Christmas Love

This year, Keira was begging me to put the tree up since before Thanksgiving and I told her we had to wait until after Thanksgiving. So the weekend after Thanksgiving, Keira would no longer take "no" for an answer so I gave in and we decorated our house. I decided to keep things simple and hardly put any ornaments on the tree. The decorations consisted mostly of our usual theme of lights, ribbon, and flowers. The only ornaments on the tree are the 4 snowflake photo frame ones, which I updated with our new family pictures from November. It was so fun to add a new picture to the tree and stocking to the fireplace for Liana.

At Thanksgiving, we decided to draw names for a gift exchange with my siblings, mom, and Uncle Mark so we could buy each other one nice present instead of figuring out what to get everyone. I thought that was a good idea and really simplified the task of Christmas shopping. We kept our budget small this year and did a good job of sticking to it. As each present was purchased or delivered, Keira (my little Christmas helper) insisted that I wrap it immediately. She helped me with the tape, chose what wrapping paper to use, put bows on, and stuck on the name tags. She begged me to let her help wrap her own presents. I mean, she sure thought that was a win-win arrangement. Of course I didn't let her, but she did choose her paper, bows, and name tags, and made sure all of her presents were wrapped in green paper.

At the beginning of December, Liana had not yet started to crawl. She was just starting to get up on her hands and knees and rock like she wanted to take off crawling, but couldn't quite figure out how. She had her eye on the Christmas tree though, and I knew by the end of the month she would make it over there to see it. Not only did she master crawling in December, but she mastered pulling herself up to stand... on EVERYTHING and even stands up and balances without holding on to anything. It's amazing how much babies grow in one month. Here she is crawling to the tree for the first time. She investigated the presents, but thankfully didn't do any damage to them.

Unfortunately, both of the girls were sick on Christmas- especially Keira. She had a non-stop high fever for like a week straight. We had taken her to the doctor the Friday before Christmas and had her taking an anti-viral medication but it didn't seem to help. On the Sunday before Christmas, she looked so terrible I had Art, my brother Kyle, and my Uncle Mark give her a blessing. She started looking better the following couple days, but she was still very sick and feverish on Christmas Day which was on Tuesday. Even though both of them didn't feel well, they seemed to enjoy the day.

The Night Before Christmas

Christmas morning we slept in until the girls woke up and then opened our presents. Keira was so cute and considerate, as usual, while opening presents. She made sure everyone had a present to open, without concern for her own presents. She always opens her presents slowly and takes time examining each gift and expressing her gratitude to the person who gave it to her. All of my family gathered at my house Christmas Day and we had a delicious dinner of beef roast and potatoes, cooked by my mom.

Keira Helping Liana Open Her Stocking Christmas Morning

Liana's First Christmas - 7 months old

Sweet Keira - 4 years old

This Christmas, I felt a lot of peace in my life and I know that peace comes from the understanding I have of the love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for us. As a mother, I think of what it must have felt like for our Heavenly Father to sacrifice his son- to send him away to atone for our sins. I also feel like I have a greater understanding of Mary's sacrifice and trials as well. The Christmas season is such a wonderful time to reflect on the many ways we have been blessed by God's love. I feel so bad for people who stress themselves out this time of year, worried about shopping 'til they drop and baking until they just can't bake anymore. I feel like they are missing the point by burdening themselves with unnecessary or excessive tasks. Every year I strive to keep things as peaceful as possible so I can enjoy the true spirit of Christmas, and I hope my children learn to do this too.

"Christmas is more than trees and twinkling lights, more than toys and gifts and baubles of a hundred varieties. It is LOVE. It is the love of the Son of God for all mankind. It is magnificent and beautiful."   - Gordon B. Hinckley  

Flute Debut

I have been playing the flute for about a year and a half now, which isn't a very long time, but I have dedicated a significant amount of time toward practicing. I felt like it was time to put my skills to the test by arranging my first public performance. I came across a couple of Christmas songs written for a flute trio, so I found 2 more flutists in the ward, Julie Phillips and Monica Malcolm, who were willing to join my band. Julie is actually the person who inspired me to play the flute after hearing her perform on Easter Sunday 2 years ago.

Being the Ward Music Chairperson, I was able to schedule our flute trio into the Christmas Sunday program on the 23rd. Before our first practice, I was very anxious to see how I compare to the other girls who have been playing most of their lives, but I was pleasantly surprised that my abilities were more than acceptable. I'm trying to be modest, but I was downright awesome. Julie thought I must have had lessons and was surprised how I managed to play with good tone, embouchure, and right amount of vibrato. I have had no lessons besides watching a couple of YouTube videos. I guess I just figured everything out with lots of practice, a good ear, and a natural knack for playing the flute.

We put in several practices, most of which were in the chapel to get acclimated to the acoustics and surroundings. Then the morning of our performance, we quickly gathered in a classroom to warm up, checked our tuning on a tuning application on my phone, then played O Come, O Come Emmanuel as a prelude song just before the meeting started, and Angels We Have Heard on High during the actual program. We played each song through twice and we did really well.

Leading up to our performance, I had a couple concerns about things that could interfere with my ability to play. First of which was getting the hiccups. I mean, there's just no way to play the flute with hiccups, I've tried. And when I get hiccups, I get them for like a week. Second was getting a canker sore. When I talked to my mom about my concerns, she thought I was just over-stressing but she changed her mind when I got a great big canker sore on the corner of my mouth 2 days before we were supposed to play. Then Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church and I hiccuped ONE TIME and I think it scared me so bad they didn't come back. lol

I didn't know how nervous I would be during the actual performance since I have never played in public before, but I actually think it's easier than singing because you don't have to make eye contact with the audience. I just focused on my sheet music and if I started to feel nervous, I pretended it was just practice. I was very pleased with our performance, and my only mistakes were one tiny squeak in the first song and a minor finger fumbling in the second song. Not bad for my first time!

We got a lot of positive feedback about our flute trio's performance. We were told that we sounded very well-practiced and polished and that our tone was pleasant and easy on the ears. I know my mom was very skeptical and concerned about our sound quality being acceptable, having never heard a good flute performance in sacrament meeting before, but she thought we sounded absolutely beautiful. I know if my mom thinks we did well, we really did. My Uncle Mark, who gave me my flute, came down from Yuba City to spend Christmas with us and got to hear my first performance. He said we sounded better than the flute section in an orchestra he heard up north where they had to try-out to get in. That was a big compliment.

I love playing my flute so much. Maybe it wasn't completely random that I wanted to start playing the flute a year and a half ago. Maybe something inside me knew it was meant for me. Here is a sample of our performance. Julie is playing the melody, I am playing the middle harmony notes, and Monica is playing the low notes.

Family Portrait Fiasco

Every November, I try to take a family portrait. I only have 2 kids and family pictures are a nightmare to accomplish. How do people with more kids do it? Even trying to find coordinating outfits for a family of 4 is a challenge, especially when you don't have much money to work with. I couldn't find any matching dresses for the girls, but I ordered two different outfits that coordinate and had Art and I wear clothes we own already.

  
Sunday, November 11th - 5 days before our projected picture day, I attempted to dye my hair blonde again but the color didn't lift AT ALL. So I gave in and dyed it dark again and it came out darker than ever. When Keira saw me, she screamed at the top of her lungs and ran away.

Tuesday, November 13th - 3 days before pictures, Liana had her 6 month checkup and she weighed 18 lb 1 oz (90th percentile) and was 25 inches tall (50th percentile) perfectly healthy and thriving. Dr. Jones nominated me for "mother of the week" and he just goes on and on about how impressed he is with Liana. He says she is so pretty and has a high IQ. She didn't have any teeth at her appointment, but her first one poked through a couple weeks later on the 21st and she sprouted the second one on the 26th. So mind you, while all this photo preparation was taking place, Liana was getting ready to cut 2 teeth and had a fever for 2 days after her shots.

Thursday, November 15th - 1 day before pictures, Keira wakes up sick with a cold. GREAT.

Friday, November 16th - The morning of our pictures the girls were still feeling yucky, but I knew that we wouldn't have an opportunity to do it for a couple more weeks... my roots would be in danger of showing... Art would need another haircut... and Liana would probably outgrow her dress that barely buttoned as-is... so I decided to be brave and take the picture anyway. They came out nicely, even though Liana spit up ALL OVER her dress and a huge puddle on the floor. Family pictures... always an adventure. It may have shaved a few years off of my life, but it was worth it.

November 16, 2012

Boo!

Even though I really wanted to skip Halloween this year and go straight to Thanksgiving, I was a good mom and at least took my girls to the ward Halloween party. Keira was Angelica, Blackbeard's pirate daughter from Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm pretty sure she was the only little girl dressed as something other than a princess.

And here is my beautiful Liana... 5 months old and growing like a weed. My new goal: kiss my kids enough times now to average out to a kiss a day for every day of their life that they are too big to kiss on. I love these girls so much!

Liana - 5 months old

Pony Pandemonium

October 17, 2012

My beautiful Keira turned 4 years old on October 19th! We took the girls to the zoo as an early birthday present on the 18th, then had her party the next day on her actual birthday. When I asked her what theme she wanted for her birthday party, I was not surprised when she insisted on a My Little Pony party. This would have been an easy task if she was into the old-school My Little Pony, but she likes the new My Little Pony (which is way more awesome anyway) but they don't make party decorations for the new MLP. So I decided to make my own decorations, and I will just admit that I got a little carried away. I printed out just about every character from the show as large as I could and cut out each character to put on the walls. I designed her some MLP birthday invitations, and also made her a Happy Birthday banner featuring the Cutie Mark Crusaders from the show. I even created Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom across my living room. All these decorations took HOURS and HOURS to make, and left my house covered in glitter for about a week, but it was SO worth it. You can see from the look on her face how excited she was!

Fluttershy and Applejack decorations in the living room.

Rainbow Dash, Princess Celestia, and Twilight Sparkle above the cake table.

Spike and Rarity in the living room.

The Sonic Rainboom across my living room.

The Sonic Rainboom- When Rainbow Dash flies so fast she breaks the sound barrier and creates a rainbow at the same time.

 

 I added a Rainbow Dash to the cake to make it into a Sonic Rainboom cake. :)

Uncle Brenty, Baby Braden, and Grandma

Grandma Suzy, Liana, Daddy, Auntie Sophia, Baby Elani, and Keira

My amazing birthday banner and a big pile of presents!

 

The Pony Wedding Castle - a wonderful addition to her massive MLP collection!

Playdough Factory from Uncle Brenty and Auntie Vivian - She LOVES this.

Blowing out her FOUR candles!

 

Keira's Pony Collection

Keira is such an amazing girl. She is STUNNINGLY beautiful, EXTREMELY bright, CARING and CONSIDERATE, and always QUESTIONING and learning instead of just going with the flow. She has a very unique personality that I'm sure will give her advantage in life. Just watching Keira open her birthday presents, you can learn a lot about her... She opens them carefully, one at a time, taking time to examine each present and hug and thank the person who gave it to her. She has always been this way. I'm so proud to call Keira my daughter.

Sweet September

Arthur and I celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary on September 9th, which was also the one year anniversary of our temple sealing. We were particularly broke, me being out of a job still, so we hadn't planned on going anywhere and thought we might just go out to dinner. Upon hearing of our lack of anniversary plans, my dear brother and his wife gifted us some funds to go on a modest trip out of town. We gratefully accepted their offer and booked a cheap motel in one of our favorite places, San Luis Obispo. At $50 a night I was a little afraid of what this place might look like, but the Sunbeam Motel in downtown SLO was perfect for an overnight crash and was located right next to the more expensive motels in the area. We drove down on a Sunday evening and got there about 9 pm. We found a place to eat that was still open and had our dinner at Woodstock Pizza. In the morning, we had breakfast at The Splash Cafe and took a walk around the downtown shopping area and strolled the mission grounds. After having tri-tip sandwiches at Firestone Grill, we drove about 40 minutes to my favorite beach Spooner's Cove in Montana de Oro State Park where I have gone camping all my life. On our way home, we stopped for dinner at F. McLintock's in Paso Robles, but this was the worst McLintock's experience we had ever had. We made a "note to self" to not go to that one again, but it didn't put too much of a damper on our enjoyable getaway.

Dinner at Woodstock's

 Mission Plaza

 

 Montana De Oro

I took Liana to her 4 month checkup on the 13th and she weighed 15 lb 10 oz (90th percentile) and 24.5 inches tall (50th percentile). At the same age Keira was 12 lb 9 oz (25th percentile) and 24 inches tall (50th percentile). Liana is such a chubby baby compared to Keira. We keep asking Dr. Jones to be honest with us and tell us if she is getting to chubby, but he ensures us that she is well within healthy parameters. lol She also has a very big head like Keira did, but it's even an inch bigger than Keira's was at the same age. I don't look at my kids and think they have big heads, but they are over 100th percentile. Pretty crazy. So being 4 months old, we got to start spoon feeding Sister. She took a liking to it very quickly and is a very good eater. She loves sweet potatoes, squash, and applesauce. She also likes carrots, squash, bananas... pretty much everything she has tried except for peas. :)

Beautiful 4 Month Old

 

First Taste of Baby Food. Not sure how I feel about this!

A visit from baby cousin, Elani.

Since I was laid off while on maternity leave from my last housekeeping job, I had been desperately looking for a job with no luck. I got dressed up nicely and dropped my resume off in person whenever possible, but I just wasn't getting any bites. I had spoken with a woman in my ward named Mary Spano who cleans houses for a living a few weeks prior about working with her but she didn't need anyone at the time, then she called me saying she needed help and had me start working with her cleaning 2 houses, alternating each week. She also set me up with a house to clean by myself every week. So, I am cleaning 3 houses, working 2 days a week for a total of about 5 hours a week but the pay per hour is much better than I was making before. Every time Mary would call me to ask if I was ready for a job or to ask if I had purchased the cleaning supplies I needed to start cleaning on my own, she sounded pleasantly surprised that my answer would be yes every time. One day, after finishing our cleaning job together, she thanked me for my work and I pointed out that she seems surprised by my level of responsibility and dependability. Her eyes filled with tears as she expressed her gratitude for be and her happiness with being able to depend on me. These traits come naturally to me, and I would never treat a job any other way, but apparently not all people share my work ethic. I told her, as grateful as she is for me, I am grateful to have her. She provided me with good steady work in my time of need, when I had nothing else. Even though I was trying to get back into administrative work, I am glad to be making enough to make ends meet in my home and I know I am right where Heavenly Father wants me to be right now. And still so grateful for Art's steady job that allows me to work so little. What a blessing it is that work is just a footnote in my life and my family can be my main focus. I am truly blessed.