weekly 2014.12.14

Tonight we delivered 24 neighbor gifts and Christmas cards. That brings our Christmas card total to about 170. Yikes. Every year, including this, I say I’m never doing it again. But I will probably cave next year and do it all again. At this point I guess it’s one of our Christmas traditions, an obnoxious tradition, but a tradition, nonetheless.

The kids always have fun delivering the gifts. They all put on Santa hats and sing, “We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!” Short and sweet but it makes everyone smile. Fortunately, all the people answering their doors don’t know that the kids fight non-stop over who gets to hold the gift/card and hand it over. Important stuff to fight about, you know.

After the deliveries we drove past all the pretty lights at Draper Park. Somehow the big lit up tree right in the middle of the park got some national media attention and it’s turned into a total zoo. Stick has to drive the long way home from work because of all the people trying to see the tree. Which is totally funny because that same tree has been lit for years, but I guess it’s extra special this year, because the lights are twinkling.

Rachel took the ACT for the 3rd time yesterday. She didn’t really want to take it again, but we wanted her to try one last time. Lately I’ve been feeling pretty confident that she will get into BYU. She has a 3.9 and a 29 on the ACT, which is really good, right? Surely that’s good enough to get in. We heard from a ward member that her son didn’t hear if he got into BYU last year until the last day of February, which was the absolute last day to hear. So I’ve mentally prepared myself that it could be a while.

Aaron is spending a lot of time lately reading any of the various magazines he subscribes to like, Scientific American, etc. He is such a hilarious sponge for knowledge. He is always trying to talk to me about things that I’ve never even heard of, and I try to keep up my end of the conversation, but it’s like he’s speaking a foreign language! I would imagine most boys his age are sitting around reading Mad magazine. (Does that even exist anymore?)

Thomas has now moved his wood working workshop into the basement. He got an early Christmas present of a wood burner. He was trying to buy one for himself so he could make his Christmas presents, so we just gave it to him. He loves it and I hope he doesn’t burn the house down. Thomas’ basketball team won yesterday. He made all his outside shots and most of his inside shots.

Spencer is now obsessed with playing Trivia Crack. We let him get an account and now he’s challenging all the teenagers in the ward by texting them things like, “Do you want to play against Spencer the Great?” Which they all think is slightly hilarious because let’s remember, he’s 11. His basketball team won yesterday and he had the most points at 8. Spencer got Croup on Tuesday. He didn’t seem to be as sick as Bekah was, but he was still pretty miserable at night.

Harry’s basketball team also won. Both teams had a slow start and the score was still 0-0 when it was almost half time. Despite lots of attempts, even Harry couldn’t make a single shot. Finally right before half time, he made a shot and after that he didn’t miss again. His team won. The coach from the other team made a point of coming over and telling Harry what a great player he was and that he had told all the kids on his team to watch out for Harry.

Rebekah is her usual, spunky, loud, happy self. We are working this week on volume control. The girl could be one foot from your head and she talks/yells like she’s half a mile away. She was especially thrilled that she got to be Owl of the Week at school for another week because she’d been sick so much last week. She loves her attention, you know.

We had Stick’s company party last night. I always dread it, but it was pretty fun this year. We always have the party at Tuscany. I was too lazy to go buy something to wear and figured I’d just recycle something. But then on Friday I decided to pull out an old Christmas skirt that I’ve had for years. I think I bought it for our first ever Christmas party at WBC. It’s a really pretty skirt and it was expensive (Coldwater Creek), but I’ve never really worn it since. The fabric is still pretty, a dark red with a large black plaid pattern, but the style is a little dated (ankle length and sort of a long A-line), so I laid it out on my sewing table and put the pencil skirt I made this summer on top of it. Using the pencil skirt, I cut out a new pencil skirt out of the plaid Christmas skirt, using the existing waistband. It took some nerve to make that initial cut, because there was really no going back once I cut the fabric. I had to try it on a bunch of times to adjust and fit it just right, but it all turned out, and it looked pretty great. I even put a kick pleat in the back so I could, you know, walk in that tight fitted skirt. I was pretty happy with my work, and I wore it to church today too.

We have one last week of non-stop basketball, scouts, school, life, etc. then we are looking forward to Christmas!

1 Comment

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No before & after pictures of the re-vamped skirt? Inquiring minds are curious... ;)

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