Scrap and Share the Last Part of Last Year

I recently got a new printer to replace the one that died. With the new printer I am now motivated to digitally scrapbook again. Here are pages covering the major events in our lives these past few months.

Stephen surprised me by taking me to Tooele for the weekend and race car driving at Miller Motor Sports Park.

With the recent passing of my Grandma Knorr and Aunt Mitzi, my mom, my sister and I decided we needed to spend more time together, just the three of us. We decided to take an annual “Great Escape” trip together. For the first annual “Great Escape,” my mom and I flew down to New Mexico and spent five days with my sister Teresa. We enjoyed great shopping, great food, great company, and great laughs. Grandma and Mitzi would have been proud.

We took a quick trip to Colorado for Stephen to check out the campus and meet a with professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It was a fun trip and if Stephen gets accepted we may be back.

For Halloween, the girls were Minnie Mouse and a Butterfly Princess. Personally, I think Mally looked like a garden fairy, but she insisted she was a butterfly princess. In any case, they both looked cute.

Eva’s first hair cut. She was totally overdue for one. Her mullet was out of control.

One of the most exciting events of the year was Sarah and Bret’s wedding. It was great to have all the family in town to celebrate. We are all so happy for these two wonderful people and glad that they are now a wonderful couple.

Scrapbooking these events took me back to the happy feelings of these experiences. As Sarah would say, “good times.”

Now I need to scrapbook the “good times” from Christmas. Give me a month or two to get that done. Too many “good times.”

New for the New Year

We have a few new things we are experiencing for the new year. To start, Stephen and I are both in musicals. He is in the city’s production of “Singin’ in the Rain” and I am in our Stake’s musical, “A Night with Joseph and Emma.” When we first thought about trying out for these productions we thought there was no way we could both be involved at the same time. I tried out for the part of Emma and made callbacks. Before callbacks happened, Stephen tried out for “Singin’ in the Rain” and made the play. Once he made the play I thought there was no way our family could handle me playing the part of Emma. I planned on being in the chorus instead. I wasn’t too confident I’d get the the part of Emma anyway. After all, I definitely don’t look like her. And I overheard another woman’s audition (who was brunette and looked the part) and she was really good.

I did end up getting the part of Emma. When the director called I was shocked and overwhelmed. How could Stephen and I be gone 3 or 4 nights a week for 2 months? I told him I couldn’t do it. The director talked with me and told me of the practice schedule. I told him I would talk it over with Stephen. Stephen and I compared our practice schedules and felt that, although it would be busy, we could pull it off. I called the director back told him I would love to do the part.

There are many nights when both of us have practices at the same time. Luckily, Stephen’s mother (our angel) is willing to babysit for most of those nights. My mother has also offered to help. Right now I have just two nights that I still need a babysitter, and I am sure I can get a neighborhood girl to do it. So, I feel like we are being blessed by God and the kindness of others.

I am still overwhelmed by the idea of playing Emma. I’m not really an actress. The singing doesn’t scare me, the memorizing kind of does, but it’s becoming the character that I’m not sure about. I have to become a believable Emma Hale Smith. She is a woman that most Latter-day Saint women already have preconceived notions about. We already have in our minds the way she looks, her personality, her faithfulness to Joseph and the Gospel. I know I am going to be really stretched by this. I am overwhelmed and excited for the challenge. I gave a lesson about Emma in my Gospel Doctrine class last summer. Through the process of studying about her I gained a lot of understanding and insight about who she was. Through my research I came across the most wonderful article about Emma. I posted about it here.

Which brings me to another new challenge we are experiencing: the girls sharing a bunk bed. For Christmas they got what Mally calls a “bonk” bed. Mally was sooooooooo excited. Ever since Grandma Mitchell got a “bonk” bed in her basement, Mally has been dreaming of the day she and Eva could share one. She was overjoyed to see it on Christmas morning.

The girls were great with it for about 10 days. Stephen and I bragged to ourselves about how nice it is to have the girls sharing a room and going to bed so quickly and quietly. We had heard horror stories from our friends about the trouble with their boys sharing a room. We thought to ourselves, “Man, we have it so good.” Then our good turned to bad.

One night the girls (mostly Eva) decided they were through with being perfect sleeping angels and turned themselves into rowdy devils. Now Stephen and I dread bedtime. Eva won’t stay in bed. We calmly lay her down to sleep, kiss her good-night, and close the door then she waits in the dark plotting her plan to sabotage Mally’s good-night sleep and our sanity. Once we are settled in the other room, she climbs up the ladder to bother Mally on the top bunk, or opens her dresser drawers, or plays around on the floor, or who knows what else. Then we go in angry and frustrated and put her back in bed. This goes on for about an hour. Most nights we resort to putting her in a pack ’n’ play to sleep. Oh, and we usually resort to spanking and yelling. So, this new sleeping arrangement is a big adjustment for all of us.

The thing that stresses me the most about our girls not sharing a room well is that Stephen and I both have play practice most nights a week and need to be able to put the girls to bed and then leave them with a babysitter. It stresses me to think they will be crazy for a babysitter too.

A Few Pictures from our Christmas Holiday

From this picture you would think we were the perfect little family.

Luckily, we got this picture before this happened. Which next led to this and a 1-year-old saying, I’m out of here by storming away.

Later, after church we got this smile out of her. This picture made up for the previous bad ones.

Mally was Mary in our Nativity reenactment. When she told me she wanted to be Mary I thought, “No way. Mary has to be reverent and obedient.” But, she proved me wrong. She was so into her character and seemed to really understand the importance of the story.

She did get a little bored at times while she was waiting to finally have Baby Jesus. Don’t we all get a little bored of being pregnant and waiting for the baby.

I played the donkey.

Because Stephen was lacking a job during the Holiday he was able to spend a lot more time playing with the girls. Here they made a snowman. The Oreo cookie eyes are Stephen’s touch.

Eva with her younger cousin Emmie. These two look so much alike. Can’t you see that they are related?

The happy newlyweds. We got to share in celebrating their first Christmas together.

Mally was overjoyed to see the “bonk” bed Santa brought her. Now if we could get the girls to go to sleep quickly and quietly in their “bonk” bed.

Eva holding all her Christmas candy. She had never seen so much candy just for her that I think she felt protective of it and felt she needed to guard it.

Mally modeling a scarf given to her from a friend.

Stephen doesn’t look too happy to receive the hated dancing hamster chicken from Chiara in Germany. We sneaked it in to her suitcase two years ago and now she sent it back. We were however, very happy to receive all the German chocolates.

It was wonderful to spend time with family. All of my siblings and their families were in town. Some came from New Mexico and others from as far as Israel.

Here’s my mom with almost all her grandkids. This moment was priceless. All the grandkids decided they wanted to each give her a kiss at the same time. It became a competition of who could kiss Grandma the most.

"Funemployment"

Fun⋅em⋅ploy⋅ment- noun 1- The condition of a person who takes advantage of being out of a job to have the time of their life. 2- A happy time in one's life when one is not employed and is not wanting to be employed. 3- A term that I came across in Real Simple Magazine and I thought it nicely described Stephen's situation.

Technically my husband has been unemployed for the past 2 weeks. He preferred to call it "between jobs." Which it was. We knew his previous position was coming to an end and he had the foresight to line up another job that would begin at the beginning of January. We didn't think his position would end so abruptly. We thought he would do both jobs for a while. But it didn't turn out that way. All I can say is, "Whatever. I'm glad a job is lined up to begin in a few weeks and until then, I have a few jobs of my own for you to do."

So I happily employed him to do a few jobs around the house. Before Stephen ever lost his job, I told him for Christmas this year I wanted his help in refinishing our kitchen cabinets. I guess his unemployment made my wish come true.

"I'm dreaming of a white kitchen" (to be sung to the tune of I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas). I LOVE the way the kitchen turned out. We painted the cabinets white, added beadboard and hardware. I am very pleased with it. Though it was a LOT of work and I don't know if I ever want to do it again. But I do think the finished product was worth it.

Stephen was a HUGE help. He did all of the drilling, sawing, and tending (taking the girls out of the house so I could paint). I couldn't have done it without him. And we couldn't have done it without this window of extra time.

I asked Stephen to pose by his work and this is what he did. Sorry if you are grossed out. Just be glad you don't live with him.

I don't know how much fun Stephen's funemployment has been for him. I am sure he is more than happy to start work on Monday working for any boss other than me. Other funemployment jobs he has done: fixed the car, set up the girls' new bunk bed, helped move the girls into one room, reclaimed and organized our office, rearranged our bedroom, shoveled snow, fixed his mother's computer, broke and then fixed my mother's computer. Oh and I can't forget the most important job of all: made breakfast every morning!!!