2010 Christmas Joy

We tried to capture the joy of Christmas morning.

Dear Santa

This is the letter that Allie wrote to Santa on Christmas Eve.

Dear Santa,
I did it again! I set up all of your cookies and filled the bowls with oats. I want to do it next year too. I have not been perfect, but I did my best this year. I want books for a gift from you. I'm not really spastic about which books. I also want something that you can't give me, but can help, a happy Dad, Mom, Maddie, Jayd, Me and Gabe. As in a happy family. Help by giving each of them 1 present.

Thanks,
A Secret Santa Helper

I am proud to report that she got what she asked for.

Clipping Clippers Coupons bring Good Fortune

When our children turn 12, we start to take them on "dates". It's an opportunity for us to teach them some old fashioned date etiquette, and for us to spend some one on one time with them. Jayd and I decided to go to a basketball game for our date. With the assistance of a coupon given to us by a friend, we were able to buy two third level nosebleed tickets to a Clippers game for $20.
We took the train down there, and watched the first half. The game was good, the score was nearly even at halftime, and we were enjoying ourselves. But things were about to get better.
Near the end of halftime, a man approached me and asked if it was just the two of us. I answered yes. He then gave us two season tickets on the bottom level. He was leaving and didn't need them anymore. So Jayd and I grabbed our stuff and moved down to the lowest level, about 10 rows away from the court. It was amazing! We were so close, we could really see the players, read their uniforms, and even hear them yelling at each other while they were playing. We just sat there revelling in our good fortune and enjoying the rest of the game Gordon racked up 34 points, Griffin had several fantastic dunks, and the Clippers pulled away from the Timberwolves to win the game. After the game, we were close enough to the hall leading to the locker room that Jayd was able to hang his hand down and give several players a high five. Jayd had been a little reserved about going before the game, but came home in very high spirits.

Oma's Visit

My mommy came to visit! We had a great visit. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to clear my schedule very much for her visit, so she tagged along to several concerts, visiting teaching, PTA meetings and girl scout pickups. We also had to make a dress for Maddie over the weekend. It was not the nice relaxing visit that I enjoy as much, but we still had a great time. My mom was able to go to Maddie's band concert, and Allie and Gabe's piano recital. She was grateful for the opportunity to see her grandchildren perform. We also managed to sneak in a girl's night out to see the Nutcracker. And despite several boo-boos, the dress for Maddie turned out beautiful. Thank goodness my mother had already completed the dress for Allie, I don't think we would have made it in time! I love you mom, and thanks for coming to visit.

Disneyland

In April, we did a service project for the Dearborn Elementary School. We swept the kindergarden yard, painted a shed, pulled weeds and planted flowers. It was a lovely day, especially since our reward was a day at Disneyland!!
We purposefully waited until December to go to Disneyland. We wanted to convert our free tickets into season passes so that we could return for most of 2011. That made the day very nice. It was a Saturday and the most crowded I have ever seen Disneyland but we didn't mind, we knew that we would be coming back on much less crowded days. I did have a few requirements for the day.
We had to go on the Haunted Mansion. I love the way that they transform the ride with a "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme. There are Christmas presents and Jack Skeleton spread throughout. I also wanted to watch the Christmas Parade. We loved the roller skate snowflakes and Eeyore pulling his broken sled. Under much protest, I required a us to go on It's a small World. Again, I love the Christmas transformation as there are christmas decorations and messages of peace all the way through. Also, they don't repeat the same song over again, they mix jingle bells, deck the halls and the original song. So it is a little easier on the ears.
In addition to these holiday specialities, they had a different presentation that I had never seen before. The line to see it was over 3 hours long, so we didn't see it, but we did hear it. It was a large choir that proceeded up main street and performed. At first, I was just impressed that they were singing songs that were centered on Christ, along with traditional non-secular songs. But as they began into the heart of the program, they brought out a narrator. He read the scriptures! They would read a few verses, then sing a corresponding song. I was quite surprised. They read a good portion of Luke. We didn't stay for the entire program, so I am not sure if they paid tribute to other religions as well, but I was grateful for their forthcoming tribute to the true spirit of Christmas. It gives me hope that this is still a nation that is dedicated to the Lord in our various ways.
We had a great day, and are looking forward to many more days at the "happiest place on earth".

Shadows of the Future

This year we skipped our traditional day after Thanksgiving tradition. We normally grab our swim suits, shovels, and often blankets and head to the beach for the day. We try out new beaches for a little variety. This year, it was just going to be too cold. It was only about 60 degrees here, which usually means around 45-50 degrees at the beach. Our California toes can't handle that type of weather, so we opted out of tradition.
In lieu of the beach, we went to the park and took shadow pictures. I had been wanting to take them for some time, but hadn't found the right opportunity. We had a lot of fun being creative with the long late afternoon shadows. We played volleyball, then came home for a family movie. Even though we weren't at the beach, we spent the day together, the most important part of the tradition.
We have been starting to form a new tradition. Last year, Jayd, Maddie and Jeff went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. It is a handy day because it is a weekday that Jeff doesn't have to go to work. They went again this year, and we will see for the future.

The anniversary that was not

Last Saturday was Jeff and I's seventeenth anniversary. Here we were able to celebrate 17 years of being together on a weekend night rather than a quick kiss in between working late and putting kids to bed. So how did we spend it? We didn't see each other all day.
As it turned out, I went to a girls weekend in Newport Beach, while Jeff stayed here to throw a birthday party with 30+ kids for Jayd. After 17 years, romance must be dead.
But don't be dismayed because we are not, we actually planned things this way. We were originally scheduled to go to Las Vegas for our anniversary, but due to a few glitches along the way, we went to Las Vegas, just the two of us, in the end of October. We really viewed that as our anniversary celebration and so when these other things came up and coincided with our anniversary, we felt comfortable doing them.
As I said, I went to a girls weekend in Newport Beach. Allie, Maddie and I went with three of my friends and their daughters. All together, there were four adults and nine girls. It was so fun. We scrapbooked, we went shopping, we went swimming and ate lots of frozen yogurt. We took an unscheduled tour of the fire station led by the first female firefighter hired in Newport Beach. What a role model for our nine girls! We stayed up late and had a great time.
Jeff, Gabe and Jayd had their own fun here at home. Jayd went to a campout, leaving Jeff and Gabe with some one on one time. Then on Saturday, Jayd had a super birthday party (it is a little late). We combined with another friend to play capture the flag at the park. There were more than 30 boys there and they had a great time. Once they were done, they started playing football until a stray dog decided to join the fun and stole the football!

4 + 3 = 7 Stouts

This weekend we had my 2 nephews and niece join us. Their oldest is 5 years old, so we had quite a house full. At one point, Maddie was holding the 2 year old, trying to get her to eat, I was trying to cut up chicken while catching the 4 year old who kept saying "Up" then jumping from the stool into my arms, and Jeff was being chased by the Allie, Gabe and the 5 year old. He was a little frustrated because he didn't want to be chased, he was trying to get the remote to the TV to work. Then the 4 year old found some markers and completely colored his and his little sisters arms and legs before I discovered it. It was a little crazy! But then there were the times when the 2 year old would push everyone over and they would all laugh hysterically like this was the funniest thing in the world. Laughter is contagious and soon we were all laughing. There were times when the 4 year old would come and snuggle in my lap. I loved watching the pure joy and enthusiasm they had over the simple pleasure of playing in the bathtub. It was a little crazy, but well worth it. We are glad they came to stay with us and would welcome them back anytime.

Scooby-Dooby-Doo

Another year, another halloween. I considered skipping the whole costume thing this year, and just use something that we already had available. Maddie and Jayd were just fine with that, they are a little beyond the "family theme". But I told Allie and Gabe that we could be Scooby Doo and company this year before I calculated that Halloween would be on a Sunday. I thought maybe they would forget, but oh no, this time they remembered. So here are our Scooby Doo costumes that we enjoyed wearing to the ward Halloween party. As always, it was fun to dress up and be someone else for the evening. Gabe is Scooby Doo, Allie is Daphne, I am Velma, and Jeff is Shaggy. You would be surprised how many times we were asked where Fred was! We should have adopted someone else for the evening.

Fright Fest

We went to Magic Mountain on Friday night for FRIGHT FEST. I took my kids and a few friends. They had decorated the park with lots and lots of spider webs. There were pumpkins on all of the lampposts. Many of the lights were turned off, making it quite dark throughout the park. They had turned off the lights on the roller coasters as well. I didn't think that it would make that much of a difference, but it really did. It felt different to be rushing through the cool fall air in the dark. In some areas, there were fog machines and ghouls wandering about. Allie and Gabe didn't like the ghouls (we accidentally wandered into that area, then fiercely avoided all other scare zones). At one point we walked all the way around the park the long way to avoid a scare zone! They also had special shows. We went to see the hypnotist show. It was really amazing. They did very silly things on the stage and despite our intial reservations, we laughed the whole way through!

Refer: 10202010

So I am having way too much fun with the date lately, probably my love of numbers and their symmetry. Today is 10-20-2010, the palindrome day. It is the same backwards and forwards, in a sense. So I looked up palindromes (words that are spelled the same backwards and forwards) on the internet and found several fun words, and even a few phrases. Here are some of my favorites:

evitative
kayak
level
madam
racecar
radar
redder
reviver
solos
stats
sexes
testset

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.
Desserts, I stressed!
Evil did I dwell; lewd I did live.
Live not on evil.
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Yo, banana boy!
No lemon, no melon.
Dammit, I'm mad!

Oh, Where did my Son Go?

Jayd came to me Monday and said "I want a hair cut." It was getting a little longish even for him, so I made an appointment. He cut it all off!! It has been very strange. I am happy that he now has shorter hair, I didn't really like the long hair, but decided it wasn't a battle I wanted to fight. But now that he has short hair, we are all having difficulty recognizing him! I didn't realize how much we relied on the long hair hanging out of his baseball cap to find him. We could not find him on the baseball field yesterday for anything. We would be cheering "Good play second base!", and then look at each other and say "Is that Jayd?"

The Perfect 10

Today is October 10, 2010, or in other nomenclature 10-10-10. Being the very silly mom that I am, I decided we needed to celebrate the only day that will be a perfect 10 for the next 100 years. So I arranged for 10 activities to do during the day to celebrate 10. Here is what we did:

We had to take a picture at 10:10 in the morning of 10-10-10.







I hid 10 bags with 10 gummi bears in each bag around the house. I tried to hide them in places that the kids would find them as they went through their daily activities.








We read ten scriptures that were from chapter 10 verse 10. I was a little worried that we would have a very strange scriptures, but they turned out to be quite profound and meaningful.









I gave them each 10 dimes. Gabe thought it should have been 10 dollars, but that would have been ten 100 cents, not ten 10 cents.






We made 10 plates with 10 cookies each to take to 10 of our friends. Due to Allie's cake the day before, we even had 10 different colors of frosting to decorate them with. The hardest part about this activity was limiting the number of friends to 10!








We found 10 words that had 10 letters in them. Our words were cafetorium, brainstorm, permission, profession, sferrazzas, scheduling, priesthood, testaments, television, and confounded.









We made 10's out of breadsticks. I had originally planned to make pancakes, but that plan was scratched when I remembered that it was fast Sunday.





We each played ten notes on our instruments. It is very convenient that we happen to have 5 instruments so that we could create a truly awful noise. Gabe played the trombone, Allie played the flute, Jayd was on the french horn, Maddie was on the clarinet and I was on the piano.



We each wrote down 10 things we would like to do during our lifetimes. Gabe is going to be a renaissance man, he wrote down 9 professions and "jump off airplane". Maddie wanted to "somehow convince mom to take me to the store to buy something for the dance next week." Allie wanted to "inherit the idea of 10-10-10" and "help Mom with everything" (I really liked that last one). Jayd wants to own a car lot, he wrote down 4 cars that he wants to own, including a high tech RV.
Our last activity lasted throughout the day, we took 10 pictures! We needed one more picture, so we took a picture of our 10 hands! We really enjoyed celebrating our perfect day of 10's. By the end of the day, Allie and Gabe were already planning activities for 11-11-11 and 12-12-12!

Albus Who??

Allie and Gabe came to me today with gummi bears stuck to their chins and said "Look Mom, we are Albus Dumblebear!"

Box Canyon steps out of the Box

For years we have been driving through Box Canyon to get to the Rocketdyne Pool. It is a little shorter and doesn't have too much traffic if it is near to rush hour. It is a windy two lane road, that is a little scary in a few places. There are many houses along the road, some of the very unique and unusual. The kids enjoyed seeing the landmarks as we passed along the road. With the closure of the pool, we will not be driving through the canyon nearly as often. So we took a few pictures to remind us of the funny things we counted on seeing every time we drove through. They include a flying pig with red eyes, an Indian carved into the rock, a metal gate that says "Box Canyon, and a pink elephant with star shaped eyes.

Farewell Rec Center

We have been very sad this summer. For years we have gone to the Rocketdyne Recreation Center in West Hills to swim. It has a wonderful swimming complex. There are three pools, a normal swimming pool, deep in one end and shallow on the other, a lap pool, and a baby pool that is only 2 feet deep. It was a perfect place to go. I spent many hours in the baby pool with my non-swimming kids, while my older kids frolicked in the other pools. I gave them "swimming lessons" in the pools so that eventually, they all knew how to swim. We met with other families there every year. I don't ever see them anywhere else, and I couldn't tell you their last names or where they live. But I knew that I would see Linda, Allison and Vince there every summer. We would play in the park after swimming and sometimes stay for the movie of the month.
This year they are closing the facility. After 50 years of serving Rocketdyne employees, families and retirees, they are closing the gates. We are so sad. I have many years of swimming left, and am not sure where I am going to go. We will never find a complex that offers such a wide variety of opportunities for us. We were additionally saddened by the fact that we were going to miss so much of the summer while we were on our adventures. But we were given a small mercy. Instead of closing the pool after Labor Day, they kept it open for the month. We have been rushing off after school to get our last few days at the Rocketdyne pool installed in our memories.

Better Late than Never

It was a little late, over 4 months late, but we finally had Maddie's birthday party. We couldn't find a weekend in May to have the party, then the summer just blew by us. So we had her party now, better late than never.
Maddie wanted it to have a "Psych" theme, our recently discovered favorite TV show. She invited 10 of her friends. They ate pizza in the backyard. Then someone "stole" the cake. We went on a psychic detective case to find the cake. There were clues, but they were pretty vague, so we relied on our psychics to arrive at the next clue. It was fun. We found the cake, came home and ate it, then watched episodes of psych until the party was over. Maddie had a great time, and I think that the other girls did also. Now I just have to do something for Allie and Jayd before next January.