Great Christmas

What a great great Christmas!

It was your basic fun Christmas Eve dinner celebration and then open presents on Christmas morning. Savanna was a bit anxious to get the presents opened and then kept asking "what else?" (I think she got a little too many "how many days til Christmas Savanna?" asked of her, something bigger and better MUST be around the corner!) I on the other hand was expecting nothing and was thrilled all day because Jared got me my very own MP3 player! And lots of smelly sprays and perfumes, yum. Jared and I agreed the best part of Christmas was sitting down and watching "The Nativity" as a family. We feel very blessed this year and are grateful for our family and our Savior.

Giving

I have been looking for a way to concretely teach the kids that Christmas is about giving, not getting. So when I read in the Orem Newsletter about the Family Support and Treatment center accepting donations for the children they house because their home lives are dangerous, I got this brilliant idea to have the kids take one of their presents under the tree and give it to the children who don't get presents from their parents. Fiora was all for it, and picked the biggest, prettiest gift that had her name on it to give away. Savanna, bless her heart, was very much against the idea, unto tears of guilt and rage. I felt badly that she was upset, but still felt like I should encourage her to do it, so I kept suggesting it to her throughout the day. She did finally agree, and picked the smallest one. I told her she would really rather give away the bigger one (knowing she'd rather have the pretty stationery rather than the jacket I got her, and knowing the Center would need the jacket more than the stationery). But I left it up to her, and she finally did decide to give the bigger present away to the needy children. I was so proud of them as they deposited their gifts in the red sled at the Library. Without even knowing what they were giving up they freely gave their gifts. Weston was clueless about the whole thing, but I hope to make this a tradition every year, since I seem to always get presents under the tree early, to have them give one away to someone who needs it more.

Fiora the Explora

(Sing to Peter Peter Pumkin Eater)
Little Weston looks his best in
Shirts and ties that he gets dressed in
hes so handsome we're not jestin
We love little Weston boy!

I came up with that rhyme for Weston and the girls wanted a song too. Their names were so hard to rhyme! This was the best I could do:
My Fiora is Like Dora
Wants to go to Bora Bora
Where she'll be a great explora
Wow Fioras quite a gal!

My Savanna ate a canna
nice a squishy ripe bananas
said Savanna these bananas
taste like manna Moses ate!

Savanna was reading me one of her books for home readers and when she does that she always stops and asks me what words mean when she doesn't know. Like "Skating Whiz," what is whiz? It means a pro, really good at it. But then the next page says "*whiz*, I just missed the lady!" so savanna says, "Pro, I just missed the lady." I say no, that means whiz by, or passed by really fast. But mom, you just said Whiz means Pro. Yeah well it has two meanings I guess. That just didn't make sense to her, so she continued to say "pro" everytime it said "whiz." Last week she was reading and asked me if gallop was the same as skipping. I was about to answer when Fiora jumped up and did the most beautiful gallop you'd ever seen across the living room. Wow! Where did you learn that? Gymnastics! Really? She can't do a cartwheel yet but that gallop is awesome. She even demonstated a skip for us too.

We took the kids to Aaron and Amy's cabin Saturday so they could go sledding. Fiora was last kid standing, over two hours out on the sled hill with Justin Jared and Aaron. Savanna surprisingly didn't like it much, even though she was the last kid standing last year. Weston surprised us too, by outsledding Savanna! Once he found his groove, there was a certain sled he preferred and a certain style, face first on his belly with his legs up in back. It was super cute! Aaron put chains on his four wheeler and pulled us up the hill so we could get more sledding time in, and Amy fed us soup for lunch! It was a fun day.

Tooth #6

Savanna's 6th tooth fell out last night. She was wiggling it with her tongue all day Saturday and Sunday, so no surprise when Sunday night she got it out. She put it under her pillow, and when she came to me at 7:00 AM Monday morning with the tooth she said, "tooth still here, and no money!" I suggested maybe the tooth fairy doesn't work on Sundays. But the truth was we plum forgot! Sunday was super busy, besides being my sister Holly's birthday it was the day I organized and played for the Young Women to sing a musical number in church, taught the Relief Society Lesson, led a choir practice and the choir to sing at Stake Music Night, and performed in the Stake Choir. The home teachers also snuck in a visit somewhere in there. By the time my head hit the pillow I was out and forgot about the tooth fairy. I told Savanna to tell Jared about the slacker fairy, and a few minutes later he told her to check in her pillow case because sometimes the tooth fairy accidentally gets it in there. She shouted a "Hooray!" because sure enough there was a dollar from the tooth fairy.




Weston got a shooting lesson down in Gunnison this weekend. Jared assisted him in shooting his first 22. I was a bit nervous about that, but when I saw the pictures he sure looked cute! Jared's determined to make a shooting and fishing buddy out of Weston no matter how small he is.

FHE and Trees

Weston's head has managed to remain unopened this week. He's pretty careful with it, except the time he was pulling the sound box out of the rocking horse's belly and it smacked into his head like a sling-shot. We told Fiora to put the guts back into the horse as we comforted Weston and she said, "Oh yeah, I can do that. I'm seriously brave." Meanwhile we were waiting for Savanna to finish up the lesson she volunteered to prepare for Family Home Evening, Jared kept lovingly encouraging her to hurry it up, "Don't rush me Dad. This is going to be a great lesson. I'm just putting the finishing touches on it!" She had a lesson complete with activity on the Nativity. We were impressed! The best part was the musical ending, the kids took turns singing us a song. Fiora sang "the North Star" and Weston sang "I am a Child of God" and Savanna sang Christmas song she learned at school. Then we ended with Fiora saying the Family prayer and mocking Weston's prayer method by blessing every tiny object in the room and Savanna defending Weston's honor by smacking her while she prayed.
We went to the Festival of Trees on Saturday and saw an exquisitely beautiful tree that our ward made. Underneath the tree was a picture of Lillian and Sophia Mousques, the other baby in our ward born with Downs Syndrome and a heart defect. A lady standing by the tree asked us if we wanted to hear the story behind it. We said, "That's our daughter." She was so thrilled to see us and said so many people have been touched by Lillian's story. That brought tears to my eyes! I'm very grateful to the ward for creating that tree and allowing Lillian to touch others once again. We were also impressed with the tree Heidi Weight made in Lillian's honor, that was a surprise to me! It was covered with little angels and again Lillian's picture underneath. Thank you Heidi for your time and talents put into that tree, we loved it! We took pictures of the trees but are having technical difficulties downloading them, so I'll post them tomorrow.

Seven Stitches

Weston was introduced to the ER this Thanksgiving weekend. Wednesday night he tried to get down from his barstool by walking from the barstool to a chair, lost his balance and fell on the tile and the barstool also fell, right on his head. He had a pretty deep slit right above and between his eyebrows. We were thankfully right in the middle of celebrating my brother Jesse's 24th birthday so there were plenty of babysitters around while Jared and I took Weston in, he was pretty tired so it was hard for him to be brave, but at least he stayed on the operating bed. We flet pretty bad for him.

The next day he was back to his happy self, and he took the steri-strips off first thing in the morning. I think that shocked me worse than the stitching. I bandaged him up the best I could and prayed it would be alright, I did not want to go back to the ER on Thanksgiving. He gets them out tomorrow and the wound looks really good.

Thanksgiving was nice and relaxing. We ate at my parents home and played Guitar Hero rock band most of the day. We certainly are humbly thankful for our many blessings the Lord has blessed us with this year--food in abundance, a nice home with a finished basement, healthy, happy, children, a loving family, Jared's thriving business, my very part-time job at the LDS Distribution center, and wonderful kind friends and neighbors, and and exalted daughter who we feel with us in spirit and has taught us so much.

Just like Steve

This week I had to delve into the stocking stuffers I've been collecting for one of the rare moments I bribe my kids. Weston's monthly haircut. I bought a two dollar notebook at Wal-mart and covered it in green paper and drew a red thinking chair on it and saved it to put in Weston's stocking. I told Weston I'd give him a notebook "just like Steve" if he let me cut his hair. He sat still, without complaining, and took a bath. I was hoping he'd forget the bribe so I could use it as a stocking stuffer after all, but he cashed in: "where's my notebook mommy?" I've never seen a kid more thrilled by a two-buck notebook, or any toy for that matter, than Weston was! He said, "Its Just like Steve!" over and over and ran around chanting, "we need our handy dandy... notebook! notebook, eee." (The eee is for the bell sound effect on the show.) He never put it down and even went to bed with it and woke up in the middle of the night crying, "I need my notebook!" I have to hand it to myself, even the girls were impressed with the art work. (I stopped and rewound an episode of Blues Clues at the notebook scene over and over to get it right.)

Don't be hatin'

Jared took a little excursion to Walmart with Fiora to kill some time while Savanna and Weston were at gymnastics and he taught her some backstreet talk. She learned phrases like "Break it down homey" "Bust a move fat boy" and "Don't be hatin'!" I myself have used the last one with Savanna a few times lately. When she gets home from school her "polite" and "patient" reserves are used up, maybe even into a deficit. After she yells at me for whatever I did wrong to greet her then she beats down Fiora/Weston for various misdemeanors, usually existing, and then cries when she gets a time out, and then complains about whatever snack we do or don't have, and then there's the fight to make her do homework, and the complaining that she can't play with her friends from school who I don't know, and if I'm going to my job she'll be angry about that even though I thought she hated me all this time anyway. I've learned to just let her wind down for about 30 minutes when she comes home, if she has some time in her room or watching a show for a while then she's OK. And when she's happy there's no better 6 year old to be around! She really is a delightful girl most of the time, most of the time she is at school now that's all. I'm glad she is good and delightful for her teacher Miss J.

Lillian's headstone was placed last week. It looks so nice! Jared and I took the kids up to see it Saturday and Weston jumped out of the car and said, "Where's Lillian's cave?" We corrected him but he kept saying it that way, it was pretty cute.

Baby Bailey

Little Bailey Jane Schauers, Justin and Shawna's baby girl, was Christened Sunday. Our family just loves little Bailey! Jared and I have been so excited for her arrival for years and love to celebrate her life. She was worth the wait! What a beautiful girl.

It was fun to be with Jared's family this weekend. Chad and Robin stayed in our guest room and had breakfasts with us, that was so fun! We told them we want them to stay here every time they visit, but we have to fight Wendy Aaron Justin and Heidi for that privilege. Thanks for staying with us C and R!
By the way, our fish is still alive. He must like us! How old do fish live anyway?

Fishing Mania

Jared's motto this year is WISH I WERE FISHING. He has purchased some new gear (including a fly rod and a boat, which I guess is technically Home Basic's) and read books and watched videos on fishing and he has gone out once a week at least since July. Yesterday he went fishing with his brothers and I thought their pictures were pretty so I decided to post a slide show on Jared and fishing mania.

Halloween

BOO! Savanna was in her school Halloween parade this year and she looked so cute in her back cat outfit marching with all the big kids. Jared even joined us to watch the parade. Fiora was a Barbie and Weston was a dragon and a pumpkin. They have had fun this year in their various school parties and activities. Both Fiora and Weston's preschools took a trip to the pumpkin patch and had a costume party. The girls were so excited to carve pumpkins. Weston chose not to join that activity so we made his pumpkin into a pumpkin-potato head! We were invited to join the Westovers for dinner and trick-or-treating on Halloween evening, as soon as the kids had eaten they were out the door pulling on us to go (sorry we ate and ran!) and covered the ward boundaries in an hour. Surprisingly Fiora pooped out first and Weston and I covered a large cul-de-sac after she went home. This is a very fun age for trick-or-treating and Jared and I both wanted to watch/accompany the kids. It won't be long before they are able to do it without us! :(

Fiora hates Dora

Miss Heidi (also Aunt Heidi) shared some overheard conversations between Fiora and Lucy at preschool where Heidi teaches them.

Lucy: Fiora, why are you so mean to me all the time?
Fiora: I'm not being mean to you today.
Lucy: Oh yeah, ha ha.
Fiora: But don't sit by me today.
Lucy: OK, why can't I sit by you?
Fiora: Because I'm going to sit by someone else.
Lucy: Are you going to sit by Molly?
Fiora: Oh yeah, Molly.
Lucy: Oh.
Fiora: Actually, you can sit by me today, just don't tell me about when you were a baby.
Lucy: OK, I won't tell you anything about "when I was a baby."
Fiora: OK, then you can sit by me.

Heidi then told me about conflicts that ensued during preschool, apparently Lucy and Fiora argue more than they should during class, and Fiora shut Lucy's fingers in a drawer that caused some drama. But they walked out of class holding hands and laughing and are currently at our house playing mountain bears dressed up like princesses. Those two are quite a pair, Fiora seems to dominate Lucy's already dominant personality.

Lucy: I love Dora. Do you love Dora?
Fiora: No, I hate Dora.
Lucy: Oh, I hate Dora too.