Merry Christmas!

We are having a great Christmas this year! We went to Sacrament Meeting at 9am today. Malauna and Sabrina sang with the choir. Ryan was planning on singing, but wasn't able to because the people we were going to have our boys sit with didn't come in time and because Ryan is starting to feel sick (sore ears, chills, head congestion, etc.). We sang some awesome songs: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", "As It Fell Upon a Night" (with descant solo by Malauna), "Once in Royal David's City", "Nativity Medley", "Only a Baby Came", "Angels we have heard on High", and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". [Including links to the songs, in case anyone is interested.]

After church (and it was only an hour this morning), the kids were happy relieved thrilled excited that we f i n a l l y opened the presents under the tree. Legos, fire trucks, CD boom box, BYU t-shirts, baby signing time, garlic press are some gifts received. And Hyrum is super-duper excited that fun-pretend Santa brought him a new puppy! (The black poodle puppy is to replace the favorite sleeping friend {puppy} that he lost on our epic vacation. It's a webkinz.)

What a merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas (a week early)

Ryan and I got to enjoy an early Christmas present this afternoon. We had tickets to see


presented by the Boise Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and Master Chorale, with 4 superb soloists.

We took along my copy of the score and followed along, which was fun to do. This was my first time seeing Handel's Messiah performed. Our seats couldn't have been better: we sat in center of row 3! The tenor soloist had amazing breath support and so did the soprano. The alto soloist had a nice voice, but there was so much vibrato, clear tones were not heard, same with the bass.

It was disappointing to us that they didn't play all of the works. As Ryan said, "They skipped the meat of Part II!" Meaning they didn't do "All We like Sheep", "And With His Stripes We are Healed" and several others. They also skipped some songs in Part III. During Intermission, we noticed the songs in Part III that would not be played, but we didn't pay attention to the fact that songs were missing in Part II. I had to turn many, many pages in the score to catch up to where they were singing.

Handel was born in Germany in 1685 and moved to London in 1712 (to work as court musician to German-born King George I of Great Britain) - about 100 years after the King James Translation of the Bible was published. Would he have attempted to write "Messiah" if the bible was only available in Latin? Would "Messiah" be a crowd favorite if it was in Latin? According to the write up in the program, Handel wrote "Messiah" in 24 days, during August and September 1741 (he was 56). Amazing. Each piece was similar in form, yet it was not boring at all to listen to. So get out a recording and listen to:

"For Unto Us a Child is born"
"And suddenly there was with the angel"
"Glory to God"
"His yoke is easy"
"All we like sheep have gone astray"
"And with his stripes we are healed"
"Hallelujah"
"I know that my Redeemer liveth"
"The trumpet shall sound"

A special thank you to Sabrina for being the babysitter to her 3 little {sick} brothers so we could enjoy this outing! Roderic has an ear infection and a cough. Hyrum has puss-filled eyes and a cough. Leo, who slept the whole time we were gone, has a cough, snotty nose and goo in the eyes. All are being treated with medicine. I am also a little under the weather. Post-nasal drip is causing my ears to hurt and my voice is failing. When I tried to sing along on "Hallelujah", I found that I had no head voice to sing in! Which makes it impossible to sing soprano at the correct octave. We are hoping that we will get the illnesses completely out of our systems by Christmas.

Sewing for Christmas

Last year I started two sewing projects for my Christmas decorations: a card holder and an advent calendar. Neither were even close to being completed for last year.

I saw a picture of a Tree Christmas card holder while browsing through Facebook on one of my cousin's profiles. I think it is adorable. It used up scraps. I got to practice my quilting skills. I am now ready to receive (and display) your Christmas cards! (My neighbor's daughter thinks I should sew on some decorations, so you know its a Christmas Tree.)

This is a project I saw on Sew, Mama, Sew! in July 2010. I have decided that each of my children would like to have an advent calendar that they are responsible for changing each day. (I don't like the arguments of who gets to move the star, for example.) This one has 24 pockets that hold a 3x5 card with an activity for the family to do together. A lot of the activities will be the things we're doing as a family anyhow, like attending Sabrina's orchestra concert, the Ward Party, watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional (on BYUtv), decorating the Christmas tree, and others will be small things like drinking hot cocoa, reading the scriptures next to the lit Christmas tree.

And since I finished our Christmas pjs, I had time to work on these! And now that they are done, I'm going to make ties for the boys and a blouse for Sabrina, so they can be dressed in their Christmas finery on Christmas day.

Don't open the box until Dec. 24!

Last year, while I was finishing sewing our Christmas pjs at 6pm on Christmas Eve, I made a goal. I would not be in the same predicament this year! I told myself - and my family, that if the Christmas PJs were not completed by November 15, they would not be made and I would have to purchase PJs. (The horror!)

I am happy to report that the PJs are sewn! The school-aged children haven't seen them, so it will be a surprise (for them). What a relief to have them finished. Bring on the holidays, I'm ready!

O Christmas Tree

Decorating the tree on December 4.
First we put on the lights, then the 1997 Hallmark ornament that has a man and a woman ice skating. (Do you know what activity we did on our first date in 1994?) Then, we invite in the children to help decorate the whole tree.

Beautiful Tree on Christmas morning.

We bought this tree on Dec. 3 in the evening at the fruit stand on Broadway. Today as I am taking off the ornaments, it is still sending out it's wonderful pine smell! Heavenly.

Dear Santa

Dear {fun-pretend} Santa,

I am writing this letter to let you know my opinion before you get a letter from my son, Roderic. He has been a pretty good boy this year. He has learned to play (a bit) with his little brother. He only occasionally gets so excited around his baby brother that he pats his head harder than I would like. When I ask him when he's going to learn to ride his bike without training wheels, he replies, "December 11." When I ask him when we're going to practice his violin, he replies, "Tomorrow." When I ask him to do his homework he says, "Later." He has started to read a verse or two from the Book of Mormon with us when we read as a family each night.

I believe Roderic is going to ask you for Legos, Legos and more Legos. Pirates, Star Wars, Toy Story, Atlantis, City any and all.

He loves to create and build and destroy and rebuild them. We have hundreds of pictures on our computer of his creations, so if they get ruined, he can recreate them. (I don't think he has yet asked to see a picture so he can recreate one, though.) He will happily play for hours with them, especially if it is bedtime and he's been sent to put on his pajamas. He goes to violin lessons each week so he can show his teacher how well he plays the violin builds with the Legos she has out for him during Sabrina's lesson.

They have become the bane of my existence. The stress of keeping all of the pieces so he can build the ships and vehicles and such weighs heavily upon me. I am even more stressed about them being left on the carpet for curious, crawling Leo to get his hands and mouth on. And then there is the whole sharing thing.

I can only hope that the letter you get from him is this:

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

Sincerely,
Roderic

would you look at that gap!

I'll be prepping for more Legos, though. They're better than Magnetix, right?

Sincerely,
Malauna

Merry Christmas!

It's almost Christmas Eve! Are you as excited as my children? Tonight we went to a house near ours that is completely decked out in holiday lights and decor: inflatable Santa and Reindeer on the roof, and on the lawn: Santa in helicopter, Santa in airplane, Santa riding on carousel, angels, Christmas countdown (to the second), speakers playing Christmas music, etc. They also offer free sleigh rides with Santa - in a sleigh pulled by 5 reindeer. It was soooooo cold (28 degrees F), but the kids and I had a great time (Ryan was at Scouts). I think we'll be look for this house again next year.

And thanks to Susie and 3 of her girls for braving the cold with us. It was fun to sing "Rudolph" with you and Santa on our sleigh ride!

Happenings

First off, a SHOUT OUT and a huge thank you for the anonymous dinner delivery last night. We hadn't been in the door from Sabrina's violin lesson for more than 2 minutes when a knock was at our door. When I opened the door, there was lots of hot food ready for us to eat!

I got to go to kindergarten yesterday and teach the children about holiday celebrations in the Netherlands. They liked putting on the klompen and hats to make them look Dutch. We sang Sinterklaas Kapoentje - if you don't remember how that song goes, check out this website. Several of the kids said that the chocolate initial I gave them was the best chocolate they've ever tasted. I have to agree: pure Ghirardelli milk chocolate is delicious!

We celebrated Ryan's 36th birthday on Monday with this delicious cake.

Triple Chocolate Chunk Cake with huckleberry filling
& huckleberry cream cheese frosting.

The boys had a lot of fun buying and wrapping presents for Ryan and told him what they were moments before he opened them. I told him he should open presents faster if he wants surprises!

Ryan, Hyrum and I got to attend the Orchestra, Band and Choir concert this morning at school. Sabrina plays cello in the 5th grade orchestra and sings in the choir. You may wonder why she is playing cello when she already has private lessons on the violin. Well the reason is, she is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the students and didn't want to bored out of her brain, but she really wanted to be a part of the orchestra.

Sabrina is in the center of the top row.

Jolly Old St. Nicholas: Sabrina is not in this shot at all. We were sitting on the exact opposite side of the gym and couldn't get anything nearer. I think the orchestra sounds pretty good for first touching stringed instruments in September.

Questions and Answers

Q: How many pictures must be taken to get a good one of the whole family?
A: 17


Q: Did you make the clothes for the picture?
A: Yes. I made a dress for me, a jumper for Sabrina and vests for the 3 boys.

Q: How many hours does it take to get from your house to Grandma's?
A: 4.5 hours

Q: How many hours did it take to get from your house to Grandma's on December 26, 2008?
A: 7.5 hours! The freeway was closed from Burley, ID to Snowville, UT, so we had to take a 2 hour detour through Pocatello, ID and drive much, much slower due to the snow.


Q: Why on earth did you travel to Utah on such a snowy day?
A: I had to be in Utah to sing "O Holy Night" with my sister in my parent's ward on that Sunday, and there was a big Gibby Christmas party on that Saturday that we wanted to attend. When I spoke with a friend after our return, she said that Saturday it snowed all day (from 5am to 5pm) - we wouldn't have gone. When we left on Friday, the sun was shining all the way to Twin Falls.




Q: How many batches of peanut brittle did your mom teach you how to make?
A: 2 and they are delicious (still!) I hope I can remember how to make it again next year.

Q: How many relatives do you know who got a Wii for Christmas this year?
A: 3 and my children had a blast playing with them all! And I also had fun playing Wii Sports.


Q: How many times did you go to Salt Lake on this trip?
A: Twice. Once on Sunday, our anniversary, to see the lights on Temple Square with the Biddulphs and Gibby parents. And once on Wednesday (ie New Years Eve) to attend the First night festivities at The Gateway with Daniel & Michelle and fam.





Q: How many Laser shows at planetariums do you think you'll attend in your lifetime?
A: One was plenty for me. I have never enjoyed music I don't like played too loud. I spent most of the time with my ears plugged. Hyrum and Roderic, on the other hand, fell asleep. I was bummed that my seat didn't have a good view of the shapes the lasers were making. I had to crane my neck while balancing a sleeping Hyrum on my lap.


Q: What is Hyrum's new favorite sentence?
A: "I an a ide a nain!" (translation for those of you not fluent in Hyrum "I want to ride the train!") We mentioned on 12-29 that we should ride FrontRunner to SLC on 12-31 and ever since then Hyrum has asked to ride the train. Unfortunately there are no passenger trains for him to ride in Boise. He had a blast riding the train. As did all the cousins. Parents of this generation are so spoiled by having laws enacted to have children strapped to their seats in cars. There were numerous 'games' of musical chairs all the way to and from SLC.




Q: Did you lose anything on this trip?
A: Funny you should ask. We misplaced the diaper bag I made and it hasn't turned up in the lost and found at the Planetarium or UTA. Inside that bag was diapers, wipes, scarves, gloves, hats and the noise makers that Roderic, Hyrum and Jaron made at the Gateway Discovery center. Without the scarves, hats and gloves we had to forgo the sledding we had planned with the Ward's. Without the wipes, I had to use a washcloth to clean up a stinky diaper at my parent's house. Without the noise makers we had to...nope they were all plenty noisy at midnight. So the thing that makes me so sad is that the bag is gone and lost forever! I hope someone is getting good use out of it now.

Q: How many cousins did you get to spend time with?
A: On the Christensen side -- 0. Milaka was in OR, Cortney in SC and Shanda in MT. On the Gibby side -- ALL 21! It was neat to see our GA cousins for the first time in years, and the Vidmar's new house and the Ward's new house, and have Aunt Genette take the kids to McDonald's while Ryan and I were at the Ogden Temple for a sealing session.




Q: How many loads of laundry did you do upon your return home?
A: I lost count after 6.

Merry Christmas

We're enjoying a wonderful Christmas day together and hope you all are too! Merry Christmas!

Gelukkig Sint Nicolaas Dag

To celebrate Sint Nicolaas Day this year, we attended the Idaho Suzuki Association Holiday Christmas Concert, where Sabrina played her violin with a large ensemble. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. Fortunately, Mark from Shoot Idaho came and took pictures throughout the evening, and got a couple good ones of Sabrina. For the ones I like the best click here, here and here. I made that dress special for this occasion.

About 15 minutes after we arrived back home, our doorbell rang and when we got to the door, no one was there, but there was a wrapped present and a page of poems from Sinter Klaas. Roderic was so excited to open the present to find a new ZFeeR (VCR) and DVD player. Ours has been broken for the last couple of months. As he was going to bed last night, he was telling me all of the movies that he can now watch because we have a ZFeeR again. "Dank u Sinter Klaas!"

Ryan dear, your worth is great,
You work hard and play long;
All the children shout when you come home
Now fix that squeak to please your mate!
~~~~~
To Malauna the mother,
To Malauna the wife.
Malauna's a good girl;
She is a delight.
~~~~~
Who would rather read than do
Anything else in the world?
Why, it's Sabrina!
Fantasy, history, science fiction
Diary, poem, scripture.
This girl loves to read.
~~~~~
Roderic is a happy boy,
Who likes to play rough.
Very rough.
Lucky for us his hugs and kisses
Bring real pleasure.
~~~~~
To Hyrum we say,
You gladden the day.
Trains are your ideal,
Just as is proper, for real.
All that breathe are endeared by your smile,
Expressing yourself in 2-year-old style.

Christmas Sewing Projects

I did a lot of sewing in November and December (on the verge of being too much for Ryan's liking). I must say that I am super pleased with what I made though. You've already seen the baby striped quilt and our Christmas pjs, but you haven't seen these:

Sabrina's Christmas Dress.

An original UGLY Quilt for Shelly.

We had Shelly & Paul for our gift exchange and I decided that I would make her an UGLY quilt. To make it even better, though, I called her up at the end of September and asked if she had any scrap fabrics that she'd like to give me for a rag quilt I was working on. I also asked Genette for scraps, so Shelly wouldn't get suspicious. Over General Conference weekend, I picked up both of their scraps -lots and lots of fabric! 95% of the fabric on the quilt is Shelly's, the last little bit is from my stash because, a) I didn't have any more of Shelly's cut and b) I wanted it to be a part of me as well. I put on patches from Argentina, BYU and Layton and gave them the instruction to add patches for all the places they visit. And of course, I made a tag for it (but I finished it in Utah and didn't take any pictures of it before giving them the quilt).

The cutest aprons you ever saw!

While walking through a fabric store with NO children one August day, I came across a pattern for a reversible apron. I bought it on the spot. Then, in October, when the cousin gift exchange list came and Sabrina had Ryan's 19 year old neice, I decided the apron would be a perfect gift for her to make. So Sabrina picked out the purple fabrics. I picked the pink and greens because I needed to make up one before helping Sabrina make the other one. They turned out so cute! And both Allie and Missy put them right on to model for everyone at the party. Don't be too surprised if you see these recreated throughout the year.

The Best Present

For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa C. gave my children one gift to share. A medium sized box wrapped and marked fragile. Upon opening it on Christmas morning, we discovered a box of Brownie Mix, 5 fancy glass dessert bowls and a poem. Grandpa C. wrote the poem. In it, he described what we were to do with the present - make the brownies; while they are baking go to the store to buy ice cream and our favorite toppings; put ice cream, brownie and topping in the fancy dessert bowl and eat. On the back of the poem, we discovered one of these:


So for our FHE activity last night, Ryan told us all to get our coats and shoes because we were headed to Albertson's to buy ice cream and toppings. We had Sabrina get a calculator, so we would make sure not to go over our budget. We bought Vanilla Bean ice cream, chocolate syrup (Ryan), Heath bar (Malauna), Oreos (Sabrina), fresh strawberries (Roderic), and strawberry ice cream topping (Hyrum). Our total bill was $20.46 (that included buttermilk for a bread recipe, though).

When we got back home, we had the kids get in their pjs - they were super fast! And then we ate ice cream with these delicious toppings. We'll make the brownies and eat the ice cream with it later this week.

Of course, after have so much sugar at once, all of us were very hyper and the kids started climbing on Ryan.

Merry Christmas!

This is how our wonderful Christmas morning went:
7:43 am - Hyrum awakens for his morning feeding. Ryan goes to get him and Malauna follows (in order to nurse him on the couch).
7:52 am - Ryan looks for camera (finds it in the van)
7:57 am - Sabrina awakens; immediately finds "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and starts reading
8:06 am - Ryan finishes getting camera set up on tripod for the "Christmas Morning Family Portrait"


8:07 am - Ryan starts the final breakfast preparations - mixes the muffin batter, makes the Pineapple Orange juice
8:10 am - Hyrum done nursing; starts crawling around
8:11 am - Malauna gets out sausage and starts cooking it.
8:18 am - Blueberry muffins go into the oven
8:24 am - Malauna starts scrambled eggs
8:32 am - Ryan and Hyrum go to wake up Roderic
8:35 am - Blueberry muffins come out of the oven
8:36 am - Christmas Stockings may now be opened


8:41 am - Breakfast is served
9:06 am - We move from the kitchen table into in the music room, take our "Christmas Morning Family Portrait" and start opening presents, taking turns, one at a time, from youngest to oldest.


9:48 am - Roderic loses interest in opening presents because he has already opened some really cool ones, so he leaves with his Little People Fire Truck and goes to play with it on the couch.


9:53 am - Hyrum follows and plays

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About 10 PM on Friday, December 14, we sent a request to have Christmas cards printed and shipped to us. Their website said we could expect our Christmas cards between Dec 21 and Dec 24. Well, Saturday we got an email (that I read yesterday) that said the cards had been shipped and we could expect them between Dec 19 and Dec 21. Last night, when I got the mail, the Christmas Cards were in them!

Good news for friends and family. This may be the earliest we've ever sent out our Christmas cards! Ever!

Their stockings were hung...

When we were newlyweds and I worked for a company that basically paid me to cross-stitch on the job, I started making Christmas Stockings. It took several years to finish them, but by Sabrina's first Christmas, I had 3 completed. Roderic was celebrating his 2nd Christmas when I got his finished.

Now we're approaching Hyrum's 2nd Christmas and cross-stitching a whole stocking is not a high priority. Rather than give up and buy Hyrum a stocking, I decided that I could make a quilted one. Last night I finished it! I worked on cross-stitching his name and "Nadolig Llawen" (Merry Christmas in Welsh) during Roderic's gymnastics class (and also some late nights). At least his will have some continuity with the others. It was a lot of fun to machine quilt this project, thanks to Stacy's description of how to do it.


In case you're wondering, each stocking has "Merry Christmas" stitched in a different language. So far I've used Russian, French, Dutch, Danish and Welsh.

Dank u Sinter Klaas

To celebrate our Dutch heritage, we have decided to start celebrating Sinter Klaas day with our kids. Last night we put straw and carrots for Sinter Klaas' horse into our klompen and this morning they were filled with our favorite candies! Tonight, we get a present and a poem written for each of us. Unfortunately, we won't be having the traditional chocolate initials (I didn't have time to order them or make them, because we decided to do this just a few days ago). Instead we'll have 'Kindereggs.'