We have such a big family network here that I only needed to prepare desserts!

And that’s really all I have to show you from our weekend. We made jello, pies, and dozens of sugar cookies. Richard spent approximately 18 hours raking leaves while we did all of this baking.

And when those autumn cookies were gone, we made some Christmas cookies. This morning I discovered that my children had taken pictures of them on several cameras. Maybe we all thought that if they were properly photographed, they wouldn’t be missed after they were eaten.

My mom came by and she and Paige rocked the polka dots.

Timothy won the school Reflections contest for his short film of Spring Lake.

Mark lost his first tooth. I owe you a picture.

Somehow we also neglected to take pictures of all of the family we saw this weekend. Boo!

Sweet gestures

My mom took me out to lunch for my birthday. We couldn’t remember the last birthday we spent together. It was warm and sunny and everything tasted good.

My mom brought a home movie that my cousin made of my grandmother’s surprise birthday party. Watching my grandma and great aunt laughing together brought back beautiful memories of family celebrations with them in Salt Lake City when I was a little girl. Susan always had something special to give each guest so we could remember the occasion. The food was always delicious. I have never found anything to equal Great-grandma’s and Aunt Susan’s parties.

Mark was appalled that he had to go to school on my birthday. He said that he should stay home with me and help me with my work, eat with me, and wash my car. What a lovey.

Timothy gave me a diorama of a road leading to some mountains, I think to remind me that my wish to live in the mountains has finally come true.

My cake was cream filled and delicious and Richard got me the book that I wanted.

I was disappointed to watch my friends preaching to one another about the election online. If only everyone could have just come over and given me birthday hugs, I am sure that would have been a better use of everyone’s time.

 

A different kind of Halloween

 

Halloween felt different this year. There were leaves on the ground. There was a public school parade of costumes. Mark wore the tin man costume to make me happy. I actually sewed this costume years ago for Daniel and I hinted to Mark that I wanted another kid to wear it. We sprayed his hair silver and he sneezed all day because of it.

Timothy agonized over his costume choice. After hours of shopping, we came home and pulled out a classic cape from the dress up clothes collection in the basement. I made his pendant from his piano medal and some costume jewelry from his great-great grandmother.

We had cousins drop by to show off their handmade costumes inspired by How to Train Your Dragon, Shawn the Sheep, and Brave. My sister Susan is amazing and talented.

My big kids didn’t dress up this year. Paige had too much homework and Daniel was just not interested. The day before Halloween I realized that we had forgotten to carve pumpkins. That has always been such a big event at our house, but this year we settled for orange twinkle lights in the windows instead of jack-o-lanterns.

Mark, freshly bathed and no longer sneezing, chose to pull out the knight gear for trick-or-treating.

Six years brings a lot of change.

 

A little hike

Little Cottonwood Canyon is about 4 minutes from our house. I decided to take the kids on an introductory hike to see how things looked from higher up on the mountain.

The locals said it was easy and only a half a mile. Baloney. It was hard.

But like any good hike, there is a reward when you can’t go another step.

I let the kids walk around the reservoir while I curled up in the shade and cooled off.

It was a gorgeous place to rest.

I love going on adventures with my kids.

This weekend was such a gift. The kids had some days off from school and the weather was gorgeous. We saw cousins on two different days; Richard and I spoke in church; Paige played a piano solo in sacrament meeting. These have been really good days.

BYU football season tickets

Ray, Joe, Mom, Daniel, and Timothy at the “blackout” game last Saturday. We’re not talking about the score.

We finally remembered to take a photo at a BYU football game. My mom is the BYU student who makes these tickets in the student section possible. Richard has gone to every game and I go to the night games with him and we call it a date. For Saturday games, Richard takes one or two of our boys with him. It’s a little bit tricky to go to games when there is so much to do on the weekends, but we couldn’t pass up this opportunity. My mom graduates soon and we’re savoring life here. It’s the right thing to do.