Christmas Rundown

Christmas week! A good time has been had by all, and we've resolved almost all of the technology-related emergencies that arise when most of the people in the household are receiving presents that contain batteries and/or wi-fi connections. (BTW, does anyone have any hints about getting a handheld Nintendo DS to connect wirelessly to the Wii so Jonas can upload all his Pokemon to the Pokemon Colosseum game? No? Didn't think so! :-).

Here are the highlights:



We went to Temple Square with the Wilkeys to see the beautiful lights. A terrific snowstorm started falling just as we were heading downtown. The driving was sketchy, but the snow was beautiful. The only bad part was Mom not insisting that everybody wear snow boots, so we had some cold, wet toesies by the end of the night.



Elise and I went to go see The Nutcracker with Katie and Jane Wilkey at the Capitol Theater downtown. What a gorgeous production. The girls had a ball, dining at The Olive Garden beforehand and enjoying the ballet together.



On Christmas Eve, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Sweat's house and had our traditional yummy Christmas Eve Dinner (mmmmmm, funeral potatoes). Elise is in her PJ's because (of course!) she started getting sick that very day. She was a little feverish that morning, and complained of a headache and overall lousiness. She rallied enough to perform in the nativity play, though. She and her cousin Lauren were angels, Jonas was the tax collecter (a given, with his natural affinity for money), and Ethan was Joseph, even though he wanted to be the narrator. But he was a good sport. And Wyatt was a recalcitrant sheep.






Christmas Morning!! The kids were good and didn't wake up Mom until 7:00 a.m. (Little did they know that Dad and Wyatt had been up since a little past six!). Lots of toys, lots of happy kids, only a few minor glitches, like the Pokemon problem referred to above. Elise had rallied a bit and wasn't feeling as sick, much to her relief. Ethan was starting to fade, though. Only Jonas felt good enough to head outside with his new sled (and Mom and Dad and Wyatt.) Here's some good video:



And a cute picture of Wyatt in the snow:



We fell into bed on Christmas night, exhausted and surrounded by crumpled bits of wrapping paper and little sticky tags. We were still holding out hope that the kids would be feeling better in the morning and that Forrest and I could go on the weekend trip to Las Vegas that we'd planned (Tony & Cindy and Mindy & Pete were going to take the kids and we were planning on leaving Thurs and coming back Saturday afternoon.) But when we woke up the next morning, Ethan was even sicker. Elise seemed better, but she was complaining that she had something in her throat. Much to her horror (and mine), when she went to clear her throat, she spit out BLOOD! I called her pediatrician who told me to take her to the ER. So I loaded up Wyatt (Forrest was snowboarding with Tony at the time, lucky man, unlucky me) and headed to the hospital. I was scared, but I didn't think it could be pneumonia or anything like that because she didn't have a cough of any kind and her lungs seemed fine. So after about two hours of wrestling with Wyatt and trying (in vain) to keep him off the germy hospital floor, we discovered that Elise did NOT have tuberculosis, but did have strep throat AND a cold simultaneously. Her raw throat had gotten bloody, and she had so much mucous that when she cleared her throat it all came up. I was extremely grateful that she was okay . . . and mildly irritated that the pediatrician didn't just let me bring her to the office instead of making me hang out in the hospital all morning and pay a $75 copay. But I was mostly glad that she was okay.

Needless to say, Forrest and I did NOT go to Vegas. But, luckily, the nice people at Expedia.com refunded the money we'd paid for our hotels even though we'd passed the refund deadline. Hooray for customer service! Now I will heartily recommend Expedia for all your traveling needs. And we got the kids on their meds and all are healthy and well. Hooray again!

Finally, last night we went to the Ranquist Family Christmas party, which is getting bigger all the time with the addition of spouses and cousins. We had our traditional yummy shrimp soup (one of my favorite Christmas recipes EVER), the kids did talents (Jonas shared his Pokemon card collection, and all around Pokemon life philosophy, Ethan did an abbreviated, and impromptu, bit of standup, and Elise and I sang "Silent Night" accompanied by Dad on the guitar.) Here's some video of the whole fam-damily trying to play "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on, well, the bells:




And to conclude, I must mention the most unexpected gift of Christmas for yours truly: Guitar Hero for the Wii. I ROCK! (Well, probably not compared to a 15 year old with no girlfriend who spends all day in his room practicing, but for your average 35 year old Mom of Four . . . I ROCK!). Although I've been tripped up, now, by Slash, the guitarist for Guns and Roses. I was kicking can on all the songs (on Medium level, for those of you familiar with the game) and moving through the levels, but then Slash challenged me to a Guitar Battle and I CAN'T BEAT HIM. Infuriating. And since it's Sunday (and Sunday is "No Video Games Day" for kids and Moms alike), I'm going to have to try and beat him tomorrow.

And that's it from here. Ho Ho Ho, and a Happy New Year!!

A link

I just posted on Segullah, a group blog for LDS women. Last month, they asked me to do a monthly series on LDS lit, and this is my latest effort. Stayed up till 1:00 last night writing it and now I'm sleepy. But I thought you might want to take a look at it here.

And just for fun, here are a couple of pictures. The first is a shot of Elise after her Christmas choir performance, looking cute as can be in her Santa hat. The other picture I've simply entitled "Six."

There's nothing better than the end of a crazy week . ..

Except maybe that moment when you wake up and look at the alarm clock and realize that you still have two more hours to sleep. Isn't that feeling the BEST!? Much better than the feeling represented above: barely concealed terror. Kids and Santa pictures . . . gotta love 'em.

My week has been crazy, it's true. I had to be at the Elementary school every day to pick up these "Student Treasure" order forms (the school can't keep money there over night). I had to read final essays and get final grades completed for SLCC. And I also had to finish my final proofread of the novel and get all the changes sent to Parables. Ethan also came down with a strange viral rash--it's going away, but rashes always give a Mom pause, don't you think? And I got my Christmas cards in the mail!!! (Much thanks to the hubby for that one--he did most of the address sticking and letter folding). But that wasn't even the crazy part. The crazy part was the Relief Society Christmas party and service project I was in charge of.

But the Christmas party went well. We had almost SIXTY women there, which is a great turnout for a Relief Society event. Everyone who was supposed to help helped (although I did have one woman who was supposed to do a table setting call me, sick, a couple of hours before the event, so I ended up doing a table setting, too); the food turned out well (yes, the Baked Ziti was a hit, except for one table who, I found out after the fact, thought theirs was way too salty. The recipe called for 2 TBS of Lowry's Seasoning Salt, and I'm wondering if one of the ziti-bakers didn't have that and instead used regular salt??? Hmmm . . .); the musical entertainment was excellent (a woman in my ward is part of a female barbershop quartet that competes and performs all over the state, and they were awesome.) Other than a slight debacle over a woman in the ward who got her feelings hurt (and I'm not going into it here), the night was a success. Here's some pictures of some of our pretty tables:




(Neither of these is mine--mine wasn't nearly as pretty, since I threw it together in about 20 minutes! Luckily I had a pretty tablecloth and napkins I bought for last Thanksgiving that work just as well as Christmas plates, and some Christmas decorations for a centerpiece). What the heck--here's a pic of my table:



The best part of the whole night, though, was the turnout for the service project. Our ward adopted an Spanish speaking branch from SLC and we did an "Angel Tree" for them. (An Angel Tree is a Christmas tree covered with ornaments that have the name and age of a person for whom you can purchase a gift). So, the night of the party, I packed my car with gifts and came home with:

-82 presents
-$670 in gift cards
-$180 in cash to buy Turkeys and Hams

What an amazing total! I'm so glad we decided to do it . . . even though all 81 gifts are sitting in my office as we speak. I had to sort all of them and check and double check to make sure that everyone who was supposed to get presents got some, and that one child in a family didn't get four presents when another one got two. So it's been a lot of work (Forrest will agree, spending the last two days stepping over me and piles of presents all over the family room floor). But I hope that the families are surprised and that it helps them have a happier Christmas.

So as of today I have my grades in, my manuscript edits emailed, the last of the Student Treasures order forms in a "secure location," and an office full of Christmas presents waiting to be distributed. AND Forrest and I even took advantage of a little Ethan babysitting and put Wyatt to bed and went to a movie last night ("I Am Legend" with Will Smith--waaaaaay freakier than I thought it would be--and some people had SIX YEAR OLDS in the theater. I suppose they thought raging zombie mutants were something their first grader could handle???? It was PG-13, yes, but C'MON PEOPLE!).

So, to end this week's post, a few pictures and one funny tidbit for your reading pleasure:

-My sister-in-law Andi, who is a wonderful blogger and an even more wonderful mother, does an "Out of the Mouths of Babes" entry every month. She keeps track of all the darling things her kids say, which is something I always mean to do but don't do it, and then I kick myself for it later. So here's a funny one from this morning. The kids were playing a game called "Last Word" where you pick a card with a letter of the alphabet and another card with a "topic" (so, like, the letter "A" and the topic "Things you'd find in a restaurant"). Sometimes, though, the topics are too hard or too grown up, so the kids have to pass and get a new card. Here's what was overheard:

Elise: "Letter: D. Topic: Cocktails."
Jonas: "Cocktails??"
Ethan: "That category's way too hard, guys. It's all about shrimp."

Ha!

And finally, here's a smattering of some good pictures from the last little while:





And there's only 10 days till Christmas . . . !!!

Elfed

My Grandpa sent me a hilarious one of these, so I thought I'd do one of the kids. Enjoy!

Elf Yourself!

Six Truths or Habits

My friend Delise tagged me to do six truths or habits, so here's the unvarnished reality of being Angie:

1. Sometimes, when we have little miniature Hershey's candy bars (Halloween, or because it's Valentine's or Easter and I'm a sucker for the pretty colored wrappers), I dip the chocolate bars directly into peanut butter and eat it that way. One time one of my kids caught me and I was very ashamed.

2. I haven't painted my toenails for over a month, and they're all chipped and sad looking.

3. I get really excited when it's time to vote. This last voting cycle all we had to vote on was a referendum about school vouchers (no city council people, no school board, even) and I still woke up in the morning with a little excited thrill in my stomach and thought, "What am I excited about again?" Then I thought, "Oh yeah! I get to vote!"

4. I have to have reading material in every single bathroom in the house. That or handheld Yahtzee.

5. If I could have any talent that I don't have, I would love to be a dancer. The idea of being able to move my body effortlessly to music and not feel like I look like a dork (but instead, look graceful/elegant/powerful/etc etc) is very appealing.

6. I've been watching "The Biggest Loser" this season, and it never fails to make me cry. I was trying to explain to Forrest the difference between "mean" reality shows and "nice" reality shows ("The Biggest Loser" being a nice one, despite its mean title--"They shouldn't call it that!" Elise said) and said that with the nice ones, there are people who are struggling against great odds or trying to achieve something difficult or great, and it's watching the successes that I love. Plus I cry ALL THE TIME now.

Now I'm supposed to tag people, so here goes: Grandpa Hiatt (respond in the comments section!), Andi, Amy, and my cousin Julia (also respond in the comments section--Julia, you need a blog, if only so I can show people pictures of how beautiful you are.)

I know I haven't given lots of updates on actual life at the Hallstrom house, so here are a few small tidbits:

-Went to a live nativity that was super cool. Awesome costumes, live camels, and a real live baby Jesus under a spotlight that was so beautiful it took my breath away. And made me cry. (See above).

-Forrest got a new HD television and, I must admit, it is pretty sweet. That's something coming from a girl who claims not to care about TV sets.

-I think I need to go to the dentist but I'm putting it off because I'm approaching an actual Dentist-phobia. I think about calling him and my heart starts beating fast. Why do I hate the dentist so much? I would rather be in labor, truly.

-Wyatt says "Uh Oh!!" all the time (dropping things and saying "Uh Oh!" until I pick it back up is his favorite new game) and he'd decided he likes Forrest better than me. I told Forrest that when we get old, we'll be the only people I know whose kids say, "Were going to Dad and Mom's" instead of the other way around.

That's it for now! Gotta run to the Wilkey family Christmas party. I also have baked ziti in the oven--we're trying it out on Forrest's parents, to see if the recipe will work for the Enrichment Christmas party on Tues.

Crazy week coming up. We'll see how much I'm able to update . . .

Freaky Crazy Songs of Yore

So my friend Delise recently posted on her blog about her son and how he just got glasses. She quoted the lyrics "My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I did not bring my specs with me" and asked us all to name the song from which this marvelous lyric hails. I started thinking and I was just CONVINCED that it came from this song that (I thought) went "A ram tam tam, a ram tam tam, guley guley guley guley guley ram tam tam." It was sung in a round. Now where and when and how I ever learned this song has long evaporated into the ether of my childhood, but the lyrics are there, persistent as ever.

Problem is, I was WRONG!!! The song about the lost glasses has NOTHING to do with the song about rams and tams and guleys. The spectacles song (I soon learned from wonderful google) is officially called "The Quartermaster's Song" and has lyrics like this:

There are lice, lice, lice, lice
living on the mice
at the store!
at the store!
There are lice, lice, lice, lice
living on the mice
at the Quartermaster's store!

Then the chorus goes on to sing about blindness and missing glasses, which probably makes it really GROSS to run into the lice on the mice in the store! There are also rats as big as alley cats and roaches as big as football coaches and, get this, BEAVERS WITH LITTLE MEAT CLEAVERS at the Quartermaster's store--but our poor hero can't even see them because he is BLIND. What horrors abound at the Quartermaster's store!!!

And these are the songs we teach our Scouts. Little eight year old boys sitting around campfires singing about homicidal beavers.

But here's the funniest thing. I decided I would google MY lyrics and found that the song I thought Delise had posted about was in fact called A Ram Sam Sam (not Tam Tam, silly me!) and I found this absolutely delightful YouTube video of the musical gem. I think this particular version is from Brazil. Enjoy:



I've watched this a few times and it makes me belly laugh every time.

Okay, now I'm coming back to edit this because I found another funny one. I think it's some kind of Central American preschool (where two out of every 24 children are randomly chosen to wear masks made out of--what?? paper plates?? note the kids in the middle of the row). And they sing it soo sloooooow. And they say "bugi bugi" instead of "guli guli". What country is this?? What is going on? And why is this on Youtube?? Truly bizarre.



Okay, now I'm coming back to edit AGAIN because, you know how YouTube does that annoying new function where other videos pop up on the bottom of the video you just watched? Well when I finished watching the Central American Masked Preschoolers version of my Guli Guli song, for some reason, YouTube thought this next little gem from (I think) Germany would be an appropriate counterpart.

All I can say is this is one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. Crazy European guitar playing guy in casual wear, then in a suit (and what is he holding?), then in casual wear again; childish cartoon drawings of freaky looking animals, including beavers (beavers again! maybe inspired by the beaver from the Spectacles song, who knows!!) and strange gun wielding robbers popping out from behind trees. And I think this is supposed to be a children's video. I really do. You must see to believe:



The human race. We're hilarious.

Are there any bizarre songs from your childhood you'd like to share?? Any Youtube videos of people from other countries singing those songs? Please share, if only to brighten our day!

And now, I promise, I am done.