The leaves changed colors, fell and are now buried in snow. It seemed to happen that fast!
School - another Semester done. Not sure about next Semester yet, too much still unknown, undecided.
Roadshow - Michael and Nathan and their youth group from church put on a skit. Their leaders and director let them come up with the ideas, the plot, the props, the costumes, the choreography, etc. Theirs was a kid who watches some you-tube videos on the internet. Some were original, they just made them up, but they also made the "fish" screen saver and two boys recreated the "Charlie" you-tube and were hysterical! Michael and Nathan each had a few parts, Michael was the school of little fish, carried the box out, holds up the van, and he was a background dancer. Nathan was a fish, the wrong kind of surfer, Clark, 6th Nephi, and a background dancer. I saw their first performance, they did it again at another building and were filmed. (And check out the Young Adult Ward too, theirs was directed by the amazingly talented and beloved Dwyne who directed the Wizard of Oz last year in which Jessica was a Munchkin.)
Frontside Films website http://www.frontsidefilms.net/ click on "projects"and then scroll down to it. Push pause to let it load completely (this takes AWHILE) before playing so it won't be all jumpy.
Original "Charlie" you-tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM&feature=channel_page
Little Gwen finally arrived, brought back memories of my own labors and deliveries. Can't wait to see her.
My cousin Jared came one Sunday for a quick visit. I introduced him as the one responsible for all my childhood fun and torments, that got a smile from his serious face.
Thanksgiving - Mrs. Tombs, upon hearing that we may not have turkey for Thanksgiving, bought and baked us a midsized whole turkey, which was very kind of her. Michael had to carry it to the car, he had to cut some of it and put it on a plate - I couldn't even look at it and I certainly didn't eat any - so Jacob, yet again, did not have "turkey" like in the pictures, just pieces on a plate which he was told, yet again, was actually turkey. The next day, Michael, and then I, tried to get as much as we could from it - I couldn't look at it, I just...oh, you don't want to hear this. Anyway, we got what we could, most of it, and I threw the rest away. At church, there was a beautiful talk on provident living and I was totally agreeing with her until she mentioned how people don't even do everything they can with a turkey carcass anymore, and she talked about making soup and such. I about threw up all over again. I would make a LOUSY pioneer. I would HAVE to live somewhere warm enough to accommodate year-round vegetarianism. I could not eat any meat for over a week after Thanksgiving, even making sandwiches for the kids from packages of sliced ham made me ill. Then one day, I was in a big hurry (I'm always in a hurry) and Jacob had not finished his chicken nuggets and I picked it up and ate the rest (how most of my meals go) and later that night I suddenly realized, I'd eaten meat. Anyway, I'm too busy, I'm back to our usual "during Semesters diet" of frozen stuff that we can microwave, and salads. I'm horrible, aren't I? I believe God placed animals here on the Earth for a variety of reasons including so that we'd have food when need be, that we should have an attitude like the Native Americans and not waste anything and be very grateful and respectful. But I feel TERRIBLE, to the point of becoming ill, for the animal. But not all the time, for some reason I have no such sympathy for fish - we eat lots of fish - and regarding other animals, most of the time, I tell myself to not think about it because I'm a busy mom and need to feed my children and myself quick easy cheap stuff with protein to keep us going, and we eat a lot of fresh raw vegies and salads so it must be okay to live on frozen and reheated chicken nuggets, meatballs, burritos, tamales, lasagna, pizzas, etc. But what kind of traditional Native American respect does it show toward my Creator, and the Creator of animals, to buy and reheat a bag of frozen chicken nuggets? What a hypocrite I am, but for right now, I'm going to be too busy to think about it. Other than that I couldn't look at the plate of sliced turkey, we had a very nice Thanksgiving meal, and ate LOTS of pie and ice cream - there's apples, and pumpkin, and milk in there, healthy right? Aren't I a good mommy? So far, I think only Michael has any inkling of my problem, my kids never pay any attention to me anyway. Also that weekend, a neighbor had a dirt bike accident on our road (injured his leg - head okay, wearing a helmet) and I ended up helping with that until the paramedics arrived and I also helped someone finish moving. Interesting the way life cycles. Thanksgiving weekend 1989 - I met someone. Thanksgiving weekend 2000 - let's just say, "eventful." Thanksgiving weekend 2003 - a big part of what led CASA to recommend I have sole custody. Thanksgiving weekend 2008 - helped someone in a similar situation move out completely. Not all Thanksgiving weekends have been so "interesting," some have been blessedly simple and relaxing.
Basketball - Nathan was the tallest player on the 7th Grade team. He's fairly tall, not incredibly tall yet (which with the size of his FEET at only 13 years old, I am SURE he is going to be incredibly tall someday) but the 8th Grade team only had four players and they put three 7th graders on that team. The tiny (not in height, but in team members) 8th Grade team had an awesome season! The 7th Grade team (12 team members from 6th and 7th Grades) had a good learning year. They had a lot of great players with some good skills but were towered over by all but one of the teams they played, and more importantly, Nathan's team had a lot of struggles with working together as a team. Not because of the boys, because of coaching and scheduling difficulties which led to 12 boys who barely had any practice time when they learned to work together. Months before basketball started, the school had been announcing the need for a coach. Other past coaches were unavailable and Nathan's past city league coach's son transferred to a different school and he coached for that school (that team's teamwork was a beautiful thing to watch). Finally, a mom stepped forward to coach the 8th Graders and an "interesting" person was hired to coach the 7th Graders (he was soon fired). The mom took over both teams practices, a dad who'd coached his 8th Grade daughter's team came to some games to help, a new coach was found for the 7th Grade who could make it to most of the games, but couldn't for practices, and the athletic director, who coaches volleyball, really worked hard to try to coordinate it all and keep the boys' spirits up. Right at the beginning of the season, Nathan's new 13-year-old aggressive hormones kicked in and he was a far different player than the athletic but quiet and unsure kid who joined a city league a few years ago. Nathan has become quite aggressive at defense and was fouled out all but three games. He took a lot more shots at the basket this year too, but still usually passed the ball to teammates to make the shot. I've seen this aggressiveness in Nathan in board games and card games since he was little, he gets VERY competitive about games, but he was also so shy in public. Guess he's feeling comfortable now.
Nutcracker - Jessica and I went to the Nutcracker with her class. She and I had both seen it before, but never together. I had promised her, each time over the years when I wasn't able to go on a fieldtrip with her or make it to a class party, that I WOULD GO with her on her third grade Nutcracker fieldtrip. We got all dressed up, Jessica squeezed into her POOFY cream colored "ballgown" with pink and sage green embroidery topped by a sweet little pink "church" sweater and wore her hair in an elegant ballerina bun tied with a ribbon, and I wore my thin little pink sweater with sparklies by the neckline. (We also had on very practical shoes, warm tights, and coats so not much of our girly outfits were really seen except Jessica's huge poofy skirt which stuck way out in the aisle of the bus.) She found a delicate porcelain ballerina at the gift shop which she bought with money she'd earned herself (the gift store had LOTS of nice little things for under $10!). I packed us a fancy lunch. I made delicate croissant sandwiches and packed fresh strawberries and peeled pieces of Mandarin oranges. I found grape/cherry juice in pretty little plastic containers which semi-looked like crystal when I peeled off the silly cartoon character labels. I packed little sage green paper plates with tiny lavender and pink rosebuds on them and the big thick fancy wedding type paper napkins. I decorated little sage green paper sacks with glittery stickers of fairies and butterflies, wrote our names on them in my best curly-q cursive, and punched holes at the top to tie closed with lavender ribbon. I wanted a fancy delicate dessert like petit fours but something which would hold up well packed in a sack lunch and transported in the storage under the school bus. Michael and Nathan were with me when I ran in the store to try to find something. Those little pink and white frosted Mothers cookies would have been okay but Mothers cookies are no more (sad, so horribly SAD!) and I couldn't find what I wanted and turned down everything the boys showed me. "No," I'd say, "it needs to be delicate, elegant,'' they just weren't getting it. Finally I said, "like you can't help but hold your pinky up when you hold it." That got some smiles from other shoppers watching a woman rush around the bakery section with two teenage sons. I found sweet little Christmas sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles. They didn't match my color scheme but we were going to a Christmas ballet and they tasted better and held up better than the fancy things I was looking for probably would have. The boys thought I was ridiculous and Nathan even said, "you never made such a big deal out of my Nutcracker fieldtrip." "You wouldn't even wear a tie and you didn't really care about seeing a ballet though," was my reasonable answer. I have done special lunches and snacks for them too for other occasions so I didn't feel bad and ignored their teasing me about finding a dainty dessert for Jessica.
Snow - We have SNOW! we've already had a snow day, the kids have been sledding and made huge round balls of snow which I thought they were going to build an enormous snowman out of. They pushed the biggest one (which was as tall as Michael) over the edge the hill in the orchard sending it rolling and tumbling to it's death, breaking apart. My children and their desire for destruction, I don't know. Glad they have such strong testimonies.
Christmas is on its way! - We've already had some Christmas parties/events and more to come. Our Ward had an "Evening in Bethlehem." Most of us wore our robes and had towels on our heads (if people didn't know better, they'd think we all literally just showered and came) and some people wrapped sheets in inventive ways around themselves and a few had realistic looking costumes. A lot of the children were shepherds, Michael (in cardboard tinfoil covered armor) and some other boys were Roman Guards, some of the High Priests were the Wise Men and the Bishop and his wife and their baby boy were the holy family. They did a great job with some simple decorations (pieces from a pretty metal outdoor gazebo, sheets, lots of strings of white lights, some fake light bulb candles, and the main lights turn turned off).
