Month: December 2021

Lily snapped this shot when I proclaimed how great it is to work from home. This is, in fact, the outfit I started work in. I eventually cleaned up, hahah.

Honestly, it has been a tough couple of weeks for me at work. Two weeks ago, I seemed position to be hundreds of thousands of dollars over my annual quota. We got a series of bad news, and so my last two weeks I have been frantically trying to find a way to hit my annual number, especially because I’m up for promotion, and hitting my annual number is very important for my chances of being promoted.

In the end, I barely missed my number. But, I feel peace, because I feel as I grow older, I’m getting better perspective. I wrapped work up at 3, played with Ammon for an hour, played a little with Ammon, Clarissa and Lily, helped Lily clean the upstairs and then watched the 2005 version of Charlie and the chocolate factory (we watched the original yesterday) with Lily and the kids. Then we looked at blog entries from this year as a family for over an hour (maybe two?). Just being with my family, and reviewing with them all the wonderful things we did together this year was such a wonderful thing for me to do to remind me yet again of what really matters in my life, and what I really love.

Lily has been reading frantically because she realized a couple of days ago that the number of books she has read this year is no where near up to her standard. I think she’s on pace to read or finish around ten books in three days. Go Lily!

Also, Lily like to talk about the things that bring us irrational amounts of joy. For Lily, one of those things is bedding. I’m not sure why she took this photo (or if it was her that took it), but in any case, it’s a great excuse to proclaim Lily’s love for bedding 🙂

Next year I want to spend more time playing with my kids, I want to stay in shape, I want to be more present and supportive for Lily, I want to read more, brush up on my spanish, spend more time with God and with myself in contemplation and studying inspired writing. I want to keep practicing guitar, do well at work, enjoy every moment more, slow down, and most importantly, cultivate and nurture relationships with the people I’m blessed to be surrounded by. There are so many wonderful people in my life. I want to appreciate each day, and not take anything for granted.

My tag line for this year is, “there is no reason why you can’t enjoy every moment.”

Now time to bang the pans with the kids.

Happy New Year!

I recently started reading Harry Potter to the kids. When I was growing up, my dad used to read to me and my brothers. He read us Black and Blue Magic, the Princess Bride, the series for Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the Lord of the Rings. It’s so fun for me to keep the tradition alive. The older girls especially love this time and always beg for more, and I have been really enjoying the illustrated version of book one with them. It is such a great book!

With people being sick and it being cold outside, we’ve been having a lot of cozy time. Here is Lily reading to Clarissa and Ammon and Mary enjoying the white-boards they got from my mom, in the Christmas bags she gave them.

Lily has decided to start cooking a lot more. She bought tons of groceries and today she made an absolutely delicious cabbage, bean noodle and chicken soup.

Also, the kids continue to dance, and Lydia has been adorable doing choreography with the other kids.

Lily wasn’t feeling well today, so I took the kids to the Darais party. It was so nice to see my extended family and chat with everyone.

Here are a couple parts of the program I captured on video:

We were gone for about 4 hours (party started at 3), so when we arrived home, there was concern that it might be too late to do gingerbread houses. I instructed the kids to give Lily their very best puppy dog faces and see if Lily would oblige. Lily obliged 🙂

We had lots of fun making gingerbread houses and decorating gingerbread cookies!

For Christmas, Clarissa got a new night-light bunny that changes colors when you press buttons on a remote control. Lately I’ve been tucking her in with the remote, and I was tickled to catch this picture:

And speaking of beds, here is Lily being cozy in her gnome sheets which she is completely in love with:

This morning we woke up to the sound of snow and hail outside. Clark and Swathi alerted us it was blizzarding in Seattle, but we still packed and drove to Salt Lake because we did not see any evidence that our flight had cancelled.

When we were pulling up to Karin’s house we received a notification that the flight had just cancelled. So we chatted a minute with Karin and headed back home, stopping en route at Spitz.

Once home Abe and I handed the kids their “brain cookers” (i.e. screens) and headed to our new favorite spot in the basement to finish off The Witcher series. We are both under the weather and it was really nice to just lie there doing nothing.

The kids are actually burnt out on screens and spent a lot of that time running around the house. When we were finished we came upstairs to discover Ammon and Clarissa had scratched up a ton of walls with the tip of a metal toy. Sigh.

And Abe made the kids dinner while I sit here catching up on the blog. After dinner the kids gave us another dance show. Abe has it on video. So cute.

In the morning Tom, Suzanne, and Jere joined us for brunch. We didn’t realize we would even be in town for this so Abe and I scrambled to improvise a menu. All of the stores except Walgreens were closed so it was, er, very carb heavy. But everyone seemed to have a good time!

After we cleaned up we let the kids play with all of their toys while we retreated to the basement to our new daybed and watched The Witcher. It was so cozy and lazy, which is exactly what I have wanted.

In the late afternoon the older girls and I headed to my mom’s and visited with her. I gave her a little foot massage while the girls chatted and showed her dances. I also set up her Netflix. I hope she finds some good shows that give her some fun.

After we put the kids to bed we watched more of The Witcher. I know we say this about every series, but it might be our favorite of all time. We just love it.

Because our flight to Seattle was scheduled for Dec 25, we celebrated our Christmas on the 24th this year. The kids woke up to the presents the older girls and I had set out the night before.

Before breakfast Abe took Clarissa to Harmon’s to get some things to make French Toast for us and my mom (to whom we delivered some later).

No one was allowed to open presents until Mary got out of bed (she was the last one up). Here is a video of everyone getting her out of bed.

Here are the letters to and from Santa! (As always, written and burnt by Abe, a tradition started as far back as Grandfather Darais with his kids.)

Abe and I were still recovering emotionally from our fight on the 23rd, so we were very tired this day. I spent half of the day in bed sleeping honestly. And then Abe came down and we talked until we felt so much better. Well, the stress ended up with Abe being sick almost all day, but he did five neti pot sessions to help him recover. Between that and our talk he was feeling better by the end of the day, when we just collapsed in front of The Witcher.

Since I am trying to record the entirety of our family’s life on here as authentically as possible, I’ll just say today was not the best day for us. Abe and I had a huge fight. Aell, mostly I was the one upset until Abe decided an hour and a half in that he could finally see where I was coming from.

We don’t usually have serious or upsetting disagreements–and lately we have felt especially in sync, so this day was very unsettling and painful. We did get to a better place before we went to bed, but it was still a very rough day. Abe, who was perfectly healthy at the beginning of our disagreement, ended it with a severe cold. So I think the stress of listening to me spout off was physically triggering. I wish I did not have a temper. But I am grateful Abe is always very kind and forgiving when it gets the best of me. He had a lot to forgive today, I’ll tell you that!

I got up early and took Basil in to get neutered.

I was feeling the hike and took a three hour bath afterward. I did not emerge until after 12pm. In the time I was soaking Lydia taught Clarissa how to sew and embroider, and she made this pillow! Lydia, you are an absolutely amazing teacher.

In the evening we went out with Nick to Via313. They kids adore Nick and had so much fun playing and talking with him.