Summing Up 2012

 1. Just before Thanksgiving, we welcomed two little kittens into our home.  We had been talking about getting one kitten off and on for a couple of months, mostly for Alyssa to have a special furry friend and all of the responsibilities that go along with it.  We looked at a couple of kittens from the Humane Society and Craigslist, then Brian and I went to Petco after a doctor appointment (No, I'm not pregnant, I've got crazy back problems.) to see what they had, and we found two cute little sisters that had been born in the wild and taken in by the adoption agency that is housed by Petco.  Brian and I each held one, and they both snuggled into us, and he wanted to get the one he was holding, and I wanted to get the one I was holding, and since they were sisters, we didn't want to split them up, so we brought them both home.

The kids were so excited.  We named them Dinah and Ginger.  A couple days later, I was holding one and said to Brian, "You know, this looks like a little boy cat to me."  Since thy had both been fixed, and we didn't know how that changed the outside appearance, we decided to trust the adoption people.  Then Brian took them in to the vet, because the colds they had when we got them didn't go away, and he was told there that they are indeed boys.  At this point we don't even know if they rally are brothers.  It took almost a week to decided on their new, more manly names, and now the gray one is Domino and the orange one is Julius.  Julius' full name is actually Mandarin Orange Julius Caesar Salad Fork.  Brian and I came up with it one morning, and the kids think it's hilarious.  (See, each pair of words make sense: mandarin orange, orange julius, etc., but together they don't make any sense at all.  Fun.)

They are both very sweet cats, who are all about giving love, sitting on laps, letting Becca carry them around, sometimes upside down, by their skin, and loving Brian so much that they sometimes (Julius especially) grab his face and lick the inside of his nostrils while he's sleeping.

when we first brought them home

a couple weeks later

2. Brian loves crullers so much that he looked up a recipe and we learned how to make them.  We've done them a couple of times now, and they've gotten a lot prettier than this first attempt.  And I think they taste better than the doughnut shop ones, too.

 3. We had my family over for Thanksgiving on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Everyone brought yummy food, and we had a good time.

4. Becca went through a phase for a couple of weeks where she liked to pull one arm out of her shirt.  We don't know why, but my mom thinks it might be from when we had to do funny things with her shirt when she had her cast on?  Whatever it was, it was cute.

5. It didn't take long after decorating for our tree to just have the ornaments start at three and a half feet up.   The kids and I decorated it after Alyssa and Ethan got home from MCP just after Thanksgiving.  I put the garland on and let the kids do all the rest.

6. We almost missed the Cousin Christmas Talent Show, because our home teachers came a half hour late and ended up staying a quite a while.  It was probably the best Home Teaching lesson we've ever gotten, though.  When we finally got to my sister's house, we had missed everyone's performances, and we had to gather all the kids together so Alyssa could play "Away in a Manger" and Ethan could play "Jingle Bells" on the piano.  Marcus was supposed to read a Rubric nativity story with me, but he refused and ended up break dancing without music instead.

7. Rebecca loves apples, and you can see by the fact that she has one in her hands and one discarded beside her, she especially loves to steal apples from her brothers and sister.

8. She also didn't get a nap one day before Christmas and ended up falling asleep on the family room floor.

9. Decorating sugar cookies on Christmas Eve.

And 10. Everyone waiting to go see what Santa brought on Christmas morning.  I didn't take very many pictures of Christmas, but it was a good one.  We enjoyed our Santa presents for a bit, then Brian's parents came over for our now traditional crepe breakfast, with Brian in charge, which is my favorite part.  Then we opened all the other presents, and I loved it, because we spent time in between each opening to take things out of boxes and play with them before going on to the next round.  It made for a longer, more relaxed morning, and I hope we can keep that going every year.

Oops, I forgot to add the pictures from my phone.

11. Brian and I participated in a Murder Mystery type skit for a fundraiser for a local Autism foundation.  We were asked to do it because of my involvement in Tombstone Tales, and we ended up having so much fun.  Before we went to the first rehearsal Brian was saying that he really didn't want to do it, but even he ended up having a great time.  The story was that we were all actors and actresses or directors, casting directors, agents, etc. and we were at a party after a huge awards ceremony.  We were all waiting for Hobart Hughes to  tell us who would be starring in his next major film, and we all hoped the leading lady wouldn't be Angel (the Autism director) for varius different reasons, then someone ended up killing Angel, and the audience had to guess which of us did it.

My niece, Megan, played a young pop star named Barbie Doll, and she did a fabulous job while looking incredibly beautiful.  Brian and I played Mario Star and Lola Star, and I was afraid the whole night that Angel was trying to steal him away from me.  During the mingling session, I would sometimes go up to a group of people and ask if they had seen my husband, complain about that darn Angel, and then, depending on if we found him close to her or away from her, either go into hysterics or praise my husband for keeping his distance from her.

 12. Alyssa performed in the Mid Columbia Ballet's production of the Nutcracker for the first time.  Obviously, she was a soldier.  We weren't supposed to take pictures of them in their make up, but all the other moms were doing it (I know, not a valid excuse) and I really wanted something to put on the blog.  She was a cute little soldier, and we ended up finding a new friend in a girl who goes to MCP (but on a different day) and did Kindergarten twice, just like Alyssa, because her mom felt she wasn't ready for first grade because he birthday is in the summer, just like Alyssa.  I was actually surprised to find out that there were at least three kids in the soldier group that were home schooled.  I guess it's not so uncommon anymore?

building a tower with a few other girls - this is also proof at what a bad Nutcracker mom I was.  I stood there granting their request to take pictures and told them how cool they were, just before we heard a yell to get off the table.  It was only then that I realized, "Oh yeah, I guess it's not that safe."

 12.  And here's Marcus with Julius, most likely when he was still named Ginger.

11.

Sleep Deprived Rambling

It is currently around 6:50 am.  I don't know the exact time, because I'm feeling too lazy to look closely at the clock on the wall, and a few weeks ago Marcus had a grand time messing with the clock on the computer, so it's all messed up.  Glance at the wall clock = 6:50ish...clock on the bottom right corner of my computer screen = 1:51 pm.

I woke up this morning at 3:44.  (Apparently I did a good job of looking at the clock then.)  I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, because my mind wouldn't quiet down, so I decided to get on the computer to look up a few things I've been wanting to research and hadn't had time for.  I've been wanting to plan some good Family Home Evenings for a while now, because our FHE's have gone completely downhill over the past year or so.  With our busy kids, we've never had fabulous lessons with coordinating games and activities, and now we've worked our way from short lessons and a dessert to meaningful family activities usually accompanied by dessert to "at least we're hanging out together eating yummy food."

Have you ever heard the saying, "You can do anything, but you can't do everything"?  Our family is pretty good at that last part.  We used to be great at Family Home Evening, but horrible at family scripture study.  Now, after working on it, we're fabulous at family scripture study (at having it, not at always making it wonderful and spiritual and everyone is paying attention) but we're not having real Family Home Evenings anymore.  I miss it.  So now that scripture study has become a staple in our nightly routine, it's time to start working on Home Evening again.  Since I haven't had a chance to make some plans during the day, and I couldn't get back to sleep a few hours ago, I decided to just get up and do it.

I've ended up going with an already planned schedule for Family Home Evening from A Year of Family Home Evenings.  I actually wanted to follow this schedule last year, but never got around to it.  I've decided to follow the plans for 2010.  I think it's a good place to start, and I think our family will benefit from the ideas from those lessons. 

While researching, I came across something I'd like to start using for home school.  Up until now, Alyssa has been reading one chapter of the Book of Mormon each day for her first lesson, and Ethan has been reading five verses, but now we're going to switch to the Discover the Scriptures lessons instead, and I'm excited about that.  I think it will turn their daily scripture reading into daily scripture study, and they'll get more out of it.  I'm also looking into ways of getting more out of my personal scripture study, because right now it's just scripture reading, too, and I think that now that Becca is older, I need to put more effort into it.

Mini Rant:  But how do I do that?  I want to do better.  I want to make it work, but it feels overwhelming.  There's so much I want to schedule in: my neglected blog, scripture study, writing my book, more time to unwind (both by myself and with Brian) or to just relax and have fun.  And those goals need to be squeezed in to my normal day.  5:30 running that hasn't been happening very often over the last month and a half, shower and get the kids ready and breakfast'd, home school and laundry, lunch, a bit more home school, kids' activities that involve keeping Marcus and Rebecca entertained while we wait, dinner, family time, get kids ready for bed, scripture study, tuck kids in, make lesson plans for school, hang out with Brian for a bit, go to sleep.  Just to let you know, right now my personal scripture study is reading out loud while rocking Rebecca for her naps, and you know, maybe it will have to stay that way for a little while longer until I can come up with something better.  I also sometimes listen to the scriptures while running.  I just feel so busy, but when I map out my schedule or think of things I can cut from the schedule, I don't want to take anything out, because I really feel that each activity is important.  Stop home schooling?  Now way!  I love it, and I truly feel that it is the best choice for our family.  Don't do laundry?  I would love that, but eventually we would run out of clean clothes, and I really wouldn't feel comfortable with sending our laundry to a cleaner, even if we had the money to spend like that.  Running?  I can't let that slip, because I've found that exercising is necessary to both my physical and emotional well-being.  I guess it's not even that I'm busy, but more that the things I'm doing are very involved.  But maybe that's just typical of life with young children.  My sister told me that once she told her stake president during a temple recommend interview that she struggled to find time for scripture study, and he told her that there were years when his kids were young that his wife's scripture study was simply choosing one verse to hang on her mirror and read through while she brushed her teeth each morning.  And I guess that's all we can do sometimes.  Anyway, that doesn't mean I'm giving up.  I do want to do better, but I think I need to also be patient in the process.  I feel like I'm an organized person, but I know I can still take a look at things at a time when I'm not feeling so overwhelmed at be able to come up with a solution.

That rant turned out longer than I expected.  Sorry 'bout that.

One thing that's happened through our family scripture study is that I've found my favorite scripture.  Up until now I haven't had a favorite scripture.  I've had scripture stories and verses that I've liked or that have had special meaning to me, but I never had a moment where one verse jumped out and made me feel like, "This is me!  This is what I want my life to be all about!"  But last week while reading to the kids while Brian was at church meetings, this one verse jumped out at me in that exact same way.  It's Mosiah 2:41.

"And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God.  For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness."

I love this scripture.  The whole point of keeping the commandments is so that we can be happy, both in this life and in the next life.  Loving Heavenly Father makes me happy.  Loving others and treating them with love makes me happy.  Following the Word of Wisdom makes me happy.  Serving others makes me happy.  All of these things make me happy now, and by doing these things, I can return to live with my Heavenly Father someday to dwell in a "state of never-ending happiness."  It can't get any better than that.  This is now my scripture.

It is now both 7:45 am and 2:46 pm, depending on where I look.  Ethan woke up once he heard me typing, and he is now downstairs quietly watching TV.  Everyone else is still asleep, and I think I'm going to go lie down a bit before it's too late.  Or maybe I'll catch up on reading everyone else's blog posts, which I haven't done for a long time.  Yep, that sounds good.