Wyatt Dean, 4 Years Old

 

My sweet boy turned 4 on Friday.  He's still little enough that he can tell me he wants to marry me when he grows up without an ounce of self-consciousness, but he's big enough that he can write his name and go to school and build a fort (well, kinda--more like he can harangue me into helping him build a fort).  I'm just so glad we have a few more years of cute little-kidhood to enjoy in our house, since the other kids insist on wrestling with long division, scaring me into thinking there's an intruder in the house by calling my name in a deep manly voice, and wearing eyeliner. (You can decide which kid is doing which in the preceding list.)

On Friday, Wyatt brought treats for preschool and then the two of us met Dad at McDonald's (with a Play Place--unlike in Utah, not every single McD's has a Play Place in MN) and Wyatt opened his present from us: a Transformers mask he'd tried on the last three times we wandered through the toy aisle at Target, and a new game for his Leapster.

But on Saturday Wyatt had his first friend birthday party.  He's met a cute little group of kids at church and through the babysitting co-op and was so excited to have them over.  Two of the five kids we invited were girls, so we couldn't have the Transformers birthday he originally requested without making them feel a little left out, so we decided instead on having a Toy Story party.  Woody AND Jessie, you see?

I took advantage of the wonder of the internet and googled some Toy Story party ideas and found a few that were simple but fun--right up my alley!  I haven't done a little kid party in a while, and although I remember dreading them somewhat in the past, this one was actually kind of fun to plan.  Crazy, I know!  Here are a few of the highlights:

Thank you Disney.com for the cute Toy Story alien cupcake idea.  I find it particularly hilarious that I made these cupcakes the weekend after writing a Segullah post in response to the now-infamous Salon Mormon Mommy blogger article where I made a point of explaining that my husband makes most of the cupcakes at my house.  Now look at me!  A Mormon mommy blogger stereotype, and something of a hypocrite to boot!  But dang, aren't those cupcakes cute?  I wish the green was a little more lime-y than grass-y, but otherwise I was quite pleased.  And this is coming from someone who's experienced some wicked birthday-cake-making disappointments.  (Elise's 6 year old birthday My Little Pony cake debacle is a particularly tragic memory.)

And this is the table before the kids came. Each kid got a cowboy hat (although the girls weren't so keen on wearing them.  I guess they weren't feeling the Jessie vibe. Imagine if they'd been invited to the Transformer party!)

Then the kids came.  Such cute kids:

And even though I realize this isn't the most interesting thing to blog about and I could instead regale you with my opinions on the Republicans and Democrats deciding to sit with each other at the State of the Union . . . here are the games we played:

Game #1: Buzz Lightyear beanbag toss.  Forgot to take pictures of this one, but we have a bean bag toss game already, and I found this little Buzz Lightyear bean bag toy thingie at clearance on Wal-Mart. That's the only thing that made it Toy Story-ish, but the kids didn't seem to complain about going off theme too much.  Instead, they simply edged closer and closer to the wooden bean bag receptacle until they could basically drop the bean bag into the hole, then one kid stood on the wooden bean bag receptacle and cracked it.  Whoopsie!  The only real collateral damage from the party, though, which isn't bad considering there were six 3-4 year-olds in the house.

Game #2: Hot Mr. Potato Head.  Just like Hot Potato except one uses a Mr. Potato head.  Like in Toy Story!  Get it?  I downloaded "You've Got a Friend In Me" from iTunes and played it as the kids passed Mr. Potato head around.  When a kid got out, he/she got to take a piece of candy from the storage area in Mr. Potato Head's backside (hmmm, that sounds unsanitary), then the winner got to take TWO pieces of candy.  Seemed to work well: the kids who got out first got their candy first, and the kid who won got two.

Game #3: Buzz Lightyear Moon Rock Hunt.  I told the kids that Buzz Lightyear had crashed and dumped a whole bunch of moon rocks upstairs in our house.  Instead of putting their party favors in a goody bag at the end of the party, I wrapped the favors up on tin foil ("moon rocks") then had them all hunt for them.  They each got a thing of bubbles, a party blower, and a $1 bag of silly bands (bandz? harumph--I refuse to spell words with a z instead of an s), then I put their names on the "rocks" so that one kid didn't end up with 10 rocks and another with none.  They had a great time on the hunt and unwrapping their prizes.

Game #4: Of course, you gotta play pin the tail on SOMETHING.  Big thanks, again, to Disney.com for the Pin the Tail on Bullseye game I could print out for free:

Each of the kids had a Toy Story bandanna that I made (read: cut out but didn't hem) from some fabric I bought at Wal-Mart.  Quick funny story: I don't buy a lot of fabric, and I really don't buy a lot of fabric at Wal-Mart, so when I went shopping late Friday night to get last minute stuff for the party I wasn't prepared for how long it would take to find somebody to cut the fabric for me. Anyway, took a while.  But I finally got it cut and price-tagged, grabbed a few more things, waited in line for a Wal-Mart amount of time (3 1/2 minutes more than I would have spent in line at Target) . . . but when I gave the fabric to the checkout lady, the price tag had disappeared.  We both looked on the ground, on the other items, pretty much everywhere, but alas, no price tag to be found.  So we had to "suspend" my purchase and I headed back to the fabric counter to try AGAIN to find somebody to price it for me.  Waiting, ringing little ineffectal silver bell on table, stalking around grumpily, waiting some more, until finally I found somebody in the toy section who said she'd send someone else over shortly.  More waiting, more grumpy stalking, then finally a lady showed up.  I started to explain that I'd already had this cut and priced, I was at the checkout counter and everyone was waiting for me, etc etc., while in the midst of my breathless recitation she reached down and pulled the price tag off from the front of my coat in the area right under my chestal region (you know, the region that I'm least likely to be able to see without the assistance of a mirror.)  Stuck there the whole time!  Sigh.

Last game: pinata!  The pinata broke after the first couple of whacks at it, but luckily McGuyver dad figured out a way to rig it up:

One of the final swings, to jostle out the few remaining morsels of candy.

The kids ate their alien cupcakes, vanilla ice cream, and root beer. (POP! I know, I gave them pop.  Funny how you can give them cupcakes and candy and nobody blinks, but give them pop and the kids look at you with a little thrill in their eye that means "if only my mother knew what I was doing!" We're a bad influence.)

They opened presents:

I love how little kids all hunker together in a big group to open presents and can't help but "help" the birthday boy open it.

They were just altogether cute.

We rounded out the party by watching a little Toy Story 3 on DVD and I wondered during the scary cymbal-banging monkey scene whether or not I was REALLY being a bad influence (pop + scary monkeys = who is this woman and does my mom know what's going on here??) . . . but all the kids assured me that they HAD seen this movie before, so I'm hoping I didn't send home kids who wouldn't go to bed due to a sugar high and then woke up with cymbal monkey nightmares.

Wyatt had a great time, and it's kind of nice to finally say he's four.  He's looked four for almost a year now, so it's about time!  We sure love our Bubba, though, and I secretly wish he'd never grow up.

So It's January

and that means a few things:

1. It's cold.  Whoda thunk.  And the snow just keeps coming.  Yesterday I pulled out the cell phone camera to snap a picture of Wyatt playing in the snow drifts while I scraped off the vestiges of that day's snowfall, and to prove that I do, in fact, venture out of doors every once in a while:

And here's our front yard.  The thing about Minnesota is that all the snow just accumulates.  It doesn't melt, it simply piles up and reminds you how far you've got to go before you see grass again:

Can you see our row of mailboxes off in the distance, the snow piled up to the bottom of the mailbox door?  It would be a hard job, delivering mail in Minnesota during the winter.

2.  Another thing about January:  it usually makes me feel a little funky.  Not terrible or anything--just sluggish, yearning for a little warmth but aware how far off spring really is.  And big news!  Forrest tells me (just now as a matter of fact) that Thursday night we're going to reach double digit below zero temps.  Without windchill.  So, yeah.  But you don't want to hear about my winter blahs on the blog do you?  No, of course you don't!  So I'll change the subject to:

3.  Period dramas!  An excellent cure for the winter blahs.  I've been going on a bit of a period drama spree with our new Netflix account, having rewatched a few old standards (Howard's End, The Age of Innocence, The Remains of the Day) as well as watching The Duchess with Keira Knightly for the first time (good, but a little racy, in a period drama kind of way), seeing The King's Speech in the theater with Forrest (SO excellent--and the only reason it's R is because he lets out a string of swear words during a session of speech therapy, otherwise it's totally PG, not even PG-13--not that you should be watching rated R movies, heavens), and devouring the new BBC series Downton Abbey on PBS.  If you haven't started watching Downton Abbey yet, check your local PBS listings and see if you can catch the first two episodes in reruns.  There are two more episodes to go and I've found it utterly mesmerizing.  Plus it stars Elizabeth McGovern--the 80s actress some of you might remember from the Kevin Bacon movie She's Having a Baby (among others)--and I love seeing how her lovely face has aged in such a non-Hollywood way.  She's beautiful.  Anyway, all the period dramas must be serving as a bit of comfort-food-for-the-soul.  Why is it that these constrained, stoic, highly regimented societies are so fascinating, and even attractive?  Beyond the amazing clothes and servants-catering-to-one's-every-whim, of course.

4.  And finally, January means we're back in the swing of kid activities.  I've been doing a lot of chauffeuring: Jonas to choir and Battle of the Books; Ethan to speech (first tournament this weekend); Elise to guitar lessons and play practice.  Elise was excited to learn today that she got a solo part in the school play: she gets to sing "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" from Annie Get Your Gun!  I still have a copy of my script from my foray as Nellie in the Cyprus High School production of Annie Get Your Gun when I was in the 6th grade.   I remember getting out my yellow highlighting pen and marking my lines AND my suggested costumes on the back--oh, the thrill!  So it's particularly exciting that Elise gets to sing this song.  I'm so happy for her.  Forrest has been keeping busy with work, but a good kind of busy.  He's enjoying being back in the thick of things at headquarters and he's looking forward to an upcoming trip to Germany.  He's also cross country skiing like a mad man, venturing out in ridiculously cold temperatures to go tromp around in the snow at 7:30 a.m.  Yes, opposites attract, apparently.  (See staying home and watching period dramas, above.)

And that's January thus far.  This weekend we're celebrating Wyatt's birthday with his first friend party--a Toy Story theme.  He's so excited he can hardly stand it.  Photos to come!

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you had a fun New Year's Eve and are spending today contemplating the myriad ways you plan to improve yourself in the next twelve months.  (I, for one, have spent today--after going to church, of course--eating leftover ham, reading a book on my new Kindle, and losing a game of Scrabble to Forrest by 8 measly points.  But I hope YOU are contemplating.)

We did have a fun New Year's Eve, though.  It seemed to me that after so many years of muy excellente New Year's parties at our place involving different combinations of Mindy and Pete, Tony and Cindy, Andrew and Andi, Amy and Dave, and various cousins and grandparents, that it would be muy triste (that's "very sad" in Spanish--I looked it up for the sake of parallelism) to let this New Year's go by without a little fun.  So we invited three other couples and their kids and had a really good time eating, playing SingStar (of course!--and even though I'm convinced nobody SingStars like our family, we got the group at our house going and I had to force most of them to stop so we could play Taboo.  Why won't anyone ever play Taboo with me without arm-twisting, I ask you????)

Here are some shots of the fun:

A little Bananagrams action.  A bunch of the teenagers, including Ethan, left at 9:00 to go to the Multi-Stake dance in Minneapolis.  We missed them . . . but I don't think they missed us. :-)

I'm glad to finally be able to use our big center island for a large group and lots of food.

Wyatt and his friend Max singing Pink's "Rock Star."  (Wyatt's version of this song goes like this, and has for months: "So what! / I'm still a Rock Star! / and it's a New Year! / Yes it's a Neeeeww Yeeeeaar!"  His version seemed appropriate for the evening.

Another shot of Wyatt and Max.  They had a ball dressing up like "Injas" (ninjas, you know) and running all over the house.  Wyatt finally crashed a little bit before 11, when our neighbor Steve came downstairs and said he'd tucked Wyatt in bed. :-)

This is Steve.  And his wife Becky.  They live just one street down from us in our neighborhood and have been great friends to us and our kids since we moved in.  A real answer to prayer.  Their cute oldest daughter [I'm not putting names because I don't know how these guys feel about names on blogs, so I'm being safe and conscientious here] is in the chair, unable to go to the dance because she just had surgery on her foot. 

Steve and Becky's son and Jonas, dancing on the front porch in sub-zero temperatures to herald the new year.

And Steve and Becky's OTHER daughter with Elise at the stroke of midnight.  I have a special fondness for this sweet girl because she let Elise sit with her and her friends at lunch from day one of middle school.   

Steve and Becky  have one more child, a boy who's Ethan's age, but both he and Ethan were at the dance at the fateful hour.  (The two of them went skiing at the local resort a few days ago and I was going to take pictures then, but forgot.  Whoopsie!) Forrest went to go pick up the kids from the church, so by the time the kids were picked up and dropped off and home, we didn't get to bed until a little before 2 a.m.! I don't think I've stayed up that late for years and years and the next day I felt it in my bones.  But we had a great time, and it was worth staying up that late because Ethan had a blast at the dance.  I've been so grateful for the really strong youth groups in our ward and for all the opportunities they have to do fun stuff together.

And now it's 2011!  Can you believe it?  I can't.  Man, I'm old.

Finally, here's the promised video of the kids' Christmas skit, written by Ethan and rehearsed by all in about an hour on Christmas Eve day.  The picture quality isn't the greatest (it was kinda dark) but I think you can get the feel of it anyway.  Gotta love those kids of mine.

 

Our Homey Little Christmas

For the first time in a looooong long time, Christmas was just our own little family this year. When we moved to MN the first time, we traveled to Utah with Toddler Ethan and Baby Elise for a few years, and I think Grandma and Grandpa Sweat came to visit us one Christmas, too. (Didn't you? At our little split level house on 11th Street?) Then, after we had Jonas, Grandma and Grandpa Hallstrom were in Minnesota and were able to come and provide an audience for the kids' Nativity play and eat some Christmas dinner.

But this year? This year it was the six of us. And I admit that I was a little Utah-sick, at least at first, and especially on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is still an extended-family event in my mind. But I've got to say that at the end of it all, we had a really nice, cozy, relaxed Christmas this year. One of the most relaxed in recent memory. And that is a very good thing.

Here are a few of the highlights of our Christmas festivities:

My giant 3 year old, happy as can be on Santa's lap

This is this official Mall of America Santa, one I never thought I'd brave the throngs to see. I'd gotten complacent about my Santa pictures over the last 5 years since we were always able to see Santa at the Wilkey Christmas Eve Day party.  The day before Elise's Bel Canto concert at the MOA it hit me: Wyatt hadn't seen Santa yet!  And what would be a better time to do so than 2:00 p.m. on a school day.  Yes?  Yes?  Umm . . . no.  We got there almost an hour before Elise's choir was set to sing and the line didn't seem too long.  But this gentleman was the slowest. Santa. EVER!!!!  Finally, ten minutes before showtime and with four kids still in front of us in the line, it was decided that we had to leave the line in order to be seated in the audience in time.  Poor Wyatt was devastated, burying his head in my shoulder and sobbing (that's so much more heartbreaking than a temper tantrum), but I promised him that after Elise's choir concert we'd go and get BACK in that dang line and wait another hour so he could see Santa after all.  That seemed to placate him and we were able to settle in and enjoy this:

Elise: the tall, pretty girl on the right

 Here's a quick, ill-shot video of part of the concert.  I can't be entirely blamed for the shaky videography.  I had a 3-year old pulling on my arm, trying to see himself in the viewfinder every 30 seconds.  But still, you can get a taste:



Ethan also had a concert this week, his band holiday concert.  Here he is in front of the Christmas tree, looking handsome in his black band shirt:

We did a few other fun things the week of Christmas that I didn't photograph:  Jonas's class Christmas party (they had a book exchange, and he had the idea to cut the letters name of the girl he'd chosen, Jacqueline, out of magazines so she wouldn't guess it was him); Wyatt's class Christmas party; sledding at a ward member's house; Forrest and I attending a couples' progressive dinner Christmas party as well as a party with all the Mormons in our specific neighborhood (there are, like, seven LDS families in our neighborhood alone, a fact which continues to amaze me).  And, surprise surprise, none of the white elephant gifts at either of these parties were wildly inappropriate (although we did take home a book on managing incontinence and an adult diaper with a tootsie roll inside).  Ah, the cringe-worthy white elephant gifts that would be exchanged in South Jordan.  Memories.

We also got some Room Doodles from Amy and put them up on Elise and Wyatt's walls.  They look so dang cute that I don't even mind that I broke Wyatt's bed by standing on it and wrenching it around the room whilst putting said doodles on the wall.  (Forrest put it all back together again.  Thanks hon.)  Don't they look great?  Thank you again, Amy, Room Doodler Extraordinaire!

Elise's peace sign.  She loves it.

Wyatt's WYATT. He thinks it's awesome.  "Hey, that's my W-Y-A-T-T!" he said.

Anyway, we had a relatively leisurely week, culminating in a really nice, homey Christmas Eve, just the six of us:

The family gathered around our traditional Christmas Eve dinner based loosely on my childhood where Christmas Eve was all about making food everybody likes.  We had: popcorn shrimp, macaroni and cheese, scones, and pears.  We were supposed to have pineapple . . . but it was rotten.  Drat! But the dinner was still tasty.  Mmm.  Scones.

Ethan helping Wyatt act out the Nativity with our kid-friendly nativity set.  The big kids deemed themselves too mature to dress up this year.  Sigh.

Elise and Jonas narrating the Christmas story

Ethan also wrote a hilarious skit based on Ebenezer Scrooge, but I haven't uploaded that to Youtube yet.  I will soon and give it a post all its own.  I will say, though, that Ethan takes after his mom.  I remember all those years that as the Eldest Sweat child, I was in charge of the Christmas Eve "program."  This year I told Ethan it was his job, and he whipped out a script and had the kids rehearsing in no time.  How many 14 year old boys do you know that relish the opportunity to write and direct a Christmas spoof skit with their siblings on short notice?  Exactly.  Ah, genetics.

The traditional top-o-the-stairs shot, wearing the new pjs from Grandma Sweat.  I realize Wyatt is aiming a gun at us in this photo.  It's actually an extremely cool gun, if that helps at all.  It was Grandpa Hallstrom's gun when he was a little boy and it's over 50 years old.  Grandpa H. sent it along with a real-life World War I (not II, I) holster that he's had all these years.  Wyatt was thrilled beyond belief, slept with said gun and had it with him all Christmas morning.  Even on the stairs.

And, yes, here Wyatt is opening yet another gun.  It was the one thing he asked Santa for: a Nerf rifle he saw in Target and had been longing for ever since.  Santa could not disappoint him.  But Santa also wants people to know that he got Wyatt a nice Woody and Bullseye set and a Crayola drawing table and some other non-violent toys which Wyatt's mother is hoping he will decide to play with at some point. :-)

Jonas holding his big gift this Christmas: a DSi.  Jonas's first DS, a Christmas gift from many moons ago, met its maker when it was accidentally dropped in the toilet.  (Who has time to stop playing Pokemon to go to the bathroom?  I ask you?)  But two years have now passed since that tragic day, and Jonas feels he is responsible enough to put the electronics down when nature calls. 

My Precious!  Okay, Ethan might kill me for posting this picture because he DOES look a teensy bit on the psychotic side.  But this shot does exemplify the extreme emotional response elicited when a 14-year-old is given an iPod Touch.

This is a better picture of Ethan.  And, oh yeah.  Jonas and Wyatt got swords.  Wyatt has been almost as interested in playing with the swords as he is in playing with his guns.  (The crayola drawing table is still waiting.)  In case you were wondering. 

And Elise's gift to beat all gifts: a touch phone!  I finally gave in and added Ethan and Elise to my Verizon account, coming to terms with the fact that kids 12 and up all have cell phones (well, almost all of them do) and that I find it quite handy for them to have cell phones, too, what with all the picking up and dropping off and everything else a Mom of teenagers has to do.  And my relationship with our previous teen cell phone carrier, Tracfone?  Strained.  At best.  Elise was thrilled with the results.

Is this the true meaning of Christmas or what?  Sigh.  At leas they're sitting in a circle, facing each other.  Right?

There aren't any photos of Forrest or me and our Christmas goodies, but Forrest got a new carry on bag. He needed one, Santa decided--taking a the carry-on I'd purchased for the boys (light blue with lime green trim) on business trips just didn't do his Studly Business Traveler persona any favors.  In my humble opinion.  I also got him two books I'd like to read myself, and some Godiva chocolate I'd like to help him sample.  Christmas is a time of giving!  And speaking of reading, I have ventured into the world of e-books and now own my very own Kindle.  It's very cool.  Once I finish reading my first e-book, I'll return and report.  

It was really a wonderful Christmas, and I'm enjoying this week of no school and sleeping in.  The kids are, too.   We missed our family a lot, but we're grateful to have each other and enjoy a slower pace that helped us focus more on what Christmas is all about.  (And no, it's not gunplay.  Or swordplay.  Or electronics.  Or chocolate.)  Cue the sappy music:  it's love.  Really, it is, and we're blessed to have that in abundance.

Since We Won't Be Playing Sing Star This Year

I figured the siblings could at least have a LITTLE musical holiday fun together:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

And last but not least, what's Christmas without a leg lamp and a Red Rider BB Gun?

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

(Wyatt just finished watching all three of these movies.  His official opinion? "Mom, that's creepy.")

Merry Christmas!

Let It Snow. And Snow. And Snow.

So here in the land of snow and ice and frigid wind, we've enjoyed a big storm almost every weekend since mid-November.  It's been one of the craziest Minnesota winters in decades (as the TV weatherpeople keep telling us).  This weekend we experienced the whopper storm to beat all whopper storms: 20 inches of snow falling, coupled with winds gusts around 40 mph, followed by a blast of arctic air that left us at -1 this morning (-20 with wind chill).  Yesterday the whole state decided to hunker down inside sturdily-roofed structures and wait the storm out.  And it's a good thing!:



A good video-of-destruction-where-nobody-got-hurt is always fun to watch, isn't it?

Here at the Hallstrom house, Elise's choir concert was canceled, as was our ward Christmas party; later we found out they decided to cancel church on Sunday, too (although we woke up this morning to sunny skies and no snow actually falling, so church would have been okay).  We had a really nice day at home together yesterday, eating scones and homemade turkey soup, playing Settlers of Catan and Scrabble, doing laundry.  Oh, and Forrest and I watched It's a Wonderful Life in its entirety, a movie which (Grandpa, I apologize in advance) neither of us had seen all the way through.  In a way, I don't think you'll really get It's a Wonderful Life until you're at least 30--preferably pushing 40--so it's good we waited.  I can see why the movie's famous.  I also think Forrest and I will occasionally use this line, when appropriate:

"George, why must you torture the children?"

Indeed, George.  Mary asks a good question, one we all would do well to consider.

And now for a bad transition.  Here are some pics of the Saturday storm:

A little blizzard sledding

It's good to have a 14-year-old to give Dad a reprieve from his considerable snow blowing duties.

Freezing, pelted by blowing snow, happy as can be.

We woke up in the morning to this:

Our back yard, waist deep in snow.

Although we didn't have our church (you know, the Mormon one) today, Wyatt's preschool Christmas program at the Lutheran church was still on.  At his school, they have the children participate in the actual Sunday service instead of simply having a singing program just for them, so we got to sing the hymns and listen to the pastor's sermon and follow along in the program, reciting the lines the congregation is told to recite--the whole Lutheran nine yards! I haven't been to another denomination's services since I was performing with madrigals in high school, so not only was it fun to listen to Wyatt sing and recite, it was interesting to spend some time in another church.  (Loved the stained glass windows, wondered what it would be like if we passed around a silver bowl in which we were all supposed to deposit our tithing.)  It is good to remember, always, how many good people there are who worship in their own particular way and strive to bring the spirit into their lives.  It's also good for me to remember how much I like being a Mormon, noisy sacrament meetings run by a rag-tag assortment of non-professional clergy and all. :-)

Here's Wyatt and his preschool friends.  There's nothing quite as cute as a preschool Christmas program:

We brought our video camera to record the singing--I wasn't sure if videoing would be allowed, but it was--but we found as soon as Wyatt's class started singing their first song that the batteries were dead (!!).  Luckily I thought to ask Forrest if he had a video feature on his new Blackberry.  So--voila!--we were able to catch at least one song.  For your viewing pleasure: Wyatt.  And although it's true that he doesn't do the actions during the song, he ends the piece with an interpretive flourish:



One other quick noteworthy happening this week: Ethan tried out for the school's one act play.  Over eighty students tried out, and Ethan was one of a group of 40 that made call backs (only 4 freshmen were in the group).  He was pretty sure he wouldn't get a part (there were only 11 parts available, and he's an unknown freshman with very little actual acting experience, after all), but he did a great job at call backs and got a lot of positive feedback.  He got to do a little improv and tells me that one of his lines got both laughter AND applause.  Proud of him.  His speech coach is really excited about his potential in the storytelling category for speech, too.

The other kids are happy and well, as are mom and dad.  More frigid temperatures are on the way this week, but at least the blizzarding is over.  And--miracle of miracles--I'm DONE Christmas shopping.  Even got all the Christmas cards and packages mailed before the big storm hit.  Now we just get to snuggle up and try to stay warm until New Year.

It's the Little Things

It's freezing outside--so very very cold that Wyatt was crying as we hustled our way into the YMCA this morning, saying his "face hurts."  Then when we got to the YMCA I decided for the first time to bring my clothes and showering paraphernalia and get "ready" after working out, like I often did in Utah and at the most glorious and beautiful of all exercising establishments, Lifetime Fitness.  Needless to say, the YMCA experience isn't quite the same as what I'd become accustomed to, e.g. tiny cramped changing areas, ishy shower floors, bad water pressure, a gaggle of seven naked old ladies blocking my locker (oh, the naked old ladies at the Woodbury YMCA, all shapes and sizes!), nowhere to change besides a bathroom stall (which probably explains the naked old ladies), a total of three whiny old blow dryers, etc. etc.  Wyatt, too, isn't as enthusiastic about going to the child care at the Y as he once was at the high tech Lifetime, with its giant climbing maze, bank of computers, kid-size basketball court and brand new toys.  "Which gym are we going to Mom?" he asked me this morning.  "The YMCA," I said.  "Is that the baby one?" he asked (the babies were segregated from the rest of the kids at Lifetime).  "Yes," I admitted.  "Dang!  I don't like that gym!  It's weird."

I agree, Wyatt.  I agree.

ANYWAY, I was feeling a little sorry for myself as I trudged through the biting wind to my car.  But then and there I decided to stop it.  Knock it off, Angie, I said.  Count your many blessings! I commanded.  Positive mental attitude and all that.  I reminded myself that, although little things can get you down (the showers at the Y? nowhere to put your shampoo but on the floor), little things can also pump you up.  So I started cataloging.  Here are some of the little things that make me happy:

-McDonald's Bacon, Egg and Cheese biscuits.  I hardly ever eat these.  Who goes out for breakfast, right?  Plus, they're totally unhealthy, ridiculously calorie-laden, and all that.  But when I do eat them?  They're like the perfect food.  Buttery, salty, warm.  If ever wind up stranded and starving, like a member of the Willie handcart company or the guy in Southern Utah whose arm was pinned by a boulder, a Bacon, Egg and Cheese biscuit would be the perfect thing for my rescuers to bring me.  Just so you know.

-Top Chef All Stars.  I had NO IDEA this show was about to air until I saw it mentioned on Mormon Mommy Wars.  Then when I saw the post I was like, "What?  Seriously?  Richard?  Fabio?  Spike?  Jen?  Karla?  ALL TOGETHER?"  I realized I'd missed the premiere but, luckily, Bravo replays everything like fifteen times.  And the premiere?  Totally lived up to my expectations.  I was trying to explain to Forrest that this particular "All Stars" show (which happens to be my favorite reality show, hands down) is as exciting to me as an "All Stars" basketball game would be to a sports fan IF the game actually meant something and the players weren't just dorking around with their friends, but instead had something to prove and an intense desire to prove it.  Seriously:  this is gonna be great!  And isn't it fun to have something to look forward to?

-The school bus.  All my kids ride the school bus, and as I wave to them from the front window, be-robed and warm as they skuttle across the slippery driveway, I am filled with gratitude.

-Funny stuff on the internet.  Every once in a while I run into something that makes me laugh, lightens my day, all that.  Somebody mentioned the blog Hyperbole and a Half on the AML's blog, so I googled it.  Reading this made me happy.  I thought the story was great, but I was also just generally happy that somebody was so witty, and such a good writer, and could draw such funny/cool illustrations in Paint, and that the amazingness of the internet makes such communications possible.

-My bed, and sleeping in it. My bed is just the right size, the covers are the precise amount of warm, my pillows are the exact degree of poofy, and sometimes (like on Friday, a day off of school for the kids) I get to sleep in it until 8:45.

What does it say about me that the things that make me so very happy are: fast food, reality television, surfing the internet, sleeping, and giant government vehicles driven by who-knows-who relieving me of my personal parental responsibility? Hmmmm.  Don't want to know.  Too busy being grateful.

What are the little things that make your days better?

Thankful!

Oh, we had such a great time with my mom and dad over Thanksgiving break.  I'm so glad they came to hang out with us--I don't do well without extended family at Thanksgiving.  Turkey and yams and stuffing and little bowls of olives aren't the same without a few extra faces around the table, you know?

And what lovely extra faces (and regular everyday faces, too) they were:

Here's the table, set and stocked with foodie goodness by all sorts of helpers:

The gelatenous mound of shimmery cranberries from can?  That's for Grandpa. :-)

Besides Thanksgiving goodness, we had a fabulous time going to the Mall of America; attending Grandparents' Day at Wyatt's preschool (good timing, no?); indulging in a little Black Friday shopping (thanks, Mom, for coming along with your crazy, cold-braving daughter to snag some great deals); seeing Tangled (really good! Great music, and I even wiped away a tear . . . now, granted, it doesn't take much to warrant tear wiping when you're me, but still); watching The Sound of Music on Blu-Ray (the hills are SO alive on Blu-Ray), and hanging around the house playing games and watching random shows on our newly obtained streaming Netflix account.

All the kids + Grandma, watching The Secret of Kells on Netflix. A gorgeous, strange little movie.

One of our small sources of fun was rearranging the little cubes on the window sill that were supposed to spell "Merry Christmas" into amusing phrases.  One of Ethan's offerings:

Yes, Grandma.  It is, and will always be, your Camry.

Thanks so much, Grandma and Grandpa, for flying yourselves to the frozen North and spending some quality time with all of us.  We love you!  We miss you!

To round out the post, how about some general updates on the Hallstrom Fam?  Let's start with the my good looking husband, why don't we?

We took this picture right before church on Sunday.  Forrest needed a photo for some career-related profiles, and I thought he looked handsome and (amazingly) I had five minutes to spare before we rushed out the door to church.  As far as a general Forrest update goes: he's been a little sick with a cold the last week, which I think was something of a surprise to him.  He doesn't get sick very often and kinda takes it as a personal affront.  He's feeling better now, though, and he still managed to cook a very juicy turkey on Thanksgiving despite being a couple notches below top form.  It's been frikkin freezing here (ah, Minnesota) but he still wants to get out there and try to kill one more deer before the season wraps up.  He likes his new job.  He likes his calling with the young men.  He's good.

Ethan has hit the accelerated state of adolescence and seems to be literally growing before my very eyes.  He had a great time doing the musical, is a stellar early morning seminary attendee, and his grades are still looking strong.

After much wavering back and forth over whether he wanted to be on the wrestling team or the speech team, Ethan has decided to go with speech.  For a while it looked like it was going to be wrestling, and while I was more than willing to be a supportive mom, he came home from one early practice worried about making another kid's lip bleed (the same practice where all the athletes had to take a cognitive test they'd use as a baseline whenever they suspected a kid had a concussion) and I thought, 1. do I want my child to be involved in a sport where bloody lips and concussions are, you know, commonplace? and 2. is wrestling really the right thing for him if giving somebody a bloody lip fills him with angst rather than self-congratulation?

It would have been a big challenge for him, and Ethan really does want to be involved in some kind of sport during high school . . . but I kind of breathed a sigh of relief when he decided not to wrestle (they had two weeks after practice started to decide--it's a new program and anybody can come and see if it's for them).  He's thinking he'll try track and field in the spring.  I was also THRILLED to find out that he'd be able to take part in the speech team after all.  The two conflicted, so he needed to pick one or the other, but we just heard back from the speech coach that he did an excellent job in his auditions and they're excited to have him on the team.  Hooray!  Not only is speech something Ethan's really good at, but I'm sure he'll make some great friends.  And no bleeding!

Yes, this is my beautiful daughter.  She's also on the accelerated grow-up plan.  Doesn't she look nice? She's all gussied up for her 7th grade choir concert.  She volunteered (!!) to read/recite an introduction for one of the songs and was told she could either read it or memorize it.  Come to find out Elise was set to introduce the very first song!  So in an auditorium full of parents and pretty much the entire 7th grade, she marched up to the microphone and recited her intro from memory.  (She skipped a tiny little part, but nobody but me and the choir teacher probably noticed.)  She was a little nervous, but did great.  And then, wouldn't you know it, every single other kid READ their introductions!  How's that for going the extra mile?  She was also one of the prettiest girls on stage.  Yes, I'm prejudiced, but I'm telling the truth.  And I know we're not supposed to tell our daughters they're pretty because it warps their sense of what's important and and all that jazz, but, as her mother, I must speak the truth. :-)

Elise has been working hard as her first trimester in middle school wraps up and she's doing very well.  She and her new friend Preeta teamed up (just today, in fact) to do a project for science where one is supposed to make a model that represents the parts of a cell (e.g., they chose to do a farm: the fence is the cell wall, the farmer is the nucleus, a basket full of eggs are golgi bodies--you know, golgi bodies!).  It was so cute I had to take a picture:

Elise, Preeta, and the Farm-representing-a-cell.  Aren't their little clay guys cute?  And yes, the farm is stolen from our Christmas village.  They have promised to take very good care of it.

Jonas Leo is also very good looking, but informed me today that he "really needs a haircut."  Um, I agree.  He's holding the little clip on his bag that he received for being his class student of the month.  Teachers have always loved Jonas from preschool on up.  He's the perfect combination of smart but not smart alecky.  And he'd nice.  And he loves to read.  Elementary school teachers are always taken in by book-loving boys.

Speaking of being a book-loving boy, Jonas is participating in a team event called Battle of the Books with some friends at school.  They read 12 titles, then compete in a quiz-bowl like event in February.  It's a cute group of kids---they decided to name their team the "Nerd Herd" (irony! in 4th grade!) and get together every two weeks to talk about the books.  Tomorrow Jonas is leading the discussion.

 And what about Wyatt Dean, you ask?  He's spending a lot of time dressing up like an "Inja" (for some reason, he insists on dropping the N.)

Dark stocking hat? Check. Skeleton gloves? Check. Cammo pants? Check. Pistol in the pocket? Check.  And last but not least, ninja sword down the back?  Definitely, check. He's ready to rumble.

He loves preschool.  He loves anything that has to do with playing, really, which is why I signed up for a babysitting co-op with some women in our ward.  Once every two weeks I host a co-op time, and whomever needs a babysitter for that time slot pays me with "tickets" I can then use to have Wyatt attend the co-op at their house.  It's a slick set up (laminated tickets and everything!).  But unlike when I had three little kids at home, I don't really need the time to myself as much as I think Wyatt enjoys the time with other kids.  Today was my first day to host and two darling little girls signed up to come over to our house.  I brought the "girl toys" upstairs from the basement, and after playing with the Barbies and the Little People Doll House for a while, Wyatt exclaimed, "Hey!  I like playing with girl toys!"  Then he promptly went upstairs and put on his cowboy clothes.  (Perhaps he thought the Inja clothes would be a little TOO aggressive for the ladies.)

Wyatt and two darling little ladies.  One of them caught me drinking a Diet Coke and said, "You have soda at your house?"  "Yes," I replied.  "But don't you know that soda's not good for your body?"  Ah, the honesty of children. :-)

And last (and least--really, I'm the least interesting member of this family, and I say this without a shred of self pity), the main thing I'm doing besides puttering around, feeding/grooming/coraling the children, and buying modeling clay and styrofoam boards at Wal-Mart for science projects, is getting my final issue of Irreantum out the door.  It's going to be a great issue.  I know I say that every time, but it really is.  I'm glad to be going out on an issue I can be proud of.  Here's the cool cover:

The other thing I do well is write loooooooong blog posts.  In case you haven't noticed!

Anyway, lots to be thankful for right now in my life.  And I am.