More Adventures

Tis the season... to be so busy and so tired and so overwhelmed and so not in the mood to blog.  But I'm going to blog now.  Here you go.
Last Saturday I had the opportunity to do something Jeremy and I have been talking about for years.  I took Nichole to a ballet.  We went to see The Nutcracker.  It was put on by the Utah Regional Ballet.  It was so great.  We loved it and it was so worth it.  I hadn't been to see a ballet since I was a teenager and Nichole had never been to one.  She's in her third year of ballet classes this year so it was fun to talk with her during intermission about things she was familiar with.
Jeremy and I surprised her with tickets... or rather her ballet bear and her nutcracker surprised her with tickets.

Because of the book, "The Bear Who Went to the Ballet" which Nichole got when she was 5 years old, we brought along her own ballet bear.  The ballet bear in the book got to go to the ballet with the little girl so we wanted to do that, too.

On our way home, Nichole let me know it was a good day.  I agree.

On Monday, we had our annual Polar Express Party.  Jeremy opened "the first gift of Christmas."  It was a new pocket watch to go with his conductor's uniform, but this pocket watch has a train on it.  He was very happy with it.

This year Jeremy set up our long table in the living room for us to sit at while listening to him read the Polar Express.  Nichole blew a whistle at appropriate times (and not appropriate times) and Jr. chimed in with bells at appropriate times (only appropriate times). 

Jeremy also set up Christmas lights along the table for a little added fun and of course we drank hot chocolate while watching the movie.  It's become tradition to get special gourmet flavors of hot cocoa to go with our Polar Express party.  This year the flavors were toasted coconut and chocolate mint truffle.  We also put whipped cream/topping on top and drizzled it with caramel sauce.  Yumm.

Last night, Jeremy stayed up all night to build our balloon Christmas tree.  I slept on the couch while he built it, but he woke me up very early in the morning to show me what it looked like.  This year he put real Christmas lights on it.  I miss real Christmas lights on a Christmas tree.  The tree was beautiful.

I'm excited to see it Christmas morning with all the presents around it.

So, that's a little update on some of our recent adventures.  Now I'm going to bed because there's still so much to do tomorrow.  I still have some presents to wrap and have to make food for our big Christmas Eve dinner.  I hope we don't forget to put out milk and cookies for Santa (I don't often remember), but Jeremy bought cookies this year for it since we knew we wouldn't have time to make cookies.  Have I mentioned we've been busy?   

Star Wars Perks

So... Star Wars Episode VII came out in theaters today.  Jeremy and I got to go see it last night.  Yeah, that was awesome.  Some people Jeremy does a show for every year (who feel like family to him) set up a private screening at the theater at Thanksgiving Point for their clients and family and friends the night before it opened.  So Jeremy and I got to go. 
We borrowed some costumes from friends so we could get in the spirit of things and a friend stayed at our home while our kids were in bed (or supposed to be in bed).

Jeremy built a BB-8 out of balloons to take.  They gave out prizes for people who were there and that was one of the prizes.
I never go to movies on opening day.  I usually wait a few weeks for things to die down a little or wait until they come to the cheap theater or wait until they come out on DVD.  So this was an experience watching a movie even before it was officially released in theaters.
One thing that was fun was walking into the lobby of the theater and seeing storm troopers walking around.  It kind of made it more exciting.  And the energy was great in our auditorium with all the people clapping and cheering at different parts in the movie.
Of course I don't want to spoil anything about the movie, but I really enjoyed it.  In my opinion, you can't beat episodes IV, V, and VI, but I definitely liked episode VII better than episodes I, II, and III.
 
December 17 was also National Maple Syrup Day, so before we left, for dinner we had pancakes with maple syrup and maple breakfast sausages and eggs. 

The pancakes weren't Star Wars shaped, though.  But that's okay. 
Oh, and some of us had leftover donuts for breakfast that day, too.  Maple bars.  Yumm.

 So we've had some holiday celebrating and some Star Wars celebrating.  Woohoo.

Holidays and Exhaustion

I'm still just exhausted.  We've done a lot of celebrating lately, but when it comes time to blog about it, I'm just too tired.  I'd rather sleep.  So I haven't been blogging.
I'm already tired tonight, but I'm going to do a little catching up anyway.  Some of our recent celebrations:
December 11 was International Mountain Day.  Since it occurred during Hannukah, we had a "mountain" of latkes then played Dreidel.  Lucky does pretty well at spinning the dreidel so he enjoyed his first time playing.

December 13 was Cocoa Day so the kids got hot chocolate after church.  I didn't get around to getting a picture of that.  But we've got plenty of hot chocolate pictures on this blog already.


We also celebrated Lucky's birthday recently.  He was really good at blowing out his candles.  I had to light them three times so we could get a decent picture of him blowing them out.  He didn't complain, though.  He was happy to blow them out each time I lit them, and thought it was fun.

Then today, December 16, is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day.  So we made our annual trip to the Holiday Lights at Thanksgiving Point.  We did stop by the Water Tower Plaza this year to visit the reindeer and warm ourselves by the fire.  I asked Jeremy to make us balloon hats to wear. 
Balloons.  It's kind of our thing, you know?

When we got home we had donuts and hot chocolate.  Some of the donuts were chocolate covered.  And some of the donuts we dipped in our hot chocolate to make them chocolate covered.  Yumm.

Cotton Candy Day 2015

Cotton Candy Day was way back on Monday, December 7.  We celebrated by having cotton candy for Family Home Evening treat.  Jeremy found seasonal flavors, hot chocolate and sugar cookie, so we tried them out.

I love how Lucky saw me with my tongue showing so he did the same with the last picture.

 
It was simple celebrating but I have not had a chance to blog about it.  It has been a busy week and I have been exhausted.  Remember how I said I don't want to be in charge of a ward Christmas party?  Well, I was the committee chair for the Relief Society Christmas dinner last night.  We were in charge of decorations and food and set up and clean up.  Thank goodness I had such a great committee.  But there was plenty of work and I have been busy.  But it turned out well and now IT'S OVER!
I am so grateful for all the women who helped me, from the woman who brought in centerpieces to the many women who cooked food to those who came in and decorated and helped in the kitchen.  The Young Men set up tables and chairs for us and some of the Young Women came in to serve food.
And it's over.  Sigh. 
Now to get back to all the other craziness of life.  Sigh.

The Broken Tradition Continues

You know I love traditions but sometimes it's better to break those traditions.  We did so last year and continued again this year with our broken tradition.  Besides minor colds, nobody was sick during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  In fact, a couple of the kids enjoyed dancing around to the music.

Nobody missed church which was good since Jeremy was teaching his class and I was teaching Sharing Time.  The lesson for Sharing Time was "Jesus Christ Came to Earth as Promised by the Prophets."
Hey, that's what we've been talking about in our family scripture study.
So I had Jr. and Jr. Jr. in Junior Sharing Time and Nichole in Senior Sharing Time help me talk about what we do as a family in December for our scripture study and talk about some of the prophets who prophesied of Jesus before He was born.
I brought our Countdown to Christmas skewers but instead of our vase of M&Ms, I had a bigger vase filled with wrapped candy.  At the end of the lesson, each child got to take a piece of candy for paying attention and participating (just like in our family scripture study) with the instructions that they were not to open them at church.  It was Fast Sunday after all.  They could take them home and open them when their parents gave them permission.  Most of the kids did pretty well with that, actually.

It was nice to talk to the children in Primary about prophets teaching about Jesus before He was even born and encourage them to listen to modern prophets teaching about Jesus Christ this very evening.

Ward Christmas Party

I know I'm dooming myself by saying this, but I don't want to ever be in charge of a ward Christmas party in this ward.  I don't think I could do it.
Two years ago, the ward did a Polar Express Party.

Every family in the ward was given a ticket which we brought and different families were put in different dining cars or rooms in the church building to eat dinner.

As we ate, the conductor (guess who) came around and punched our tickets.

Then we all disembarked and gathered together in the train depot (overflow between the chapel and the cultural hall, a.k.a. gym).
At a signal from the conductor, the curtains were opened and we entered "The North Pole" where it was snowing.  That's right.  It was snowing.  It was soap bubbles or something.

There was a giant Christmas tree built by Jeremy of course and Santa's village was painted all around.

Santa himself came to share with us a message of Christmas.  He took ornaments from a Christmas tree and shared how they represented Christ and the message of His birth.

There were narrations and musical numbers to go along with what he shared and it was awesome.
Wow.

This year was "A Night in Bethlehem."  The Young Men, the Young Women, the Relief Society, and the Primary were each in charge of setting up a food tent.  Thanks to our wonderful Primary President, we had so many supplies to use to decorate our Primary tent.  Also, thanks to the two other Primary leaders who helped decorate the tent, and to the toddlers and preschool age boys who helped set up the tent by grabbing the fourth leg of it since we only had three adults there at the time.  They were great.  We were asked to make a sign showing what was being served in Hebrew.  Jeremy helped me make the sign.  Thanks, Jeremy.

We were encouraged to dress up if we wanted, so I raided the Primary closet for costumes to put on my kids so I wouldn't have to dig through things at home.

When we got to "Bethlehem" we were given a sack of "money" to pay our taxes and buy food and exchange for a wooden ornament we could take home for our families.  We gave money to the tax collector and went over to get a family picture which was printed by the end of the night.
We got our ornament and went over to each of the food tents to get our food.
There were cookies for dessert, which was appropriate since the activity was on December 4 which is National Cookie Day.

Jeremy built palm trees for decoration and balloon sheep.  There was a ward member making pottery in one corner of the gym.  That was cool.  We have a really talented ward- and so many different talents.

As we were eating, Mary and Joseph (friends of ours who moved out of the ward a while ago, but come back often for ward activities- we love them) showed up and started going around asking people where they could find shelter for the one night.  They went to the inn but were turned away.
Finally someone directed them to the stable (pavilion with cushions and a manger/cradle) in the middle of the room.  Joseph helped Mary lie down and pulled out a baby.  Yes, a real live baby.  She must have been bundled up as they were walking around and they brought her out for her scene.  She's only a couple months old so she's small enough to be used as the baby Jesus.
Then we saw shepherds tending their sheep and the curtain on the stage opened to show an angel.
When people were not walking around interacting with ward members, the gestures and movements were done to music.  The angel is a dancer and dance instructor so it was beautiful to watch her movements as she brought the message of great joy to the shepherds and directed them to the city of David- all without words.
Then the shepherds walked around spreading the news and ended up in the stable with Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus.
Then the wise men were on the stage along with King Herod (played by Jeremy) and Herod looked conniving.  The wise men showed up among the ward members and eventually reached Mary and Joseph.  Now of course we know that the wise men weren't actually there when Jesus was born and came later after they had left Bethehem, but for the purposes of the nativity, they joined the group in the stable.
Then we all sang "Silent Night" and had a closing prayer.
Wow.

And that's why I don't want to be in charge of a ward Christmas party.

Serving a Good Cause

This evening, Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I had the opportunity to help some friends out with service they are doing.  This family collects pine cones and acorns, colors them, and turns them into ornaments.  Then they sell the ornaments and use that money to buy toys and clothes which they deliver to a homeless shelter.
They call it the Giving Tree Project.
What a great way to think of others during the holiday season.  When I heard about what they were doing, I wanted to support them.  Wow, I sound like a commercial, don't I?  I could be on the radio.  "When I heard about this cause, I just had to be a part of it.  The Giving Tree Project brought to you by the Weaver brothers... in Utah County."
Anyway, Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I picked up some acorns tonight.  The boys in that family were so good about showing us options of acorns, making sure we knew how many we could get, and thanking us before we left.  What a sweet family.

The ornaments of course won't fit on our Christmas tree, but Jeremy and I talked about giving them to the people we home teach and visit teach.  It's a way for us to give twice.
And hopefully we can have a nice discussion with our children about why we made the decisions we made.