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Sunday, December 7, 2008

Christmas Fun

Dear Family and Friends,

This week seemed to be full of activities and caused me to seriously reflect on what can go in our lives. Part of the Christmas season though seems to be lots of things to do.

Monday my parents came down to use our scanner so my mom tagged along with Robyn and me to the grocery store. Such a small thing but I was very excited for the company! Robyn just chatted to my mom the whole time while it was my fastest shopping trip ever as my mind could actually think instead of trying to entertain Robyn and scan the shelves at the same time. After school Spencer, Taylor and I went up to U of U to see Spencer's psychiatrist. Spencer has gained 1 pound and grown 1 inch since September. Glad to learn the belly has gone down! He is now 4'11". It was recommended that Spencer see a psychologist and split his meds into 3 doses instead of just 2. See how that goes. Right now we have a hard time remembering the mid-day dose.

Monday night was our annual neighborhood lighting parade. It was even relatively warm so as long as you wore a coat you were fine. We walked up and down the street turning on the holiday lights, talking with friends as kids ran around in circles and ended up at a neighbor's garage for hot chocolate and treats. Its a fun tradition.

Wednesday night was our Relief Society activity. We met and sampled food like Jesus would have eaten and listened to a performance. It was a very reverent, spiritual experience instead of the usual party but I enjoyed the contrast.

Thursday was Allison's first piano recital. She played Jingle Bells and did awesome. The recital hall was a bit sauna like and sitting for the full hour of little kids playing got a bit tough. Robyn made it almost 45 minutes before loosing it which is huge progress from last year. Afterward we dropped Spencer off at karate and picked up happy meals to celebrate.

Friday night Taylor stayed with Jeremy and I took the other three kids up to see the Festival of Trees. Like all kids activities it was a lot of fun and a lot of work/whining all wrapped up together. Robyn loved all the princess trees and could spot them an aisle away. Spencer was just impressed with the huge gingerbread houses. I think he was mentally counting how much candy they had on them. Allison just wanted to watch all the dancers/singers on the 2 stages. Best part for everyone though was the scones - always a favorite.

Saturday Jeremy and I spent the afternoon at the Body Worlds exhibit up in SLC. It was amazing to see all the different body parts - the cadavers in anatomy were never so well done. Makes you really appreciate the beauty of all the human body systems and how they work together. The most amazing part for me was seeing preserved fetuses from 5 weeks on. At 9 weeks you could see so many little details of a baby no bigger than an 2 inches. We also walked around the SLC library which I have never been in before. It is amazing! I wish it was our library. It even has little coffee shops, stores built into the library, art exhibits everywhere, little hidden alcoves for reading and places for kids to play.

Today was supposed to be our Hall family dinner. But Jason's family had tickets for the first presidency devotional and Lauri was sick. Its sad but I was a little relieved to just have a quiet evening! Our kids have been whining about not seeing their cousins though. It is neat that we have some family so close to us. So Spencer and Allison and I went over to decorate Lauri's place for Christmas this afternoon. Macho (her cat) really was interested in her tree and the hanging ornaments.

Allison started rehearsing for her play this week. I didn't realize until Monday but she had rehearsal every day after school. For a while though it should only be 2 or 3 days a week. She is very excited to do it and I am trying to remember how happy she is about the opportunity as I figure out the extra driving! Allison and Spencer keep making "presents" to put under the tree. They say it looks a little bare. I guess I need to start wrapping presents! One of the presents looks a lot like a hub cap! Its from Spencer and he told me he found the perfect present for me lying on the side of the road.

Robyn and I went and got the material for her curtains this week and got paint to match. So I started cleaning out the old office and plan to finish painting this week - see how it goes! I got a robyn's egg blue for the walls, almost a turquise. And an espresso color to go on the bottome 1/3 of one wall. The curtains are an espresso color with small blue squares on it and I found some blue sparkles to hang along the hem. Hopefully it will look as good made as it looks in my mind.

Allison bore her testimony today for the first time. Her friend went up there and Allison followed along. Spencer bore his as well. Definite motivation to get up yourself when your kids are getting up!

Love to you all. Spaghetti is boiling and kids are arguing - my time must be up!

Heather



I thought this was one of the cooler trees at the festival as it was all made of handblown glass.



The reason Spencer isn't in this picture? I quote "I never stand next to girls, ever, ever"




Spencer loved this gingerbread house best because it was BIG.



Allison at her piano recital, taken by me while Jeremy took a video:

1 comments:

Kelly said...

Allison did a great job at her recital! I am glad you posted a video so we could see it. We missed you at dinner on Sunday, but the devotional was awesome! The Festival of trees sounded really neat. The glass blown one was amazing! The amount of work that went into that must have been tremendous!