Month: December 2018

On Tuesday Abe left town at 3am for another work trip. I am back blogging and don’t remember anything else from that day!

On Monday for FHE we read the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke two and then played Pin the Tail on Rudolph.

On Sunday Abe asked for a blessing from out ministers, the Moons. They came over after dinner and gave Abe a blessing, and then they stayed and talked with us for an hour. Reed Moon is the owner of Moon’s Rare Books and privately owns the best Mormon book collection in the world. He has copies of Books of Mormon owned by Joseph Smith, Sophronia Smith, Alvin Smith, and Samuel Smith, as well as the personal scriptures of twelve latter-day prophets. He also owns a ton of other rare books, including the first editions of, it seems, most any important book you can name!

Even more interesting is Reid Moon himself, who seems to have a photographic memory and is, obviously, steeped in historical knowledge. I asked him a lot of questions about polygamy, Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young, and in response he, at times, quoted obscure letters from heart. He regaled us with tales of Mormon history that are not well known, and he was all around just one of the most interesting people we have ever met. I felt so grateful for the time he took with us because he leads such a crazy schedule he must hardly ever see his family.

I also forgot to take pictures of this day. Darn.

On Saturday after I came home from yoga I raced to get ready so that Mary could make it to her piano lesson, which was right before Lydia’s harp recital. December gets so crazy! Lydia did great at the recital. The student before had changed the key signature of the harp and forgotten to change it back, so Lydia started off playing the wrong key. She powered through without any mistakes,  not stopping even when Anamae came to flip the levers and correct the key. I was so proud of her.

Then we went home and Abe, Clarissa, and I napped while the other kids watched a movie. When we woke up, we piled in the car and drove to Salt Lake to buy my mom’s Christmas present, see the lights at Temple Square, and eat dinner at Cedars of Lebanon, a restaurant Abe and I ate at years ago and remembered fondly. In the ensuing years, the restaurant has become a lot more fancy than we remembered. Abe ended up sacrificing eating dinner with us so and took Ammon and Clarissa out to get the car while the girls and I ate. After we finished, the girls LOVED watching the belly dancer. Mary was copying her moves and asked if she could become a belly dancer when she grows up. I said sure.

Here are the pictures from the outing:

On Friday I took Ammon and Clarissa to the mall playground while the cleaners cleaned the house.

I spent a lot of the day eating sugar and carbs. By the end of the day I felt very burnt out on kids and just wanted Abe to come home. I went to bed early so that the time would pass more quickly until his arrival at 1:30am. I will be so glad when all of his traveling this quarter is all over!

On Thursday I think we were all tired of not having Abe around. Mary threw tantrums, and so did I. We managed to get through all of our normal routines, and I went to bed counting the hours until Abe’s return.

During Clarissa’s nap today I was a bad parent and watched S.H.E.I.L.D. shows while I wrapped Christmas presents. Unfortunately Ammon was around and happened to see someone get stabbed through the heart. I quickly paused it, put him on a phone, and resumed watching and wrapping. If I were having a good parent day, I would have switched off the TV altogether and just focused on Ammon instead. Oh, well. Thank goodness for repentance.

Abe is traveling today and for the rest of the week. It is so sad to have him gone, but the upside is I feed everyone a really early dinner and then the kids are in bed an hour earlier than usual. That means I can catch up on blogging, read my scriptures, finish some of my photo projects…and now binge watch more S.H.E.I.L.D. Hopefully I don’t get nightmares.

On Tuesday we had the Kahlers over for our German Christmas dinner. I am trying to do Christmas around the world with dinners, but it is a bit hard because Abe is out of town so much this month. We managed to get Germany done with the Kahlers, though! And we had so much fun with them. We are so lucky to have the best neighbors in the world.

I made Sauerbraten, rotkohl, smashed potatoes, and steamed green beans with a side of Great Harvest bread and an assortment of Trader Joe’s German cookies. I actually don’t think this dinner was a traditional German Christmas dinner, but the sauerbraten and rotkohl were, at least, German.

This is the kids on our Trader Joe’s outing before dinner. They asked me to take their picture, so I happily complied:

 

On Monday night while my mom was at the empty nesters FHE, we went to the Taohos. They planned a lesson, a craft and a treat–and even showed us their pet python at the end! We love them and the girls were over the moon about their new crafted ornaments.

Afterward we put the kids down and Abe and I watched our latest favorite TV show, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. We are now kind of obsessed.

This morning we woke up to snow!!

After playing in the snow we RUSHED to get ready for stake conference. We went to the room for families with young children and it is such a relief to let the kids just do whatever they want during the talks. I figured ours didn’t hear a word of conference because they were so busy playing, but lo and behold at dinner Abe quizzed them on conference and it turned out that Mary and Lydia heard and remembered all of the main stories and principles!!! I was shocked. Abe was shocked. My mom was shocked. And then my mom gave them all chocolate because she was so thrilled.

Abe and I took a long nap after lunch and the kids were SO GOOD and quiet during that time. We were so thankful that they didn’t wake up Clarissa and may be starting to learn how to be quiet during nap time…I hope, I really do. I can’t handle another day of reminding them to not scream or yell while the baby is sleeping!

Then we had a FHE that Mary and my mom put together on the little lamb of Bethlehem. Mary loves presenting FHE and loves telling us all what to do. We all love watching her take charge. It is very cute.

During FHE Clarissa cuddled on Lydia’s lap and read books:

And to finish off, Ammon’s cross dressing outfit o’the day: