Making a memory...

A long, long time ago...Will and I lived in Boston as newlyweds.  We went to church with a bunch of other couples who were newlywed.  We were all childless (and free) and were in a variety of stages of school or work.  As our years in Boston went by, most of the couples had their first and then their second child around the same time.  After about four years many of us a kid or two and were moving on the other locations.  

Earlier this month I got a facebook message from Julie, who was one of our earliest friends in Boston.  In fact, most of us newlywed couples used to meet up every Sunday evening for Family Home Evening.  One couple would host and we'd have a little lesson and a treat.  It was great!  Anyway, Julie and her family were going to be in the Bay Area.  One of our other old friends, the Wirigs, also live in the Bay Area (we see them as often as possible).  Julie suggested a mini-reunion.

Last night they all came to our new house for chili and cinnamon rolls. We also invited the Smiths.  Bryant had lived for a summer in Boston when we were all there.  He and his wife, Candace, were in our old ward across the bay when they were newlyweds...and now they live up near the Wirigs.  It was a party!

There were seventeen kids and eight adults!  I don't know if our house will ever be so full again.  All of the big kids fell into different groups based on age and interests (yay for anime).  It was so wonderful to catch up with all of our dear friends again.  Plenty of stories were told and laughter shared.  

Those are the best kinds of reunions.

Holiday Celebrations in a New House

Our first Christmas in our first house!  Christmas Eve highlights: 

Having Dave and Angela come to our house with all of their fun traditions.

Loosing power right as we started to eat.

Rigging up all of the cell phones and flashlights for light so we could play games.

The Nativity performed.

Lorien and Wyatt getting to stay up late and help.

The power coming back on about an hour into the work of getting ready for Christmas.

Christmas day highlights:

Christmas on a Sunday but church starting at eleven o'clock and only being an hour long.
Kids getting and loving homemade snuggies.
Lorien getting tickets for Hamilton!
ALL OF THE PRESENTS.

Post Christmas highlights:

The snowball fight.
The measuring tree (that didn't happen until February)

Crap that has to happen before Christmas break...

Our school district changed its instructional calendar this year.  They moved the start of school up to mid August so first semester finals could be over by Christmas break.  Sounds great, unless you have four kids in three different schools and everyone has a concert, project, or class activity to get through before the break.  

It is craziness. 

Total craziness.

First up, Lorien's orchestra concert.  She killed it (naturally).

Second, Clare's heritage project.  Poster made, outfit secured, presentation preformed.  She was adorable.

Third, Wyatt's band concert.  This was interesting...at 6:40pm I got a call from Will asking if Wyatt had a concert that night...because Evan did.  I asked Wyatt.  Sure enough, he had a concert and was supposed to be at the school at 6:40.  After a variety of curses, I got Wyatt into the van and took him down the hill to the middle school.  We arrived one minute before the concert started.  Fortunately, his band was not up first.  I found a seat in the audience and waited.  After a few minutes, I noticed Wyatt in the crowd of band kids.  He was playing on all of his friend's phones, one after the other.  So I got up to go tell him to knock it off.  When I got over to him I started to hiss about his bad manners playing on phones while other concerts were going on.  He quickly explained that he was trying to call me (I get zero cell coverage at the middle school).  He had left all of his band music at home.

I literally wrapped my hands around his neck and started shaking him.  DUDE!  This night was not going well.  Thank heavens we drove over and thank heavens we live just up the street now!  I quickly raced home and found his music.  I got back to the middle school just as the band before Wyatt's was playing their last song.  Mini disaster averted.  Child's concert attended.  He did a great job.

Wyatt is not loving band this year.  He has a new teacher for the second year in a row and he is not interested in practicing.  He has tried to drop band before.  I don't know how much longer he will stick with it.

Fourth, the church Christmas party.  Adell and Colter were in the nativity with Adell playing Mary.  They were all holy cuteness.

Fifth, Colter had a few preschool activities.  Thankfully, they were all during school hours.  He just comes home with a backpack full of projects and sticky hands from frosting.  Fun and messy.

Sixth, Adell's elementary school sing.  This was the first time her school ever did anything like this (new music teacher).  The big kids never had this...or they didn't tell me about it.  I remember attending holiday sings at Lorien and Wyatt's school in Menlo Park but not here.  Anyway, she told me about it the week before and I was skeptical.  Were parents really supposed to attend?  I made the effort anyway.  I stood in a packed MPR with a hundred other parents.  When I saw her group go up I frantically waved until she saw me.  Credit for attendance, check!  She sang a few cute holiday songs and the next group was up...and I was out of there.

Not an event, but one of Lorien's friends dropped off this cookie decorated to look like her.  Cute.  The friend is a boy.  Scary.  She also injured her hip at wrestling practice (thus the crutches).

Seventh (are we on 7?), Clare's church class party.  Fairly simple, except I got my messages crossed and thought the teachers were giving her a ride home.  She ended up abandoned at their house for two hours before they finally called and asked if I was ever going to come and pick her up.  Christmas decorations made and maternal humiliation completed.

Eight, I got to make a million whoopie pies for Clare's heritage luncheon (a week after her project).  They are so delicious!  I only seem to make them for kids heritage projects.  My waistline is probably grateful.

Ninth and last, Clare and Adell's Merry Little Christmas Show performance.  Starting right after Halloween a friend puts together singing and dancing groups and puts on a show before Christmas.  Lorien did it last year and Clare and Adell did it this year.  They loved it!  Their acts were the cutest.  Done, done, done.  Now we can have Christmas...

So school is out and now we can focus on Christmas.  We didn't have any time to do any of our regular traditions...yet.  No Creche, no driving around to check out Winter Wonderlands (house lights), we did get ginger bread houses made...and I fought with my children over it...so it felt right.  It was crazy.  I am not looking forward to repeating it all next year.  Merry Christmas.

R-A-I-N!

We moved into our new house and California decided to get over its five-year drought.  It feels like it has been raining every day since we moved.  It makes it hard to play in our new back yard but our street is pretty cool.  Living on a hill creates a full river of water rushing past the front of our house.  The river is perfect for tin foil boat races.  We've made tin foil boats, leaf boats, and sent little pebbles down the river.  It's pretty fun...soaking wet fun.

Christmas Tree Dreamz...

We like a live tree around these parts.  The smell, the mess, the irregularity of shape, all of it.  

Every year, we haul at least 80% of our family to a tree lot to pick out a real tree.  Every year strong opinions are given on the tree that should be Our Tree.  Every year, I make the final decision and it is 100% based on how long we've been standing around and how chilly it is.  I do not care.

Every year, I wrap the tree in lights.  I fight children off with my elbows and knees as they try to open ornament boxes before the tree is lit.  

Every year, I wrap each individual branch from trunk to tip in lights.  It looks amazing!  

Every year, I run out of lights about a third of the way up the tree and have to unwrap the whole tree and start over.  We always decorate the tree on a Sunday so going to the store for more lights is not an option.  So I have to relight the whole tree with fewer lights...it looks ok.

Every year, after poking my hand deep into a Christmas tree fifteen times, I remember that this tree has been living outside for its entire life.  AND spiders live outside...in trees and bushes...and I have to stop wrapping and give myself a positive pep talk.

Every year, Will hangs the star on the top of the tree.  Sometimes a little kid helps him, but mostly it is just Daddy.

Every year, an ornament breaks.

Every year, I rearrange ornaments to slightly more ideal locations.

We love our traditions. 

Here are some pictures of the kids greeting Daddy when he comes home.  The tree looks nice and we are keeping the tradition of jumping into Will's arms when he gets home.  

Every year, I wish for a picture window to display our Christmas tree in.  Every year, I am disappointed...except for this year!!!  Our new house has a lovely picture window that our neighbors can see our messy house through during other times of the year.  BUT at Christmas time, our neighbors get to see a kick-butt real tree, decorated to perfection!

Sure, preschool sounds great...

Just like home prices and everything else in the Bay Area, preschool prices are astronomical around here.  Every time it has been preschool time for our kids we've weighed our financial options: preschool or health insurance?  Preschool or a car payment?  Preschool or eliminating our credit card debt?  It is never cheap and we almost always skip preschool unless we can find a screaming deal.  Lorien did a parent co-op preschool for six months.  It was cheap but brutal.  Parents had to be in the classroom one day a week, attend weekly parenting meetings, have a board position and help on work days (all Saturday every few months).  I was pregnant with Clare and we were paying next to nothing because the preschool had a "student" discount  (Will was in grad school).  Six weeks before Clare was due I had Lorien "drop out" of preschool.  It is a disgrace, I know.  How will she ever get into college?

Wyatt got to go to preschool because we got to know this woman who taught preschool out of her home near us.  For one reason or another, her class size was down that year and she was willing to cut us a deal so she could take care of an extra kid?  It make zero sense to me now but that's how we did preschool for Wyatt.  When it was Clare's turn we were still friendly with this preschool teacher and she was willing to take Clare for the same price we paid for Wyatt.  Those are the breaks we seek out and take advantage of.

Adell, well we spent the most on Adell's preschool.  It was also run by a family friend out of her home.  It was amazing and worth every penny.  But that was the year we first decided to save in earnest to buy a home...and every month, we were short the exact amount preschool cost to put in our savings account for a home.  So, we didn't really save at all.  We just paid for preschool...that we loved and Adell loved.  Her preschool teacher still had Adell over for special activities.  Amazing.

And now we come to Colter.  I looked into preschool options but there just wasn't one out there with in our financial reach (and to still keep paying off debt and qualify for a home loan).  With every kid we've done a year of "home preschool" or "joy school" with moms and kids in our area.  I love home preschool every week except for the week I have to teach home preschool...then I hate home preschool.  It is a lot of work.  None the less, it is a great time for little kids to have social and educational experiences at home and at friend's homes.  We did home preschool with two other friends last year.  It was great (except for the weeks I had to teach).  Colter loved his friends and his teachers.  I hoped to do another round of home preschool for Colter's year before Kindergarten.  However, all of our home preschool friends moved over the summer.  So we were stuck.  No matter, I have a TV, computer and iPad...Colter will be entertained just fine.  He just isn't going to get a lot of instructional time in his year before Kindergarten...just screen time for this guy!

Fast forward to the week before Thanksgiving.  I get a call from my friend who says she is going to switch preschool programs and would I like her son's spot at preschool?  Sure!  This particular preschool is dirt cheap and parents don't have to do anything.  It is one of those awesome "early childhood education" programs run through the high school.  So all of the "teachers" are high school students.  The high school is not close to my home but it is dirt cheap and four days a week!  Sign my boy up, I'll take it!

Colter started the week after Thanksgiving and seems to love it.  He only has friends who are high school students.  When I pick him up he says "Bye Shawn, bye Will!" and boys who would be considered adults in the eyes of the law wave goodbye to my baby.  It's great?  Colter loves it...he will make friends his own age...I hope.

Wyatt's Poker Face...

It is a friend birthday party year...and we moved...so that made things tricky.

Wyatt's first choice was laser tag.  We talked more and really, he just wanted to hang out with his friends.  He came up with a game night instead.  Specifically, poker.  Earlier in the school year he created a poker group...at school.  He and a bunch of friends gathered during lunch and breaks and played poker with food.  A teacher came around and told them they could play...but not with food.  In the teacher's hearing, Wyatt said: "tomorrow, everyone bring in a bunch of pennies."  The teacher quickly informed them they couldn't play with money either.  Wyatt came home and started thinking, he found some math counters on amazon as well as a poker trophy.  So, the unofficial club was formed.  They play every day and whoever makes the most chips at the end of the week gets to take the trophy home for the weekend.  So his birthday party idea was born.

We invited all of his friends...and they all said they could come...cool...that's like 30 boys...Wyatt is popular. 

The night of, I think we ended up having 20 boys show up.  We had tables, cards and chips all ready to go.  We taught the boys how to play five-card draw and Will ran a table of Texas Hold em for boys who played well in five-card draw to move up to.  It was pretty crazy.  I had a sore throat from trying to talk over all of the boys at my table.  All of the boys were good sports and there were boys from church, school, sports teams and in grades 6, 7 and 8 there.  It was a great mix of kids.  After the debauchery of gambling was over we switched over to a movie, Guardians of the Galaxy.  I think the boys had a good time.  I know Wyatt did!  He got a lot of gift cards from his friends and had so much fun playing and hanging out.  Boy's birthday party success!!! 

A girl who wrestles...

A couple of months ago Lorien announced that she would be wrestling this year.  This was a shock.  Lorien tried wrestling when she was pretty little, eight years old maybe?  But she got her face stuffed in a mat her first match and decided it wasn't for her.  She still participated in practices and enjoyed that but did not participate in a match again.  Will suspected she wanted to wrestle because of a boy...I knew the boy was her father and her interest in something he is interested in.  

So she started attending open mat meetings where the team got together casually to work out and practice moves.  She was also taking Japanese and her schedule was full.  The season started full time and she had to finish Japanese before being in wrestling full time.  It was hard but she said she wanted to keep doing it!  

Her first tournament was today.  She was nervous and it was hard.  She wrestled two boys and got pinned (quickly) both times.  One match was harder than the other and she felt a little defeated.

In her last match, the kid pinned her quickly but the way their bodies were crunched together he had his arm over her neck and it was pretty uncomfortable for her.  Her first match was a little better and lasted longer.  She needs a lot of practice but she is determined.  I am proud of her.  

She did have the best cheering section of anyone there.  Go Lorien!!!