Resist My Charm

The title of this post refers to one of the many anagrams formed with the "Merry Christmas" letter blocks that have graced our kitchen window sill this holiday season. Here's another:

Forrest wants me to point out an anagram he's particularly proud of, one that uses every single "Merry Christmas" letter block (and is therefore, in his words, a "bingo"): "Cram it, Ms. Sherry." Not particularly Christmassy, but the phrase has a certain je ne sais quoi. There are many many others, as the Christmas blocks are rearranged at least a couple of times a day during the month of December, but this post is not about anagrams of Merry Christmas, but of an actual Merry Christmas. The one at our house!

(Ethan just said to me: "Hey Mom, when are you going to write the blog post about Christmas that makes you sound a little more enthusiastic about everything than you actually are?" Ah, my son.)

So here we go! Enthusiastically!

The family, gathered around ye old dinner table, ready to partake of our traditional Christmas Eve meal, one taken from my childhood and slightly altered: breaded shrimp (popcorn for the little kids, big guys for the big ones), macaroni and cheese, and -- the Hallstrom family addition -- scones with butter and honey. Mmmmm. We had pineapple too, and a couple bottles of Martinelli's. Mui delicioso!

Then we had our Christmas eve program:

Elise, strumming away

Jonas whistling (he left his trumpet at school -- ahem) and Wyatt clicking. They're talented kids, I tell you. I'm thinking of enrolling Wyatt in a Suzuki-method school for prodigy clickers.

Wyatt singing a Christmas song from his preschool program

Ethan reading the Christmas story from Luke.

The kids in front of the "family presents," the ones they get to open on Christmas Eve.

 Speaking of opening "family presents" on Christmas Eve: I remember being so excited/anxious about opening those presents that I could barely contain myself during the obligatory Christmas Eve Program portion of the evening. Oh, the exquisite torture of waiting!

And now, two pictures of Ethan opening up the aforementioned family presents, mostly because they're kind of hilarious:

Thanks for the scarf, Mindy!

And Grandma! Subway AND iTunes? What 15 year old boy could ask for anything more?

Then we shooed the kids off to bed and finished wrapping presents and arranging them under the tree. I love (love love love) looking at a tree with presents piled underneath, everything dark except for the glow of Christmas lights. Oh, it's my favorite!

We got to bed at a reasonable hour, but then at 4:45 we heard trampling in the hall -- the kids going to check out the tree, of course. Didn't you guys do that when you were young too? (I think I even did it when I was 17.) But I could still hear them talking and shuffling around in their room at 5:15 and had to go in and lay down the law (and make Wyatt get in his own bed) so everybody could get at least a little sleep. Then, at 6:45, our bedroom door opened and Wyatt said, "Hey Mom? I don't mean to bother you, but . . . I don't know if it's seven o'clock?"

We gave the kid a break and got up fifteen minutes early.

The obligatory "Top of the Stairs" photo. Everyone always looks a little pale and stunned in this picture. It's a tradition.

Wyatt, holding up a new Wii game

Ethan, enjoying the dulcet tones as Elise tries out her new guitar.

Imaginext! Created by people who know how to get 4 year olds to persuade their parents that they reaaally need one more plastic castle-type play thingie. A new one every year!

Jonas's remote control helicopter. A big hit with all the men in the house.

Forrest, demonstrating a proper bow hunting stance, as well as proper bow hunting crazy eyes.

And more weaponry. This gun was a $14.99 impulse buy the day before Christmas, and I think it's been Wyatt's favorite gift.

Elise, modeling a new Christmas sweater.

Although part of me was dreading getting ready for church at 10 a.m., it turned out to be really nice. Since we didn't have any family to visit (or visit us), it gave us a reason to get dressed and head out and mingle with humanity. And there was some beautiful Christmas music on the program too.

We were running five minutes late, as usual, but I still made everybody pose for a picture before we left. Here's Forrest's attempt:

Then I came downstairs and made them do it right:

Wyatt hated his sweater. Hated the argyle, hated the itchiness, hated how high his pants were. He humored me, though, and wore it to church at least once. Look how nicely they all match! Ethan told me I should just use this picture for next year's Christmas card. Ha. How little the boy knows me.

We came home from church, changed into our comfy (non-matchy) clothes, and hung out, ate, played games, etc. etc., long into the evening. A little after 9:00 p.m. we found Wyatt on the couch:

A satisfying end to a satisfying day.

We had a lovely Christmas, but missed seeing all of you. Maybe next year somebody will come see us! (You know you want to travel to Minnesota in the dead of winter! C'mon!)

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas as well. Here's to one more week of sleeping in! Happy Holidays!

Oh, The Concerts!

Christmastime is a time of concerts. Always has been, always should be. I think my very best high school memories were of skidding along I-15 in a rattletrap car stuffed to the brim with Madrigals, racing through a snow storm to make it to our next Christmas concert on time. It's amazing we survived (truly), but man, I loved singing Christmas carols. And now I get to enjoy listening to my kids sing Christmas carols, which is wonderful in its own way too.

Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks:

The best closeup I could get at Wyatt's Preschool program

Wyatt and the gang at Salem Lutheran Church

Here's a video clip of Wyatt singing away. (All video clips are mostly for Grandmas :-).

Wyatt ends this particular performance with some excellent preschool-grade nose-picking, doesn't he? Ah, to be at the age when nose picking is still cute.

Here are some of Jonas's performances. First, band. He just started the trumpet this year and is doing a great job. (I'm glad somebody in the house decided to pick it up after Ethan unceremoniously dropped the instrument last year.)

No video of the band concert (so sorry Grandmas!). But we do have video Jonas's choir concert. I thought this song was a lot of fun:

And it's always nice to hear kids singing in a foreign language:

And here's s a nice photo as well, to compensate for the kinda icky grainy video taken with my cell phone:

My two favorite things about this picture: Jonas's smile, and the hair on the kid two to his right.

I've been so happy with the opportunities Jonas has had with music at his school. His school has TWO music teachers (band and chorus), and I've been so impressed with the great job both have done. The kids are really learning a lot, and Jonas is starting to like singing more and more. It helps that his good friend Jack (he's the kid in the bottom right in the orange) is an excellent singer. The two of them sang a version of Linkin Park's "In the End" for their school's talent show. (Jonas sang the "It starts with . . ." part, while Jack did the rapping, then they came together for the chorus. Wish I could have seen it.)

Here are some pics and videos from Elise's last few weeks:

First she participated in the District Honor Choir for her school district and spent the day with other good singers from middle schools in the area:

Elise is on the far right . . . somewhere.

Elise and her friend Preeta.

 She's also had fun performing with her middle school's extra curricular choir, Vocal Jazz. It's quite a sacrifice for our Lou to go to her Vocal Jazz rehearsals, since they take place at 7:00 a.m. one or two times a week, and our Lou is not a 7:00 a.m. girl. But she's happy to go because she loves to sing:

Elise is on the right, in the back (as always -- the right where the altos stand, the back is where the tall girls stand)

After her concert at the middle school

 She's also been able to perform at the Mall of America, at an old folks home (there's nothing like performing at old folks homes when you're a choral singer -- they're always willing to host a bunch of warbly teenagers), and at our local library. Our local library also has a cool indoor park area with an amphitheater, so it's more like a community center than simple library. She always comments on how much she likes its smell. Something about the indoor waterfall and trees? Hmmm. Anyway, here's Elise singing, along with the combined choirs of East Ridge and Woodbury high schools:

Wyatt has spent some time listening to all of these concerts. Here's his take on the experience:

Finally . . . what about Ethan? I know you were wondering how I would work him into this post. It's true that we no longer attend any Ethan concerts since he's not in a choir or a band anymore, and we're in between the musical and the play at school, but he's been keeping busy. He finished out his first trimester with a flourish, earning a 4.05 GPA (the .05 is possible because AP classes get extra weight). And he's been spending every Mon, Tues, and Thurs from 6-9 at drivers ed. He finished this Thursday and got his "blue card," which earns him the right to take his permit exam, which, if he passes, will earn him the right to drive with a parent in the car. AHH! Seriously? Seriously. I made him back the car out this morning so I could take his picture. He was happy about the backing out part, not so happy about the picture taking part:

Oh, and one quick thing from me. I'm the new Literature and Fiction Editor at BYU Studies, which is pretty cool. It's another volunteer gig, but I look forward to getting to know the people on staff and to the opportunity to promote good Mormon lit in another venue. Should be fun.

And that's it from here. Christmas is coming! Hooray hooray hooray! And it's been so much fun to get everybody's Christmas cards in the mail -- thank you. If you haven't sent yours, I'll be haunting my mailbox until it arrives.

Real and Imaginary Friends and the People of Wal-Mart

First, the imaginary friends. Wyatt has three of them: Ron, Rich, and Teebow. ("Teebow is easy to spell," Wyatt told me. "'T' and then 'bow' . . . wait . . . 'B' . . . wait . . ."). Wyatt is my first child to have an imaginary friend (and my only child, hopefully, seeing as how the other children are at ages when imaginary friends would be, um, troubling) and it's been kind of cute to see how he talks about them. A few days ago he was heading down in the basement and I asked him, "Hey, bud, where you going?" "Oh, just going to hang out with my imaginary friends," he said. He's fully aware that they're imaginary, but he also has a lot of information to share about them. They're on a basketball team. Teebow wears a yellow shirt and jeans and used to be "very silly" but apparently isn't anymore. Rich "looks like this" [Wyatt narrows his eyes in a suspicious manner]. "Is Rich mean, then?" I asked. "No," Wyatt said. "Just confident."

Love that kid.

Oh, and speaking of loving that cute kid, as well as his cute brother almost six years his senior, here's a video we shot of the song they sang for our ward's Primary sacrament meeting program, mainly so my mom could hear it. And to save their cuteness for posterity:

And now, on to the "real friends" in the blog post title. We spent Thanksgiving with some great MN friends. I was so happy to get an invite, since Thanksgiving makes me feel funky (sad inside funky, not "get down and boogie" funky) if it's just me and Forrest making lots of food that mostly the two of us eat, with a little help from Ethan -- the other three are pretty much useless as far as eating anything yummy is concerned. We spent the day with the Amezcuas and the Harrises and had a great time. I have two photos taken on my cell phone camera that will have to do:

Not Really Kids Anymore + Wyatt Table

Cute girls + Forrest in the Kitchen

 We had a really wonderful day, even though still I pined inside for my Utah family.

That night I decided I would head out for the New! Improved! Black Friday craziness. (I say both "new" and "improved" ironically, of course, if you couldn't tell by the capitalizations and exclamation points). I've always enjoyed Black Friday in a strange kind of group-consumerism-as-entertainment + getting-a-good-deal-high sort of way, but this year Wal-Mart and Target and lots of other retailers decided in all their wisdom to open their doors at midnight. Actually, Wal-Mart never even closed their doors, and their sales started at 10:00 p.m. So I thought "what the hey," and headed over to our local Wal-Mart at 10:30. It was so packed that the entire parking lot, plus the lot of the adjacent mini mall, was completely full, and I had to park at a Gander Mountain behind the Wal-Mart and hike up a small hill to even get inside the store, already thinking "Hmmm. Wonder if this is going to be worth it?"

Did I mention that I really really don't like Wal-Mart?

Did I mention that I like Wal-Mart much, much less when thousands of people decide, "I had no intention of doing Black Friday shopping, but I'm already awake and I need to get a cart full of $5 DVDs. Let's go to Wal-Mart and shove people around!" It was pure insanity inside the store, so crowded that I started to get a little worried people might get trampled if somebody yelled Discounted iPods in the back! I started making my way toward the electronics section, but it seriously looked like a mosh pit, so I decided to cut my losses and leave. I was going to go check out Target, too, but their doors didn't open until midnight and I wasn't about to wait.

Funny thing was, I got up early on Saturday morning, headed to Target and Best Buy, got all the stuff I wanted to get anyway and had virtually no crowds to contend with. I really didn't have any big ticket items this year, though. But part of me is a little sad; I liked Black Friday when it was reserved for the hard core shoppers who were willing to get themselves out of bed at 5 a.m. I have no interest in sharing my shopping with the yahoos who've just finished their pie and thought they'd mosey over to the mini mall.

So now that Thanksgiving is over, we're ramping up for Christmas concerts and recitals and all that good stuff. Two choir concerts, a band concert, a Preschool program, etc. Pictures and recaps to come.  Let the Christmas season commence! Hooray!

Drama!

Ethan and Elise both were involved in excellent productions at their respective schools that were performed over the last couple of weeks. They both had a great time and we really enjoyed the performances, too. I'm also really really glad that I get a break from picking kids up from rehearsals two times a day for the next few months -- but it's a small price to pay for their involvement with some great programs and great kids.

First, Ethan's musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It isn't the best known musical (how many of you had ever heard of it?) and, to be honest, I wasn't quite sure how it would play. But I thought it was great. Especially the second and third times, after I'd figured out the plot. And the student actors were the main reason it was so good. The leads were top notch: strong, beautiful voices; great acting.

Oh, and Ethan? One of the best chorus members. Most definitely. He was in character the whole time and sang and danced with the enthusiasm of a seasoned actor. You'd never know this was his first big production. He had a really great time and is looking forward to being involved in more plays and musicals at East Ridge.

(The first four pictures were taken by a professional photographer during their final dress rehearsal because, of course, you can't take pictures during the actual production.)

The whole cast of Drood in the midst of a dance number. That's Ethan in the middle.

Ethan, full of indignation.

Ethan, full of dread.

Ethan's big part in the show, portraying Jasper's evil strangler side during an opium-induced revenge dream.

The cast members mingled in the audience before the show began (in character, of course). Here Ethan is, regaling a man sitting just behind us. I tried to pretend like I wasn't taking his picture.

In front of the Drood poster just after opening night. He looks a little sleepier here than he does in real life.

Ethan and a couple of his friends in the cast.

Now, onto Elise's show! Elise's middle school did the one act play "The Seven Nasty Princesses." As I said previously on the blog, Elise wasn't so sure about her part at first, playing the witch "Barfette." (Yes. Barfette. Not a name that most 13 year old girls want to be associated with.) But it was a really big part and the more she got involved in the show the more excited she became. I wasn't quite sure what to expect on opening night since Elise warned me that it was a little cheesy . . . but you know what? It was really funny. And Elise remembered each and every one of her many lines and delivered them with aplomb.

Elise and the cast on picture day

Elise saying "buh bye!" to one of the nasty princesses

General mayhem

A little song and dance number

Elise and her fellow witch on closing night

Smiling with her obligatory bouquet of flowers

Elise is planning on trying out for Lake's musical this coming spring, and after seeing Ethan's production at East Ridge she's very excited about the prospect of being involved in theater in high school next year (!!). Hey, if both Ethan and Elise are in East Ridge's musical next year? By then Ethan will have his driver's license and he can shuttle them BOTH back and forth. Woo hoo!

Anyway, we're really proud of both kids for putting on great shows. It was a lot of fun, and we wish you all could have been here to enjoy them with us.

Halloweeeeeeeeeeen!

Edited to add: I forgot to thank all of you for chiming in on the family photos. Merci! Also, for the record, I don't usually do Christmas cards this early, but the photographer in our ward had scheduled these "mini sessions" at a reduced price so we took advantage of it. This is the only reason I'm ahead of the game. Anyway, now on to our regularly scheduled Halloween-related programming:

We had a good Halloween this year -- lovely weather, very few costume/decoration/candy - related snafus, good company. The kids had fun, even the older ones at our ward Halloween party, and the candy haul was high on the chocolate and low on the Now & Laters (yay!). The only bad point was when Wyatt got a little spooked by a neighbor who was sitting on the porch like a stuffed dummy and then "came to life" as soon as he reached for the candy bowl. TERROR! After that, he made me scope out all the front porches and wouldn't go up if there was anything remotely horrifying near the front door. Pumpkins: okay. Vampires, ghouls, scarecrows, Frankenstein's monster, witches, zombies, dead people (who just might come back to life??). NOT okay.

But he still had fun. Here are the kids, all costumed up:

Remember how I said I was going to get Ethan a mask? Then I found this puppy on sale at Target (BEFORE Halloween). Figured it would be a good investment -- reusable and all that. And he actually liked it! Terrified some women in the ward by scampering around at the trunk or treat, so I think he would call it an all-around success.

Arrrrgggh, ye maties! The cutest pirate in our landlocked state!

Elise, as Chell from the video game Portal. And yes, I frantically magic markered those socks (shoes on underneath) to look like the character's "longfall boots"??? mere moments before we had to dash out the door. She was happy, that's all I cared.

Zombie boy! I found this costume at Goodwill, new, for $10. Who knew Goodwill was such a great place to buy Halloween costumes??

The whole spooky clan

On Halloween night, we had the Ponczochs over for chili and trick or treating, and we were so happy to see Kim's mom Jennie (Darrin's sister, so Forrest's pseudo-sister) too. The Ponczoches have a beautiful new house, but it's pretty rural, so we figured it would be fun for their kids (and for Wyatt!) to hit our kid friendly streets. (Okay, kid friendly except for the terrorizing Wyatt part.)

Ready to take to the streets!

Jonas and his buddies. He's graduated to "independent" trick or treating and  organized a group of about seven boys to roam the neighborhood. They weren't home until about 8:45 and ended up with quite a haul.

Wyatt, getting to be the big kid for once!

Inspecting the haul.

 Before I sign off, on a sadder note, it seems as though we've lost Buttercup. The week before last she went out for the night and never came back. We held out hope for a while that she'd turn up and looked for her at the shelters, but it looks like our kitty is gone. The kids were really sad, and the hardest part is not knowing what happened. As much as that cat drove me crazy, I admit that I miss her. I know the kids do. Wherever you are Buttercup, hope you have a nice bottom stair to claw and that every night is nice and warm so you can run around to your heart's content.

And finally, Ethan's opening night for The Mystery of Edwin Drood is tonight. Break a leg, bud! And next week is Elise's play. We'll keep you posted.