22 December 2024

Time off from work, glorious time off from work!  It was an amazing week.  My dear, sweet husband made sure kids got to school on time, which was a little easier since Helen is done with early morning seminary for the year.  Most of my Monday was occupied with cleaning and getting ready for our 17th annual Gingerbread Family Home Evening.  Felicity helped me put together twelve gingerbread houses while Phil helped with other preparations.  

We had a great evening!  So many of our dear family and friends came and enjoyed a family home evening lesson, gingerbread house decorating, and my favorite, a sing-a-long.  I'm grateful for our very talented niece Lucy who graciously played piano for us.  The only problem with the evening was it was too warm outside to make the hot chocolate bar appealing!

I let Helen stay home from school on Tuesday since Felicity and I were taking my mom out to breakfast and shopping for her birthday.  I also let her drive the whole day since she really needs the practice.  She did great, she drove on the freeway and in Tucson and we didn't die; I call that a win.  We went to breakfast at First Watch and then we went thrift store shopping at Savers.  We had a great time.  The girls especially enjoyed shopping and trying on ridiculous shoes and fun hats.

Arlo had a white elephant gift exchange for Mutual on Tuesday evening.  He took a couple of Christmas neckties that I bought at the thrift store as his gift to exchange...I found a Rudolf tie with a light-up nose that played an out-of-tune, mechanical sounding "Jingle Bells".  He had fun and he and Phil both came home with some useless, but fun gifts.

Helen had half days for the remainder of the week as she had finals; we have our fingers crossed that her grades land well since we'll be applying for college in a few short months.  Can you believe that?  She went to a Christmas party with her friends Wednesday evening.

I spent the week wrapping up Christmas gifts.  That is to say I was wrapping up making them...I didn't actually wrap any gifts this week!  I'm kicking that can down the road, at least until next week.   I started making venison tamales on Thursday and to say it didn't go well is an understatement.  Last year's tamales turned out wonderfully, this year the first several dozen took forever to steam and then when they were done they were dry and crumbly and gross.  I was just sick over it.  It was a lot of time and ingredients wasted.  I was frustrated. Eventually I had to give up as we had the missionaries over for dinner in the evening.

I made a second batch of tamales on Friday morning and while they tasted better I added my chili sauce to the masa which should have turned it a lovely pink/red color, instead it cooked up a gross-looking brown.  Man!  I couldn't win this year.  Helen and Arlo both had half days on Friday as they wrapped up their first semester of the 2024/25 school year.  I snuck a peek at Arlo's report card at the end of the day and he did so great, he had all A's with the exception of Social Studies, which was an 88%...so close.  I'm just so proud of Arlo.  He works hard; he's bright and clever but has to work against his ADHD and Dyslexia/Dysgraphia. 

Saturday was a wonderful day full of new experiences.  As I mentioned last week, Felicity made an appointment to receive her temple endowment this week and Saturday was the big day.  She and I headed to the temple a little before eight and Phil left from work and met us there.  We had a beautiful experience in the temple and were so happy that so many of our family and friends could be there to share the day with us.  After the temple Grandma Sue, Uncle Kirby, Aunt Brook, and Phil and Felicity and I went out to lunch and enjoyed spending time together.  I'm so proud of Felicity and her desire to make covenants with her Heavenly Father and progress along the covenant path.  She's still talking about wanting to serve a mission when she completes her cosmetology program this summer.

Saturday evening we had a family movie night.  Everyone got movie theater popcorn, an assortment of candy, and a root beer.  Jude was super excited.  We watched a family favorite, "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".  There was a fair amount of laughing and quoting.  We had a great time.  I love spending time with my family, I love the traditions we've created.

Phil asked me to help him with Christmas gifts for his crew and I thought it would be fun to make custom 40oz tumblers.  I LOVE the way they turned out.  He helped me finish them up Saturday night after our movie since the last shift of his tour before Christmas was Sunday.  Each tumbler had the individual's name and I created a bunch of "sticker-like" images for the reverse side.  I heard they were a big hit when the crew got to open them.  It was fun to put my new sublimation printer and convection oven to work.  I made the tumblers this week and have plans to finish up the custom Christmas mugs for our nieces and nephews next week before Christmas.  

It was just the kids and I at church on Sunday since Phil was working and we only had Sacrament meeting since it was the Sunday before Christmas.  It was great to see all the kids home from college, my friend snapped a fun picture of the college kids home for the holidays.  

Jude was utterly distraught that he wasn't going to nursery second hour.  I even had to walk him back to the nursery room to prove to him that nobody was going to nursery.  I love that he loves going and playing with his friends.  He'll only have one more week of nursery as he starts Primary as a Sunbeam the first Sunday in January.

Sunday evening the kids and I drove into Tucson to see the Christmas lights at Winterhaven.  We took the stroller and Jude rode while the big kids and I walked.  It was very crowded, but we had a great time and I think Jude really enjoyed himself too.  He oohed and awed over the lights and decorations.  Another family tradition checked off the list!  

15 December 2024

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  I was super excited to get my Christmas cards in the mail on Monday and since I had prepared my envelopes ahead of time I was able to stuff the envelopes and get them ready to ship.  All except twenty or so of the cards, that is, which were cut incorrectly.  I was a little more than frustrated because the same thing happened last year, when every fourth card was misprinted.  I'm waiting for the replacements so I can send out the remainder of my cards; if your last name starts with V, W, X, Y, or Z I didn't forget you!  Maybe I'll try someone other than Shutterfly next year?!

Arlo celebrated his 13th birthday on Monday!  I can't believe he's already thirteen.  He'll be moving to the Teacher's Quorum at the first of the year and he's already half way through 7th grade.  Its crazy.  As always I added the best photos of Arlo from the past year to his album on my Facebook page "All Things Arlo" and created an image of him documenting all his favorite things.  I sure do love my boy.  Phil was home on Tuesday and I'm grateful we were able to divide and conquer a few things.  I had work and a couple of "have-tos" around the house and he took Arlo to his well-check visit with the pediatrician.  Arlo is doing well, although it looks like he's going to be a bit of a late bloomer; while many of his friends are starting to show tell-tale signs of puberty, Arlo is pretty much hanging out comfortably in childhood.  And to that I end I say "good for him"!  He also got his sports physical while he was at the doctor's office, he's looking forward to wrestling again this year when classes start back up in January.

In the evening Phil and I attended the Cienega Fine Arts Showcase.  Helen played a couple of tunes with the marching band and then she performed a monologue from Shakespeare's "As You Like It".  She did a great job.  We were really proud of her.

I've been feverishly working on some of the home-made gifts I'm making this year and good progress has been made.  I've had the sewing machine, embroidery machine, and cutting machine running all week.  For my birthday, Phil got me a second eco-tank printer that I converted into a sublimation printer.  It's AMAZING!  I can pretty much print whatever I want on the printer and then use that to sublimate the image onto blanks: tees, mugs, cups, lots of different items.  I love that I can print full-color images without cutting, weeding, and layering several infusible ink transfer sheets.  I'm making each of the kids Disney PJs.  I sewed them a pair of bottoms and then am making a coordinating shirt.  Arlo's are Monster's Inc. and Jude's are Stitch; I love how their shirts turned out!

Helen was super excited to find out that she'd gotten a call-back for the high school musical.  She had to stay late on Wednesday for an additional dance audition and a second vocal audition.  She didn't end up getting a final call-back, but again we're just so proud of her.  They select the cast from the advanced drama class and the show choir and she was one of only three theater kids that got a call back for a singing part.  She won't find out what part she did get until after the new year, but it has been an exciting process so far.

Thursday was my last day of work for the year!  Yay me!  I typically save as much PTO as possible so I can combine my remaining PTO with the holiday hours Raytheon gives us at the end of the year.  My day was busy as I wrapped everything up, but I'm so excited to sleep in tomorrow and not have to work for a few weeks!  I also picked up four of my quilts on Thursday: the boy's two Spiderman quilts and two woodland animal quilts.  They turned out beautifully, as expected.  One of them will be going to my cousin who is having her first baby in February and the other to one of Phil's coworkers...there are actually three fire-babies due in January/February.  Now I just have to trim and bind them...my least favorite part!

Helen had an orthodontist appointment in the morning on Thursday and then in the evening she went with my mom to her company Christmas party at Pinnacle Peak.  Since Helen works an occasional Saturday with the estate sale company she was invited to attend as well and I heard it was a great time.  The other exciting thing that happened on Thursday was Felicity came home for the winter break!  Yay!  I'm so excited to have all my kiddos home again for the next month.

Friday morning I got up early and Phil helped me move all of the furniture around so that we were ready to have the carpets cleaned.  While Jude has been doing well with potty training, I did discover that when he wasn't going to make it to the bathroom in time instead of wetting his undies, he was peeing on the carpet.  Ugh!  Basically I thought he was staying dry all day and didn't realize he was pee-bombing my carpet.  I *think* we've convinced him to stop his clever "don't get caught having accidents" tactic and wanted to have the carpets professionally cleaned before our big Gingerbread Family Home Evening party on Monday night. Jude definitely keeps things interesting around the ranch.

Friday evening Arlo had his birthday party.  He opted to invite one friend to go to Round One with him and then out to dinner.  I picked up his friend about four and drove the boys into town.  I bought them 300 credits each to spend on arcade games and went across the street to Savers while they played.  It took them about an hour and forty-five minutes to burn through their credits at which point I picked them up and took them to dinner at Red Robin.  It was super awkward, me and two thirteen year old boys, but we survived and Arlo said multiple times throughout the night, "thanks Mom, this was so much fun."

Before she came home for the holidays, Felicity met with her Bishop and Stake President and got a recommend to go to the temple and receive her temple endowment.  This is an exciting step in adulthood and Dad and I are both really proud of Felicity.  She and I went to the church distribution center early on Saturday morning and we got her everything she would need including a temple dress and garments.  When we got home from the distribution center we went over our calendar and called the temple and made her appointment.  She'll be receiving her endowment during the 10AM session on Saturday, December 21, 2024 in the Tucson Temple.

While Felicity and I were doing that, Dad took Jude to the children's Christmas party at the fire station where he got to meet Santa (who rolled up in a fire engine) and receive a gift.  Jude got a flashlight (thanks to Dad for giving Santa a hint about what kind of present might be a big hit).  Jude had a great time and told us all about it when he got home.

Saturday evening Helen was invited to a Quinceanera along with most of her friends from school and church to celebrate the 15th birthday of a classmate.  I heard that it was a great time.  

I taught Sunday School on Sunday morning at church and in the afternoon we all piled into the Bishop's office for tithing declaration which went well.  In the evening we cracked open our holiday popcorn tins and watched a family favorite, The Muppet's Christmas Carol.  Although nobody made it to the end of the movie, one by one everyone drifted off after a long and exciting week.  No work for me next week and we'll be excitedly getting everything ready for our annual Gingerbread Family Home Evening event/party on Monday along with wrapping up all our other Christmas preparations.  Its the most wonderful time of year, truly!

08 December 2024

It felt like this week had a little more breathing room in it.  Thank goodness!  Phil was working on Monday so Jude and I hung out during the day and in the evening when the big kids got home I got to go run errands by myself!  Oh glorious day!  I may have also run into town and hit up the thrift store again for their 50% off Monday sale.  Helen had theater auditions this week for the upcoming musical.  Cienega casts from the show choir and the advanced drama students for their spring musical, so she was excited to audition for a real role (as opposed to doing tech again like last year).  She had a dance audition Tuesday, a monologue on Wednesday, and then a singing audition Thursday.  Now Felicity always preferred choir while Helen has gravitated toward theater; however, Helen can sing too.  The 2025 musical is going to be Hadestown so she wanted to pick a jazz song to audition with.  She decided on "When You're Good to Mama" from Chicago.   She said she felt very confident that her vocal audition went well saying that the theater teacher had a visible shocked reaction (not knowing ahead of time that Helen can sing) during her performance.  I'm proud of her for putting herself out there and fingers crossed for a call back.

Potty training is going well-ish.  I should give Jude more credit, he makes it to the bathroom most of the time.  I just don't remember any of the other kids being quite as messy in the bathroom, I feel like I have to scrub and mop in the bathroom daily so that my house doesn't start to smell like a public restroom, but all in all its nice to be out of the diaper business.  On the plus side, Jude seems to wake up dry almost every morning, so that's nice.

Felicity had her final choir concert of the year.  We weren't able to make it to see it in person, but I heard it was lovely.

Arlo had his winter concert on Thursday evening and we enjoyed attending that.  Mercifully they held it at the auditorium at Empire instead of in the middle school gym so it was nice to sit in real seats instead of in the bleachers.  The band director asked Arlo to switch to tuba at the beginning of the school year and while he was not loving it at first, he has really grown to enjoy tuba and he sounded great.

Phil was home on Friday which was nice.  I had to work so I appreciated that he was there to keep Jude busy.  In fact he took Jude to the zoo and out to lunch so that I had some quiet time to get things done.  In the afternoon I ran some errands, picked up our groceries, and did our neighbor's grocery shopping.  Friday evening Phil and I went to the temple.  When we were done we stayed to help clean the temple as it was our ward's turn to volunteer.  We had a lovely time both worshipping and then cleaning and enjoyed spending time together.  We stopped for some dinner on the way home.  It was a great date.

Saturday it was just Phil and Jude and I and we spent most of the day decorating the inside of the house for Christmas.  We ended up keeping two of the three live Christmas trees we cut, so we put the second one up in the living room.  Jude has been obsessed with the Grinch, watching the Jim Carrey version at least once a day.  We caught him with a pillow case "stealing" Christmas from around the house.

We enjoyed church on Sunday.  Jude loves to go to church.  He looks forward to going to nursery all week.  He loves to play with his friends.  He also knows who to cozy up to for snacks.  He hits Sister Alkema up for a treat after Sacrament Meeting and then he knows where to find Sister Greer after church.  I caught a cute picture of the two of them in the foyer where he got some fun stickers.  I'm grateful for all the people who show love and kindness to my kiddos.   

In the evening when Helen and Arlo got home from visiting in Tucson we celebrated Arlo's 13th birthday, which is Monday, with cake and ice cream.  He got to open his gifts and I think overall he was happy with his haul.

Next week is my last week of work for the year so I'm looking forward to wrapping that up as we continue to get ready for the Christmas.

01 December 2024

 December already!  Wow!  I was very fortunate and had the whole week off from work, which was glorious.  On Monday Phil was working and the big kids were at school so Jude and I had the whole day to run errands together.  We made a trip to Sam's Club across town and we stopped at McDonald's for lunch on the way home.  Jude was such a good boy.  He LOVED playing in the play area with the other kids.  In the evening I went back out and did some Mom only shopping.  It was so nice to spend some time without any kiddos hanging off of me.  I stopped at Boot Barn to spend a gift card, Hobby Lobby to check out the 90% off fall décor sale, and then over to Saver's to look for some shoes.  I was shocked that at 7:30 at night the parking lot was absolutely full.  The store was really hopping.  I did some shopping and found a few things and then discovered when I went to check out that everything is half off on Mondays.  Ahh, now I understand why the place was packed.

Felicity came home on Tuesday evening and we were all looking forward to having her home for the week.  I put her right back to work as my taxi driver when Helen needed a ride to her friend Morgan's house for a "Friends-giving" party.  When Helen got home she realized she had homework that was due the next day and got set up to shoot a video for her ASL class.  Her assignment was to film a mock cooking show in American Sign Language; she was so cute I just couldn't help catching a video of her making her video.  I'm really proud of Helen, her ASL has progressed and she's learned so much over the last two years.  I hope that Cienega will be able to offer ASL 3 next year; they don't currently have the class, but might add it if there is enough interest.  If you don't know, I sign and spent several years interpreting at church.  I miss getting to sign on a regular basis.  Helen's ASL teacher has invited me to come in and practice with the students, I just haven't had the time.  Enjoy this video of Helen teaching her audience how to make pumpkin bread.

We were up early on Wednesday as we had three families coming out to the ranch to harvest turkeys.  Phil set everything up and walked everyone through butchering their own Thanksgiving turkey.  We decided this year that we were ready to start over with our flock and we harvested our breeding pair as well as the two chicks we raised to adulthood.  I sure am glad that none of the families picked the old tom because while he was a huge bird, man was he tough!  

I had a hair salon appointment in the afternoon and while I was gone, Felicity gave each of the boys a hair cut.  Arlo's turned out great, Jude's was a little rough!  I think a hair cut on a wiggly toddler was a bit of a challenge for a novice hair stylist.  I'm really proud of Felicity, she's doing great in school and seems to be enjoying her classes and she's been taking clients at the beauty school.  She will be getting her certification/license at the end of the summer.  At my appointment I'm sure my stylist was shocked when I told her I was ready to actually cut my hair.  Right around the time I hit the hundred pounds lost mark, my hair started falling out...I upped my protein intake and made a more concerted effort to regularly take my vitamins and its growing back, but it is very thin compared to its normal state.  Long story short, I had her cut off the bottom six inches that were looking kinda scraggly.  I'm happy with how it came out.

When I got home on Wednesday I was full throttle Thanksgiving prep.  I cut all the veggies, put together the casserole dishes, and baked my pies.  My pies turned out so beautifully!  Felicity also finished her King of the Hill crocheted blanket.  Oh my goodness, its so cute!  She did such a great job.  I haven't done a "graph-gan" like that before, but now I kinda want to find a project so I can learn the technique.

Jude fell asleep on the couch before I got the pies out of the oven.  He cracks me up, he fell asleep basically standing on one foot, what a character! 

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful.  I had far fewer people this year, it was just our family and my mom and dad.  So I had way too much food, but that was ok.  The girls helped me in the kitchen and there may have been a couple of impromptu Broadway performances around the kitchen island.  Everything (except the turkey) was delicious!  The dogs got the tough 'ol turkey, which I guess is fitting since they hated each other in life.  Seriously though, that bird was inedible...think the turkey scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

After cleaning up from dinner we loaded up the truck and headed to Show Low in the White Mountains where we had reservations at the Best Western. Our drive up was uneventful and we got a good night's sleep before getting up and heading in the Apache-Sitgreaves Forrest to cut our Christmas tree!  This has become a family favorite tradition.  

The one unforeseen opps in our trip was such a face-palm moment for me.  When I packed Jude's bag to leave on Thursday I didn't pack his shoes because he was obviously going to put them on to get in the truck.  But then, an hour or so later, right before we left, I had the brilliant idea that he wear his PJs for the ride up so that he could go straight to bed when we got to Show Low.  Naturally he picked feety-jammies and thus didn't need shoes.  So on Friday morning when we got up to drive into the forest we realized that Jude didn't have shoes.  Dang it!  We took a trip to Cal Ranch and lucky for us they were having their black Friday sale and we picked up some new boots for Jude and Dad got a new pair for good measure.

We drove into the forest in the same area we used last year and hiked up the side of the hill.  I saw my tree almost immediately.  We poked around for awhile longer and decided on another of couple of trees.  We got one for ourselves, one for my ministering family, and an extra.  Phil is always the hero with saw.  Then the un-fun part, carrying them the few hundred yards back down the hill to the truck.  They're pokey and one of them was really heavy.  We got them all loaded up and then went into Greer to have lunch at the Rendezvous which was delicious!  I had the Sassy Swine, I'd highly suggest it if you're ever in Greer (I should mention that Phil said his burger was ok and the bill was outrageous; I'm just remembering that tasty BBQ sandwich when giving my review of lunch).  Our drive home was fun with a mixture of Christmas music and musicals (depending on if Mom was in charge of the radio or the sisters).  We stopped in Mammoth (I think) and I let the kids each pick $5 in snacks to tide them over for the rest of the trip home...that was a huge hit.  Heaven love my eternally patient husband. 

My Saturday was really busy.  I had an appointment in the morning and then I drove to Benson to meet my friend Sume for lunch to celebrate her up coming birthday.  We had such a lovely time!  I wish we had taken a picture.  When I got home I got the family ready and did a wardrobe check and then we met the very talented Chantell of Chantell Nicole Photography at Gates Pass to update our family photos.  I also had her do a Christmas photo for us to use in our cards this year.  She got that back to me super fast and I'm in love, I can't wait to see the rest when they're ready!  The kids were rock stars, and we were done pretty quickly. 

When we got back home we changed and then Phil, Felicity, Helen, and I went to the movies to see Wicked.  The girls were dying to see it, in fact I'm pretty sure Felicity asked to go every night since she got home.  We enjoyed the movie, it was so well done, we all liked it and are excited to see part 2 when it comes out.  I'm also surprised I only had to lean forward and shush Felicity once when I caught her audibly humming.

We mostly enjoyed church on Sunday.  Its always hit or miss as to whether or not Jude is going to terrorize us...this week was a terrorize week.  I taught Gospel Doctrine second hour and I think that went fairly well.  With about ten minutes left in my lesson I started to feel really warm and uncomfortable.  I made it through my lesson, but right after church I was desperate to get home as I was feeling nauseated.  I got home and had the most excruciating abdominal pain on top of the nausea.  I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.  I did get up in time to organize the kids in decorating our Christmas tree before Felicity had to head back to school.  I still don't know what was up with my stomach, I'm praying I feel better tomorrow.