Sugar Less

So Alisa and I are doing a sugar shut out.  We have pledged to eat no treats until Easter. That is three and a half months of no Milky Way Midnights, no brownies, no French pastries, no ice cream. No birthday cake for me this week, when Duncan and Will celebrate.  No free macaroons for Alisa.  Not even Nutella.  Instead we are just going to eat oranges and revel in our sainthood.

Last year, we gave up chocolate for Lent.  That seemed really, really hard.  So far this year, the no treats thing is working pretty well.  It seems easier to give up everything sweet than to just say no to chocolate.  Fewer cravings I think.   Also, I have learned I don't do well with moderation.  I am an all or nothing kind of girl.  If I can't eat the entire package of Oreos, then it's easier for me to have none.  I can't let something sit in my pantry.  Knowing something is in there drives me crazy and I pick at it all day until it's gone and then my family comes home and complains about not getting their fair share. UNLESS  I have made a solemn vow with my daughter to not eat any of it, and then I eat none.  I even totally skipped the brownies Audrey made on Sunday, and guess what?  The entire pan was STILL gone by the end of the night.  Can't blame me for that one.  I don't think this has helped me cut down on calories at all though.  It seems like I just make up for them by eating more crackers and cheese, white bread, and chips and salsa. So my  next step might have to be eliminating white flour.  Who knows, maybe I'll be total paleo by the end of the year.  Yeah, right.

By default, the kids are eating less sugar too, but I'm not sure they have realized it yet. Maybe they are still subsisting on the stash they got for Christmas. At any rate, if you come to my house, please don't bring me a treat.  Well, you could bring ice cream maybe.  I'm not a huge fan of ice cream. Unless it has almonds and chocolate in it. Bring gummy bears instead.  Or skittles.  I hate gummy bears and skittles.

Welcome to This Year

So far, 2014 is shaping up great!! We had a quiet little New Years  Eve last night at Home with Em and Norrie.  Then we slept all morning and laid around watching Netflix until we suddenly remembered we had to pick up Audrey in Heber.  So we  grabbed some lunch at In-n-Out, and headed up over the summit.  Came back with our girl in tow, got ALL of Christmas packed away, and had pizza for dinner (thanks again Em).

And now, the holidays are really over.  All of the people who don't live here have gone home and all of the people who do live here are back home.   It is off to school and work tomorrow for all of us.  We even got the outside Christmas lights down.

Some people say they wish it could be Christmas every day.  I wish it could be New Year's Day every day.  Christmas is still fresh in your brain. Your Christmas toys are still new. Life feels slow and relaxed after the mad dash to Christmas.  You have a whole fresh year ahead of you that you haven't messed up yet.  And on New Years, nobody expects you to do much of anything.  No dinners to cook, no decorating, no presents.  I think New Years is my new favorite holiday.

We Might Just Survive This Year After All

Let's talk about 2013 for a moment, shall we?

It pretty much sucked.

I cried A LOT this year.  More than I have ever cried in one year, I am sure.  I cried in front of people that I never dreamed I would cry in front of.  After Dan got laid off, I cried on the way to work to every day, without fail, for probably three months.

We had some dark, dark days in 2013. We were on the verge of losing everything.  There were days when I was ready to give up, throw it all away and walk out.   The worst days were the days where it seemed like we were so close to some miraculous event happening that would seemingly solve all of our problems.   Then it would fall through at the last minute, every single time. We spent a lot of time looking for those kinds of miracles, and willing something like that to happen, but everything that seemed so right for us, like it was meant to be, just never worked out. 

I prayed a lot this year too. I started out praying for that big  miracle.  Then I prayed for survival.  Then I prayed for a change of heart.  Finally, after everything seemed to be failing,  I just prayed to know what I needed to do, and for the faith to do it.

We never got that big, obvious sea- parting, life-changing kind of miracle.  Not yet anyway, although I'm still holding out hope:)

What we did get was enough for me to say I know some things now, that I didn't now at the beginning of this year.


I  know  now that God was providing good gifts for us all year,  not always what we wanted, but what we needed, as any loving father would do.  Some people will scoff at the things that came our way, and call them coincidences, but I know they are more like hints from a God who has told us to walk by faith.

We had people come to our rescue on so many occasions.   Sometimes it was cash in our pocket, sometimes it was extra work opportunities that came along at just the right time. Sometimes, it was a neighbor knocking on my door at just the right moment to come in and cry with me. Clothes and shoes for my kids that were the exact right size and fit,   a microwave, a dryer- so many other specific  needs we had that we never advertised or asked for.  They were just freely offered.  It is hard to accept help.  It is easier when what you are offered is the exact, perfect thing that you just realized you needed and had no way of obtaining for yourself.

The past three years, we have had a bumper crop of peaches off our tree, that we always wound up giving away, because  while they were delicious to eat, it was impossible to get the stones out of them, and to peel them. So to bottle them or make jam or anything was more work than it was worth.  This year, we got the same bumper crop of peaches.   But this year, the stones and peel slipped out effortlessly.  So we put up about 30 quarts of peaches, and a few batches of peach jam as well. The only explanation I can find is found in Malachi 3:11.

I know now that the law of tithing works. And I know it's not about money.  It's not about God needing my money, and it's for sure not about me getting more money.  It's about where you put your trust, and where your treasure is.

In spite of the fact that I have always been and will always be a sarcastic, irreverent, blasphemous skeptical doubter, 2013, in all its  messy, disastrous, stressful,emotional, torturous, sucky glory, blessed me with some understanding that I might not have learned any other way.  So yeah, while I don't really want to live it again, I guess you could say this year and me are parting on good terms.

 However, if 2014 turns out to be less of a drama queen kind of year, none of us will be complaining.

We Needed a Little Christmas

Well, I blinked, and when I opened my eyes I found us all sitting here, on the other side of Christmas 2013, amid a pile of new electronic gadgets, random boxes, leftover goodies, and a very dead Christmas tree. In spite of me dreading Christmas 2013 since about last March, it turned out to be one of the best Christmases we have had, in many different ways.  First off, we had all eight of us together, plus our two bonus members, Erwann and Steve. That was the best part. Second, Santa sent some generous and loving elves our way this year who gave us all some extra joy and peace.  And third, there were some traditions that we have always done, and that we always thought we could not live without,  that we just didn't do this year.  And guess what?  The world went right on spinning, and Christmas still came.   As Dr. Seuss would say, somehow or other, it came just the same. And lastly, everything just fell into place this year.  We had so little time to get so much done, and it all just worked.   Never fought crowds, never ran ragged searching for the perfect gift.  Christmas seemed to come to us this year.  Or maybe we (I) just let go a little bit of the fantasy of the perfect Christmas.  Whatever, it was peaceful, and happy and oddly, perfect.

Still, it  takes A LOT of work to get a decent family picture.

And are you ever too old for Christmas jammies?



 


And now, 2013 is on it's way out, and all I want to say is don't let the door hit you in the butt.

But more on that tomorrow.

Christmas Time

What happens when you mix up a large batch of procrastination with one full time job,  then add a week full of Christmas concerts, a pinch of anxiety, a long list of people to buy for and a short imagination for gift ideas?  Mix that glob of goo up thoroughly  about eight days before Christmas, then add a messy house, the regular gamut of laundry, grime, and busywork, and throw it all in the fires of hell to bake for a week, and what do you get? You get me, running out of time to pull off this thing called Christmas.

Another week, and I will be burned to a crisp.  But it will also be over, and then I can go about collecting myself again. 

The GREAT news is that Alisa and Erwann will be here on Saturday, and I doubt they care if the house is clean.   The other GREAT news is that I have the day after Christmas off work.  And the REALLY GREAT news is that we have ONE MORE Christmas concert to get through tomorrow night, and then we can start Christmas shopping!  See, I had planned on shopping all this week after work.  But then Will and Audrey had three Christmas concerts between them this week, which is great, really great. But leaves me no time.  So I will be one of those desperate fools out shopping on Christmas Eve,  and oh crap, I just remembered Will needs a white elephant gift for school tomorrow- over and out for now-

Going Wireless

The day after we got back from California, Audrey had the momentous occasion of getting her braces off.  She was originally scheduled to have them removed on January 27.  This is her face when she heard she was getting them off the next day:

She was just a teeny bit joyful.  And then, the next day, after  two hours of having the glue painfully scraped off her teeth, even though they said it wouldn't hurt, she was still chipper enough for a smile.  And it looked like this:

Gorgeous, no?  Worth every penny and two years?  Yeah I guess so.  And now, she has a fancy blue retainer with the Super Man logo on the roof of it.  Now she wishes she had gotten  Hunger Games.  I keep telling her Super Man is much more classic, and since she will have this retainer for MANY YEARS TO COME (because I will have to hurt her if she leaves it on her lunch tray and it winds up in the dumpster), she will one day be happier she went with the more classic icon. As if anybody will ever see it.

This may be our last bout with braces.  I keep looking at Olivia's teeth.  It's hard to tell yet if she will need braces.  The dentist hasn't said anything, so I'm hoping she will take after the two big brothers she most resembles,  who did not need braces, and save me and my insurance company a few thousand dollars.

Now we are off to eat caramel corn and drink soda.

Sun Day

Tired of beach pictures yet?  Too bad.  I have a LOT more.

The original plan was to head back home early Sunday morning.  Then a few things changed, and we found out that Sunday was going to be beautiful weather.  So we stayed an extra day, even though it meant the kids missing a day of school. And I am so glad we stayed.  How many December 1st's do people from Utah get to spend basking in the sun, in 90 degree weather?  This year was the first for me, ever.

We spent a good chunk of the afternoon building this elaborate sand castle neighborhood. Then we took way too many pictures of it, because it was so cool!

 Moats and all.

An ocean miracle. Duncan took off his shoes, walked on the sand and got his feet wet!  It only took a little coaxing on my part.  And he even smiled while he was doing it.  Sensory overload can be so hard.

 All those little mounds in the sand?  Olivia added them.  She decided our sand castle needed a graveyard.  Then she added a dump. Where she thinks up these things, I will never know.

Okay, that is the last of the beach pictures that will be on here for quite a while.  Sunday was our last day in California.  Early the next morning, we packed up and headed back to reality.  Getting used to real life again has made it a long hard week around here.  But it was so worth it.