Goals and things

I've been thinking about goals lately, given that the year is almost up. I met the last of my goals for this year today (just under the wire) so it's time to think of new ones for next year.

This year I:

• Took the GRE
• Read the New Testament
• Read the Book of Mormon
• Submitted two manuscripts for publication (and am 100% banking on them being rejected)
• And maintained my daily streak on Duolingo for the entire year

I learned a neat trick about manuscript submissions though! So, pro tip: If you're doing an email submission and you want to be sure the publisher has read your email you can conveniently neglect to attach your proposal to the email. That way they'll email you back and say they'll be happy to review it (a good sign) but then ask if you forgot to attach it (a bad sign). 

That was an embarrassing email exchange (but I'm pretty sure it's something everyone has done). 

I haven't made my official goals yet, but I'm sure they'll include applying to grad school and making a few more manuscript submissions. Among other things.

I've been nervous about thinking about going back to school myself while trying to homeschool four children, but I think I'll automate things more next year. This year I've been coming up with curriculum myself, which is fun...but time consuming. Next year I'll be more structured and probably choose a curriculum that lists out each day's work for everyone. And it will be easier to do that starting out in the beginning of the year rather than in the middle of the year (at least, that's what I'm telling myself). So far the curriculums I've looked at are a lot less rigorous than I am; my children will probably appreciate that (and I'll probably challenge them a bit more). 

Beyond that I don't really know what goals to make (perhaps "find a way to coax my siblings into sharing their childhood memories with me," but that goal is really too dependent on other people to make a reality). We (Andrew and I) are feeling rather exhausted having just made it through 2018 and 2019 back to back (with the rest of the world, but—come on!—those years were particularly exhausting). Having been so intent on surviving I'm not sure what goals to make now that focus on thriving. 

But I/we will come up with some good things, I'm sure.

Just another manic Monday (oh, oops—I mean...Sunday)

Andrew played the organ again yesterday since our organist is still out of town. This was fine because Andrew enjoys playing the organ. It does mean that I have to sit with all the kids by myself, but this is getting to be less and less work as time drags on. They're pretty good at sitting still these days (at least most of them are, for the most part, good at sitting still). 

Rachel gave her first talk in sacrament meeting, which she wrote all on her own (though I did edit it a bit and coached her on some rewriting (mostly for clarity)). She was so nervous that her face turned pink, but she did a great job (and next time she'll do even better because she'll know there's not so much to be afraid of—with public speaking, I mean).

Here's her talk:

At the beginning of every year, my family chooses a number of scriptures to memorize over the course of the coming year. Usually we choose twelve so we can work on memorizing one per month. We work on them while we're in the car or when we need a shorter scripture study session. Some of them are easier to remember than others, but in the long run we've been able to memorize our entire list of scriptures each year. 

When I was seven or eight we were studying the New Testament and one of our memorized scriptures was James 1:5–6. It says, "If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." 

This scripture was easy for us to memorize because it was the scripture that inspired Joseph Smith to pray about questions he had, but also because my little brother would always end it by saying "into a volcano," so we all started ending that scripture the same way: "he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed...into a volcano."  

But that's beside the point. 

Zoë tales

On Christmas Adam, Andrew decided to run to the movies to watch Frozen II with Zoë, since she hadn't been invited when he took the older three to the new Star Wars movie a few days before. 

I just stay home with the baby. 

It's fine. 

No, really, it is. Movie theaters are kind of fun, I guess, but they also really stress me out. I'm a little noise sensitive so I usually just sit there wishing they would turn it down. Anyway, Zoë had a blast going out with Daddy all by herself (and she loved the movie).

Here she is looking altogether too grown up:

Christmas morning and Christmas presents

No one woke up very early on Christmas morning and we're not upset about this. All the kids were in the basement snoozing away. Alexander woke us up around 8:30 (and then he had to nurse, of course) and then we went downstairs to fetch the children. They quickly lined up in age order for the Christmas train, which Alexander so proudly led. He crawled up the stairs with the big kids tromping up behind him and then he just kept on crawling down the hallway and through the kitchen, pleased as punch to be the leader.

A Shadow Puppet Nativity

As part of a school assignment I was having the kids condense a story into a short puppet show. The story of choice was A Christmas Carol and it turns out that condensing this story into five minutes was a lot of work. There were a lot of characters and scene changes and it felt like too monumental of a task (though the kids did write out a beautiful storyboard summary of the story) so I told them they could do the story of the nativity instead. They know that story better and can be told with just a few characters, so the kids (somewhat reluctantly) have been working on that project over Christmas break (but I strictly told them that they had to bring the project from start to finish because we'd already done a lot of work for our puppet show (we made the shadow box theatre last week) and because it simply feels good to complete a project).

So, this afternoon we finally got around to filming their shadow puppet production of the nativity:



You can probably expect to see more shadow puppet productions from this crew (because we went through all the work to make the shadow puppet theatre and because knowing how to retell a story is an important thing—knowing what details are pertinent, which details are extraneous, putting a story into your own words, and so forth (plus, perhaps if I force them to work together on projects often enough they'll eventually learn to get along (a girl can dream (and if you're watching this video, please ignore my children pestering each other and giving each other killer looks during the scene changes))).

Christmas Eve (without Brigham Young or Ann)

We were supposed to have a friend come over to spend Christmas Eve with us (a widow in our ward) but when I called her to confirm she answered the phone in a raspy voice and sounded so sick and, frankly, senile, that I was rather worried about her.

Instead of picking up the phone with any regular sort of salutation, Sister Ann croaked out, "Brigham Young is dead!"

"Mmmmmhmmmm..." I agreed. "That's true. *ahem* Hello, Ann. This is Nancy..."

"Well, why didn't it say so?"

"Pardon me?"

"That caller ID thing! It told me you were Brigham Young! But you can't be Brigham Young. He's dead!"

"Ah, yes. I can explain that," I said, feeling very relieved she still had her wits about her. "Our phone contract is still through Brigham Young University. I didn't realize it would come through on your caller ID like that, but rest assured it's just me, not Brigham Young. I'm just calling to ask about dinner tomorrow..."

The rest of our conversation went on to talk about Christmas Eve plans and then to break those plans because she was too sick to be around anybody. So instead we brought some dinner to her—bean and bacon soup (at her request). We'd never made that kind of soup before, but between Andrew and I we managed to make such a tasty soup that we finished the entire pot—not a drop left over! Andrew and Rachel also made biscuits (or was it Andrew and Miriam?). Of course, we didn't get to eat with Ann, but at least she got a warm homemade meal. I need to check on her again and make sure she's feeling better. Anyway...

We spent Christmas Eve alone. Together, but alone. We did all sorts of Christmas Eve things: we went to the park and played (without sweaters; it was so warm), Alexander and I took a little nap while the kids played, we played some games, we acted out the nativity...

A DST Christmas

I'm sure gift-giving, like any talent, is something you can hone. Certainly there are people who come by it more naturally than others, after all, "to some it is given," but surely it's a skill anyone can learn if they put in enough effort. I don't come by gift-giving naturally and I really admire people who are good at this skill.

My sweet sister Kelli, for example, has become a pretty good gift giver after years of practicing. My Auntie Arlene has always been a phenomenal gift giver (at least in my memory). My friend Crystal comes to mind as well.

Now that we have a little bit more (*cough* or, you know, any *cough*) disposable income, I suppose I should loosen up the pursestrings a bit and practice spending a few dollars here and there to see if I can't bring a little joy into someone's life. And perhaps I should teach my children to do the same thing. I didn't do a great job at letting my children flex their gift-giving muscles this Christmas (possibly on account of: we didn't really enter any stores this holiday season, oops (I mean, Andrew did the grocery shopping and picked a few things up at Costco, but, like, there was no rush to Target or Wal-Mart—we just...didn't go)).

Anyway, Miriam, who seems to be my natural gift-giver, made sure to come up with presents for each of her siblings. She made little notebooks for Rachel and Zoë, wrapped up some old pyjamas (the gift that keeps on giving; they were from Grandma to Rachel on a Christmas years ago, then got passed down to Miriam, and now they're...) for Benjamin, and had something for Alexander to unwrap as well (I can't remember what it was).

She and Rachel also hung little stockings up on their bunkbed and vowed to make each other little gifts through the month of December (and lest you think this means they were kind and sweet to each other the entire month and never fought, well, guess again). Here's what Rachel's haul from Miriam was:

A lovely pile of Christmas cheer.

Christmas Sunday

Miriam asked me to put her hair in rags last night so she could have curly hair for church today. It was late when she asked, but I went ahead and did it because Christmas only comes once a year. Here she is with her beautiful curls:

Ward Christmas Program

Andrew was in charge of the church Christmas program this year, so he is rather happy today is over! He conducted the ward choir, played the organ for congregational singing, organized a men's choir and played the piano for them, organized a women's choir, and arranged to have the primary children sing. He also wrote out a script of sorts for the program explaining the four weeks of advent; the songs we sang today fell into one of four categories (1) hope and prophecy, (2) love and Bethlehem, (3) joy and shepherds, and (4) peace and angels.

Our little family were up and down like yo-yos the whole time, but that's alright because a lot of families were. That was the point: we wanted everyone who wanted to participate to be able to participate and not just from from their seats in the congregation. There's one thing about singing your testimony and worship from the pews, but getting up in the stand in front of everyone to sing your testimony is an entirely different feeling.

So, first the primary children went up and sang "Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus," a song about a Lamanite prophet (from the Book of Mormon) telling people in the Americas the signs of the Savior's birth. Zoë loves this song, so perhaps I can convince her to sing it on a recording.

Next the Relief Society and Young Women combined to sing "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Then Rachel, Miriam, and I sang "Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head" which you can hear below (though when we sang it we had an extra ukulele and a few extra voices; it wasn't just us). Originally the Young Women were asked to sing this but they begged to simply be combined with the Relief Society instead:



Then Andrew and Miriam played an organ/piano duet of "O Holy Night," which you can watch here:



Next, the Elder's Quorum and the Young Men sang "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains" and then there was a piano duet by the Wolfert brothers, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."

The choir then sang "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," with some lovely sisters playing the viola and violin with us (they were home visiting from BYU and their mom volunteered them for the task, so they played on borrowed instruments (my viola, for one; I'm not sure where the violin came from) and they great). And then we sang a medley of "Silent Night" and "Jesus Once of Humble Birth."

There were two congregational hymns as well, and I think it turned out very well.

Andrew is rather glad today is over! As enjoyable as a Christmas program is, there are a lot of working parts to bring together to pull it all off! I always enjoy singing Christmas music and am a little sad the season for it is almost over, but I'm happy for the music we got to sing to help us remember Christ's birth (and am super happy about the music my children learned and that my daughters got to sing with me). We'll keep on singing Christmas music until it starts making Andrew grumpy...

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A while ago we were Skyping with Grandpa and he said, "Alexander doesn't really look like Benjamin, does he?" We agreed that he certainly looks different than Benjamin did at this age. 

"Who does he look like, then?" Grandpa wondered. 

I wasn't quite sure. He looked like...Alexander. 

But then I was taking a picture of him the other day and I asked him to smile and in that moment it hit me—that was a Gavin smile! So I pulled up a picture of Gavin and sure enough:

Gavin on the left, Alexander on the right