A Musical, Some Tonsils, and Thanksgiving

Those three topics seem to pair well enough together, don't they? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Penny's theater teacher is quite good at what he does. I think he even received some Utah Teacher of the Year award a year or so ago. So it's great she and Goldie have been able to be a part of his productions. ... On the other hand, you don't put together amazing productions by demanding relatively little of your cast. And at times I have more than wished for a shoddier production and a child more at home! That's just during rehearsals of course. Once I get to see the play itself, I'm always happy one of my kids got to be a part of it. And of course the potato fundraiser is a big plus in my book. (Which is not typically something I would say about a fundraiser. But potatoes and gravy are a Sunday staple at our house. And I like nothing more than having several of those enormous bags of very large potatoes in our basement food storage room!)

With all of that said, I present you Penny in The Pirates of Penzance. (Oh that modern Major-General is a fun character.):

And tonsils. The last time we had tonsils out in our family was in 2005 when Mike was in Georgia and little Daisy was three and snoring and gasping so much in sleep from her enlarged tonsils and adenoids that I truly feared she was being deprived of oxygen. But then we had 17 years of never even considering such a surgery again. Which is why it is rather surprising that we've had two tonsil/adenoidectomies in our family since August!

Mette had hers out the Friday before Thanksgiving. And I must say that I am glad to be on the other side of recovery. (Oh she's not fully healed up yet, but back to feeling mostly fine.)

Hans had given her the full rundown. And it's a good thing they let her choose a stuffed animal before surgery too because she was counting on it and would have been enormously let down had it not happened!

Poor love post surgery.

Everyone was so sweet to her. Daisy was away at college, but had frozen yogurt with all kinds of fun toppings delivered. Goldie brought her new earrings when she came home the following weekend. Gayle brought her some cozy pajamas. Our neighbors and also my ministering sister brought her popsicles. 

Still, for all of that, and all of the popsicles, etc. we promised and gave ... it still feels like you mostly just duped them when they discover that "all the ice cream you can handle" is not really that fun when you feel miserable. :(

And Thanksgiving! We had Mette recovering from her surgery, and some illness from other kids early in the week, so I was worried Thanksgiving wouldn't pan out. But it turned out happily. (Though Starling did come home after my mom's and immediately threw up. Eek. So hopefully we didn't pass anything along!)

I wish I'd taken pictures of Wednesday night's pie making! The girls made so many! Probably our most yet! But we wanted plenty to take to my mom's and afterwards to the Harris's. If I haven't forgotten any, Daisy made six (including the traditional Harris huckleberry pie--which she's gotten quite good at), Goldie made three, I made two, and Penny made three! We were up quite late baking and washing dishes. But it's so fun that this thing I used to do with my sisters (we would all gather at Kathy's house to make pies the night before Thanksgiving), I now get to experience with my own girls. Sadly I only took this one snapshot when the whole business was finished and these last few pies were cooling on the oven:

We joined three of my siblings (Chris, Shannon and Megan) and their families at my mom's for dinner. Everyone brought amazing food and lots of it. I didn't get many pictures and am missing many of us (most of Megan's family arrived just as I was putting my camera away), but here are a few. And it makes me happy just seeing all the warm, traditional, familiar scenes from my parents' house in these pictures:

Shan brought some little stick on nails to put on my younger girls. They thought it was so fun.

Goldie with Shannon's Addie.

Shannon's Miles and Grace.

Shannon's Andre, along with Abe and Connor (Megan’s oldest) talking with Chris. This is the first activity Andre has been to with all of his family in over a year, so it made us all happy to get hugs from him and hear his laughter.

There are usually so many people at my mom's dinners that we are scattered all over the house. But this time the group was small enough (ha--relatively speaking) that even though we ate at several tables, most of the older family members all fit around the kitchen table for visiting after dinner. 

After my mom's, I took Starling home (I didn't yet know she was sick, I just knew she was incredibly grumpy and could handle no more family fun) while Mike and the rest of the kids stopped by his family's Thanksgiving party in a ward gym. I wish I'd been there to get pictures. It sounds like they had a lot of fun doing talent shows and playing games. 

Afterwards, fairly warned of Starling's state, Devin and Melissa came over to visit till late with darling little Stella. 

It was a very full day and a very happy Thanksgiving. In fact the only thing missing was a Thanksgiving morning run (my achilles tendon has been in a very bad state for months). 

The End. :)

Pictures of Ordinary Happenings Around Home

I've been trying to remember to get my camera out more just around home (rather than only on adventures) lately. Though I need to do more of it when all of my kids are home! Still. A few shots from around the house:

Apparently I'm not the only one who finds sleeping Starling adorable. Here Summer is taking a picture of her with her little camera.

We haven't managed Christmas lights on the outside of our house for several years. This year, while I was too afraid of the roof itself, I decided to set up our ladder and at least string a few around the wooden arch over our porch. (Though they are mostly blocked by our Dr. Suess tree.) I got them all finished and then ... they immediately went out. When Mike came home he replaced a fuse for me and, after they went right out again, asked me how many I'd strung together. "Only like five," I said. 

"The box usually tells you how many you can put together," he told me--pulling a box from the garbage and reading, "may string up to two strands together." 

Ha. "Oh." 

Anyway. We worked it out. (And because I was too afraid of the roof, I instead risked Jesse's life by sending him up to plug an extension cord in for me in the outlet on the roof. Thanks Jesse.)