Christmas Decor Emergency

I volunteered to host a Christmas Relief Society progressive dinner at my house this past December.  It was a great motivator to finally take care of some of the final remodeling details we never finished before, like the moose-shaped patch where the electrical was updated:

Or the frames around the windows:

Or that wall that used to have a window, before we  added the master bedroom on to the other side:

So I set to work painting and my hubby built a wall unit to hide the blocked window:

I was feeling okay about our progress, until two days before the dinner, when a member of the Relief Society presidency, in an attempt to lower the intimidation factor and get a few more volunteer hosts, gave a little speech about how you didn't need to have a big, nice house to be a host.  We just wanted to enjoy your Christmas decorations.

Christmas decorations?

I hadn't realized that Christmas decor was the key component to hosting this event.  I have lovely Christmas decorations--my mom gifted them to me a few seasons back--but I hadn't decorated yet because we were doing all that paint and carpentry work.  Now, not only did I have to finish the construction, but I also needed  to deck the halls.  This don't-be-intimidated speech really intimidated me. 

All is well that ends well.  We ended up finishing most construction (minus some detail work on the new wall unit) a few hours before the dinner and my kids helped me complete the fastest decorating spree of all time. My parents came over a half hour before the dinner started and we just finished minutes before guests arrived. Phew.

I walked in my room the other day and saw...

...a foot.

Closer investigation revealed:

Halloween, Christmas, New Year's (Yeah, I'm behind.)

Halloween

I let my kids use the camera to photograph their jack-o-lanterns.  It came back to me with orange goo on it, possibly from the pumpkins, but possibly from this abstract still life they made from laundry and peaches.  They may have potential as artists,  but I will not lend them my camera again.  (I ended up giving them cheap cameras for Christmas.  So my camera is safe, but my laundry and food may not be.)

Christmas

I love the Christmas Sing-Along.  It's a great way to expose the kids to a live orchestra without forcing them to be quiet!

Someone did the 12 days of Christmas for us.  The gingerbread kit and play dough were among the gifts. So fun!  I wish I knew who to thank.

Wrapping paper was a big hit to my littlest one.

We tried to do a family nativity, and the kids spent most of the time fighting over who should be the angel, but the next day, they cooperatively staged their own without parental guidance.

My aunt and uncle host a delicious annual Christmas Day breakfast.  My oldest daughter has been asking me about if we could go there every few weeks since last year's breakfast, and I keep explaining to her that Aunt and Uncle's house is not a breakfast cafe and you can't just show up there anytime ordering food, but I am glad she enjoys it so much.

The kids got a camera for Christmas that takes silly photos and videos like these.

New Years

I'm glad I walk my talk

I have been working with my local state senator, Senator Osmond, on SB 112, a bill that would soften the very unfortunate work week law of 2011.  I sent a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune about it, which says:

Since it went into effect in September of 2011, the state’s five-day workweek law has added approximately 14,250 metric tons of carbon emissions into the air.

The law ended the state government’s four-day workweek, a common-sense measure to protect air quality that saved taxpayers $203,000 a year.

Now, we are all breathing in the results of this legislative action. Senate Bill 112 would not bring back the four-day workweek, but it mitigates the current law by allowing state agencies some flexibility to offer services by Internet or phone.

If you like breathing clean air more than you like waiting in line to fill out paperwork in person, support SB112.

Today I took a glance at the comments and one in particular stood out to me.  It was posted by someone who obviously knows me but I can't tell by the screen moniker or tiny profile photo who it is:

As I know who the letter writer is is can tell you that her home is Green. She uses Public Transportation, and even owns Natural Gas Vehicles (yes plural, and she still uses public transit). I know, bash away, tell her how she has forgotten this or that, but don't look into yourself for what you can do to help the issue. I am guilty, I drive a big truck, and don't drive all that far to work, I really do live close enough to walk.

That made me feel good about all that time my husband and I have spent updating our house to be eco-friendly, xeroscaping, shopping for environmentally-friendly cars, and taking mass transit when other means may have been faster.  I am surprised that someone else has noticed.  Thank you, friend.

My Daughter's Winning, R-Rated Reflections Film

My 7-year-old daughter was extremely enthused about Reflections this year.  She submitted to the film, visual art, 3D art and photography contests.  A sheepish PTA volunteer called me and told me that her film had won, but would it be okay if they didn't show it because of the nudity?  Or was that just too silly because it's just an infant and of course there's nothing wrong with it but they were afraid sixth grade boys might make fun of it but they would show it if we really wanted them to but would we mind if they didn't?  So it wasn't publicly shown, until now.  But she did win, after all, so I think her self-esteem is fine.

Is my son the future Chord Overstreet doppelgänger?

When I watch Glee, I am frequently distracted by how much Sam (Chord Overstreet) reminds me of my 2-year-old son. I feel like I am watching a future home video. Of course, I might be nuts, so I asked my family if they had noticed the resemblance. Most of them said, "Chord Who?" but my sister knew who I was talking about and assured me that I was indeed nuts. No resemblance whatsoever. Then her husband looked at my kid and said, "I don't even watch Glee, but I know who you're talking about! He looks just like him!" So we have a tied match. I am going to poll to break the tie.

Will my toddler son look like Chord Overstreet in 20 years?

 my kid

Chord

 my kid

Chord

Here's the youngest Chord photo that came up in my image search

Times of Plenty (Even Too Much)

The garden did well this year. I'm grateful for the child labor that picked the food for me and transported it via scooter. (Although I struggle to understand the scooter method...they do possess a big red wagon.)

Moreover, for the very first time, the baby peach tree we planted when we moved in five years ago had a harvest. A really big harvest.  I was surprised to have such an abundance of fruit on the first go-around.

I have lots of experience with baby fruit trees but very little experience harvesting fruit because growing up, my family moved into a new house every three years with no preexisting landscaping.  I remember once, and only once, my parents chose a lot that happened to have a mature apple tree on it.  It was late fall when they bought the lot and we tasted some delicious apples.  But in the spring, we found the apple tree had died during the winter.

At another house, we had a baby apple tree that  produced one apple.  And it worked really hard at growing that one apple.  The tree's whole skinny, pathetic trunk bent into a u shape under the weight of that one tiny apple.  People pointed out to us that the apple was more than that baby tree could bear but we let the tree suffer, hoping to eat it in the fall. Then one day my Grandpa came over, saw the tree's predicament and without pausing to ask for permission came to the tree's rescue and plucked the unripened, cherry-sized apple off.  The tree sprang back up in relief.  The next summer, many blossoms appeared on the tree.  And we moved.

So I was expecting a somewhat whimpy start for our peach tree, too, but apparently when a peach tree fruits, it really, really fruits.

Now, if only the kids knew how to cook, too. We had such an overabundance of certain foods that using up our harvest dominated all menu planning throughout the fall. I learned many new ways to cook squash.  My favorite was to shred it and use in in meat loaf, in place of bread crumbs or oats.  Purple corn tastes just like yellow corn, but is better roasted  than boiled because the purple color is not pretty when diluted.  Our grapes are seeded (grumble, grumble, because I was sure I bought the plants that claimed to be unseeded) and so we cooked a lot of grape juice and strained the seeds out.  I made my usual Thanksgiving side dish (green bean casserole) with my own homegrown herbs.

We did not have an overabundance of pears.  We had about a dozen and my four-year-old ate them all. He does not feel the need to wait for them to ripen, so he gets to them first.