Quick Update (or, Excuses on Why I've Not Been Blogging. Take Your Pick.)

Things have been busy around here.  We celebrated Camille's birthday and then Kendra's birthday.  And since she didn't get one last year (Camille's birth and all), I figured we owed it to Kendra to let her have a party this time around, so we did that, too.  Then it was the Blue & Gold dinner for the cub scouts.  I got word that I would be released at the beginning of the month, but with the caveat that I keep working at it until after this banquet, so this had a sort of closure for me and it was a huge relief to finally have it done and checked off the list.  And then coming up this Sunday is Kendra's baptism!

For her baptism, I've got my parents and two sisters (plus one husband and three children) all flying in.  I'm beyond excited to see everyone again, but this also means cleaning my house.  And the more I look around, the more I keep discovering smudges all over my walls which leaves an inner monologue running through my mind:  How have we managed to damage this poor house so much in so little time????  Why are my kids so filthy???  How have I not taught them better than this???

So right now I'm in cleaning mode.  Next week, I'll get back to blogging mode.  I might even post pictures from some of these events!

Wish me joy and cleanliness with it all!


Oh-- and here's one picture I can't resist sharing right now:

Now that she no longer naps during church, the drive home is too soothing to resist

Tradition!

(Obviously, the title of this blog post is being sung loudly because it's from Fiddler on the Roof.  I didn't really need to explain that to you, did I?)


We place a huge emphasis on having happy family traditions in our church.  I think that's great, and I love stuff like that, but I think-- like so many things-- it's much easier to talk about than to actually accomplish.  How do you decide to start a tradition?  Where do you get the idea for one?  What if you try it and it sucks?  What if you like it, but then the next time around, you've just had a baby and you're too darn exhausted to stick with the tradition?

Stuff like this happens all the time, I think.

And, worst yet, often times I hear about other family's traditions and I think-- Man, that's so cool!  Why aren't we doing something amazing like that???  And then I worry about whether or not I'm allowed to copy other people's cool ideas.  (I guess it must be okay, or else we wouldn't have Pinterest, right?)  Usually that inner debate takes over until I forget what the cool thing was that I wanted to try.

So we don't have a lot of traditions here in the Smith household, but we do try.

At Christmas time, we've been trying something I saw on Mel's Kitchen Cafe: at the beginning of the month, she would wrap all their Christmas books up and put them under the tree, and then the kids would select one to unwrap each night and that would be their bedtime reading.  So it was an advent calendar with books!  I love that idea.  We've done it the last couple years, but with mixed results.  Like I said, I LOVE the idea, but it turns out that we're very busy all during the month of December.  For several of those nights, Craig is out Christmas shopping with one kid, leaving me to manage bedtime for everyone else on my own.  Guess what I forget to do every single time???  Or if we're out late for any of the many Christmas activities and rushing to get the kids to bed the second we get home?  Yeah, all that fun extra stuff goes out the window.  Ah, well.  We still try.

Another thing I'm trying out is an idea that I saw on facebook that I really liked (Yes!  I found a good idea!  On facebook!!!).  This was for large families and promised a way to make sure that each kid got some one-on-one time with Mom and Dad, something that I feel we struggle with.  The idea is that each month, on the day of their birth, that child gets to stay up late with Mom and Dad and do what they want (well, for us, anything that doesn't involve a screen/electronics): read a book, play a game, have a dance party, just hang out and talk.  The other kids can read in bed, but it's that kid's special evening.  We did it last month and the kids LOVED it.  I set reminders on my phone to go off every month so we don't forget.  Here's hoping we can keep this one going!

And finally, perhaps the only tradition that is totally original to us, and that is probably my kids' favorite thing: our Valentine's Day feast!  It's not nearly as cool as it sounds: basically, we light candles on the table and make whatever the kids want (EVERYTHING they want) for dinner.  Right now, this means frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, macaroni & cheese, and French toast.  So, yeah-- nothing you'd create a Pinterest page for.  But the kids LOVE it.  They get just as excited about this and anything we do.  So that makes it really fun for Craig and me, too.

It all started two years ago, when Craig and my plans to go out for a Valentine's dinner got canceled because of a snow storm.  That wouldn't have been a big deal, except I didn't really have any dinner  back-up dinner plan.  So we dug around in the freezer, found all our (highly processed) staples that kids love and made them all.  (I think maybe we didn't have enough of any one thing so we just did a little of everything?  Or maybe we just took everyone's suggestions, rather than picking one kid's favorite?  I don't even know any more...)  Anyway, the kids thought it was the best thing ever.  And insisted we do it again the next year, and the next.

And thus a tradition was born!

Happy Valentine's!

Please tell me-- what traditions do you have that you love?  What things have you tried that totally failed/didn't go how you wanted them to?  I want to hear all about it!

Pictures from the Party

I posted all about the Relief Society Christmas party held at my house.  I just have to share the pictures they took of everyone on the stairs so you can believe me when I say that we had a pretty good turn-out!

I'm near the top in a green shirt.  I'm glad I have such a nice ward here!

A History of My Interactions with Bugs

Like any normal person, I am not overly fond of bugs.  Growing up in the woods in Washington state, we never had much of a bug problem in our house, unless you count spiders (which, for the purposes of our discussion, totally count as "bugs").  We had high ceilings and rafters, so those were favorite places for spiders to lurk.  No amount of dusting ever guaranteed that you wouldn't find one more cobweb somewhere else.  And any time you left your clothing in a heap on the floor, you wanted to check them carefully when you finally got around to picking them up.  Especially in the winter time, it was not unlikely that a quick shake would yield some frantic scuttling away of a local arachnid.  Ewwww....  (Note that this never deterred us from leaving our clothes on the floor!)

But honestly, that was about it.  I don't remember EVER finding an ant in my house.  Pause for a moment and consider just how awesome that is.

When I lived in Africa, I had to put up with a lot of bugs.  Mosquitoes, as you would expect, in Tanzania.  And a lot of ants.  Of varying sizes.  There was also the time when we figured out that the strange rattling we would sometimes hear at night was caused by scorpions sleeping under our tent, probably trying to use our body heat to keep warm.  Delightful.  And there were termite mounds everywhere.

I hated the bugs in Africa, but I was also able to sort of detach from it all a little bit.  Bugs were part of Africa, and loving Africa meant putting up with bugs.

But as soon as I was back in the U.S., bugs were not to be tolerated any more.  This is AMERICA, for crying out loud!  First world countries destroy bugs!!!  Finding an ant in Utah used to enrage me.

And then I moved to Virginia.

Our move here was a full on, life changing experience.  I went from being a busy graduate student where I knew lots of people and had lots of friends, to being a stay-at-home mom to a newborn where I knew no one.  And Craig had a full time job and was gone all day, and was so stressed out by his first year of teaching that he would usually come home and just stare, zombie-like, in front of him.  It was not a fun or easy year for either of us.  And add to that my first experience with the occasional house centipede or silverfish, and I was sort of a wreck over the bugs.  (Reading this paragraph over again, I'm shocked that I didn't have postpartum depression.  This sounds like a recipe for it.)  (Also, I thought about inserting a few pictures in here, but then I remembered that I like you, so I won't.)

I once spoke with my Relief Society president, Betsy, about the bugs.  She was the one who identified what a house centipede even was, since I didn't know and didn't have internet to try and look them up.  Her description of them-- she called their legs "feathery"-- made them sound not as horrifying as they are.  Betsy has been a middle school science teacher her whole career, so she isn't squeamish.  In fact, when she had a hysterectomy, she asked the doctor if she could keep her uterus.  About as not squeamish as you can get.  (The doctor refused, but did take a picture of it for her, which delighted Betsy!  That doctor was my favorite ob-gyn ever...)

Anyway, about the bugs, Betsy simply said, "Well, you just have to become a predator in your home."  Something about that resonated with me.  This was MY home and I was going to PROTECT it.  I WOULD keep it safe from the evil, vile silverfish.  House centipedes, beware!  Alanna is on the hunt!!!

That got me through the first few years, including once when a silverfish was hanging around on the ceiling above Bentley's crib and I couldn't decide which was worse: leaving a creepy disgusting bug near my baby, or spraying pesticides right over his crib.  (I honestly don't remember what I finally decided...)

When we bought our first house, we went through a few different bug problems.  First it was box elder bugs.  Then we had the occasional cave crickets, until we replaced the carpet (???).  And then there was one truly horrific summer where we had a cockroach infestation in our kitchen.  We tried numerous things ourselves to get rid of them, but when we began finding them upstairs, I finally convinced Craig to hire an exterminator, who got rid of them very fast.  That was probably the best investment ever in my sanity.  I still shudder when I remember being afraid to ever go to the kitchen in the middle of the night, and declining to ever bring food to anyone (because who would want food from my kitchen?).  I would even wash every dish before using it to make dinner, and then again after we were done eating.  I was so paranoid of the cockroaches.  Ugh, it was awful.


So where I'm going with all this, is that our current bug problem is that we keep getting-- wait for it-- ladybugs!  Not tons of them-- maybe a couple a day?  Mostly in Ryder's room and my bathroom.


And I'm having a really hard time worrying about them too much. 

I know how much worse it could be.

A Super Long Post About My Super Short Hair

For most of my childhood, I had very long hair.  As in, it was so long I could almost sit on it.  And then some time in high school I gradually began cutting it shorter.  And shorter.  By the time I graduated, it hovered above my shoulders.  When I did study abroad, I had the other girls in my group cut it for me, which ended up with very mixed results.  (But probably no worse than if I would have let someone cut it who only knew how to cut African hair.)  (When I returned home, my normal stylist made me promise to not let my friends cut my hair ever again!)

Then I left on my mission and my hair got even more complicated.  Because I was supposed to look my best.  But I also had to wear a bike helmet and be out riding in the rain and snow.  And then-- this was what really did me in-- there were so many Japanese girls with the most adorable pixie hair cuts!  I wanted an cute pixie hair like that!  So I let my companion try to cut my hair like that.  And it looked TERRIBLE.  I remember the elders (the 19- and 20-year-old male missionaries) looking at me in horror and one finally murmuring, "You look like you got run over by a lawn mower..."  My mission president was a little nicer.  He smiled in his good-natured way and said, "Well, don't let your companion cut your hair again!"

And that was that.

Except not really.  Because the other thing the elders said was, "Don't you know guys like long hair?"

And oooh, that annoyed me!  Why should I have to grow my hair long again because-- in theory-- guys would like it?  I really am not a fan of a girl ever doing anything for the sole purpose of attracting the general male population.  Have a little more self respect.  Do things for worthwhile reasons, okay?  (It goes both ways-- I don't think guys should do things simply for girls, either.  Just for the record.)  This did NOT make me want to grow my hair long ever again.  (I also have to point out here that Janine, my back-up auxiliary Mom, once wisely said, "Men all think they want a woman with long Lady Godiva-like tresses.  But when it comes right down to it, they'll think you're cute no matter what length your hair is."  Thank you for those words of wisdom, Janine!)

But.  My hair as it was looked terrible, so something needed to change, and that change did need to involve growing my hair at least a little longer.  (Seriously, it looked so bad.  All of my hair was maybe about an inch long?  And my hair is so baby fine that you could see my scalp through my hair.  I looked like someone who'd either just finished chemotherapy or perhaps escaped from a concentration camp.  Which is fine if you've actually done those things!  But if not...  well, then you should not look as bad as I did then.)

I hemmed and hawed about what to do about it.  And finally decided that-- regardless of what boys may or may not like-- I did want long hair at my wedding, some day, should it ever happen.

So I began growing it long again.  And it took a while and lots of in-between styles before it got there.  But eventually I made it!  And yes, I had long hair, beautifully done up, for my wedding, just like I wanted.

Lovely hair!  Happy couple with cake on their hands!

And ten years later, nothing had really changed.  I mean-- I'd cut my hair different lengths every couple years (and then usually not cut it again for another year) and sometimes end up with different amounts of layering and what-not.  But I feel like it's been the same basic hair style, give or take a few inches, for over ten years.

And all of a sudden, I needed it to change.  Part of the problem was when I realized that all I ever did was pull it back into a ponytail.  How boring is that?  And I don't know how to do anything actually fun with hair, so a ponytail was about my only option.  Not only that-- I've never cared enough to try and learn anything else, so all those hair tutorials on YouTube are wasted on me.  And if I haven't bothered learning stuff like that by now, I don't see it happening in the future.

And then, as if the daily ponytail wasn't boring enough, my hair developed these weird cowlicks on the side of my forehead that wanted to stick out like an owl no matter what I did, necessitating the use of gel to pull hair back into said ponytail.  So now I had a gel-ed back ponytail???  Why was I bothering to wash my hair at all (and blow dry it every day) if this was how I ended up looking???  It was driving me batty.  I began looking at women with short hair and trying to figure out how I could pull off that look, too, even with my stupid, thin hair.  I started feeling resentful every time I'd try to leave it down, only to have Camille grab fistfuls of it, yanking out as much as she could.

Finally, I got it trimmed in time for our Christmas pictures and I chatted with the salon girl about how to pull off a pixie cut with my hair.  She assured me it could be done and told me to do a google search for exactly that-- "pixie cut fine hair"-- and then show her exactly what I wanted.  She promised that she would deliver.

I told Craig I was chopping my hair after Christmas.  (Poor Craig!  I announced this the day after he bought me a curling iron for Christmas!  Oh, well.  I did manage to use it once before I cut my hair!)  I pored over pictures until I picked my two favorite haircuts-- one of Jennifer Lawrence and one of Carrie Mulligan.  Pro tip: do not spend hours looking at stunningly beautiful women before you cut your hair just like them.  You will be disappointed when you see that your nose is not nearly as petite and adorable as their noses are, and no haircut in the world is going to fix that!

So here is what I ended up with:

It was more over my forehead, but old habits die hard and I promptly pushed it all to the side. 

 It was fine.  Exactly what I said I wanted.  But I didn't quite love it.



The next day when I (rather trepidatiously) styled it, I ended up with this:

And THIS I love.  This suits me.  And it doesn't take any longer than what I was doing before.  And I think it's adorable.

Hallelujah!!!  Yay for change.  Yay for looking in the mirror and smiling at what you see, rather than thinking you look like an owl.  Yay for a hairstyle I can live with. 

Maybe even for the next ten years.


(And in case you were wondering, Craig loves it, too.  He was pretty nervous about the whole thing.  But he really likes it.  So Janine was right all along!)

I Stand Corrected

Of course, as soon as I blogged that Camille couldn't stand up, she figured out how to do it.  Nothing gets the women in my family motivated faster than telling us we can't do it.  (This is the main reason I changed my name when we got married-- I hadn't really made up my mind what I was going to do until my oldest sister tried to tell me I shouldn't!  Craig is still thankful to her for starting that argument and thus saving him a lot of time trying to gently persuade me to change my name to Smith!)

Anyway.  Yesterday, Camille suddenly turned into a standing fiend.  Every time we turned around she was standing against something!

I'm pretty sure she could have done it the day before, but I left her in a sleep sack all day because it was so cold.  I'm not even sure that I could figure out how to stand up in one of those!

So, yes, another milestone reached!  Camille can stand up without any help!  That baby...  She'll be walking earlier than any of my other late-walking kids!  As soon as we tell her how much she can't!



*The pun in the title of this blog was totally intentional.  Obviously!

Storm Prep

So if you're the type to watch the weather channel or if you live around here, you probably know that we're expecting a big winter storm today, dubbed Winter Storm Jonas.  There have been pictures of Wal-Marts with hardly any food left on their shelves because of everyone buying everything to stock up for the storm.  We got the call yesterday that school for today is cancelled.  Everyone is all scared and nervous about it all.

And I am, too.  I mean-- I have no idea how easily Charlottesville loses power or what to expect from this house if that happens.  (I suspect we will be freezing; this house is hard to heat even with power.  We do have a gas fireplace, so worst case scenario will involve all of us camping out in front of it.  But you can't really cook over a gas fireplace...)  A friend here worried that we might lose water.  Does that happen around here?  I have no idea.  And it's the not knowing what to expect that makes things a bit scary.

But I'm noticing that my storm prep has taken a slightly weirder turn today (as the snow flakes are just beginning to fall).  I've already been to the store, I think we're pretty well stocked in the food department.  Craig just hit Lowe's for a carbon monoxide detector and witnessed people buying five snow shovels at a time.  (Why would anyone need five shovels???) 

No, our storm prep has involved me cleaning the house.  Yup-- I've been vacuuming, starting laundry, and bathing the kids extra.  BECAUSE WHAT IF WE LOSE POWER?!?!?  Laundry piles up incredibly fast when you've got a family of seven (especially since several of those people regularly spill food on themselves and/or have leaky diapers).  And our floors get disgusting really fast.

So yes.  I'm cleaning.  Because there's a storm coming



Who have I become?

Demanding Baby

As an infant, nothing made Camille happier than being held.  We referred to her as "She Who Must Be Held At All Times" or "She Who Must Not Be Set Down.  Ever."  She's the only kid I've had who hated her swing-- she just wanted to be wrapped up safely in someone's arms.

Now that she can crawl all over the place and get up on her knees (not much standing still-- we like to take these things very slowly here), she does not need to be held all the time.  So thank goodness for that.

Somehow we've managed this rather awkward position without figuring out how to stand up against the couch...?

However.  (You knew that was coming.)

Now, she likes to crawl all over the house.  Which is fine.  But while she's busy exploring things, she insists that I stay in one place.  If I move around, she gets very nervous and starts following me around crying after me.  It's a bit hypocritical if you ask me-- oh, sure, you're mobile but I don't get to be?  But regardless of my opinion on the matter, it's the way things are now.  Mommy moving around = grumpy Camille.  (And of course, the closer she's getting to nap time the more unhappy this makes her.)  And it turns out that there are very few things I can get done while staying in one place.  Even yesterday when I was making something in the crock pot-- which ought to just have meant standing around in the kitchen chopping and stirring-- I was constantly getting called hither and thither to stop a fight, wipe someone's tush, get drinks of water, feed the chickens, put clothes in the dryer... (Don't worry-- I was washing my hands a LOT during all these tasks!)  So, yes, staying in one place is challenging.

But there is an upside to this.  Now, when I decide to take a break and sit on the couch, mindlessly staring at my phone for a few minutes, I tell myself: I'm not lazy-- I'm just keeping my baby happy!

2015 Books

For some reason, Goodreads won't let me just link this, so I'm showing you a screen shot instead.

Over the last few years, I've become kind of obsessive about writing reviews of the books I read.  Even though it sort of feels like homework, it makes me so happy to keep track of my reading.  (Any book I read is a few minutes that I wasn't wasting on facebook, after all!)  Plus, I've gotten to a point where it's hard for me to remember everything I've read or why exactly I did or didn't like it, so I like that this acts as a sort of journal for my reading.

And beware-- if we're friends on Goodreads, there is a decent chance that I will mine your 5-star reviews for ideas of what to read next!  (And if we're not friends on Goodreads, why aren't we???)


And also, since I'm already bragging, I do feel the need to point out that I didn't bother including the four Harry Potter books that I re-read this fall, so I actually read more than what is listed here.

I've known some people who don't read much.  Or if they do, it's only like a book each month for book club or something.  They always tell me that they don't have time to read, which I don't understand.  They say that and my mind thinks, "Does. Not. Compute."  Maybe if it weren't for books, I'd find time to take up crafting or pay attention to my kids or something.  But I'd be so miserable, what would be the point?


Yay for books and public libraries and all that good stuff. 

Our Backyard Freeway

One of my requirements in a home-- which we've been able to make work in all three of the homes we've had in Virginia-- is that the house backs to trees.  I grew up in the middle of the woods where I couldn't see a single home from any of our windows, so I like being able to see green and I like the privacy.  A home on a few acres would be my ideal, but until we strike it rich,I'm pretty happy as long as I have trees in my backyard and no houses looking directly into mine.

This house fit that requirement, but it also has a major freeway not too far behind us.  I'll let Google Maps give you the idea:




































I knew I-64 was there from the beginning-- I'd studied the map before I looked at it with our agent, so I was on the lookout to try and decide if it bothered me.  One of the things I noted when I first came was that you couldn't see the road, but you could definitely hear the trucks whooshing by.  And I was fine with that.  Our house is never particularly quiet, and in our old neighborhood there was always some sort of outside noise happening, whether it was someone running a chainsaw, or the water works plant letting off steam, or blasting at the quarry across town.  Also, there were always planes flying overhead on their way to Dulles.  So, yeah, I'm pretty used to white noise.

More worrisome was the view.  I figured as soon as the trees lost their leaves, we'd be looking at a big ugly freeway.  And I sort of dreaded that.  But since that freeway was probably one of the reasons that the house was in our price range at all (albeit barely), we went with it.  Besides, our house in Manassas had a really ugly lime green house that we could only see from November until April, so I figured this would be about like that.

So the bad news is that I was right, and we can clearly see the freeway from our house. 

But the good news is twofold: we ALSO have a view of the mountains!  Lovely, not very tall east coast mountains that still light up pink when the sun comes up and make my ears pop when we drive over them.  So yes, that means they're mountains.  (I'm convincing myself of this fact, not you.  It's taken me a long time to finally be willing to accept that anything on the east coast could be a mountain and not just a big hill.  But for lack of a better term, they've finally become mountains to me.)  I love getting to see mountains again.

The other good news is that I don't really mind looking at the road, either.  Something about the constant traffic fascinates me.  When I have to get up in the middle of the night for some reason, I like being able to look out and note that-- yep, even at this insane hour, someone is out driving.  It makes me feel like I'm not alone.  It makes me wonder who's out there and why.  It helps me remember just how many people there are in the world.

There are worse things than that to contemplate.

(Slightly Irreverent) Christmas Thoughts

Since having babies and being pregnant and giving birth, Christmas means a lot more to me as a time to focus on a little baby being born in the most humble of circumstances.  The story has taken on so much more beauty and significance for me.

But I also have a lot more questions about it now, too.  I like some of these speculative blog posts that I have read: this one that explains a bit more about what an "inn" really was at the time; and this one, that offers an alternative explanation for how they ended up in a stable, with the idea that Mary doesn't need to be the passive little creature we sometimes portray her as.  I love that people manage to find new ways to interpret the nativity story.

For being an English major, I'm really bad at stuff like this.  I pretty much stick with what I know, and rarely delve deeper into a text unless I am forced to write a 5-page paper on it.  (Then I can whip one of those out like a boss.)  But this Christmas, the more I sat thinking about Mary laying the baby Jesus in a manger, the stranger it became to me.  All those paintings (many of which I love) that depict Mary sitting perfectly upright gazing at her tiny baby are so beautiful, but they are NOTHING like how I feel after giving birth...

By Carl Heinrich Bloch

This one, by Walter Rane, is closer to how birth feels to me, with Mary huddled around her baby...


But notice this one doesn't have the baby in a manger, which has sort of become a key point of the story.

I wondered, Why in the world Mary would put her baby there???

And then it hit me-- with all the messiness that goes along with giving birth, after it was all done with, Mary would have needed to stand up and clean herself off a bit, get herself put back together (so to speak).  And you really can't hold a baby while you're doing that.  And she probably would have needed Joseph's help, too.  She would have looked around at the mess of the stable and thought, Well, I can't set Him down in all this animal poop.  There's got to be somewhere cleaner I can lay my baby just for one minute...  And then she spied the manger in the corner.  And, of course, right before she picked him up again, that was when all the shepherds arrived.

In my head, I can see Mary rubbing her forehead in embarrassment and thinking to herself, "Seriously?  I just set him there for ONE MINUTE and THAT'S what gets recorded in the scriptures for everyone to read???  Ten minutes into this mothering gig and I'm already making a mess of things and everybody knows it!"


Welcome to the Mommy Wars, Mary.

But it's okay.  Your Son turned out just fine anyway.



Honestly, when you look at it this way, I think there's a certain beauty in the idea that this little, beloved detail may not have even been what Mary would have wanted us to remember.  That God can take even the insignificant things we do and make them into something exquisite and meaningful.  Especially something as messy as giving birth in a stable.

It's Time to be a Big Girl Now

So the thing I may or may not have already whined about is that Craig is really busy.  We're lucky on the days when he makes it home for dinner.  He never gets home before then.  And he frequently has meetings in the evenings so we don't see much of him at all on those days.

Now, most of you are probably thinking: Yeah, sounds like a normal job, Alanna!  And I suppose it is.  But you have to remember that for the past nine years Craig has been a teacher.  And there are many difficult things about that-- most notably the crappy pay.  But the one wonderful thing about being a teacher was that Craig had quite a bit of time to be home with us.  A bad day was when he left work at 4pm, and he frequently came home even earlier than that.  (He also left a lot earlier in the morning-- I think he put in an 8-hour day; he just got his late afternoons to be home.)  And if the kids weren't in school, the odds were pretty good that Craig would be home, too.

So we had all these oodles of kids with two grown-ups around a lot to take care of them, especially in the evenings when they're at their worst and I'm trying to cook dinner.  Craig's job was almost always to keep the kids out of the kitchen so I could cook.  That, and grating cheese for me.  And it was busy and hard, but it was also pretty manageable most of the time.  That was part of the reason we had all these kids-- we usually felt like we could manage them just fine.

But now I have these oodles of kids, but it's a lot more of just me running the show.

And it's been hard.  And I may have had some inner monologue of whininess running through my head at times over how difficult it is.  There have been times when I've been too overwhelmed to try and leave the house with everyone.  And there have also been times when I've been too overwhelmed to cook anything real for dinner so we have macaroni and cheese.

But I'm trying really hard to get over that.  Because two things are gradually sinking in:  1) Craig is not going to get less busy.  But at the same time, 2) The kids are going to get easier.  Sure, they'll turn into teenagers and get all cranky and hormonal and stuff.  But they'll be able to get their shoes on and we'll be able to go to Target without me needing to restrain 60% of them.*

So in the meantime, I'm trying to grow up and Own This.  Own my crazy brood of kids and not be afraid of doing stuff with them even when Craig can't come.  Own the fact that we're one of "those families."  And sometimes I fail miserably and it kind of sucks.  (Note to everyone: don't bring your kids along to give blood.  The kids were great, but the Red Cross workers were NOT.)  And sometimes despite my best intentions, by the end of the day I throw my hands up and we eat frozen pizza instead of whatever real food I was planning on cooking.  And I'm trying to remind myself that that's just fine and that I had days like that even when Craig was home more.

And then, occasionally, there are days like today, where I manage to make a "real dinner."  Early, even!  And I pile everyone into the car and we go to Target and buy pants for Kendra (I swear I already did this in September, but all her pants are super short on her now).  And we swing by Panera and grab some bread bowls for tomorrow night's dinner.  And we get to the church so Bentley can go to scouts and I run all over the building hauling Camille in her carrier trying to track down the bishop so I can get his signature on some forms before we head to the library and then back home for bedtime.  And it's more exhausting than this paragraph even made it sound.  But I did it.  And those kids are in bed now.  And I survived.

I even left some dinner in the fridge of the church for Craig (who will most certainly forget about it, but I had to try, I felt so bad for him not getting any dinner!).

For today, I feel all grown up and capable. 

For today, I win.



*At least, I sure hope so.

Our First Charlottesville Christmas

I can't believe the kids are back in school tomorrow!  We had a really nice vacation, and I had a lot of fun, but I will admit that I'm okay with getting back into our routine again.  (And I won't miss taking all five kids to Costco with me!)

This year we had our first Christmas without any additional family here.  I was kind of excited to just have it be our little family, but Craig was worried about how things would go without any grandparents around.  So, of course, I spent a few minutes Christmas morning crying because I missed my family (in my defense, I haven't seen three of my sisters since April!!!) and Craig had a great time.  Typical.

But despite those few tears, we really did have a wonderful Christmas.  Craig spent the two days ahead of time baking up a storm while I made numerous trips to the grocery store to get all the things we forgot to have on hand.  (It's lucky the grocery store is really close!)  And we simplified things some (like having Pillsbury cinnamon rolls instead of making them from scratch) and made a lot of our Christmas dinner the day ahead.

Bark, Spritz cookies, fudge, salted caramel Rice Krispie trests, fudgy toffee bars, and twixster cookies.  Yum.  All of it-- yum.

Christmas eve, we followed my family's tradition of ordering pizza for dinner and eating off paper plates.  Then we took plates of cookies to friend and neighbors.  I wouldn't have minded Christmas caroling as we went, but Craig and Bentley weren't thrilled with that idea, so we just wished everyone a Merry Christmas and hurried on our way.  I'm sure they were busy enough that they weren't sad to not be sung to!

We wanted to look at Christmas lights while we were driving around, too, and managed to find this awesome house not too far from us!  They were so decorated we went ahead and parked the car so we could walk through it all, and right at the entrance was Santa!  This was great, since I hadn't managed to have the kids visit Santa at all.  We even got a pretty decent picture with him, all things considered!

I love Camille's leggings!

When we got home, we sang all the Christmas songs we could think of and read from Luke 2 together.  The kids opened their Christmas pajamas from my parents and I had even managed to get a pair for Craig, too-- pure luck that I saw some when I was at Target after we'd ordered them for the kids!  Bentley and Kendra put out cookies and milk for Santa (and a carrot for the reindeer) and we sent them all to bed.  It was a perfect evening.

I didn't get any sleep that night.  I had a hard time falling asleep at all, and then I kept hearing a bedroom door opening and shutting.  I finally investigated and discovered Kendra sitting on her bed crying.  She wasn't sure what time it was, and with a full moon shining in her window was worried that she might be missing Christmas morning.  I assured her that we wouldn't let her miss it, and tucked her back into bed.  An hour later Ryder was awake, and a few hours after that Camille wanted a bottle and Colton was awake.

So I was very bleary eyed all day.  But opening presents with the kids was perfect: they took turns nicely, they got excited over everything they opened (yes, even the underwear and socks in their stockings!) and they were just polite and happy.  We had our (Pillsbury) cinnamon and orange rolls for breakfast.  Craig made a turkey and I made a ham for dinner (that's what we call "compromise").  We both spent a lot of time on the phone with our families. 

Smallest present goes to Bentley!  (It was a paper informing him that we will take him to see the new Star Wars movie!)

Colton with a new airplane

Ryder is excited for his "Winja Turtles"

Kendra with the new stuffed animal rooster my Mom sent for our chickens!

There was one pretty funny mishap.  Craig and my Mom usually publish all my blog posts for the year in a book and we got a bit of a surprise when this year it looked like this:

Not our family.

In defense of the blog book company, this family is eerily similar to our family: they're Mormon, have five kids (three boys, two girls) and chickens.  They just aren't us.  And the Dad in this family is the bishop, so let's hope that doesn't happen to us!  Anyway, it was pretty funny opening this present.  Hopefully MY blog book will be arriving soon...
  
Other than that, it was a wonderful day.  Exactly how you want Christmas to be! 

Sold. A War Story of Sorts.

We finally got our house in Manassas sold.

I still can't believe how awful that process turned out to be.

But it's done.

Up until the money showed up in our bank account, I doubted everything every step of the way.  We were supposed to close November 30th, although with Thanksgiving right before then, we figured that wouldn't happen.  We hoped for later in the week, but no.  Our buyers needed more time to get the money for their down payment (which apparently they got as a grant???  How come I never get grant money like that?).  We gave them two more weeks (but told them we'd give them a little less back for closing costs, since we now had to pay December's mortgage).  They sent us an addendum to sign because their names were wrong on the contract (???).  We signed it.  They sent us another addendum because their names were STILL wrong on the contract (???).  We signed it. 

I gave up completely.

And then that Friday-- the 11th-- my agent called and said they'd closed.  I was like-- wha???  Really???

Apparently it was true!  They'd closed the deal.

Then I immediately freaked out since we'd given power of attorney to someone (our agent's broker's lawyer?  I think?) and worried that somehow we'd given our house away.  The next day I spoke with our agent and felt reassured that this had not happened.  Then I freaked out that the money we'd get would be less than I'd calculated.  After playing phone tag all day long with the title company, I finally got a number and it was a few thousand more than I'd thought, so that was a relief.  And then the money finally showed up in our bank account Tuesday night.

Phew!

We ended up getting $19k less than when we'd originally "sold" the house, a fact which still stings.  I have to remind myself that we got enough for a down payment on our new house with a little left over, and what a huge blessing that still is-- plenty of people lost so much with the market crash in 2008.  Who am I to be greedy and demand more than what we got?  But this is totally one of those times where I have to work to see the glass half full, or else I get angry and/or depressed.

The thing I was most excited about was that it was DONE.  One less thing to worry about.  No more paying utilities on two homes!  No more stressing about if we should lower the price or wait until spring and see if the market would pick back up.  No more worrying about what else might break while the house sat empty (so far the water heater and the shed door had already broken, and then there was that tree that kept threatening to fall on our neighbor's house...).  So many things to worry about!  And-- added bonus-- it was done before Christmas so we could buy presents for all our extended family.  Because I do enjoy sending presents to people at Christmastime. 

The other thing I can never stop being grateful for is that my sister was willing to loan us the down payment money on our new house until the old one sold.  I honestly don't know what we would have done for 6 long months without her help.  Lived in separate places?  Rented a place?  It could have been SO much worse.  Tracy's help was a tremendous blessing.  And nothing made me happier than sending that money back to her!

So yes, we're down a house now.  And that feels wonderful!  Hallelujah!


I am never moving again.

Christmas Parties Galore

In case you were waiting on pins and needles, my Relief Society Brunch last week went splendidly!  I managed to get the house all cleaned up, the Relief Society president brought a bunch of chairs from the church which Craig and I got all arranged, and then the entire presidency showed up early to set up the food (which they provided; all I contributed was a fruit bowl from Costco).

What you don't see here is how decorated the rest of the house was-- another tree, holly all down the banister, wreaths and candles in the windows...  We go all out for Christmas!

The first people to show up were all the older women in the ward and I have to admit that I felt a little out of place.  But eventually people a little closer to my age came, too, and then it was great.  People sat around chatting in small groups while everyone was arriving, and then it was time to eat-- lots of quiches and breakfast meats and good stuff.  I totally skipped my fruit bowl.  Once that was wrapping up, I handed out slips of paper with numbers on them and we began the gift exchange!  Because of the numbering, I had to take a count of how many people we had, and was pleasantly surprised that (including me) we had 24 people!  And everyone managed to be sitting comfortably in our family room with a few people spilling into the kitchen-- so that was great!

The gift exchange was fun.  Not as raucous as the one in my old ward, but I think part of the difference there was doing this in the morning.  Everything is more lively at night!  But we had a nice time.  And then, everyone stayed sitting and people shared Christmas stories-- mostly silly ones about kids opening all their siblings' presents and stuff like that-- with the whole group.  I usually don't like large groups precisely because it's impossible for everyone to talk together, so I thought it was really cool that that actually worked!  It made me happy.  I'm counting that party as a huge success.


Next on the list was Craig's work party.  Morale has been low at his school (because of his evil boss, of which we will say no more at this time), so he thought that bringing the kids might add a little cheer to the party.  That meant me bringing Ryder, Colton and Camille and trying to keep them on their best behavior, which is no small feat right at nap time!  Craig took me around (while he held Camille) and introduced me to all the staff, mostly because it gave him a chance to tell them (to me) how great they all were.  I think it was a good political sort of move, and I smiled and tried to compliment people as best I could.  Camille was super cute and would reach out a hand to each person, and then shyly snuggle back against Craig.  And the boys were good and mostly well behaved until the end, when I quickly left with them before they could get really bad.  I think it was a good thing to do, but I'm glad Craig isn't planning a career as a politician.  The whole thing was exhausting!


Finally, last night was our ward Christmas party.  They were having the primary perform the nativity which I have NEVER gotten to see my kids do before!  (I absolutely loved my previous ward, but we threw about the lamest Christmas parties ever.)  When we moved in, we were told that the primary desperately needed more kids and we were a huge boon to them, but I didn't really think much about it until we got the list for who would be playing which parts, and realized that my kids would be representing a wise man (Bentley), Mary (Kendra), a shepherd (Ryder) and a sheep (Colton)!  We really did build up that primary a lot, didn't we?

Ryder and Colton with their friend Martin (an angel, as you can probably tell)

Ryder and Martin with all the other sheep

The nativity was kind of a zoo.  They didn't have a lot of time to practice, and even they'd had more time, whenever you've got twenty kids on a stage (a lot of whom are three years old or younger), you know it's going to be nuts.  I wasn't prepared for how hilarious (and embarrassing) Ryder would be for it.  He was okay at the beginning, but they didn't even put the kids up on the stage until after 8, and Ryder typically goes to bed at 7.  And he just kept getting weirder and rowdier as it went on..!  First he wandered to the middle of the stage, plunked himself down on the floor, and then laid down.  He looked drunk.  Then he sat up and squinted up at the stage lights for a bit.  Then flopped back down on the floor.  Then he began running and sliding on his knees across the stage.  (At this point one of his teachers tried to get him to settle down, but it didn't really do any good.  I thought about grabbing him, but was busy with Camille and it was nearly over by then...)  At one point Ryder sat down again on the edge of the stage and Colton sat next to him.  So Ryder scooted away and Colton followed and they scooted across the whole stage this way.  Ah, brotherly love!  I was so wrapped up in watching this (and trying not to laugh hysterically) that I barely saw Kendra, as Mary, kicking away the nursery kid "sheep" and "angels" as they kept trying to come near her to see the baby doll she was holding.  Gotta love Bossy Mary!

Love this one

And this one!

At the rehearsal-- we found some better shoes for the performance

Ah, so wise!

Joseph and Mary were super giggly and cute around each other.  It made me laugh...

Last but not least-- this is my very favorite picture from the whole thing!

I can't quite make up my mind how embarrassed I should be about the whole thing.  But I loved it too much to care. We did beat a hasty retreat as soon as it was over, figuring we were helping the most by removing ourselves!


The kids had their last day of school and Craig had his last day of work and they're all off for the entire week!  If that isn't the best Christmas gift, then I don't know what is!

Ooh-- Craig uploaded one of the videos he took onto YouTube.  It's a bit long, but if it doesn't make you laugh, you don't have a soul. Especially of note is the little girl sheep showing her tummy to Colton and playing with his ears.  And Ryder, wandering around with his sippy cup and generally acting like a small drunkard...

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Proving Ourselves

I keep finding things that I forgot to blog about.  I make the mistake of posting a picture on Facebook and then figure that's good enough.  But it's NOT, because I like to be able to tell (and record) the full story.  Mostly because my Mom reads this and isn't on facebook.  This one's for you, Mom!  (And you, too, Jen!)



So, anyway, when we first moved here, Craig got the idea that we should go to a UVA game.  I'm all about growing roots wherever you're planted and all that, so I'm happy to become a UVA fan.  My kids worried that maybe we need to be loyal to BYU, but I assured them that we could like both schools just fine.  And I guess Coach Mendenhall agrees!

But going to a game...  Honestly, stuff like this always sounds like so much work to me (even when it's just Craig and I).  But Craig pointed out that we needed to do things like this just to prove to ourselves that we can do fun things, even with five kids.  Yup-- he appealed to my competitive nature.  Or my desire to have a good story to tell-- that got me fully on-board.  (It's a good thing Craig is fun and knows me well, or else we'd never do anything at all.)

So it was decided!  We were going to a football game!  The one against William & Mary was the cheapest, and in the summer so we wouldn't have to worry about freezing, so that made it an easy choice.  Craig bought the tickets, I tried to figure out what we needed to make this work, and away we went!

As we were parking the car, I said to Craig, "Well, if we make it to half time, we'll call this a success!" and Craig gave me a puzzled look.  "We're gonna stay the whole time," he said.  "WHAT???"  I said.

I thought for sure we'd agreed to just stay until the kids were crying and/or absolutely crazy and then we'd leave with no hard feelings or disappointment.  Apparently we were not on the same page on that one.  I gritted my teeth and decided we'd just have to see how things went.

We had to walk for forever to get to the stadium (good thing we had a stroller and the ergo carrier), but then the kids were pleasantly surprised when they were given free backpacks as we entered the stadium!  It turned out it was Kids' Day!  So that was fun.  We got all settled and quickly learned that our seats were in the glaring sun.  We sat.  We squinted.  And we sweated.  And it was a bit miserable.  Craig noticed that the opposite of the stadium was getting shadier as the sun sunk, so we moved over there.

AND THEN WE HAD A BLAST.  The kids had fun.  We had fun.  It was great.  I was so pleasantly surprised by the whole thing.  We stayed the whole time, UVA won, the kids were thrilled, and it was a great day.  I can hardly wait to do it again!

I'd even managed to make dinner in the crock pot, so we ate as soon as we were home and then sent everyone to bed.  It was a great day.  We can do fun things.  Even with five kids!

Go Hoos!!!

Always Learning (Part II)

Last year after Thanksgiving, I tried my hand for the first time at making homemade stock.  I remember an essay by Marjorie Williams where she talked about her mother making stock for her, and the entire concept was completely foreign to me.  She could just as easily described her mother flying to the moon for as much as I felt I could relate to that.  Who knows how to do stuff like that?  And then who even bothers? was pretty much my attitude at the time.

So I take it as a measure of how far my cooking skills have come over the years because now making stock is actually something I've done!  Not only that, but I really enjoy making it.

BECAUSE IT'S SO EASY!!!

It's like making soup, except you hardly have to chop or measure anything!  Quarter the onion!  Throw in the skin, too, if you want!  (I heard that it's supposed to add a rich color to the broth, although I haven't actually tried...)  Chop that carrot in half (width-wise, not even length-wise!) and toss it in the pot!  Yup, use the entire carcass, don't bother those bones a bit, just cover it with water and let it simmer for a good long while!

Easy-peasy.

I made more than 2 gallons this year, and I'm sure I could have done more, but I was worried about running out of freezer space.  And-- extra bonus-- your house gets to smell lovely all day while it simmers away!

Straining it is a bit of a pain.  I ended up using two stock pots to do this-- one for the cooking and then a slightly smaller one to strain into.  And I've found that it's important to measure it into freezer bags very carefully (I do 2 cups each, but anything would work as long as you label your bags).  Last year I just sort of scooped broth into the freezer bags until they looked full enough and then I never wanted to use my stock because it was too much work to thaw them out and then measure.  So I'm learning from my mistakes.

I'm making this tomato basil soup today, and I'm totally excited to use my stock.  I feel like a pioneer woman or something.


*Of course, there's nothing homey that Martha Stewart can't do it better.  I made the mistake after my big stock-making day of watching her how-to video, and her stock was all gelatinous at the end!  Mine is a liquid!  So maybe I'm not doing it good enough.  Maybe I'll figure out her tricks next year.  But I bet mine is still slightly better than the canned stuff...  Right?

In Over My Head

So, in my old ward, a friend starting throwing a white elephant gift exchange party and it was THE BEST party ever.  I loved it.  I don't think I ever laughed as hard as I did at this party.  That friend moved away within a few weeks of me moving away, so I decided I would start this tradition in my new ward.  If I could make it even half as fun as her party, that would still be a huge success.

So I figured out a date that would work, created an evite invitation (which was very brave of me, considering that the only other time I've tried to do something with evites, no one ended up coming), and sent out all the invitations.  I was so proud of myself!  I was going to do something FUN.  I was going to strive to make friends in my new ward.  I was going to nail this.

Within an hour, I got an email from the Relief Society president asking me if I knew that that was the same day as the Relief Society Christmas brunch and that they were planning on having a white elephant gift exchange?

I nearly cried.  There was no other weekend that would really work, so I didn't feel like I could just change the date.  I hemmed and hawed for most of the day, and finally volunteered to just host the Relief Society brunch at my house.  They said to expect 20-25 people.  It's next Saturday morning.

What in the world have I done?

Plethora o Pictures

Here are all those pictures I noticed on my phone that never made it onto the blog...  (Be warned, I'm kind of obsessed with the fall colors, so there are a lot of pictures of pretty trees.  Sorry if that's terribly boring for you...)

Looking out over our backyard, finally being able to see the hills behind us.  I loved the golden light we were enjoying at that moment...

Camille somehow got herself stuck under the moon chair.  She wasn't all that upset about it until I took her picture-- that made her furious.  As you can see!

Finally made it back to the temple after our move.  If you look closely, you can see a tiny crescent moon to the right of the temple.

Super cool model they have of the temple on display at the visitor's center.  I love that they even have the paintings in miniature!

Guess who fell asleep for the last two minutes of church?  She was so exhausted Craig managed to buckle her into her carrier without her waking up!

I found this old picture of me and Carla at the bridal shower she threw for me.  I can't believe how young we were...

I hate having to wake up a sleeping baby.  But at least then I get to take some pictures of how sweet she is!

{Sigh}

I just love how she crinkled up her nose for this picture

I was really proud of myself for taking all kids hiking on a day when they were home from school (but Craig had to work).

Here we are at the mile marker.  I wanted some proof-- albeit blurry proof-- that Camille and I were there, too.

I loved that lone red tree.

And that one just changing stopped my heart!

Right after I took a picture of the chicken nap, Eileena pecked Kendra in the eye.  Two days later it happened again with a different chicken, so we have been lecturing Kendra on keeping her face further away from the chickens.  (Her eye is okay, though.)

I just loved this painting of apple blossoms on display at the Art Museum in Williamsburg.  I later found prints of it for sale, so apparently I wasn't the only one who admired it!

Selfie with two kids!  And with Camille pulling Colton's hair!

Dressing up as his favorite Pixar character!

This tree is in our front yard-- I had no idea it would be so beautiful when we bought the house!

The view from my bedroom window.

For some reason we could NOT get that beret on her head properly.  This was the best we could manage...

I kind of love this spacey "I need a nap so badly right now" look on her face...

That's Camille's real smile, though!

I believe this qualifies as "learned behavior."

Nothing like a car nap to really knock you out...

First time on the swings!

I got a coupon for free baby leggings and have been having fun with them!

For all you Arrested Development fans out there...  I give you: George Michael.

Camille snuggles up to Casey Cramer. 

Eating mommy's skirt at the playground

When we get a lazy Saturday morning, we like to enjoy it by snuggling with Daddy!

And then everyone joined in!

And now, as I keep going further back in my phone, I'm realizing that I never posted pictures from the kids' first day of school!  Or Halloween!  What kind of mommy blogger am I???????

So I guess we're not done yet.  But I think this is enough for one post.  Stay tuned...!