Looking back on 2011

Leo's favorite things from this year: Sleeping in his own bed in the same room as his brothers. Watching Baby Signing Time over and over and over and over. Going to Nursery with Dad.

Hyrum's favorite memories: Opening "Blacky" on Christmas morning (his new puppy). Going caroling on Christmas Eve. Eating pie on Thanksgiving.

Roderic's favorite memories: Going to Monkey Bizness for his 7th birthday party! Receiving the Lego Toy Story 3 train set for Christmas. Swimming lessons at the YMCA over spring break. Riding on the Arcade & Attica Railroad. Watching the Hill Cumorah Pageant twice.

Sabrina's favorite memories: Going to New York. Going on Trek. Earning the Gold Presidential Academic Achievement Award. Learning double dutch. Catching the bus at 6:32am daily for TVMSC. Getting her braces off.

Ryan's favorite memories: Crawling through the attic to install CAT-5 wire for the intercom system. Climbing Lucky Peak with the boy scouts in June. Becoming an antelope. Having a stairway to Heaven.

My favorite memories: Teaching Gospel Doctrine to the 14-15 year olds. Our Epic Vacation. Watching the framing of our house addition. Singing barbershop with my mom, sister and aunts in Houston. Teaching our family a song to sing together "Sing Noel".

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.

Oops!

Just discovered that I have been baking NOTHING for the past hour. I made meatballs this afternoon and put them in the fridge until I was ready to bake. I turned on the oven about 4:40pm and then I forgot to put the meatballs into the oven! I guess dinner will be served in an hour and Sabrina won't get any before going to her YW activity.

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.

Temple Attendance

photo courtesy Adam Williams

I think it is very important to attend the Temple regularly. When Ryan and I were contemplating where to get a job after graduation, we wanted to make sure there was a temple nearby so we could attend regularly, especially while raising small children. The Boise Temple is 15 minutes away from our house. From 2005 to 2009 I was a part of several temple playgroups and I went about twice a month. With a kindergartner, the timing is a little off, so I've been a little more sporadic since, but still averaging once a month.

In July, the Boise Temple was closed for extensive renovation. Likely, it will be closed for 18 months. Now, our closest temple is in Twin Falls - about a 2 hour drive away. Sessions start every 90 minutes, appointments are required. This has made it a bit tricky to attend the temple often. And yet, attending the temple is very important to us, so we are being creative in our attempts to go. When we're on a trip, we plan to attend the temple. And at home, we take turns gathering carpools to head to the temple with us.

July: Nauvoo (both), Sacramento (Malauna)
August: Twin Falls (Malauna with 1 other)
September: none
October: Houston (Malauna)
November: Twin Falls (Ryan with 3 others), Salt Lake (both)

I've also discussed with our neighbor, taking a day trip to Twin Falls, and trading babysitting with them there so we can each attend the temple with our spouses. Sabrina got to attend the temple with the youth of our ward on the first Saturday of November to do Baptisms for the Dead. The next day, our testimony meeting was full of youth and adults saying how amazing it is to sacrifice a bit more to attend the temple. I'm looking forward to having the temple again 15 minutes from my house, but in the meantime, I'll be thankful that I can sacrifice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, we drove to UT to spend the day with Ryan's family. Genette and Glen hosted the dinner and let us stay the weekend. We wore our 'Angry Birds' shirts that I made for Halloween but never wore all together and had no pictures of.

Before we were able to eat on Thursday, we each had to write at least 5 things we are thankful for. The person who wrote the most would win a prize.

Ryan: spouse, grown-up daughter, boys, our builder John, parents that follow the Lord
Malauna: Ryan, honest builder, good-nights sleep, family, modern transportation
Sabrina: Leo, Roderic, Hyrum, Mom & Dad, my friends, good food, hope, joy, turkey, writing, good fortune, Christmas, temples, pans, brothers, youth leaders, systematic agriculture, stairs, plates, lights, pools, forks, table cloths, clocks, extended family, SPOONS, colors, glass, fast transportation, knives, color TV, dogs, The Gospel, cups, corn, heat, chocolate, hospitality, intercoms, potatoes, metal, castles, plaques, school, educations, beef jerky, snow, candles, ribbon, fabric, fiber, pumpkins, stuffing, airplanes, hats, books, the Book of Mormon, angry birds, games, baby signing time, jello, missionaries, pioneers, Nauvoo, Trek, the Atonement, Mrs. Durller, high chairs, grapes, apples, apricots, raspberries, BYU, Boise State, zebras, penguins, kangaroo, shingles, cotton, wood, trees, white boards, couches, rugs, flash memory, digital processors, capacitors, smart people, Newton, England, India, Egypt, China, freeway, Boise, ID, bliss, Grandma & Grandpa, cats, rolls, bread, wheat, eyes, microwaves, leaves, indoor plumbing, buttons, pi, pie, acorns, TV, flowers, Hollywood, paper plates, LEDs, oleds, silver, gold, steel, sunlight, fire, plastic, door, tile, carpet, blankets, cars, trucks, tupperware, awards, Mark Twain, shoes, sticks , Toto, computers, pictures, pillows, Apple, jewelrey, Disney, houses, Romans, Troy, clapping [she won the prize - a theater size pack of Reese's Pieces]
Roderic: Legos, toys, food, homes, family
Hyrum: Toto, good house, good family, good food, couches for jumping on
Leo: sign language, family, food, dogs, bananas

We played "Kill Dr. Lucky", "Memoir '44", "The Dutch Golden Age", ate some delicious food, and enjoyed a fun afternoon with family! Can you believe no one brought a pumpkin pie?