Christmas Recap

We've had a great Christmas break here at the Hallstrom house. Things felt a little out-of-control-busy up until the 22nd, but then all the Christmas parties and concerts ceased, the homework was completed, and Mom uploaded all her grades (hurrah hurrah) and we could finally just relax and enjoy each other.

The house was festively festooned, and the "Merry Christmas" blocks took their rightful place over the sink so they could be merrily rearranged all month long. (It was always fun to try and guess who had done the rearranging. The one below was Forrest, I'm quite sure.)

Many concerts and parties were attended. I already uploaded some pictures from the kids' choir concerts, but I thought I'd upload a couple of quick videos. Here's Jonas's choir. He's right behind the choir director's left shoulder. She'll move so you can see his cute face:

And here's another of Elise's group singing a snippet of "Christmas Bells are Ringing." Her choir director looks like she's about 16 years old herself.

We went to a fun White Elephant exchange party with some friends in the ward as well. Underwear always seems to be a part of White Elephant holiday celebrations. Big underwear. No matter how old we get, underwear is still funny.

Then it was time for the 1st Grade Christmas party (no underwear involved). I love seeing the excited kids milling around--helping them dump dry oats and glitter into a plastic baggie to make "reindeer food" was the highlight of my morning. I also love how our elementary school does Christmas parties: all the grades are located in the same "pod," so all of the 1st grade (or 2nd grade, etc.) classes have their party together and the kids can roam from room to room doing activities. It's flexible and fun and the kids get to see friends who aren't in their specific class.  Here's Wyatt and a few friends after having his face painted by a PTA Mom Picasso:

And another shot of his class, all decked out in their Christmas hats:

And then, after an entire day of wrapping on my part (I binge-watched "Scandal" on Netflix while wrapping--it's like a DC-based "Good Wife" and not nearly as trashy as the series title would indicate, and Kerry Washington is a fabulous actress). Anyway, and THEN . . . it was Christmas Eve! Bring out the shrimp, scones, mac & cheese and jello!

As is traditional, the kids got to open presents from Grandparents, Aunts & Uncles, and/or each other. Here the kids are enjoying gifts bought by big brother money-man Ethan, who makes enough dough to get some pretty sweet stuff for his siblings.

Jonas has now turned full goofball when it comes to picture taking.

They also LOVED their extended family presents. Sorry no photos--I was paying attention to the moment. I also don't have any photos of the reading of the nativity for the same reason. But it was a really nice, relaxed, warm and cozy night.  Forrest and I even got to bed by 10:30 (mainly because I'd spent all day in the basement wrapping and binge-watching "Scandal.")

And now, the obligatory, somewhat non-flattering top of the stairs Christmas morning photo!

And the tearing open of the presents commences. Although I still insist that they do it one at a time and offer appropriate "oohs" and "ahhs" for everyone else's presents until it's their turn.

Wyatt has already built this Lego set. He's a Lego master.

Elise is loving her cute purple ukelele.

In this photo Jonas is unwrapping clothes (so exciting!!) but his favorite present is a hand-me-down iPhone 4 from his big sister Elise, who got her own upgrade this Christmas.

And this is Ethan with his new laptop. College bound! It's a good practical gift (all the kids sharing one computer for homework was getting tight and he'll need it in the fall for school) but he was still pretty surprised and excited. As you can tell from this photo. (He was saying "Don't take my picture" right as I snapped the picture. Poor kid--I do not respect his boundaries. But I do get him laptops, so he can't complain too much.)

The aftermath:

A wonderful day was had by all. Forrest and I got some great stuff ourselves--my big gift was a new knife block full of Henckel knives and Forrest got a new thingamig to which he can hook up his racing bike and pedal away in the basement while watching the middles of movies he's already seen. Preferably starring Robert Downey Jr. I also got a bunch of lovely smelling candles. I love smelly candles. Even the ones my mom thinks smell like cat pee. (It's Sandalwood!!!)

And before I sign off, just a few more quick photos. A couple of days after Christmas I helped host a bridal shower for our neighbor and friend Maddy. She's the first "kid of a good friend" to get married and it's so strange/fun/interesting to be the old lady throwing the shower rather than the young kid, or friend of the young kid, getting married. I remember my own bridal shower and thinking how awkward it was to sit there with all the old ward ladies, exclaiming over bundt pans and recipe card holders, and here I am, one of the bundt-pan givers! Although I gave her silverware. But still. I took some photos for them and they turned out nice: it was such a beautiful morning and we got to use a brand new clubhouse at a nearby housing development.

Cute, right?

Elise and her beloved Ashlee:

More cute young women:

Old lady bundt-pan givers:

More old-lady bundt pan givers. (Actually these are all wonderful women, and a number of them are younger than me and would probably take umbrage at being called old lady bundt pan givers.)

I was mostly in charge of games. These are the two we played:

And a few darling pictures of the bride. Isn't she pretty? And so happy. While she was opening presents she sighed and said, "Getting married is FUN!" It is. :-)

The Bride and the Mama:

And last but not least, even though we were expecting it, Ethan's official scholarship letter arrived this week for Utah State. We haven't heard back from BYU yet, and BYU is still probably his first choice. But man, a scholarship would be nice. We're proud of our boy, though. There's been a lot of hard work and dedication that has gone into having the grades and test scores to get a scholarship like that.

And now it's New Year's Eve! For the first time in a long time we're not hosting a New Year's Eve party. (We hosted a game night a couple of nights ago instead--but again, no pictures either because I was enjoying myself.) Ethan's going to a party, Elise is going to the Multistake Dance, and we're taking Jonas and Wyatt to a ward get together at the church for a little while, but I think we'll ring in the new year all cozy in our pajamas. I'm looking forward to it, and to 2014!

I Am Such a Bad Blogger

But enough with the self-recrimination. I'm hopelessly behind--I just need to accept it and move on. Right now I should be grading final essays, in fact, and I have a secret stash of unwrapped presents that need wrapping, but I thought I'd at least pop in and say hello.

Hello!

Here are a few pictures of a few fun things that I never blogged about properly.

First, Ethan was in an awesome musical at East Ridge: Aida. The leads were absolutely spectacular. Ethan did a great job in the chorus. Here he is on the far right, looking muscular:

And here he is after the show, carrying Wyatt on his shoulders amidst the throngs of congratulatory audience members. Sorry it's so blurry.

The Stake YM and YW did a big activity on a Saturday from 10:00 - 3:00. Many speakers, many games, much food (although I heard we ran out of meat at the end--that's what happens when you let the kids scoop it themselves). Brooke (YW 1st counselor and one of my favorite people) and I were in charge of a "Battle of the Sexes" game that I do not have time to describe because I really should be grading papers, but one of the activities was making boys dress CPR babies in under two minutes. Tights and everything. It was hilarious.

I went to Boston for the NCTE conference. SO MUCH FUN. Loved every minute of it. I stayed in this beautiful old hotel:

ALL BY MYSELF! Although I have to say that even though it was fun to have some alone time, I can see how it gets old quick. I especially disliked being by myself at night for dinner. LAME.  I'd love to go to Boston with Forrest sometime. It's a beautiful city.

Outside of beautiful church by my hotel:

Inside of beautiful church by my hotel:

I ate here one night by myself. It's the Cheers restaurant, in case you can't tell. I almost got accosted by a man as I was walking through Boston Common to get to the restaurant--he asked me if I knew where a street was, and when I pointed and said "Over there" he said "How about you hop in my car over there and you can show me" and I was like "Um, noo??" and just then, thankfully, a group of loud talking Asian women rounded the corner and he took off. I wasn't that freaked out, though--mostly just irritated. Creep.

Here's a blurry picture of lots and lots and lots of English teachers in a hallway. All the women look like me and the men either have glasses, facial hair, or both.

All my swag, yo! Lots of booksellers at National Council of Teachers of English conferences. I got most of these for free, but a couple of them were $5 (like the hardback Rainbow Rowell novels). I'd wanted to buy us a new carryon bag for Christmas anyway, so I just bought one in Boston and checked it to get all these babies home.

And then we had Thanksgiving! Just our own fun little family Thanksgiving this year. It was actually kind of nice. Here the kids are, laughing too hard to pose properly for a photo. I love this picture--so much better than if they'd posed the way I wanted them to.

We went and saw Frozen afterward and I really liked it. My only complaint was how, when the heroine becomes self-actualized and claims her power, she changes into a super-slinky dress and uncomfortable heels. It's such a "girl-power" movie, but really, it's totally impractical to rule an ice kingdom in that kind of a getup. Even if "the cold doesn't bother [you] anyway."

And then, finally, Wyatt lost his front top tooth--and misadventures soon ensued. Here's a picture, then I'll tell the story:

So Wyatt's tooth came out when he got home from school. I wasn't home yet, so Ethan helped him put it in a plastic baggie for safekeeping. I got home, he showed me very excitedly (top front tooth is a big deal!) and then we started doing our nightly scurry-around-go-10-different-directions fest that we often indulge in this time of year. That night, Jonas had a Beehive/Deacon party to which he was supposed to bring a wrapped gift of "no more than $1.00" for a gift exchange. Jonas had the bright idea to put $1.00 in change in a Pringles can and wrap it up. Brilliant! (Especially since I had no ideas myself.) So he comes downstairs with his hands full of money and we have like 5 minutes to get it all wrapped and ready before he has to leave, so I grab a baggie off of the counter--it looked like it was empty!!--and throw the money inside it.

I know, I know.

Fast forward to that night before bed. Wyatt is looking all around for the tooth and it's nowhere to be found. Finally it dawns on me: the baggie!! Jonas is home by then and he lets us know that the winner of the gift dumped all the coins out on the YM President's floor; chances were the tooth was in the carpet somewhere. Wyatt is disconsolate. How will the Tooth Fairy find his tooth NOW! He'd been saving up $5 to buy Pokemon cards. NOW what was he going to do?!?!? The sadness was heavy indeed. So Forrest decides to call the YM Pres. Lo and behold, he finds Wyatt's tooth in the carpet. For reals. Here is the note I wrote to the tooth fairy and put under Wyatt's pillow that night:

"Dear Tooth Fairy, I am Wyatt's Mom. I accidentally put Wyatt's front tooth in a baggie that went to the ***'s house. They live at **** ** Street. They will leave the tooth in a baggie on their counter. I am sorry for the confusion! Wyatt's teeth are excellent though. Thank you, Angela and Wyatt"

Then Wyatt made me add a P.S., just in case the Tooth Fairy thought we were lying about the tooth's whereabouts:

p.s. The ****s called us, so we know it's there.

Wyatt was so excited to wake up in the morning and find FIVE DOLLARS under his pillow. Tooth fairies who feel guilty are super generous.

A few other pictures then I'm done. Elise has been having a great time performing in the East Ridge Carolers group. Here she is, so purdy:

And Jonas has really enjoyed performing in the Lake Middle School Vocal Jazz group as well. He's becoming quite the singer! He's on the bottom right. Again, kind of blurry. iPhone photo. Sorry!

Finally, here are two pictures I took on the last day of class at UWRF. This is my honors class, and they've been so great. I'll miss that group. One girl likes to draw "Happy Shark" illustrations on the white board before I get there, and they're usually themed in some way. She's done a "Happy Hunger Games" shark, a spooky "Happy Halloween" shark, etc. Here's her Happy Shark illustration for the last day of class:

Then I turned around and snapped a picture of the class, for good measure. Do many professors take pictures of their classes on the last day of school? Ah, well. They were a good bunch.

And now I'd better get back to grading their papers. The honors kids get especially worked up over not receiving their grades in a timely manner.

Christmas is almost here you guys! Holy cow! I am way too busy! But in about a week I won't be that busy anymore, and won't that be wonderful? The best Christmas present ever.

The Rest of October (Or, "The Second Half of October," since October has been anything but restful)

We had a fun Halloween, but the best thing about Halloween this year is this video I took of Wyatt getting his groove on at the elementary school Halloween party.

Isn't that awesome? His school party and our church party were on the same night, but Wyatt insisted that I take him to his school party for 30 minutes so he could see his friends. I could tell he wanted to dance, but he stood there holding my hand and hesitating for about 10 minutes. Once he tenatively joined in then came back and stood by me. But when I took off to go get popcorn, apparently his inhibitions went with me, because I came back and found him shakin' it like a Polaroid picture. Love him.

Here he is at the church party with our neighbor Steve--good friend, bishopric member, PhD therapist, and official creepy-dude when in costume.

Wyatt's school doesn't let the kids wear costumes on Halloween. (Isn't it funny how individual schools are so different in that respect?) They don't even have a Halloween party in the classroom. But they DO have "flashlight reading" where moms and dads are invited to class, they turn off all the lights, and read books together in the dark. It was actually really fun, and heaven knows Wyatt didn't need any more sugar that day. Here he is, wearing his Halloween hat (also allowed).

And posing in front of the Liberty Ridge eagle.

Ethan was at rehearsal on Halloween, and Elise hung out at home and worked on a giant project on ancient Rome for her history class. But Wyatt and Jonas were still up for trick or treating and hanging out with friends. Our friends/Wilkey-almost-relatives the Ponczochs came over for their third and final time to trick or treat with us. Alas, they are moving to Reno! I don't know what we'll do next year when it's just us. Here are some photos of the night:

 Jonas invited a bunch of his friends over to help him scour the neighborhood. They were gone for two hours and came home with an incredible haul.  The beard makes Jonas's costume, I think.

Wyatt enjoyed wearing the mask with his skeleton costume (not allowed at church) and running around with the Ponzoch kids and the Dads. They were gone longer than if they'd gone out with the Moms, which meant MORE CANDY!

There were also a few other fall-type events that we happened to photograph earlier this month. I realize I'm not going in chronological order, but they are thematically related.

Forrest took all three boys pheasant hunting and I hear a good time was had by all. Here they are with another girl from our ward and their bounty:

And here's a quick video of Ethan and Jonas shooting. Notice how Jonas absorbs the kick.

Forrest has since made a soup with pheasant meat and a DIP with pheasant meat which he took to a friends' house for a get-together last night (he said when I raised an eyebrow, "You know, like clam dip?") The dip was enjoyed both for its taste and it's novelty.

And then to go completely reverse-chronological on you, some photos of our quick trip to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard by our house. Forrest was at work, Ethan was once again at rehearsal, but the rest of us enjoyed taking a quick hayride and picking out some (very expensive) pumpkins.  It will be apparent as the photos progress, but Jonas is beginning to take after his big brother in the not-wanting-his-picture-taken department .

The orchard also has a giant playground and this enormous hill of tires.  Nothing draws a little boy like an enormous hill of tires.

And that's it for the photo-related news of the month. A few other quick updates:

1. Elise made the carolers singing group at school. She's SO EXCITED! It's the elite mixed choir at her school (15 boys, 15 girls) and I'm so happy for her. She also just started real voice lessons.

2. Ethan's musical opens next week and he's just putting the finishing touches on his BYU application. His application to Utah State is in and he's already been accepted (but we won't hear about scholarships until after December 1.) He also just turned in the final paperwork on his Eagle this very Sunday (halle-freaking-lujah!) 

3.  Jonas has the greatest group of kids his age at church, boys and girls. They've been doing stuff together lately and it's fun to see. A whole gaggle of them went to see Ender's Game last night, but Jonas, a giant Ender's Game fan, was disappointed in the way only a fan of a book can be when a movie doesn't quite measure up.

4. Wyatt is a reading fool. He's very involved in both the Magic Treehouse and Junie B. Jones (which, by the way, that Junie B. Jones is a naughty little thing, isn't she?) and likes to haul a book with him wherever he goes. It warms my English-teacher-mother heart. He has been having some trouble again lately with tics, however, which has been a little distressing (mostly on my part). He's been having tics crop up now and then for the past two years, and since school has started it's been a little more pronounced, so we're taking him to a pediatric neurologist in December. We'll keep you updated on that one. But he hardly seems to notice and is happy as can be. In all honesty, I'm the one who needs prayers as far as this issue is concerned. It pushes a fair number of my worry-and-control-related buttons. But I'm learning to let go and trust God: two important lessons.

5.  Forrest, of course, is great. Making pheasant dip and apple cakes. Working hard. 

Now on to November!