Thanksgiving Weekend

We haven’t properly established a Thanksgiving that is always any one particular thing. Some things are consistent of course. The older girls like to help the kids make gumdrop turkeys. And the three of them have started doing pies with me – while we officially break out the Christmas music -- the night before Thanksgiving. And it’s Mike’s favorite holiday. He loves getting the newspaper that day, turning on the parade and the dog show, and letting me get out for a run (where I inevitably see groups playing football at every park I pass – no matter how cold it is).

But some years we join my mom – with whichever siblings happen to also be joining her that year; and some years we join Mike’s family -- with whatever siblings happen to be joining them that year; and, in recent years, we’ve even done some Thanksgivings on our own (which, we really quite enjoy!). So, the details change a bit from year to year.

This year my mom flew to Texas to be with my sister Shannon’s and my brother Aaron’s families. And we joined Mike’s family.

Mike’s mom had reserved a church gym – which turned out to be great for the kids -- as they had plenty of room to run about, play games (even a few rounds of Lightning were played once tables were moved a bit), and even use Legos! (Mike’s brother brought an entire kiddy pool full of Legos. I don’t know how he managed to carry it to his car, but Jesse in particular was in heaven!)

We brought the pies we’d made the night before (to join with the pies others had brought) as well as mashed potatoes and gravy. (And here we must mention that Goldie peeled and cut ALL of the potatoes! And we probably did over 20 lbs. She made the gravy too!)

And then . . . I snuck back home a bit early, turned on Christmas music, and cleaned the house. (Perhaps not the most Thanksgivingy thing to do. But we’d decided earlier to leave for Bear Lake Thanksgiving night. And the kids had packed that morning, but I can’t bear to leave on a vacation . . . knowing I will have a messy house to come home to. And, there is nothing so nice as cleaning a house . . . when nobody is there messing it up at the same time. So I cleaned up, Mike and the kids returned home, and off we went.)

Here was an email I sent to Mike’s family that summed up our weekend:

Shortly after the party, we loaded up the van and came to our cabin. The kids are currently out trying to sled (even though we brought no snow pants and even though the snow isn’t truly deep enough for any real sledding). Anders has remained inside however and has been talking to me for the last twenty minutes straight about the marvel of how it occurred to him to build a yeti out of Legos when initially he’d only intended to draw a yeti (and when he was actually rather tired and wasn’t sure he had the energy to carry out any yeti plans).

Yesterday we drove to “the big city” (Montpelier)— certain that with it being Black Friday it would be a happening scene. “Happening” turned out to be a craft fair, Family Dollar, and a stop at the one small pizza place in town. Not even the Butch Cassidy museum was open. (Though the kids loved imagining the faithful officer who, the sign told us, borrowed a bicycle and pedaled with all of his might after Butch and his men — who easily outdistanced him.)

Anyway, love you all,
Nancy

And love to you all, blog readers! Farewell. For now.

A Bit of the Scoop Around Here

After a day of rain (that might have been a serious snow storm had it just been a few degrees cooler), we woke this morning to a clear enough day that I immediately noticed all the new snow on Ben Lomond’s peak. But, within a half hour or so, Ben Lomond had disappeared. A thick fog fell onto our town. (“It’s clouds that fell from the sky.” That’s what I tell the kids.)

We rarely get a good, heavy fog around here, and there is something mysterious and mystical about one that I love. As I drove the boys to school (Penny had gone early for choir), we kept pointing out all the things . . . that we couldn’t point out, I guess. We could no longer see the usual stop sign (and empty field across from it) when we turned south out of our cul-de-sac. The round-about closer to the school was completely missing. And houses were mere mirages – ghostly buildings to the sides of us. I told the boys about the time in Kindergarten when I’d set out to school (I must have had afternoon Kindergarten, as there were no older siblings walking with me) in a thick fog. I made it to the end of our street and turned to head up to the school, but . . . it wasn’t there. I pressed bravely on – staring forward into the mist, faithfully believing that in just a few more steps, surely it would appear. But with each step – and still no sign of the usually-looming school -- my bravery grew less and my pace more hesitant until, all at once, terror seized me and, with no more space for logic in my five-year-old mind, I turned and fled back home to my mom.

Anyway. This morning. Fog. Yes. But there have been all sorts of other things going on around here!

After hours spent assembling his application portfolio, Abe was selected as the Math Sterling Scholar from his large high school. He also completed his Eagle Project (none too soon – as he turns 18 in a matter of weeks) and has begun requesting letters of recommendation, etc. for upcoming college application deadlines. He is already so inundated with homework and studying from all of his AP classes, that both Mike and I really were feeling that something was going to have to give. And we told him as much. (You don’t have to do an eagle project. You don’t need to apply for sterling scholar.) But somehow he continued to plow his way through.

There was an interview as part of the Sterling Scholar application process. In it, the applicants were given 30 minutes and a complex math problem to solve. Abe was the only one of the students to solve it. However, he re-created the problem for Daisy later – and she too blithely solved it in the given time-frame. Speaking of Daisy, she recently got herself hired for her dream job: an elementary school janitor. Haha. Oh all right. Not her dream job. And, at present, she is only technically hired as a substitute, but it should actually be pretty ideal. It’s all high schoolers (besides the head janitor), both she and Abe have friends doing it, it’s incredibly close to home (she’ll be wandering the halls of her old elementary stomping grounds), it pays quite a bit more than minimum wage, and there are no weekends or late nights -- just filling in from 3:30 to 6:30 for those who request her to cover their shifts. (And it will please Mike [who feels a teenager, no matter how busy, ought to begin earning a little income].)

Bravo for my darling little janitor! (She does also teach group piano lessons with her piano teacher on Mondays, so she can call herself a piano instructor if she prefers. :))

(Oh! And that above picture of Abe with a trophy. He was on the Academic Olympiad team that his school sent off to a competition at Utah State a few weeks ago. Unfortunately his school didn’t place. But, out of the several hundred students there, he got an individual 3rd place trophy on the Language Arts test.)

Penny and I have been working on her 6th grade science fair project. I admit, we, perhaps, did an overly simple project. I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything requiring . . . much of anything. But . . . it’s the holidays! And . . . I have a lot of kids. So. Shrug. Oh! But you really should all be so lucky as to come to her upcoming choir Christmas performance. Never, in the history of elementary schools, has anyone created a more entertaining and magnificent choir! Truly! I am in awe of the women who, in only a few early mornings a week with the kids, manage to put it together and pull it off. It has become so well attended that you now have to reserve tickets and they’ve had to add shows! Rumor has it that people from other states come to watch so they can try to do something as miraculous with there own school choirs. It is just fun, and dazzling, and entertaining and one of my favorite things to attend in December!

Goldie has been enjoying another NAL (National Academic League) season. She also tried out for the school play and will officially be “Munchkin Number Two” and “a member of the munchkin trio” (along with several other small rolls) in The Wizard of Oz! She also plans on running track. NAL will wind up soon. But then the play will start . . . and run right into track season . . . at the exact same time as we have our new baby. It’s all wonderful stuff. But it also means she misses the bus that usually brings her home after school, and I can’t wait ‘til next year: when she can participate to her heart’s content in all the extra-curricular activities she loves . . . at a school that is in close walking distance rather than . . . somewhat far driving distance. :)

And the younger kids? They have been full of their usual shenanigans. (Including this lovely, black eye Anders managed to procure at recess one day. [And I wish I could say, “But you should have seen the other guy!” Only . . . the “other guy” was a step on the playground.])

As for me. Well. I’ve been a bit emotional this pregnancy. Though, in truth, I can’t safely blame it on pregnancy. There is so much happiness and joy in this big family and my life situation. I have an impossibly unfair amount of blessings in my life. (I could [and perhaps SHOULD] list large and small things for hours. [Though Mike and his constant goodness to me is certainly at the very top of that list.]) But also . . . this path I’ve taken, at least at this stage, is utterly and exhaustingly hard. It truly is. I cannot properly express how overwhelming things are. For my nearly three years with six kids, I felt . . . so on top of life. It was full and busy, but I could do it! And quite well! I was rather proud of myself and how suited I seemed to be to the big family life. But the transition from six to nine has taken me a million million miles from that stage of competency and confidence. And I cry, rant, and fail miserably at something nearly every day. BUT! I shared this quote from Elder Richard G. Scott with the YW I was teaching last Sunday (though I added all the bolding and underlining and the like):

I have learned a truth that has been repeated so frequently in my life that I have come to know it as an absolute law. . . . When we obey the commandments of the Lord and serve His children unselfishly, the natural consequence is power from God -- power to do more than we can do by ourselves. Our insights, our talents, our abilities are expanded because we receive strength and power from the Lord.

It goes hand-in-hand with these recent words from our prophet Russell M. Nelson: “I promise you that as you consistently give the Lord a generous portion of your time, He will multiply the remainder.” 

As I encouraged them to put the things of God before the other demands of their full lives, I was able to bear such a strong testimony to them of this principle because, of necessity, I have come to know it is true. It is how I survive from day to day. I live by this “absolute law”. I depend on it fiercely. I do the things He has asked me to do – and then I plead with Him to make possible the necessary things that I see absolutely no way of fitting in or doing. And somehow . . . the way does open up. Insights come. More time is somehow found (or I manage better than I should on far less sleep than I should). Or more is accomplished in a short span of time than should have been possible. My incredibly weak efforts – often given in tears and with strugglings -- are magnified. And I suppose that is one of the important lessons God has for me to learn in guiding me into a life that is full of a thousand more daily demands than I can ever possibly meet and a thousand more worries and problems than I can ever possibly solve. I have learned to rely on him in a way I never needed or thought to before. Like the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness, I absolutely depend on manna from heaven . . . every single day. And the fact that I usually only get a day at a time . . . keeps me relying on him all the more. I am grateful that He somehow managed to create a life for me where the full and beautiful things I have . . . are all intermingled with the intensity and difficulty necessary to have humbled me to the reliance on and trust in him . . . that, I imagine, are exactly what I came to morality to learn.

Twenty Week Thoughts

I hit the 20 week mark of this pregnancy last Friday.

20 weeks is always such a BIG, surprising point for me to reach. Not only have little kicks added a whole new dimension to the reality of what’s going on, but there is a fair amount of shock to the realization that something big and huge – like a new life entering your existence – is REALLY going to happen. It’s not just a wild and marvelous idea like it seemed upon first seeing those two pink lines on a pregnancy test. The amount of time that had to pass for something that seemed too far away to think of as solid reality . . . has, quite suddenly it seems, half played itself out! And, with that, there is a sudden startling recognition that the other half of that time span will also pass.

And it isn’t just that! Every week I google what’s going on with this baby and his/her development and growth. (And most weeks my other kids ask “How big is our baby now?”) Forever . . . baby was just the tiniest speck of an existing being. First just lentil-sized. Then a blueberry. Why even at eight weeks, baby was still only the length of a kidney bean, and at 10 weeks little one was only just hitting the one inch mark. It was only three measly weeks ago that baby finally reached five inches – still an eternity away from being a full-sized newborn ready to come to this world. But then, around twenty weeks, they quit measuring “crown to rump” and begin talking in terms of full length. And quiet unexpectedly I jump from imagining a a pea-pod to a ten-plus-inch human! Ten inches! Suddenly, with a rather awed jolt, I can actually imagine a little baby ready to be placed in my arms!

I am, of course, eager to actually see this little person – to know what they look like, to nuzzle their soft cheeks, unbundle their scrawny legs, and to see if I’m even carrying a girl or a boy; but right now is kind of a lovely place for me. I have this sacred space of time to ponder on the meaning and miracle of this spirit coming to me – to think about it from its spiritual vantage point without having to yet factor in the exhausting realities and emotions that accompany adjusting to the demands of a newborn. There is maybe nothing as purely magical and powerful as a newborn. I already want to weep at how fast that phase will pass. But I am enjoying where I am right at this moment in this journey. I’m far enough removed from the fear and overwhelming responsibility I felt upon first having the impression that God wanted me to accept another child into our home that it no longer holds me tightly. I can feel fully the excitement and miracle of another soul being connected to me for all of eternity – when it might not have been. And I’m far enough from the work and readjusting of life that actually having a new baby entails for me that I don’t yet feel any anxiety about the impending strain. (And lest I sound ungrateful suggesting that having this baby will be stressful . . . let’s consider the truth that, as much as I will love having my baby here, I will not only be caring for ten kids and juggling the associated demands . . . but four of those “kids” will be under the age of five! [Four kids four and under! How on earth has this happened?? Haha.])

Anywho, that is all. Just a bit of my thoughts and feelings at this space in time. But, because I like a post to have at least something by way of photos, here are a few I recently took of some of the children in our primary for a Nativity slideshow one of our bishopric members is putting together. (This isn’t all of our primary of course! Just the first gathering of little shepherds and angels, etc.)

Also, while I was busily arranging kids, and telling them to stand right where I put them and not move, and hollering at them to look at me or quit poking their neighbor with their shepherd’s crooks, or to move a sheep from covering their face; another mom who was there texted me this little picture of Summer – who went and found a crown to add to her angel halo. I keep looking at it. I love her dear, little face.

October’s End

October certainly just comes to a sudden halt, doesn’t it! One day it’s fall and pumpkins and Halloween. The next day . . . it’s Christmas.

Haha. No. Not really. It’s certainly not Christmas here yet. (Though I did listen to this song today . . . a few times. It’s Cristmassy, but not . . . a traditional Christmas song . . . so it felt OK. And it’s so pretty. But don’t tell Goldie! She is not one to allow nonsense like sneaking in early Christmas music.)

But the change from fall and Halloween to . . . not fall and Halloween did feel rather abrupt this year! Last weekend our trees were still mostly covered in fall leaves. And the weather was fairly warm. And half of my kids still had no idea what costume they’d wear. But today I woke up to used costumes – all piled up and ready to be returned to the basement, cold rain, and only a few clinging leaves!

October finished. Just like that! (The calendar even changed to November!)

I really do love the month of October. Everything fall and harvesty just feels wholesome and makes me happy. (Well, minus the creepy costumes and gore. But those don’t actually factor in to our October around here.) Leaves, cooler weather, school routines having become . . . well, routine, pumpkins and cornstalks, our fall-scented candle occasionally burning, eager kids digging through our costume boxes, the anticipation of the whole holiday season ahead.

In the midst of it I often almost begin to think I could choose it as my favorite month. (After all Christmas has all that pesky shopping for one million kids to take care of. . . .)

But then I remember Christmas music! And the whole focus on Christ’s birth, and childhood memories of my grandma’s on Christmas Eve and of sleeping in my older sister Amy’s room in the new Christmas nightgowns my mom had sewn – listening to Amy tell stories about Santa sightings, and the magic my mom somehow wove into snow and Christmas books, and twinkly lights everywhere, and my kids so excited, . . . and Christmas music! (Ha! I know. I said that. But Christmas music is so tied up with everything I mentioned; with every nostalgic and good thing in my life and every good thing that Christ has given me that . . . I can pretty much sum up all the magic of December with: “Christmas music”. A million memories and emotions and smells and sights tied with so many songs!).

But this is and was a happy month. I’m noticing more and more the things that have become tradition for my kids. There are a million things that I don’t do . . . that others do so expertly that occasionally I fret for a moment I am robbing my kids. But I really have begun to see the things that they expect and look forward to each year – the things that have become ours. (Even small things like Abe lighting all the pumpkins on the porch and all the candles in the house for me on Halloween, or the older girls taking the little ones trick-or-treating around our cul-de-sac before going off to their own parties, or eating stew on Halloween.) I keep seeing these things – the ones that have become repeated and significant to my kids – and they make me feel like I am managing to create a magical childhood in my own way for them – just like my parents did for me.

All the traditions are tied, at this stage, with a lot of work and a fair amount of stress for me. I long to perfectly create these holidays for my kids with no one demanding to be held and with mess never the end result. (I can’t even tell you how long it took to clean up everything from pumpkin carving . . . and how hard that felt to me with it landing when five little people desperately needed help getting to bed and Mike was away). But mixed in with the challenge of pulling it off, the perfect moments all do exist. I recognize them. And I love them!

(And one last October-ending note: Abe’s mountain-biking team just had their team pics taken. They made a big to-do over the outgoing seniors – presenting them with a cool poster with all their pictures on it, etc. We will miss it!)