Merry Christmas

What a Christmas! Santa Claus came! We opened gifts and shared excitement. There were surprises and laughs. We went to Sacrament Meeting and had Grandma & Grandpa Wright and Suzy and Autumn over for a bit. We visited the wonderful neighbors to the east, and Gary, the guitar teacher, brought his amp over to jam with the kids on their new guitars. We had a sleepover with the Techmeyers and played loads of games. My heart is full. We are blessed.

matching pajamas

Friday night, 9:15ish, December 23:
Anna: Mom, did you make Christmas pajamas?
Me: No, it felt a little overwhelming so I decided not to.
Anna: But didn't you say that it's not really that hard?
Me: Well, yes, it's not really that hard, but we have to make 6 pair.
Anna: Oh. [pause] Where's the pattern?
So I tell her where the pattern is and which fabric I intended to use and she disappears. My mind is 100 other places. Anna comes back to my room with everything to make 6 pair of pajamas.
Anna: Do you think we can make pajamas tomorrow?
Me: [Sigh] Sure. It'll be a fair amount of work, but we can probably do it.
Anna goes to bed happy, I go to bed hoping she forgets about the pajamas.

Saturday morning, 9:15ish, December 24:
I start cutting fabric, Anna reads the instructions, and starts sewing the inside seams. Jane helps put elastic in the waistbands, Lincoln carries around scraps of fabric. Mid-afternoon we finish. I'm very proud of Anna. She stuck with the project the entire day.

Saturday night, 9:15ish, Christmas Eve:
We set out cookies and eggnog for Santa (and carrots for the reindeer). We chitter chatter by the Christmas tree in 4 pair of matching monster jammies and 2 pair of matching orange with pink dot jammies.

Temple Square

28 degrees + a bagillion lights + cousins + mittens + hot chocolate = a very nice evening.

nice voice!

With no dance or piano recitals this month, the voice recital last night was especially enjoyable. Anna made her teacher cry. :) Anna's been taking for a year and a half, Zachary since September.

Here are some pictures from the last week that I like.

passwords

Hi loyal friends. :)

Yep, I had to look up my password to get into my blog. That's bad.

We have a darling baby boy. We just finished soccer (girls) and football (boys) (well, we have a championship game tomorrow, then two banquets, and THEN we'll be done with football). Jer's playing in a volleyball league now, the boys have started basketball and Anna is working on her foot skills once a week in Utah County with her team.

We've got a house full of guitar players and piano players, 3 kids at the elementary and one in middle school. We enjoyed October and Halloween and having cousins in town. We're loving the crunchy leaves and fall weather.

I will post pictures. It's good to be back. :)

at the drive-in

One of our funnest summer traditions is going to the drive-in. We had some cousins and friends join us for Cars 2 and Pirates 4. We didn't all manage to stay awake for both movies so we'll have to see them again.

at the cabin

We spent several days at the cabin with my mom, siblings, and nieces. My aunt and uncle even joined us for a couple of days. It was beautiful and green, thanks to all the snow and rain this spring. We visited and relaxed. The kids enjoyed the zip line and a treasure hunt and playing on the ponds. The sheep arrived the same day we did and we had a very nice visit with Tony, the sheepherder, who offered to let us ride his horses. The kids had a grand time riding, as did some of my siblings and even my mom! We did some stargazing and smores making, and listened to my boys play their guitars. Zachary built a raft and the kids had a good time with that. We took the buckets off the sprinklers and got the snowmobiles moved. We enjoyed a full afternoon at the Kamas pool, and cake and ice cream for my birthday. It was a good time.

trip to Cali

Jeremy's grandma is in her 90's. She does pretty well, but needs some help so Jeremy's mom, now retired, heads to Los Angeles each week. Jeremy, Anna, and Jane flew down with her and had a grand vacation!

They worked in Grandma's yard, pruned trees, weeded, planted some flowers, and fixed some sprinklers. They spent time visiting with Grandma and she seemed to really enjoy them.

Jeremy and the girls spent a full day at Knotts Berry Farm, played at the beach twice, and drove down to San Diego to see Jer's brother, Casey, and his family. There, they visited the Botanical Gardens, and swam at the pool. They spent a morning at Downtown Disney and really enjoyed the Lego store. It was an amazing trip for them, full of good memories.

Griffin

Griffin, my sweet, kind, thoughtful, friendly boy turned 8 in May. He was so excited to be baptized. Griffin had tremendous support at his baptism, family from Utah and Idaho, friends from our ward and stake, friends from school, and friends from soccer.

When Griffin was baptized his toes popped up, the entire room gasped collectively, and Jeremy baptized him again. We feel blessed to be surrounded by so many good people and worthy priesthood men.

After the baptism, we had everyone over for hamburgers and hot dogs (Griffin's pick, after all, "everybody loves hamburgers").

Another cool thing about turning 8 is becoming a Cub Scout. The week after the baptism, Griffin got to go to the Blue and Gold Banquet and was recognized as the newest scout.

soccer soccer soccer

It's fitting to include a small sampling of pictures showing how we spend our evenings and Saturdays...

hobbies

We're hobby people. Thanks to my creative husband our children get their hands dirty and are invited to express themselves artistically. I haven't always loved that. I think I've mellowed over the years, and I really and truly love the creativity that I live with.

Jeremy teaches a pottery class one night a week through Murray School District (during the school year). He was invited for the 2nd year in a row to participate in the Murray High Arts Festival the last week of school. He gave demonstrations and gave pointers to students who wanted to try out the wheel.

It's neat to see him in his element. And even neater that our kids think that their dad is the coolest dad out there.

duets

My kids were awesome at the piano recital... honestly, my favorite part of my recitals are the duets. Thanks to Daynes for having such an impressive recital hall and for giving my students the opportunity to perform on such a beautiful instrument.

James & Christy

James and Christy were married in the Bountiful Temple! It was such a glorious day, all seven of my siblings were in the temple together, and we enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, and the spirit of the day.

It was such a glorious week, we stayed up much too late every night, and got up early to keep life running smoothly. I have happy memories of that week. It sounds crazy, probably, but Christy is the final piece. She compliments James in an amazing way and completes our family.

music and more music

Several weeks back we enjoyed lots of company for my little brother's wedding. The boys enjoyed playing guitar with Grandpa, who was here from St. Louis.

Anna performed in her first violin recital, she played several renditions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She did such a nice job!







The four elementary age kids performed in the school choir concert. Zachary sang a solo: "New York New York", and Anna sang a solo for one verse of "Grandma's Feather Bed." It was a delightful concert featuring songs through the years. We had visitors from Maryland (thanks Mindy and Thomas!) and Grammy. We also welcomed Grandpa Tech & Linda as well as Grandma & Grandpa Wright to the evening performance.