Recap of the Holidays

Mostly because I'm too lazy to stop what I'm currently doing [more on that later] and upload photos, this will be a photo-free post :)

We had a great holiday season, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with family and friends. Christmas Eve we had dinner with Nate and Caitlin and their boys. That was awesome- my kids LOVE their younger cousins, and I love that they have the same play style [rough & tumble and chase-around-the-house-giggling]. Caitlin made the most delicious pork roast, with sweet potatoes [they tasted like pumpkin pie- seriously GOOD], a yummy cheese dip, corn casserole, and green beans. We won't talk about dessert. That would make me want to bake, and my to-do list is already way too long :) [Oh, and Caitlin? I would love copies of those recipes :)]

We put the kids to bed, then took candles to the cemetery to put on Myles' grave, and on my grandparents' grave, too. I love this tradition- seeing the flickering lights in the snow, and feeling the quiet solemn peacefulness there. We also saw a few deer in the cemetery, avoiding the people and looking for green things to munch on. Then it was back home to let Santa deliver his presents to us.

Christmas day began HOURS before I was ready. Jared was up early to start the pull-apart bread [or monkey bread, if you'd rather call it that]. My gorgeous girl decided to get up and "help" him. Part of that help was being so loud that her brothers woke up. Jared fed them all breakfast, and came to wake me up several times :) so I could take pictures and watch the kids opening presents. Yeah. It took me a while to get out of bed, but we still began the unwrapping process BEFORE 6:30am. All I can say is: wait until next year. The Grinch will be taking presents away if mom has to wake up before 8am. Anyway, getting such an early [hah!] start meant that the entire process was over by 7:30am, so I went back to bed until I felt decent. After lunch, and a wonderful nap, we drove down to my parents' house to visit. I forgot my parents' gift, but I'm blaming that on my early start. Interrupted sleep is never a good thing for me :) We all got a lot of loot; my favorite gift [and the one that has eaten up a lot of my time since Christmas] was a new computer! Hooray! More on that later...

As we drove home Friday night, Morgen was complaining of a sore tummy. I told her I thought it might have something to do with all the eating that had occurred lately, but Morgen was sure I was being silly :). Then she threw up early Saturday morning. She was sick most of the morning, and insisted on getting up and slowly shuffling around the house, quietly moaning. I sent her back to bed. I'm unsympathetic like that :). I mostly worked on setting up my [fabulously fast] new computer, and doing laundry for our upcoming visit to Fallon. Hyrum was busy playing Plants vs Zombies on the old computer. Jared and Walker were taking Walker's hunter safety tests, which took them until after lunch. Yes, my 11-year-old is now officially allowed to go hunting. Good thing, since his father has been planning for this particular event since Walker was born. Seriously.

The rest of Saturday, we took decorations off the tree, and the walls, and the shelves. Jared wanted to get the tree down, and dumped, before I left for Fallon with the tree-hauling vehicle. I thought I was doing really good with the decorations this year- I packed them all up and had 2 boxes empty when I was done! Then I realized I'd forgotten a few things. Nevermind.

Sunday we had church, and I decided to drive to Fallon on Monday, which gave me another day to pack, and Morgen another day to fully recover from being grumpy about being sick. If this is even a small taste of her behavior as a teenager, I am running away to join the bookmobile. I thought about joining the circus, but my talents do NOT include tightrope walking or lion taming, so I'm using Plan B.

Monday, after we stopped for money and gas [and breakfast sandwiches at McDonald's]we left for Fallon, Nevada. We made it 500 miles with 2 stops: one for gas, and one for food and gas. No fights, no complaining, no arguing or throwing things or any of the many other incidents that make traveling long distances with children so umm, character-building. Yeah, I used duct tape.

Kidding! ;)We had an audiobook- "The Last Olympian"- to listen to, which meant that my kids were perfectly quiet and enthralled the entire 8-hour drive.

The week was filled with swimming and Wii time [LEGO Indiana Jones and Wii Resort]. We also visited and played with cousins- thanks Josh and Brooks for bringing Ethan, Sloan, and Mason with you- aunts and uncles, and grandparents. We got to see Jon and Melinda's new house [beautiful, guys], and see it snowing in Fallon! I think their annual precipitation is 4 or 6 inches. I bet they got at least 4 inches in snow while we were there, too. Snow is not the normal there- cold, yes, but snow, no.

We drove home Friday, after I looked at the weather report [stormy Saturday and Sunday] and decided not to risk driving in snow. We finished up the audiobook, and the character-building behavior returned, but I threatened them: "If you continue that behavior, I'm stopping the car and PLAYING BARRY MANILOW!!!"

Not really. The Barry Manilow, I mean. :) But stopping the car, and extending the torture of sitting in it, seemed to work fine as a threat.

When we got home, I made the kids unpack their clean [thanks to my MIL's washer and dryer] clothes and put them away. I, however, sat down at my new [!!] computer and began to work on retrieving the data from my old one, courtesy of Carbonite backup [thank you very much]. Picasa found all my pictures, no problem. I installed Quicken and retrieved all the financial data, again with no problem. I was able to transfer my podcasts and purchased music from Itunes, but ran into problems with the CDs I had uploaded myself. Now, before you tell me how I could do this easily, using only my ipod and some barbed wire and chewing gum, I need to explain. When I got my ipod, a few years ago, I tried to upload my [rather large] collection of CDs to my old computer. After 2 DAYS of sitting at the computer, and after I ran out of storage, I gave up. So, really, it's okay that this part didn't transfer, since there wasn't much on the old computer to begin with. But that brings me to my "more on this later" part of the post. I spent most of yesterday [that would be Sunday] uploading my CDs, and organizing my playlists. I started with my religious music, it being Sunday and all, then moved on to Christmas and Classical. I went to bed at 11:30pm, and hadn't finished yet, but I'd made a good dent in the stack of 150+ CDs I own.

Now, going to bed at 11:30 normally means it's a bit hard to get out of bed by 7:30am to get kids ready for school. I was okay with that, though. Unfortunately, what actually happened was this: when my handsome and hard-working husband [oooh, I can alliterate] got up at 4:00am this morning, I woke up, too. I managed to pretend to be asleep until 4:30, then gave it up as a lost cause. Normal for me is NOT pretending to sleep at 4am. It is ACTUALLY SLEEPING at that time. I finally gave up in disgust, did my meditation, and got up. I started uploading more CDs, and did dishes while I waited for the CDs to load. When I ran out of dishes, I checked my email. Then I thought, "I know! I'll update my blog!" So that's what I'm doing.

Really, though, this behavior is sick. And wrong. But mostly sick. Jared has always chosen to get up early, so he can finish working at a decent time and spend the evenings with me [and, later, our kids]. As a night person, I put up with this because I enjoyed having him home when I was awake enough to appreciate him. But I never, ever wanted to do it myself! *sigh* I guess, after 14 years of marriage [minus 7 days], it isn't a total shock that I should start acting like my husband. I'm not sure I would have chosen this particular habit, though. On the plus side, though, I have now uploaded successfully 140 CDs. My total music listening time is: 6.4 days. Bonus :) only 44 more to go...

Oh, and kids are up and showering now. Time to start my "real" day!

Gratitude List:
* Sleeping in [except I'm thinking this might be something I admire from afar, now].
* Friends, family, neighbors.
* Good food [and the exercise bike to work it off].
* my new computer!!
* music.
* that I stopped buying CDs [and started buying songs online] when I got my ipod.
* fog [but not to drive in, just to look at :)]
* meditation time.
* My husband and kids.
* God
* the possibility of a nap later today.