Christmas wishes

May you find...

peace in the hope of the Savior
childlike wonder at the magic of the season
renewed love for life and cherished family members

Merry Christmas from our home to yours.

Better than expected

I love when things go better than I think they will. I'm not talking about big life things, but about adventures with my children—specifically the twins. So often, I hope and hope that outings with my kids will go well, and so much of the time, it goes horribly, horribly wrong. (See all my posts about sacrament meeting for reference.)

So... it's pleasantly surprising when an outing goes much better than expected. Yesterday was the Christmas Sing program at my kids' school. After taking the twins to the Halloween parade was a bonafide disaster (complete with my hyperventilating on the way home), I decided to make preparations to hopefully ensure a less stress-inducing event.

With the program right when the twins would go down for a nap, I was concerned that they might be crankypants toddlers. I packed tons of nifty snacks, coloring books, and magna doodles. I planned to sit in the back, in case A2 began yelling and whining, as is often the case in any kind of event we attend.

Well, color me surprised, but it went so well! We got there with only a few minutes to spare, but the benches in the back proved to be perfect, because it gave the twins a little room to run around. T's grade sang first, and H and S weren't far behind. (For once, the principal didn't mess up the grade order so that my kids sang last. That always seems to happen.) The twins played, ate their snacks, danced to the singing, and waved to their siblings. And even more surprising, I was relaxed and happy. Then I shuttled them home and put them in bed.

I'm sure that by writing this, the next outing with involve A2 throwing a major tantrum and N trying to escape in the mall or something, but for now, I feel like I've accomplished a minor Christmas miracle.

Dreaming of words

Most of my husband's family (and maybe much of the rest of the world) plays an iphone app called Words with Friends. Everyone kept telling me how fun it was and how much they thought I'd enjoy it. But I kept ignoring them because a) I have a slightly addictive personality when it comes to stuff like that, and b) I really, really like to win (and I don't like to lose).

Words with Friends is like Scrabble, only cooler—cause it makes cute little sounds when you put words together. Except the not-so-cute sound it makes when you pick a word that doesn't actually exist... like maybe duen or qay or onoy or something like that. Not that I've tried to play such words or anything. Not that I've tried about every letter combination that you can do with three o's, two i's, one u, and one t. (And for the record, not so many combinations work with those letters.)

Over the weekend, my husband added the app and got me to do it as well. And within like two minutes, I was completely hooked. As a lover of words in general, it's the perfect game for someone like me. And the worst game for someone like me. I keep having dreams of cool double and triple word scores I can do in games. I'm plagued by nightmares of x's and q's that I just can't get rid of.

I'm not great at it yet, as evidenced by the fact that out of three games completed, I've lost two. But even when you are a great player, the letters you get are the luck of the draw and could either be amazing or awful.

But I'm officially hooked. Completely and totally hooked.

Bits and pieces

I walked in on N the other day, perched in her highchair right next to the kitchen counter, carefully licking the frosting off homemade pumpkin cookies.

I was able to talk my husband into purchasing a new Christmas tree. It's nine feet tall and it was kind of a pain to decorate, what with having to get up on a ladder to do the top and all. But it's super bright and absolutely beautiful. I love Christmas.

I totally enjoyed the new Disney movie Tangled. However, I felt rather stressed out about the actual length of her hair. I kept thinking, "She's going to trip over it... Other people are going to trip over it." I visibly relaxed when it got all braided up. I think that's a sign that I'm a bit too OCD.

An update on the "unknown quantity," otherwise known as T. He's doing rather well in school. Even more so than the older kids at this age, he comes home with all sorts of stories about what he's learned, which kid misbehaved, and the art projects he finished. It's been rather surprising, actually. One day, he came home with a little paper with his name written at the top and then, "I go to bed in the night." I keep it on my nightstand because I love it so much.

Lastly, lucky for little N, crayon comes off microfiber couches.